I don't post as much as I'd like on here because of my mental health situation, but it is not an understatement when I say Newgrounds is constantly on my mind.

I'm always thinking about how much it's changed and grown over the years, how it's changing the world today, impacting our culture as creatives, gamers, internet users and even down our personal lives, including my own. I have met some amazing people through this website and it's shaped my relationship with myself and my life in many, very important ways and I know a lot of you who frequent here feel the exact same way.

Something I think about often with NG is just how absolutely RADICIAL it is. And no, I don't mean like "it's freakin kewl dood!!" What I mean is, amongst the AI takeover, the corporate brain dead scrolling social media sites and the mold the world feels like it's trying so hard to shove you into, Newgrounds just comes out on top as this beautiful, radiant beacon of resistance and change. This is especially true for us creative folk, offering itself as a safe haven for us to be ourselves, to grow and connect as a community away from all that garbage.

Recently, I read @TomFulp's newspost where he talks about how Nordstrom was recently returned to it's founding family and is thriving, and then went on to connect that with Newgrounds itself, saying: "I still get regular emails from companies and private equity firms expressing interest in acquiring Newgrounds. It’s hard for me to imagine that working out; I think I would end up like the Nordstroms and Ben & Jerry with regrets. ... I think NG is on a better path, despite more than a decade of difficulty."

This caught my attention because I often find myself having these little thought experiments of what Newgrounds would be like if it was bought out by some large corporate entity. Like, how the community would react to it, the censorship and loss of authenticity, and what that would mean for not just our community alone but for the entire creative space and the media we consume as a whole considering this is the birthplace of many indie creators. It feels almost cartoonishly dystopian and I think most of us agree we'd rather see it go down in a blaze of glory than watch it be sold away, slowly crumbling into a shell of what it once was and become part of the very system that is killing our minds, our souls and our bodies. I believe that if this site was bought out, it would mean the death of Newgrounds.

But with all of that said, it just cements the gratitude and admiration I have for this website. Newgrounds is punk as fuck, and as long as it's around, I will be posting my artwork here, even if it's not as often as I'd like! But every time I do publish a piece, it is done with love for NG and the amazing community it has, and doing so gives me a sense of purpose and a drive I haven't been able to find anywhere else in my life.

Thank you all for reading my ramble! I enjoy sharing my thoughts here and really need to push myself to do it more often. But das all fo now, bye bye!