I feel like that's actually a really fun title for a journal, wish this one were more exciting to deserve it, but I'm not gonna wait until next January to use it, lol. Anyway, I felt December's diary was rather dour, so I wanted to make this one just to say things are good on my end and all that. Here's some things going on:

VRChat
I've been socializing a bit more on VRChat lately. I still recommend it (despite having issues with the current owners of VRChat and the direction the program has gone since it first came out), as it's a powerful tool for integrating with others, engaging in social activities, and simply expressing yourself.

Ideally, everyone would have their own avatar that fits their identity, but custom avatars aren't always available to everyone. Yet, we all change over time, so remember your avatar can just be a placeholder for now, and what really matters is how you communicate! Consider looking into VRChat if it's something you're comfortable with: you don't need a VR headset to play, and they've introduced a Chatbox feature that lets you talk without a microphone.

You can find my profile here: Beastman. I'm trying to keep my 'Status' up-to-date, so if you see something like "Open to Visitors", feel free to invite yourself over and meet me for a few! No pressure, no obligation—I'm also not holding myself to any commitment, but I am trying to opening myself up a bit to hangouts with folks (like you!) who might be interested in that sorta thing.

Art Stuff
Getting back on VRC re-motivated me to hop into Daz Studio, Blender, Photoshop, and Unity, which has sparked my artistic instincts again...until I got an e-mail from Adobe saying they were raising the price on my Photography Bundle subscription from $10 a month to $15 a month, unless I paid annually by my month's expiration date. I tried paying annually, but it said "you can't buy this, you already own this", thus breaking their own word on the issue...but isn't it worse that they can just increase their subscription cost with no legal barriers? Basically "non-response is implied consent," like, where the fuck else would that be legally justifiable?

Despising Adobe enough already, my tolerance threshold was officially crossed, and I decided to finally make the switch to something else. After testing a few applications, I've settled on training myself in Affinity Photo. It's gonna take me some time, but once I'm comfortable using it, I'll be jumping back into render and comic art. I want to finish the two comics in progress I have, and thankfully they're in early enough stages where there won't be an issue moving them from Photoshop to Affinity Photo.

If you're in a similar situation, I can recommend Affinity Photo even this early on in my own experience. The interface and shortcuts are very similar to Photoshop, and with a bit of customization, the workflow you're accustomed to will probably start to feel pretty natural pretty quickly. They have a 7-Day Trial, and the software doesn't have a subscription: pay once, and you're done. It was about $70 when I bought it. Just make sure you're getting the right product—Affinity Design is for Vector graphics, and Affinity Photo is for general photo editing. That means if you want something equivalent to Photoshop Suite, you'll probably want to pay more for the whole Affinity package...but again, it's the cost of one-time-purchase versus sneakily accumulating subscription costs.

Writing
Also on the $70 software train, I discovered Scrivener. It's like OneNote, but functional, and designed for writers! If you enjoy creative writing, but also organization, it's a really handy program. They have a month long free trial, so give it a go if you want! I'm having a lotta fun using it, and it's much easier than having Microsoft Word, Notepad, and multiple folders all open at the same time—within Scrivener, I have folders of organized resources, index cards I can use for quick reference, the main document/manuscript, notes, images and tags that all help me stay on-track, without being so overwhelming it distracts from my creative writing, or so simple that I gotta run a bunch of other applications.

Final Woop
And that's really about it. I've got other things going on, winter is in full swing so I'm often in the mountains or snowboarding. But for now, my gears are shifting this week to early spring cleaning, learning Affinity Photo, organizing my harddrive to have a fresh start for rendering, and hanging out virtually where I can.

Hope you are doing as groovy as can be, but like folks told me with my last journal, make sure to keep taking care of yourself. We can get through a lotta stuff together, but you'll often need to be able to stand on your own feet to help others up or forward. Doing what you gotta do starts with knowing that you can. Set goals you know you can reach, and you'll always be able to reach your goals. But don't be afraid to challenge yourself when it's safe and affordable to do so.