Well, it’s birthday time again. While this year didn’t start out too good. I lost two residents at work. One of whom I took care of for 9 years. That and the new years thing with the artists that shall not be named. But I'm not going into that here. I want to cover something different.

It’s been five years since I started being active on FA and just as long as I’ve owned Billie. To think that a simple adoptable has given me so much in return is hard to believe. I've heard most folks get adopts and either sit on them or get a few things here and there before shelving them. Fewer make it central to their online identity.
She’s been in lots of pieces of art. One offs, sequences, dakis. So many dakis. She’s had a cameo in a visual novel and might pop up on a billboard in an upcoming indie game. She’s grown and changed so much over the years. Starting out as some glasses wearing femboy minus the twig and berries and now she's her own class of character. Is she sweet and kind? Can she be some kind of wicked creature? Or is she like you and me? A normal person with their own interests. Trying to survive her job and just chill in her off hours. Occasionally getting up to mischief but otherwise just…normal?
Sure she might not be a sex or HMOAF icon or something but does she have to be coded to be? She can be just as wild or cozy as any other character can be.
Her design has grown on me. I thought in the beginning that she might not have the pull for artists or onlookers because she was flat chested or because her design was too much work or because people just didn’t like pigs. But I think her lack of assets makes her different. I’ve never gone out of my way to be dead set with her design. If an artist missed a heart mark, spot or mistook her neckband as a collar rather than a skin marking; I wasn’t going to bash them for it. And I've come to learn quite a bit about pigs thanks to her.

I recently re-listened to one of my favorite audiobooks of all time. “The good, good pig” by Sy Montgomery. She’s an anthropologist that lives in the same state that I do. In a town not too far from where I live. The book is about her time owning a pig named “Christopher Hogwood”. Born as “the runt of his litter with no chance of growing properly to maturity”; Chris was shown love and care enough to beat out that fate and make it all the way to the age of 14. Most pigs live less than a year. Those who do are usually kept for breeding and only until their usefulness wears out. Chris wasn’t being kept for that. He was raised as a pet. In some cases, even nearing the care status of a child. For Sy and her husband, Howard, it brought connections. Their town loved that pig, neighbors and tenants to their house sometimes gained from the pig in some ways even if it was just his presence and company. Chris had some outer celebrity too. Thanks to family Christmas cards and TV or interview spots with Sy.
The book does a lot to give insight into human’s and societies’ connection with pigs. If you like pigs, even just the anthro kind, you owe it to yourself to give it a listen.

But I feel like Billie can relate to Chris a bit. I thought of her before as just some character I could use to better connect with my friends. But now, Billie and Nocturn3 or Greatnocturn3 are one in the same. I have had bad days and instances with Billie but I’ve also been blessed.
Blessed to have art made of her, blessed to create depth with her, blessed for the connections I’ve made because of her and blessed to learn about an animal that I never really looked deeper into before.
I’m sure not all of the people reading this that follow me are just here for her and I get this sounds cringe inducing but I’m glad that for one birthday; I can look and not feel down about one point of my station.
Turning 35, I want to feel thankful for the little bit that I have and what I’ve gained from Billie.

If Christopher Hogwood blessed her owner, Sy, with so much by his existence then maybe I can say the same about what Billie has done for me?
Billie Corneja has become MY good, good pig.