One Year Anniversary! And Other Updates

Heyo, CrazyNaut here again with a big update journal!

Do I even need to explain what it is? If you know how to read big black font, you'll figure that it's been a whole 366 days (thanks leap year) since I joined the website! That's a whole year, which is actually not as long ago as I'm stressing it, but it definitely feels that way.

Besides, I've sure come a long way since 3/21/15.

Now… I’ll be honest, I expected all of this the day I started writing, but… in the course of a year? That's just awesome! I'm not even bragging, I just feel so lucky to have come this far this fast!

It's especially surprising when I consider everything on the website I'm not… as a TF/TG writer, I'm not a mature one in my works, PG-13 at worst, which wouldn't mean much if I considered myself any of the website’s “stereotypes” in any way, but I'm not any. I'm nothing you'd call a universal gamer, an anime fan, a furry, or even a fetishist!

I came into this community with only a liking for the genre, and yet here I am, sitting on top of more game than I ever expected to get in a year.

Again, I'm not bragging, I'm just quite pleasantly surprised!

But now that we've got most of the clichés out of the way, let's get to some updates I wanted to talk about. I don't do these often, so might as well!

Okay, technically speaking, I didn't start writing until March 25, when I uploaded my first deviation:

It's been a journey since then, and I'm lucky when I consider how the guide wasn't actually that popular to begin with…

Either way, I’ve always considered the day of your first deviation to be much more of an anniversary here than the day you create an account, especially with me. I mean, I initially made the account to get past the Mature Content filter (don't judge me, someone thought swearing was mature content), so I'm pretty sure the guide is something more to celebrate.

And that helps because now today’s anniversary doubles as a future-looking day or something!

Looking back on that day, I remember pouring in a decent amount of effort into the guide, nothing major considering how it was my first thing ever. I remember planning out a few transformations afterwards, with plenty of weird things I immediately canceled when I just decided to stick to simple gaming and anime TFs.

A lot was different back then… I played with more styles, I had much more focus on establishing series and such, stories were obviously less refined and ambitious…

And trust me, a lot else has changed since then. Let's discuss:

For one thing, I’ve been making frequent changes to my profile page. I'm the type of guy who likes to make sure everything is top notch and most convenient even when it doesn't need to be, which is where my bio came in for the story dock!

That's a good reflection of it, actually. When I created a dock for all the things I'd work on, it kept going through a bunch of changes to be more organized, including the Wave system, the work-on-four system, and of course the ✐ and ✓ symbols…

What else, uh… I guess the stories themselves have certainly changed, originally being oriented around establishing series and whatnot and now working to stand out as their own ambitious works! Whether that's a good or bad thing is completely up to you.

But I think the biggest difference was that I accepted almost everything back then. Well, at least everything relating to fictional characters.

See, my earliest days of writing stories were experimenting with all these things to see what kind of styles I’d be into, which is why I experimented with so many things. So many character styles, plot styles, series ideas, etc. were incorporated, and I guess that came from the huge variety of requests I received! And with such an active first few months, I guess I see where all the early attention came from!

But, I had to draw a few lines once I figured out what styles worked with me best, and that's when I thought about a huge change: restricting stuff.

And then came the day where I said I was done with character-to-character.

And then I was done with TG-less human to human.

And of course, let's not forget…

Look, by now I'll admit I may be dragging this out, but that's just what happens when I take something this big and common in the community that I've had since my beginnings and then announce a massive cut-off of it.

Seriously though, this part is just to clear up a few things I was questioned about by a few people via notes when I uploaded my last journal:

Except, now it's something different…

Basically to summarize the journal, my opinion on mind wipe has been a negative one before I even had an account, and it's gotten worse since. And after I set a distinct style for my writing to stick with, I completely lost a reason to allow it!

Am I prohibiting all mind wipe in my works? Well, this is what's different than what I said in the journal… yes, that's what I really want to do. See, the new guidelines for mind wipe are so strict now that I might as well not have mind wipe to begin with! And it looks that way from the dock… I had at least 20 mind wipe stories on it before even getting to Wave III. As of writing this, even including which ones I've done since, there are 9 left, and I'm working to make it maybe two or three before even finishing Wave III! And chances are yours is next for discussion on taking it out (you know who you are).

But for now I've got a few more mandatory mind wipes to take care of before I quite possibly close the doors on the side effect forever. I mean, except maybe in RPs…

And I know that sounds like a much more risky and oddly dramatic move than the restrictions I initially had planned, but for me, so was accepting the mind wipe in the first place. The only thing that ever stopped me from taking it out was the reaction I expected to get, but thankfully you guys reacted quite well to it!

*SARCASM ALERT* And if you want to argue about it, I'll just wait a couple of weeks to respond and reply with “Screw you, it's my birthday!”

Yep, another “anniversary” will be coming soon, since I'll be turning 17 on April 6!

That makes my entry date to the website kind of a coincidence…

I really don't know what else to say, since anything else I say about this would probably be pretty passive-aggressive. And I really don't want to act that way!

Anyways… it's just something to look forward to, and it'll be nice to see what a birthday’s actually like on this site! I had one before, but, like, two or three people knew who I was, so…

Before I sign off for now, I thought I'd discuss deeper into my progression.

As mentioned prior, I remember all the things I experimented with to find the perfect writing style, like MC, character-to-character, etc. I wanted to establish somewhat of an identity on this site, with a writing style and maybe a multitude of series to differentiate myself from everyone else.

And I did have a lot to prove in comparison to all the other writers joining in 2015. Hell, braverunner joined the same week as me, and I wanted to keep myself standing out from deviants like him!

(I mean, not in a competition, quality, or popularity sense, just more of a way to tell us apart)

And from the looks of it, I sure as hell succeeded.

And it all came with the bonus of garnering a lot of friends and fans in a little time. I still remember all the attention I garnered with each story I wrote, from the simple compliments to the requests for more. I still remember the watchers I kept receiving, not to mention the two years of anonymous viewing coming into play with all the deviants I recognized. And of course I still remember the almost daily uploads before I started taking at least a week with every work.

I'm still trying to decide whether it feels like yesterday or forever ago!

And I think the friends I've made on the site has really helped me enjoy the place. I mean, I was a very secluded deviant back then, because even when Senpai noticed me I usually didn't even respond to comments! I never considered the website a social networking site of any kind…

Until now, at least. There were so many deviants who I'm so glad  talked to me, traded with me, roleplayed with me, or even just bothered to drop by that I went from a simple, introverted TF writer to one who's an active roleplayer, frequent with trading, and something I never thought I'd be: outgoing. Between the friends I've had long conversations with via notes or the Skype account I convinced myself to set up, I've become way more interactive on the site than I thought I'd ever be.

And that's definitely the best thing to happen all year to CrazyNaut.

Okay… that may be the sappiest thing I've ever written. I'm just excited, okay?

I guess the only other things I can talk about are future plans… and you know I'll just be doing what I've always been doing. I still have three waves on the dock, and a number of trades and commissions to do, and I think they'll go a bit quicker once the summer comes. Too bad that'll still be a while…

I've also still got a number of personal projects to do, from remasters to simple stories for characters I've been getting into. I'm also trying to plan out a miniseries with the Pokémon Fairy Legendaries, and with its 20th anniversary this year, there's no better year to try it.

And as for an anniversary event, I think I'm too busy as of late to do something big, so I think the most I can do is a big RP “event”! Still need a good topic, though…

And with that, what's the last thing I can say in a journal like this?

Well…

Thanks. Thanks for all the fun I've had in a whole year of this, and thanks for continuing to read my stories and giving me something to write. I'm surprised I have an audience at all, and the one I have is better that I thought one could be.

I hope this carries well into another year of this!

And as always, stay smart, stay safe, and stay human!

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