FAQ
Why did you make this website?
Software engineers must have a personal website, that's just the rules. It's a fun way to exercise my creativity with bonus professional benefits.
Where does the username dannflor come from?
Zoomers like myself are saddled with an online identity crafted around what we thought was cool when we were little kids. At the time I started having usernames (somewhere in the late aughts) I really liked the children's fantasy series Redwall. There is a character in the novel Marlfox by the name of Dannflor Reguba who I thought had a cool name (I wasn't attached to the character at all, in fact I remember hardly anything about him besides that he was a squirrel. Redwall can be very formulaic) so I stole it. Now it causes endless confusion in my workplaces because everyone seems to think my name must be Daniel Flores.
Where does your fox profile picture come from?
This guy?
A frequent getting-to-know-you question I encountered in college was "Which animal do you identify with?" I chose the noble red fox because he seems crafty and clever, and I aspire to be considered crafty and clever. I also think Mr. Fox from Adventure Time is hilarious.
My then-girlfriend-later-wife decided to doodle me as a fox with glasses after one such conversation, and the caricature stuck. After a handful of low effort doodles I asked her to do a full color drawing for a profile picture for my B R A N D. I had the fortune of infiltrating an artistic community where many talented artists generously decided to share their take on the fox and now I have more variants than I know what to do with.
The fox is a mascot, not a character. He does not have lore, a personality, or a name. His only traits are wearing glasses and being utterly befuddled by whatever is just off stage right.
So you're a furry?
I get this one quite often because of the fox. I have nothing against the furries, I have some quite chill friends who call themselves furries. I acquired the fox mascot almost by accident, and I just really have no interest in going near that community. I don't like the aesthetics and values of furries. I do occasionally enjoy myself some anthropomorphic woodland creatures in the tradition of Redwall and other children's fantasy, like Tooth and Tail.
What are your politics?
Nice try. Here's some free advice: if you're an average bloke like me, being "political" in your public presentation has a vanishingly small chance of making any sort of positive difference in the world but a high probability of interfering with your personal and professional relationships. You know, the things that actually matter when all the ideology inevitably goes out of style. Politics as practiced by the powerful (legislators, business leaders, prominent cultural figures) has real consequences (especially for the underprivileged) so people understandably have strong feelings about it. But coming from me, or you? They're just like, opinions, man. The lowest form of human knowledge. The only hot takes I can offer are that everyone should be treated with respect and dignity no matter their origin or identity, we should not raise our hand or voice in violence except in extreme necessity, and humility is something we could all use more of.
What's your deal?
How refreshingly blunt, thanks for asking. I think if I had to choose just one public (as opposed to my boring personal goals of living a moral life, raising a family, growing my knowledge, and advancing my career) focus of mine that I would say all my other interests feed into, it would be storytelling. Ever since I was very little I found certain stories profoundly moving and immersive. I drifted through a lot of my childhood and even teens in a haze of daydreams and make-believe, the specifics of which I still find very embarrassing to admit to. These days I find myself particularly interested in the stories told by history, but I also love fantasy and classic "western canon" literature (especially the Russians). I want to find a way to tell my own stories. Most of what I do in my free time is to the end of gaining the technical skills necessary to execute on a story of mine in a way that would make it worth experiencing. I think the interactivity of video games still represents the most exciting greenfield for compelling storytelling, so that's where you will see my portfolio work centered (like I said, my work so far represents exercises to hone the technical side of my craft and showcase very little if any concerted effort to actually tell stories, mostly due to shyness). I haven't made anything creative I can endorse without embarrassment yet. So yeah, that's my deal.