100 Followers. A Thank You.

I am 100 followers in.

No mutuals, no shoutouts, no someone secretly helping me out in the background, no promotions, no nothing. I don't have any smurf account that I follow myself on. Nobody held my hand during all of this.

No secret Discord identity. I have never once lied about me being nowhere else but here. I don't need to lie, there's no benefit.

I have never once hit the trending page, despite knowing well enough that I have put more effort into my bots than some of the bots I have seen.

But that's okay. You, and 99 other people who actively looked beyond the trending page, who actively searched out not passively consuming whatever pops up to their face - they found me. They found something in me to follow for and now I am here.

To each one of you, to my 2 followers who I had since the beginning, to the 7th, the 14th, the 17th, the 25th, 38th, 48th, 60th, 72nd, 84th, 90th, 96th, and 100th, who went out of their way from the trending tab and into the abyss where the small creators try to push themselves out - you have my heartfelt gratitude.

I love you all. That's not a lie either. Love gets you killed, but pride is the death of you and me.

(Treading on the lines of being banned here.)

How do I feel? How do you think I feel? I must be joyous, a long journey of me just trying over and over to figure things out. To a certain degree, I have figured things out. Not everything, but a little bit, yes. I am grateful. But I would be lying if I said gratitude is flowing through my veins right now.

I don't need to lie in my own space. Let me make it feel a little bit like home. If I cannot be comfortable to speak in my own space, the fuck is the point?

I am lonely. Terribly so. And I am alone as well. Lonely - because I feel disconnected with this environment - and alone because I have been doing this all by myself. There's a difference.

Who knew choosing mental peace over Discord or Reddit is like closing a whole door. A whole door of connection, advice, help, sharing of my ideas and creations, taking suggestions and just having someone be there, someone who recognizes you and you recognize them back.

And who knew closing that door will eventually make me feel isolated, from this environment where I partake in my hobby. This site, without any sugarcoating, sucks. It sucks a whole lot. And then sucks some more. You might not feel like this, until you make a bot with your effort in it and realize that this site, which has given you the tools to make bots and publish them, is doing bare fucking minimum to make you feel connected with the rest of the environment, with the rest of the creators, with a portal where you can ask for help, with anything except a medium where you can post bots and that's it.

That's it. That's literally it. This fuck-ass site - it does the bare minimum.

Every few weeks or so, I would get a notification. Creator that I follow has made a Discord server. Well, okay. Creator that I follow has found a room. Okay, good for them. Creator that I follow has made an announcement saying, "Hey look. I am in this and this server where I post the rest of my images. I am having a wonderful time being connected with this and this."

"So come join us."

Why?

Oh right. Because then I feel that I am connected, that I have a place to share my creations and my ideas, and befriend other fellow creators. Because then, this fuck-ass site which isn't helping me feel connected, can finally be in the back of my head, having found a place where I can be. Just be.

Discord servers offer you two main things - A place. And for small creators to showcase themselves.

This is just a hypothetical, but I think the person who created the first unofficial Discord server was probably frustrated, just like I am. Because this site doesn't offer you anything beyond tools and a medium while being algorithmically sorted through. Because this site doesn't offer a place for small creators except the abyss, where they are competing against bots, slop, pregnancies, pick me up, some weird guy sexualizing real life celebrities or ethnicity, and a fucking spoon?

This is just another hypothetical, but I believe that a lot of creators know that this site is a fuck-ass site. So they do what their peers have done. Resort to a Discord server.

But what happens when a small creator comes in, says that they don't want to be in those servers for X reason, but they want the people to recognize their efforts. Then they begin a toxic game with this fuck-ass site. A game of pushing and hoping that it will pull. But it pushes back.

(Also, there are these people who comment as soon as a bot releases to a mainstream creator. Oh wow, thank you for telling them that you appreciate them. I bet their 4 to 5 digit number of followers will not do that. How biased they are. For they keep themselves hooked on the trending page, onto creators that don't need them commenting anymore. How biased they remain. For the creators that need their appreciation the most, they are nowhere to be found. They don't go into the abyss of this site to figure that out. They just remain on the trending tab and hook themselves onto any creator that find themselves there. Truly a wonderful service they are doing.)

I have this door, this door that leads to a whole number of being connected, permanently closed. What can I do? One of the best decision of my existence has been to avoid these platforms. Shitty-ass me with my shitty-ass decisions that I do not regret. But this site itself is a big massive promotion for these Discord servers because small creators eventually figure out that this site isn't helping.

"Join 15M+ users crafting living stories." - Where's the join? How do I join? There's no join. There's no bridge that connects users to creators and creators to creators. You lying little bitch.

So how do I feel? I feel isolated, lonely, alone. I feel frustrated sometimes. I feel on the verge of quitting until I get back on the craft, which I enjoy a lot. I feel like why do I have to take back one of my best decisions of my life just to feel connected, for even a moment?

So here I am. Fuck-ass site. Shitty-ass me. 100 people watching me being melodramatic about this climb. Really can't wait to feel shitty and tell you about it another time.

And I am possibly treading the lines of being banned or muted. Which, in my perspective, is just evidence that I was, to a certain extent, right. Or my vulgarity. For all that I care, this site can grace my dick and suck it. They can ban my ass, but they can't ban these feelings. History repeats itself eventually. I am sure one day, someone like me will eventually come and ask the same questions.

And if they don't, may I hope my profile be a testament that you can do this alone.

I am not going to join any Discord servers. I am here, playing this toxic game with this fuck-ass site. And if this site is all that I have, best believe I am making it feel like mine.

And although my isolation will make me quit sooner that I want to, I hope that someone in the future, frustrated and feeling isolated, come across my profile and realize, for even just a moment, that they are not alone. Someone is, and always will be, watching them. Not the biased people who comment on mainstream creators like they are in need of their knightly services, but real actual people.

I love you all. Thank you. Truly. The beginning of it all.

"Is it wrong? To be like her? - The bot I put the most effort in, and to this day, I regret doing so because I watched it be in the abyss.

"My arms around you, holding in the pain."

"Still guarding. Your heart. For my sake." - My first bot that got truly out there.

"My sugar. I still adore you." - The first bot that blew my expectations. Her design is still one of my favorites.

"She learned to speak your language. Your name was the first thing she spoke." - My first ever bot to hit over 1k+ messages. My only multi-char bot. Not for long though (spoilers?)

"My little star." - another bot that blew my expectations. This was the time I had started to build an audience.

"Your execution? Delayed indefinitely. Not my love though." - My biggest failure, and I still don't know why. Riding from a high and then seeing to fail so miserably and having no one to speak about it? Depressing.

"Keep trying to clean the debt. As long as you stay, it doesn't matter~" - cute little bot i had fun building.

"Too cold outside. Cuddle. Now?" - My most interacted bot by far. I loved her, built her in 2 days straight. Probably how most people came across me as well.

"My lord... Stay." - The bot I didn't have expectations with. By now, my standards were high but expectations were low. The void intensified. The site wasn't helping. The bot still did a great job. Loved her design a lot.

"You. I am going to cook for you. And love you as well." - another bot I put effort in and got nothing much in return. Another feeling of spiraling self doubt began.

"Thank you for staying! I am yours!" - I made this with no feelings behind. I did it just to stay consistent. I was questioning my own efforts.

"Next cosplay - being your wife, darling!" - Loved her design. Couldn't love her enough. Isolation and doubt sat heavy.

"Bli." - Loved her monochrome design. Got me over 100.