I've decided to put my Disney/Zootopia + Pokémon storyline on the backburner or an indefinite hiatus for the time being. The reason for this being because I am very disappointed in what the Pokémon franchise has become today and where it is heading, especially with its game series.
From the things that I've heard about Legends: Z-A, I honestly feel like the game is the final nail in the coffin for me with Pokémon after 7 to 8 years of many disappointing games throughout the Switch era. Otherwise, I feel that I have nearly lost all happiness in involving myself in the franchise altogether, and I think I'm ready to leave and move on from it. I don't even think Generation 10 will change my mind.

My venting and frustration aside, I am currently in the process of making a storyline that will take place in an alternate continuity. Shadow will still live in Zootopia and still be dating Clawhauser as well as being a police officer on the Zootopia Police Department. But with this new continuity, I will also be attempting to return to my roots of using a cartoon aesthetic (inspired by cartoons like Scooby-Doo, Looney Tunes, TaleSpin, etc.).
A couple of other ideas I have in mind are Shadow having a magic TV remote that basically lets him visit other cartoon or animated worlds, as well as exploring an adult version of Vex in which he's 22-years old and studying at a university in Zootopia while hosting a podcast and livestream channel with his dorm roommate in his spare time. Those are some of my ideas currently.

I would like to end this journal by saying that I do not hate Pokémon as a franchise. It has potential to be a truly great and special franchise again, but greedy and slackerish people like Gamefreak and Nintendo (who is arguably more to blame than the former for the franchise's declining quality honestly) choose not to make it that way - they only care about the most amount of money for the least amount of work they put in that the games can make them nowadays, not about any sort of passion or effort put into the games.

With that being said, I sincerely hope everyone enjoys what stories I may put out in the future. Stay pawsitive.

Despite everything I've dealt with, I still love this fandom.

I've dealt with a lot of toxicity. I've met and dealt with people who have lied straight to my face, taken advantage of me, or just proven that they simply just don't care about me.

I've dealt with loss. I've had to deal with losing people, whether it be in relationships or in death (here's to you Dragoneer and Kian Wolf. I still miss the two of you dearly), the latter of which has caused my spirit to crumble in the last year or so.
I've made mistakes as well. And though I don't wish to go into detail with them, I must admit that I'm not perfect, as nobody is.

Despite all of that though..I still love it here. I still love it here in the fandom.

I just feel like, despite all the drama that goes on, it's the stuff I see in the fandom (like fursuit music videos on YouTube and art and my favorite fursuiters) that make me remember why I joined it in the first place.

This fandom has because a true part of my soul that will probably never fade.
I think I speak for so millions, if not thousands, of people when I say that this fandom has given me strength in so many ways, despite the challenges that I've faced.
I've created characters that I've come to love with all my heart, I've made friends who I practically see as family, I've found my sexual identity. This fandom has affected me in so many ways and deep down inside of my soul, it holds a warmth that still burns bright to this day.

This fandom, while not perfect, feels like home to me.

And I'm so glad that I got this orange fox fursuit head/mask today while out at Spirit Halloween with my stepmom (who, as far as I'm concerned, is able or willing to accept and respect the fact that I'm a furry, unlike my real, biological and short-tempered mother). It reminds me so much of what the furry fandom means to me and how much it has affected me.

I wanted to write this as I've been really struggling with my mental health lately (as I'm sure many other people do as well around this time of year), and keeping my temper under control has been a challenge for me very recently.
But I wanted to write this to express my love for the fandom despite how much darkness that I've found throughout my journey.

Despite the darkness, I have found light as well. And I want to express my sincere hope that anyone who is struggling through a hard or difficult time is able to find light in the darkness too.

To all who see this, you are loved. *bear hugs*

Well, Pokémon furs. We are about a month away from the release of Legends: Z-A. And unfortunately, I’m not looking forward to it.

I’m not even really sure where to begin with this journal. I guess I could start by saying that I’ve heard rumors about this game being the final Switch 1 game before Pokémon games from this period forward will only be supported by the Switch 2 console and not the normal console.

I am very uncertain about the future of the Pokémon game franchise. And I honestly feel like, as someone who hated Legends: Arceus, this is a very depressing way to end the Switch 1 era.
As I see it, Gamefreak has utterly screwed over their whole fanbase throughout this entire era. They had seven to eight years of our time to prove to us that they still care about this franchise, that they want other people to feel how special it is supposed to mean, and that their greed and incompetence isn’t in the place of their heart and soul, and now that the Switch 1 era is wrapping up with this game, I think we have enough evidence that says they don’t care for it anymore.

Sword and Shield was honestly built on a foundation of broken promises from Gamefreak. And while I will say that it at least tried to be a great Pokémon game, it didn’t try hard enough in my opinion.
Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl had potential to be the Switch era’s ORAS, but was botched by Gamefreak (not ILCA; I’ve heard rumors that they had a lot of better stuff planned for the games, but Gamefreak told them no because they wanted Legends to be the better game, which it honestly wasn’t).
Speaking of which, Legends: Arceus is one of the worst Pokémon games ever made in my opinion, and nothing you say can convince me otherwise. My reason being that it was a major hype letdown.

Gamefreak basically hyped up the opportunity and excitement of catching Arceus by making a whole game centered around him..just to completely shit all over it by making him have very little to no amount of screen time or involvement with the story the entire game (with the exception of the beginning) and only letting you catch him once you’ve caught every Pokémon in the game. And to add insult to injury, they also threw a BDSP paywall on top of it by only letting you catch Arceus in BDSP if you caught him in Legends.

Scarlet and Violet, while not great either, was a breath of fresh air after SWSH and LA in my opinion. But even I’ll say that the technical issues couldn’t really be overlooked. Not sure what else I can really say.

Bottom line, I have really lost a lot of my trust in Gamefreak over these last few years because of how they have handled the franchise. And seeing how BDSP and Legends: Arceus turned out, Gamefreak clearly proved that they did not truly care for Sinnoh when making those games. And now, after all their screw-ups, we’re back to the Legends crap again with Legends: Z-A. And I’m very doubtful that this game is going to have heart and soul put into it, considering Gamefreak’s past on the Switch.

So my thoughts are this.
If there’s anything that needs to be done when it comes to Pokémon, it’s that Nintendo or ILCA need to take the IP away from Gamefreak.

I will say again that Gamefreak has had seven or eight years to prove that they still truly care about this franchise, and they haven’t. They’ve only made greedy decisions at every turn throughout the whole Switch era and have put greed into their games instead of heart and soul. So I feel like the best decision now is for ILCA or Nintendo to take the IP and handle the franchise, at least in terms of video games, from now on.

Now, I’m very doubtful that that will happen, at least in the near future if not at all. But Gamefreak has shown over the last few years that they don’t care enough about Pokémon anymore to put effort into making a truly great game, and if I’m being honest, their reputation has been permanently tarnished because of it.
I don’t know if this will only do more harm than good, but I’m positive that ILCA can’t do any worse damage to the Pokémon franchise than Gamefreak has.

So please Nintendo, I beg. Please do the right thing and take the IP from Gamefreak.

I guess this is really all I have to say about the Pokémon games right now. I feel like the only way that I’m able to feel happiness in the franchise again is through playing the old games (or at least any game except the Legends games) and through my fanfictions.
And for those of you who will be playing or buying Legends: Z-A next month, I hope you all have fun. But I don’t know if I feel confident in this game doing Kalos any amount of justice or being any good after what’s happened the last few years. I’m just disappointed in Gamefreak for how they have handled things.

Have fun and stay cool out there y’all.

It has officially been one year since Dragoneer, owner and founder of FurAffinity, passed away.

I still think about Dragoneer every day since he died.
His death was probably one of the hardest pains that I had ever suffered through, on account of the fact that at the time of his passing, I had suffered a severe mental breakdown over the summer last year with my anxiety having caused me to have two panic attacks while out in public. His passing honestly didn't feel real to me in the beginning. Like I couldn't believe he was really gone.

Neer left us too soon in my opinion. Ever since his passing, I feel like my spirit has truly shattered and I've lost myself a bit mentally, more often than not having a "Fuck everything" type of attitude. And I'll say this.
I do try to be the person that he would want me to be, to not live my life with anger, hate, pain, and darkness in my heart and to bring out the worst in myself. But to say it's easier said than done is an understatement.

Rest in peace, Neer. Thank you for all that you have given us.
God knows we love and miss you dearly. I hope you're resting easy up there with every one of our furry family members.

So...I think going forward, I'm probably going to be changing Logan's first name to Mikey. Been going through a lot of personal issues with myself and trying to figure out what I want for him as a sona. But bottom line, I don't really know if I vibe with Logan being his first name anymore. Besides that, I've always liked the name Mikey because it reminds me of Michelangelo from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, who is my favorite turtle of the four. So yeah, probably gonna change his name and edit a bunch of stories and add his new name in when I have the time and energy.

It seems FurAffinity has finally added the feature to change display names. Nice to hear because my profile's former name ShadowYeen is long outdated now that I've changed my big 80s (and soon to be police officer of Zootopia OwO) boi from a hyena to a bear.
That being said, I've updated my avatar and display name to Shadow's current version. Still making him the face of my profile on here simply because he's always been my favorite.

Anyway, carry on with your regularly scheduled furry antics.

Welp my birthday is today. Hitting the big 22. Man, I feel old. *cracks back*

Happy New Year, fuzzbutts.

2024 was pretty rough on all of us. We lost a lot of great friends and members of the fandom along the way. But we made it through to the end. Let's give it our all with 2025, yeah?

But to kick off the new year, I just uploaded a new story in which Shadow travels to the Distortion World and catches Giratina, my all-time favorite Pokémon. So if you wanna read it, it's up.

Love y'all. Here's to 2025.

Hello to everyone reading this post.

So...I don't really know how to begin this, but I am in a bit of conflict of passion over what I want to do or make in this fandom.
As everyone here probably knows, I am an avid writer and have taken up the hobby of writing fanfictions in which my fursonas meet and interact with furry characters from pop culture/popular media (FNAF to name an example). However, I am also an avid writer of involving my sonas in a superhero/fantasy type genre storyline in which they battle some villain.
I had originally had a storyline planned last year in which my fursonas Shadow and Logan would have battled my tiger villain fursona, Razr Devans. The storyline would have involved the fursona of one of my best friends in the fandom, but unfortunately, due to some creative differences between us along with me not liking how I set Logan's characterization up, I decided to cancel the story and reboot my entire canon.

Now, this is where my conflict comes in.

As most of some people who have read the short story I wrote for the second part of Logan's Lion TF piece, I teased the new villain of the storyline, Dark Logan, a dark and evil version of Logan who seeks to unleash havoc and calamity upon the world.
But...I am currently in a conflict where I'm not entirely sure if this is what I want to do or write anymore, if my heart is truly in it with writing this story arc.

I will say this here and now. For the last 10 years, since I was a kid, I wanted to make something exciting that everyone would enjoy. I used to write superhero fanfics of furry characters from popular media and animation (some of which, I will not go into detail or specify due to being embarrassed by it now.). I wanted to make video games, until I took a coding class in 10th grade and learned that I was utterly terrible at coding and didn't understand how it worked at all. I also took an animation class that year, but the results were the same as the aforementioned class.

And so, I come to this thought process.
Over the years since I joined the fandom in 2017 and made my way to the 2020 decade, I have witnessed many changes around me, both in the fandom and in the people in it that I support. So I really wonder if after 10 years of being in the same loop of wanting to create furry superhero literature, maybe it's time for me to change and move on to newer things. Maybe it's because I'm growing up or moving on, but I just..don't really know if I want to do this anymore.
As for my thoughts on the matter, I've considered dropping the whole storyline and having it never be mentioned or brought up by any of my fursonas in my stories again. That aside, I consider writing stories of my fursonas (as I mentioned above) meeting and interacting with furry media characters and participating in activities that supposedly give off positive vibes or the energy of living life to the fullest (ex. playing at the arcade, going to see movies, taking vacations to the beach, etc.)
The reason why is because sometimes I feel like I want to connect with the fandom more outside of the superhero genre and spread positive energy to the fandom. I want to write stories that brings joy not just to myself, but to other people in the fandom, to make them happy and smile.

But at the same time, regarding my storyline with Dark Logan, I don't want to disappoint anyone or leave anyone on any more cliffhangers. So to everyone who has made this far in this post, my question is: What do you want to see from me? From this account? Would you want the superhero storyline to continue?

Anyone who would like to voice their thoughts can do so in the comments.

I guess I’m gonna talk about the holidays in this post.

Allow me to post the second half of this year in review:

-I suffered a severe mental breakdown over the summer and suffered two anxiety attacks while out in public to the point where I’m not even sure how to go out nowadays without freaking out.

-Dragoneer, the freaking owner and founder of FurAffinity, passed away shortly after.

-James Earl Jones soon followed

-A hurricane storm hit my town and knocked out the power at my house for a few days or so. A few family members stayed with us while their house recovered power, which due to my social anxiety, I really didn’t feel comfortable with.

-My bank account got overdrawn and completely ruined some of my plans in December, one of them being commissioning a redesign piece of Shadow, now as a bear.

I’m not really looking forward to Christmas dinner tomorrow night because over the last few months, I’ve become so introverted and exhausted from all of this year’s events that I don’t feel as social as I used to. And I honestly feel like this has been one of the worst holiday seasons of my life, due to the constant stress, depression, anger, and frustration that I’ve felt during these last few months.

I mean…it’s not like I hate Christmas or hate being around my family, but god, it’s been a rough year. I’m worn down and tired and exhausted, and I’m having a hard time sleeping at night instead of gaming away on my Ps5 and Switch.
I was seriously hoping that this whole season would have improved or been somewhat more spirit-lifting over my summer experience, but I can clearly see that was proven false. Or maybe I just didn’t try hard enough, I don’t know.

Either way, I don’t really know how I feel right now. Part of me just wants to let everything slip on by, because I feel like I (and I’m sure a lot of other people) have been through too much, and it has truly broken my spirit.

I mean, Christmas, if anything, is the only holiday that I’m trying to have any spirit left for, but I feel like even that’s starting to fade.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I feel like writing this:

It has been well over three months since Dragoneer passed away, and I (and I’m sure as well as many other people in the fandom) think about him every day and how much he impacted the fandom and helped it build itself to where it is today.
I still do feel pain for his passing, but I am trying to move on and focus on the future. But I am thankful for all that he did to help make this fandom into what it is today:
A fun, friendly, and supportive and accepting community where nobody is judged for who they are and are embraced with open arms (and fursuit hugs). I miss him every day, but I won’t ever forget him or how he shaped this community and fandom. Without him or FurAffinity, this fandom probably wouldn’t have even survived this long or even exist right now.

Happy Thanksgiving y’all. I hope everyone has a wonderful day with their families and enjoys eating lots of turkey and food. Stay pawesome.

So from what I understand, Twitter is kinda on the fast track to Hell right now. I deleted my account a couple of years ago, but if anyone wants to follow my account on BlueSky, it's linked below.

https://bsky.app/profile/loganbeardad.bsky.social

I found out yesterday that, sadly, James Earl Jones has passed away. For many Star Wars fan, they will remember him as Darth Vader. For many of us in the furry fandom, we will remember him as Mufasa from The Lion King.

When I found out the news last night, my emotions and feelings were a mix of anger, pain, sadness, and frustration.
This summer has already been hard on me with dealing with my anxiety spiraling out of control, as well as all of us with dealing with Dragoneer's passing (which honestly, I'm still getting over right now). But this just feels like the Grim Reaper cruelly flipping us off.

I cannot stress it enough when I say that I hate this decade. I understand and realize that death is inevitable and unavoidable, but I feel like from the moment this decade started, it has been nothing but unending pain, death, misery, and suffering. It feels like the pain never ends. We have lost a long-ass list of so many good people this decade so far. And we're only halfway through.

Forgive me if this journal is rather very negative, but I just don't know how many more times I, or anyone else, can stare death in the face before we finally lose hope.

Anyway, with this sad turn of events, I think that my next art piece will pay tribute to James Earl Jones. I don't know what it will be though. It may either be Logan transforming into a lion or involve characters from the Lion King. I don't know. But I will be paying my respects to him.

Rest in peace, James Earl Jones

1931- 2024

In light of Dragoneer's passing, I feel like leaving this message here:

I love this fandom. I cannot stress that enough. Despite everything, despite its drama and darkness, this fandom has become a part of me that won't ever fade. It is through this fandom that I have discovered new things about myself and met so many great people and friends that I nearly consider family to me. I have formed my identity into that of a big fat hyena/grizzly bear that loves the 1980s and 90s, eating big, cracking dad jokes, and rocking the hell out of Hawaiian shirts.

Were it not for Dragoneer, the majority of the fandom would not be where it is today. Through FurAffinity, Dragoneer helped so many people to find this great community and find a place where they feel accepted and not judged.

It brings me great shame, disgust, bitterness, and resentment that the utterly fucked US healthcare system did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to help him in his last moments of strength. Dragoneer deserved so much better than to be left to die like that.

So I will again say this.
Rest in peace, Dragoneer. You are free from your pain and suffering now. I hope you have found peace in the afterlife. And we will do everything to honor your memory and legacy. No matter what it takes.

💜💛

So..I have a little announcement to make here.

For some people who read the story for my art piece "Comfort Characters - Lobo (Halloween Special)", I left everyone on a major cliffhanger with Logan warning Shadow about my villain sona Razr Devans. I had originally planned for the storyline to be an art piece storyline in which Shadow, using his genie powers, would fight Razr and defeat him and save the universe as well as Logan also getting powers. Unfortunately, I'm dealing with some issues with my job right now and can't afford art commissions so I've decided to move it over to Wattpad for the time being. (Sadly, I'll have to start from the beginning for people to understand the story and plot and everything.)

If anyone cares to read it or support it, it's linked below.

https://www.wattpad.com/story/36092.....9-rise-of-razr

I'm very disappointed and upset with having to start completely over again, but alas, I feel like it's all I can do right now :/
But for anyone that does care to read it, I hope you enjoy it.

Happy 2024, everyone.

Guess this is gonna be my first journal update.

Today on February 28, 2023..this big yeen dad hits the big two-O. In other words, the big 20. Man, I feel old.
Getting closer to dad age uwu