I would genuinely believe the conspiracy that one or more governments are pushing AI to make the internet less usable to stifle it's effectiveness in organizing people

Do ya like waffles?!

But his aim is gettin better!

Honestly this is already VERY good. I think the only thing I'd change is limiting your color palette a lot more but I like this a lot :3

I think the main thing you could do to better acomplish an effect that gets the texture + gradient would be to use some light dithering from white to gray, than gray to black in a few spots. Mix up some extra white spots in there too like on the IRL mushroom. Id also maybe curve the stem a lil bit

Would you be open to hearing some tips+ideas to possibly make this work?

I'm sorry for your loss :(. He looks like he was a sweet lil man <3