Hi everyone, it's Shiro. Today we're celebrating the one year anniversary of my first VN project, What A Day That Was. To commemorate, I've released a small update. This anniversary version (2.0) features some small script fixes, background updates, and an all-new CG of the main three rascals by my good friend Harmonious. So, check it out if you'd like!

(The below retrospective includes spoilers. Please read WADTW before reading.)

Wow, one year already, huh? 

It's honestly really insane to me to think that WADTW is a year old. This piece has such a special place in my heart, honestly. It marks my first serious work in the FVN scene (and the furry scene in general), which is nice. When I look back on it now I realize how raw the writing is; not that that's a bad thing per se, but that I think I've improved so much in my writing and my project management since writing this one. Even so, this VN still is so important to me, even if it's likely the project of mine that has done the least well statistically (which isn't really important in the grand scheme of things).

I am a person who tends to look unfavorably on my older work. I think a lot of artists, writers, musicians, etc. do this sort of thing, whether or not they admit it publicly. It's easy to want to throw those things away and be embarrassed by them (or, as my friends know all too well, joke about deleting all my old work. Sorry about that, and thanks for calling me on my bluff.) I sometimes feel that way about WADTW. It's my first piece which I released in this manner and it was before I became much more serious and deliberate about my writing. It shows. But, over time, I have gotten much better about looking at my old work and loving it. After all, you need to love your work; no one else is gonna love it for you. I've started to embrace it with its flaws and its awkwardness; in the same way I embrace my old self with all its flaws and its awkwardness; how I embrace Cade with all his flaws and awkwardness. After all, why would it make sense for an awkward senior in high school's narration to not be weird?

I wrote WADTW wanting to capture something very specific with Cade, and I think that's part of the reason why I still look so fondly upon this piece now. Cade and I have a lot in common (except for the whole 'juvenile delinquent' bit). When I was a senior in high school I was just beginning to come into my own and begin to look at my own sexuality. Maybe that makes me a late bloomer, or maybe not; but either way, I found myself looking at things and looking at people in a way I hadn't before, and experiencing emotions that disconnected me from my friends and teammates. One of my goals, then, with writing Cade was to get across how it feels to have emotions that you don't fully understand, to experience and do things that may be indicative of something laying under the surface but you're still too raw, too juvenile to understand them. Cade observes men and the way they inhabit their masculinity in awkward, semi-sexualized ways (yes, I'm talking about the Rory scene). I really hope that struggle and those emotions come across in the work.

Some people have made a lot with the fight scene between Cade and Aaron, which makes me really happy. That was the goal, even if I may have been laying it on a little thick. I was inspired a lot by how people talk about fighting as an expression of masculinity, and fights being one of the few times in which it's socially acceptable for men to be intimate with each other. That's what a lot of the fight scene is about; or at least, that's what I really had in mind while I was writing it. I'm always happy to hear some other ideas about it though. I don't really think the author is the ultimate arbiter of what something is 'about', anyways.

WADTW has a weird future. It's hard to focus on giving it a sequel right now. Much of my attention when it comes to writing is split between my main FVN project, …And What Remains, and my normal, non-furry fiction. I have small scenes written out– scenes of Cade in gym, speaking to Aaron, maybe joining the football team once again? I had also considered a sort of Scenes From A Marriage-style set of tableaux showing scenes from Cade's life over the next few years. However, it's hard to think of anything coming out of it, at least not right now. It makes me sad, because I don't think that the stories of Cade, August, Max, Aaron, and Justin are over, and I hate leaving my characters in some kind of limbo. But, for now, I'm happy with where they are, how they've changed. I'm happy leaving Cade going to bed after a long night, hoping his brother will finally go to bed.

Thanks for reading.