Living on the other side of the world from that stupid cheeto with cheddar cheese on top (you know, that senile old orange man, you know who he is) and being affected by his stupidity.

His laws and his "silly games" affect the price of my daily grocery list. With the flick of his finger the whole world stops breathing in case it means the start of a war.

Man, that's crazy.

And we can't even do anything, because the society has numbed us to the bone, and it has educated us into obedience and silence, so even if we want to rise up, we don't even know where to start.

So strange.

Well if you aren't aware of the state of the world, I guess it's time for you to get out from under that rock.

As a Full Time Artist I've been struggling to find commissioners and work, I can't blame them, we're on a crisis everywhere and art is actually a luxury. I've been so lucky until now that I can find so many good people who want to take some of their money and give me their awesome characters to draw so I can eat another day.

The thing is.

• Social media is being constantly censored so it doesn't spread content freely
• Not to talk about how NSFW content has been shadowbanned from most of the social media and internet in general
• The world is entering another economic regression, so creative jobs and other non-essencial stuff will suffer first

So, as artists, as clients, as a person who just enjoys art on a daily basis:

What do you recommend to do from here? What can we artists do to survive this? Have you found some place were you think you can thrive through this challenging times? Do you know any place where artist and clients can interact and be actually seen by others without fighting algorithms or AI?

Twitter//X is full of yatzhees now

Bluesky is full of other artists, who I love, but they don't buy

NewGrounds has been working more as a forum than as a hiring place, it's nice tho

Furaffinity... Is furaffinity. Really cool too but people are not very talky there either.

Patreon has been bullying nsfw artists since 2020

Instagram, Facebook, pff do I even have to say anything?

TikTok? I'm not an animator, it simply doesn't work

Tumblr sold it's soul

Whatever happenned to Pillowfort???

I've even tried Hive, Cara, and loads of emerging sites, to no avail

I can't get interactions, I can't get connections to real people. Anywhere I go is bots, scams, invisibility cloak(?).

I'm so tired of how the world is out of control and it makes me so frustrated, because I chose to be an artist, is what I want to do. I don't need to sulk in agonizing regret for not choosing some other career like laws or medicine or programming.

I'm not even trying to whine about it or even plead for work. I literally break my back and ass working each and every day to make content, keep up on commissions, participate on communities, trying to interact with my (mostly) silent patrons. I'm absolutely burnt out (roasted, ha-ha) and I can't afford to even take a break because if I do so, I won't be able to pay my rent next month. That's just life for most artists and content creators I know.

Please if you have read this and have any input on it, do comment, share your opinion. I'd be happy to share any feelings or hearing from you.

Thank you for reading.

New Image comes with a new mascot! I've been thinking a lot about my brand and I decided that it was time to make a better based brand. And what do I like? WITCHES!! So I was having trouble with the brainstorm and then I thought "I'm Toast" so I wanted to be Toasty, but the name was taken...

This is Roasty, 'cause she's burned(?) I hope you get the joke, I'm not good at them...

The avatar I'm using was made by Nise Lofsteinn

Here are my updated Social Media, tho NewGrounds won't let me change my name properly until I become a supporter, which for now, I can't.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk!

PATREON

X // TWITTER

BLUESKY

Zelda, The Roasted Witch