[Update] New blog, new beginnings

Is it really that time again? Another blog? Yes. I've decided that I wanted to blog again, so I've put in some elbow grease and put together a new blog.

I figured it would be nice if once a month, I could make some kind of blog post. To keep up with the engagement of some kind! Now I don't know if I'll actually achieve a consistent schedule like that, but it wouldn't hurt to try. For this first blog post on the new site, I figured I would do a life update. Give people some insight into my life and more about me, considering that I've come to realise over the past couple of months that I've been boxing myself really badly. And I'm not really liking any of this. So, you my dear reader, get to know some details I have never bothered to speak up about!

But first and foremost, there is an RSS feed if you wish to follow along the news without visiting the website every time. You can fetch them from this page here. I am already slowly looking to make a lot of changes here for my blog. And also partly testing the waters to see about how this could be reflected towards GameMaker Kitchen's own website in the future. For those who aren't familiar, I have been using Lume to make websites nowadays. I think it's a really nice static site generator, and fits my purposes very well. I can tell you that this is already a big change from the wordpress iteration I had previously, and I am loving it. I might also experiment with some kind of commenting system. I did also backport the main GameMaker posts that I know people like to link.

Personal life updates

This section of the blog post is going to be mostly dedicated towards just some personal life updates and information about me. There's a lot I've been holding off from speaking about, and I am wanting to get this out of the way before I get into the more fun topics.

Coming out

I'm genderfluid. Yes, writing it this as the first main point, is probably not what people would've had expected personally. But I've always had felt either more masculine or feminine on different days, ever since I was really young. And I feel weird just mentioning it anywhere else, so I think writing it here is fine. I suspect someone is going to be concerned about what pronouns to use here, but truthfully I am 110% fine with just he/him. But, I also have zero attachment to pronouns so you can also just use Any/All. And I am slowly experimenting with my wardrobe again.

Admittedly I have been boxing that aspect of me from everyone for the longest of time, even from my own family. And to some of the closest friends I have... It actually didn't occur to me I was until I had some recent intense doubts while writing this blog post, trying to be fully open. I've also been informed of a very important detail about me that I had not once considered. The important detail being that, I already have been talking differently on diferent days alone, and that has been throwing people off about my own gender and sexual orientation entirely. So I no longer have any doubts on that, but I figured I should make it clear for those who aren't aware about it.

...I suppose I could really detail a lot of things about it here, but, I don't think all of those questions need to be answered at once. Maybe later down in the blog post.

TLDR: I'm genderfluid. No, you do not need to accomodate anything for me. I am fine with my body. I am fine being called whatever, but you can use he/him if you prefer to be safe.

The highs, the lows

Everyone has their own high and lows in life, I've got my own too. I don't really speak about it, because I'm actively used to marching on whenever the lows are at, and I tend to keep the more positive things to myself. I've always been the kind of person to just not go on about everything. I may spend weeks, or months, before I actually speak up on it. Just kind of the way I've been for years. If I did ever feel like talking about anything otherwise, I would normally just write it down somewhere or find a relatable media and keep it in some notes. Though, that is in due part because I feel like a constant burden or annoying for just simply wanting to express my emotions. I feel like I'm not allowed to. That is perhaps a cruel twisted mindset I've had from years of trying to be open and being shut down. But, I know that I cannot keep on doing that to myself either. So I am trying to make an effort in just speaking up about things more often.

The one thing I'll mostly speak out on here, is that I've been dealing with a fair amount of depression just feeling stuck or a lot of pressure at once. I've been getting myself out of a hole here though, and I'm in a better position thanks to the current jobs I have. There is a small amount of debt I am currently dealing with from the past 6 years ago, for survival reasons, which I am almost done clearing out entirely. Though I did recently take on some new dentist debt.

The good news here at least, I am more happy these days, and only slightly stressed from the ever constantly changing workplace enviroment in my main job. But, that's just life. My sleep schedule is also a LOT better than it used to be. I sometimes get less than 8 hours of sleep, but I do wake up around 8-10AM nowadays. And there is lots for me left to deal with in my life before I can feel happier, let alone more comfortable about being myself, but I'll get there. That being said, I'll be making some changes.

Changing my more personal spaces

As with the last two sections, I am wanting to be more of myself. As such, I have a few spaces of mine where I want it to be more orientated to fit that. Discord and Twitch in particular, I will be making 18+. Partly because I prefer talking to people more my age, and the communities I hangout with aren't appropriate at all. I don't intend to make it NSFW or anything though. That's not really my jam honestly. You can join my personal Discord here if you ever do want to come along for the ride, or to just annoy me! The rest of my socials can be found at the top of this website.

(Personal as in, to be clear, under "TabularElf". Anything else is the same as always.)

Projects, many projects

I may be swimming in a lot of projects outside of work. A lot that I want to talk about. I won't go into all of them here in this post, but I'll make separate posts for those who are interested.

Twitch-specific apps

I have been building some Twitch-specific apps, mainly for myself, but I have some interest in sharing it amongst some of my friends. One of them is to help for any time I need to be away for more than a few minutes, and another is a custom drawing app. Out of the two here, I can show off one of them a lil. This is a drawing app I've made purely for myself, after using other solutions in the past that I wasn't too fond off.

I plan on expanding it to include other toolings, but I would prefer to have Spout2 support added in so I can hide menus. If you're unfamiliar with Spout2, it's basically an API that enables sharing textures and video frames between Windows applications. You can read more about it here.

As for the current version, I'm mostly using Game Capture right now and a trick to make the backbuffer transparent. It's got the ability to change the brush size, change the brush colour, undo/redo, clear all (with undo support), saving and loading support.

Here's a preview of it in action.

Drawing app

The other twitch app I won't be talking too much about. But it'll be GREAT once I get over the initial hurdles. I think it'll be really good! Stay tuned for it!

Vtuber model v2??

A couple months ago, I've hired someone to do the artwork for my v2. And I was going to get work sorted out for a rig... That was back in November 2025. It's July 2026, and I've instead switched to slowly figuring out how to rig by myself. There is... progress, but, it's slow. And mostly done in my spare free time. I'll eventually have to go back to it and get the initial rig sorted out. The head angles are almost done. The eyes need work.

I will cover other aspects of GameMaker, anything and all. Preferably more technical tutorials since there isn't really enough of those.

My own games

Yes, I am making my own games, just very very slowly, and not a lot to show off. The most I could show off, is a very old prototype of a decal system and GFX I was experimenting for a game.

What started out as a decal library, quickly turned into a game where you fight hordes of enemies while performing objectives. With a ship layout that is ever changing.

There is also a game I am working on with some friends under the name TDALTY, I cannot reveal too much about it. All I can tell you, is that I definitely get sleep.

Proof of not enough sleep

And I do have some plans on more games, but I will be coming back to those when I have the time. Since I've been working on client work and libraries though, I haven't had the time to do much of that... Speaking of which.

GameMaker Libraries

So, a lot of my libraries are available on Github. I am still making FOSS libraries, although the libraries I've been making I'm sort of experimenting with an early preview access behind a paywall. I am not really sure if I'll keep up with it to be honest. It's kind of energy draining for the little I gain for it. Maybe I just need to post more about it really.

There's a network library, some GX.Games libraries, and an experimental binary-based file format I've made for saving/loading for GameMaker. I actually need to get some video showcases on these.

The networking library is just meant to simplify a lot of how I do networking in one of my projects, where I'm able to switch between TCP, UDP, Websockets, Steam networking or single player server. While also supporting binary, json or string packets, and a well established callback system.

I have at least three GX.Games libraries

GX Cut: A simple library that cuts out the fading that GX.Games does.
GX Recommence: A simple library that eliminates the game pausing whenever you switch tabs.
GX Styles: A library designed to help changing the loading screen, including adding in custom images.

And the custom binary format is just one I've made purely for myself.

FAQ

Q. Why didn't you come out sooner?

A. There's a lot of factors in my life that had lead me to just not really mention any of it, in fear of pure judgement, or just being dismissed entirely. It wasn't until the last 5 years where I've been slowly opening up to my immediate family, and 2 of my good close friends. And I didn't think so much to bring up my thoughts to a lot more people until the last 6 months.

Q. Do you wear any feminine clothes?

A. Not a lot! I don't have much to begin with, it's currently winter so pretty cold, and my wardrobe is very small. It needs a clean out personally speaking.

Q. How long did you know?

A. At least 5 years now.

Q. Since you are hosting the GameMaker Kitchen Cookbook Jams currently, what about the streams that you host on your personal Twitch/Youtube?

A. I intend to handle the streams the same way I normally do. With exceptions to the rules. I will perhaps have them hosted on a separate space in the future, we'll see.

Q. Would you ever do a face reveal?

A. Once upon a time, I had a stream where I did show my face for the entire stream. This was many years ago and I just felt like doing it. Nowadays, I don't really show my face... Maybe if I have a good day and a good selfie.

Q. Will you showcase your games?

A. Yes, eventually.

Q. Why are there stars on the blog?

A. I like the visual flair that comes from a very personal blog post of mine, and I wanted to make this place feel more like at home.

Q. Why are the stars yellow in dark mode?

A. 😊