Acorntail

1. How long have you been on DeviantArt?

Six years, apparently, coming on seven. Hasn't really felt like it.

2. What does your username mean?

When I was thinking up a username for deviantART, I wanted it to be Redwall related, or at least Redwall esque, so I came up with "Acorntail" because I liked squirrels. At the time, Celen (now Céline) didn't have a last name, and I gave him (now her) the name as a surname, and retroactively made the brown tail tip a feature of the Acorntails. It kinda irks me nowadays, as it looks weird for a squirrel to have a tipped tail, but hey, can't really get rid of it now.

3. Describe yourself in three words.

Tired, timid and exhausted.

4. Are you left or right handed?

Right handed.

5. What was your first deviation?

A picture of Mhera, a main character of the Redwall novel Taggerung. It was a huge mess that I didn't put a whole lot of effort into (being 13 at the time); but my first picture that later became a deviation was Squirrel Soup, but I didn't digitize it until later.

6. What is your favourite type of art to create?

Nowadays, it's hard to say. I feel very drained these days when trying to do anything. I like to write, and I like to draw, but my favourite mediums are graphic novels or comics. My first narrative loves were the Tintin books.

7. If you could instantly master a different art style, what would it be?

Landscape painting. I would love to be able to have the patience and foresight to turn blotches of colour into the beautiful locations I can imagine in my mind.

8. What was your first favourite?

When I was making my account I felt that I needed deviations to really show what I was about, so I searched deviations for "squirrel" and promptly added two   fairly random deviations that popped up. Then I favourited basically all of CyberCatMia's (now Saphamia) Redwall fanart, but she's moved accounts and deactivated it, so they don't show up any more.

9. What type of art do you tend to favourite the most?

Nowadays, landscape digital paintings, or digital paintings of cute, cool or fascinating things.

10. Who is your all-time favourite deviant artist?

  Saphamia

11. If you could meet anyone on DeviantArt in person, who would it be?

  Saphamia again.

12. How has a fellow deviant impacted your life?

I won't tag them, but I was brought out of an antisocial shell and learnt how to be happy and confidant from a wonderful friendship. We're no longer close, which I regret, but I wouldn't take back those days for anything. Plus, Saphamia is my closest (despite not being the same country) friend, and we keep each other sane in otherwise very trying times.

13. What are your preferred tools to create art?

I have a Cintiq12WX which is great. Expensive, but well worth the cost.

14. What is the most inspirational place for you to create art?

To be honest, I've not been particularly inspired for a long time. I would love to spend a winter writing next to a full window and watching the snow fall outside over the mountains. Australia is not the best place for that kind of thing, but I can dream.

15. What is your favourite DeviantArt memory?

Working on collaborations with people, especially on silly things.

#deviantartistquestionnaire 

1. Tell you something I learned about you by looking at your DA for 20 seconds. 
2. Tell you a color you remind me of. 
3. Tell you an element I think you belong to (eg: water, fire, earth, air, etc.)
4. Tell you what character you remind me of.
5. Ask you a question, and you must answer. 
6. Tell you something that I like about you. 
7. Tell you the object that is to the left of me. 
8. Tell you what food/flavour/smell you remind me of. 
9. Guess your gender. (Not something I want to invite/attempt. )
10. Tell you to put this on your journal

Tagged by

Hey everyone, I'm writing this for Saphamia because she's... a bit busy right now.

Amy's father passed away yesterday.

Her father hadn't been doing well, having survived a stroke earlier in September. She and her family had been doing their best to ease his suffering. Amy messaged me yesterday morning in a panic, and three hours later, he was gone.

She is shaken, numb and hurting. I'm doing what little I can by writing this journal instead of her. She could use a little love and support right now.

I don't know how many times I've started writing this journal. Every time I try, I finish, and then just don't upload it and delete it from my sta.sh. I can never get this right. But I need to do it anyway.

A while ago, I asked you all if it were better to strive for happiness despite all the odds, or be content with what I have, despite it making me unhappy. Well, the results of that poll were pretty clear.
I voted for striving for happiness.

I wanted to do this a while ago, but told myself to wait until a better time. In my experience, that better time never comes.

I've never really been happy with who I was, not since I was a kid, anyway. I always felt that a part of me never belonged where I was, and that feeling has pushed me inwards my whole life. I never liked talking with people, or meeting new people, or what I saw when I looked in the mirror. I never looked after myself, nor did I want to. I thought I was being stoic by not telling my mother about my problems, and it took me shaking in my bed in the middle of the night holding my phone to call the anti-suicide hotline to realise just how bad things had become.

All those years of hiatus. All those months of depression. All those sleepless nights...

Some of you either don't know or don't care, so I'm loathe to correct you, but those of you who know me as male?
Maybe it's time to reintroduce myself.

Hi. My name is Jordan, though most of you know me as Acorntail. Four months ago, I realised I was transgender. I came out to my immediate family and close friends a month ago. 
This birthday was my last as a guy.

I'm still the same person I always was. I'm still the same writer, the same drawer, the same friend. I'll still be here writing Aryala.
But I've spent too long on this site lying to you guys. 

I am a girl. Please use she/her when referring to me, and please respect this, even if you may not understand it.

Thank you all.

- Jordan

I almost didn't want to write this. I hate talking about myself, and my emotional state is fragile at best these days. But, after reading some of the journals floating around out there, I felt I needed to join in, and not just for the badge.

deviantART has been a part of my life for five years, but my story begins a lot earlier, back in 2001, when at age five my family and I moved overseas from Australia to Sri Lanka. Being the only natively english-speaking kid (minus my brothers) at school, making friends was difficult. I didn't last a year at the school, and soon left to be home schooled by my mother, which really amounted to a lot of reading.

I loved books, and gobbled up anything I could get my hands on. I remember staying up till midnight reading Harry Potter and memorising Calvin and Hobbes issues back to front. Very soon afterwards, we moved to the Maldives, this time for five years. I never felt at home there, and often desired to go back to Australia, back home.

When you think of the Maldives, you think of sandy beaches and thousands of island resorts, and while there are tonnes of those there, I lived on Malé, the tiny capital island, and there was very little to actually do. What english speaking friends I could make would invariably leave. I played with Lego,  I read my books, I watched any English movies and television series we  could buy (everything on TV was from India/Sri Lanka). When we finally left to return to Australia, I was so excited.

And then, returning home in 2007, I came back to year six primary school. With the social skills of the five year old I left as. It was rough, and living with my grandparents one hundred kilometres from where our school was (we used to go there when we're still living here, so we went back) didn't help.

Then, because my grandmother worked there, I participated the Multiple Schlerosis Society's Read-a-thon. I recieved a copy of Triss, and it actually sat on my shelf for three months because I couldn't get over Kurda's accent enough to start reading it. When I finally did, I actually loved it, and finished the book in a single day. After she saw how much I loved the book, my grandmother brought back a damaged copy of Brockhall that they couldn't send out as pledge rewards, and I loved that too. I still have both books.

In 2008, secondary school began, and we returned to the home I grew up in. Things were better when everyone was new. I made friends, friends that would last until the end. And there, at the school, was a library, and at that library was a copy of Redwall. The eponymous book. I read it, loved it, and found at the back a list of all the Redwall books. Tonnes of them.  Going on wikipedia told me Redwall once had a TV show made about it, and through youtube, I watched it. Now I finally had faces to go to Martin, to Matthias. About the same time, I was reading Taggerung.

And then, when I was searching the web for fanart, just to see if it even existed, I found this.

Everyone who is a fan of Redwall on the internet knows this picture, I'd wager, or at least at the time. CyberCatMia, aka Saphamia. Oh my god. I had found the mother lode of Redwall fanart, I thought. Just looking over everything she drew made me want to draw, myself, much like Redwall had made me want to write.

And so I did. I made an account, and after a good ten minutes of trying to think up a username that was Redwall-esque, I settled on Acorntail. I always liked the squirrels. 

As an aside, I have since learnt that Acorntail is the name of a character from the Warrior Cats series. I did try to read the series, but it didn't grab me like Redwall did. Sometimes I wonder if I robbed a Warrior's fan of a good username.