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11 years ago
I prefer using Google Chrome whenever possible. It takes up less memory than Firefox and I can open lots of tabs with no problem at all. Ever since this past summer or so, Firefox has given me absolute hell because it does not play well with Shockwave Flash, which means I always have trouble playing Youtube videos among other things. But FA has totally become unusable for me ever since their DDoS attack. Fortunately I haven't been one of the ones who've gotten malware from their Cloudflare protection, but for some reason the site has gotten so slow and laggy that it makes my computer freeze up even on Google Chrome! For some hilarious reason, just today the site seemed to suddenly stop responding to my right mouse clicks, refusing to bring up the menu so I can save pictures. I've checked, and other sites such as Youtube, e621, etc. don't have the same problem. So what gives?
I'm also having issues posting submissions and journals. I can fill in all the information, but for some reason the "finalize" button doesn't work at all when I click it. It didn't matter whether I was on firefox or chrome, but a few minutes ago I tested it out again and while Chrome's still not responding firefox seems to be okay so here goes. Let's hope this goes through.
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I'm completely burnt out on artwork. I've been trying to learn how to use the tablet I got from a friend (my one and only birthday gift that I enjoyed), but it's slow going, and progress on any sketches has just come to a complete halt. I'd been meaning to post the sketch pages from my notebook and that was a fun idea, but since FA has decided to arbitrarily fuck me over I've lost my enthusiasm for that as well. I can't even enjoy drawing anything for myself anymore because it just feels like tedious work. I hate it. I really do. Why should I even bother doodling anything when I don't enjoy drawing it, it takes far too long, and I'm such a perfectionist I don't think the finished product looks any good 95% of the time?
Part of the reason I draw what I draw is because regular furry art is so boring for me. I mean, okay sure, "normal sized" furs don't "excite" me the way hyperfurs do, but even so, why would you want to make your furries realistic? I thought the whole purpose of being a furry was so that you could enjoy the fantasy and do things you never could do in real life. If the only difference between you and your fursona is that your fursona is a fox, why not fucking go out and live life instead of just sitting around drawing pictures of your fursona doing it for you.
In addition, one of my chief complaints about the fandom has always been that we're drowning in lookalike fox-wolf-cat-dragon OCs and there are so many interesting species out there that never get drawn. Birds alone are an incredibly untapped market! But I've started to feel like hyperfurs have a similar but slightly different problem... Because there are so few hyperfur artists who're skilled and/or popular, they end up being monopolized and fought over for commissions. More often than not when I search the hyper tag on FA it invariably ends up being filled with the same half-dozen commission whores getting art of their OC, and seeing the same few characters constantly repeated is getting old. I suppose I shouldn't fuss but jesus christ would it kill these guys to change it up from time to time?
I guess it's a bad sign that I haven't drawn Rykela in going on half a year now. Shi's amazing, and I adore roleplaying hir, but actually drawing hir is so much work that the novelty has completely worn off and I've been having more fun drawing random things like hyper Rule 34 and making up new OCs like the pyrodragon and the argonian. I still want artwork of hir, though, and I feel kind of like I've neglected hir...
Which leads into the other thing.
I was HOPING to buy myself something small for Christmas, since it's looking increasingly likely that my family is not going to be getting anything for me that I'll like (getting something from my parents was like squeezing water from a stone, and my grandfather gave me a jacket which is the exact same color and style as two others I still wear. I'm grateful for the thought but he might as well have gotten me wool socks). However, I don't think that'll be happening either.
I don't begrudge artists needing a living wage. As an artist, I understand that all too well. However, I can't afford paying even $30 for a single character image. Even spending more than $20 at a time makes me hesitant. I live in one of the shittiest job markets in the US (worst metropolitan area in terms of unemployment at one point), and I wasn't even able to find seasonal work for the holidays. I must've submitted at least forty resumes at different retailers and not a single one called me back. So I don't have a lot of money to spend. I've had to stretch out $150 in birthday money since last month and make it last.
My money problems aside, the way the commissioning market works in the fandom right now is fucking horrible, even without the artists who spam YCH auctions and adoptable pages. I've become very picky when it comes to artwork and there's only a handful of artists who I'd really like to get a picture from, but even if I wasn't I'd still have the same complaints. Whenever anybody streams or opens up for commissions, it's never at regular intervals (like, say, opening up a stream at 2 PM promptly every thursday), and there's usually very little warning given when it happens so it's always a surprise. I don't have time to constantly re-fresh Weasyl and FA all day just to hope to catch one of my favorite artists opening up a slot!
The majority of artists BY FAR keep the "first come, first serve" rule when it comes to their artwork, which regardless of intent means that every single time I end up seeing the same old commission whores getting image after image after image because they're the ones with the time and money to do so. It was like that in this case, too - I saw pretty much the entirety of the hyperfur community in that stream, each and every name someone I recognized, and the majority of which are mostly popular because they just get a hell of a lot of artwork of their own OC.
Is it so hard to put everyone who wants a commission into a random number generator and give out slots that way? At least with that the people who hardly ever get the chance to get anything drawn or first-time customers at least have an even chance to get their opportunity.
(In case you are wondering, no. I didn't get artwork of Rykela. I wasted two hours of my life waiting for an additional slot because they were all taken within five minutes, and I wasn't able to make the payment up front. Fuck my bank.)
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I don't think I'm going to have a good Christmas this year. I'm probably just about to go into another one of my blue periods for about two weeks... it's kind of like being on a roller coaster about to drop off the first enormous hill. You can see it coming from way far away but there's nothing you can do to stop it and all you can do is wait it out. Depression sucks. Why does everything have to be so shitty?
This combination of art burnout, money troubles, FA troubles, depression, and so on is going to be difficult to get over. I'm trying to think of reasons to continue participating in the fandom beyond lurking but I'm hard-pressed to do so right now. I've spoken before (on FA, not sure about here) about how I believe that if I don't constantly churn out artwork I feel like I'll be forgotten and ignored by the community even though it's impossible for me to do so, and how stressful that is. Maybe it's for the best that I give up trying? Real-life just demands too much of my time, I hardly get any attention when I post things anyway, drawing has lost all its appeal, and I'm beginning to despise the rest of the fandom...
I'm also having issues posting submissions and journals. I can fill in all the information, but for some reason the "finalize" button doesn't work at all when I click it. It didn't matter whether I was on firefox or chrome, but a few minutes ago I tested it out again and while Chrome's still not responding firefox seems to be okay so here goes. Let's hope this goes through.
---
I'm completely burnt out on artwork. I've been trying to learn how to use the tablet I got from a friend (my one and only birthday gift that I enjoyed), but it's slow going, and progress on any sketches has just come to a complete halt. I'd been meaning to post the sketch pages from my notebook and that was a fun idea, but since FA has decided to arbitrarily fuck me over I've lost my enthusiasm for that as well. I can't even enjoy drawing anything for myself anymore because it just feels like tedious work. I hate it. I really do. Why should I even bother doodling anything when I don't enjoy drawing it, it takes far too long, and I'm such a perfectionist I don't think the finished product looks any good 95% of the time?
Part of the reason I draw what I draw is because regular furry art is so boring for me. I mean, okay sure, "normal sized" furs don't "excite" me the way hyperfurs do, but even so, why would you want to make your furries realistic? I thought the whole purpose of being a furry was so that you could enjoy the fantasy and do things you never could do in real life. If the only difference between you and your fursona is that your fursona is a fox, why not fucking go out and live life instead of just sitting around drawing pictures of your fursona doing it for you.
In addition, one of my chief complaints about the fandom has always been that we're drowning in lookalike fox-wolf-cat-dragon OCs and there are so many interesting species out there that never get drawn. Birds alone are an incredibly untapped market! But I've started to feel like hyperfurs have a similar but slightly different problem... Because there are so few hyperfur artists who're skilled and/or popular, they end up being monopolized and fought over for commissions. More often than not when I search the hyper tag on FA it invariably ends up being filled with the same half-dozen commission whores getting art of their OC, and seeing the same few characters constantly repeated is getting old. I suppose I shouldn't fuss but jesus christ would it kill these guys to change it up from time to time?
I guess it's a bad sign that I haven't drawn Rykela in going on half a year now. Shi's amazing, and I adore roleplaying hir, but actually drawing hir is so much work that the novelty has completely worn off and I've been having more fun drawing random things like hyper Rule 34 and making up new OCs like the pyrodragon and the argonian. I still want artwork of hir, though, and I feel kind of like I've neglected hir...
Which leads into the other thing.
I was HOPING to buy myself something small for Christmas, since it's looking increasingly likely that my family is not going to be getting anything for me that I'll like (getting something from my parents was like squeezing water from a stone, and my grandfather gave me a jacket which is the exact same color and style as two others I still wear. I'm grateful for the thought but he might as well have gotten me wool socks). However, I don't think that'll be happening either.
I don't begrudge artists needing a living wage. As an artist, I understand that all too well. However, I can't afford paying even $30 for a single character image. Even spending more than $20 at a time makes me hesitant. I live in one of the shittiest job markets in the US (worst metropolitan area in terms of unemployment at one point), and I wasn't even able to find seasonal work for the holidays. I must've submitted at least forty resumes at different retailers and not a single one called me back. So I don't have a lot of money to spend. I've had to stretch out $150 in birthday money since last month and make it last.
My money problems aside, the way the commissioning market works in the fandom right now is fucking horrible, even without the artists who spam YCH auctions and adoptable pages. I've become very picky when it comes to artwork and there's only a handful of artists who I'd really like to get a picture from, but even if I wasn't I'd still have the same complaints. Whenever anybody streams or opens up for commissions, it's never at regular intervals (like, say, opening up a stream at 2 PM promptly every thursday), and there's usually very little warning given when it happens so it's always a surprise. I don't have time to constantly re-fresh Weasyl and FA all day just to hope to catch one of my favorite artists opening up a slot!
The majority of artists BY FAR keep the "first come, first serve" rule when it comes to their artwork, which regardless of intent means that every single time I end up seeing the same old commission whores getting image after image after image because they're the ones with the time and money to do so. It was like that in this case, too - I saw pretty much the entirety of the hyperfur community in that stream, each and every name someone I recognized, and the majority of which are mostly popular because they just get a hell of a lot of artwork of their own OC.
Is it so hard to put everyone who wants a commission into a random number generator and give out slots that way? At least with that the people who hardly ever get the chance to get anything drawn or first-time customers at least have an even chance to get their opportunity.
(In case you are wondering, no. I didn't get artwork of Rykela. I wasted two hours of my life waiting for an additional slot because they were all taken within five minutes, and I wasn't able to make the payment up front. Fuck my bank.)
---
I don't think I'm going to have a good Christmas this year. I'm probably just about to go into another one of my blue periods for about two weeks... it's kind of like being on a roller coaster about to drop off the first enormous hill. You can see it coming from way far away but there's nothing you can do to stop it and all you can do is wait it out. Depression sucks. Why does everything have to be so shitty?
This combination of art burnout, money troubles, FA troubles, depression, and so on is going to be difficult to get over. I'm trying to think of reasons to continue participating in the fandom beyond lurking but I'm hard-pressed to do so right now. I've spoken before (on FA, not sure about here) about how I believe that if I don't constantly churn out artwork I feel like I'll be forgotten and ignored by the community even though it's impossible for me to do so, and how stressful that is. Maybe it's for the best that I give up trying? Real-life just demands too much of my time, I hardly get any attention when I post things anyway, drawing has lost all its appeal, and I'm beginning to despise the rest of the fandom...
For what it's worth, anyway.