Wow! You’re back after all these years Zing! What exactly happened?

Well it was A LOT… kinda all at once… over and over again until I was pretty much burned out. Picture a beach slowly being eroded over time.

I’ll try not to ramble too much or be too specific, but here goes I guess:

I guess it started with my fursuit turning out absolutely awful. The guy who made it never provided me progress pictures and kept saying “Just let me work… you don’t need to micro manage things blah blah blah…”

Only to get a suit that was 1 - completely the wrong colors, 2 - looked like crap, and 3 - the feature I was going to be the most picky about (which I told him before he even started working on it) the spikes / quills / hair was phoned in. Heck, I could’ve done a better job sewing that monstrosity. I still have photos of this awful thing and have a very low opinion of the maker to this day.

Needless to say the comments I got when I first wore him didn’t help. This pretty much killed my enthusiasm for not only suiting, but cons as well.

Add to that con drama, mostly dealing with the DJ scene at the time. I wont go into details but I did not feel valued. Especially after I started getting more paid gigs at locations with less toxic people / egos. Probably why I connected more with the older school folks in my local city and other places I could find.

Furthering con drama, I got tired of dealing with creepy folks. There seems to be less of them now? But I’m also not as well known since I disappeared, and I only really go to 1 con anymore. I didn’t consider myself super popular in the fandom, but I guess I was known enough to have some pretty creepy people constantly give me reasons to stay home. It got exhausting dealing with someone creepy at every con or every time I went online.

On a better note, back in 2008 I got the travel bug. Eventually when my interest started declining with cons, I often chose to travel internationally rather than attend several cons here in the states. I’ve been all over the world at this point and still have a lot to see.

The other big one… relationship stuff.
Right when I started getting super into the fandom, and apparently pretty well known… I was getting out of the longest and worst relationship of my life. We lived together and were off and on for almost 5 years. Looking back I should’ve broken up with them after only a year. But as they say, love is blind.

Long and short I ended up getting into a situation with someone who took things the wrong way. They, too were getting out of a similar bad situation and I suppose we were both each others weird rebound? However the ensuing drama around that further pushed me away. The online fallout wasn’t welcome either...considering people didn’t want to hear my side of the story. I was just vilified. Other life events around this time sent me into a mini depression which lasted a few months. Depression sucks!

Afterwards, I realized dating in the fandom as a straight person was fairly difficult if not impossible, which was disheartening. I also figured I needed to focus on myself after all the issues I was running into.

I started to feel extremely un-valued at this point. People only seemed to care about the porn and not the person. People would tell me “Oh I’ll come see your show at the con!” only to not show up as usual. I’d quietly walk through cons, see a few artist friends, then sit in the bar for the rest of the time.

I felt like I couldn’t fit in anymore because I could never “talk shop” with anyone about anything other than my character or what they would wanna do to him.

I posted my waving goodbye picture of Zing and then deleted my gallery.

What have you been doing since then?

I ended up doing other types of cons and events for DJ’ing where I felt more valued and appreciated. I got to play overseas a few times which was pretty amazing. I have an unofficial residency at a resort down in the Bahamas where I visit each December. I also play on twitch occasionally.

I bought a Porsche, then sold it (UGH! I miss that car so much) in order to buy a house. It’s been a struggle but I’m glad I did it. Looking to move to a nicer location / home fairly soon.

I dated here and there, but unfortunately nothing really worked out. They ended much more amicably than my first 2 relationships and certainly better than the situation I mentioned earlier. I have started seeing someone more recently and we’ve been together for a little over a year.

Got into the comic con scene and ended up with a pretty badass Rocket Raccoon costume.

Took up scuba diving in 2015. I’m now a certified Dive Master and am getting into technical diving. I try to go somewhere once a year exotic for a dive trip.

I’m also working on getting an “end game” real estate rental business going so I can retire early. It’s been nerve wracking but exciting.

Still traveling as much as possible, which still limits my con attendance… but again that’s more of something I want to do. I generally stick to more local con stuff these days. Not to say I might not venture out again later on.

Well, as much as I hated to admit it… I’m still a furry. Guess you cant take that part out of you.

I couldn’t not fill that void, so I kept getting Zing art. I just have kept tons of it private. I guess I can start posting that now? *shrugs*

I did also create a few other characters to just play around as and be a “stealth furry” for a few years. Maybe I’ll end up sharing those eventually as well too.

So I think that about sums things up!
I was pretty shocked I still had almost 1200 people still watching my dead and empty account.

Other than some bigger and different paws, extra color on his legs, and some equipment changes Zing’s still the same as he’s always been.

I hope that satisfies everyone’s curiosity as to where I’ve been since 2014. I’ve grown a lot as a person and I’d love to hear how you guys have as well.

Feel free to reach out as you guys have been. The welcome back was nice to see. -Z

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TL:DR - Lots of shit happened to me and I got burned out and left.