Dig-Dug is one of the first games I ever played. Seriously, we had it on our Commodore 64 back in the day, and I was basically handed a joystick the second I was born, so there’s a very good chance that I was playing this game in diapers. I’ve always sort of seen it as an underrated classic that has to sit in the shadow of stuff like Pac-Man or Donkey Kong. Both of which are awesome games, don’t get me wrong, but there was something about Dig-Dug that I have always really liked. Maybe it’s the fun music, or the entire ridiculous premise of having to go underground to blow up critters (not saying that other Commodore 64 games didn’t have ridiculous premises.)
Now when you’re a little kid you’ll turn video games into whatever you want, so I would do things like attempt to clear the entire screen of dirt, which totally is not the point of the game but I did it anyway (and it gave you bonus points if I recall correctly.) I would also do that thing where you would torture the poor monsters by inflating them nice and slowly and seeing how long you could stretch it out. Come on, I can’t be the only kid who did that.
Anyways, this game is a classic, and it’s usually in my personal video game Top Ten list somewhere. I also have it on my cell phone and I’m not afraid to admit it.
So, the title of my last post. While I was amused by the number of comments on here/Twitter who thought I was actually coming out as gay, I was even more amused by the number of comments on here/Twitter who thought I was coming out as a furry.
So you know what? Let’s do this. I’m Pike, and I’m a furry.
Most anyone who has been on the internet for more than a few hours knows what a furry is: someone who likes cartoon or anthropomorphic animals.
I can hear a few of you now. “Ewww, Pike! This is seriously your weird fetish?”
Actually, (for me anyway), fetish has nothing to do with it. And I’m not just saying that because I’m trying to dodge admitting weird fetishes. Heck, I am basically one of the most open people ever when it comes to my weird fetishes (c wut i did thar?) But furry isn’t one of them. No, it’s simply an art and storytelling style that I have always been fond of.
It has its seeds in the Disney cartoons I grew up with, I’m sure, and the way I’m pretty sure the Comics page of the newspaper is largely responsible for teaching me to read. The “Redwall” series of books and “Watership Down” cemented it. When I was about 8 or 9 years old I was drawing my own “comic strips” starring talking cat characters that I’d invented. And by the time I was about 15 years old and decided it was time to finally sit down and “learn how to draw”, it’s… a pretty obvious guess what said drawings involved.
You can do a lot with a cartoon animal that it’s difficult to do with people. Ears and tails are immensely expressive, which is perfect for the pantomime and exaggeration based medium that is cartooning. Master artists use this to much advantage (Fact: I would sell my soul to be able to draw half as well as Tracy Butler).
And you know what? Cartoon animals are just plain fun to draw:
Goggles Bear tanks with magical eyewear.
There is a lot you can do with anthro characters from a storytelling perspective, as well. How does the character’s “animal-ness” effect their… “human-ness”? Do these conflict with each other? Does the character or species struggle with it? Or perhaps you are trying to make a point, like an Aesop’s Fable. There is a lot to work with.
Now that all of that is out of the way, though, comes the next side of the confession, which is that I really never became a part of the “Furry Community”. I mean, I dunno if you’ve noticed, but there is a huge network of furries on Twitter/Livejournal/etc. and I swear they all follow each other. I never really fell into that group. Not so much because I don’t want to, but because there are other things that rank higher than furry on the Pike Self-Identity Chart. I’m a F/OSS geek, I’m a member of the WoW blogging community, I’m a steampunk, and I’m a sci-fi nerd/Trekkie… and I’m a furry, too, but that’s farther down the list, see. I’d probably go to a Fur Con if one happened to be in the area (not happening), but not before I went to a Linux Con or BlizzCon or a Steampunk Con or a Star Trek Con. Get what I’m saying?
Still, I don’t beat around the bush regarding my furriness. I used to sort of call myself a “closet furry” but then I realized how many people figured it out without me telling them (apparently I make it obvious?) so trying to hide it is pretty pointless. I like drawing (and writing about) cartoon animals– so there.
Also I wear goggles and am made of brass. Everything Pike loves, in a nutshell...
(I figure since I already wrote about a Linux Conundrum, I might as well write about the WoW one also.)
When I was blogging about World of Warcraft I had the honor of becoming a very visible member of the WoW-blogging-community. When I stopped blogging about WoW, I didn’t want to remove myself from that community entirely, because I had made so many friends there. So I still talk pretty frequently to other bloggers, or people who used to comment on my blog. One of the side effects of this is that “Are you going to play WoW again”, “When are you going to play WoW again”, and “Do you miss WoW” are questions I hear very, very frequently.
So here’s the scoop:
I don’t know if I’m going to play WoW again– leaning toward yes but no promises.
I don’t know when I’m going to play WoW again. Leaning toward “Cataclysm” (or the Pre-Cata world events) but no promises.
Do I miss WoW? Of course I do. But not really in the way an addict misses her fix. I won’t deny I was, at one point, pretty addicted to the game, but that was then and this is now. No, I miss it in more of a nostalgic way. A “man, remember when I used to run around Westfall collecting Red Defias Bandanas and that was the only thing that mattered?” way, or a “Man, remember 30s-bracket Arathi Basin?” way.
As such, when I do feel the WoW urge, it is almost invariably an urge to play a low-level toon. Like my warlock, or one of my other lowbies. I really have felt no desire to return to my 80s or to raid. In a way, I feel as though I’ve closed the book on their stories, but that there are still chapters to be written for my other characters.
Now I know what you may be thinking. You may be thinking, “Well, why don’t you just go back to WoW and play your lowbies?” Mainly because it becomes a matter of worth. At this point in my life I would have time to log in maybe three or four hours a week. And for me, three or four hours a week isn’t really worth the $15 a month. Especially because I’m broke.
And before you offer to pay for my subscription, I already have people lining up at the door offering to do so, including my own parents. But I have turned them all down because I still think I have other things to focus on right now– like artwork, or like editing a certain novel of mine.
That’s not to say I haven’t had moments of weakness or cheated a little. Some of my friends/relatives have let me dink around on their toons on occasion, just for fun. And it’s hard sometimes when exciting new WoW news spreads through Twitter or the blogosphere like a forest fire. But for the most part, I do still consider myself “Done with WoW”. For the time being, at least.
So, that is that.
All that said– Tawyn’s “story” may feel over to me, but her legacy lives on. She’ll always be a part of me, I think.
Remember NaNoWriMo? Yeah, you know, the thing that spawned the book I’m still working on six months later?
There’s a version of it in April as well. It’s called Script Frenzy and it’s basically like NaNo, except you write a script/screenplay/graphic novel instead of a book.
So am I planning on participating?
…did you really expect me not to?
This is up my alley like you would not believe. Writing scripts and screenplays is my favorite creative thing in the world. I say this as someone who draws, coughs up electronic music, and writes novels. I am soooo stoked for this.
Unfortunately April is looking like it’s going to be a terribly busy month, filled with things like editing the aforementioned novel (I know, I know, I keep saying I’m going to leave it alone and I keep failing at that…) and also puttering around with some silly Real Life things that need to get done. But there was no way I was going to miss out on this. So I decided to compromise. In November I had a little more time on my hands and was able to get away with inventing a novel on-the-spot (I’m serious, I made the darn thing up as I went), which was thrilling and terrifying at the same time. I don’t know if I’ll be able to do that this time around, considering how much busier I am, so I’m going to go back to a ready-to-go idea that has been kicking around my head for years.
Remember my Chemistry Post on Aspect of the Hare? And remember those anthropomorphic atoms that I mentioned?
Oh yeah.
This is a story I’ve been working on, on-and-off, since AP Chemistry in 2001/2002. The storyline has gone through several iterations but it has been nothing but fun the entire time and I’m excited to make yet another attempt beginning tomorrow.
My mind’s eye sees this as being a computer-animated movie: doing for chemistry what “Shrek” did for fairy tales. Something that can make science fun and silly and “new”. Hey, I never said I was sane.
I think this will be much more relaxing than NaNo was: really, I’m very visual when it comes to my stories and I’ve always felt that I take to scriptwriting like a fish to water. Plus, there’s no real self-pressure to “OMG GET PUBLISHED!” so I can just post up the finished result for everyone to see at the end of the month!
