dressupgeekout

If there's only one sign that I'm actually a greymuzzle, let it be the fact that I barely kept up with Pokémon beyond Gen 1, heh. Gen 1 is the only gen as far as I'm concerned!

Lapras and Rapidash were my faves. I also rather like Cubone/Marowak.

Pokémon Red on the Game Boy was my first game! Actually I played it on the Game Boy Pocket and then the Game Boy Color. I remember getting super excited about Pokémon Snap on the N64.

Now that I think about it, maybe I liked Calvin & Hobbes because so much even when I was younger because I found it so validating. It's a nerdy and highly relatable journey but with a TON of heart. I might have found a little bit of myself in Calvin and Hobbes themselves, too, heh.

But that's the beautiful thing about art, isn't it? Art is forgiving, and it rewards experimentation.

"Messy?" -- sure, maybe, I dunno. But definitely assertive and deliberate, and kinda fierce! I like it

Aha, I see that now, too.

My thought exactly -- why not contribute to OpenStreetMap?

Classic

I rather like my NUC. I trust that Asus will do some neat things with the concept

If someone finds themselves wanting what LLVM does, but doesn't want to link against LLVM (which is fair) then I might point them to QBE https://c9x.me/compile/

I've been saying "Paw bee" in my head

Honestly, the real appeal of Disney+ as far as I'm concerned is the ability to watch all these old TV shows. We didn't have cable for most of my childhood, and I missed the 80's/very early 90s of animation.

One of the first things I did with my Disney+ subscription was to watch TaleSpin for the first time. It's a fun show! I had always planned to introduce myself to Darkwing Duck before long.

Heh, I must not be that old, I only recognize a pawful of these things.

For me, there were several separate threads that all came together at one point.

In middle school, I was envious of my friends' artistic abilities and I resolved to get better at drawing. This was during the heyday of DeviantArt and so I made an account and followed my friends. Traversing through people's profiles and what they liked, just randomly surfing, I discovered the work of Melissa O'Brien ("Frisket17") and I fell in love with their entire oeuvre.

Then I realized why I was so in love with her work specifically: for the first time, I saw depictions that closely resembled the world that I had built in my head -- a sort of sunny, tropical spinoff of Redwall. And then I was like, oh my god, it's not just me! I'm not the only one who wants to see this sort of thing. I wanted The Lion King but in a city. I wanted the beach episode of Redwall. I finally had a word for it: I wanted furry. And it turns out I could draw these characters, too -- I could flesh out my own world AND get better at art. Win!

I didn't realize it at the time, but the reason I had created my own world in the first place is because I desperately wanted an escape from my real life woes about gender identity and my sexuality. I learned through anthro art the relationship between the furry fan and their fursona, and I was like, "I want one, too." I REALLY liked the idea of being a person, but WITHOUT the BS human limitations that were contributing to my gender dysphoria.

So, I guess I stumbled upon the fandom initially because I wanted to get better at art, but the reason I stuck around is because it offered a safe space for me to explore identity. That was the real awakening.