i'm not going to sugarcoat it - throughout 2025, i've been depressed. after i graduated college in december 2024, i haven't been able to get a job, apart from one month spent at crumbl, which i was let go from after they had decided i was not cut out for fast-paced food service. and they were right.

i've worked on a few things throughout this year, but most of my time has been spent bedrotting. my physical health issues have been in control, so i'm not nearly as miserable as i was in early 2024 - but my mental health has been debilitating this year. the things that are keeping me sane at this moment are my immediate family, my cats, and smiling friends.

and there's a fourth thing, too. it's one of my passion projects. but it's not the webcomic i've already been developing and posting about online.

let's talk about that webcomic.

the webcomic is called oaksport. you may have seen me post about it in the past. oaksport began life in april 2023 as an AU about youtubers from that specific nerdy game reviewer/animator (not storytime animation) part of the internet. i'm not gonna get into the whole story here, but in early 2024 i filed off the serial numbers and turned it into what is now oaksport.

i was very serious about oaksport throughout 2024. i started a sideblog for the comic, and i went ahead and entered it into the webcomic webring on neocities as i intended to get out the first pages very soon after that. i had designs and descriptions for all the major characters on my toyhouse account, my friends were already getting attached to the characters, and the website for the comic was up and ready to go. all i needed to do now was actually write the comic.

but there was one big, glaring problem.

i didn't have the passion.

yes, i may have been posting about that comic and talking about it from time to time, but deep down i never felt super psyched to create for it. i rarely drew the characters on my own time, i could never get myself to sit down and actually do more worldbuilding/writing for the comic - it felt like an obligation for me. which makes me sad, because i do like the world and the characters. i guess what i'm trying to say is that even though i don't intend to ever sell anything i make to a major corporation, i felt like i had to create something that's more “conventional” compared to the thing i really wanna make that's been kept inside my head for over 15 years now.

let's talk about this thing.

when i was as young as 5 years old, i was infatuated with not only TV shows, but also the TV networks themselves. then when i was around 8 i started researching my favorite TV networks and their histories online, as well as their sister and parent companies. i was obsessed with them and their stories, so much so that i would characterize them in my head, and eventually create a universe based around them that i wanted to create either a comic or an animated series for.

i created this universe around the time "object shows" first came to the world. and of course - before i had even known about object shows - the way i personified these companies and shows was by taking the logos and giving them stick limbs. maybe in retrospect i could've given them human designs to be more creative, but the logos-with-stick-limbs designs are what my brain has defaulted to when thinking about this universe.

the comic/show that i developed for over 15 years was called “emily's television life”. here's the synopsis from the worldbuilding/outline document i've had for ages:

“In a world where the entertainment companies and TV shows are living and breathing beings, Emily Wilson is a young girl on a seemingly endless hunt for her 'one and only', a special TV show or movie that moves her like no other. Her friends Orchid, Elena, and Albert have already found their one and onlys, and Emily is the only one in the group left without one. They, along with many other companies and series, guide her to finding something that sticks.”

emily is basically a self-insert - the comic is split into 5 eras through 2010-2025 and each era focuses on emily being close friends with a personified version of a special interest i've had myself. it also features the immediate and extended families of said interests (their sibling shows, the parent companies that own them etc.). while it mostly documents the lives of the major media conglomerate families (warner bros, disney, comcast, and so on), it also features new media companies and shows from the internet.

i don't wanna give out too many specific details in case i actually put it out one day, but ETVL starts out with emily being around 10-11 years old, ends with her in her 20s, and the comic itself evolved from being silly and goofy to being a more serious dramedy that critiques capitalism and media conglomerates. so ETVL grew up with me. that synopsis i shared makes it sounds like it's about basing your personality around media consumption, and it starts out like that at first, but it's really a deconstruction of that.

whenever my current special interest at any time is not taking over my every waking thought, it's ETVL that's filling that void. i pace around my room thinking of scenarios for it, i have dreams about it, i add to my worldbuilding doc. i have a set-in-stone story for it and just need to script it and draw it, but i never ended up putting it out.

for many years, ETVL would only exist off the internet in sketchbooks, the aforementioned doc, and phone notes. even though i absolutely adored the world and the lore and the characterizations of the companies/shows, i was too afraid to put it out in fear of being perceived as weird. if people couldn't handle izzzyzzz making a furry slice-of-life show, i can't imagine how people would react to my comedy-drama comic about logos.

while i was never talking about it, others on the internet were putting out similar ideas.

around the mid-2010s, channel-tans became a thing. i remember being in high school when i saw art depicting cartoon network, nickelodeon, and disney channel as young women. after that, a fandom formed around the idea of creating human versions of TV networks. it really helped me feel validated, even though i hadn't put anything about ETVL into the public.

years later, a youtuber named amusingluis would crop up, creating videos about TV networks. his videos about the history of cartoon network and nickelodeon in particular captivated me, as they featured personified versions of those networks and their associated companies. i felt even more inspired to put my passion project out into the world, as there are people who DO have an interest in content like that!

this brings us back to the beginning of this post - i'm now 23, going on 24 in a little over 2 months. i've been depressed and bedrotting, and i'm just at the point now where i have to wonder - should i really care what others think? should i go ahead and put out the project that has been a huge part of my life since i was a kid?

in the future, you may see me finally release ETVL. i'm itching to share this world with other people, and i hope that people find enjoyment in all its weirdness.

if you read this whole post, thank you, from the bottom of my heart. writing this was hard, as i know it will probably bum out the few people who were excited about oaksport. until recently i haven't felt the need to tell people about ETVL, but with the way my life is going now, i needed to put my foot down and say "fuck it".

again, thank you if you read this.