(NOTE: This journal was carried over from the previous iteration of SoFurry as the updated version of the website no longer offers support for user journals. As such, some verbiage may seem out of place.)

Well, maybe not entirely. I've been posting submissions this year, I just haven't really been active on this Journals tab. I guess I just haven't had enough to say at any given point in time that warranted writing up one of these. I wish I could say these past six months have been "good". I think in a very abstract sense maybe that's true, they definitely have not been bad but I'm not certain I'd say they've been the opposite of "bad" either.

This year I decided to set up the drawing tablet that one of my closest friends sent to me last year. He was doing some upgrades to his computer and I guess when he dropped in his new video card he had one less HDMI port than what the previous card offered. My friend determined that trying to get the tablet to continue to work on his system was more trouble than it was worth, and he also wasn't really getting as much use out of it as he'd thought he would, so he offered to send it my way. I got it set up a few months ago and scribbled out some test drawings with it, played a few rounds of Jackbox games, etc. Then, I started actually making an effort to use the tablet for its intended purpose.

I'm not going to act like my drawing skill is the second coming of Jesus or whatever, but I did surprise myself with how quickly I was able to pick up the medium. I'm used to doing art traditionally, on paper with either pen/pencil or paints. But I do know "how" to do digital art just from a near lifetime of being around other furries who adopted the process as far back as the turn of the millennium. I myself was never a digital artist though, so I never learned how to use Photoshop or Corel Draw or any of those other popular software suites. I learned how to use Flash, because I did goofy animations and web design stuff with it a zillion years ago. I am very, very, well versed in Flash. The 10,000 Hour Rule? I've probably crossed that threshold. Despite the program being officially EOL'd by Adobe half a decade ago I still do somewhat use it occasionally, like to do the graphics for my new personal website. But I came into this already knowing how to do things like layering, palettes, brushes, etc. I did not have to learn any of that, I was able to just drop right in.

I feel like... maybe I unintentionally flexed on the friend who sent me the tablet. I genuinely feel bad. Our skill levels are different, but part of me does feel some sort of guilt or something for just plugging in this random tablet that my friend said was collecting dust and then I just start running laps around him almost immediately. That wasn't my intent. It's just a difficult concept for me to put into words because I didn't need to learn anything, I already knew the program even if it was an archaic one. And, admittedly having things like an Undo button mapped straight onto the damn tablet makes correcting mess ups extremely easy to do. It's easier than traditional art, and for the longest time that's all anyone ever saw from me on the rare occasion I drew or painted something. I surprised a lot of people with my "latent talent", myself included.

And, ironically I'm also somewhat frustrated at the same time because none of my art really seems to get any traction wherever I post it. I would say that the pieces I did of Cassie and Fifi La Fume are probably my best ones so far? The others are kind of hit or miss because I was getting the hang of things, technically I guess I still kind of am. But no one really seemed to notice. One of my other friends I vented to about this suggested it's because I'm drawing characters that are multiple decades removed from the public consciousness, and that might be true but on the other hand attractive characters (ladies, men, or otherwise) are simply that and even if you didn't know who Fifi was I feel like this hypothetical person might still be like "wow she's hot" or something. This is going to sound really off color for me but I get the impression that my art isn't "hardcore" enough. Like, the whole vibe of the fandom is very fucked up these days and it seems like the kinds of stuff that gets attention (in my opinion) are submissions that are very much extremely pornographic in nature. It's almost suffocating how just disgustingly sexual everything has become. I came from an era where "furry art" was by and large pin-up style stuff, and I guess subconsciously when I started making art of my own that's what I gravitated to. A dragon in a bikini, a skunk in a catsuit. Their clothing doesn't leave anything to the imagination, but it's also kind of vanilla in comparison I guess? Or maybe it's because thanks to having been drawn in a 20 year old program the art has the style of, surprise surprise, something that was drawn 20 years ago; it's very vibrant and almost cel-shaded like a cartoon whereas a lot of more popular art these days is very different. Perhaps the bright colors are off putting to an audience who didn't grow up around that?

I don't know how else to put it. I'm not angry or pissed off or anything. And, that same friend who told me to stop being a furry boomer also pointed out that I maintain no presence on FurAffinity or any social media platform. Because of this I do not have the same kind of reach I would if I did have accounts there. The horse in this race that I bet on is Toumal, so I'm here on SoFurry. And he's actually an orca not a horse, so this is a terrible analogy. But on principle I won't use FurAffinity and I also detest social media as that's the reason why I left the fandom originally a decade ago.

I'm a very insular person these days and my furry social circle largely consists of the same little group of people I've stayed in touch with pretty much the entire time I've been here. I don't make many new friends because I feel like the generational gap is just too wide to cross. That hasn't stopped me from at least trying to be personable though, and I have joined a couple of Discord servers as that's pretty much as far as I will go because forums aren't really a thing anymore. I feel like I'm just too old fashioned to really mesh with people today. I'm set in my ways, and although I'm never openly rude to people I tend not to have the patience for those who are very clearly being disingenuous or conspicuous themselves. Over the past six months I've been booted from one server, and I've voluntarily left two others because the moderation staff just did not rub me the right way or they allowed things to foster that I personally disagree with.

In a broad sense, I feel unwelcome. When I showed back up to SoFurry I did just sort of tell myself "I'm only here to post stories and not engage with people because I'm over this" but I guess I did still try to make an attempt to fit in somewhere, and I feel like I don't.

Anyways, I'm glad you all liked the Grace story. That is currently the most viewed and most favorited one on my whole account. Definitely a candidate for the "The Hits" folder on SoFurry X. And, the third chapter of In the Valley of the Drums is done and I will try to have that up by the end of this week.