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Update 11 Dec 2018 - The Comeback
7 years ago
Salutations, furry folk. RipRoarRex returneth!
So in case you missed my last journal, or haven't seen the updates on my new Twitter account (@RipRoarRex), I'd like to announce that after more than a year of nigh-on zero activity in the furry fandom...
...I'm back.
Now don't get too excited, because you know what I'm like. When I say 'back', I don't mean returning to my early fandom days when I was online all the time and churning out new pictures every couple of weeks - with the greatest of intentions, those days are long gone. But having not uploaded a new piece of artwork since October 2017 and essentially been absent from the fandom ever since, I can say you'll be seeing a bit more of me now - at least for a little while.
I said upon my last submission (the 2017 Edition of Rexar Relaxing, in case you've forgotten) that it might be the last picture I would ever complete. Even then, I was hopeful of that not being true, but it wasn't an empty comment. Aside from how long it always seems to take me to get work finished these days, I have genuinely found myself drifting from the fandom altogether in recent years, and the last 14 months are probably the strongest evidence of that to date.
The truth is 2018 has been a bad year for me. I've been unemployed for most of it, debating whether to continue in my existing career path or boldly embark on a new one, and ultimately ending up in a paralysing stasis without doing either. As someone who has often defined myself by my career, this left me feeling pretty bad, and despite having ample spare time, I found myself struggling to muster any enthusiasm for my life's passions - or when I have, I've become increasingly obsessed with whether I can justify spending my depleting savings on them. Turning 30 didn't help - I know it's not like I'm 75, but you go through those moments where you contemplate where you thought you'd be by a particular milestone, and I've fallen far short of my past expectations.
Put simply, I think I've gone through a mixture of depression and anxiety. Not the severe kind that should leave anyone worrying about my mental fragility - believe me, it's never been like that - but enough to make me feel like I'll be relieved to see the back of this year more than perhaps any other for quite some time.
So what's changed? Well several things, arguably all linked.
For starters, I finally found a new job which I'll be starting after Christmas. That lifted a big cloud for me. At the same time I was going through the process of securing that job, I started feeling a bit more enthusiasm for my hobbies again, one of which was my drawing. In turn, last month I mustered up enough motivation to complete a picture for the first time in a year (which I have now uploaded here). And that helped spur me on to work on other projects too, prompting me to feel like I might have sufficient new material to finally revive my profile.
It's not just that either. During the past year I've been chatting with various people about my struggles, including on the artistic front - special mention to
kclt with whom I shared some good conversations on the subject. Many have often suggested that I should think about uploading more sketches and unfinished work, something which I've always been reluctant to do because I prefer to preserve the impact of the finished project without any previous exposure. But the truth is I simply don't get enough work finished to justify that attitude anymore - if it's merely a choice between finished work or no work, the fact that I've only uploaded three finished pictures in the last three years tells its own story about that particular philosophy. By changing that mindset, I know I can open up the possibility of sharing a lot more content.
To top it off, I started making plans to update my website in preparation for a possible comeback, which led to some conversations with
dinosorceror (who has very kindly hosted RipRoarRex's Realm for me these past 11 years). Amidst a lot of technical talk, he managed to nudge me towards setting up a Twitter account, something which I did last week as explained in my previous journal entry. In truth, one of the contributing factors towards my drifting from the fandom in recent years is that many of the sites I used to frequent have either become dormant or disappeared, and I'd been feeling like all the community connections I used to have were now gone. With Twitter seemingly still in vogue among furries though, I've already had chance to become reacquainted with many folks I've not seen for a long time. And of course, I have a fresh platform to share my new work with them - and hopefully a few new followers too.
Hence, The Comeback. Of sorts. At the very least, I'm hoping to become a little more active again - which shouldn't be difficult when I'm starting from a baseline of near zero over the past twelve months! And as mentioned already, I will probably start uploading more of my unfinished work and abandoned projects, given I've got plenty of them...!
I make no guarantees that this will last. Once I start my new job, I might well find I can't muster up sufficient time to draw again, or I may struggle to maintain my new Twitter presence and ultimately end up drifting away again. And I can't deny that I'm just not as strongly into the fandom as I was when I was younger. When it really comes down to it, I still don't quite know where furry truly fits into the kind of life I want long-term. But for now, that's a debate for another day.
A couple of things I should mention:
I haven't yet had opportunity to update my website due to some technical issues (hence the chats with Dinosorceror). I'm hoping to resolve this very soon, but don't be surprised if it takes a little while for new content to appear there. Rest assured it's not because I'm not bothering with my site anymore - goodness knows I spent long enough coding and designing the damn thing.
Since my re-emergence on Twitter, I've had a lot of people asking me if I'm on Telegram or Discord. The answer to both is no, but I won't rule out the possibility. As many folks might remember, I used to do a lot of IMing back in the days of MSN Messenger (bugger me, I'm starting to sound old now), but I kinda burned out with it after a while and I haven't really done it since. As for Discord, I still don't really understand what it even is. But I'll keep my options open should I see sufficient cause to sign up to further platforms. For now, I think I've got enough on my plate with the new Twitter account!
That's enough chatter from me for now anyway - there's probably more than enough verbal diarrhoea here to make up for my silence over the last year! But for now, it's good to see you all again. And hopefully you'll be seeing a bit more of me in return.
RRRex
So in case you missed my last journal, or haven't seen the updates on my new Twitter account (@RipRoarRex), I'd like to announce that after more than a year of nigh-on zero activity in the furry fandom...
...I'm back.
Now don't get too excited, because you know what I'm like. When I say 'back', I don't mean returning to my early fandom days when I was online all the time and churning out new pictures every couple of weeks - with the greatest of intentions, those days are long gone. But having not uploaded a new piece of artwork since October 2017 and essentially been absent from the fandom ever since, I can say you'll be seeing a bit more of me now - at least for a little while.
I said upon my last submission (the 2017 Edition of Rexar Relaxing, in case you've forgotten) that it might be the last picture I would ever complete. Even then, I was hopeful of that not being true, but it wasn't an empty comment. Aside from how long it always seems to take me to get work finished these days, I have genuinely found myself drifting from the fandom altogether in recent years, and the last 14 months are probably the strongest evidence of that to date.
The truth is 2018 has been a bad year for me. I've been unemployed for most of it, debating whether to continue in my existing career path or boldly embark on a new one, and ultimately ending up in a paralysing stasis without doing either. As someone who has often defined myself by my career, this left me feeling pretty bad, and despite having ample spare time, I found myself struggling to muster any enthusiasm for my life's passions - or when I have, I've become increasingly obsessed with whether I can justify spending my depleting savings on them. Turning 30 didn't help - I know it's not like I'm 75, but you go through those moments where you contemplate where you thought you'd be by a particular milestone, and I've fallen far short of my past expectations.
Put simply, I think I've gone through a mixture of depression and anxiety. Not the severe kind that should leave anyone worrying about my mental fragility - believe me, it's never been like that - but enough to make me feel like I'll be relieved to see the back of this year more than perhaps any other for quite some time.
So what's changed? Well several things, arguably all linked.
For starters, I finally found a new job which I'll be starting after Christmas. That lifted a big cloud for me. At the same time I was going through the process of securing that job, I started feeling a bit more enthusiasm for my hobbies again, one of which was my drawing. In turn, last month I mustered up enough motivation to complete a picture for the first time in a year (which I have now uploaded here). And that helped spur me on to work on other projects too, prompting me to feel like I might have sufficient new material to finally revive my profile.
It's not just that either. During the past year I've been chatting with various people about my struggles, including on the artistic front - special mention to
kclt with whom I shared some good conversations on the subject. Many have often suggested that I should think about uploading more sketches and unfinished work, something which I've always been reluctant to do because I prefer to preserve the impact of the finished project without any previous exposure. But the truth is I simply don't get enough work finished to justify that attitude anymore - if it's merely a choice between finished work or no work, the fact that I've only uploaded three finished pictures in the last three years tells its own story about that particular philosophy. By changing that mindset, I know I can open up the possibility of sharing a lot more content.To top it off, I started making plans to update my website in preparation for a possible comeback, which led to some conversations with
dinosorceror (who has very kindly hosted RipRoarRex's Realm for me these past 11 years). Amidst a lot of technical talk, he managed to nudge me towards setting up a Twitter account, something which I did last week as explained in my previous journal entry. In truth, one of the contributing factors towards my drifting from the fandom in recent years is that many of the sites I used to frequent have either become dormant or disappeared, and I'd been feeling like all the community connections I used to have were now gone. With Twitter seemingly still in vogue among furries though, I've already had chance to become reacquainted with many folks I've not seen for a long time. And of course, I have a fresh platform to share my new work with them - and hopefully a few new followers too.Hence, The Comeback. Of sorts. At the very least, I'm hoping to become a little more active again - which shouldn't be difficult when I'm starting from a baseline of near zero over the past twelve months! And as mentioned already, I will probably start uploading more of my unfinished work and abandoned projects, given I've got plenty of them...!
I make no guarantees that this will last. Once I start my new job, I might well find I can't muster up sufficient time to draw again, or I may struggle to maintain my new Twitter presence and ultimately end up drifting away again. And I can't deny that I'm just not as strongly into the fandom as I was when I was younger. When it really comes down to it, I still don't quite know where furry truly fits into the kind of life I want long-term. But for now, that's a debate for another day.
A couple of things I should mention:
I haven't yet had opportunity to update my website due to some technical issues (hence the chats with Dinosorceror). I'm hoping to resolve this very soon, but don't be surprised if it takes a little while for new content to appear there. Rest assured it's not because I'm not bothering with my site anymore - goodness knows I spent long enough coding and designing the damn thing.
Since my re-emergence on Twitter, I've had a lot of people asking me if I'm on Telegram or Discord. The answer to both is no, but I won't rule out the possibility. As many folks might remember, I used to do a lot of IMing back in the days of MSN Messenger (bugger me, I'm starting to sound old now), but I kinda burned out with it after a while and I haven't really done it since. As for Discord, I still don't really understand what it even is. But I'll keep my options open should I see sufficient cause to sign up to further platforms. For now, I think I've got enough on my plate with the new Twitter account!
That's enough chatter from me for now anyway - there's probably more than enough verbal diarrhoea here to make up for my silence over the last year! But for now, it's good to see you all again. And hopefully you'll be seeing a bit more of me in return.
RRRex
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/29704342/
But you know what it's like these days. Things change so fast that it doesn't take long to sound like Grampa Simpson wittering on about stuff nobody's ever heard of.
I understand if you don't have time to make more content, at least for now, but I do hope you'll always be available to talk to, even if the replies are few and far between.
Have you found out what you want to do?
In all seriousness, do you have any advice for someone who's in their mid-twenties in terms of how I should live life? I am not ready to hit the big 30 yet.
In any case, I'm rooting for you RRRex.
One of the few things I can say, I guess, is just not to look at your youth as some sort of ticking timebomb. If you obsess too much about 'once I reach X age I'll be too old to try Y', you'll convince yourself it's too late to do anything, even though you'd still be practically a kid in many people's eyes!
Hope you can find something that suits you anyway. And thanks!
dude, I fucking feel you on this. I'm 32, and I'm still nowhere near achieving my goals -.- but I'm hoping to change that next year!
I'm so glad to see you're back, and that you're doing better! <33
sometimes I do get discouraged, tho. I see some people around my age, or even younger than me living their dream. But also, at the same time, people tell me "you're young, you still have your whole life ahead of you. It shouldn't be a race" and that gives me a little bit of confidence
Yes, I'm planning to start uploading more unfinished/abandoned stuff.
That will be great! I look forward to it!
Regardless, it's great to see you post pictures and journals, again! You were definitely missed! <3