Woohoo, I already met someone I know from FA at the ADP panel. How cool is that?

Hey everyone who reads this! Yes you! You on the left! You, whom solely represent my entire loyal reader base! I'll be at Further Confusion in San Jose this year so If you'll be there too gimme a wave or something, we'll go out for coffee or lunch or coffee and lunch!

Hio everyone. I'm not abandoning FA but I thought you all might like to know I've also nabbed myself a weasyl account at https://www.weasyl.com/~runethered . At the moment any mature artwork will probably live here, while clean things will probably go into both places.

Anyway, give it a looksie if you like ^_^.

Did FC in San Jose. Tons of fun actually ^_^. Yay first con ever.

So I'm in the bay area in california and am interested in meeting people and going places! Recommendations? Interest?

I may not be done being stuck, but its time to mash down on the throttle at least.

Sometimes things go wrong and you don't know how to fix them.

Me and Derpy hanging out. Talkin bout feelings. Talkin bout love. Talkin bout movin too fast. Talkin bout movin too slow. Talkin bout the future. Talkin bout the past. Talkin bout expectations. Talkin bout now.

Said some things I that I’m unsure if I regret or not and I learned a few things.

I keep a journal. A real one. Its some Barnes and Noble off the shelf thing. No lock, just a magnetic clasp with a nice embroidery pattern on the cover. I got it as a gift in high school sometime.

There are only a few pages filled out in this journal.

One is a silly dedication, this journal is for me, not for anyone else, sorry. Page one is a lie except for the part that says hi to a very dear friend of mine. That parts true.

The second page is an entry listing all the sorts of things the journal would contain. It then proceeded to contain none of those things, but stuff thats way more important.

The third page has a few laws in it. My laws. Laws I can’t, or won’t let myself break. Sometimes I bend one, just a little. I’m only human.

The fourth page is ideal laws. There are a bunch more of these. My handwriting is so abysmal, but I can still read them. These ones I break, from time to time even though arguably they are far more important. These are the laws I sometimes repeat like mantras or prayers to the person I want to be. I read a few of them aloud today.

The fifth and final page is special. Its where I keep the things you said to me. No no, not when we first met, but when we first parted. I found them all about my apartment, when I was looking the heart that you stole from me.

I’d fallen victim to sappy stuff like this before. I still had a bandage left by a love letter from someone else, its professions of adulation and affection cutting like teeth when they changed from words to lies.

I was afraid of the notes, of what they could do to me if they turned on me, but I had such a wonderful time I decided to keep them there in the journal whenever I found one.

When I moved, the journal was put in the bottom of a box. Remember, the things at the bottom of the box are the first to be packed, the most important. Today I had to turn my home upside down to find it again. When I touched the soft fake leather between old art books and school’s honors, it was like finding a piece of myself that was locked away.

I pulled it out, and I made my short journey through the first four pages. Familiar thoughts and ideas stirring in my head. I remember when and why I wrote each thing. Then I turn to what I came for, your page.

I’m ready for anything. I’m ready for anger, I’m ready for peace, I’m ready for fond memories, for uncomfortable feelings I don’t know how to describe, or who its safe to share them with.

I read a few of the slips… I touch them. I feel a tremor. I read a few more. And a few more… each one so precious how dare I think even for a second that some of them might be false.

I read the slip of paper that makes me cry. Its not the one that says “I love you” and its not the one that says “I miss you”. Its the one that tells me to smile. I always smile when I read that one, and then the tears just come out.

We had hit a rock in smooth waters. Had some awkwardness, some things I’m not sure how to explain. Tough feelings, but important ones.

To me, real love isn’t fancy words and poetry. It isn’t about smooth moves, a pretty face, and a romantic gesture.

Real love to me is bearing your soul. Its about telling someone the truth about who you are, what you feel, and when you are at your most utterly miserable and vulnerable, and when you can’t take another second of exposure to the most wretched parts of you, the jealous parts, the hateful and uncaring parts, the parts that are disgusting, repulsive, cruel and unloving that you wish you could be rid of forever…

When they see that part of you, and they tell you to smile because they don’t want you to be sad.

When you tell me to smile because you don’t want me to be so sad when you’re not here.

Then it doesn’t matter what my expectations are. It doesn’t matter that you live in one place and I live in another. It doesn’t matter if I have to wait a year to be with you, or 5 years.

It doesn’t matter if we have rough spots because as long as you’re still there holding my hand, looking at my neurotic scared and unbelieving soul and telling me to smile and don’t be sad and that we’ll be going to wherever we are going together, than I’ll wait.

I’ll wait for when you to lean on me and rest your head on my shoulder and give me a little scratch on the back and I’ll close my eyes and feel more content than I’ve ever felt in my life.

I’ll wait here with Derpy and with my journal, smiling and crying at the same time because I love you, and I can barely wait till I see you again.

My GF is in another hemisphere again :T *shoves cookie dough into his muzzle

They can really make you mad. Other things just make you swear and curse. When you're chewing on life's gristle, don't frown, give a whistle! And this'll help things turn out for the best~

You don't have to always look at the bright side of life, just remember its there waiting for you.

I don't usually write journals. Also I tend not to read them.

Tonight is just one of those nights where your brain needs to settle a moment and work things out in reality instead of fantasy.

Usually when I set my head down to sleep I have a mental activity that I enjoy when I'm not quite ready to actually nod off. This activity tends to involve picturing a few of my characters in a drama packed scenario and seeings how they all play together. Its something I love to do. Something I feel I'm really really good at. Sometimes it all takes place in the world from which the characters are intended to be, but often I enjoy injecting my assortment of players into whatever other universe has been occupying my thoughts. This can be anything from a roleplay I'm engaged in, to a tv show.

Guilty secret time -> Some of my old standby universes for character injection are DBZ related. Its hard to get away from your roots and that show is firmly entrenched there for better or worse.

Its something I do personally in my own head. It's not something I'd ever inflict on the world in art or writing or RP primarily because I recognize it'd be a frankly terrible concept. I don't like the idea of mary-sues (hardly anybody does if they recognize it), and though I don't consider any of my characters to be me (more on this later too) the concept is so blatantly unavoidable as to make it unthinkable to share.

I was accused once of power tripping in RPs. Not so much that I would cheat whatever rules or concepts in place and make myself overly powerful, but that I was afraid to play a character who wasn't special because of some important power. I'll make no secret out of striving to hit a pleasant chord between unique but plausible characters... and admittedly sometimes more unique than plausible. I try to be mindful of the other players, their characters, and the world to make someone who fits in and stands out all at once.

When I'm playing my little mind game just before going to sleep though? I've got nobody to please but myself. Red is secretly an abandoned wish granting dragon from DBZ? Done it... and had a blast. Another character's mind was the model behind Gundam Wing's Zero System? Why not! Most recently I've even had fun injecting Red into the new Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtle's world as a western martial artist mutant (where curiously he fits a bit better than in most other places!).

I share this to make my point. These inner fantasies, as fun and enjoyable as they are to me, are disgusting mental debauchery. Its offensive to good taste and mature sensibilities which I like to subscribe myself to.

Tonight my mind, instead of faffing about in this mental playground, was drawn to the idea of why I respect 'good taste' and 'mature sensibilities' when its perfectly obvious that when left to my own devices I turn into a 10 year old kid playing with action figures without much concept more complex than 'I am the strongest thing there ever was. Prepare to get your butts kicked'.

Am I secretly pretending to be someone else? Worse, am I POORLY pretending to be someone else such that everyone else can see through my facade but me.

Something that I respect in the furry community, and in fact something I am deeply jealous of, is people's ability to BE their fursonas. While I don't really respect people who have disconnected themselves from reality (those who believe that, their true souls/forms are those of animals). Whether they are accurate to their real life/offline/human selves or not, when you engage with them online in that furry context... they ARE who they are. There is no line between roleplay and who they are online. There is no exhibited shame in their own actions and therefore they are happy.

That is something I can't do. I play at it sometimes, pretending that Red my fursona and that its easy as pie and completely natural, but any time I find myself actually making a conscious decision: "Today, in this chatroom, I am me... and I am also a dragon" I end up not being me almost instantly, and then looking back upon my true self and not liking what I see.

I don't have the world's most fantastic self esteem. I pride myself in generally being a happier person than many of the people I know (it is through such a mechanic that I can offer to help my friends emotionally when they need such help), but a lot of that can be put to favorable environmental circumstances. I'm not living hand to mouth, I have a job, people who love me, I'm not dying right away etc.

Its hard to state the following without sounding immensely self serving so I hope you can forgive me. I care about what other people think about me. I care a LOT. Not necessarily in some vain way, oh they think I'm fat, oh they don't like my hair or my clothes or my life decisions (though of course I do care about those things and I think most people do at varying levels). What i care about is if people like me. If they like to be in my company. If they find me funny, or honest, or reasonable, or useful. In short, I like being friends.

As a platitude its pretty lame I'll admit. Friends are awesome, nuff said. What sets me into a rough state though is when, despite my best efforts, I can't make friends with someone I want to be friends with.

I like to be friends with people who excel in things. Be it art, or music, or science, or writing, or physical prowess, or roleplaying, or model airplane flying, or non-linear (from my perspective) thinking, or whatever. people who are good at what they do earn a pretty high base level of respect from me. I tend not to aim for sort of hero-worshiping stalkership. I don't get in a tizzy because Will Wheaton isn't my friend despite the fact that he's a totally awesome dude and I respect the stuff he does.

I don't know if its a common thing for people... or if its even fair, good, or correct... but I tend to use my friendships a bit as a personal yardstick for how I'm doing. I know that sounds a bit selfish and sociopathic and that maybe I'm over-thinking it, but I'll explain my logic: "I like these people. Thereby if they like me, their liking me is justification for feeling good about myself as I have earned the respect of those I respect." or shortened "Having the respect of those I respect is awesome and makes me feel good,"

Its partially because I value the opinions of others so highly that I have a personal montra of "Moderation in all things." I try hard not to lean into extreme viewpoints. Even if I feel strongly about a topic, I'll try to soften my words so as to make them less offensive to people who don't share my feelings. (ex. of unsoftened language in prev. sentence: "When I feel strongly about a topic I always soften my words so people don't get offended") Its nearly impossible to share ideas with someone whose already offended so it works out nicely anyway.

There is a less nice side about the montra though. I don't think I get out of my shell and get in people's faces very often (even my own) which is something I both respect and dislike when others do. Sometimes the feeling manifests as cowardice. Sometimes its restraint. More often than not it manifests as serially apologetic and self-demeaning and thats the thing thats been keeping me up tonight instead of totally awesome Red vs. Michelangelo banter.

I'm worried about offending people... appearing annoying to those who I wish to talk to but then later perceive as not wanting to talk to me (a particular problem when I start apologizing about being annoying which undoubtedly is annoying in itself).

Its an insecurity. I know it is because I can look at the clock and see that its 3:40 and I should be asleep. Peeving a stranger is often upsetting to me. Accidentally peeving a person whom I'd like to know better is painful. Accidentally peeving off an established friend is nearly crippling.

It's compounded again by the fact that I perceive that others find my often apologetic nature to either be insincere or just additionally annoying because then I'm left with... well no recourse. I can't say I'm sorry for being sorry without making the situation worse now can I?

I don't want the point of this journal to be passing judgement on my friends, current and future. I love all of you. If the tone of this comes off all weird and psychopathic and selfish, like I'm only friends or want to be friends with you because of XYZ, thats not it. It may have been what first made you interesting to me, but of every person I've ever called my friend know that I admire each of them on many levels and you as well.
((Hey look that was an apology/softening wasn't it! check me out while I self analyze my self analysis))

The correct thing to do would be to drop it and either let time heal the wound with the friend, or shrug my shoulders and say, maybe this new person wasn't worth being friends with anyway, or I'll try again later. It's hard for me to do that however as I have the greater concern that my self perception may be vastly different than the perception other have of me.

After all, if you feel pretty good about yourself, thinking your decently witty, not completely ugly, honest, good at what you do and whatnot, and then somebody you respect drops a mirror infront of you by telling you what they think of you... and you don't like the picture... its not just that you're not witty... its that you didn't even KNOW. It's not just that you aren't being nice... its that you thought were TRYING to be and had failed.

I spend a lot of effort trying to be someone who i think the people I like will like (and as previously mentioned I don't always make it). I'm a bit jealous of people who 'are themselves' and are the sort of people who don't care what others think.

Of course you might say "Just be yourself then! The people who gravitate towards you will respect you for who you are!". But that kind of misses the point. This is who I am. I am the kind of person who values friendships and worries over people liking him, even acquaintances and strangers. Especially if they are the kind of person I'd like to know better.

Back to good taste vs. childhood male power fantasy and the whole impossible fursona thing...

It used to be that I thought I couldn't/wouldn't manage a fursona because I'd seen and been burned by people crossing the RP line too many times. For those unfamiliar with this concept... when I RP... I'm playing a character, not myself. That means that character can experience a whole range of emotions in a tidy little sandbox while my own person is free to empathize with the character or not depending on my mood. In an ideal world, the other people in the RP are playing in a sandbox too. Not playing themselves, merely characters whose feelings and characteristics are different from themselves. Things are not always like that however. People like to RP themselves (often glorified, sexualized, suped up versions, but themselves never the less) and this can lead to problems when someone who is playing themselves plays with someone who's using the sandbox... particularly when characters fall in love or get into fights (both verbal and physical). That leads at least one person to being angry or emotionally attached to someone else who is oblivious to the real world emotions that are brewing. That leads to awkward conversations and apologizing at best, and broken hearts and broken friendships at it's worst.

To protect myself from such scenarios, whenever things start heating up emotionally in an RP... I make it VERY VERY clear that these are characters and don't represent my personal feelings, and if they can't cope with that it's time to talk about it and work it out.

I've come to realize after a few experiments, I don't think that blurring the RP line is the reason, or that it is the only reason why I don't have a fursona. Rather I think it is more to do with self reflection.

All fursonas are idealizations on some level. For some reason, we all think its cool to anthropomorphize that sort of being the basis of the entire fandom. Even if its not extremely idealized and you are every bit as fat or thin, as beautiful or ugly, as talented or talentless as your fursona, the furry version still has been anthropomorphized and presumably you didn't do it because you felt you needed to represent yourself WORSE but rather BETTER.

To me, Red who is my oldest and most dear character and most suited for the job doesn't work out as my fursona. He was initially designed by me to be everything I wanted to be. He was specifically designed to be likable to anyone he set his mind to (sound vaguely familiar?). Charming, light hearted with a rough past. Not too intellectual, but wise. Flawlessly flawed in his adherence to honor and virtue. He was and sometimes still is Mr. Miyagi wearing a clown nose in a dragon fursuit. He's a great example of the product of an immature character design too, full of obvious tropes.

Over the years he's changed and split into many forms. There is Red the lovable prankster and Red the stoic hero and Red in this world and in that world with that backstory and blah blah blah. One of his best features was that with just a little manipulation, I could stuff him into almost any story and predefined world (even ones that in no way featured anthropomorphic dragons). Red picked up the trait of being a nomad between worlds (part of his backstory that exists to this day).

To consider him like an imaginary friend though, separated from his canonical backstory, Red contains and represents an idealization of my own personal values and platitudes. He sticks to them when I can't. Honesty, passion, love of life, dedication to friends. His resolve in his values in my mind is crucial to his definition as much as his tail or wings are.

I'm not Red. Red is an impossible goal that I want to strive for especially if it means I'll never make it (because if I can make it then the bar wasn't set high enough). If I use him as a fursona, I feel like I lose who I really am in terms of values. The apologetic moderation in all things human being behind the characters. By putting on a dragon mask, I stop acting like me and become someone superior.

Thats great in some ways. Back when Red was literally only a few days old, a real life friend of mine asked me why I wasn't more like him in real life. It was a huge moment for me personally, looking back. I made a conscious effort to bring a little of him into me from then on. If I do too much though, and I start wearing the Red mask when I'm supposed to be being myself I start running into ugly comparisons where Red's values that work in his fantasy world and my values that have to apply to reality conflict.

Red basically gets a chance to hold up the mirror and comment about me, and sometimes its not what I want to hear. Its a way of self reflection.

So I'm a little jealous of people who don't have this weird existential problem and can just BE who they are. Jealous (and not proud of the jealousy), but happy for them.

So it comes down to both my opinion of myself and the opinions of others about myself. People loved Red. I'd say they love him now but he's been sort of collecting dust lately as far as his public appearances go. But when people loved Red, it just sort of reminded me about how I wasn't him and really never could be and thats a bit damaging on the ego.

So, for fursona Red we just do the hybrid... give me the tail and scales and all that, leave off the value system... but thats not me. I don't have those things (wishing for them sometimes might be a different matter but I digress). So sometimes I feel a bit dragonish and play at having those things in a chat (and sometimes privately by myself). And if people like to imagine me as a dragon, well that brings warm fuzzies (scaleys?) into my heart for some reason... I can't explain why it does... so if you want to do that I encourage it ^_^. But I don't think of myself as a dragon, not really. I have to focus on me as a human, a guy with a job and a life and bills to pay. A guy with loved and loving friends, a loved and loving family, and a loved and loving girlfriend, so I guess its not that bad, even if sometimes I think I'm screwing it all up without realizing or intending it.

Now to post this or not... eh... fuck it.

So, its not the first time I've ever paid for art to be drawn. However in the past I've only ever requested commission work to be done by people I was already good friends with. My own experience with the sort of freelance working community in web development has always left me afraid to be on the side of the director instead of the producer in a professional arrangement.

I can say, though, that I'm extremely pleased with how this adventure came out. Working with Noben wasn't as difficult as I feared it might be (or difficult at all for that matter)

So a very good friend of mine  e5p1o is doing some free art requests to get her name out. I figured I'd do my part! And, you know... get some kickass free art out of it! *shameless*

Details about the event can be found at http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3401174/ and anyone can participate! You just gotta spread the word!

So its been more than a year since the last update, but don't think that Code True has been forgotten. Since then I've commissioned the lovely  rooty-the-hazard to begin the art, and boy has she ever delivered! Anyway there is not yet a FA presence of Code True. There is one coming, but until that time, you can check it out at http://codetrue.deviantart.com/ .

Thanks to  [txin] e5p1o and of course my very lovely  rooty-the-hazard for helping me out.

Ok so I don't do web journals very much. I can't even keep a decent blog going. I think it comes from the fact that while I enjoy talking about myself, and writing. I don't like writing about myself. Don't ask me to explain it!

Anyway I thought I'd throw something up here for those of you interested enough to give me a follow to let you know I'm working on a web comic with a friend  sinichi.

That aside, I've been what I like to call a role play dry spell for a while. Part of it has to do with a couple of my most excellent RP buddies realizing that real life was killing them so they should focus on that for a while. While I wish them all the best of luck and they have my sympathy for being so busy, it has left me somewhat up a creek creatively.

Happily though, not too long ago I reached out and made a new connection with a few new people and, while real life is desperately trying to kill them too, they saw fit to bless me with a few moments of gold quality grade A RP.

As a person, I really try to think of myself as open minded and accepting, but as far as a role play is concerned I'm a complete snob. Not so much about literacy and details (though they are certainly icing on the cake), but for creativity. Real imagination! New ideas!

Whats better than being influenced by fresh thinking? Returning the favor! I think that's why I'm so pleased to be working on this new comic idea with  sinichi just for the fun of it.