TWENTY TWENTY FIVE

SpongeBob joke heyoooo. Been holdin' onto that one all year.

Hm.

This decade just gets weirder and weirder, huh.

I'm not sure how to feel, really. '25 in particular was... hm. I've got amnesia or something. Where am I.

Well, to start off, here's the usual art recap:

I dunno. I feel like I've started and now am ending the year at some low points. Started the year on a sour note because of, you know, and ending it because of some personal life stuff. Mm.

I didn't really go to any big exciting meetups this time around... no office, no TMG. That isn't to say I didn't have fun at the meetups I did go to, but I feel like I ended up retreating back into my eggshell a little more than coming out of it. It's not like I ever really do much besides sit around anyway; I was always rather boring. I think it's the smaller scale of these things that made the feeling of not fitting in more apparent.

I dunno. As new people come in that I don't already know I get all shy and uncomfortable without a familiar face to cling to, without also feeling like I'm burdening said familiar face.

In fact I think that particular issue's only gotten even worse as of late. Haha. Lol. Lmao.

And it's not like any of the burden is actually on me but I do want to apologize for the lack of "Pico Day 2025", I did a lot of hyping up for something that ended up not coming to fruition*... wehh.

I'm stalling trying to remember what the hell I did this year when everything feels like it happened years ago. I hate time.

Lighten up, fuck.

Well, there was Newgrounds' thirtieth anniversary!! Eh? Happy birthday, caterpillar emoji, cat emoji... I'm not KingCrowned. I'm not funny. Sorry.

This means nothing from someone who came in as a filthy Funkin poser but I am happy to have been around for such a milestone. Newgrounds genuinely means a lot to me and I'm thankful that the community is still here, still kickin'. And I'm forever grateful that I've been (more or less) accepted as a part of it. I repeat this all the damn time. I don't know how else to express my gratitude. Sorry.

Leeeet's seeeeee... positive things, positive things...

My Tamers fanart got acknowledged by the man himself, which is baller. Thanks for reigniting my pony autism.

Game Gallery meetup was good, mhm mhm. Always good to see all the fellas.

It was close enough to my birthday I was able to delude myself into making it feel extra special. lol. Thanks Shmoods and Ellie for the Gudetamas and the LPS capybara respectively ^_^

We did karaoke after I think? Hell yeah? I LOVE karaoke please continue to do karaoke for me ok thanx

I'm trying to remember if I did anything noteworthy over the summer. I did some animating for something probably I think, or maybe that came later. I dunno. Has yet to be released, you'll see it when you see it.

I received a big box of Japanese goodies thanks to ShibeRagi! I've been picking away at all the candies... I'm almost out of them. I don't want to run out ;-;

It's a dream come true for a pathetic little weeaboo like me. Heh. I hope our bond lasts a long time. I'm such an embarrassing person.

No TMG this year so...?

I remember the BBQ meetup, that one was nice, although I think that's when I started becoming more.. self-aware, I suppose. After the initial hellos and introductions I recall mostly just sitting at the table, watching everyone else talk to each other.

Not to say I didn't have a good time, of course. Any time away from my father and around people I like is a good time. I did enjoy the interactions I had with others. Even if I'm awful at conversation. Sorry.

Food good.

I think we tried karaoke after that but couldn't find anything? Fuckin bar advertised it but turns out they didn't actually do that there anymore. I remember ending up driving JD and dropping her off at a goth party before I got cold feet and fled to I think a bowling alley. I didn't even do anything over there either besides sit and doodle... It sucks being indecisive. I wish it was possible to be at two places at once. I think I'm owed something from that goth party as thanks for driving JD there but I didn't want to be a bother so I never brought it up again.

I can't figure out how to embed shit

There was the pinball meetup too... Fuckin' love pinball.

After getting my fill of Pinball I, again, sat at the table watching everyone else socialize.

At that point there were much newer faces and it was very scary. I stuck to doodling in my notebook or fiddling with this doohickey called Shoot the Moon. Other people got interested in it, though, and that was cool. I'm kinda sad the few victories with that one only happened after I stopped filming. Blehhh.

I felt... odd, at that point. Everyone has their little circles, their cliques, I feel like I didn't really know nor belong with anybody. I didn't even want to approach Tom at that point but he did say hi and we talked a little and it made me feel a little better.

But you have to understand I'm very good at turning positives into negatives. For all I know it was out of pity. Tom isn't like that. But my broken head makes very convincing arguments.

I think after that some of us went to karaoke again? And they didn't have the specific mix of a song that I'm used to so I kinda fumbled it and I wanna die because of that lmfaoooo

I did get to try some takoyaki that was cool. Yummers.

School school school school. It took them an entire goddamn month to hand me my refund for the semester so I spent all of September freaking the fuck out about not having money for essentials and my father berating me for not getting a job (I am a full-time student and my commute is over an hour from home to school I have no time for a job) so it was very stressful...

I didn't really have a great semester this time around. Mm. Sculpture class in particular sucked. A lot of my assignments were just plain unfinished, especially what was supposed to be the final project. I'm not a very crafty person and I hated having to buy more materials I didn't even know if I would end up even using anyway. I have a whole foam board I can't refund because I kept it "just in case an assignment called for it" which never happened.

As the final days approached one classmate asked me if I was okay out of the blue and I damn near broke down. I really do hate being perceived. It makes a weird paradox alongside the desire to have friends. But I know I don't deserve to have friends either, so ???? It's an endless loop of "why god".

I did enjoy photography class, at least. It's ignited a love for wildlife photography in me specifically. I'd always loved animals and I always take photos of the wildlife when I visit Florida, but now that I'd gotten a "real" camera in my hands instead of just my phone something just... clicked, I s'pose. It was a lot harder to do in New Jersey as the damn cold approached, though I did take some decent photos I think.

I didn't even know Jersey had herons. I got homesick and cried.

I guess another highlight would be, I auditioned for a voice role and managed to get the role somehow, and it's baby's first paid gig too(multiple episodes!). I'm kind of excited for that, maybe I can finally graduate from wannabe voice actor to like. A real voice actor. Will share when it comes out.

I picked at Bird of Prey some more, unfortunately still in the sketch phase but I got a decent number of pages down so I guess I can say I did something. Times like this I wish I could just beam the entire story from my head onto the computer. But alas.

I'm workin' on it, as one Chris-chan would say.

I guess this is somewhat noteworthy; I got super into Kevin Spencer, much to everyone(especially the Newgrounds Discord)'s annoyance, so maybe that will aid in my goal of repelling everyone that thinks I'm a decent person worth acknowledging. Because who the hell wants to associate with a Kevin Spencer fan. Especially the one called Tamago.

Oh, that Kevin Spencer. What a thing to get hooked on, eh. What were those silly Canadians cooking, I wonder.

I didn't go to any meetups after pinball but I did hang with Coby and Nelly a couple of times. We saw Chainsaw Man and Zootopia in theaters which was fun (even if they had already watched the Reze movie before I did), and Coby and I saw FNAF 2 together.

Then I migrated south for the winter, and my father started bothering me about financial stuff again so I feel even more inadequate merry Christmas.

I wanted to go to a Hundred Line meetup but I couldn't afford cosplay so I ended up not going... FOMO hurts. I'm still sad about that.

Speaking of Christmas; Tankmas. After whatever the hell last year was I decided I'd take a step back from participating in Tankmas at all. Needed a break. HUGE props to the team that did assemble this year's Tankmas and I hope you haven't experienced nearly as many hiccups as '24 did. Hiccups is an understatement.

Despite me not wanting to participate in it I still ended up as a prop somehow. I'm honored to be everyone's snowball target practice dummy, even though I didn't mean for that to happen. I'm sorry.

There is no piss puddle.

As much as I talk about loving being part of the community I can't help but feel that I'm not exactly worthy of recognition. That people are tired of me. What does Tamago even do besides be fucking annoying am I right.

Sorry.

Now here we are. I still owe some people art. Someone's been waiting months for 4 pieces and I have only delivered two.

I noticed this recently; people really do come and go. Quite a few people I met this year I'd had really pleasant interactions with a few times and then they up and vanished from social media. Maybe they'll pop back up someday. Maybe I'll never see them or their art again. A shame, I think, but I cherish our interactions regardless.

I can only hope people cherish interactions with me like I do them, but I'm me and I don't see any reason why I'd leave a significant impact on anybody, at least in a positive light. There'll always be someone better, more talented, more sociable, less annoying, that will take that spot and I'll be forgotten. Maybe it's better that way. Don't want supposed popularity (I hate being told I'm "popular") getting to my head.

I don't want to get too much into politics but I think another major factor for how I've been feeling lately is the fact that I am the exact type to get scrutinized for having the audacity to exist these days. Person of color, born as a woman, AND queer? Who the fuck is genderfluid much less gendervoid in 2025? 26? In Trump's America? They'll have my head.

I can only pray it ends up being the orange man's head instead of mine.

I dunno how to end this really. I don't really like tagging people anymore. If you read it you read it.

All I can really do is stick around and hopefully not die and see how it goes next year.

*yet