10 years huh? That's quite a long time. Hell, Sun and Moon were only a few months away from releasing when I started. And discord was only a year old at that point.
A lot sure has happened in that time. Of course there's the people who've come and gone. I've seen community highs and lows. And I've grown as both an artist and a person quite a bit.
My art has come a long way I'd like to think and I understand things I didn't before when it comes to the creative process and writing. And I'm very lucky to have this community for letting me talk about my girls and their story, which is a passion project of mine that I want to adapt into it's own comic someday. Which honestly, had it not been for y'all, I probably would've fallen out of pokemon all together during ultra sun and moon since competitive mons stopped being fun with the generational gimmick.
All that said... I feel for this 10 year anniversary, I should tell a story. The story of my experience with this community. And I'll put it under a readmore because it's a pretty big wall.
It actually starts... before this blog.
Some of you might remember this old blog called thelivingvirusmienshao. Looked like a personal blog really. A bunch of non ask stuff, occasionally butting into RPs, and just generally someone who didn't really get ask blog etiquette yet so I mostly just watched the interactions and stories play out on my dash.
It was a lot of fun seeing the character ships, events, and shenanigans play out. It made me laugh, it was fun to see the mods chat in streams they had drawing those posts.
And much more than that. It looks like fun to be a part of. But I wanted to make sure I did my next blog right. So I started watching closely and paid attention to how blogs looked, what pages were visible, how they were set up. Asked around and looked at the answers given to others who asked.
Once I felt confident on how the blog should be set up. I had to figure out how the story an setting. And the reason why I had to figure that out is actually because I had a bigger story I wanted to tell but wasn't even close to being ready. And in fact I'm still working on to this day along side Tsubayuki's and Linda's story. But I knew I wouldn't have been patient enough to wait till it was done to tell it.
So instead I looked to the characters that are in it and which ones I could do a sort of origin story for. And thus, I ultimately chose our little snow rabbit. I had an idea of her story and why she's where she was doing what she does.
But that's all it was at the time. An idea. And I learned as soon as the second ask how much more went into a good story than just a simple idea. I didn't have her backstory, any history, I had a start to her motivations, but that was it. Hell, I didn't even have her personality nailed down yet. You can tell if you were to go back to the earlier posts and see how much more often she smiled in casual conversation.
It made me realize a few important things that goes into writing a story and character. First one being, have your own answers and plan things out a bit before you start. And it's one big reason that I'm thankful for being impatient.
It was exciting. Finally having a proper blog and being able to participate in this community that I've been watching for a few years at this point and have had so much fun watching. I also had questions I wanted to ask some of the blogs I was super invested in and now had a character I could ask them through.
It was also a bit... nerve wracking? Intimidating? I was a bit nervous being new and I didn't want to mess up my first impressions so I was pretty careful to not overstep. But I was very active in throwing the bun around to sort of make it known that I'm in this thing now too.
Don't feel bad for pushing your blog if people are asking for new blogs to follow. Or in a rare case that the mod of guideofthetorn world once did. Use their platform to promote blogs asking for them for a bit.
It was about a month in when I started to solidify Tsubayuki's character and I felt like it would be fun to give her someone to bounce off of. Someone strong, someone cheery, someone who wouldn't care about what Tsubayuki is or how strong she might be. And probably least importantly, someone I can practice drawing boobs regularly with. Thus, I looked through my character list again to see who I might be able to insert into Tsubayuki's story.
And you might think this is where I say I just pulled Linda out for that. But it wasn't quite that simple. See. I've said before that both Tsubayuki and Linda had gone through some changes before they made it onto the blog. But Linda was much more than a simple species change. If I introduced her as she was at first, you'd think she's a completely different character. And honestly I have a friend to thank for her coming into existence at all. She was a lot more serious, and temperamental, your typical irritable dragon. Which doesn't sound anything at all like the Linda we all know now right? And I wouldn't have it any other way.
Later on in that year I participated in my first two community events. The community battle hosted on @askchangingtides and a halloween ball. And both were fun. And by the end of the year I actually made my first few friends in this community that aren't really active anymore. but I still speak with one of them regularly. And they both gave my girls their first friends as well.
When the blog finally turned a year old I gave the reveal as to what Tsubayuki actually was after leaving hints about it in asks up until then. At that time I also introduced Clementine. A character I can use to practice drawing humans, but also someone to help drive the story forward. And as I'm finishing up writing the plot for the blog, much more relevant to it.
Things continued as normal for the next year, got Nintai introduced by the end of 2017, and while I was learning and improving with my art, I also noticed my output was slowing down. And I'd be lying if I said it didn't bother me. Seeing how much more others were able to put out at much better quality.
But I also understood that I'm not them and there are people just happy to see posts at all. So I kept on. And so did the community.
Some blogs came, some blogs went, a couple actually finished. And it was around year 2 when there was a pretty noticeable lull in the community. I forget the specifics because I choose not to dwell on those things. But from what I recall there was a feeling of discouragement, resentment, and worry due to some people quitting.
Lucky for us there were also our community figures that gave reassurance that thing were going to be okay and remind everyone to be respectful to one another.
And sure enough, we got through it. And before I knew it, the blog was 2 years old. Yet it felt like I was just getting started. Which wouldn't have bothered me if it wasn't for my output rate being very noticeable to me at that point. Which at the time I very much wanted to fix.
But due to my awareness of my limitations with the traditional medium, I simply set a goal to have at least one post a month. And for a while I met that goal.
Then come February leading into the blogs third year. An announcment of a pokeask discord server appeared on my dash with an open invitation. And honestly, I was intimidated by the thought. The livestreams of people working on asks and updates had all but stopped, I kinda felt like a guy on the outskirts of town that pops in every month to remind everyone he's still alive.
At the same time though, I didn't want to be a stranger and I convinced myself that there wouldn't be any harm in joining, plus I'd be able to actually talk to the people who ran the blogs I liked watching. Maybe even make a friend or two.
So I went and took a leap into my first pokeask discord server. Which you'd know now as Pokepalooza. And it certainly helped that I recognized a lot of the people there. It made my efforts to make myself feel like I belonged there easier. As well as my mindset of not idolizing those people. Because we're all just people.
Low and behold I felt right at home. Everyone was chill and I had a place and people who I could talk about my characters and ask blogging with who share the same interest. And from there, the blog continued. I introduced another member of Clementine's team later that year and as I was working I had an idea to try to keep people's attention. Something I saw was keeping blogs on my mind that I was following. And that was for the next plot post, I wanted to have all the posts ready to go before posting them.
And I didn't post anything for the next two years...
My progress through those plots posts ground down to a tenth of a snail's pace. And I believe it was a few things that caused that. Traditional art just being far more time consuming for me and the processes at each stage making me anxious about making mistakes and having to restart everything.
My art process at the time was visualize first and try to put it on paper, which I was struggling to decide the poses and how I'd draw them out.
The dread of future stages and how time consuming they were going to be.
Though I'd also be lying if I said that around this time, I got a switch and a few games that I got super hooked on and that didn't help the issue either.
But even though I was in wip purgatory. I was still watching and interreacting with the community how I could. Blogs came and went as per the usual. And some even made returns. And from what I recall, there was very limited discourse in those years as well. But that could also just be me not committing events like those to memory. As I don't see the point in holding onto negative things that I can't change.
So with her pushing me to talk to people for not the first time and certainly not the last. We got a planned rp set up and I got a fire under my ass to finish the next set of plot posts. But there was still the traditional art hurdle I had to get over.
However that hurdle wouldn't be a problem for too long. Because shortly after the first part was posted, I was graciously gifted a liscense to paint tool sai from @asksilvan. And it is a gift I will always be thankful for for the fact that it made art truly fun for me again. I cannot tell you how long and tedious it was on traditional with some parts of the process. But I've harped on that enough for now. Also side note, around that time I became a mod in pokepalooza which I was excited about. Being able to help run and maintain a community server that I'm very much invested in and want to be the best it can be.
I started to feel the freedom I had with what I could do immediately and it showed. And I was finally free from the purgatory by the end of that year. The following year I started drawing responses, asks were coming out again, and I felt my output was picking up a little bit. What's better, it felt like I was properly participating in the community again that year because of it.
Things were really looking up in regards to how things were going. And outside of some behind the scenes stuff that I got roped into via association. Of which have been resolved recently. If you know you know. They kind of were. I kept on writing out the story for the blog, updating refs and drawing for the blogs, and somewhere along the way, I had the idea to make a new blog centered around Linda. Which I said I've never really do due to how slow I've been with updating one blog.
But I thought it'd be both fun and a good idea so that the two aren't competing for attention on Iceboundlopunny. And people seemed to be into it. So I now have another blog under my belt.
And after more time working, writing, and chatting. that'd bring us to now. My art has improved a lot since I first started. I've made some great friends I see myself keeping for a long time. And I even learned a few life lessons as well as gained understanding of things both art and life related.
I hope to continue being a part of pokeask and that y'all continue to enjoy my girls story as they play out. Here's to another 10 years and to every one of you I'd like to say...
