I know that it's probably weird that I have never played any of the Pokémon games -- I seldom play JRPGs myself much -- but I'm still interested with the Pokémon lore and setting, as well as its potential to be a template for fans to write stories with. To be fair, people come-up with their own lore and/or headcanon all the time, which may or may not be compatible with the official Pokémon canon. And that's the beauty with headcanons: we get to come-up with our own explanations of how and why the official canons are the way they are. (Until a new game get released, which could invalidate that headcanon -- that's what retcons are for.) Please note that this only my kind of headcanon for the Pokémon series, which may or may not contradict with the established lore.

To be fair, not even the Pokémon canon is consistent across franchises. To date, there are several "official" Pokémon canon that contradict each other: the Pokémon games, the anime TV and movie series, the Mystery Dungeon series, some fringe Pokémon manga that got released now and then, the Detective Pikachu series and its live-action adaptation; and so on. Out of all of these, the Mystery Dungeon series appears to be the most popular of all, especially within the furry fandom, largely because it's the one Pokémon setting that's devoid of humans (not including those who were originally humans, like the main character of each game). So the Mystery Dungeon continuity is the one that people make the most headcanons out of.

In this headcanon of mine, Pokémon can be categorized between two groups, based on how they were born into the Pokémon world: the egg-hatched, and former humans.

The egg-hatched, as the name suggests, are Pokémon born from an egg. They're the most common type. Pokémon born this way are always the pre-evolved form of the mother that laid the egg.

By contrast, former humans are Pokémon who were once humans in their previous life. Former humans are rarer; they're rarely encountered, so much that many Pokémon think of their existence as a legend. Unlike the egg-hatched, former humans were not born the same way: they would suddenly appear into the world out of thin air, typically after a bright light, and it's seemingly random. With the exception of the Legendaries, they can also be of any Pokémon species, including which specific evolution, typically based on their personality and desires in their human life. Circumstances of how it happened varies: maybe the human died, and they found themselves waking-up reincarnated into a Pokémon. (The majority of Ghost-type former-human Pokémon are of that variety.) Or maybe they got cursed into becoming a Pokémon themselves. Former humans tend to retain some or all memories of their previous life -- the most prevalent is the Yamasks, which explains why the majority of Yamasks have vivid memories of their human life. In fact, in my headcanon, all Yamasks are former humans, due to their official Pokédex entry stating that Yamasks were indeed humans in their prior life.

Former humans can be distinguished from the egg-hatched in a number of ways. For one thing, only a human can evoke the power of a Mega Stone, the stone required for Mega Evolution -- this power also extends to that of former-human Pokémon, who can transform themselves into their Mega Evolution form at will with the Mega Stone in their possession. In addition, former humans are "not used" to their Pokémon bodies that they are now trapped in -- they can be seen fumbling around, having an unusual fascination for their own bodies (especially the ears and tail), or attempting to try to walk on their hind legs for Pokémon who cannot normally walk on hind legs. They would need training to learn how to properly deal with and control their Pokémon bodies and the powers that come with it. (That doesn't happen with egg-hatched Pokémon, as having full control over their bodies comes naturally for them.) If they can be frequently seen playing around with their own Pokémon body parts, in near-obsessive frequencies not normal for a typical Pokémon, chances are high that they could be former humans. Some, especially those with vivid memories of their former human life, may also repeatedly insist that they're actually humans.

Why am I presenting all this? Well, it's because I've been thinking about coming-up with a backstory for my Lopunny Pokésona. He began appearing in the world as a Buneary confused and disoriented; some several Pokémon discovered him collapsed near their doorstep, so they nursed him back to health, and they became friends afterwards. (Canonically, these would be my friends' respective Pokésonas.) Several adventures later, and he would inevitably evolve into a Lopunny... and now, he finds himself having to drag around these giant heavy pair of floppy ears attached to his head that seemed more trouble than they worth. Being a former-human Pokémon, even the mere touch of those ears is an overwhelming feeling for him. It took him a while to get used to his evolved form, and even then, getting his ears touched still leaves him giddy -- for that reason, he only allows his most trusted friends to touch his ears as they please. Admittedly, that latter aspect was lifted directly from my usual critter fursona, since my Lopunny Pokésona was also supposed to just be my critter fursona if he's a Lopunny.

So yeah, I tend to like coming-up with my own headcanons, too. However, I also wanted my headcanons to be respectful to the original lore of the worlds I'm basing them from. And it's admittedly one huge excuse to come-up with a backstory for my Lopunny Pokésona, if he ever shows-up in any stories that I could write in the future.

I've been wanting to type this journal entry for a while now, really. The truth is, I'm actually too afraid to write it out, because I don't want people to see me the wrong way... I've been dealing with depression for a while now, due to multiple world events and such, as well as highly personal events in my life that I'd rather not talk about.

I'm still recovering from the PTSD that involved my computer being hacked and such. Believe it or not, that's actually tame compared to what I later found out about what Twitter had turned into, due to a very unfortunate event that happened merely a week before my computer hack, and the aftermath of it. Yes, I agree that what happened in Gaza was indeed horrific, and I'd rather not describe the atrocities in full detail. I fully understand why everyone is angry... Unfortunately, it also made it difficult for me to browse Twitter as normal as before, especially because I typically like to browse Twitter in order to look for cute furry pics, but all I'm seeing were tweets and retweets pertaining to this horrific violation of human rights, by the very people I've been following. And then the muskrat decided that it'll be a great idea to hide everyone's Likes, which only further hampered my ability to search for more cute furry pics, because I tended to heavily rely on people's Likes section to look for said pics.

Anyway, if you know me, I'd rather not want to discuss about anything politics-related. See, that's why I'd rather not put watermelons in my display name: I'd rather want to keep my socials -- Twitter, Bluesky, etc. -- as far away from politics as much as possible. People are now being targeted for simply having watermelons in their display names, and I'd rather want to avoid that. I also understand how much everyone is upset with the recent US elections and such... Yes, it sucks, but I'm not an American, so there's nothing I can do about that. Again, I just want to keep my socials free from anything political, and only retweet about cute and interesting stuff that I enjoy, like Pokémon fanart.

As usual, I'll always keep telling myself that next year should hopefully be better. Maybe that won't happen -- maybe 2025 will only be just as bad, if not worse -- but I'd rather want to keep having positive thoughts, no matter what. And it's important to always have positive thoughts. Since I'm a Twitch streamer now, having negative thoughts will only be detrimental to my ability to stream and entertain my audience.

Anyway, here's my new year's resolution, too: post more pics, finish more commissions, upload more uplifting trance music tracks of mine, do more of my Twitch streams, etc.. As well as being that cute little fluffy critter that I've always been. Hope to see you again soon.

Well, after taking a rest after all that vacation, I can finally write down this journal entry. Anyway, like I've said, it's been a while since my parents and I actually went out for a vacation, but after all that excitement, I'm finally glad to have returned back home. Now I'll just need to make-up all those days I've missed since I was away. @_@

As mentioned before, my parents and I went to Taiping, Perak. (aka. My birthplace.) My parents loved Taiping. They used to visit this restaurant because they were selling chicken pies that my mother loved. Well, on the first day of arriving at Taiping, we headed towards that very restaurant, which is still open, even after all these years. However, they no longer sell pies anymore; the original owner had died a long time ago, and currently, his descendants are keeping the restaurant afloat. We had a nice fish filet for our lunch.

After that, we went to a hotel, and booked ourselves a room there. There's a very specific reason why we picked that hotel: it's because my parents' friend's wedding takes place within this hotel's ballroom, to be held the very next day. While the room service had been rather nice, I admit that I don't like their beds. >_o;; The pillows were the less soft kinds -- I ended-up waking up the next day with painful sensations at the back of my head and neck. I wished that they would instead use the very soft pillows that other hotels were using. But eh, that's just my nitpick.

So yeah, the next day arrives, and my parents and I finally attended the wedding in question -- the very reason why we went to Taiping in the first place. Had fun there; mostly just eat, eat, and eat some more, and basically having a good time. At least the foods were quite delicious.

After that, my parents and I went out to drive around Taiping for a bit... specifically, to visit our old family home. As a baby, this was my very first home. The home -- a small single-storey bungalow with a design unique from other houses -- all houses in this neighborhood do not share the same design with each other -- is currently unoccupied, and with nobody to maintain it, it's in a state of disrepair. x_o Though, someone did occasionally trim the grass around the house every now and then. To be fair, the state of disrepair was not as bad as the other abandoned houses around the neighborhood: there's one giant apartment that had clearly been completely abandoned for a long time, so all manner of plants had been growing inside it. Some of the other abandoned houses even had chunks of their roofs missing. Anyway, while my parents had deep nostalgia for this old home, I... honestly, I don't feel anything. =/ Mostly because, just as I barely turned one year old, my family moved out to another home then.

Next day after that was rather uneventful. We've had our final breakfast there, then we've checked out and made our way back home.

So yeah. Currently feeling tired from all that vacation, so it's probably best that I take a break from streaming on Twitch for a bit. But I'm glad to be back home. =3 Now, I'll just need to make-up for the days I've been away from my computer. I'll try and see if I can draw and post another picture soon, too.

This was already posted in my Discord server, but it's time that I should post it here, too. Tomorrow, my parents and I will be away from home, to stay at Taiping, Perak (aka. my birthplace), for around two nights. This will be the first time since our trip to Japan in 2018, when we're actually staying in a hotel for once. (It's been too long since I get to lie down on one of those hotel beds, as well as eat those delicious hotel buffet for breakfast.)

There's a good reason why: my family got invited to a friend's wedding party in Taiping. And since it was a close friend of my parents', they couldn't just turn down the offer. On the plus side, at least we'd get to have a proper vacation for once. I should be back home this Sunday afternoon or evening.

Hope to see you again soon! ^_^

I remember when, as a kid, I used to hold a pencil a lot. Give me a pencil, and I would come-up with the most ridiculous stuff that only the hyper imagination of my child self could muster then. It's how my artistic abilities developed over the years. Pencils are a nice tool for budding artists to master their craft with. They have an advantage over pens and brushes: the ability to erase mistakes. This property also makes them perfect for professional artists to plan out the layout and composition of their paintings beforehand. Some artists even produce entire artworks via the pencil alone.

These days, I hardly hold the pencil as frequently as I used to, mostly because I draw exclusively digitally now. Still, never underestimate the power of the Pencil tool in a given art program like Clip Studio Paint. While you'll never see it in the final completed artwork, the Pencil tool is still a very invaluable tool for artists to ensure that all the layout and character proportions will always be correct. The Pencil tool also has other bigger advantages compared to the traditional physical pencil: you can drag, resize and rotate parts of the sketch drawn via the Pencil tool, which helps to really further refine the layout and composition more.

Why am I talking about this? Well, it's because, earlier, I saw a post on Twitter (still not calling it "X") by an AI bro, who claimed that "pencil" is a slur now. They asked people to hashtag-StopAIPhobia, and encouraged people to hashtag-BreakThePencil.

As an artist, this did, in fact, affect me in an emotional level. The pencil is one of the most important inventions known to man. And now, these AI bros started asking us to destroy our pencils? How deep into madness that this world has descended into? We've already had to deal with countless deluge of AI-generated images masquerading as "art" flooding the virtual space as of late, and the rise of AI-generated videos is also a worrying prospect as it could also be used to falsify video evidence, too.

Yes, in the past, I used to claim that AI-generated images can be a nice tool for artists with severe art block to generate new ideas for them to draw with. Well, that was back when AI image generation was in its infancy, when we used to point and laugh at the hilariously bad output that these tools used to be able to generate at best. I've now since taken back those claims, because the output has gotten so good that people are now using the actual image output itself as the final art. That's already crossing the line for me, and the point where I changed my mind completely on my original statement.

So please, if you have any pencils lying around your house, protect them. Remember well on how they used to grow and nurture your artistic capabilities. If you have spent the lead of your pencil, buy a new one, and protect that, too. I can't believe how something that we used to take for granted is now something that we must now start protecting.

At the time of writing, I finally got my Discord account back. I've told everything to all my affected friends and deleted the offending link. One friend of mine blocked me, though... Can't blame them; I understand the need to protect yourself from an obvious hacker. I managed to explain everything on Twitter/X; still waiting for their respond back.

Upon finally getting my account back, I've wasted no time doing a full screenshot of our conversation. This should explain what was going on. Because I had not seen this friend for a year, I was excited, and they seemed to really support my streaming endeavors when I mentioned to them that I'm a streamer now. It didn't help matters that my friend was indeed a programmer themself, further giving the plausibility that they are who they are when they said that they've been working on a game.

However, I must also not ignore this possibility: that the hacker turned out to be my friend all along. In which case, I'd be very, very angry. >_< Why would they do such a thing? Do they have a vendetta against me? Plus, the timing of the hack -- just as I was about to start streaming again on Twitch -- seemed too good to be a coincidence.

Anyway, once they had my PC under control, they gloated, showing me files inside my PC, and threatening to install junk into my PC unless I cooperated. I had no idea what cooperation I should do to appease their demands, but I got a feeling that it's that classic extortion tactic, sending them money -- almost always cryptocurrency -- if I want this nightmare to end. I reacted by ripping my LAN cable off my PC, leaving it disconnected from the Internet. During that time, I managed to find the offending hacker program, and killed the process. Then I backed up EVERYTHING.

This unfazed the hacker. They might've lost my PC, but... they still have my Discord account. For not cooperating, they did a mass post to that Itch.io link to everyone in my contact -- all dozens of them. When I finally got my account back, I had to delete EVERY SINGLE ONE of those posts with that offending link.

Link to all the screenshots: https://sta.sh/215fifzvp2qv

Because that hacker program already caused a mess within my computer's systems, making it an absolute hassle to poke through the Registry, there can be only one course of action: do a complete reinstall of the system. A completely clean slate. I didn't even care anymore: I just want my computer back. =_= This morning, my parents and I took our computer to the computer shop, to have it assessed, backing up the last of the files we could -- thank goodness it wasn't a full-on ransomware attack, though it was trying to be one -- and then completely reinstall the OS all over again. I'm still setting everything up as we speak; I still haven't reinstalled OBS again yet, which I'm hoping to do if I want to start streaming on Twitch again.

I might have to recreate my Discord server once more. That old server of mine was gone -- it was necessary to delete that server, because Discord won't let me disable my account, unless I revoke myself ownership of that server, or just straight-up delete it. It didn't matter, anyway... That hacker wiped that server clean, so all sweet memories within that server was gone. This is gonna be a slow process developing my server once more, but this will also give me the opportunity to improve the server a bit, like for example, announcements and stream announcements will be combined to just one channel now: "Announcements and Streams".

Anyway, it's good to be back. I'm still trying to get my bearings back, and I'm not sure if I can stream again in this state that I'm in. x_x I'm still shaken-up by the entire experience, and there's no telling if the hacker would try to hack me again... God, I'm paranoid now. x_x I do appreciate all of you guys' support.

It really does seem like I was caught-up by this malware attack that's been going about on Discord. Please be careful, and don't let this doesn't happen to you too. DO NOT download and install any questionable files out there.

If you really want to support me, you can do so by helping me recuperate the costs of the computer repair. Become my patron on Patreon; buy me Ko-Fis; subscribe to my Twitch channel; etc... Anything to keep my mind at ease. I couldn't sleep for the entire night, and when I did sleep, I've had NIGHTMARES of what was happening. I kept praying that this will never happen again. I love you all. Thank you for all the support that you've given to me for years.

At the time of writing this, I have disabled my Discord account. The hacker impersonated as one of my friends. They invited me to test this multiplayer game they allegedly been working on. And I fell for it. Before I knew it, the "installer" did some mumbo-jumbo with my computer's system files and basically have full access to my computer. I immediately ripped my computer's LAN cable. Even as we speak, I'm still doing a full backup to all my files.

Unfortunately, even my Discord account got compromised. As a result, I had no choice but to disable it. Because I have 2FA, I don't think that the hacker could do anything about me disabling it. They tried to kick me out from Discord by logging me out. Nice try: I managed to do a password recovery, then forced myself back in to immediately disable my account.

https://sta.sh/07mxnzw0h59

If you have someone you knew claiming that they're making some game or something and inviting you to test it out -- in this case, Tankaza or something -- DON'T. Do not entertain them. They're most likely a hacker.

I was supposed to be doing another Doom 3 run for my Twitch stream tonight. Now my mood is in a turmoil because of this hacker ruining my night. =_= Sorry for this news. Please, DO NOT BE LIKE ME. Question everything that got posted online. I might have to create a new Discord account because of this hack, unless I could somehow report it as compromised. Luckily, I have an alternate Discord account for such a possibility.

I hate having to announce this, but considering with how so many sites are dying now due to the perplexing decisions and mismanagement of their respective owners -- a certain muskrat was behind one such site -- I'm going to have to expand my reach moving forward.

So, this morning, after weeks of deliberation, I finally created an Itaku account. Hope to see you there:
https://itaku.ee/profile/marwan

Also, I'm seriously thinking about posting all my future adult art over at my Inkbunny page:
https://inkbunny.net/Marwan

I'll still continue posting stuff on FA, but with all these new rules and regulations, and considering my kemono art style, I just don't feel safe about posting any more of my adult pics here anymore. Everything I'll post from here on will be SFW.

Well, FA has done it again. This new internal policy update thing worries me, really, and even with the appended clarification, it still feels stupidly vague. I know that everyone else are already expressing a similar sentiment, too, but I suppose I should express mine, too.

If you know me, I don't do cub art. I don't support cub art myself. I've worked hard to ensure that all of the characters depicted in my own adult art are adults. My works belong to the "kemono" subgenre of furry art, hence why my characters look the way they are. I've worked hard to play by the rules. Guess that it doesn't matter now, based solely on the proportions of my characters.

If this policy comes to pass this start of June, and people get banned for even drawing chibi-proportioned adult characters in adult situations, then I hate to say this, but my time of uploading stuff on FA will be over. As a backup, I do have an Inkbunny account, which I had not used much for years, but if it comes to this, then I'll start moving my stuff to Inkbunny and use that site more frequently from then on.

Yesterday, I finally managed to convince my parents to allow me to go to the cinemas once more, so I can watch the Super Mario Bros Movie. That marked the first time in 3 years since I get to step into a cinema hall, since the start of the pandemic -- I had to assure my parents that I'm following every single quarantine and social distancing protocols ever. The following are solely my own thoughts and impressions after watching the movie, and there will be no spoilers throughout.

Now, part of the reason why I wanted to watch this movie is because so many people that I followed, including some of my friends, have watched it, and they're recommending me to watch it. (Admittedly, I was also just as hyped for this movie as they did, back when the first teaser trailers were released.) So I did, and I'm happy to say that, yes, I enjoyed this movie a great deal, far more than that infamous first Super Mario Bros movie attempt, back in 1993.

Here's the thing: I don't think that the criticisms and the very low scores by the critics are unwarranted. Yes, the storyline is corny and predictable. Yes, the movie's pacing is too fast. Though, does it even matter? Personally, I believe that this massive dissonance between fans and critics hinges from the fact that fans wanted to enjoy with what they're already familiar with: in this case, the Super Mario Bros IP and every single references to all the games that this movie attempted to cram in. While critics are more leaning towards the first-time viewer experience: someone who is a complete outsider and are completely unfamiliar with the Super Mario Bros franchise, and therefore, they will not get all the references presented in the movie, and thus getting a very different movie experience compared to the fans.

In other words, this movie was not made with non-Mario fans in mind. Every single reference, down to even the movie's soundtrack, was clearly made to pander Mario fans. People who are complete strangers to the franchise will likely see all these references as seemingly random and unnecessary -- admittedly, this is what happens if you try to put in every single reference ever, with little rhyme or reason. Also, consider the movie's seemingly too fast pacing: kids are part of the demographic, too. Children tend to have lower attention span than adults, so such movies designed to cater to kids would tend to have that kind of pacing, which is something that also needs to be taken into account when criticizing the pacing of such movies.

Bottom line, if you've watched this movie, and you personally enjoyed it a great deal, then yeah; more power to you. I'm recommending all Super Mario Bros fans to watch it, but at the same time, I do not recommend non-Mario fans to watch it, as the heavy references to the game series might only be too confusing to anyone not getting these references.

LGBT rights are human rights. Trans rights are human rights. I had to say that early on, in order to make it clear on where I stand within this conflict.

Today, I had to attend one of those Friday sermon and prayers again. The imam of the day figured that it'll be an awesome idea to dare to talk about this topic: LGBT. Specifically, just how "dangerous" and "twisted" this ideology is, that it's a "syndrome", how it's against God's design, and how the imam implored these people to turn back into the "correct" path -- ie. repent and get married to the opposite sex -- lest they'd be "burning in the fiery pits of Hell".

In an instant, my otherwise normal day turned into a depressing one. All my mood was gone. I was holding back my anger. The entire 10 minutes of the sermon was spent just waiting for that damn sermon to just end, and just after the prayer was done, I stormed back to my home without second thought. Considering that it's currently Ramadan again and it's been the 2nd day of my fast on that time, that only made it even worse as I've had no way to douse my anger.

Unfortunately, it's inevitable that this sermon would happen in one way or another. Malaysia is one of the worst countries in the world when it comes to the rights of LGBT people, with it being officially made illegal in this country. While Islam did evolve over the years to accommodate the inevitable changing times such as the increased awareness of LGBT, many Islamic countries still hold onto that archaic form of Islam that is simply incompatible with the modern times. (Unsurprisingly, Malaysia is one of those countries.) It's possible that this came about partly since that controversy surrounding that certain wizard game... not gonna name that game here, but anyone who is aware of that controversy will know which game I'm referring to.

This wasn't the first time that I attended a sermon with such blatant bigotry, either. Around 10 years ago or so, I attended another Friday sermon, and the topic of the day was about the "evils" of homosexualism. I ended-up spending the entire sermon opening my phone and reading about homophobia. I was that cringed.

And speaking of the trans rights part, I'm now reminded of this 2009 CG animated movie produced here: Geng: Pengembaraan Bermula. Specifically, this one character: Sally. She's a trans woman... and is also one of the main villains. People kept referring to her via her dead name, "Salleh", which became her trigger throughout the movie. She's depicted in the most negative manner possible as a trans woman. Such negative depictions are unfortunately common here, as our censorship board will only allow LGBT characters to be shown in the cinemas, if they are depicted negatively, such as being villains in this case.

Throughout my years of using the Internet and being part of the furry fandom, I've met so much wonderful people within the LGBT community, specifically and especially those who are also part of the furry fandom. I've made friends with them. These people are wonderful to talk with, and I was fortunate enough to have met them. They're a far cry from all the negative descriptions of them that I was taught about when I was young at school. I understood their plight, and I felt guilty for not being able to show my support enough. Which is why such anti-LGBT discussions left me depressed. I fully believe that you don't choose to be part of the LGBT group: that's something based on the circumstances of your birth. This is unlike the furry fandom, in which you can join or leave the fandom as you see fit... Many of us joined because we felt like we couldn't fit well in the normal society.

Around 1-2 years ago, my mind was blown when I found out about AI-generated art for the first time. Back then, AI-generated art were still at their infancy, so such art generated from AI looked like the stuff of nightmares. It was hilarious. I remember laughing together with my friends as we looked at all the abomination we've generated from DALL-E 2 Mini (now renamed to "Craiyon"). I seriously thought -- and I still thought so today -- that these AI art generators can be a very useful tool as "idea generators": basically, the AI generates a picture, and you are supposed to use this picture as reference for your next big art project. It would've been very useful in aiding artists who are suffering from a severe case of art block.

What I had not anticipated was just how ridiculously good these AI art generators have gotten now. Too good, in fact, to the point that people are now using the final generated output as the completed picture itself, with little to no modifications whatsoever. And that's a scary prospect for artists, really.

I'm sure that many of you have heard the news, such as a guy who created an entire children's book within a few hours and selling it, and another guy whose AI-generated art won an art competition, much to the anger of all the other participants of that competition. Of course, artists would be very angry: why wouldn't they? Art is a form of human expression, the one thing that makes us human. It's how we express ourselves to the world. And now, it's being generalized by some latent space and/or neural networks. What took weeks, if not months -- if not years, even -- to produce can now be generated from only a few mouseclicks.

And then, the Internet exploded when Netflix posted a short anime called "The Dog and the Boy". The short anime was a test case on how AI art can be used to help with the process of drawing all the backgrounds. What really got people up in arms, however, is how Netflix worded it: that this can be used in response to the shortage of background artists in the anime industry. Considering that artists and animators within the anime industry are being severely underpaid and struggling to even go by, only for their work to be underappreciated, this is a terrible prospect, and why I posted that initial reaction on Twitter.

How fast that this technology has been progressing is quite... scary, to say the least. Now, we've reached the point where entire videos can be generated as well. That part of the technology is still in its infancy, but the mere fact that it's possible now is both fascinating... and worrying, too. Combine that with how realistic real-life celebrities' voices can be replicated as well, plus existing deepfake technologies together, and we're seeing the potential for this technology to be abused in order to tarnish the reputation of key political figures, by making them say stuff that they would never say.

Advancements in technology is something to be celebrated, yes. But at the same time, it's... also something to dread with. I've had been optimistic about AI-generated art back then, because such a tech wasn't as mature then as it is now. There were safeguards in place to prevent users from generating art that they're not supposed to be generating, such as AI-generated porn of famous celebrities. But now, we got stuff like Stable Diffusion, where even that is no longer restricted anymore. More and more artists are fed-up with their art being used as training data without their consent, as we've observed with what happened to ArtStation, where artists posted nothing but variations of the "No to AI art" poster in protest to ArtStation's implementation of its own AI art generator. We've seen the same thing happened in DeviantArt, too, until DA made it so that artists will need to give consent to DA first to allow their art being used as training data (which I imagine that a massive majority of artists in DA will never). Meanwhile, sites like Fur Affinity made it clear that AI-generated art are not allowed to be posted there.

I can only hope that we're not reaching the future where everything is AI-generated. That just about anything and everything can be created via a few clicks of the mouse button. Again, art is a form of human expression, and, well... it's something that we should protect now. See, that is one of the reasons why I started doing art streams on Twitch: it's to prove that a human -- okay, more like a little green critter, but you get what I mean when I said "human" -- is drawing all that art, and not some AI passing itself off as a human. It's funny that, just a year ago, we were protesting about NFTs. And now, something even worse than NFTs started emerging.

As I was saying in my previous journal entry, my old computer's ability to connect to the Internet became affected all of a sudden. Browsing the Internet is fine, but when it came to tasks like downloading or even running a game on Steam, seemingly without any explanation, the download always failed. Other apps like Telegram and Muse Hub also got affected as well.

Well, I've sent that computer to the computer shop like I've said. As it turned out, the main culprit turned out to be my computer's antivirus software all along -- in this case, Kaspersky of all things. O_o;; Somehow, the most recent update by Kaspersky caused issues, wrecking quite a havoc with my Internet connection. Protocols like TCP got blocked by default, hence why apps that heavily rely on TCP for its communications like Telegram would fail to load properly.

The computer guy said that this is why gamers in general would always disable their antivirus software while playing games, as these antivirus software can actually negatively affect the game's performance. I don't like doing that with mine, as the threat of getting your computer affected beyond a recoverable state really left me unnerved. x_x As a test, he closed Kaspersky, and then let me try to install one of the games.

Success. The game installed without a hitch.

He then reopened Kaspersky, then allowed me to install another game. Failed: that same "No Internet connection" error shows up. Then he closed Kaspersky again. This time, the game installed successfully.

I admit, I became disappointed, because Kaspersky had been my most favorite antivirus thus far. The guy told me that Kaspersky is still a very good antivirus; just that it's also very resource-heavy. And he won't fault Kaspersky alone: sometimes, these antivirus makers would implement updates that occasionally break apps, because they would try to block or limit certain protocols "for safety reasons", without considering the consequence of doing so.

After finally finding out the root cause of my computer's Internet connectivity woes and fixing it, there's just one more thing to do: get a new gaming rig built for me. In fact, this entire journal entry was written via this new computer, after having spent the last 5 hours just to get everything hooked up and running. It has all the specs I've wanted: ultra-fast SSD, giant 24GB of RAM for me to screw around with, and an RTX card.

The only downside is that there's only one HDMI port, and three DisplayPorts. Meaning that I'm stuck with only able to use just one monitor now, which is bad when I wanted to start streaming again soon, which had been a two-display setup. @_@ (I use my HDTV in order to monitor exactly how my stream output looks like, even able to see my PNGTuber and his current facial expression... Might need to find a way to get around that.) Soon, I'll need to get an HDMI-to-DisplayPort adapter just so I can connect my HDTV to my computer at the same time, exactly like my previous setup.

I admit, this had been a roller coaster of emotions for me for the past two days. The day I found out that I could no longer install or play any games on Steam, with zero knowledge of what was causing it, it left me in a state of severe despair. x_x I felt as if the life that I knew had ended. Yesterday, I ended-up unable to sleep until early morning, because the whole time, I was prancing around, unsure with what I can do at this point, as I had just recently started becoming a streamer again and had been more serious at streaming games on Twitch. With Steam being practically my main source of games, I was left unsure about whether or not I could even do streams anymore. Sure, there's art streams, but that's besides the point.

Again, I thank you for all the support. =3 When I wrote my last journal entry, I was still in that state of despair, though feeling a little better then, after my parents had told me that they agreed to help me with my situation. Now that I have a new powerful gaming rig, I'm lending my old computer to my parents to suit their own needs -- they don't need all that extra processing power, anyway. Now, besides remaining stuck to only able to use one monitor for now, I'll need to reinstall all these apps that I need: FL Studio, OBS Studio, etc.. Not sure if I'll need to repurchase Clip Studio Paint all over again for this computer.

Recently, I turned on my computer, only to discover that something is wrong with it. I opened Steam, only to find that it couldn't download any games at all -- always that "No Internet connection" or "Manifest unavailable" errors. This also made all the games unplayable, because upon launching a game, Steam must first check and see if there are any updates available. Technically, I could go Offline Mode, but that would also mean missing out all the achievements, and my saves will be unsynchronized from the cloud saves.

At first, I thought that there was something wrong with Steam's servers, or my country's Internet being the culprit, so I changed the download location to see if that worked. It didn't, no matter which country I've set. I asked a few of my Malaysian friends to check and see if there's any problem with their respective Steam connectivity, downloading and installing games. All of them said that there's nothing wrong with their respective Steam connections: they can download and run games as normal.

Then I noticed that a few other programs that require an Internet connection to work also refused to run properly, too. Telegram Desktop always hangs and unable to load any new messages, and Muse Hub, which is bundled with the most recent release of the popular free music notation app MuseScore, also couldn't function well, preventing it from being able to update MuseScore or install any optional add-ons to MuseScore.

I started to fear that the problem might've been the computer itself, so to test my theory, I borrowed my father's laptop, installed Steam on it, signed myself in, and downloaded and installed a game and ran it. It worked with no problems whatsoever. So the problem definitely had to be within Windows itself, or there may be hardware-related problems that is preventing my computer's network adapter to function properly, specifically the TCP protocols and such. I did try to do a full reset to Windows as a last resort -- after backing up all my most important files, of course -- but then, my computer said that there's a problem with the resetting process, preventing it from being able to reset Windows.

I've told my parents about all these, and they've agreed to help. I'm deeply fortunate to have parents who are still willing to help me in times of need. In 1 hour from writing this journal entry, we will be going out to the mall bringing along this computer, in order to do two things: 1) let a computer expert to try to assess the problem of my computer, and 2) build myself another gaming rig from scratch, with the latest recommended specs if possible. All in the same day.

I hate having to beg you guys for this, but as building a new computer alone takes quite a lot of money, I'm going to need all the donations I can get. You can become my patron: https://www.patreon.com/marwangreencritter You can send me Ko-Fis: https://ko-fi.com/marwangreencritter Heck, since I'm recently an active Twitch streamer, you can even send me tips via my Streamlabs page: https://streamlabs.com/marwangreencritter/tip All the donations will be used solely to cover the cost of building a new PC. My current computer is almost 10 years old now, so it's in dire need of replacement, as all these signs that it's dying are now too much for me to ignore, and no amount of hardware upgrades can remedy it now.

Thank you.

This is perhaps a silly journal entry for me to make. These days, I don't make journal entries as much as I used to -- I've become more and more active posting my thoughts on Tesla Twitter these days. Sometimes, however, there are stuff that I'd rather not post on Twitter, anyway, and this discussion is probably way too long for me to discuss there. Certain topics are just too sensitive for me to post on Twitter. (I also chose to only post this on FA, considering just how more open-minded furries are compared to your average Joe.)

Being a Muslim sucks; it really is. x_x While you can own dogs, be prepared to get disapproving looks from fellow Muslims around you for owning one. (I've already talked in lengths about that before in another journal entry.) You can only eat "halal" foods -- animals slaughtered the Islamic way, and only the Islamic way. Everything else is considered "haram", ie. forbidden. Pigs are always considered haram no matter what, so the only way I can at least experience what eating bacon is like is with beef or turkey cooked in a similar bacon-y manner.

And then, there's drink. Just... drink. As in, when I say "drink", you know exactly what I mean.

The truth is... all my life, I had always wondered what it's like to be drunk. Like pigs, all alcoholic liquors are considered haram. To be fair, nothing stops a Muslim from taking a shot of booze if they want to. It's just that, in Muslim countries, it's considered a punishable act under Sharia law. Our local marts here were forced to place a sign in the beverages area that informs patrons that alcoholic liquors are not for sale for Muslims, with ID checks upon purchase to prove that you are not Muslim. Alcoholic liquors themselves are demonized in our Islamic teachings, being called "Satan's piss". (I'm not making that up: they literally called that.) Once, I attended a Friday prayer in which the imam discussed all manners of just how "evil" alcoholic liquors are, completely exaggerating the negative side effects (like drinking wine somehow makes you more murderous).

Anyway, it's not the pleasurable act of drinking that I was curious about. It's what comes after; ie. that mushy lightheadedness that you feel after a good drink. I already know what a good wine tastes like: after all, wine is made from grape juice, and I've eaten lots of grapes and drank grape juice sometimes; the only difference is the lack of alcoholic content.

Growing up, I had to deal with my massive feeling of envy against other, more "privileged" people, especially foreigners and non-Muslims. It's likely one of the biggest motivation of why I became a furry in the first place: I felt like I could never fit well in my own native oppressive society, so I desperately wanted to be accepted in another society without all these oppressions. In a way, the furry fandom (and uplifting trance music) became my personal escape from reality, somewhere where I can feel loved and be accepted by others.

Anyway, last night, before I made my own Minecraft Twitch stream, I was watching another furry Twitch streamer, Pukan, streaming his own Minecraft gameplay. Just for fun, he made a challenge where, every time he dies, he must take a shot of whatever booze chosen by his chat members on that given time, essentially making himself growing more drunk the more he dies in Minecraft (which is a lot). It was funny. XDDD But then, it also hits me: he's not a Muslim, therefore he was "privileged" to drink whatever liquor he wants, while actively discussing about all the good wine and saké he drank, and admitted to his chat that he was for more about getting that feeling of drunkenness than the actual taste of those beverages. The chat itself was full of discussion where each chat member talked about their favorite beer, whiskey, etc.. This unintentionally left me depressed and I left the Twitch stream soon after, because I felt like I'm in a double-standard situation, where I'm being forbidden to enjoy something that everyone else are enjoying, all because I happened to be in a religion that despises those things.

Perhaps it's rather silly of me to desire getting drunk, even though there's no real benefits at all for being drunk. Again, I had always wondered what it's like to be drunk. Then one day, I read from somewhere that being drunk simply means less oxygen in the brain, which led to all these lightheadedness feeling and unable to think properly. Alcohol stifles this flow of oxygen to the brain, hence that "drunk" condition. And then I also read that you can also get this same condition by simply staying awake for an abnormally long time. The human body can only cope up to 16 hours of wakefulness, before everything starts deteriorating, which indicates that it's time to go to sleep.

And then, I realized, there had been days when I had not gone to bed at all. I just couldn't sleep -- insomnia, maybe -- or got so distracted by either YouTube or whatever game I was playing that I ended-up spending the entire early morning still remaining awake, up to even witnessing the sunrise. Back in my university days, I had even stayed up late just to finish that damn assignment that I forgot to finish early, just to meet the deadline. And my parents will oftentimes notice that I had not been sleeping at all the previous night: I was acting woozy, my speech became slurred, I couldn't think straight, and I frequently became angry out of nowhere for even the littlest things. All the symptoms of someone who got drunk.

There's no doubt about it.

Sleep deprivation is drunkenness.

Without realizing it, I had already experienced what it's like to be drunk.

It's okay to disagree -- I've seen purists who proclaim that you are never truly drunk, because only alcohol alone can make you drunk. Let the purists believe in whatever they want. >_>;;

Anyway, it should be obvious that you should never attempt this. Staying awake for too long can wreak all kinds of havoc to your body, even leading to fatality. To remain in good health, please adopt a healthy sleep cycle. And as for you champion drinkers out there, don't drink and drive. Too much alcohol consumption is not good either -- it could damage your liver. Drink responsibly, and don't attempt those "drinking game" challenges without considering the consequences afterwards.

Right, this is something that I had been planning to write for a long time. I had not written this earlier, because I wanted to make sure that I get all the facts right to the best of my abilities. Everything that I write here will be based on what I've researched over many months, and from the help of some of my friends. I wish I could submit this earlier... I've waited way too long to post this journal entry, and it's bothered me so much that I couldn't submit this earlier. I just want this journal posted as soon as I can. I would like to thank my friends over at Twitter and Discord for helping me out with getting the facts needed to write this journal entry.

So, what is an NFT? I'm sure that, by now, many of you are aware of what it is, but in case you're not, NFT stands for "Non-Fungible Token". Basically, it's a digital receipt that is tied to a digital file, typically digital art, but it can also be anything else such as video, audio, in-game items, etc.. Essentially, a proof of ownership.

Sounds exciting, right? Well... no, not really. >_>

The way I see it, NFTs are just a way to give some sort of artificial feeling of ownership towards a file an NFT is tied with. What NFTs do not prevent is that people can still right-click and save these files as many times as they want; all these NFTs do is show proof that the people that have in possession of these NFTs are the rightful "owners" of these files. Ownership of something that can't be reproduced or duplicated can be a very powerful feeling indeed, and is one of the driving factors of why so many people are into NFTs.

To be honest, NFTs could be the future, if this technology was done right, and was implemented in a way that wouldn't be egregious. Unfortunately, it was implemented in such a painfully egregious way.

So many major companies seem to want to jump into this NFT bandwagon, much to the ire of most of the public. A lot of major AAA video game publishers like to treat NFTs like something new and revolutionary, like it's some kind of major gamechanger in the gaming industry -- for example, Ubisoft's Quartz, in which every in-game item is an NFT tied to the gamer which they can proudly show-off and optionally sell off. But the truth is that, as a concept, this is nothing new: Steam has already been using a similar system like this for years, via unique item IDs, and games that support them can utilize them in-game.

There's also the issue of plagiarism, and just how easy it is to mint someone's artwork into NFTs without their prior consent. Ever wondered why so many artists absolutely hate NFTs and wish to see this technology die off into obscurity? Well, that's the reason why. I've seen horror stories of artists who ended-up shutting down their online presence altogether, due to so many of their artworks being minted into NFTs without their permission. Sure, DeviantArt does have that DeviantArt Protect feature, but it doesn't prevent artworks from being minted into NFTs. All it does is it informs the original artist that their artworks got minted without their permission. The legal work required to issue copyright takedowns is just too much for a small indie artist to handle.

And then there's the issue that NFTs have with the environmental impact. NFTs are based on the blockchain technology, the same technology that cryptocurrencies like Ethereum are based on. And like cryptocurrencies, NFTs are "minted" from the blockchain. This minting process involves lots of computational resources, which means lots of electricity used just to mint for one NFT. More electricity means more power had to be drawn from the power plant, which in turn means more coal being burned and polluting the air just to meet the electricity demands required to power these computers. As more of the blockchain is being mined, it becomes increasingly more difficult to mine for more NFTs, therefore the computing power also had to be exponentially increased just to keep up and mint NFTs at a steady pace.

Now, I'm not trying to discourage people from NFTs. If you're an NFT fan and you own NFTs yourself, that's fine and I'm cool with that... as long as you keep your NFT interests to yourself. My hope is that now you understand why so many of us hate NFTs, and the mere mention of NFTs alone causes people's blood levels to rise. NFT is a fascinating piece of technology that has unfortunately turned into something worse, due to bad actors abusing the technology for their own selfish gains.

To close off this journal entry, here's a video by Solar Sands, whose video mostly inspired me to move along with the creation of this journal entry:

Alright, a fair warning: this is a very difficult subject for me to discuss, without it potentially coming out as offensive to certain groups of people. Again, it is not my place to offend anyone. =/ I merely want to express my opinions, in the most respectful manner that I can get.

Pride Month and Juneteenth are around the corner, and I couldn't help but feeling like wanting to discuss how media has evolved over the years, in relation to how morals have changed... and the people who are still stuck in the past, and unable to accept this change.

Nowadays, it seems that every single media in this current decade must include ALL of the following, and only positive depictions of them are allowed:
- Black characters
- Female characters in powerful, dominant leading roles
- At least ONE transgendered/non-binary/genderfluid character
- At least ONE explicitly gay/lesbian character and their relationships

To be fair, that shouldn't be a bad thing. In fact, the truth is that media had always included all of the above for decades now; the difference was that morals were different back then. Racism and discrimination were still normalized, and the LGBT movement wasn't as strong as it is now, so it used to be more normal to have these portrayed in negative light. Even today, a few countries in the world are still largely homophobic, especially Muslim-majority countries, so local media portrayals of these relationships are still exceedingly negative -- I should know; I live in one such country. =_=

With more and more media these days tried to portray all of the above in more positive light, one term got spread around like wildfire: "forced diversity". The last thing a media would want is to be accused for including forced diversity. There's no concrete definition of forced diversity that I could find -- lots of people are trying to claim that the concept does not exist at all -- and the ones who do define it appear to also be those discriminatory types, which I won't be pointing out in this journal entry. (I do not, and will not, support discrimination of any form.)

Also, villains are almost always straight, for some reason.

My guess is that, the reason why people these days make it such an issue, is because portrayals of these groups are now far more "in-your-face" than before. This can be seen with today's American children shows, which appear to be more "woke" than before, being accused for promoting certain agendas, such as gay pride and one's right for sexual identity. Due to cultural differences and the fear of potentially offending anyone, I will not be commenting on any of these in more depth. (Western culture is still very alien to me, despite being exposed to it all the time via the Internet.) All I can say is that, even with all these positive changes and more positive representations in today's media, a lot of us are still stuck in the past, back when it was traditionally more common to depict them negatively.

So yeah, that's just something I wanted to discuss. There are a few shows that I've watched that appear to fit all of these criteria; for instance, one anime series that I happen to enjoy, Carole & Tuesday. I've never watched The Owl House save for some clips here and there, but judging by fans' reaction to its cancelation, I guess that it's a positive example of a show that did it right. But then, we also have shows that did it wrong, like High Guardian Spice, which got thrashed by even the LGBT crowd, the very audience it was marketed for, for reasons that I won't be pointing here.

Last year, the Internet went into a frenzy when this trailer for some new "Pokémon" game got posted on YouTube. Except... it's not a Pokémon game. Sure, those monsters look like Pokémon, but then... wait, guns? Sweatshops? O_o What did that Wooloo do to deserve being an unwilling meatshield? And now, the Internet goes into a frenzy again when just two weeks ago, another trailer for this game got dropped as well, with more or less the same premise. This is from the same developers that brought us Craftopia, a bizarre open-world survival game where one of the things you can do is create a factory where cows get rolled via conveyor belts into a pot, where they're then cooked to death.

(Yes, I know that the Pokémon anime series does have guns in them. Though, many of the episodes that feature them are either banned or censored to have all the guns removed in the English version. Let's not talk about that one time someone pointed a revolver right at Ash's face...)

Games about catching monsters and raising them to be fierce fighters are nothing new. There's Temtem, which people have already cited as "the open-world MMORPG Pokémon game that Nintendo refused to make". And then there's Ooblets, another Pokémon clone that got infamous due to that game being revealed as an Epic Exclusive, and the developer's hard-assed stance on it, which led to his harassment. And let's not forget the Summoner player class in general in any given MMOs.

Let's talk about the game itself, or at least how much info we know thus far. The monsters in this game are called "Pals". These Pals, for all intents and purposes, serve as Pokémon in this game. I think my main problem with this game is just how blatantly too aesthetically similar the Pals are compared to Pokémon, dipping right into Fakemon territory. (By comparison, you can't mistake Digimons from Pokémon, because Digimons have their own unique aesthetic style consistent with all Digimons.)

It wasn't just the aesthetics; many of the Pals themselves already looked way too similar to that of the existing Pokémon. Like the Daytime Lycanroc, Zebstrika, Piplup, Electabuzz, the aforementioned Wooloo, possibly Gyrados, possibly Flareon, possibly Leafeon -- they look more like Nyau from PSO2 here -- etc.. The second trailer gave us Lucario, and even a Kantonian Raichu -- you can't mistake that tail. I'm surprised that Nintendo and/or The Pokémon Company haven't taken any action yet. (That, or they're just biding their time, waiting to strike just one day before release, like they did with Pokémon Uranium and AM2R...) Personally, though, I don't want to be too hard on the designers over this one: it's virtually impossible to be original now, due to just about every character design ideas have been thoroughly exhausted over the years.

What troubled me the most, really, is the premise of this game, and it's far more sinister than what the trailers implied. On the Steam page, they explicitly described that Pals can be put to work in factories against their will and be worked to death, something that edgy players can and will do. Also, illegal poaching -- via blue Pokéballs, no less -- is a thing, and even the Pals can be explicitly eaten as well. (Piplup vore OMG.) It's almost as if this game was being made as a deliberate deconstruction to the usual Pokémon formula. That video footage of a Wooloo lookalike being used as a meatshield and then coldly thrown away is practically a meme now.

Anyway, it's still too early to even give any reasonable criticisms to the game itself, because this game is not even out yet. Sure, I, like many others, might be a little harsh with this game's announcement, due to how similar it is visually to Pokémon, but until this game is out, we can't tell if the gameplay is to be praised, if ever. I mean, just years back, people also violently reacted against Genshin Impact for being too similar to Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. But, over the years, opinions on it are more positive, as despite its obviously massive BOTW inspiration, Genshin Impact managed to be its own unique thing, and any criticisms directed to it now are more towards its blatant gacha mechanics among other things, which I won't be pointing out here.

By the way, this might be a coincidence, but I also couldn't help but be bemused by the fact that the developers are called "Pocketpair". Fun fact: in Japan, the Pokémon franchise is also known by its longer name, "Pocket Monsters" -- "Pokémon" is an abbreviation of that. Pokémon is not marketed under that longer name in the West, in order to avoid confusion with the Monsters in My Pocket brand.

Yesterday, I watched this Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival 2021 livestream, and... I do have a few things to comment, specifically about some major reveals such as the playable MALE Viera, and a few other stuff.

I remember back when Vieras and Hrothgars were first introduced back in 2019. The Internet practically lost their shit, not only because Hrothgars were the first -- and only -- true "furry" playable race in FFXIV, but also because Vieras and Hrothgars were female-only and male-only, respectively.

Seeing the FFXIV community exploded into flamewars over not being able to play as a male Viera, that really makes me sad. I mean, we have more playable race options now. FFXIV still has fewer playable races than the more popular WoW, and the developers have stated that there will be no more newer playable races after that. (That means no Burmecian. =/ ) But the mere fact that there are newer playable races at all is supposed to be a blessing. We don't have to play as humans (Hyurs) all the time.

I mean, remember back in FFXIV's 1.0 days? Back then, Miqo'tes were originally female-only, too. Similarly, you can only play as male Roegadyn. It's hard to imagine how different FFXIV was back then.

The impression that I'm getting, FFXIV players in general are just being an ungrateful lot. Instead of being very happy over what we were given, the playerbase decided to do the only thing they could think of: bashing the developers and sending them death threats. All because you couldn't play as a male Viera. It got so bad that it actually made into news in several news sites.

So when Square Enix revealed playable male Vieras during the FFXIV Fan Festival presentation, the way I see it, the only reason why they finally made male Vieras playable at all is because fans had been bashing the developers and sending them death threats, even boycotting the game. "Asked so earnestly"? More like throwing insults just because fans don't get what they want.

There was a good reason why Viera was originally female-only: in the original lore of previous Final Fantasy games, the males do not show themselves out in the open. Female Vieras are pretty much the Amazons of Final Fantasy. So it made sense that, when Vieras are introduced as playable race in FFXIV, female is the only gender you could select. The male-only Hrothgars were created in order fill that void left from the fact that you couldn't play as male Vieras. It was a good compromise back then.

Introducing playable male Vieras means that, for once, Square Enix had to violate years of lore tradition within the Final Fantasy games, just to bow to player demands. That's just how I see it. >_>;; At least, this is a little better than my earlier prediction that we'd be getting a male Viera Beast Tribe of sorts, which would've been a neat idea if that happens. I mean, yeah, we do gonna get a new Beast Tribe: the Loporrits, which is another discussion entirely.

Recently, adult Pokémon artist  insomniacovrlrd got hit by a DMCA strike on Patreon, by Nintendo of America. He had been doing this adult Pokémon fanfic series called Haven, and it's especially disheartening for him to have to cancel that series altogether in its current form, by removing all Pokémon- and other Nintendo-related works in his Patreon page, to keep his Patreon page in a good standing. More info here: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/9762007/

It seems that you'll always be in danger of this happening, when much of your art output had been Nintendo's properties such as Pokémon, especially when you're making money out of them via Patreon donations. It's very possible that this is happening because not only because Nintendo were displeased with how their properties got transformed into Rule 34 fantasies -- that's pretty much inevitable, anyway, and most companies turn a blind eye over that -- but it's also possible that it's because Nintendo had just released a game that also happen to be called Haven, for the Nintendo Switch.

After consulting with a couple of friends of mine, just to stay safe, I've decided to also remove all Pokémon-related art from my own Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/marwangreencritter From this point onwards, I will not be posting any more Pokémon-related art there, as well as all other Nintendo-owned properties. I'd rather be safe than sorry. Such issues like that is one of the reasons why I don't do Rule 34 art of copyrighted properties, because I don't want to get myself into legal trouble because a big gaming company like Nintendo didn't like how we've been using their characters as part of our Rule 34 fantasies.

Yay, new trance track. =D You can thank the current world pandemic for this. >_>

Listen here: https://marwangreencritter.bandcamp...../track/setback

Edit: for some insane reason, FA decided to duplicate this journal entry twice. >_o;; Probably a bug or something. It's fixed now.

Engineer is still being tormented by an old Team Fortress 2 meme.

Been quite a while since the last time I uploaded a new SFM video. This one took me around two weeks to finish. I hope it's worth the effort.

It's been way too long since the last time I played TF2. Like, since 5 years ago. Though, glad to see that the TF2 community is still going strong as ever. Maybe someday, I want to start playing it again.

Fun fact: all secondary motions in all of my SFM videos had to be painstakingly manually animated from scratch.

Well, I should've talked about this earlier, but it seems that the Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak has gotten more rampant as ever. x_x More and more new cases kept appearing every day, and there were even deaths as well. O_o I mentioned in my Twitter that this scenario is very similar to that 2012 movie, Contagion. Sure, that movie exaggerated a few stuff -- like the death toll of millions -- because Hollywood. XD (In reality, at the time of typing this, the death toll was still within the 4-digit range.) Still, it's not a laughing matter, and that movie did correctly predict other aspects of this pandemic, like the mass panic and hysteria, like we've seen with just how lightning quick hand sanitizers went out of stock. >_o (People are also politicizing the coronavirus outbreak itself, but I won't dabble any further with that.)

Just an hour ago, Malaysia's newly-appointed prime minister, Muhyiddin, announced a nation-wide lockdown to the entire country from now until the 31st of March, in an effort to try to limit the spread of the virus as much as humanly possible. My parents and I have already imposed to ourselves our own self-imposed lockdown for over a month now, so this doesn't change much for us. Still, it sucks because this shows just how dire our situation as gotten.

It's not just that. E3 has already been confirmed to have been canceled. If the situation worsens, then Tokyo 2020 could be canceled as well. A lot of big conventions and public events got canceled as well. Better save than worry, I guess. x_o

This virus has screwed everyone over. Thankfully, this virus spread can't go on forever. Eventually, it will recede; we just don't know when. And a cure will be found, no matter how long it takes. If this is Contagion, we'd likely be in the last quarter of the movie now.

Update: Okay, more like still in the second half of the movie right now. x_x;;

Been too long since the last time I did an SFM animation. Not sure if I'll continue doing more of these.

For a while, I've been thinking about this possibility. I've been meaning to make my comic, "Di Luar Sana" ("Out There") publicly available, instead of being trapped within Patreon, where only three people in the world could access it -- those three people being my only patrons, by the way. (And also some few close friends of mine whom I regularly chat with.)

I never realized how big this comic has become. When I first worked on it, I predicted that it'll be around 20 pages only. Well, before I realized it, to date, at the time of writing this journal entry, I've finished like 48 pages now! O_o Now I'm hoping that it won't go over 60. (This comic is meant to be a short comic... >_>;; )

This is my biggest comic project to date, a massive passion project of mine in the making since 2017, though the original idea for this comic already existed since 2005 or something. And the longer I worked on it, the more I've been itching on wanting to make this comic being publicly available. This comic is the reason why I had not been active with drawing new pics as of late. The reason why I had not make this comic publicly available is because I've been thinking about making money out of this comic someday, maybe selling it as a digital comic or something. But then again, I'll only be limiting my audience even further.

Also, the pages uploaded on Patreon are a little outdated. There's a reason why I called it a "preview" rather than the final completed pages: I kept revisiting old pages, updating them if I discovered any mistakes and/or whatnot.

Plus, by uploading the English version as well, I could enlist help from my readers to help me proofread the English dialogues for me. While I'm very skilled at speaking in English, I don't have the best English ever... though, it's true that most of us Asians can't speak English that well (or even at all). American English is preferred, because I want this comic to have a more international focus, and American English appears to be the de facto English dialect used almost everywhere. (And, considering where I came from, because I'm a bloody rebel.)

So yeah, should I make this comic public? This will be a big undertaking because I'd then have to upload each page one-by-one. As a non-premium member, I can't schedule submissions ahead of time. (I could use PostyBirb for that function, but with DeviantArt currently pushing for the Eclipse layout, I fear that it could cause some issues.) It would be nice if DeviantArt has a batch upload function, or the ability to upload multiple pics in a single submission at once, something that sites like Pixiv and Inkbunny have. I'd really love to make this comic available for everyone, not just enclosed within Patreon.

Additional Fur Affinity note: Strictly speaking, "Di Luar Sana" is not a furry comic. While the later pages did finally introduce aliens which could've put this comic into furry territory, for the first 17 pages, there will be nothing but humans throughout. Considering the alien theme, I felt that, to really hammer the message better, I'll have to use human characters early on. The message would've been muddled if furries were used instead. For that reason, I probably won't be uploading this comic onto Fur Affinity.