theo!

I'M NORMAL AND CHILL ABOUT MY BEST FRIEND AND I TOTALLY AM NOT MAD THAT WE LIVE 6000KM APART (<- me when i lie through my fucking teeth)

you're doing enough. you're good enough. you are putting beautiful art into this world that wasn't there last month.

i know it can be easy to get bogged down by the things we hate or fear. point farming, blocking/being blocked, anxiety, rejection sensitivity, ratios, statistics, perfection - it can be heavy. it can be so easy to focus on those things, because the brain loves to amplify the negatives.

but today, i challenge you to a scavenger hunt.

go find one character of yours whose design you're proud of. remember that you made them with your own hands and heart.

go find one thing you've improved at in your art journey since you've started. remember that you've come a really long way, despite everything life has thrown at you.

go find one moment you cherished from any art fight season or prep season. remember what it feels like to have fun.

and at the end of this, maybe at one of these places, you'll find your confidence waiting there for you.

You learn anything and everything can be an instrument. You learn certain drums can be tuned and certain instruments used for melodies like marimbas can be used for the rhythm and you learn that certain vibraphones have a thing you can plug in that gives the sound a sort of vibrato. You get given the goofiest looking instruments - professional instruments! - that look like toys or plain wooden boxes but make a delightful special sound. You learn your hands can do two completely different things in so many different ways, and your feet can do yet other things at the same time as well, and your voice is just as much an abstract instrument as anything else

that shit has to be done by wednesday. it's almost april 15.

do not panic, you got this. this is just to help make sure you got this by wednesday. wednesday, april 15. you got this.

also google your state + "state return free file" and the state's tax dept website probably has a list of services that will e-file your federal AND state returns for free if you meet the income restrictions.

(you probably do.)

fuck turbotax. there are better, still easy options not trying to nickle and dime your broke ass for this nonsense out there, and you can probably use a few of them to file fed AND state for free.

by wednesday.

wednesday, april 15. 2026.

It's free and buys you another 6 months to file.

even down as far as the pets you've lost, either their love for you still counts or it doesn't but i sort of think you might as well still decide it counts. why decide that doesn't matter anymore. why decide how they felt about you doesn't matter. there is so so much love in the world. it does not get rationed. it gets shared and shared and shared and shared and shared and shared and shared. meeting you is literally a one in almost-now-eight-BILLION chance, there are people in your life who treasure you or who COULD treasure you or who are willing to sit with you at your worst moments. there are hotlines where absolute complete strangers have paid hundreds of dollars to go through training to spend their time volunteering on the other end of the line for people like you to call when you feel like there is nobody there.