Wow, is all I can say.

At the time of writing this, I have had nothing but positive feedback from everyone who looked at that stupid rant thing I uploaded about the chatbots. Honestly? I didn't think many people would like me much for mentioning it, hence why I preempted the responses I could get from posting such a thing. But no, nothing but positivity my way on this side at least. At first I hesitated on going back to my OLD style of writing, which was early-2000's era Maddox-style satire, but when I saw how bad the problem truly was with plagiarism, I threw those doubts aside. I needed to rant.

The community that has made up a significant portion of my life had an open wound, thanks to literal morons who either don't understand or don't care that it's morally wrong to take something that isn't theirs and make it perform acts that most people find, frankly, disgusting. I trust I don't have to tell you guys that if you're friends with an artist and you see their work on this list that you'll tell them about this and how they can get their stuff removed.

You know, now that I'm writing this, I'm not even sure the people running these dumbass sites even check to see if you have the right to file a DMCA or not, maybe we could just flood their inboxes and bury them in paper until they have nothing good left haha.

Anyway, if you need them, the links are listed here for your convenience:
The form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1dv.....j_0wMhhMZR3emI
The list: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet.....tYi2JB-rl_70OM

But anyway, I'm happy to have had such positive feedback on this and I hope there's more I can do to raise awareness. To those of you who have submitted a response on my form, they've been added, along with more that me and   FlickTheGoat have found when we had a moment to spare. I intend to get back into regular story uploads and plan to open for commissions soon. So stay tuned for that.

Hey everyone, it’s time I opened up about something important, and I want to be as honest and clear with you all as possible.

When I first started sharing my content on this platform 7-8 years ago, my goal was simple: to create a space where I could showcase the stories, art, and ideas I was passionate about. But there’s a piece of that story that I haven’t really shared openly before and I think it’s time you all heard it directly from me. The truth is, it hasn’t always just been me here. Some of you might already be aware of this, but for those that aren't, my brother contributes to the original stories shown on here, and he also owns the rights to Flick, the goat character. That is his creation and he's always owned him, all I did at the time was allow him to post his content here.

You might be wondering why we didn’t make this clear from the start. The truth is, this arrangement was deeply personal. At the time, my brother was navigating some almost inconsolable depressive episodes that he needed to get counseling for, and we both figured that writing was a positive outlet for him. We don’t need to dive into the specifics of what he was going through because that doesn’t define who he is today and it doesn’t define the work we've shared with you all. What’s important is that this space gave him a safe, encouraging environment to heal, grow and build an audience. His behaviour at the time was the largest barrier for me being willing enough to let him own his own account here. He needed a safety net and I forbade him from having too much of a presence here so he's just been working behind the scenes.

And just in case it's on your mind: our fursonas are entirely separate characters, distinct from us as people. As brothers, there’s absolutely nothing untoward going on. The stories we tell through our characters are just that: stories, created for fun and respect for the craft, as well as fan-service.

It wasn't about hiding anything from you guys; let's make that clear. It was about giving him a safe space to heal while sharing our talent with this community. I could not be prouder of how far he’s come since then.



So what happens now?

Flick remains my brother’s creation, and he’ll continue to have full ownership and creative control over that character. This also changes nothing about the content that I will continue to post on this account, with and without his help. What will change is his presence in the furry scene, and autonomy over the kind of content he wants to post.

He has an account here: 🐐 FlickTheGoat 🐐

Please give him a follow and show him the same kindness and support that you’ve shown me over the years. It would mean the world to both of us. Thank you.

Hey, you want a new macro/micro chatroom to chat to? Come and join mine here:

https://t.me/+DjA3PLMsAntlNDA0

Rules and stuff: https://docs.google.com/document/d/.....CWSnbn6b_uP8rg

  imnotwithreal AKA Aradian is friend of mine I talk to quite frequently on Telegram and VR and he's recently published the first part of a planned series of his called Project M.A.R.S.

It's a military action and drama with a macro/micro twist, and having read the first chapter (and previewed the two), I can already tell this is something to look forward to reading. There is some incredible world building that I don't often get to see in other works, and the characters are emote very well. It's very impressive considering this is the very first project of his. If you feel like this is the sort of thing worth your time, please go read it here: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/60515725

Also, more projects coming down the pipeline. That last one I did was something I just pulled from the oven, the others still need cooking. Watch this space.

The last time I dragged myself to a cinema on release day was for the first Sonic movie. That was over five years ago. I can’t be arsed to enjoy new media anymore. The bar’s gone so low it’s tunnelling through fucking dinosaur bones, and I know better stuff was being made decades prior. So when A Minecraft Movie came out, I naturally saw it as Jack Black’s latest desperate swing at staying relevant before he pulls a Shia LaBeouf. But I bought a ticket and watched it like everyone else.

AHAHHAHAHAHA Just kidding! I saw the workprint version. Why? Because I’m not gonna pay money to see this if I’m already convinced it’s bad. Why should I? I would have paid for this out of curiosity’s sake if it had anything going on beyond the novelty of “haha funy minecraft” and the stupid meme bait. But nope, the story sucked, so I sat through the whole thing.

I will say that it’s not as bad as I thought it was going to be. It’s not the worst movie ever, not even this year, especially since Snow Trite came out recently to a bewildering audience of nobody (lol). It’s not even the worst video game movie I’ve seen, Uwe Boll made four terrible video game movies and I can’t decide which is worse. But saying something isn’t as bad as another thing shouldn’t be seen as a compliment. It’s like saying that an anchovy pizza is better than a liquid pile of shit. Comparing something that only a select few would get any enjoyment out of with something nobody in their right mind would enjoy isn’t a compliment. This has NOTHING going for it other than the meme bait people latch onto for ironic humour’s sake like the Morbius movie.

And if you’re gonna bitch at me like “why the hell are you criticising a movie aimed at kids, why do you care this much?” then you’re not getting any fucking carrot cake, you got it? Because we are spoiled by a rich history of movies that are made with children in mind that are just as enjoyable for adults as well. Hell, that’s half of the reason the furry community even exists in the first place. One example I watched recently is Wall-E, who did a dystopian Sci-fi story completely differently from how one is usually done. How about Shrek, which satirised the Disney formula and turned the entire thing on its head? What about the Don Bluth movies or Disney’s golden era? The Goonies was another one that came up in conversation. I could go on but looking at trite like this and comparing it to movies which are funnier, cleverer and had something else going for it than raw novelty, it cheapens the experience. So no, I don’t think I’m asking too much for a movie designed for children to entertain me. And if you don’t think so, I’ve got a bunch of keys in my back pocket you’d just LOVE to watch. 

Honestly, if someone told me that I was not about to watch ‘A Minecraft Movie’, but a highly elaborate, highly budgeted shitpost by 4chan which in no way resembled the final product, I’d believe them.

The pacing is a complete disaster. Steve starts off the film somehow knowing everything with no explanation, where the magical macguffin is in a mineshaft he’s never explored and immediately gets it to work. He then learns how to build structures and contraptions in this new world on an absurd scale. He just… does it. Then he builds a portal and goes to the Nether, which he didn’t even need to do, but the plot needs him to do random shit, I guess. Then comes the scene where some so-called ‘gamer legend’ blows $900 on a storage container with an Atari Cosmos, a prototype console that the movie itself admits was never released (so how the hell is it boxed?). We cut to two literal children driving a car and moving house like it’s just another Wednesday. All of this? Happens in the first act. The rest of the movie continues at the same disjointed pace with character arcs sprinkled in to add conflict and drama, which seem easily avoidable if the characters had any sense at all.

Speaking of the characters, Jason Momoa and Danielle Brooks do a passable performance given the material they are working with, the child actors are meh whatever they’re the same child actors you get in stock Nickelodeon movies. However, the main cast struck me as people as unrealistically comfortable and in their element when confronted with a world they’re not familiar with. If Steve had been trapped in the mine as a child and been raised by the villagers, this would make sense. But no, he’s an adult here, and like I said before, he magically knows what he needs to do with no prior knowledge. In the second overworld scene, the characters unexpectedly learn to break things with their hands while under a constant onslaught of monsters. Again, it would have really helped if say… they ran to that village for shelter? Maybe see some lights in the distance and legged it there? Maybe let the iron golems take them out, not that you’d know that would happen. Give them some breathing room to figure things out organically? It’s what fresh-out-of-water characters would do in this situation.

As for the supporting cast, the villain of this movie is a complete joke. They made ‘the piglin witch’ out of whole cloth and went with it. And what’s even worse than a generic villain is their motivation and overall goal. For some reason, this piglin wanted to do a talent show (???????) and nobody liked it because it wasn’t getting gold? So she decided to blame creativity (?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!??) and vowed to destroy it everywhere it was seen, so she could get more gold? Not only does this make barely any sense whatsoever, but it sounds more reasonable for the witch to HATE gold because of this rather than hoard more of the stuff. Also, it’s never explained why the mystical macguffin can bring eternal night, much less than a means for getting to and from the real world. The big climax the movie built up to has almost no stakes, especially since it’s demonstrated the mobs can enter the real world. So…… why didn’t the final showdown happen in the real world?

There's one scene that stands out as purely idiotic. It's when Steve is showing everyone how to use the crafting table. And the young inventor kid just pulls out a bunch of random junk from the real world, like a battery and a tater tot, and ends up making a tater tot gun. What? Since when was it ever established that this is possible? What rules exist to allow this to happen? Why isn't it ever mentioned again or used more to greater effect? Because in spite of the intention to explain this is a child inventor, it really looks as though he's just throwing random shit on a crafting table expecting it to magically create something cohesive and desirable... MUCH LIKE THE WRITERS FOR THIS MOVIE!

I genuinely laughed twice throughout the whole showing and that’s sad for a comedy to have only two jokes that work. The hardest I laughed with the movie was when that piglin brute was introduced. He stomped around, looked like a mean son of a bitch, then he opened his mouth and sounded like an airhead. Too bad the piglin witch killed him off after the failed village attack so we can’t see him in “A Minecraft Sequel”! The moments I never laughed was whenever Jack Black was on the screen. He ruins every scene he’s involved in with his insincere character work, his stupid face, the bad out-of-place musical numbers, his deliberately laboured line delivery and his unwillingness to stray from the overly hammy manchild acting. It’s already got old and I wonder how many more movies he’s going to poison to being completely unwatchable.

So the overall story is weak, the villain is forgettable, and the humour fails to land 98% of the time. Is it too much to demand something good to watch with a story that’s had some effort put into it? I could write a better fucking minecraft movie… In fact: watch!



The movie starts with a wide-angle shot of an abandoned mine, with two brothers going to play as miners in there. One of them (Steve) finds the macguffin and finds himself sucked to another world, to the disbelief and horror of his brother who runs away. Steve wakes up in this magical world who is soon discovered by the villagers, who takes him in as one of their own and shows him their ways. He then learns how to build and survive as a necessity, and intends to live the rest of his life there. There’s some bouncy, joyous moments where he looks like he’s enjoying himself, and all is well. Meanwhile, time passes on the outside and his brother gives up all hope of ever seeing Steve again. We fast forward 30 years: his brother is now married with children of his own, and they discover things that lead them to those ill-fated mines. After some understandable family tension and some new clues about Steve’s disappearance, they seek help from a detective with a long-standing interest in the cold case.

They then all journey to the overworld. Once there, they have the bad fortune of turning up at night, and have to run for the nearby village, hoping they’ll find shelter there. They do so and discover the way this world works and ask the villagers for help to find his brother. By the time they find him, they discover he’s become a reclusive, eccentric genius with a deep understanding of how things work in this world, and there’s a heartwarming reunion. However, the endermen show up, having found the macguffin, followed by the ENDER DRAGON, who knows there’s a world outside to conquer. He needs this thing in order to be free, and now he has what he’s looking for, thanks to the outsiders. Now, it’s a race against time for the heroes to go on a grand tour, find the things they need, traverse the nether, and ultimately the end, and fight the ender dragon. A fight ensues where they are ultimately victorious, and Steve is confronted with a decision to either stay in the world he knew, or leave it behind so he can stay with his family. It’s an intensely moral question where there isn’t an easy answer, but he ultimately decides to stay behind. This is his world, and he has a new family that depends on him, and everyone lives happily ever after. The end.



There, I told you I could write a better movie, and I did. You’re welcome!

Oh, I was told that I should put a spoiler warning on my post to warn people about them. So here you go - Warning: This review contains spoilers.

Batman has long been hailed as one of the greatest superheroes in comic book history, revered for his strict moral code and refusal to cross certain lines. At the core of this ethical stance is his famous 'No Kill Rule': a self-imposed restriction that prevents him from taking the life of even the most dangerous criminals in Gotham. However, the more I look into the reasons behind this rule, the more I believe that not only it’s completely unrealistic, but it’s logically inconsistent. It’s a thought so completely removed from good pragmatic sense that the villains seem to be the only ones intelligent enough to see through it. And it's so blindingly obvious that this is the writer's attempt to condemn the idea, that it's infuriating to see every single time.

And as a writer, I just want to shout it from the rooftops. This fucking rule is dumb as shit, I’m sick of seeing it, I’m sick of people defending it, I’m sick of new media not having the balls to call it out, and it’s time we shelve this idea as an idea that is no longer relevant.

Batman started his comic career as a direct rip-off of The Shadow! A character who had no qualms about eliminating villains permanently. In those early years, Batman would routinely use lethal force, dispatching criminals with brutal efficiency. However, the iconic character was rebranded to take advantage of the ‘child sidekick’ fad of the 40’s, and the use of guns had to go, hence the infamous ‘rule’. How convenient that the writers decided to come up with this literary rule 80 years ago, and they’re still compelled to follow it because there’s a mountain of merchandise aimed at children to protect. So already to me at least this rule is not a genuinely profound expression of morality, but more of a relic from a different era but hey we got to keep the character marketable to protect corporate interest.

But let's assume it wasn't… we carry on.

There have been numerous attempts to explain the rule, and one of the more recent retcons (Batman #124) retcons the rule into the one we know today; Batman, having witnessed the murders of his parents, had been traumatised and does not want to become like the man who cost him everything. This is apparently the real reason Batman insists even villains like the Joker will not die at his hands.

But here’s where I have a problem with the internal logic of Batman’s world. He is the product of a broken society where the law is ineffective. Gotham’s super-criminals are born from the same inadequate justice system that failed his parents. So if Batman operates above the law to deliver his version of justice, why isn’t he challenging the very foundation of Gotham’s legal system? The prison system in Gotham is a revolving door for criminals, a point that’s almost satirical at this stage. It has to be because, otherwise, how would we keep getting new stories? But if the justice system is so irreparably broken, why isn’t the focus of Batman's mission to reform the obviously corrupt and overwhelmed police force? Since this is happening in some fictional place in America, why hasn't the National Guard stepped in to enforce martial law?

I know the counterargument that will get brought up: Yes, Bruce Wayne uses his money “responsibly” by donating money to public infrastructure, but there are some problems money can't fix. In the same way that treating psychotic, unrepentant villains as similarly deserving victims has - never - worked. There’s no reward saying there’s a pot of gold or cure for cancer for not killing off the cringy clown. So what’s the point of adhering to this 'No Kill Rule' when the end result is invariably more innocent people dying, some of which happen to be amongst his own family? It’s like watching a house burn down, going out and buying some watering cans and a hose, but refusing to use the water because the fire might have a tragic backstory.

Maybe this idiocy is easy for me to see because there's definitely parallels from this work of fiction and the real world. The justice system especially the UK is seen as effete, anaemic and wimpy; a far cry from what it used to be, ridiculed for how irredeemably shit it is. Treating career criminals with kid gloves and prioritising rehabilitation programs over long-term punishment is something that should belong in a comic, yet it doesn’t. If this adherence to this farcical ideology is prolonging the suffering of the people in my country, then it’s only natural to expect the same of the fictional people of Gotham. Outside of pounding skulls in, Batman’s moral stance is essentially the same as the hyper-morally driven police in the western world: prioritising the rights of criminals and their ‘potential’ over the safety of everyone else.

All you're left with is a hollow, self-righteous stance, the kind you’d expect from libertarian idiots who believe that somehow not taking ultimate responsibility will magically fix everything.

And it’s because this ideology is so unstable that it makes the rest of the problems impossible to ignore. How many times have we seen a cringy “MY PARENTS ARE DEAD” moment in the comics, the movies, the games and so on. It’s so emasculating for a trained, musclebound and fearsome creature of the night to break down into a blubbering mess every time he’s confronted with that trauma. Why is the batmobile portrayed as a hybrid between a nuclear-powered supercar and an APC, and why is it firing non-lethal rockets and non-lethally running over thugs and breaking their skulls on the non-lethal pavement? Why do some stories involve a mentally deranged psychopath like Red Hood pointing out the flaws of the no-kill rule to the other mentally deranged psychopath? Why is the counter-argument always “nuh-uh, there’s always a way to not kill”, while conveniently ignoring the umpteen gorillion deaths that have already been indirectly caused by him? Why is the character flanderized to the point where he can’t even SEE the dead bodies and not take responsibility, or even empathise with the victim possibly leaving behind a small defenceless child like him. Is it nobility or cowardice that keeps Batman from doing what must be done? And even after the bodies are cold, why does he not think it’s time for introspection and re-evaluation of his entire belief system?

It’s this kind of backwards logic that inspired me to create the Fallen Swords universe in the first place. Now more than ever, the world needs more heroes like The Shadow, and less heroes like Batman who are beyond culturally irrelevant. Heroic characters that are less rooted in stringent moralist nonsense and bound by a strong ethical code that allows adaptive freedom. I want to make characters who aren't afraid to dish out brutal justice to those that need a stiff kick up the arse, good or bad. Someone who tells it like it is, who isn’t afraid to show his face, who doesn’t care about the consequences.

Heroes that don’t mind showing you their big dick energy, instead of their stupid tiny balls.

*Phew* rant over. I seriously needed that off my chest.

I got Vinnie back from the vets today, and he's fine. He had acute-pancreatitis which was why he was feeling very listless and clearly in pain. He's been given a course of antibiotics and some very strong opioid-based painkillers, so he should be making a full recovery.

Thanks for all the concern everyone, it's very much appreciated.

I’m writing this journal and linking it to my closest pals to keep them updated, but long story short: My 11-year-old cockapoo is very ill. We took him to the vet since last night and although we’re hopeful and we know what’s wrong with him, we’re still preparing for the worst.

Vinnie is a bouncing bundle of fun, but seeing him go from that to not even slightly interested in food or being around his favourite people was very distressing for us. We had to wait until this morning when his vet practice opened to get him examined, and we found out then and there he had something very wrong with him. The vet wasn’t sure, but it could be anything from a chest infection to pneumonia, but he was fighting the infection. We had to leave him there and he’ll be going out of town for an overnight stay in the big pet hospital, but the overhanging dread of him possibly dying from this still hangs overhead.

I was planning to publish a few stories as well in the coming weeks before this happened. I was in the middle of editing several stories, including a one-shot commission for a friend of mine which I had no option but to refund. I just can’t focus on that stuff while this is going on and I’m sorry to let you all down. I’ll use this time to get the rest of the house in order and putting the written work on a back-burner. Sadly, things like this happen and I have to put the wellbeing of the family first. I will try to post an update within the next few days.

Thank you.

I just want to let people out there know that yes, there are riots going on in my country at the moment, and no I'm not in any immediate danger. It appears to be happening mostly in the northern part of the country but I'm nowhere near that.

I have no idea how long it will last, or whether the violence will spread over to where I live, so I'm hoping that it won't. I also want to say that if any of you are in the UK where this is happening, I am praying for your safety and I hope things blow over soon.

I write this after having come back home, and I have to say it was really well worth me going after all. I feel plenty invigorated and I feel like I finally got my groove back after so long.

For everyone lucky enough to meet me at CFz this year, thank you. I couldn't be more happy to have been around such wonderful and talented people, and even though we had that incident with the fire alarm on the last day of the convention, we managed to pull through regardless. I attended the macro meet with the aim of breaking myself out of my shell, and I managed to do so with someone stomping me, which was fun. I also met up with Blue Raptor from LD5 at the quiet macro meet, he wanted people playtest a tabletop game he'd been working on for so long, and man it was so fun to play. If anyone reading this is planning on going to Eurofurence this year, go check out Macro Monster Mayhem, it's such a cool game.

I also got a few commissions lined up as well, and I can't wait to show them off, so watch this space everyone!

I've completely lost all motivation to carry on with this shit now. After saying things i now regret and seeing everyone i want to hang out with reject me like the plague on resonite, and life carrying on as normal on the telegram charts i used to chat in; I'm sitting here and thinking what's the point? I've got one thing i go to on resonite and enjoy and that's it, I barely even write any more and there's only a handful of people i still talk to regularly.

I'm debating whether or not anyone would really miss me in the fandom, because with what happened last month at work, only my work colleagues and immediate family were there to support me. This was the one time i don't feel selfish in needing validation and told i matter to someone else and instead i get shit for not hanging out with people enough, and then more shit on top of that for saying something i now regret. So what's the point? I've got people who care about me and it's not from them.

Okay, just a few things to wrap up just so I don't have that previous journal staring people in the face for too much longer.

1. Sweet Beginnings
I have completed the Sweet Beginnings series, which ended up being so much more of an undertaking than I was expecting. The reason I wanted to explain Syrup's backstory in this way was because I didn't want him to just assign him with a throwaway personality (i.e. himbo, twink, jock, meathead etc.). I envision him as a very different, multi-layered character that needed some explanation. He doesn't see the world the same way everyone else sees it, nor does he think (or "not think") the same way either. He's very impulse-driven, prefering to face the aftermath of his consequences after actions rather than take careful planning. That is except for when it comes to construction at least which he has a real passion for.

You can see all the parts here listed below. If you're interested in the full story, you can check it out in order. Or if you wanna get to the good bit, I won't blame you for skipping to the final chapter.

Part 1: Lighting the Fuse
Part 2: Tip of the Iceberg
Part 3: Hot Under the Collar
Part 3.5: A Matter of Dominance
Part 4: Honey on a High
Part 5-1: The Lightning Struck Tower
Part 5-2: Built to Scale
Part 5-3: A Titanic Turnabout
Part 5-4: The Climax

2. Commissions
I've been toying with the idea of opening commissions again, and I'd like to do that again. Although there are a few loose ends I need to tie up before I get into that. There's stories I've promised friends, stories I've drafted and not finished, stories I've not even started at all, stories I want to write to target a larger audience and so on. I will announce it at a later date on these journals but I'm not in a position to do it just yet.

3. NeosVR and health related issues
Lately I've been engrossing myself in VR with a few friends on Neos, but I am noticing a big decline in my sleeping patterns. I'm going to have to restrict myself to a schedule because going to bed at 4am and then getting up again a few hours later is not good. I do want to hang out with more people on there tho so hit me up on telegram or whatever or find me in the metaspace - I'll be there, just as long as it's not too late in the night from now on lmao.

Let me just make this clear for anyone reading this. There are a lot of controversies surrounding FA, this isn't one of them.

I have always felt the furry subculture in particular are more prone to offense taking than other groups I've experienced online. So a policy regarding what is acceptable to upload on a certain platform and what isn't is necesserally going to generate a lot of cursing. But the more I see people posting journals of them leaving FA for the billionth time, or uploading art specifically to instigate more drama, the more I think how stupid this whole 'controversy' really is. I'm so sick of people treating this whole policy update as being a new rule, and I'm so sick of people who lack basic reading comprehension.

These policy changes are supposed to prevent the exploitation of minors, ensure consistency in rule enforcement, and create a safe and inclusive space for the furry community on FA. And let's be real here, this reflects a broader trend within online communities and content platforms to take a stronger stance against the sexualization or exploitation of minors. By adopting these rules, FurAffinity is aligning itself with industry standards and best practices regarding the depiction of minors. There are a lot of people out there exploiting loopholes (i.e. 1000 year old loli vampire) to worm around and allow themselves to post this horrid content. No, I don't care if aging up your Eevee characters with adult proportions stop making it a canonically accurate character. This is why I prefer making OCs, that way there's no ambiguity or doubt as to whether my characters are old enough for casual sex.

I think in a perfect world we'd all like to pretend that CP doesn't exist. But FA admins (for all their faults) simply aren't allowed to ignore it, because ignoring or neglecting such content would not only be morally reprehensible but also illegal. All online platforms, especially FurAffinity, have a responsibility to combat and prevent the distribution and creation of this kind of content.

The only place I can see this being a problem is how 'aged up' could be seen as a subjective standard, in that people are going to have a different opinion what counts as a child and what doesn't. FurAffinity already has clear guidelines and criteria to help moderators make decisions about this, including physical characteristics, context, and artistic intent.

Why is wanting to defend drawing something that's close to CP a hill some people are willing to die on? Enough already.

This time I'm seriously delivering on writing those damn stories, and it's not lost on me that I've made these promises before. So I want to clear a few things up before too long.

First of all, Sweet Beginnings: the good news is that I'm almost finished writing the new part to the last chapter. The bad news is that it ended up being too long AGAIN! I'm gonna have to split it up to two parts, again. But these two parts are a doozey, you'll see Syrup in rampage. The second part especially is him in full on horny rampage mode, doing all the things you love to see in macro fiction. I'm not letting you guys down here.

Speaking of which, I've been promising a friend that I'd get back into writing his story after my writer's block. That's also in the works now. There's also a whole bunch of other scrapped projects I want to finish, but that takes priority for me.

Hip hip

I don’t enjoy the new media anymore. I never wanted to be "that guy" who says the older stuff was better because I always heard old people say it, but now I can’t help saying it. It's frustrating to see new media that is clearly inferior to what came before it, especially when it seems to be driven more by political agendas than artistic vision. Every remake and "new story" lacks the charm and wit of the originals that paved the road before them, and what used to be a place which pushed the envelope to make light of cultural taboos has been replaced with safe corporate pandering to the largest possible demographic to maximise profits.That right there is what Hollywood and the majority of the mainstream industry has devolved into and artistic vision is no longer viable there.

You want to know what the last movie that made me want to go to the cinema was? Sonic the Hedgehog. Yes the first trailer was a joke, had the most unfitting use for Gangsta’s Paradise we’ve ever seen and that original model for Sonic was something straight out of my worst fever dreams, but the studio managed to turn everything around and make it GOOD, and Jim Carey’s iconically charismatic performance carried that movie all the way through. The only negative points I can make about it is Sonic floss dancing twice for no reason other than to pander to children was cringe.

I more fondly remember Joker 2018, because it was a breath of fresh air to watch and see the story about a sympathetic villain for a change. You want to know why it got people talking? Because if you take away the Batman setting we've seen a billion times by now, it could have easily stood on its own merits as a cautionary tale of what happens when society breaks down and stops caring about its fellow man. It's no doubt the future we're all walking towards, and Joaquin Phoenix portrayed his character brilliantly. Even though this film is referenced in countless memes and shitposts (which alone should be enough to tell you how it struck a chord with audiences); it is a modern masterpiece of storytelling and world-building that will no doubt be used as a case study by other movie making hopefuls in the years to come.

Compare that to Suicide Squad. Everything was flashy and obnoxious, the story was laughable, the characters were written worse, their design was absolutely horrendous and the special effects were caked on like makeup to disguise it's lacking in substance. It's the big mac of movies; it looks delicious in marketing, but when you finally eat it, you realise you’ve wasted money to consume a barely-warm, synthetic slab of microplastics and snot. How can such a big company like McDonalds, with all their advantages and resources, churn out this disgusting slop when my local kebab shop makes a far better burger without their branding?

What about video games? I’m not ashamed to say I prefer video games over movies but whenever I bring them up with most other people they often assume I’m on about something like Fortnite, or whatever triple-A title just released. I’m not about to give you a five-act opera about how my tastes are better because I prefer playing older games and indie titles, but I can’t think of a single other big game other than Warframe that I’m actually enjoying. These days it’s a miracle if a big-balls, triple-A title releases, doesn’t get a big fat day-one patch, and it isn’t still entirely broken. Why would anyone expect people to spend well in excess of £50 on these things if they’re going to be that unplayable on launch?

And before you start thinking that I’m applying subjective bias to objective quality, I'm sick of pretending that an objective standard of quality doesn't exist. We talk about “the bar” all the damn time, and people usually refer to that as the bare minimum level of quality that media outlets should strive to meet. So as far as I’m concerned, this is a high jump contest - either they get over the bar or they don’t, simple as. Things are only like this because people who don't demand anything from their entertainment just mindlessly consume them.

I’m not going to say that ALL stuff was better back then, there was just as much crap being made back in the 80’s and 90’s. All I’m saying is it's gotten to the point where the only creativity coming out these days are coming out of the independent studios outside of Hollywood and Los Angeles.


By the way, this rant was brought to you by me eating a big mac yesterday. I’m off to the kebab shop.

Oh hey, this thing still on? Good.

Since I've been without my brand new £2,000 computer for a while (why did it have to break?), I've decided to throw my hat into the ring again with more story writing. Hopefully it'll get published soonish? But here's hoping I'm gonna kick my own ass enough to actually do it and not keep getting sidetracked with these newfangled VR doohickeys and RTX shader whatsits. I'm more than enthusiastic to get back to that, but hopefully I'm at the end of my writer's block.

And no I don't care about the twitter buyout. Stop asking.

I've decided that I'm going through all of my contacts on here and will start either unfollowing people I don't have that much interest following, or following ones I really should. I will be doing the same on telegram, steam and so on. If I remove you, please do not be alarmed or offended, just hit me up again and chances are I'll boop ya.

That's it.

Just a quick shout-out for   smuppetfan69 as they've reached a milestone of 1.800 Followers. You can find it here:

https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10166716/

Make sure to read the rules and have fun.

So I watched the trailer for the new pokémon 'game' and after about a minute of some live action nonsense, I was blown away by what would have been amazing graphics on the Playstation 2. I wondered if there was something wrong with my player, but then I realised it wasn't streaming at 240p.

This trailer proved to me that (among other things) Game Freak doesn't care about the one thing it's known for. They care enough to franchise the hell out of it with animes, movies, figmas, funkopops... just not the games apparently. They haven't had one original idea since the turn of the millennium and the only thing they've put effort into now is designing a handful of pokémon that look 'cool'. Back in the day, GF had to work with the limitations of the handheld consoles Nintendo came out with. They're making these games for Switch now, that economic approach to game design is not at all appropriate for a AAA franchise, especially with games being made that look infinitely better. Right now, Game Freak should be pushing the envelope in terms of what an 'open world' pokémon game would look like with Arceus - and even that game has awful art direction. But NOPE - we should only make tiny tweaks and adjustments to the same game loop we've been using for over 30 years. Wew.

Just look at this trailer, then look at Legend of Zelda: BOTW - same console, same hardware, except one studio gave a shit.

Because I just know I'm gonna get a bunch of white knights in the journal, I'm just gonna pip them at the post. It's a commonly held belief that what defines a good game is purely subjective. No! What makes a game fun is subjective, it doesn't mean you can just ignore the objective factors behind what makes a game good. Otherwise it's Game Freak's very intentional artistic vision to have the game look like it was thrown together in the Unity engine with asset packs, on an underpowered computer from 2003. Also it's a clever marketing strategy to have the trailer rendered on that same computer with low quality textures without anti-aliasing, and releasing the game in pairs AGAIN so you force dumb kids who don't know any better to trade pokémon between games.

Oh and FA users are already uploading porn of the fucking starter pokémon because I guess everyone needs to have their brand new special snowflake fursona. Yay?

I've been updating the thumbnails for the stories in my gallery, and all except one is updated properly to the correct resolution. Does anyone know why this happens or know what I can do to fix this? I'm tearing my damn hare out over this!

Time for the rabbit everyone warned you about to touch base on a touchy subject. Paywalls. If you feel offended by what I have to say, please write an email to the following address:

nobodyaskedforyouropinion[at]paywalls.com

I feel something has been lost in translation in the relationship between artists and subscription services. For the purposes of this article, I'll refer to this problem as 'paywalls.' What is a paywall, exactly? A paywall, in what I feel is a charitable definition, is a subscription that requires a recurring payment in order to access exclusive content. There are some Patreon models that don't follow this model to the letter, such as getting early access to content or higher resolution artwork, but it still fits the definition.

Don't get me wrong: I believe that pursuing art as a job is a wonderful thing to do. I understand the appeal of turning my hobby into a job but still having creative freedom to accomplish anything I want with my work, as someone who wants others to read my stories. I also feel that turning art into a career and making it entirely about the money is completely valid as well, in order to franchise a brand and make it stand out from the crowd.

But, for the love of God, could you artists who do this just lighten up on the paywalls?

Except for the most naïve whiteknights, everyone secretly despises this bullshit and wishes you'd all stop encouraging it. With paywalls you are withholding already finished work from publication and charging and arbitrary fee to access it, so all it really does is turn an artist's presence into a massive fucking advertisement. Nothing does this more than slapping a giant Patreon logo and url in the watermark, or saying in the metadata or description 'by the way, the full resolution artwork/entire comic is available on this website, gimme ur money to access it X3'. Oh, I get to join a discord server and access an exclusive role channel? Neat, now I have something in common with other donators I guess? Oh what's that Mr popular artist person? I can spend almost £200 to have dumbass funny money to use so I can spend it during one of your six hour livestreams? What's that Mr comic porn man? I have to randomly pay £20 to access a comic containing the exact same content you were making ten years ago, but then you got salty because you didn't get enough attention or something? Hello game developer? Oh, you want me to subscribe to you so you can continue making yet another boring graphic novel slideshow style text adventure game just like all the other boring graphic novel slideshow style text adventure games on Steam?

By implementing these paywalls you're negatively impacting the community in two ways. First, this this mentality spreads to other artists, encouraging them to use similar monetization tactics when they really don't have to. Second, it results in people having to spend hundreds of dollars to see the work of all the artists they like, where in reality you're just manipulating your audience, and nobody will tell you this because they want to remain in your good graces.

But I don't care, I don't care if every last dipshit paywall artist on the platform blocks me over this. They can complain about "muh rent" all they want, but what they fail to realise is that their audience have the same expenses they worry about. And not all of us are skilled enough to draw artwork, or write stories that people want to buy and jerk off to.

Stop collectively milking your audience dry, stop treating them like remote piggy banks and start taking some responsibility for your own lives. It's easy to fall back on the starving artists trope as an excuse, but people who do paywalls are objectively not starving. They're being greedy and paywalls just make it clearer to everyone that this is exactly the case.

A little backstory: I have over 4,000 hours of TF2 experience and have dabbled with comp occasionally. I've also attempted to get into LOL, DOTA, and CS:GO. I tried so hard to appreciate these games, but I gave up a long time ago. Why?

The gamers forgot how to have fun
The game developers forgot how to design for fun

Is that a bold statement? Most definitely, and I'm going to explain my reasoning.

I don't understand why so many people can be so addicted to something they devote so much time to them, while screaming a constant stream of expletives at the same time. Let me summarize a typical game that happens to so many people, whether it's league, dota, tf2, Overwatch etc. doesn't matter: Someone is waiting for at least one idiot on the other team to screw everything up (although it's more often the case your entire team screws up, including you), and then everything snowballs out of control until something at the end of the map blows up, the end.

And who's to say you're even getting on with these people? Because chances are if you're not enjoying yourself, you end up making yourself a target for your own team to play the blame game. Oh yes, the favourite pastime of pissing and whining about who should have been where, and what items you're using and buying, and how THEY would do so much better than you, everything and anything can be used as ammunition on you, where all anyone wanted to do in the first place was sit down and play a game. And what it goes the other way? That you're witnessing players that are obviously not pulling their weight and are just titting around? Some players will have no interest in collaborating with you, and they're playing an entirely different metagame than the one you're playing, which is now negatively impacting the players who DO want to play the way you're playing. And by the time you realise you're not having fun, you won't be able to leave your idiotic team without getting punished. You're literally giving up the next hour of your life to play a high-demand, high-skill game that demands virtually godlike levels of teamwork and attention to succeed with people who, 99% of the time, have no idea what they're doing, and will never be either.

It also makes me laugh every time Blizzard or Valve have some new innovations on how to deal with the problems they've ended up making with every previous patch update to their timesinks. Blizzard seems to think they can 'police' their community by introducing report functions, but sometimes the people they end up penalizing were done so for very unusual weak reasons. Like that team from Fusion University got banned because it was spelt 'FU', or pro players getting banned for their open criticism of the CCP's handling of Hong Kong, or a series of other similarly batshit insane reasons I'm not going to bother researching. Valve just simply doesn't care, where there are STILL active cheats and cheaters plaguing the servers they go to, and as I've previously mentioned before only got lucky the one time, exposed corruption at the highest levels of the pro scene and aren't doing anything else to remedy anything.

By far the most ridiculous implementation in competitive games is the ELO matchmaking system. Oh it works BRILLIANTLY for chess, but not for a multi-faceted and complicated team-game that requires co-operation to succeed, not just raw strategy between two opposing minds. How does this improve ANYTHING? It addresses NONE of the problems I listed above, and in fact it just serves to make them worse. Remember, you're getting paired with other players to kinda sorta match some algorithm. Algorithms aren't complex enough to make these decisions.

And if you do SOMEHOW overcome all of this, what's the reward? A half-hearted congratulations and some banal feeling of achieving something? Did I enjoy it? Really? Five years ago I stopped playing these bullshit games, and I've proven to myself that I've had more fun without them than with them. And as long as I'm playing with friends who don't make my life a misery while playing these games, I'm happy.

I've done washing up that is more fun than playing with randos in public games or comp games.

I could work my way to the top, but I'd never be able to sit down and play with a community that despises itself and everyone else. I'd never have the patience to sit down for an hour with the kind of gamers who make the CoD crowd look less toxic in contrast, just to get good at a game that demands massive amounts of knowledge and ability, only to be eligible for a big circlejerk with other "professionals" at the end.

Fuck TF2
Fuck Overwatch
Fuck CS:GO
Fuck Dota
Fuck League
Fuck bullshit comp games in general
Fuck game devs that don't design good games
Fuck gaming communities
Fuck gaming in general man

If it seems like I'm bitter, I'm not. Gaming communities have been dead to me for a long time, and I don't miss them.

So my good buddy   Rasmussen891 who did quite a lot of art for me already is open for commissions right now. His work is high quality, he's super friendly to work with, works with a lot of kinks and they're also very affordable. Give him a go, and tell him I sent ya.

https://www.furaffinity.net/view/41052942/

Thought I should post something on here to fill the void between uploading content on here.

So years and years ago I was just like any other angsty young adult on the internet, and I left a few marks on some websites that I am either proud of, and others I'm not too overly fond of. But whatever, they're up there and I've all but moved on from a lot of it haha. One thing I didn't remember putting up on the Internet was a full on blog, which went nowhere because I never did anything in the way of promoting it, but it was more or less an outlet to vent a lot of my frustration in a semi-comedic ignorant manner a la Maddox style. These days, I put my energy into full time employment, gaming, and writing and commissioning art on here, so what I'm talking about today is pretty much a product of it's time... 11 years ago!

I'm not going to provide a link to it, because the second I post this I'll BALEET it off wordpress, I'm just posting it here and I'll provide annotations in red to... criticise my own work I guess?

Supersize This

Need advice on losing weight? You won’t find it here…No you won't, because I was FAT as well

A long while ago, Channel 4 decided it didn’t have anything worthy of airtime that night so it played this documentary called “Supersize Me”. Maybe they thought all the Chavs in Britain needed to be reminded simple things they commonly overlook, such as eating burgers every day makes you unhealthy, or babies need parents and not teenagers. I disavow this attempt at humour XD! Come on, as if anyone needs reminding that often…

So this is why I’m ranting about this ‘so called’ documentary. I mean anything can be called a documentary or an experiment. What I think I was objecting to the most was the usefulness of the data taken from this. I mean yeah eating supersize every day i don't think is the norm. I think supersized meals were considered a rare treat for Americans who I would speculate got a bonus from their boss one day and they got it when driving home one evening, for example.
- It’s something that has always pissed me off to apocolyptic proportions I think I meant the documentary...
- I am overweight and trying to lose weight, so I am already quite knowlegable about thisNo you weren't you fat bitch

So anyway – the supposed reason for him to conduct this experiment in the first place came around the time when two fat slags alleged they became obese after eating McDonalds food, were rightly laughed out of court and perhaps told to go on a diet and stop wasting their fucking time. Yeah I mean this should already tell you about the asinine nature for wanting to conduct this experiment in the first place, right? So instead of leaving it there, this douche steps in and claims much of the same criticism levelled against the tobacco companies can apply to fast food franchises whose products are both “physiologically addictive and physically harmful”.

Oh really? “Physiologically addictive” huh? It’s not like fucking nicotine you twat. If by that you mean “tasty” then yeah, I can see how some people would get addicted to said burgers, but there is nothing inside the burger that is altering the brain chemistry to make the user want it more.Actually that is the case. There's not specifically an active ingredient that gets you addicted, but the brain does this to itself. We all know about how the human species has evolved to the point where we can basically get food whenever we crave for it, that it's easy for us to overdo it and introduce problems like diabetes. The same can be said for gambling or drinking, it's all different routes to ultimately the same destination If they get to the point where they get fat from eating too much fast food, it is SELF INFLICTED and therefore not the restaurant’s fault. True. Furthermore, smoking is something that affects your health immediately because you’re essentially breathing in tar, nicotine, carbon monoxide, and a whole load of other crap. The calories, fats, salts, etc you get from eating a McDonalds burger are not only nothing compared to the damage you do to your lungs by smoking, but are also present in other food items which can be arranged into a balanced diet – rendering your tobacco comparison double and triple invalid. I honestly don't know why I wrote this XD

So yeah, the entire synopsis of the movie is essentially a healthy man deciding he’s going to conduct an experiment where he eats nothing but super-sized meals at Maccy D’s every day for a month and see what happens. Predictably enough, he gets fat and unhealthy. Fast forward 30 pounds later Spurlock gets some medical advice from a doctor and he tells him his liver is totally shagged out and he should stop what he is doing immediately to avoid permanent damage to his health. He decided to ignore his advice completely carry on with his shambles of an experiment. His liver is now beyond repair and he is now at risk of heart failure even though he has lost all the weight he gained during the experiment. I still have little sympathy for this lobotomite, like good for you dude. I'm just not so extreme if that makes sense.

Fast forward to today and I can safely say the movie has failed to make an impact on the country it was produced and published in, even though it is the 11th highest grossing movie of all time.

Eating is not hard to understand, so we don’t need you insulting our fucking intelligence. Everyone knows you’re gonna get fat if you eat tons of junk food and the ones that don’t die quicker so we don’t give a shit about them – boo bloody hoo. Primary school children already understand they need to eat healthily or they might end up being fat. My six-year-old niece practically snacks every single day on fruit, sometimes a little too much. I hope the grapes she likes aren’t getting her “physiologically addicted” to eating them. I think this bit was entirely made up

Oh that reminds me, what was your other motivation for making this movie considering I destroyed that other one a few million paragraphs back? To raise awareness of obesity in America? Oh yeah, because it’s not like you can throw a rock and hit a fat fuck over there, right? oh yeah this was a popular phase people went through at the time, where it was always people on the web shitting all over America for having fat people rofl Trust me, the only way awareness that movie is raising is of how flawed and retarded your documentries are. 11 years ago everyone, remember that, 11 years ago...

So tell you what Spurlock, here is my rant in three simple points so even species of sub-sentient intelligence can understand. cringe

1. Your film ‘Super Size Me’ is complete garbage; you achieved nothing except permanent damage to your health, but that’s probably for the better because we can forget about you much quicker. oof druss what an edgy low blow
2. It made no impact on your own country even though it is one of the highest grossing movies of all time, McDonalds is still open and selling sloppily made but delicious burgers, albeit without the option to supersize and more healthier alternatives (which I don’t know anyone to buy anyway). Maccys is kinda legit these days ngl, love the sausage egg mcmuffins, i usually just get two if I can I don't fuck with the hash browns. They're like deep fried fat triangles, easily the grodiest thing you can get there.
Fuck you. Luv ya too 20 years old Druss

The following is a letter I posted in the form of a comment on a Youtube video he did about removing random crits. Rather than have it suffer the fate of getting ignored and that I'll mirror it here as well. If a post about TF2 being shit doesn't interest you, just move on and enjoy your day, there's nothing for you here.

---


Dear Dane,

I'm someone that's been playing the game since 2009, I stopped in 2015 because I hated what the game turned into. After watching videos like this and booting it up for the first time in six years, I wanted to get back into what I enjoyed so much about this game. I spent all new years eve installing it again, tweaking settings, doing everything I needed to do to get it working properly on my setup just to play my favourite map: Badwater Basin.

And after playing for about twenty minutes and having my experience ruined by a fucking hacker, I closed it again. I immediately remembered everything I hated about the game. Honestly? Random critical hits is the least of TF2's problems.

Let's take a look shall we?
- The menus are a cluttered mess that make the windows 8 start menu look like a masterpiece in comparison.
- The "top duels" and stamps screen between loading (literally who cares?)
- The broken and deprecated replay engine that STILL is not removed
- Matchmaking in both casual and competitive gamemodes was and still is a complete joke, because the MMR system might work for chess, but it was never designed for a game with this level of complexity
- Tutorials are a joke as well
- TF2 is littered with crutch weapons such as the beggar's bazooka, the phlogistinator and the huntsman, offering plenty of cheap kills for noobs even without random crits.
- Free to play is largely responsible for the ruination of the player base by introducing dumb little children, and generally making it easier for cheaters to ruin everyone's fun
- And instead of prioritizing banning players using aimbots like LMAObox, they gave the community a report system they never intended to act upon in the first place. (VNN confirmed this)
- And when they eventually DID ban people for using LMAObox, it was because someone leaked the source code on github and added it up to VAC.
- Oh, and just to prove how corrupt the comp scene is, NEARLY EVERY SINGLE SNIPER MAIN FROM EVERY BRACKET IN THE UGC LEAGUES AT THE TIME GOT BANNED FOR USING LMAOBOX! I'm not kidding, look at the following list:
Kev: steam community com/profiles/76561198053652598
Vlad: steam community.com/profiles/76561198050666778
Fade: steam community.com/profiles/76561198154228044
Rico: steam community.com/profiles/76561198087011715
Shadoe: steam community.com/profiles/76561198080081709
Afterlife: steam community.com/profiles/76561198056958690
Skimmie: steam community.com/profiles/76561198262871146
Dentisting: steam community.com/profiles/76561198041694762
Timba: steam community.com/profiles/76561198055336380/
Battlemage: steam community.com/profiles/76561198068291022
LKB: steam community.com/profiles/76561198116755405
Cynex: steam community.com/profiles/76561198088153632
Cray: steam community.com/profiles/76561198050403444
Floey: steam community.com/profiles/76561198174050575
Polka: steam community.com/profiles/76561198017842960
Forever: steam community.com/profiles/76561198066314392
IFY: steam community.com/profiles/76561198088474308
Dope: steam community.com/profiles/76561198083104263
Proximo: steam community.com/profiles/76561198256907823
Daekaa: steam community.com/profiles/76561198065448261
Spork: steam community.com/profiles/76561198041146204
Mr64Bit: steam community.com/profiles/76561198127904574
MrBond: steam community.com/profiles/76561198064023977
Treble: steam community.com/profiles/76561198082456587

Imagine how many more "pro" TF2 players would get canned for using the latest hacks? Guess we'll never know for sure.

Valve were responsible for making some of the greatest games out there, but slowly over time they drifted further and further away from releasing genuinely engaging content, and just added features to the game that get either broken and forgotten about in a few months, or half-heartedly "patched" later when they feel like it. If it feels like random crits is an antiquated part of the game, that's because it's a symptom of a larger problem the developers fail to acknowledge, and removing them would make a very minimal dent to encourage older players to come back.