~sabledrachen

It's SO GREAT knowing how useless and meaningless I am in the furry fandom! It's really cool knowing that if I weren't here, some other size-kink dragon would take my place and I'll be forgotten.

So... back on the 20th I lost my job due to performance issues. I was there a good nine years, but I made a critical mistake that affected a client and just never recovered despite being on performance improvement plans for a year afterward.

I still have some savings so I should be good for a month or two, but I am a bit worried about losing my apartment since I'm in no position to move back home. I've also been dealing with some pretty bad depression, so I haven't been able to get myself in gear long enough to look for a new job. I'll probably be starting up some side hustles out of desperation soon, opening a ko-fi or a patreon or taking up streaming or something...

I figure no one ever really reads these, but the last time I wrote a journal that wasn't either saying it's my birthday, please think about me or trying unsuccessfully to advertise for a friend was like... years before the pandemic started, so maybe it's time to say how I've been doing.

I've been doing bad, to put it bluntly. The pandemic was hard on all of us, of course, but I took it especially hard. I didn't realize it until it had drawn on for so much longer than I could've imagined, but it really did mess me up. I was never very good in crowds and have always had some latent social anxiety, which I'm now on medication for, and now that I live in a waking nightmare where you never know if the next person who breathes on you will start a two-week death counter, it's much worse. Half the country voted for the worst man who has ever lived, and I was forced to vote for the most useless man who has ever lived. My state continues to get worse and worse and we have now given the biggest bastard I have seen in my lifetime a third term as governor. Yet I keep going out and voting, like clockwork, because somewhere in my soul I think that I might actually be able to make a difference. Maybe that thought will be comforting in 2029 when I'm living out my sentence in some work camp.

About a year ago I tried to help out my friend by letting them move in with me, but it went sour very quickly. They were only able to make it a couple weeks in before they realized I was impossible to live with, and because I'm perpetually stressed out about money and they made it clear they didn't feel obligated to pay me rent, and because I'm a fragile, paranoid lunatic who needs constant attention, we had a big argument on the third of July. Next thing I know, the atmosphere is tense and cold and a friend group that I used to be part of has completely cut me out. I think about that every day. Somewhere out there, there are several people who think I'm a psycho drunk who's constantly on the verge of snapping. I didn't want to hurt anyone that night. The only person I've ever truly hated was myself.

In my darker moments, I think, if everyone is so convinced I'm a psycho drunk, then I will act like one. So I've been slipping further into alcoholism, I think. I tried to completely cut booze out to try to detox, and barely made it a day. It's to the point where it doesn't even do anything. I've lost count of how many shots of jager and rum and cokes I've had today, and I don't feel a bit different from usual. Not even tipsy. Just... numb. It's so unfair that things come so easily for everyone else, yet I have to take a pill every night to have enough courage to look another human being in the eye, and I have to take a shot just to keep the shakes away. I can't live like this anymore. I started drinking to try and drown out that voice in my head that said I wasn't amounting to anything, and it's just louder than ever.

My old roommate gave me an ultimatum, either start going to therapy or they'll move out, so I started going to therapy. It didn't help - they moved out anyway - and therapy hasn't done much. The pieces are there... the therapist tells me that I'm not the sack of garbage that I think I am, and they give me exercises to do to try to repair self-worth, but I don't do them. I know I should, but I don't, because I don't believe them. I can't just undo twenty years of telling myself I'm worthless with some nice thoughts. I really think the answer has to be medicine, because if it's really just changing the way I think, I would have done it by now. You think I like waking up every morning hating everything about myself? Feeling uncomfortable in my own skin, angry about everything I've ever failed to accomplish? Living in an apartment I hate, surrounded by possessions that have long since stopped bringing me joy?

A couple months after my roommate left, I lost my father to cancer. He had been battling it for a long time, so at the time I was at peace with it, because his suffering had finally come to an end. But later, it hit me how much I missed him. And it hit me how much of a disappointment I must have been. My grandparents, and now my father, had all died before I had made something of myself. My brothers have houses and families and careers, and I've always been the black sheep, the weird dragon-obsessed younger brother who kept losing jobs. A 35-year-old man who had never had a relationship of any kind and didn't seem to be making any progress in anything. I had wasted my whole life and I had nothing to show for myself. And my dad died, right before my eyes in the hospital bed, knowing what a god damn failure I was.

Either that night or the night after, I had a meltdown. I went into VRchat and confronted my old roommate to try to atone, or seek blame, or something. I don't know what my plan was but I was just standing in front of him sobbing, begging to know what I had done so wrong. They told me to get a grip and left, and I snapped. I gave a lot of thought to killing myself that night, but ultimately didn't, but I did do something similar... I left all discord servers and logged out for good, and stayed gone for as long as I could stand. I don't know why I did this. It was probably a cry for help, but not a conscious one. I wasn't trying to force people to come looking for me or give me attention, I think I just... wanted to hurt myself. I wanted to place myself into a personal hell of crushing loneliness. And I didn't want to be seen by anyone. Do I blame my roommate for how they reacted? No. I would've probably done the same thing if some lunatic came up to me babbling about how unfair everything was. It was just so many bad things coming together all at once and I didn't know what to do, so I just lashed out, wherever I could.

So, yeah. That's how I've been. Dumb, lonely, and mad at the world.

It's been a long time since I wrote a journal, but I just wanted to say that it is my birthday today~ I am 35 years old and I feel ancient compared to everyone else

My pal  oil-slick is doing a YCH comic auction! It's a weight gain comic involving some hypnosis and it also has my character Elena in it. If you're interested, take a look! https://www.furaffinity.net/view/37542067/

I really tried to fight it because I'm worried it's kind of a trend/cliche, but I would really like to find someone to do a picture of Blueyzard in Gigantamax form (the bigger the better of course). Any macro Pokemon artists out there open or know anyone who is open for commissions?

My friend  shichimen needs some funds and could use some help! She's open for commissions and has some YCHs up for grabs over on her other gallery  oil-slick. She's a really good artist and you should definitely check her out!

It's my birthday today! Or girthday, growday, bloatday, depending on who you ask~

I'm 29 years old today oh my god

Is anyone out there capable of doing an Animal Crossing themed commission? I wanted a macro picture of Elena in that setting, with a couple of the villagers there too, but it's kind of a niche thing with a particular art style so I'm not sure if it's something I can just randomly approach an open artist for.

My birthday is tomorrow! I'm going to be 28. I can't believe I've gotten so old...

I should have some new art up in a little while, I finally got my scanner working so I'll be able to go through my backlog.

It's been a while since I've written a proper journal.

I'm doing a lot better nowadays, life-wise. I have a full-time job that pays really well, and I'm back on anxiety medicine which isn't really an accomplishment but it's been helping with my social anxiety. I've been a lot happier overall, as people who talk to me often have probably noticed.

It's my birthday on Monday, on the 15th! I'll be 27. I EXPECT TRIBUTE.

I'm planning on going to Anthrocon, bought the plane tickets just today. I won't need a room, I'll be staying with my high school friend.

I wanted to try out something that I stole from  shichimen! Basically, every Friday I'll offer mini-commissions based on a certain theme. These mini-commissions will be one- or two-page stories based on a certain scenario that you give me (as long as they satisfy the theme!). Since these are little stories, they won't have steadfast rules on character limits or anything like that, and they will only cost $4. Want a one-page story about seven characters? It's yours, my friend, but only if you have enough, mmm, dollars.

This sale will be offered until Sunday night! So it might be named after Friday, but it technically lasts for the weekend.

Today's theme is... MACROMORPHILIA! For $4 you can request a story of your own design, written by me, about any characters you want, yours or mine, as long as it's about someone big or someone getting big. It can be as tame or as intense as you want. You know what I mean by intense. Don't act like you don't.

If you are interested, send me a note and we'll talk about it!

In all honesty, 2014 really sucked for me. I lost my job and was unemployed for several months and had to move back home. I finally got a new job recently, but it's really far from home and only pays minimum wage, so I'm not doing so well economically. I've been really stressed out lately and my health has been failing as well. That's why I've been so quiet on the journal front. One of my friends told me that I was so depressing to be around that I wasn't worth talking to, so I just closed myself off. Haven't had the energy to write or draw lately.

I've been at home resting this week because I was feeling a weird pain in my side that wasn't getting better. I went to the doctor and it turned out to be some kind of colon inflammation. I got some days off from work and I've just been lying around taking medicine and trying to get better. At first it seemed awesome, getting carte blanche to lie around all day, but I can't help but feel really... guilty about it. Like I wouldn't have had this problem if I wasn't so out of shape and fat. I'm also worried that, since I had to call off work on Monday to go to the doctor, my boss probably thinks I'm unreliable and untrustworthy. That kind of reputation is really hard to shake off, and it'll make it really hard to get a new job.

I know it hardly matters because no one cares or even remembers it, but I'm thinking of giving up on that Zilla roguelike I was making. I'm worried that it's so multi-oriented that it doesn't really appeal to anyone. Not fat fur enough for fat furs, not macro enough for macros, that kind of thing. And of course it's an ASCII roguelike, and since you can't see the character get bigger or gain weight there's hardly a point in playing it.

So yeah. 2014 sucked. Don't have high hopes for 2015 either.

I've ranted about this before but it's started bothering me again so I'm going to talk about it again.

I have a tumblr blog that I use for a wide variety of things. I try to keep overtly macro stuff off it though, and I thought what I would do is make a sideblog for purely macro stuff. I tried that a while back, but finally got tired of it and deleted the sideblog, and folded the macro stuff into my main blog. The thing was, I made a sideblog for the express purpose of posting -my own- macro art, but since I only draw once every two months or so, it was a total ghost town.

The problem here is that I have specific functions in mind for the blogs I make. I'd like my main blog to be a tiny bit less "furry" because I would write about my actual life on there sometimes. If someone sends me a tumblr ask that's macro, I technically can't answer it on my main blog, so I'd need a sideblog to do that. But no one ever sends me asks. So it's kinda like... hamstringing myself because of a theoretical need.

It boils down to the persona I'm trying to put forth, I think. I don't know whether to go completely professional non-furry, slightly kind of furry who talks about normal things but draws dragons a lot, or all-the-way giant monster dragon macrofurry. A main draw of Tumblr for me is the ask mechanic, because it's fascinating to me as a storytelling device. But I can't answer mundane asks in a fantastic way, and I can't answer fantastic asks in a mundane way. It would make the most sense to make two distinct blogs, each one putting forth a specific persona. You'd go to blueydragon to ask what he thought of the new Smash, and you'd go to blueyzilla to ask what his favorite thing to do on a rampage is.

The trouble with THAT, though, is that splits me into two separate entities, and I think that defeats the purpose of having a personal blog to express yourself with. I really don't like having to fabricate a new mask for each new person I meet. I'd like people to like me because of me, not because I was the right shade of blue or my dragon was the right height. There's also the problem that I routinely face with having two separate Twitters, Steam accounts, and websites - what goes where? If I want to write about the pinball machine I saw at the arcade, that's technically a real life thing so it goes in my personal blog, but it's also technically a game so it go into my gaming blog. And what if I wanted to make a joke about how the flipper buttons were too small for a giant dragon like me? Now it goes in neither place.

Anyway, like before, any advice would be appreciated. I've been constantly flipping back and forth between "combine the blogs" and "separate the blogs" for the past two weeks so honestly I'd just like some closure so I can put my mind at ease.

Which sounds better, Studio (D)raconis or Studio (S)apphire?

I've been trying to hammer down a definitive theme for ZillaRL (other than "gross furry trash" but that's not what I'm looking for). Right now it's mostly science fiction, given that Zilla is in an alien laboratory, the coffee canisters are self-heating, the juice jugs are cooled with liquid-nitrogen, and the equippable suits improve your stats through "genetic triggers".

But there are also potions, which are a fantasy thing, and I had plans for runes you could equip for special powers. I was thinking, to add variety to the simulation, the aliens tapped into planetary literature for ideas, so some levels are laboratories and some are more dungeon-y, and all of them have a mixture of science and magic items and monsters. However, I'm not sure if this is a cop-out or not.

Should the game be purely science fiction, or have traditional fantasy elements mixed in?

So, uh.

Lately I've been chopping up my saved livestreams to put up onto my YouTube channel. So far it's been going great and I've even been able to salvage the Dungeon Hack playthrough (which some people say is my best work *polishes medal*) I did way back when I was still in college.

However...

The Sonic 3 stream seems to be unusable. It's in MP4 format and for whatever reason Windows Media Player thinks it's ten hours long when it's only three, Windows Movie Maker refuses to open it, and Adobe Premiere opens it half-heartedly, stopping the audio track halfway through and playing the video at double speed. I've been looking on the internet for a solution, and I guess it's some sort of metadata problem that might be able to be fixed with a command line tool. All the data is there, because Windows Media Player will happily play the entire thing, as long as you don't try to skip past the three hour mark at which point it'll hang.

Anyway, bottom line is - if I can't fix the saved video, would anyone be interested in seeing me stream Sonic 3 (again) at some point? Obviously I won't force you to watch it, and if there's no interest I can always just record it locally, the old-fashioned way.

My game's alpha version has been out for a little while now and I thought it was about time to have an open discussion about where it's going!

The game's premise
ZillaRL is a spiritual successor to a Java applet I wrote a long time ago, where Zilla (who was a charmander-like creature at the time) ate and drank and you got to watch how high her weight went. That applet was written a few versions of Java ago, before every browser in the world started believing Java was one big security flaw, so you'll have to jump through a couple of hoops before the applet will run, if you plan on looking at it.

Like I said, ZillaRL takes that concept and runs with it, making a whole game around the prospect of weight gain. At this point in her backstory, Zilla is on an alien ship being experimented on by the aliens. They have put together a simulation to see just how far her shapeshifting powers extend, and the simulation takes the form of a multi-story laboratory populated by hostile creatures. Think Saints Row 4, but not malicious, and more fetishy. Since it's a simulation, that's why Zilla can still move around even when she weighs over a ton, and doesn't necessarily take up more tile space on the map. It's a "game".

The game's goal
The current version of the game has no end, and will just keep going until 1) you quit or 2) it crashes. I'm planning on the end being around level 20 or so, and having an artifact to pick up. I want to make gaining weight a primary goal of the game, so I thought about the artifact, something like a Horn of Plenty, not being obtainable until you've hit some arbitrary weight limit.

In the backstory, an alien named Mersenne is opposed to spending so many resources on Zilla, who has become a bit of a pet to the ship's captain, Zera. Mersenne secretly enters the simulation herself to impede Zilla's progress, and will appear in the later stage of the game as a boss. If you've ever played NetHack, Mersenne basically takes on the role of the Wizard of Yendor.

My main design plans at this point involve "giving the game an end". Obviously weight is too overpowered because you'll get to twenty points of damage by level three, and at that point you can one-shot crocodiles. Also, I'm not sure if anyone noticed, but healing potions take effect three separate times on one use, and I'm not sure how I managed to screw that up so badly.

What would be a good way to implement monsters? Should every monster have their own separate powers and abilities (like newts always being real weak, and alligators always being fairly powerful), or should the monsters be assigned power levels randomly? Right now monsters have templates that are kept in the code, but I'm working on moving monster stats to a separate data file that a user could edit, if they so chose.

Anyway, the floor is open, if you have anything to say about my game, please let me know! I want to make the game perfect, and to do that I'll need your help!

I'm curious - is there growth or shrinking in the game Wildstar? I've seen some macro Wildstar art and there's apparently an item called Growth Nanites in the database so I was wondering if I should look into it. Because I only buy MMOs if they have growth spells, you see

My birthday is coming up soon, on June 15! I'll be 26.

i'm so old uuuuugh. I really need to get a house and a family and work on that whole American Dream thing.

As much as I hate to admit it, I won't be going to Anthrocon this year. I waited too long to get plane tickets because I had to find the right time to ask for the time off from work... and then I lost my job, so now all of my assets are finite. Ironically now I have all the time in the world for a vacation, but Anthrocon is pretty expensive and I need to focus on putting my effort into getting a new job, not gallivanting up north with a bunch of furries. Even though it always turns out to be a lot of fun.

Commissions are still open, by the way, although I'm going to be preparing an updated policy now that I know the right way to do these things.

I've been wanting to change gears and tackle something I've never successfully accomplished before - the honest-to-goodness horror story. I've attempted this sort of thing before, but I always cheap out at the ending and give it a Scooby Doo style "monster takes off its mask, oh it's actually Bluey, he was just funnin' ya because you owed him ten bucks, everyone laughs" sort of silliness.

But I've been watching playthroughs of survival horror games like Outlast and Parasite Eve, and I'd like to try that sort of thing in a choose your own adventure. Take the right path and you may make it out of the story alive, take the wrong path and die horribly. I'll probably be using Elena as the protagonist because her part-investigator-part-scientist-part-amateur-sorceress makes her a really versatile character for survival horror. (Although I do have a dark side that secretly wishes to kill Bluey in inventive ways; it usually comes out when my life has taken a turn for the worse, such as recently)

I'm not really sure what to DO in a survival horror story, though. I personally find medical horror the creepiest and scariest of all, but every Resident Evil and Silent Hill and imitator game has some sort of haunted hospital/scary needles setting. What do you guys find scary? What's too spooky for you?

So around Furry Fiesta I devised a new system for directly crediting the artist of things in my gallery that I did not personally do, right there in the submission title.

And today I realized that three of my most recent received commissions didn't have them. Oops.

Lilac Feeding Sable, Coffee Overdose, and Zilla all have the proper titles now! Credit to the artist was given in the description, but now it's in the title as well. Just an aesthetic thing, sure, but consistency is one of my buttons.

I lost my job today.

I will be opening up commissions soon to keep myself afloat while I look for another one.

I'll be finishing up my playthrough of Bioshock Infinite Burial at Sea, with a better microphone this time.

The stream has now concluded! Thanks to everyone who came!