After my irritated rant about antis and... that part of Gen Z, I wanted to leave something more positive in its wake.

I've taken notice of another issue facing a lot of that same age demographic (generally 19-25) and I want to address it. This time it's not me venting anything or being accusatory, this time it's genuine encouragement.

You, Gen Z, yes, you. It's okay to emote in public. It's okay to laugh. It's okay to be enthusiastic and have lively conversations with strangers. It's okay to take and give compliments. It's okay to be a nerd, it's okay to be "cringe".

You do not have to be so aloof and cool just to avoid being filmed by some douche. Let them laugh at you, fuck 'em. Be you. Kill that shame. Find you, be you. That's where happiness is. Happiness is not being cruel to others, happiness is not spending your time putting others down to elevate yourself, happiness is not avoiding being laughed at. Happiness is just (HARMLESSLY) being you, and putting that famous middle finger up to everybody who thinks you suck for it. Get laughed at, it's liberating.

Enjoy things. Just enjoy things. You can, and it's much easier than you think it is.

I am so sick of puritans shitting my fandom up.

WAY too much of Gen Z just hates everything. The usuals, cub, loli, ferals, rape/noncon - but also like... the anti-shipping, the anti diaper/baby furs (adult baby), animal-styled genitals on anthros, the conflation of incest to rape, the conflation of 16-17 year old FICTIONAL anime girls to real world kids, and yet I promise not a single one of these antis is truly a saint. I'm surprised they haven't gone after dead ass normal sex, yet.

What YOU got on YOUR hard drive, Zoomer? I bet it's not just photos of Jesus.

Then on top of that, over half of these idiots are right wing zealots too, so their opinions should be ignored en masse, anyway.

I can clock somebody's general age with almost perfect accuracy just by how much they bitch arbitrarily about OTHER PEOPLE'S INTERESTS AND FETISHES.

Mind ya own damn business, holy shit. Get a constructive fucking hobby.

Keep furry weird. LEARN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A DRAWING AND REAL LIFE, AND HOW TO USE BLACKLISTS, AND SHUT THE FUCK UP. My kingdom for the days when the internet narrative was "Disgusted? Navigate away, dipshit." Now everybody feels this need to be riiiiight up on a total stranger's personal life. Hey, 19-25 year olds, HAVE a life of your own instead. Hm?

I'd rather shit with the sinners than wipe with the saints.

-Irritated middle aged puppy vent over-

Another child safety violation. No recourse to appeal it. No details on what I did. Nothing.

A bunch of my friends in my server got hit, too. Just like last time.

Somebody in my server is a troll simply waiting on any conversation they can make reports on and exploit Discord's shitty dumb system. Sadly, a wonderful community has now been ruined.

I am done with Discord. Not because of the troll themselves so much, but because of Discord being this easily exploitable and having NO fucking support staff (I only get AI).

Screw it. Congrats, stranger - you got your wish. Can't have shit in Nazi America.

I'm sick and tired of right wing morons being protected by the tireless actions of the people they constantly bully, belittle, and target.

Take right wing furries for example.

One of their base arguments is that nothing we say will happen to them ever does, so we must be making it all up to be dramatic. The reason those things hardly ever come to fruition is because PROGRESSIVE people, the very people they keep putting down, keep fighting to push back on efforts to make things like porn illegal. WE keep fighting back on social efforts which would harm even the most standard furry, the most normal gay, the most "one of the good ones" of any minority.

WE are the reason they don't suffer most of the things we warn them about. But eventually, their ignorance and hassling of us will weaken what little resistance there is, and they will find out hard and fast how stupid they are.

I am tired of the people who bully and target me being protected by the efforts of my kind.

For those of you who had me as a contact and still haven't heard, my account was suspended.

I suspect targeted harassment to false report me.

Regardless, dm me if we're friends.

Please stop asking me for commissions. unu

It's a huge compliment, it really is. But I suck at doing them. And it always seems like the rush of people wanting them comes when I am the LEAST emotionally and mentally capable of delivering.

People say they are okay waiting a long time but I still feel bad.

Then there's also this push to make people stop avoiding invoices, but hey newsflash - not all of us can afford a business account, shit heads.

I just don't want anything to do with it anymore.

Furry is no fun anymore. Drawing for furry is no fun anymore. This fandom, is no fun anymore. It's all business and transactions and NORMIE, NORMIE, NORMIE. Furry, as I knew it and loved it, is dead.

I almost just don't even like being here half the time. These days I question why I am even alive far too often.

I only want to draw for myself. Others when I feel like it. And if you love my work, thank you. If you want to support me, you can. But I don't want to take commissions anymore.

The last one I took, is now a year late. Please stop asking me for them. I suck at it. My life is too turbulent to handle them. Go commission artists who deserve it, I don't. I'm old and poor and useless and want to be part of something that has long passed us by.

Move complete. Puppy is now in Ohio. Everything went as smoothly as possible, tbh. Though I struggled to configure my room.

I have nowhere for my tablet right now, though. So I gotta figure that out...

However, some rain had to hit this parade regardless. My Discord account got false flagged repeatedly for "child safety" violations. It is now banned.

Considering I never actually did anything to break these rules, it must be a harassment effort. I contacted support four times and have each time received an AI reply.

Ent the future so cool?

So that's upsetting. I had JUST renewed my Nitro in July, too... so they basically robbed me.

But to Hell with them, honestly. I'm moving away from "clear net" platforms anyhow. I prefer Signal, now - and a friend has been working on cloning my server on Matrix.

Web 1.0 MKII will return, corpos. Keep pushing us off and see how much your profits drop.

ANYWAY - I'm okay. I'm ragged, tired, and not sure how to draw atm, but I am fine and here. Arf~

I'm gonna lay off the public appearances for a bit.

I am losing my god damn mind and am at risk of damaging friendships due to paranoia and upset.

It happens over and over.

A fan gets close to me. Makes me feel special. Goes from a fan to a friend, a friend to a close, personal friend... Then just... forgets me. They get bored of me. I fulfilled whatever parasocial need they had. Or I wasn't who they fantasized I was.

Over and over and over.

It hurts me really bad, though. Every time. From basic friendships to romantic prospects.

Stop lying to me. Stop stringing me along out of anxiety. You're hurting me.

You're really hurting me.

"hey let's meet up!" Okay! :3 ... they never show

"hey let's spend this convention together!" Okay! :3 ... I get ghosted

Then I see them with other people. Photos plastered all over Twitter and Bluesky. having a wonderful time. Puppy just wasn't good enough.

I think from now on I am just going to keep people at arm's length. Although I am not sure I can. Autism has a way of making me vulnerable to people.

I have the people I can trust, and I think I just need to shut myself off and stop being hurt. It's worse every time.

It's up there.

I have decided to upload my very old artwork - select pieces - to my scraps. Collected to a folder called "The Before Times".

A few reasons. One, there's some OCs I am looking to re-introduce that have not been seen in well over a decade. Two, I have some important character lore art that may be very old, but is still canon and impactful to who that OC is.

There is a third reason. I am no longer censoring myself. I have reached a critical mass of tolerance with the modern internet, and I no longer care to stifle my own creativity in hope of re-gaining the massive following I once had. People today can be far too eager to fight about... nothing. That's to say nothing of parasocial relationships they build.

I have all but stopped drawing for a host of reasons, and social censorship is absolutely one of them.

My OCs can be edgy, cringe, abusive, depressing, violent, a mirror to the ills of the real world; they can have flaws and beliefs I personally disagree with as the real person behind them - and that's okay. That's my writing style, because I have had a real shit life and my art is my outlet for it. The sweet and neutral stuff will never go away, it's always been here - but I am tired of being tied up and forced to never let my brain out just because a few people will hate me arbitrarily.

I say that, because my old work more closely resembles that unfiltered approach it once had. It goes into those corners without fear.

I delivered things with a sense of respect for them, because I take it all seriously. I just know how people can be now, and I know how dead media literacy is.

Regardless - a peek into the world of long ago awaits thee.

I have a lot going on in my personal life which I cannot really describe here. What I can openly talk about is how the current economic and political state of the US is affecting me negatively, and how I lost my home.

These things are the tip of the iceberg.

The good news is, I will be staying with a friend in Ohio for a while. So I will not be street-homeless.

The bad news is I have been having complete mental meltdowns. Psychological blackouts, total panic attacks, absolute "might need mental hospital" moments. As an example, I was standing outside recently. In my pajamas. Holding a kitchen knife and staring into the sky. Just standing there in the 100 degree sun with a knife. Nobody noticed me.

What was I doing you ask? I wish I knew. I have no memory of going outside. Just, there I was. I know that knife was meant for me. I came back in and went to bed.

That kind of shit.

I am not doing well.

My self loathing and self isolation is ramping off the charts. My art is at a dead stop. I feel... almost nothing, now.

Poverty and censorship and targeted bigotry and personal struggles have all come down on me in a bad way, and I KNOW I am not alone. People around here are losing their minds.

People like me. Just average low-rung hicks who were barely hanging on in the better times.

Anyway - I'm trying to fight it. I am. I have a bright future goal to work for. My lover, my precious dragon. If I can just survive long enough we will be together.

Well it finally happened, gang. Puppy has to leave her home.

There's no saving it, I won't be asking for money to stay. The rent here is too damn high, and they'll be raising it again in November. The power bill tripled (yes, tripled). And my sister is leaving. We have already told the landlord we are leaving, it's set in stone.

I am not sure where I am going yet, or how I will get there. I have friends who are trying their best to help. My boyfriend and I can't live together until later in the year or possibly early next year, and that's dependent on another third party.

On top of that I need to figure out how to stay on HRT without access to my pharmacy or being IN NY state (BEAR IN MIND I AM VERY POOR). I will retain NY state residency, I plan to use my mother's address (she's on board). But I cannot stay here, too expensive and I have no friends in state.

Familial drama is what it is.

On top of that MKII, I am terrified to the BONE of Trump's new death damp in Florida, and "go get the native borns" bill...

I dunno what to do, folks. I'm cracking inside, something fierce.

Once there was an angry raccoon.

He was bitter and obese and lonely. He lived in a squalid hellhole of his own make. He hated other raccoons for wearing colors he didn't agree with. Pastels of blue, pink, and white. He HATED them, loathed them.

He would spend his days on his little raccoon computer talking to other hateful bigots about how awful and terrible he believed these colorful raccoons were. He'd think aloud, "WHY couldn't they be happy with the gray tones they were born with? How awful of them. THEY surely were to blame for the world's ills! Not like us, the goodly, normal raccoons."

Then one day, at the age of 41, he died. The hateful bigoted raccoon is dead now. All the colorful raccoons rejoiced, or didn't even notice. Either way, good riddance, hateful raccoon.

The dead, melty ass of summer.

First 90+ day is hitting for my area in a couple days. It's all over from then on until late October. Puppy will just be dying.

You know, where I live, back in the 80's and 90's, June averaged around the 60-75 range. Those high 80's onward didn't hit until mid July through August. October cooled off quick.

Now sometimes the 90+ hits as early as May or April, and lasts near to November.

The climate I grew up in is dead and gone. unu

I am fluffy northern puppy, built for the snow and cold. My natural tolerance is around 25-70, depending on wind and humidity on both ends. I am living in a mid-south climate now, though. Well, what USED to be a mid south climate. Now the modern mid south has a deep south climate.

Trump's rampant industrial carelessness will surely make this better (sarcasm).

I really like it, I want the option to keep it as default.

LOVE the bottle and binky furs. <3 I get nuknuk representation too? Did not expect that. Adorable. ARF ^w^

(what's with the anxious pizza cat? lol)

That's a hard thing to say.

I can cook, clean, bathe, think. I can live well on the level of basic needs. I have all of my limbs. I am not, at least to my knowledge, dying of a degenerative disease.

I have a cognitive disorder. One which makes me very prone to accidents. One which gives me difficulty in myriad minor ways which all stack up to a serious problem if they compound just right. One of the most egregious for functioning is that I am numerically illiterate, and the severity changes with stress.

I am ASD + ADHD and Bipolar-Depressive. I have PTSD from childhood abuse and some unfortunate adult occurrences. I have severe anxiety, am borderline agoraphobic, and deal with many social issues as a symptom of those previous base-issues. I am also a natural introvert.

None of that had stopped me from trying to find something for years. None of that had stopped me from attempting a livelihood. Until recently. I finally gave up and admitted it, with the support of multiple mental health officials, I am disabled.

However - what eats at me is WHY I am disabled.

I am disabled, not because of who I am and my conditions. I am disabled because of the society I am living in.

American culture has little to absolutely no compensation for neuro-divergence, special social needs, the schedules of people with health issues or who aren't wholly diurnal, people who aren't extroverted, people with cognitive disorders, etc. Our society has a near total lack of empathy and sympathy for anybody not fully able-bodied and minded (ish). This is to say nothing of the severe economic and time demands it makes ON people who are able bodied to begin with.

American culture not only lacks compensation for, but is outright HOSTILE to, people who cannot drive. HOSTILE to people from poverty, which I am. I don't even have to begin touching on social issues like race, sex, and gender, again.

American society complains and insults me for being disabled. It bitches and bellows about having to support people like me. All the while ignoring that I, and those like me, are its fault.

In a better society. In a culture which valued equality and humanity and empathy. I would be able to live on my own with greater efficacy.

America makes disabled cases, and then blames the people it victimizes for the position it forces us into.

While not exclusive, a primary motivator behind me taking art more seriously when I was young was how sexually inclined I am as a person. I am hypersexual, and highly imaginative, and these things came naturally together.

In my now 20+ years of drawing furries in particular I have been happy and content to make a buttload of porn both mild and otherwise. I am a sex-positive woman and in general sex itself plays a major role in my identity.

It has not been a lone rider, however. In that same time I have made a near equal amount of comics, shit-posts, horror art, emotional pieces, and even dabbled in fantasy monster design. In matter of fact, there was a time when my sense of humor and ability to make you feel something was as renowned as my ability to make you jerk off.

In 2006 when I first joined Furaffinity it was a social hub for the online furry fandom (which I now prefer to call the community, but we all called it the fandom then). There was a lot of adult artwork here, sure. There was a lot of everything else, as well. Even non-furry artwork could be found in the corners. People came here to socialize. Journals were like blog posts. People and artists would talk about their lives, current events, politics, and furry conventions. Popular art pieces would become miles of comment threads. The FA forums was a very active social place branched off of the main site itself.

FA was, and still is, home to furry social groups. Regional fur meet groups (furries from X-state, furries from x-country, furries of x-identity). FA is still home to large RP groups as well.

It was not just a porn site. Nor was it just a business site. Sure artists could network here, take commissions, and eventually do YCH' and adopts- but at its heart FA was and is still a social hub. Modern furs don't largely treat it as such anymore, though. It's been relegated to... just a porn site.

I came to a discomforting realization yesterday. I was sketching some mildly grim vent art and two things went through my head-

1. I was afraid to post any of this. Ten years ago I would have posted it without hesitation, but not now. Now I worry about upsetting people... and frankly I fucking shouldn't, that is god damn exhausting.

2. I was finding fulfillment in just doing emotional vent work.

The 2nd thought lead me to the uncomfortable epiphany.

I think I hate drawing porn right now.

I feel so strangled and forced to only ever make porn. I feel so pigeon-holed and suffocated by it. I feel as though ever since 2020, little by little, I have been transformed from an artist into mere soulless content.

Not that what I make is soulless, but how I am perceived by many of the young furry consumers is soulless. I am not making art, to them. What I make is not art, to them. It is just content. And for the last two years I have almost exclusively only drawn porn. Nothing but porn. Porn, porn, porn. No comics, no emotional think pieces, no experimental horror art, just porn. When I have done something different it has flopped in terms of getting any attention. You might think that's how it has always been but NO, it isn't.

There have been times where my humorous or emotional SFW art has actually out-performed my adult work. And it wasn't too long ago, to people my age anyway.

So now I am in an odd position. I realize that the primary reason I am struggling to finish projects is because I kinda hate making porn at the moment, or I have grown to resent it I suppose. I want to do something else because the state of things around me is driving me to make uncomfortable artwork. Because I am an artist and that's what we do when we are not corporate frauds.

I do need to be mindful of making money nonetheless. I don't want to spurn the people supporting me. On the flip side, growth has been abysmal since 2023. As the economy has worsened and generative AI has taken hold of the general gooner market and artists hold less value in a more and more competitive online world of content- new people rarely support me as compared to a few years ago when things were a bit more fun.

Honestly I don't think this journal has a conclusion. It's just brain dumping frustration.

I have not become a less sexually forward person, and I haven't personally changed much. Things have changed around me in a way that makes me feel chained up and claustrophobic. I feel creatively constipated. I feel unable to express myself. It's stressing me out to a point of no longer enjoying that which I enjoyed most. Erotic imagery.

Maybe I should just be an artist and do what my heart wants to do for a while. People will abandon me, but it won't be the first time. I am not really built to be a popufur. It happened once, in Brony, and honestly I hated how hollow it felt. I was only huge because I happened to be into a trending topic. As soon as I was back to my own thoughts and creations more than half of my fans decided I was no longer interesting.

*shrug* Whatever, that's being an artist.

- a currently active Trans genocide in the United states.

Seriously. I was pointed towards a video where somebody took the time to articulate exactly what is happening, what a genocide is, and lay it all out step by step with visual resources and citations.

This video is incredibly important and I BEG you to watch the entire thing through. It is 47 minutes long, but the matter requires that time and careful attention. It is easier to lie about a people and make stupid dismissive memes like a dog dancing on a street corner, than it is to prove what is happening to a generally unreceptive public. The run time is necessary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lE9aNijG7jg

Something they say in their argument is something I have said in private conversation. A genocide carried out by a group wishing to avoid the direct optics of military action against a people is going to be kept as invisible as possible. It will be done through constant legislative warfare, imprisonment with justification through demonization, and social bullying to the point of driving the victim group to mass suicide. To say nothing of how restricting healthcare itself kills, and the pervasive cultural narrative convincing average uninformed cis-het people that all trans women are pedophiles, and all pedophiles should be murdered without critical thought. If you can't see the intentional threading there, then I urge you to keep thinking about it until you do.

Anyway, he lays it all out to bare with undeniable evidence and arguments. Please. Please watch and listen. ESPECIALLY IF YOU ROLLED YOUR EYES at the suggestion- the video is for YOU.

I am not allowing comments on this journal because... I don't want to. To my fellow trans folk who are fighting this battle with me, to our allies, spread this with me. Awareness can help, and solutions are offered at the end of the video.

Since there's so much talk from the right wing about how trans youth aren't real and it's all a big delusion, I think it's important I finally tell my story in detail. Because it flies in the face of all that, and I want it heard in whatever small capacity I can muster.

I carried a lot of shame about what I was going through and what I felt, for many years- and I regret not coming to terms with myself much earlier. I am saddened that I did not have support, younger. Moreover, I am regretful that in my period of denial I spouted opinions against my own interests out of some complex feelings of inadequacy and longing for acceptance. For normalcy.

I feel awful for the trans youth of today now that they have had the chance to be themselves, only to have it ripped away mid-process.

So here's my story. I must preface it with- I was raised Christian, conservative, and rural. Bear that in mind. It did me no favors.

I still vividly remember the first time this happened, because it was a shock to my system in a profound way. I was 13, it was somewhere around 2 in the morning, and I had gotten up to pee. I was half asleep and disoriented.

When I stumbled into the bathroom I experienced a total panic meltdown. Why? I could not find my vagina. What the hell was on me?

That sounds funny, maybe, but I am not exaggerating. At that moment, half asleep, groggy, I was terrified of my anatomy. It was wrong, and I was confused to a point of severe anxiety and a fear reaction.

I don't know how long actually passed before I stopped panicking, but eventually I woke up a little more and of course it all cleared up. I peed, and then stood there for a while pondering what the hell just happened to my brain.

The memory of that night is burned into my brain. I can remember it to insane levels of detail. That was late 2000. Autumn.

Before that had happened I liked to wear girl's clothes- and nobody forced me to do it. Nobody suggested I should. I did it in private. In secret. I felt comfortable in them. This went back as far as 9 years old to my ability to recall. I liked wearing dresses. The only person I let know was my sister, who then enjoyed dressing me- but it did not come from her.

I hadn't thought about it all that much, until after that night when I was 13.

From that point until around 17 I had moments like that night recur. I would wake up, be in a sleepy stupor, and have a momentary panic about why my body was not how my brain expected it to be.

As I got older it wasn't just happening when I went to use the toilet, it would also happen if I felt like masturbating. As a teen, I often did. I'd touch past what I had, and wonder where what I thought I had was.

Over time I got accustom to my brain doing this to me and for many years I wrote it off as me being insane.

When I was still in public school I hated the locker rooms. I was bullied a lot, but that's not actually why I hated them. I hated the locker rooms because around that age my sexual feelings had begun to make themselves known, quite forcibly, and I wasn't looking at girls. Even though I was sure I should be.

That, coupled with something else I was grappling with. Something I did not understand then, but I understand now. I was ashamed of my body and did not want to show myself, because I did not feel male. Being exposed around other nude or mostly nude boys, whom I was attracted to on top of it all, while feeling as though I were not meant to be there- was a horrid feeling.

I would get written up over and over for not changing. I would find a corner, and literally curl up and hide until everybody else left.

The school I went to was very old, and the locker rooms were somewhat like a dungeon, even partially underground. There were corners to find.

Throughout my teens I would often be mistaken for a girl from behind, or over the phone- and it always felt good. I wasn't upset about it. It confused me a little, but it didn't upset me.

As I navigated my 20's I decided I was just a gay man, and an effeminate one, to boot. A femboy, if you will. I lived that life for a while, with my first boyfriend- who had driven all way up to the mountains from Baton Rouge, to take me back south with him. He did, and we lived together for many years, in Louisiana.

The south was a bad place for me to be. There was an overwhelming influence of religion and normative pressures. I was still very impressionable and had not gone through therapy to deal with the abuse I had been through, being Autistic or Bipolar, and I had never let anybody in on what I now know to be gender dysphoria.

I was still a lost soul, essentially. It got to me at some point.

Living as a femboy, I got closer and closer to that realization that I was, in fact, a woman. Just at the last minute, before I made that breakthrough- I had what I call a total religious meltdown.

In 2008, I had this day where I completely collapsed in on myself. I threw away everything feminine I owned. I went hard-line Christian, rebuked everything about myself, shaved my head- the whole nine yards. I lost my fucking mind.

I just could not accept being one of those "crazy trannies".

My ex was upset, rightfully so. To his credit he stayed with me, and tried to get me through whatever I was going through. I owe a lot to him for that, regardless of the stupid shit that went down later on.

I had some bad influences egging me on through that religious phase, but by 2011 I was finally out of it. Looking back, raggedly. I slowly started to reassemble the pieces of who I was before that day, re-embracing my femboy traits, little by little.

It was in 2012 that in private I told my ex that I thought I might be transgender. He just said, "I could see that." We shared a chuckle. I asked my personal friends in a Skype call that same night, that if I had been a woman the whole time would it have surprised them. They unanimously said, "no."

The gears started turning again.

I still had a long way to go before I finally came out and just owned myself. Because just as I was about to- the tumblr era fell upon us.

Now, bearing in mind that- politically, I was still in a Christian, rural isolation tank and we simply did not live online then as we do now, I was more centrist than left back then.

I wanted to come out, but the community I was seeing via stuff like Buzzfeed and the worst of Tumblr, and then ofc I started falling into the alt-right pipeline with Amazing Atheist, ShoeonHead, and Sargon of Akkad and all that shit- I would remain closeted for another 9 fucking years.

In that time I had accepted internally who I was. I finally came to accept that I was trans around 2012, 2013. I was just terrified to say anything about it. VERY few people knew, mostly trans friends I had.

Then finally we hit the 2020's. The moment that finally pushed me over the "I just can't live in secrecy anymore" hump, was a man calling me ma'am and talking to me as if I were a woman, because he thought I was one, in a grocery store parking lot.

By this time I was far further left, politically. I cut ties with a TON of outed neo-Nazi bronies. I had been going to therapy for many years. I had quit smoking. I was back in the north. That alt-right crap was getting exposed and I was over it. I was finally ready.

I finally came out. You know what my sister said to me?

"Yeah, duh."

I have regrets. I knew, when I was 13, that I was transgender. Even though I had not heard of the concept at the time, if I had had somebody to talk to about what I was going through, when I was a teenager, I could have been spared many years of pain and internal chaos.

I could have been spared two suicide attempts.

I could have possibly even been spared 150 pounds of stress eating.

Nobody suggested I be trans. Nobody groomed me to be trans. I did not even know what it was when I experienced Dysphoria.

Trans youth are real. I was one.

For context- https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/11007033

Puppy wishes to open this with a disclaimer- YES, PLEASE still call me Carol, if you need/want to refer to me by irl name. :3 However, to clarify, calling me puppy, Skoon, or even Cookie, is still also entirely acceptable! Cookie is my nickname, puppy is how I often refer to myself, and Skoon is my pen name and former fursona species. So these are all fine. <3

The primary reason I am making a follow up journal though is to address my stated guilt and unwell feelings about not picking the name I truly wanted for myself (Carol), as my first name. Instead puppy relegated it to her middle name and went with a gender neutral version of her dead name.

Puppy got to thinking though, late last night, and somebody accidentally stumbled into it thus prompting this journal. I believe I have reasoned my way into comfort with my new name. Although, again, I still prefer to be called Carol in context.

Here's the plot-

My legal first name is now Chris. Just, Chris. As in Christine. Puppy stuck with the neutral version because she has never been able to get the people around her where she grew up to stop calling her Chris, so it was an unfortunate self defeatist attitude- we're past that now- moving on.

Puppy, in her fursona form, has always had red and green eyes and a white, snowy mane. Even when she was a Skoon! Before the Eeveenroc change.

Her name is now Chris Carol.

She has Christmas colors.

Have you put it together yet?

By complete blind coincidence puppy has made herself Christmas themed. Which is even more apt considering she LOVES winter. Climate change has been very hard on pup.

Puppy is legally Christmas Carol. That is adorable.

After realizing I had done this puppy suddenly felt far more at ease about her decision. kehe uwu

What a fun coincidence!

So puppy's nickname is still Cookie. Most everybody online still calls her Skoon or puppy which is fine! :3 This is about her real name change!

Puppy has mixed news about her name change. On one paw, it was successful, and it was extremely thrilling and validating to go through with. <3

On the other paw... puppy realized after the fact that she picked her first name more for the sake of other people and not really for herself... not gonna lie, the regret has been stinging. Her first name is a gender-neutral version of her dead name. Puppy strongly regrets not fully embracing the name she really wanted, but she is a cowardly push-over who keeps ruining herself for the opinions of people who don't care. It's a vicious cycle from decades of mental and emotional abuse. YEY! To make matters worse, despite being unisex people still associate her first name with men more often, and overall puppy is just wracked with self loathing over picking it.

ANYWAY, puppy's new middle name, is the name she truly wanted to be her first name. Carol. :3

It was my grandmother's name. As much as most of my blood family was and is awful and puppy doesn't associate with them anymore, grandma Carol she loved dearly. The name is extremely comforting to me, and with my Christmas colored eyes and snowy mane, the name Carol just feels right anyway. kehe

In the future, puppy may go through the name change process a second time to rectify her mistake. Really get these god damn family shackles off of me, emotionally, and ACTUALLY make decisions JUST FOR MYSELF for once. But until then- middle name it is. uwu

Why do you like my art?

I'm trying to figure out what my appeal is so I can amplify it. I'm feeling so lost lately, and I want to do too many things at once. Thus, I end up doing little to nothing.

What can I specialize in? What is it the majority of you actually like about my body of work? What is it puppy does that she can triple down on and really brand?

Last weekend I helped my father empty out storage units. He always struggled with hoarding, and it was a hell of a chore. During the job we found a stack of papers from when my sister and I were in elementary school. So I took them.

At first, the stack relating to me was old drawings and paper projects and trinkets of that nature. Then it soon became clear that the majority of it was disciplinary reports, notes to my parents, and various complaints about me from school staff. Things I had never seen before.

My curiosity took me through it, and I made several important discoveries. Overall though, was the realization that every sign of being Autistic, every sign of abuse I was suffering, and every sign of needing help was going ignored and misinterpreted. Repeatedly. I was denied access to special needs because my Autism symptoms (including a speech impediment) were deemed "intentional disruptive behavior" and not signifiers of a condition. I was consistently punished for stimming habits, I remember that quite clearly. I was consistently punished for how I spoke. I was shamed for near every aspect of my personality.

A very aggravating trend to look over as an adult was how many times I was written as, and punished as, the antagonist of a conflict between myself and another student. Now, I remember some of these things. As an adult I can say uninterrupted what would normally happen. I was bullied because I was weird. I was a hyper active, neuro-divergent kid with sexual and emotional abuse trauma. When I would get upset enough to fight back, I was loud and obvious, and the adults in the room would notice. To their perspective, I had started it. The problem was- they'd never listen to me. I was never allowed to explain the situation. I was either spoken over and stopped outright, or called a liar. They loved calling me a liar. "Excuses" was their favorite word.

I have several report cards. I excelled in art and music, but failed miserably in everything else (especially math, which I am still horrible with- I am effectively numerically illiterate). Over time I also begin to fail with art and music, though. I was giving up. That was around the time I was becoming the monster they kept telling me I was. When I got into my teens I really was becoming violent and eerie, because I had spent my childhood being told that's who I was. Tell somebody something enough, as they say. I was eventually pulled out of public school and that was absolutely for the best. I could have ended up a very violent person, instead I am a docile puppy girl. What a deceptively swift course correction that was.

This stack of paper brought a lot of memories back to me. It brought a lot of feelings back to me. It brought a lot of hurt and frustration, but also vindication. I am not crazy. These people really did treat me poorly. The system truly did fail me. I have on-going struggles to this day because of how these people failed me as a child.

I can source my distrust of authority, my paranoia, my defensiveness, my lack of confidence and self esteem, and my shame in my natural idiosyncratic body language all to these school years. I now have papers backing up my claims.

I am absolutely taking this stuff to my therapist, because this opened a lot of doors.

As much as I sorely distrust paypal...

puppy is so damn broke ;w;

Enabling shinies.