It's My Identity Crisis, I Can Get a Fursona if I Want To.

It's been two weeks since the voting period for MayWolf began, and I've gotten a few quality comments on Imperfect Facets. On the technical side, I need to correct the 'No-Wait' issues that make the experience really disjointed, especially playing at instant speed. Then I need to make my animations more... Well, Animated. Unagi has already sent me a code-snippet I want to include!

Overall, I'm proud of the story I told. I want to keep this part of the devlog brief, to explain what my plans for Imperfect Facets are going forward:

1. Remove the No Waits!

2. Add Sound and Music to places it's missing.

3. Improve the Animations.

4. Fix Typos.

5. Other Minor Revisions and edits.

Now, if that's all you care to know, you can stop reading. The rest of this is about my feelings on the experience, FVNs, and the FVN community and how it's helped me through some tough times. 

CW: Dementia, Death, Depression.

Today is my Birthday! I turn 29! To be honest, it's been... A challenging year. I hate everything I write, I drink too much, my head feels screwed on wrong, and I don't think I can survive going to another funeral. I don't know who I am or what I want to do. I feel lost. Sorry if that's a lot, I promise it's not all so bleak.

My mother-in-law had Dementia, and for about 3 years my main purpose was helping care for her so my husband could work. It was exhausting and painful. I often took care of her for extended stretches while he traveled, this wasn't terrible, but when it's just me and her I can't commit to things.

 Can't play any game that I can't pause, so I stopped playing multiplayer or online games.

Can't read a book, or listen to music, or watch TV, or go on a walk, or anything that might divide my attention. 

You can't even cry because if you do and she hears she starts to cry, and you have to handle that. I couldn't even cry the day my dog died, I had to pretend we didn't have a dog because it would upset her, I couldn't cry when my grandfather died, when she asked 'why are your eyes red' I said 'it's just allergies.' and I sat on the floor in the bathroom crying so hard it hurt, because she can't see that.

It was so, so hard.

My days were often some combination of 'Yes you fed the dog, Your son will be back tomorrow, no your mom isn't coming today, yes you fed the dog, He'll be back tomorrow, no your mom isn't coming today, no, we aren't in Tahoe, no your mom isn't coming today, she died forty years ago, I'm sorry you don't remember. Yes, you fed the dog.' Ad nauseam. 

It was hard. Really hard. Eventually, she forgot who I was, she thought I wanted to hurt her, or steal from her, or that I was always angry with her. I still remember the day we decided we couldn't take care of her anymore. I handed her a dish of cat food, she said 'this is wrong' and yelled at me, called me stupid, annoying, whatever. It wasn't her. It was the disease.

Then she walked up to my husband and said "I really don't like him."

Earlier this year, she passed. The day before she fell we visited her.

She pointed at me and she said "Don't I know you?"

I wanted to scream. YES! YES! YOU KNOW ME! YOU KNOW ME! YOU KNOW ME! PLEASE FUCKING GOD, LET HER KNOW ME!

But instead, I smiled and nodded. "We've met before." 

I left the room and cried in the hall.

It was the first time in a year that she had recognized me.

She died two days later and I don't know who I am.

(The sad part ends here)

But while caring for her, I stumbled upon an unusual escape, Furry Visual Novels. I'd been googling gay books, like romances and junk, and none of them really struck me as sounding interesting. So I thought 'okay, I'll read 'Minotaur Hotel'' and then it was all over. It was mind-blowing to me because the story was so unapologetically queer!

It was fun, it was well written, it wasn't just a porn game (No flame to porn games)! I could save, so I never lost my place, I could scroll back and see my history, I could read them on my phone so I'd set it on the cutting board while I made dinner and read between stirs of the pot or 'Yes mom, you fed the cat.' without losing my stride.

Over the next three months, I DEVOURED FVNs. Adastra, Minotaur Hotel, Temptations Ballad, Glory Hounds, Soulcreek, Extracurricular Activities, Roads Yet Traveled (my personal favorite), Hearthfire, Shelter, Lyre, Distant Travels, In Case of Emergency, Where the Demon Lurks, Socially Awkward, Home Zomewhere Else,  Monster Hunter VN, and tons of other shorter ones. At this point, I've probably read close to 100.

I was blown away by how (Forgive my language) How damn gay these stories were! Then, in June of last year, after my mother-in-law moved to memory care, I began to write.

A LOT. My Mental health got so much better between writing and reading FVNs. 

Since last June, I've written nearly 200k words. Fanfiction, original stories, little blurbs, and I've written at least 100 words every single day since.

I started to share what I wrote on furry sites like Fur Affinity and SoFurry, and it was hard, I was scared to death to do it. But people liked what I wrote, I got positive comments! Encouragement! Feedback! Validation!

Slowly, over the course of this last year while writing I began to get this inkling... What if I could make a FVN? Could I tell a story that was unapologetically queer, unapologetically weird, unapologetically mine? Market appeal be damned?! Can I just write for me?!

And that's where Imperfect Facets came from. 

In case it wasn't obvious I love two things: Urban Fantasy and Cosmic Horror. 

Fun Fact: I have never written either before Imperfect Facets.

I think I was a tad ambitious by trying to write in a genre I've never written before in a medium (Visual Novel) That I'd never used until April 31st when I went in and did the RenPy Tutorial.

Especially since I did virtually everything on my own. (Special Shoutout to my Proofreader!)

I wrote so much those first couple weeks of May. It was exhausting and I cried a few times. (Shoutout to my husband, who had to put up with my grumpy ass)

I'd mostly written smut that I had little attachment to before this, there is one story I wrote prior that was a lot more emotional that I'm proud of though.

But I feel SO GOOD now, so proud, motivated, I KNOW I can write a better story, a stronger story, a story that inspires others the way that FVNs have inspired me!

It was freeing to write this. Sometimes I would cringe while writing, but I almost never cut the stuff that made me cringe because it was fun! It was the kind of story I liked! Gay, funny, silly, weird, eerie, magic, guns, liquor!

After so much difficulty, so much hardship, feeling lost and empty and without purpose, MayWolf was liberating and enlightening. For the first time in a long time, I had a goal.  I proved to myself I can do this, I can tell my story in my way and even if it's cringe, or basic, or kinda dumb, it's mine and I should be proud I made something.

It was also physically painful to listen to people read my FVN, I can't explain it any other way than it kinda feels like when you hear your own voice in a recording and you hate how it sounds.

BUT I DIGRESS.

I learned so much about the Visual Novel creation process, and I'm so glad I did this!  I've already talked for so long that I could enter this Devlog as a MayWolf submission and hit the minimum word count!

TL;DR - What I'm trying to say, using way too many words, is thank you.

Thank you to the furry community, who first validated my writing by complimenting my Evokers backstory in World of Warcraft (Love you Moonguardians!). Thank you to FVN creators who are telling your stories, in your way, and inspiring me to have the courage to tell my own. Thank you to everyone who listened to me ramble, thank you to everyone who read Imperfect Facets, thank you for welcoming me into this community.

I still don't know where I'm going, or what I'm doing, but for the first time in a long time, I feel like I'm moving in the right direction.

I hope you enjoyed Imperfect Facets, and I hope that when I release my next project you enjoy that too. Nothing would bring me more joy.

Once again, thank you.

- Neif.