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Something I Have Neglected To Address... (Continued)
2 years ago
(This is a continuation of a previous journal.)
___
This is a little bit of the background behind the creation of my account and a little more about myself:
*Note much of the following is my perspective and I tried to include specific dates where I could. It is important to understand that I was extremely uncomfortable with sharing this, but I am tired of getting messages asking if I still draw scat transformations…
A few years ago, in 2016, I met an individual. They were older than me and were regularly harassed for being weird, I did not really understand at the time, but I felt sorry for them. I was tall for my age with a sickly presence, I have symptoms of Raynaud's so my hands are often pale and are always unnaturally cold to the touch, so I was sometimes compared to a “corpse” or “zombie”, but to me everyone felt warm… Unfortunately I lacked a lot of self confidence, and am not really the type of person to argue or be confrontational. So I just started talking with this person a little bit, and at the time thought they were alright to talk to. But today I regret making that decision…
I do a lot of traveling, visiting my family that is divided by a sea of blue. I registered to join a rotary youth exchange program for 2018-2019, so I had even more experience with traveling and living with a host family. Lived with my host family as a stranger at first, but they eventually gave me a nickname, the nickname translation of 'Nine' because they considered me the 9th member of their family. To be honest, at first I was not a fan of that kind of nickname, but it slowly grew on me. I spent 11 months with this host family and I shared some of my best and worst experiences with them. I am forever grateful for what they did to help encourage and support me.
As I was traveling, the individual I felt sorry for began making strange requests and asking if I had ever drawn or done story writing before. I surprisingly never really liked drawing growing up, but with the writing aspect, I thought that it could help improve my English. This is also around the same time the individual introduced me to the furry community, and I got a fascination with transformations, petrifications, goo, and slime monsters… It was also around this time that the individual expressed their own fascination with turning other characters into poop monsters of all things, I did not even know what scat or water-sport was at the time…
Needless to say, I was going through a phase of confusion, stress, denial, and loneliness not knowing what to feel. Despite everything, I could not bring myself to say 'NO', we had been playing online games at the time like Warframe and I had a hard time making friends while still being abroad, this was a point where I was extremely vulnerable and depressed. If anything, my host family was the best cure to my depression.
After a few weeks of exploring on my own, the individual talked me into creating an account with FA, and thus the account you see before you now. For anyone that had seen the older stuff I had done know how bad I was about art tracing (and yes I am ashamed of that stuff as well.)
When I returned from my exchange travel, I could never really look at the individual the same way ever again, regrettably I continued with the dirty stuff but as time went on the individual's request turned into demands. When I tried exclaiming that I was not into that kind of transformation, they would threaten blackmailing, my family, the few friends I did have, and even my work. I had already told a lot of folks about the trouble I had been having with the individual, so eventually the individual began to threaten to end their own life when I finally built up the courage to tell them enough was enough on the 25th of March 2022…
I have not talked nor heard anything from this individual, and quite frankly hope never to encounter someone like that again. Sorry to say, but despite my best efforts to stay positive, things have truly been hard for me during those years. I am both ashamed and embarrassed about those old projects (I even just feel uncomfortable mentioning it for what it is) and I just want folks to know that I am not and never was that kind of person.
Things are going great for me now, finishing up my education preparing to graduate and pass my boards in becoming a radiology technologist in only 6 months. So for the past year, I have had my nose stuck in textbooks for class to keep my academic scholarships, working as a PRN student x-ray technologist on my days off.
It just makes me sad to think I failed in trying to help someone and that they were abusive and only holding me back. I choose to move on and better myself, and I can only hope that folks see that at least trying can make a difference. In order to truly help someone, I firmly believe you first have to convince them to help themselves…
Do not confuse me with being disingenuous, but this is probably one of my big regrets in life. In simple terms, I showed sympathy towards someone, they recognized my vulnerabilities and attempted to mentally manipulate me into doing what they wanted and then tried to convince me that I was into something I was not.
It is one thing to have a fetish for something, but it is another thing to force it upon others especially if it makes everyone uncomfortable. This is something I would not wish upon anyone.
In the end, nothing can clearly depict what or how I was feeling during that period, I struggle with finding the right words and my memory of everything is honestly a little cloudy. But regardless, if anything, this does not serve as an excuse to justify any of that old stuff. I was worried when sharing this, unsure if anyone would even believe me or understand, but it does make me feel better that I finally got around to sharing this.
So in understanding that, I was not feeling well nor exactly had a proper introduction to both FA and furries in general in the beginning, got a lot of mean/hateful comments and messages that only encouraged those disgusting types of projects (and no, I do not take any of those mean comments personally, I neglected some things that I would later go back and fix…) This is why I have never left a comment nor responded to any comments because it also made me feel uncomfortable and nothing I say would make things any better. Believe me when I say that I have been called some of the worst things imaginable, but when it comes to me if I have nothing nice to say, I would rather not say anything at all, it would only add more fuel to a pointless fire… It is also for this reason that I removed those shouts and comments, I do not mention any of these individuals by name because I do not want there to be any shameless bullying or targeting… Everyone has a right to dislike someone, just know that I do not support harassment of any kind.
Only this past year did I actually start putting in the effort to crack my comfort zone to talk with other folks and join communities. It is currently one of the best feelings that I have had in a long time, establishing friendships with a variety of different folks that accept me for the true type of person I am, a mono-tone quiet introvert that tries their best to be friendly and respectful. I can not tell you how nervous it made me feel when some folks wanted to talk to me more, not just as the character of a chocolate shark, but as a normal casual person. Some folks even invited me to personal discord servers where I got the chance to meet others in a controlled setting that paved a path for more healthy friendships. And for the folks that did this, I am grateful and even if I did not tell you, it led to one of the few times I have ever cried, and the experienced tears of happiness…
But there is still my discomfort when folks on discord ask to see my gallery on FA only see the older projects and then ask about it. For many of these folks I would say, "I do not want to talk about that, I was depressed and confused, I no longer have an interest in that sort of thing, or I am not like that any more." These were all just served to undermine the bigger picture, it makes me feel awkward talking about it and often uncomfortable for the individual asking…
I also can not express the joy I felt when someone made a fan-art of my chocolate shark. The drawing was of my chocolate shark character in a melted puddle. It was the first time anyone had done something like this for me, especially considering I have never asked for anything from another artist.
It was something I never thought I would see, but only a few weeks later another friendly individual asked about drawing a practice piece of my chocolate shark character. This just surprised me because there were many other shark characters in the group yet they were asking to draw mine. I just did not know what to say, I still considered myself a stranger, and yet they were talking to me in a friendly way even after I told them where my FA originated from…
It is jarring to think about the chocolate shark that became the face of my account, Quick. In the beginning, I struggled with drawing and what started off as a copy of ‘Shark Rad’ from ‘Cyanide and Happiness’ slowly transitioned into the chocolate shark you see today and something I am proud to call truly my own work. Ironically the name for Quick came around for my shark after a misspelling of "quick sand" on a sign in an old drawing that I failed to catch before uploading (surprisingly folks thought he was named after "Nestle Quick", as funny as that would have been). So little interesting facts about his origin since folks commonly ask about him, and yes his shy demeanor is largely influenced by my own personality. After a bit of consideration and asking around, I ultimately decided to make Quick's change into a living chocolate shark permanent because it is something that is my absolute favorite thing to draw because of its versatility. Chocolate has many factors that made it appealing to me in terms of being solid for hard petrifications, nothing quite like changing a character into an edible chocolate statue for other folks to enjoy. Also being susceptible to melting in high temperatures opens the opportunities to liquid and slime concepts, an obvious weakness when being made of chocolate. When combined it incorporates features from both petrification and slime smoothly.
I guess that this is all I needed to say, and just to clarify for a final time, no, I will not be drawing scat transformations anymore. It is alright for folks to have that type of interest, but I do not want folks believing in misconceptions that I draw that kind of stuff anymore. And once again, I apologize for not addressing any of this sooner…
I will be working on gifting art to certain individuals and personal projects for the next few months, so there will be no more raffles for the time being.
Regardless, this chocolate shark wishes you a pleasant day.
___
This is a little bit of the background behind the creation of my account and a little more about myself:
*Note much of the following is my perspective and I tried to include specific dates where I could. It is important to understand that I was extremely uncomfortable with sharing this, but I am tired of getting messages asking if I still draw scat transformations…
A few years ago, in 2016, I met an individual. They were older than me and were regularly harassed for being weird, I did not really understand at the time, but I felt sorry for them. I was tall for my age with a sickly presence, I have symptoms of Raynaud's so my hands are often pale and are always unnaturally cold to the touch, so I was sometimes compared to a “corpse” or “zombie”, but to me everyone felt warm… Unfortunately I lacked a lot of self confidence, and am not really the type of person to argue or be confrontational. So I just started talking with this person a little bit, and at the time thought they were alright to talk to. But today I regret making that decision…
I do a lot of traveling, visiting my family that is divided by a sea of blue. I registered to join a rotary youth exchange program for 2018-2019, so I had even more experience with traveling and living with a host family. Lived with my host family as a stranger at first, but they eventually gave me a nickname, the nickname translation of 'Nine' because they considered me the 9th member of their family. To be honest, at first I was not a fan of that kind of nickname, but it slowly grew on me. I spent 11 months with this host family and I shared some of my best and worst experiences with them. I am forever grateful for what they did to help encourage and support me.
As I was traveling, the individual I felt sorry for began making strange requests and asking if I had ever drawn or done story writing before. I surprisingly never really liked drawing growing up, but with the writing aspect, I thought that it could help improve my English. This is also around the same time the individual introduced me to the furry community, and I got a fascination with transformations, petrifications, goo, and slime monsters… It was also around this time that the individual expressed their own fascination with turning other characters into poop monsters of all things, I did not even know what scat or water-sport was at the time…
Needless to say, I was going through a phase of confusion, stress, denial, and loneliness not knowing what to feel. Despite everything, I could not bring myself to say 'NO', we had been playing online games at the time like Warframe and I had a hard time making friends while still being abroad, this was a point where I was extremely vulnerable and depressed. If anything, my host family was the best cure to my depression.
After a few weeks of exploring on my own, the individual talked me into creating an account with FA, and thus the account you see before you now. For anyone that had seen the older stuff I had done know how bad I was about art tracing (and yes I am ashamed of that stuff as well.)
When I returned from my exchange travel, I could never really look at the individual the same way ever again, regrettably I continued with the dirty stuff but as time went on the individual's request turned into demands. When I tried exclaiming that I was not into that kind of transformation, they would threaten blackmailing, my family, the few friends I did have, and even my work. I had already told a lot of folks about the trouble I had been having with the individual, so eventually the individual began to threaten to end their own life when I finally built up the courage to tell them enough was enough on the 25th of March 2022…
I have not talked nor heard anything from this individual, and quite frankly hope never to encounter someone like that again. Sorry to say, but despite my best efforts to stay positive, things have truly been hard for me during those years. I am both ashamed and embarrassed about those old projects (I even just feel uncomfortable mentioning it for what it is) and I just want folks to know that I am not and never was that kind of person.
Things are going great for me now, finishing up my education preparing to graduate and pass my boards in becoming a radiology technologist in only 6 months. So for the past year, I have had my nose stuck in textbooks for class to keep my academic scholarships, working as a PRN student x-ray technologist on my days off.
It just makes me sad to think I failed in trying to help someone and that they were abusive and only holding me back. I choose to move on and better myself, and I can only hope that folks see that at least trying can make a difference. In order to truly help someone, I firmly believe you first have to convince them to help themselves…
Do not confuse me with being disingenuous, but this is probably one of my big regrets in life. In simple terms, I showed sympathy towards someone, they recognized my vulnerabilities and attempted to mentally manipulate me into doing what they wanted and then tried to convince me that I was into something I was not.
It is one thing to have a fetish for something, but it is another thing to force it upon others especially if it makes everyone uncomfortable. This is something I would not wish upon anyone.
In the end, nothing can clearly depict what or how I was feeling during that period, I struggle with finding the right words and my memory of everything is honestly a little cloudy. But regardless, if anything, this does not serve as an excuse to justify any of that old stuff. I was worried when sharing this, unsure if anyone would even believe me or understand, but it does make me feel better that I finally got around to sharing this.
So in understanding that, I was not feeling well nor exactly had a proper introduction to both FA and furries in general in the beginning, got a lot of mean/hateful comments and messages that only encouraged those disgusting types of projects (and no, I do not take any of those mean comments personally, I neglected some things that I would later go back and fix…) This is why I have never left a comment nor responded to any comments because it also made me feel uncomfortable and nothing I say would make things any better. Believe me when I say that I have been called some of the worst things imaginable, but when it comes to me if I have nothing nice to say, I would rather not say anything at all, it would only add more fuel to a pointless fire… It is also for this reason that I removed those shouts and comments, I do not mention any of these individuals by name because I do not want there to be any shameless bullying or targeting… Everyone has a right to dislike someone, just know that I do not support harassment of any kind.
Only this past year did I actually start putting in the effort to crack my comfort zone to talk with other folks and join communities. It is currently one of the best feelings that I have had in a long time, establishing friendships with a variety of different folks that accept me for the true type of person I am, a mono-tone quiet introvert that tries their best to be friendly and respectful. I can not tell you how nervous it made me feel when some folks wanted to talk to me more, not just as the character of a chocolate shark, but as a normal casual person. Some folks even invited me to personal discord servers where I got the chance to meet others in a controlled setting that paved a path for more healthy friendships. And for the folks that did this, I am grateful and even if I did not tell you, it led to one of the few times I have ever cried, and the experienced tears of happiness…
But there is still my discomfort when folks on discord ask to see my gallery on FA only see the older projects and then ask about it. For many of these folks I would say, "I do not want to talk about that, I was depressed and confused, I no longer have an interest in that sort of thing, or I am not like that any more." These were all just served to undermine the bigger picture, it makes me feel awkward talking about it and often uncomfortable for the individual asking…
I also can not express the joy I felt when someone made a fan-art of my chocolate shark. The drawing was of my chocolate shark character in a melted puddle. It was the first time anyone had done something like this for me, especially considering I have never asked for anything from another artist.
It was something I never thought I would see, but only a few weeks later another friendly individual asked about drawing a practice piece of my chocolate shark character. This just surprised me because there were many other shark characters in the group yet they were asking to draw mine. I just did not know what to say, I still considered myself a stranger, and yet they were talking to me in a friendly way even after I told them where my FA originated from…
It is jarring to think about the chocolate shark that became the face of my account, Quick. In the beginning, I struggled with drawing and what started off as a copy of ‘Shark Rad’ from ‘Cyanide and Happiness’ slowly transitioned into the chocolate shark you see today and something I am proud to call truly my own work. Ironically the name for Quick came around for my shark after a misspelling of "quick sand" on a sign in an old drawing that I failed to catch before uploading (surprisingly folks thought he was named after "Nestle Quick", as funny as that would have been). So little interesting facts about his origin since folks commonly ask about him, and yes his shy demeanor is largely influenced by my own personality. After a bit of consideration and asking around, I ultimately decided to make Quick's change into a living chocolate shark permanent because it is something that is my absolute favorite thing to draw because of its versatility. Chocolate has many factors that made it appealing to me in terms of being solid for hard petrifications, nothing quite like changing a character into an edible chocolate statue for other folks to enjoy. Also being susceptible to melting in high temperatures opens the opportunities to liquid and slime concepts, an obvious weakness when being made of chocolate. When combined it incorporates features from both petrification and slime smoothly.
I guess that this is all I needed to say, and just to clarify for a final time, no, I will not be drawing scat transformations anymore. It is alright for folks to have that type of interest, but I do not want folks believing in misconceptions that I draw that kind of stuff anymore. And once again, I apologize for not addressing any of this sooner…
I will be working on gifting art to certain individuals and personal projects for the next few months, so there will be no more raffles for the time being.
Regardless, this chocolate shark wishes you a pleasant day.
Love your chocolate and sand tfs with the combination of art and story, it is so rare that someone have a gallery of that kind.
Hope everyone has a nice day...