SNAPDRAKE

still alive, from the long gone days of myspace and neopets

  • What’s the plural of compass

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    Compasses, probably. Compi? That’s a dinosaur, I think.

    Anyways!
    I’ve been thinking a lot again. Not about death this time, but about where I started on the internet, and how I ended up where I’m at. Maybe more importantly, who I’ve become.

    I’ve been on the internet longer than some of you have been a conscious person, or even alive. I’ve watched it grow and change from a place for nerds and freaks to a daily necessity, while the nerds were ostracized and our spaces taken from us.
    I was on Neopets from almost its beginning. I had a lot of physical toys and cards and media. I learned that Steve Irwin died in a Neomail from a friend from school.
    There was a lot of anthro art on pet pages, people that learned coding so they could make their personal pages unique, and one of the earliest pieces of art submitted publicly was of someone’s Lupe (the wolf pet) finding themselves in becoming the opposite gender.
    The furries, nerds, and queers have been here since the beginning, is my point.

    Through Furcadia, I found my way to Second Life, where I was… “lucky” to have lied about my age from day one. This was before everyone had a giant digital footprint to tie them back into, before everything needed to be recorded and put online when you’re five, and before I thought it mattered.
    I do not feel good about it now and do not condone it, but it allowed me to exist in spaces I wouldn’t have access to otherwise, much more safely because no one was trying to approach me as a minor.
    I think being largely asexual also did me a lot of good, both in this situation and in growing up in general. I never pursued sex, I never felt unfulfilled by not having access to it, and I never ended up in unsafe situations because of it.
    I had good friends, fun conversations, and relationships with people that were entirely unique. I got to know the woman behind an account that was just for roleplay. She had several avatars for various purposes, all of them different people to know and interact with. I knew none of them, but I knew her. I don’t know if she thinks about me, but I think about her, and what she allowed me to see of her. I hope she’s doing okay.

    I was not the one to realize I was gay. That came from Second Life, too. I was talking to someone I was close to, and he suggested, gently, “Have you ever considered you might be bisexual?”
    I hadn’t. I thought about it. I have not stopped thinking about it. I’ve spent a lot of time since exploring my gender and sexuality, loudly and unabashedly and with myself at the focus. It didn’t matter what anyone else thought.
    I’ve bounced all over, agender to genderfluid to trans to agender again, then back around to (mostly) cisgender woman (the agender desire to be a robot or a monster or a raccoon has withstood the test of time.) I’ve been straight to bisexual to lesbian to pansexual back around to bisexual, because it’s the sharpest word with the prettiest flag. I definitely have a strong preference for women, though. Incredible that they exist. Wow.

    Anyways! Anyways. Women. Um… Let’s see…

    I have always had a strong moral compass and a decent enough judge of character. People can lie, or be damaged in their own ways, or just… mentally sick? So I’m not ten for ten, but my track record is still pretty good. I know good people, and I love them for everything they’re worth, with everything I’ve got.
    I have never been shy about telling people I love them. I want people to know they matter to someone. I need people to know they’re important.

    I’ve heard that it’s very common for lesbians to love hard and fast and I know it’s usually said about their romantic relationships, but maybe I got that trait for all of them. Maybe it’s the asexual thing again.

    The internet is not what it was. I don’t like what it’s become, by in large. It’s not all bad, though. There’s pockets of beauty and warmth and community. They are not the places overtaken by capitalism, but instead by furries, nerds, and queers.

    At the end, I want to share something that really matters to me.
    There is a site made by these same people. The nerds and losers, and it’s struggling. It’s the last art gallery site that openly opposes AI and functions as exactly what it is.
    It is a pillar of the furry fandom, and the furry fandom is, like it or not, a pillar of the internet landscape as a whole.

    We can’t lose this. Please.

    If not this, please find something you can support. Things like the 3D software Blender, or the Internet Archive, or Wikipedia. Donate, share, don’t let knowledge and art disappear at the hands of people who do not want you to have it.

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  • TO QUOTE BARBIE,

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    Do you guys ever think about dying?

    I have been lately. Nothing like wanting to die or hurt myself so don’t worry prematurely, my dear audience. I am well medicated enough to stave that off anymore.

    My birthday was a week ago. It’s the first one I think ever that I’ve felt like it was mine. My mom’s birthday is a couple days after mine, so it was just another thing we shared. She died in 2017.

    You can see how that mess turns into thinking about death a bit. My past, my mom’s death, my age, my health.

    Yesterday, I learned the granddaughter of one of my wife’s coworkers died. She was 16. It was a car accident, so it wasn’t even something they could prepare for.
    Imagine that from any perspective.
    You’re the kid. You survived the lockdowns, and you were just staring life. 16 is half way through high school. You can learn to drive. You can finally find some kind of footing to figure out who you are.
    And then all that was gone.

    You’re the family, or worse, the parents. You have this kid, raise them. Watch them grow from a baby into a real, separate from yourself human being. 16 years of watching them become someone.
    And then all of that is gone.

    What do you do? What are you supposed to do? Raising a kid has to become such a big part of your life, and then it’s over.
    It’s just… over. Who are you supposed to be, trying to figure yourself out again while grieving the loss of your child.
    I was kind of on the other side of that. My mom and I had a very… unhealthy relationship, with her leaning on me more than she should have been, and then she was gone. She was watching tv with me and having a good time, and then that night she was in the hospital, and in the morning, I got a call saying the surgery on her heart had failed, an artery had collapsed, and she was dead.

    I fell apart for years, and I had my partner to catch me. What do you do if the person that’s supposed to support you is also grieving the loss of their kid?

    Anyways, enough on that, it’s not an answer I have.
    Onto a lighter topic!

    What do you think happens after you die?
    I don’t know.
    Is it scarier that there’s something else, or that there’s nothing at all?
    Maybe it’s because I’m chronically sick and hurt pretty much constantly, but I wouldn’t mind if there’s nothing at the end. I wouldn’t mind a finish line, not just a mid point of the race.

    I know that plenty of people believe in an afterlife. It gives them a reason to be morally good, which worries me some. To be good now just to get points for later, instead of just being good for its own sake.
    That’s a different conversation.

    I don’t think the afterlife is punishment or everlasting peace and downy feathers and harps. I guess if anything, I think whatever makes us us, that energy is just released back into the universe. I dunno if it ever comes back down, or if we’re one and done. Does it make us more special to be here just the once, or to be brought back?

    I don’t know. This is just my usual meandering through a thought thing, I suppose.


    Try to be good, just for the fun of it, okay?

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  • GAY BAITING

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    I haven’t thought about gay baiting much, but I know it’s a problem. Drawing in attention by promising representation and gay stories that you’ll never make good on.

    It’s rude if nothing else.

    Now, here’s my hot take. I think that lesbian and sapphic baiting is something very different.

    Yes, there are definitely pieces of media that promise gay women, and then stop just short. That’s not what I’m talking about.
    I’m talking about the media where girls are warm with each other. Women are more socially allowed to be emotional, and so are allowed to be affectionate with each other.
    It’s more normalized for women to cuddle and tell each other things and be vulnerable with each other. Women tend to feel safer with other women and so they’re softer.
    Men are taught from a young age that emotions are gay, and they’re weak, and they’re to be avoided. Men are scared of their feelings and themselves and other men, and the judgement of women who buy into the system just as much.
    It’s a whole misogynistic, patriarchal mess that puts everyone at everyone else’s throats. And their own. Maybe I’ll talk about the makeup industry sometime. I have feelings about that.

    Anyways. Uh. Right, gay baiting.

    It’s dangerous to accuse every instance of girls being close with each other gay baiting. Women need women more than ever before now. Don’t make depicting women being close a gamble on whether you’ll “do it right”, because people will just chose to leave it out. It’s easier than a fight.

    I don’t really have much of a point past this, or any kind of answer. I guess that’s becoming pretty normal for me, though, huh? Just, thinking out loud about things.

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  • TOO MUCH THERAPY

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    This is a more recent topic I’ve seen around, and it’s been on my mind some.

    For a long time, I’ve felt like everyone could benefit from talking to a professional. I don’t know if that’s entirely true anymore.

    Obviously, I think everyone should have access to mental health help when it’s needed. I think every neurotypical person deserves to have someone to talk to when something goes wrong, or when they don’t know what to do. I think it’s very important that access is normalized, so it isn’t shunned when the neuroatypical need the same help. Funny how that works.
    I think if your mom died or your family is pissing you off or your job sucks or the state of the world is driving you insane, all of those are real reasons to talk to someone. But they’re all reasons that have some kind of “answer”, especially if you’ve got the mental capacity to make it happen.

    Therapy, the way it’s encouraged for everyone, is the kind of therapy that doesn’t have an answer. It doesn’t have an end date. You can’t really fix chronic depression or BPD, and deep held childhood traumas take a little more work than a couple sessions of talking to understand, let alone conquer.

    These are different needs that pull from the same pool of professionals. People who need that years long help struggle to find it because someone who doesn’t need the spot can afford it. In saying that though, who’s to say who genuinely needs that spot or not? Suffering is relative, the world is genuinely very scary right now, and you can’t always see someone’s wounds from the outside.

    On the opposite side of things, are people who probably do need actual help but have instead just learned the words and how to weaponize them against people.
    “Therapy speak” is everywhere now. I’d say “if you pay attention” but you barely have to.
    Calling someone toxic, for example.
    They aren’t dangerous, they’re just obnoxious, it’s fine, but calling them toxic? That’s bigger. That’s a scarier word. You can call someone toxic on purpose. You can use that against them. You can make yourself a victim, and them a villain.

    There’s all kinds of other examples, but it’s all for the same end goal so I don’t really need to repeat myself.
    Manipulative people have always been manipulative, and I feel like giving them this professional level vocabulary made explicitly to explain people’s feelings is. Concerning.

    Tangentially, learning to talk women into a corner when they’re already afraid of saying no to men is also a terrifying side effect.
    Did you guys know you can buy courses online teaching you to be an Alpha Male, and all the rules of getting women are more or less to ignore her no’s? That’s it.

    No is a challenge, and talking around it is absolutely a way to win.

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  • TO FORGIVE, TO FORGET

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    I started this the other day and then forgot. I fell off on this journaling thing very steeply, but I don’t want to just stop entirely because of that. You only fail if you don’t get back up and try again, right?

    I don’t really remember what the original thought was behind this post was, but I know generally what I wanted to say.
    It’s not a thought that’s unique or original to me, of course, but I think it’s important to forgive people, but not to forget.

    The forgiving part doesn’t have to be for them. Sometimes it doesn’t matter if they ever know they’ve been forgiven at all. But it doesn’t do anything for you to hold onto bad feelings about someone.
    A line I heard once and like, is that holding a grudge is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.
    It’s only bad for you. Sometimes bad for the people around you, if the rot starts spilling out of you.
    It’s easier said than done to let things go, though. It’s hard to just, not be hurt anymore. To not be mad anymore. To not be sad anymore.

    I’ve been sad lately. On and off, about different things. Today was people I’ve lost, and miss very much.

    I’m struggling to forgive how fast I was tossed aside, refusing to forget, and desperate to let it go already.

    I guess I remembered what the point was.

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  • WHAT EVEN IS ART

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    I’ve mentioned it here before, but I’m an artist. I’ve been drawing since I was really little. I started out copying art of Pokemon and animated movies and off Neopets.
    I never stopped, and started having access to paper more often than I had access to things to copy, so I had to do it myself. I kept doing it myself. I’ve gotten pretty good at it! I’ve made some money off of it!

    That’s not really why it matters to me, though. It’s a very emotional thing for me. It’s how I most easily explain how I’m feeling to people, and even to myself sometimes. I’ve processed a lot of thoughts and feelings through drawing them. I have several original characters that are somehow extensions of myself. It’s a good way to deal with feelings, y’know. Detaches them from yourself and lets you play with the feelings from a distance.

    You can also make them really hot and totally your type, and you’re bound to find some people that agree with you. Funny how the internet works.
    Make the hot goth mommy of your dreams. Be the hot goth mommy of your dreams. It’s fun.

    Um. I meant for this to be about my current inability to draw, but I think I like that it turned into this more. I’ll leave it at that.

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  • THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF ONES BIRTH

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    I have a theory:
    What if there’s a Pokemon that’s actually a Digimon.

    Let me explain.

    Everyone who’s ever played a Pokemon game has seen this guy in their adventures. It’s in every gym, and even shows up in games like Pokopia. No one knows what it is. Maybe it’s a really small Dragonite, or a Kangaskhan with wings. Maybe it’s just something that’s gone extinct.

    I think it’s something that’s kind of like the Digimon Wanyamon. It’s an in-training level Digimon (one of the little headblobs with a tail) that looks like a blue cat.
    None of that is why I think these two are similar.


    Wanyamon is a compilation of data about small pet animals. Its name is the Japanese onomatopoeia for a dog bark and a cat meow, and its behaviors are very. Well, pet like. Be nice to it, and it’ll be your buddy.
    Not important to my theory, but there’s one in one of the games, and he’s called Pete. I think that’s pretty great.

    Anyways, I hope you’re beginning to see where I’m going with this.
    The internet exists in the Pokemon world, and it is used extensively for both research and storage of individual creatures.

    I don’t think the statue is a Kangaskhan or a Dragonite or something extinct, but the data of many, many Pokemon, condensed into the concept of one.
    It will have come up in research with increasing frequency, and Digimon are known to manifest in the real world from time to time. It could have been seen once or twice, leading to it being assumed as an extinct but real species. There’s enough data on time traveling Pokemon to explain away the age of the original statues.

    This is the extent of my theory thus far. I will continue to think on it.

    I think it should be called Pocketmon.

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  • WHAT EVEN IS A BOOK

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    How do people write books? Non fiction ones specifically.
    I understand how, right. You put words in the right order, and people want to read it.
    I understand it more with regards to fiction books. You’re telling a story! From your brain! People like being told stories, that’s pretty easy to market, and to ask your friends to read.

    But what about books about your life? Why should strangers care about your childhood or what schools you’ve gone to?
    Or what about books on math or architecture or whatever. You can only be so imaginative while telling people about the history of Spain. Why should anyone read your book on it? It’s a real thing, there’s hundreds, thousands of books on it already.

    You have to have a bit of arrogance to be really good at it I think. A little more than just confidence to believe your writing of this particular topic is one worth reading, or that you’re worth knowing so intimately by so many strangers. And I don’t really think that’s a bad thing. Going forward knowing someone will care is a powerful thing.

    I guess this is on my mind because I started this, what’s technically kind of a blog, and I can’t help but think of Jenny Lawson, the bloggess.
    I found her in high school, and rediscovered her again here a couple years ago. I have one of her books, and have for a decade. It’s about herself. Her life and her experiences and her thoughts on things. I bought it without a second thought. I remember it making me laugh a lot, and I remember it making me cry.
    How did she do that? How does anyone do that? She’s got the ability to take her experiences and spin them into something that hits other people, and that’s incredible.

    I guess that’s why she’s the bloggess, huh.

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  • OH DEAR

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    I have. Missed a few days. I had something I wanted to talk about (the page is in drafts so I didn’t forget), and then proceeded to sleep too long. I keep getting distracted or just forgetting.
    I still want to talk about the thing I originally had in mind, but not right now I think. It’s a little sensitive and while this is largely a private space, I’m sure that would be the Take to get someone’s attention. It has to do with gender and representation in media, and that topic can be volatile.

    For now, I suppose I’ll just talk about what’s on my mind instead.
    I’ve been thinking about Digimon a lot again. I don’t mind when these phases hit. Digimon is just, like, cool. It’s made to be cool. It’s tomagatchi for boys, you know? The whole POINT was to be cool, and they just keep delivering. They’ve never really stopped putting out new Digimon, and the designs range from several recolors of the same dinosaurs to an entire dragon made of guns.
    There’s Digimon that aren’t Digimon, but mutations because their hunger got away from them.
    There’s angels and devils and gods. Vampires and werewolves, witches and wizards and sages. Pokemon eat your heart out.

    Pokemon has a more pervasive presence throughout my life. It’s why I started drawing, and it’s indirectly how I met both of my partners. It’s been a bonding force for me and many of my friends.

    But Digimon gives me feelings like nothing else. It’s a tiny bit campy, emphasizing how cool it is while making fun of itself the whole way through. It’s unabashedly what it is, and letting myself sink into that space with it makes me feel like a kid. I think that’s the best way to explain it.
    When I showed my wife the amalgamated mess that is the American release of the movie, she spent more time watching me than it, amused by how into it I let myself get.
    I had it on VHS when I was a kid, and getting to share it with my partners now has been a highlight of my life.

    I had all sorts of little figures and several of the Digivolving toys and plushes. My best friend in elementary school, we’d talk on the phone a lot, and we’d let our lil’ Digimon toys “talk to each other”. I forget who my Renamon was dating of hers… I guess it doesn’t matter anymore.

    I have a lot of feelings wrapped up in this series. A lot of thoughts. I don’t know what the point of any of this was, but it’s fun to talk about the things I like.

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  • COMPLETE

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    I struggle to finish things. It doesn’t really matter what it is. I know so many half finished stories, from books and video games. I wish I could blame the oversaturation of everything, with new things coming out every other day, but I’ve always been like this. I think about it sometimes.

    Maybe it’s because I was spoiled growing up, and could always get the next thing without having to finish the first thing.

    Maybe it’s because I was never taught how to deal with pushback, so when games got harder, I found something new. I don’t dislike hard games, mind you.

    Maybe it’s because I didn’t play any games that weren’t Pokemon games until I learned about World of Warcraft, and then I barely played anything that didn’t fall into one of those categories. The stories that did had to be about animals somehow, or I didn’t care enough.

    Maybe it’s because I have a fear of endings. If I don’t finish a story, the world continues on. I can still wonder, what ever happened to those guys, and not have the answers.
    My fear of endings isn’t exclusive to lives outside my own, either. An ending means change and it means loss and that’s terrifying. The end of a friendship, or the end of a life. The end of living in Colorado.
    I know it’s not quite the same. Life goes on, right. There’s not really such a thing as an ending. Lots of small ones, but… life goes on. In a game, or a book, there will always be an ending. I just have some level of control of when this one happens.

    I think it’s the pushback one.

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