Things have gone downhill, and continued snowballing, pretty much since updates in how FA's content policy would be enforced going forward were announced on May 19. Understandably, a lot of people are upset. Some are hurt by the implication that their art is something they have strong feelings against. Some have been accused of pedophilia for protesting the changes. In an ideal world, what would have happened would have been some variation of "users voice their legitimate concerns about the collateral damage and fallout of this change, and whether or not the changes are canceled there's productive discussion." The announcement or one of the subsequent clarification newsposts should have explicitly acknowledged that many or most of these artists probably didn't intend their art to be minor coded, and these changes are being enacted out of... whatever reasoning. That changes in 2015 were "well-received" isn't exactly compelling as an argument to support making changes with such wide repercussions.

Were there people exploiting the special status of Pokémon and Digimon to post artwork that wouldn't otherwise be permitted under AUP 2.7? Probably. Because people gonna people. Does that change the fact that this rule is a bad rule? No.

So what do I mean by "a bad rule?"
Both this update and the update to AUP 2.7 from January 3 are what I would consider bad rules. It's not about the intent of the rule; it's about other qualities. Namely, good rules must be straightforward to evaluate ("does the submission check these boxes?") and should have minimal impact on content outside of what it is intended to govern. These updates fail on both points, and that puts both users and staff in an unfair position.

An example of a good rule would be AUP 2.12. There could probably be some tweaks, but overall, it's good because it's very black and white. There's a swaztika in your image? Box is checked; your image has to go. No ifs or buts.

So onto the current situation with AUP 2.7:
I know (well, I think it's a pretty safe assumption that wouldn't have changed since 2017) that the aim of every moderation team on Fur Affinity is to have consistent and fair enforcement. The best way to achieve consistency is to minimize the need for interpretation and moderator discretion. (Sometimes those will still be necessary for exceptional cases, but I strongly believe the need for them should be avoided as much as possible.) So it's not fair on staff by means of making their jobs much harder than they should need to be.

I should hope that the aim of most users is to follow the rules to the best of their abilities. I don't think anyone wants to get their submissions removed and action taken against their account. Good rules should be clearly stated and let users figure out for themselves what is/isn't permitted before posting. Rules relying on interpretation of artistic intent ("may not be fetishized" as in the January update) inherently put that at risk - I may upload something that I don't consider fetishistic, might not even reflect over the possibility of it, but if someone else thinks it is, and they report it, my intent doesn't matter anymore, only the intent moderation staff thinks I had does. This obviously makes it difficult to impossible to judge whether a piece is acceptable under the posted ruleset or not. The more recent update requiring young-looking Pokémon to be "aged up" rather than drawn on model makes this even more treacherous, as it adds art style to the list of factors that might determine the fate of a submission. It's not fair on users by means of drastically reducing their ability to make informed decisions about what they can/cannot upload.

The one recourse users have (if they realize that their art might be a problem, which is not guaranteed) is to file tickets to ask about their submissions before uploading. That's... not exactly fair on staff, either, by means of creating a situation where they have to handle those extra tickets. I'm assuming it's a pretty significant number, even before the calls I've seen for mass reporting random submissions out of spite towards site administration at large. (Don't do that; it's petty, wastes everybody's time, and violates Code of Conduct.)

As for the collateral damage...
Babyfurs were, from what I gather, hit pretty hard by the January update. Chances are this recent update will hit that community again. In my limited understanding, ABDLs and babyfurs find comfort in many of the trappings of early childhood, which I can pretty easily see leading to things like exaggeratedly plush pampers. I don't think that the intent there is inherently fetishistic. I don't know for certain, since it's been a long time since I regularly socialized with babyfurs (and the finer details of that side of them didn't really come up), but I suspect there are non-fetishistic reasons for depicting things like soiling in babyfur-focused art, as well. To the people reporting their content it will probably always look like fetish material, but I feel like they're probably biased and maybe not always acting in good faith. (The reason I say they might be acting in bad faith is because several of the people I've seen most vocally outraged about this content are also people who feel that babyfurs and ABDLs are inherently pedophiles, which is definitely not the case.)

For the May 19 update, Pokémon artists who stay reasonably faithful to the original art style(s) are the obvious collateral damage; I assume the same would be true on the Digimon side. Specifically, the artists who had no intent for the characters to be interpreted as minors; they were simply depicted as designed. This is a decently large segment of the artist userbase; I wouldn't know what percentage or anything, but I've been around the block. I know I've seen a lot of artists draw this stuff. Hell, I've got a ticket pending requesting feedback on some old-ass art of mine with mostly-on-model Pokémon that I was certainly not thinking of as children/cubs/minors/foo. (If I get told it needs to go, can I reupload it in five years when the art itself reaches age of majority?) Artists who draw Pokémon in diapers get the double whammy, here, as there's the risk that the diapers themselves will influence moderators in determining whether the characters are child-coded.

So yeah. Bad rules, rolled out less than ideally, including representation of the history of the rule that I find to be... questionable. But then comes the community's reaction. And... wow. Just wow.

---

As I said in my opening, it's quite understandable that people are upset. I'm not putting any blame on anyone for being upset alone. The problem lies in where they let these feelings take them.

There's been the people protesting that Dragoneer has/had Digimon and Pokémon porn in his gallery. And then being just as angry when he took one(?) of those pieces down. The change regarding Pokémon/Digimon in adult content isn't slated to go into effect until July 1, so it doesn't fucking matter. It's not, at this moment, disallowed. If it does violate the rules as they will be enforced at that time, taking it down is what he's supposed to do, so these people are angry because he... acted the same way any user should in preparation for the change? Regardless, there's no law that says he can't set rules that don't 100% follow what he himself is interested in, or whatever. I can't bring a dog into the pharmacy. Are you going to go yelling at dog-owning pharmacists that they're hypocrites, now? Because, uh... that's kinda ridiculous.

Then there were the people who decided that if they couldn't have nice things, they needed to go scorched earth and take everyone and their art supplies down with them. Post-pubescent minors (what I assume was the basic intent behind the arbitrary age of 13) have been allowed to be shown pregnant since 2020, as per the most recent (at time of writing) newspost. Three years, give or take, during which there was no significant blow-up over it, or at least none that I ever saw. That it has now been banned, closing the door for people with experience to share their stories (as well as people who just have characters who got pregnant in their teens because that's a thing that happens, but the lived-experience people are the biggest victims here), is something I place the blame for squarely on the shoulders of people trying to use that carve-out as a gotcha in order to try to get the Pokémon/Digimon exception back. It's not as though the "minors may not be fetishized" clause in the rule wasn't already there. Fetishistic depictions of teen pregnancy weren't on the menu.
They just had to drag others down with them.

(On a tangential note, I understand the "18 years old" thing isn't really at FA's discretion, but HOLY FUCK it would be so nice if we as a society stopped pretending like teens don't have sex. Like, I'm not saying allow minors in live-action porn or anything, but, like... it feels utterly unnatural that fiction gets forced into a weird corner where characters practically have tamper-proof seals on their genitals until they hit 18. I'm sure this is gonna get misconstrued, but really all I mean is that it would be nice if high school dramas were allowed to include actual high school drama. All of it. It's a storytelling thing to me.)

Anyway, those people also were mighty upset with the explicit carve-out for non-sexual transformation and vore themes as permissible. And, like... the language for that part of the rule was a little iffy ("themes" would have been so much better than "interests"), but it's something so obvious it shouldn't even need to be said. "Vore" is colloquially used within fandom for, well, eating, particularly of live prey. That doesn't mean every instance of "vore" is actually paraphilic/sexual. But that's how the protestations went, right along with arguments saying that anyone wanting to create art with minors in these contexts is obviously a pedophile. Which... uh. I guess you just accused the Brothers Grimm of wanting to diddle kids, seeing as their retelling of the Red Riding Hood story is one of the most influential/common ones. Great job, you guys. You sure showed them. I believe there's some vore themes in Aesop's Fables, as well, so we're looking at centuries of "fetishes" being peddled to minors. If that's the hill you want to die on.

Transformation is even more ridiculous of a claim, given how common a theme it is in children's media. Off the top of my head, in no particular order... Ben 10 (titular character), The Twelve Swans (main character's 12 brothers), The Frog Prince (titular character), Pinocchio (titular character), Snow White (evil witch/queen), Sleeping Beauty (evil witch/fairy), Shrek (titular character, Princess Fiona, misc side characters including Donkey), The Little Mermaid (titular character), Beauty and the Beast (Beast), DO WE FUCKING GET THE POINT? Hell, we've got Greek mythology (Zeus being the most frequent offender), Norse mythology (especially but not exclusively Loki), and I believe possibly even the fucking Bible, but who am I to get in the way of your juvenile outrage?

Of course they can be depicted in a fetishistic context/manner. So can fucking high-heeled shoes. But neither is inherently and necessarily so, and acting like they are just sounds like sour grapes at this point.

---

I don't like the changes that have been made to AUP 2.7 this year. I'm not saying I do. I think they're bad changes and I've clearly stated why. I also think that it's utterly childish to attack, badmouth and harass staff over it, to try to deflect onto other subjects that are supposedly JUST AS BAD, or to call anyone protesting a pedophile or groomer. It's ridiculous to pass around screenshots of staff making completely reasonable statements and make out like they just spoke out in favor of enacting the suggestions in Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal.

But I guess I shouldn't be surprised. :/

CW: Discussions of murder, gun violence, transphobia

At this point most of us probably know that there was a shooting in Nashville, Tennessee. That several children were killed, alongside a couple of adults. And it's fucking tragic. Whatever motivated the shooter, it didn't justify taking the lives of these human beings. I'm not in any way defending those actions (and it's fucking sad that I'd have to say this, but it seems to be the world we're currently living in, so...).

I'm also seeing the shooter, Aiden Hale, misgendered so pervasively I actually had trouble figuring out his gender at first. He's being misgendered by news outlets in the same fucking breath that they identify him as transgender. And this is not okay. It speaks of some really troubling societal attitudes and clouds on the horizon. It's obviously not being done in good faith - if it were, it wouldn't be coming out of the mouths of people who are well aware that he was a trans man. If you're not willing to use Hale's proper pronouns for Hale, then do it for the bigger picture.

But Alex, isn't using someone's proper pronouns a sign of respect? I shouldn't need to show respect to a child killer!
Hot take, here, but using a trans person's proper/preferred pronouns isn't a matter of respect, not in that way. It's not merely disrespectful to deliberately misgender someone; it's dehumanizing, cruel, and abusive. By framing it as a matter of respect, you're reinforcing the idea that transgender people need to somehow "earn" the right to be treated the same way everyone else is. That it's okay to make their humanity, their person, conditional on their respectability.

And let's be clear, here, we're talking about deliberately and knowingly misgendering a person. A person who did very awful things, but that doesn't mean misgendering them can't have wider ramifications (more about that later).

But Aleeex, Hale was a monster!
So call him that. You're clearly perfectly capable of thinking of names to call him without resorting to misgendering him. If you feel the need to call him a shitbag, a monster, a bloodthirsty villain, go ahead and do so. I personally draw a line at denying someone's humanity, as I think that's a dangerous road to head down. (In my book "I can't understand how a human being could do something like that" is fine; "Someone who does that isn't human" is not.) Hell, if "he" tastes too vile in your mouth, at least use singular "they." It's still infinitely better than "she."

Why are you defending Hale?
I'm not. I do believe there is a base line of acceptable treatment of a person, living or dead, but even if you don't, there's ample reason to not misgender Aiden Hale.

So why shouldn't we misgender the perpetrators of egregious crimes?
The TL;DR here is "because it's transphobic." You can try to justify it any way you want, but at the end of the day all you've done is say "transphobia is sometimes okay." And, like... I don't think that's a defensible position. Full stop.

Let's explore this a bit further, shall we?

I don't believe it's a coincidence that it's a trans man that's getting this thoroughly misgendered. Like, obviously part of the reason is that Aiden Hale was the person who shot up a school, so it was a trans man that was at hand. But stop and think about the wider context, here. TERFs and far-right agitators are hand-wringing about trans women in women's bathrooms and changing rooms. Drag queens reading books to children are being demonized. Parents bringing their kids to drag events are being accused of enabling "groomers." The transgender Big Bad that's being created by the wider anti-trans rhetoric being pushed is an AMAB individual, usually with male pattern baldness (because not meeting mainstream beauty standards is such a reliable predictor of criminal/violent behavior, amirite?), who uses "I identify as a woman" as a means of accessing vulnerable women and children to victimize. So it plays right into this rhetoric that the transgender shooter who hurt innocent children must be identified as a woman, regardless of their actual identity. If Hale had been a trans woman, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if more media outlets had gotten his gender right, because too many of them have bought into and/or been feeding the hostile social climate towards transgender people. Enough so that a whole slew of people (including some NYT journalists) wrote/signed an open letter calling the New York Times out on their coverage of transgender topics.

It's also something that's being done because the offender is transgender. We need to acknowledge this, and recognize that treating an offender differently (in a negative way) because they are transgender is transphobic. Ain't nobody misgendering Beverly Allitt, who killed at least four literal babies and attempted to kill or grievously harmed a further nine babies and young children. Ain't nobody misgendering Brenda Spencer, who killed two employees and injured eight children and a police officer when she shot at an elementary school. And nobody's misgendering, IDK, freaking Jeffrey Dahmer. These people shouldn't be misgendered, mind, but it goes to show that using the wrong pronouns for a killer isn't exactly standard operating procedure (and it shouldn't be).

Misgendering Hale normalizes the idea that it's "sometimes okay" to act transphobic, as long as it's towards people who have committed egregious enough offenses. But even if that were an otherwise defensible position, there's never going to be agreement on where that line should be drawn. I was told it was inappropriate of me to snark in my own space about being widely misgendered, back when I was "just" being vilified for not being harsh enough on nazi-related artwork (at the time not against the rules) as a member of FA's staff. (Now, I'm AFAB and still use she/her pronouns, so maybe misgendering me isn't strictly transphobic, IDK, but it's an example of "egregious enough to excuse misgendering" in some cases being a much lower bar than "killed multiple children.") If we decide that it's "sometimes okay" to misgender people, that "sometimes" is going to shift. It's going to be used to create plausible deniability for more extremist transphobes who don't actually give much of a flying fuck whether the person they want to dehumanize actually did anything particularly bad.

Transphobia is never fucking okay. Not even a little.
And I don't think I'm setting the bar very high when I say this: I don't expect anyone to always get things right. But I do hope you try to be a better person than getting things wrong on purpose.

Don't be so petty about whatever "respect" you feel it affords Hale to at least not call him "she," that you lose sight of whose hands you're playing into by doing it. Because they aren't going to stop at school shooters, and they're going to point at you to justify their behavior when called on it.

---

EDIT: Apparently I need to make this extra special super clear for the kids in the back: This issue isn't about the Nashville shooter. He's dead and isn't going to directly suffer for being misgendered. It's about the wider repercussions of the way the case has been treated in both mainstream and social media. It's about the treatment of Hale as part of a larger picture, and about where I believe it will take us if nothing is done. It's about how fucking gross it is to give yourself and/or others permission to be transphobic when circumstances are ugly, and how such allowances tend to open doors for worse, over less.

Media doesn't only misgender perpetrators, either. A nonbinary 16-year-old stepped forward just the other day after The Free Press published an article about their mother's experience with Washington University's Transgender Center. The article was published against the wishes of Alex ("Casey" in the article), and used he/his pronouns for Alex throughout, while explicitly noting that those are not the ones Alex uses. Simply because those were the pronouns their mother was using. This is reporting that should have stopped at the editor's desk, and it's revolting that they instead went ahead and published it. I would probably have mentioned this case in the journal, too, if I'd known about it, but the article wasn't even published yet, from what I can tell, much less Alex's rebuttal.

The problem is that when these patterns of conditional standards of treatment are established and perpetuated, they reinforce bigotry. They embolden people who at the very best wish for transgender and gender non-conforming individuals to cease to be visible in public. They create an atmosphere where it might seem okay to pressure transgender individuals to perform in order to see even a tiny bit of acceptance. That culture already exists - transphobic people frequently present arguments that are centered around the appearance of particular transgender or assumed-to-be-trans individuals - but it doesn't need boosts from shitty reporting.

So yeah. This journal is about transphobia, and how it's not okay to knowingly make the choice to misgender someone, any more than it would be okay to use pejorative language referring to someone's race or sexuality or whatever other minority they might be a member of.

Let's get one thing out of the way first of all: It's been over five months since I left FA staff.

The site rules haven't changed.
Unsurprisingly, this means that people are still getting pissed about the exact same kind of calls I had to make when I was on staff.

And, like, I don't really care for it, because Dragoneer is a decent guy and I like the people I worked with. It sucks to see them get maliced. I don't like seeing people I consider friends get attacked. But most of the time it's not really in my sight, so I go about my life blissfully unaware. I don't like the smacktalking in concept, but in practice it's not really something that becomes part of my life on a day-to-day basis.

However. There's a non-zero number of individuals who go out of their way to claim that since rules are getting enforced largely the same way they were when I was on staff (because they're the same fucking rules), I must still be on staff shielding nazis. Or just outright suggest, with varying degrees of subtlety, that I fall somewhere on the spectrum of nazi/sympathizer/apologist.

Stop it.

I resigned. I've been off staff for almost half a year. Stop fucking dragging me into whatever issue you happen to have with FA this week. Especially stop fucking libeling me. Because that's what it is, when you call me a nazi, or accuse me of ever having "shielded" them. Libel. It is a lie, it is defamatory, it is hurtful, and you've done enough harm already. Just lay off it.

If you so badly need a monster to pin ticket responses you don't like on, just go ahead and make up some bogeyman for all I care, but leave me out of it.

That said, I'd also like to extend a hearty fuck you to the folks who try to use my situation to spit-shine their smug letter-of-the-law public face. Describing the circumstances around my resignation as "mob attacks against moderation staff almost resulting in suicide" is not only factually incorrect (I'd have accepted "almost resulting in attempted suicide", but I've been very clear on the point that the method I was considering during my suicidal ideation would have been unsuccessful), but also a distasteful appeal to emotion in an attempt to appear legitimate.

If you actually cared about the person whose suicidal ideation you're attempting to score goodwill capital off of, you'd stay the fuck away. I'm not some kind of sob story you can wave around to show that you're so much more considerate than the awful, awful SJWs. As much as the people who attacked (and continue to attack) me were (are) doing something wrong and need to take a step back and consider the actual harm they're doing, you can't sit there retweeting Breitbart and pretending you have the moral high ground.

Well, you obviously can, since that's what you're doing, but it's an utter load of crock, and I am not okay with being wielded like an emotional bludgeon in the process.

Just...

I don't want anything to do with either of y'all's beef. Leave me the hell out of it.

There are many philosophies about dog training. I personally, and many with me, believe in methods using primarily positive reinforcement, supplemented with sparse use of negative punishment and/or verbal corrections (technically positive punishment) if necessary to address negative behaviors. I believe in these methods because far as I've seen, they minimize stress and make behaving in the desired way an enjoyable experience for the dog. It took me maybe 2-3 5-10 minute sessions, tops, to teach my housemate's 8-year-old dog to sit, using only positive reinforcement. I rarely have to ask her slightly neurotic 5-7-year-old dog to settle down more than once. (To be clear, these are much-loved and overall well-cared-for dogs, that have decent recall, their owner just happens to be on the old and soft-hearted side, with some minor mobility issues, so training for anything other than coming when called hasn't been a priority for her.)

Training people isn't much different from training dogs. You can explain to them what it is you want them to do, but ultimately, if you put off rewarding them for good behavior for too long, they're not going to be very motivated to continue. This goes doubly if there is a perceived reward for "bad" behavior - it's harder to teach a kid not to sneak cookies from the cookie jar than it is to teach them not to sneak brussel sprouts off the dinner table before saying grace. (Unless your child is a changeling who actually likes brussel sprouts, in which case you're shit out of luck, I guess. :P) You want to encourage the behavior you want to see.

I know it can feel off-putting to praise someone you overall dislike. Trust me. But if you don't, how are they going to know the difference between "good" and "bad" behavior? If Richard Spencer gives up his seat on the bus for me (yeah, I know, public transit in America, but you get the idea), I'm going to say "thank you", because that's the decent thing to do when someone does a nice thing for you. If Jimmy Åkesson stops to let me cross the street at a crosswalk without lights, I'll give him a wave in thanks, because that's the decent thing to do when someone does a nice thing for you, even if the law technically says I have right of way. (I mean, a car weighs like 100+ times what I do and is hell of a lot more durable, I ain't arguing right-of-way with a fucking car.) If goddamn Adolf fucking Hitler himself rises from his grave to hold the door for me, I'm going to thank him for holding the door because regardless of what else he's done holding the door was nice of him. And you know what? That does not make me a nazi, a racist, or a right-winger. It makes me a decent human being capable of appreciating little kindnesses in daily life.

Now, if any of them strikes up a conversation with me and starts trying to discuss the merits of eugenics, I'm going to tell them to sod off and take their racist bullshit with them, but I'm going to first give them the chance to do that. Or more importantly, to not do that. You don't show people how to be a decent person by coming after them with torches and pitchforks. By doing that you instead show them that people who are not like them are scary and hostile. You give the people you want them to walk away from the opportunity to voice sympathy and snare them just a little tighter.

Does this mean you have to be supportive of people you hope to reform no matter what? Hell no. Friends call friends on their bullshit. You're absolutely allowed to tell people "that thing you just said is hella not okay". You're allowed to choose to not associate with people who become too much of a drain on your energy, if it comes to that, because you still have to put yourself and your own well-being first. Just realize that someone will have to be the first person to give this maybe-former AltFurry a chance. And if no one steps up and does that, you can't well blame them for going back to the AltFurries. Humans are social animals. If only one group will have us, chances are we sooner or later will be drawn there. It's better to open up, be prepared to tell people "what you just said is a problem and this is why" if necessary, and maybe be let down once in a while, than to stand by and let the alt-right recruit all the outcasts because you're too goddamned preoccupied with only associating with people who already have the "right" (by which you mean "not alt-right") opinions.

No, you do not have an obligation to teach. But you should acknowledge that it might be just a teensy bit unfair of you to expect someone to learn if there's no one willing to take a chance on them and put a little effort into training. And as any dog trainer would tell you, training takes time. It takes patience. And sometimes you backslide.

But in the end, you end up with a well-trained dog. Or a well-reformed AltFurry. But maybe there isn't much difference in the grand scheme of things?

Being human, I have flaws. One of them is that I, as a rule, am nearly compulsively helpful. (Mary-Sue hunters will tell you that's "not a real flaw"; I challenge them to say that to my husband's/boyfriend's face.) If I see someone complaining about a problem that has a readily available solution, I'll probably let them know about that solution. Sometimes they appreciate it. Sometimes they don't even acknowledge it. Sometimes I'm met with hostility.

Okay, cool, sometimes you just want to blow off steam in a public forum and don't want other people's input. I personally think biting someone's left ear off over it is a bit much, but I'm not going to give them too much of a hard time over it.

Here's the thing, though: I really don't have an ulterior motive. I'm genuinely trying to be nice. To me, nice does not ride on affiliations or cliques. I'll hold the door open for you if you're coming through behind me regardless of who you are. I'll stop when you're waiting at the crosswalk. I'll slow down to let you merge into traffic ahead of me. I won't swear or jaywalk in front of your children. (I may slip up on the swearing, but not intentionally, and not often.) I'm trying to live up to my ideal of what humanity should be like, and part of that is being considerate of others.

You don't have to like someone to be nice. And you don't have to like them to say "thank you". If you have problems accepting a kind gesture from me because of who I am, and/or what you believe I stand for, the problem is with you, not me.

It's been a month since I resigned from Fur Affinity staff.
For me, that's been a month wrought with stress. Some of it from the holidays, but a lot of it has been tied to my resignation directly, to the events that lead to me resigning a bit over 7 weeks earlier than planned, and to the events following my resignation. To be blunt, not working with FA has made me miserable. Stepping down was the right decision to make, given the effect the situation was having on me. But it also means I lost a meaningful task that was a significant part of my daily routine. And Fur Affinity lost someone who regularly spent long hours reviewing reported content. I have felt awful for the other members of staff, being left to do the work I would otherwise have done. Doing the right thing for myself meant leaving people I care about and consider friends to pick up the slack. I left my friends in a bad situation, something I had worked to avoid by remaining on staff until January 27, after I made my original decision to resign. That eats at me.

I am going to be direct, here: I have been vilified for enforcing site rules rather than being a moral guardian. What I was subjected to was harassment, and being "on the right side" doesn't make what the people participating in it did any more right. Like the vast majority of people, I consider being called "nazi" a pretty grievous insult and attack on my character. I know it's not a true allegation, but it's still hurtful. It's hurtful because people are saying it. It's hurtful because those people are getting believed. It's hurtful because people have lied in order to have a story about how awful I supposedly have been to them.

I hate politics. That's a primary reason why I don't discuss my ideological worldview much publicly - it's simply not a topic of conversation I enjoy. My underlying attitude is a fucking hippie "let's all try to treat each other decently" that doesn't really have a spot on the political spectrum anyway. I don't think violence solves anything. I don't think insults and personal attacks solve anything. If pushed, eh, I'm some kind of socialist egalitarian authoritarian (I like rules and proper procedure) pacifist thing, I guess. Probably somewhere left of mainstream US politics. I'm born and raised in Sweden, and grew up reading Bamse, for fuck's sake!

I have tried to be open about what the situation around my resignation did to me without making a huge deal about it, because I sincerely want people to look at their actions, go "whoa, I guess we went too far," and do better. I want to believe in good people, whose primary motivation is to treat themselves and the people around them well. But I've been shaken in that faith, because the people who did this never seemed to care about what their actions were doing to me, or to Dragoneer who keeps getting angry messages virtually every time someone disagrees with any administrative action. Being shaken in something as foundational as my faith in humanity has hurt, more than I thought it would at the time.

Since that approach hasn't done much, I'm going to go for broke. After this, if people still won't believe what I'm saying, the problem is theirs, not mine. I don't do lies, and that there are people claiming otherwise doesn't make it true. So. I have been in treatment for depression and anxiety for literally years, and I have been open about this. I can't remember anymore whether I was put on antidepressants before or after I was brought on as FA staff. My social circle is pretty much isolated to extended family, one friend from 7-9th grade, some subset of Tumblrpon, and the furry fandom. Watching the malicious rumors about me unfold, I saw my future in the furry fandom getting ripped away from me. The thought of that isolation was terrifying to me. So much so that between that and the utter unwillingness of the social media platform being used to take any action to curb the harassment and libel I was subjected to, the primary thought in my head was about overdosing on one of my prescriptions.

I didn't act on those thoughts, by a very narrow margin. If I had, it wouldn't have killed me anyway - I've since looked up the LD50 of the substance in question and the pills I had on hand came nowhere close - but I didn't know that at the time. But it was stronger than any other bout of suicidal ideation I've had, and when I mentioned it to my boyfriend the next day, he was justifiably concerned. He told me I should step down, because staying on was now endangering my life. I mentioned his reaction to other friends, who concurred. No one knew about me considering suicide until after I had the thoughts under relative control. That's what tipped the balance, though. I was harassed and badmouthed until I felt, even if just for an evening, like the only way to escape the reputation these people were building for me was to kill myself. That's why I called those events bully tactics. It's what they were.

My resignation was followed by people congratulating themselves on getting me "removed". I don't have words for how wrong I consider this. You don't say "good job, everyone!" after a successful (whatever that means) harassment campaign. That's disgusting. Spreading lies about someone and making them feel like there is no end to the abuse is not a good act, no matter what ends you use to try to justify it. Some people telling stories about how I supposedly wronged them may have been speaking from a position of having misunderstood the citation they received. I don't know. But some people were definitely aware that they were lying, since they referenced exchanges with me that never took place. That shit is libel. That shit is not okay. That shit is why I feel absolutely justified in calling the twisted one-upmanship that some people were engaging in, while going "look what she did to me", virtue signaling. Because the people saying this (and they should damn well know who they are) were only adding fabricated stories to be able to join the angry mob. To get pats on the back from the other people who claimed to have been wronged. A good number of these people also were quick enough to deny they said this or that when called on it.

I also saw people trying to connect me to the attack on FA that took place the day after I resigned. Disregarding how ludicrous that claim is in the first place, since I still am friends with the staff members who had to clean up the mess (and that is not shit you subject your friends to), I think it says something about the motivations of the people drawing these parallels. Never the less, it was hurtful, just as being called "nazi" was hurtful.

In the few places I mentioned that I'd been courting the idea of suicide, I was accused of lying about it to get sympathy. As I mentioned before, I don't do lies. My boyfriend was kind enough to back me up in one of these places when the stress of the situation had me in tatters, resulting in someone suggesting that the comment was left by me using a different name (nevermind that he and I do not type the same way at all). I can understand, and largely agree, if you say I should be talking to a therapist about the suicidal ideation. That's absolutely an appropriate way of dealing with it, and it's something I'm working on, continuously. However, I felt it was important for people involved in this situation to understand that their actions have consequences, and as such I decided I should be open about how their actions affected me.

I also finally got fed up with something that has been a pattern for years: when complaining about my administrative actions, people have been significantly more inclined to use male pronouns for me. I used to find it funny, in an absurd sort of way, since correct information about my gender has never been difficult to find. But I'm also big on treating people the way you want to be treated and consistency in ideology. When I see trans people who care about people getting their pronouns right, or people who otherwise stress correct pronoun usage, not bothering to take five seconds to look at my profile, that's hurtful to me. Not directly because I'm misgendered, but because these are people to whom by all appearances correct pronoun usage is a matter of being a decent human being. Thus, what their failure to even use a neutral "they" to refer to me (if they really didn't think to look on my profile for pronouns or gender indicators even as they took screenshots of it) signals is that I'm not worth basic human decency. It's dehumanizing. I'm offended not because of the mistake, but because of what the mistake being made by these specific people signifies. When people who did this have apologized I've accepted, thanked them for the apology, and apologized in turn if I've drawn the wrong conclusion about their motivations based on the information that was available to me at the time.

I've gotten a lot of shit over the years I've been on FA staff. Many of the people lashing out at me probably feel bad about being caught breaking a rule; maybe they feel it's unfair that they were caught while others weren't. And yeah, it sort of is. But that's not my fault. I can't be everywhere. I can't see everything. All I ever could do, was look at the evidence presented to me, evaluate whether it violated site rules, and then either take action or not, depending on the answer. The system is unfair because not everyone that breaks rules gets reported. Not the staff's fault. All of our faults, as users, every time we see a violation and decide we don't want to bother filing a ticket. The best we can all, collectively, do, is try to make sure we follow the rules, and help staff hold people who don't to them.

Maybe I'll recover. Maybe I won't. At the very least it'll take me a long time to get over how I've been treated, and what that suggests about human nature. I'm shaken and I'm hurt. The number of days I've gone to bed feeling okay - not good, but merely "okay" - in the last month are in the single digits; I believe I could count them on the fingers of one hand.

What I ask, from everyone, is this:
Try to be a good person. Own your mistakes, instead of lashing out at the people calling you on them, and then try to do better. Look at your own actions in a critical light, and consider whether you're practising what you're preaching. Ask about site policy if you're unsure about what the rules say - there's a whole separate ticket category for it! Stop bothering Dragoneer every time you don't like a decision - there's a whole separate ticket category for disputing admin action, too! And don't fucking go after anyone else like these people went after me.

If you've got it in you to do more than that, consider donating to an organization such as Life After Hate. I can pretty much guarantee that their success rate is far higher than a punch in the face.

As of today, I am no longer on Fur Affinity staff. Resigning from my position wasn't an easy decision, and I will miss working with the awesome team running this show, but if there is one truth in life, it is that sometimes you have to look after yourself first. And sometimes, standing up for what you believe in will hurt. It is certainly true for me, now. I was originally going to step down in about a month and a half, but outside factors came into play that accelerated those plans.

I have left staff on good terms, and if circumstances change in the future, far as I'm concerned I'm open to the idea of rejoining the team. There were multiple factors playing into this decision, and I'm not going to be able to go into detail on all of them due to NDA and/or site policy, but the quick run-down is this:

# As of 27 January 2018, I would have donated five years of my life to Fur Affinity. That's a long time to be volunteering for the primary reward of a job well done. I don't regret the time I've spent, but I have to recognize that it's a significant portion of my life and it may be time to move on for that reason alone.

# Some aspects of internal policy go against my grain, and I am not comfortable standing for those decisions. I have good reasons for my position, others have good reasons for theirs, the two are simply irreconcilable and no available compromise would alleviate my concerns sufficiently for me to feel okay about this.

# I have had significant amounts of venom aimed at me both on Fur Affinity itself and on social media. It's taken the form of malicious rumors, smear campaigns, misrepresentation, and petty potshots at my identity, such as deliberate misgendering. At times, this has risen to levels where my partners have expressed concern for my safety. While I am aware that the people spreading this vitriol are a small subset of Fur Affinity's userbase, it's the absolutely ugliest side of this job, and when it starts affecting my loved ones, it's crossed yet one more line.

# Similar to the above, it is starting to strain my patience to the breaking point to see users and former users (some the same as above, some different) who malign staff in general, or particular colleagues, over administrative action or just because hating on Fur Affinity staff is the cool thing to do this week. This is something that has brought me to the verge of quitting not once, not twice, but three times over my time as staff, and something I hope a future generation of furries will have better manners than to perpetuate.

# Yet another aspect of the above, there is a small but vocal subset of users (and some people who don't even use FA) who feel that the correct response to disagreeing with site rules, site staff, or administrative action, is to launch a fully-fledged shitstorm on social media. This is a persistent pattern that has been in play pretty much as long as I've been on staff (and likely longer), but it's grown increasingly toxic over the last year or so. Subjecting Dragoneer, Fur Affinity, and FA staff to trial by social media every time you don't get your way is bully tactics at their lowest, and I don't have the power to change this. Make no mistake, however, that the people who engage in this are being bullies, and evidently have no qualms about twisting the truth or outright lying in their virtue signaling.

# I may not be able to legally volunteer the amount of time required to perform Fur Affinity staff duties, should I be granted disability status, due to the way Swedish disability pay is structured. It's pretty ridiculous, given that the conditions that make Fur Affinity moderation a task I can perform are not conditions I can reasonably expect to find in a workplace, but it's still a concern I have to take into account.

A huge thank you to my colleagues of these past five years. I've come to value all of you, and I will miss working with you dearly. Also thank you to the users who've been courteous in your interactions with staff - the positive reactions and the people who're willing to own their mistakes and better themselves are the absolute best side of the job, and all that has kept me going at times.

I volunteered for five years because I wanted to help. I wanted to take part in improving communication and holding people to the rules they agreed to when they joined the site. I like to think I have done that at least in some small way.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

---

For a follow-up, see this journal where I discuss the emotional impact of both my resignation and the way I was treated on social media

Created and started to move some of my harder/more extreme artwork to  DarkZander.

So far it's been castration and some rough personal vent art, but now I'm sitting here going "okay, there's probably more stuff that should be moved, but what?"

I've been staffing a furry art site too long; I'm so jaded I can't tell where I should be drawing the line between "bog-standard adult artwork" and "extreme stuff to shuffle over to a side account".

Tell me: What subject(s) do you think should be relocated?

To celebrate me finally getting around to giving my profile a long-overdue overhaul, opening up a little informal Q&A session. If a question or its answer violates/would violate Code of Conduct (e.g. by being too explicit for General content or by linking Mature/Adult content or content otherwise not allowed on the site) it's off limits, as are questions that would violate someone else's privacy, but other than that, pretty much anything goes.

I do not do lies, but I cannot guarantee all answers will be terribly serious.

Have at!

Since I'm spending much of my waking time working to clear out FA's ticket backlog, I figured I should probably try to clear out other backlog I may have, too.

Note: I have very poor memory. Most of the time I still somehow manage to commit to memory things I've promised to do, but especially the last year or so, since my depression really took hold, I know I've been forgetting things.

So, this is an open invitation: If I owe you something (I don't THINK I have any outstanding artwork owed on FA, but, yeah, my memory is very poor), please come forward and tell me so!

I won't be mad at you. It's not your fault I forgot. I do ask that you're respectful about it, simply because being rude and reproachful is not a very productive way of interacting with people.

I just want to clear the slate and get to a point where I don't have old debts hanging over my head.

One of my girls is currently racking up a frightening vet bill, diagnosis fatty liver. Took her in emergency Sunday night as she'd started to turn yellow on Sunday. Things are looking quite dire at the moment; we're not sure if she's going to make it. May end up having to make some really unpleasant decisions this afternoon.

UPDATE: I caught the flu on Thursday, after visiting kitty at the vet's, where she perked up considerably at seeing me. Brought her home on trial Saturday, and am having hell getting her to keep all her meds and stupid amounts of high-calorie food down; feeding her somewhere between 8 and 14 times a day through a feeding tube.

Going in for a follow-up this afternoon (Wed 25). Still not sure where things are headed from here.

UPDATE: After a quite drastic decline in her energy levels and general state, in combination with her liver enzymes coming back drastically worse than just a week ago, I had to make the decision that no pet owner ever wants to make. Around 7 PM on Feb 27, Belladonna went to the final sleep.

---

I AM NOT ACTIVELY WORKING TICKETS/ETC UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. TREATING MY BABY GIRL COMES FIRST, AND IS TAKING UP ALL MY WAKING TIME (as well as eating into my sleep). PLEASE DO NOT NOTE ME ETC.
I'm sorry, I do want to help you all, but I cannot put your site issues ahead of my furry children's lives and live with myself.

It's now about 2 pm and I've been whittling away at tickets interspersed with some tech support for the WordPress site I built for my mother's Maths teachers' association, chasing cats off the kitchen table, and some quick meals since around 8 am. My back is killing me and I really wish I knew where my glasses were - I suspect they've been relocated in a Random Act of Feline.

Pretty normal morning, though goodness knows I wish I'd slept better last night. Feeling myself starting to flag a bit.

I've got some other projects to put some time into as well, both for FA and for other things, like the aforementioned site that still needs a bit of tweaking.

Having the best vacation ever, pretty much.

Be another week until I'm back in Sweden, and then I'll probably need a couple of days to recover from jet lag and appease my fluffy feline overlords for committing the deadly sin of leaving them in my housemate's care for 2½ weeks.

Met some of the  novascotiafurs last week, had a wonderful weekend hanging out with  Veritas and  ThreeRandomWords, and though there have been details that weren't awesome (like my anxieties kicking in double-time over stupid little things), overall it's just... OOHMIGAWD.

And if you're in Halifax NS, you need to drag your butt to The Cut because DAYUMN that's a brilliant steakhouse. Likewise, The Sea Dog Saloon in Shelburne, NS is well worth a visit. Had their "Big Dog" Philly Steak sandwich for lunch and it was freaking awesome.

This is the first time I'm out of the country for an extended amount of time for YEARS, and while it hasn't turned me onto vacationing per se, I sure as hell see the appeal of visiting friends.

Though geez I never thought freaking CANADA would be this HOT.

Exciting plans coming up for next week, as well.

There's a number of excellent benefits associated with lending some support to Veritas in his most recent prompt call:
- You receive a quality piece of flash fiction, furry or otherwise, based on one of your prompts
- You will be giving an excellent writer some food for inspiration, helping him produce more quality work

And if you choose to donate, you will also...
- Get even more high-quality fiction from a published furry writer
- Help ease my burden by alleviating some of my worries for my fiancé
- Give him some much-deserved, tangible, encouragement

He does original and fan work, and while these prompts aren't story commissions in the usual sense, recipients have to my knowledge always been pleased with what he's produced. This time around, the theme of the call is flaws, and the prompts left by people so far promise to see some interesting work come out of it!

Go throw him some prompts, and you can help inspire an excellent piece of flash fiction!

Trigger warning: While I've avoided graphic detail, if you're sensitive to matters of less than 100% consent, you may wish to brace yourself and/or avoid this entry

First of all, please note that all opinions and experiences recounted in this post are mine and mine alone. I may make educated guesses about the attitudes of others, but I in no way wish to speak for anyone but myself. Also note that I am not speaking in any kind of official capacity; I'm speaking as a tomboy in her late twenties sharing some personal experiences in the hopes that it may help some people. The timing of this post is largely coincidental; the frustration that eventually led to it being made has been simmering under the surface for a long, long time, as my fiancé can attest.

I have only told at most a handful of people about these things before. Not because of shame or fear or anything else, but simply because I ultimately don't believe they matter any more than any other life experience, and unlike many other experiences, these may unfairly reflect badly on the other people involved. And I don't want that; I truly believe the worst thing anyone did in these situations was make a mistake. I'm not even sure there's anyone who knows who all the players are, truth to be told. I ask that any comments are kept civil; while I don't normally like to hide comments, I can and will hide any comments that do any of the following:
* Direct threats or verbal abuse at any of the persons involved
* Attempt to identify any of the persons involved (or, hell, that name names in general)
* Attempt to dictate to me how I should feel about any of these experiences
* Attempt to shift focus to other persons or situations

No names used are the actual names or screennames of any individuals involved to the best of my knowledge. I just find it obnoxious to try to tell (or read) a story full of "Dude A" and "Person B" so I'd much rather identify them by random made-up handles. If someone by coincidence happens to share these handles, they are not the person involved in the situation and I will bite your left ear off if you give them any grief over it.

All these situations happen to involve cons and hotel rooms. What cons, hotels, or even countries are involved is not important, nor is the exact point in time at which these events transpired.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Primitus was invited back to our hotel room by one of my roommates, a friendly gal we can call Lassie, and I happened to either walk in or be there when they came. I was rather downcast at the time, as this was back when I suffered from much more severe separation anxiety than I do now, and our other roomie had just left. He was a nice, sweet boy and showed concern when he saw me crying. Hugs happened, progressed into kisses, and at some point Primitus asked about progressing to full-blown intercourse.

I declined, but we continued making out. Hands made it into my pants, and I was asked again, either by Primitus or Lassie, to have sex with him. If memory serves I declined again before finally relenting. Sex happened, protection was used, and we parted ways. Endorphins being what they are, I was feeling a bit less down in the dumps afterward, and when my thoughts cleared I only briefly reflected over how rude it had been of Primitus to ask with his hand down my pants after first getting a no, before shrugging it off and dismissing my eventual consent as "ha, that was stupid of me".

I haven't crossed paths with Primitus again since, but I imagine his memory of the situation doesn't match mine. I'm fine with that. He was a genuinely pleasant person to talk to and I have no doubt he had all the best intentions; I attribute the rest to bona fide miscommunication.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Secundus and my roommate, whom we can call Lady, met in the hallways of the con hotel towards the end of the day, and when I went to find her, she introduced us. Lady being Lady, she said "this is my friend Secundus", not "this is a friendly dude I just met", so I had no problem with her inviting him back to our room with us. She and Secundus made out, Secundus and I made out, and far as I was concerned it was all just friendly cuddling at that point.

Eventually, Secundus and Lady started asking me to sleep with him; she had issues that made her unable to, and she wanted to watch us, and he, well... I think it's safe to assume that he was a guy who was turned on after making out with two girls and who didn't have any particular issue with random con hookups. I didn't really want to, and said so, but after being pleaded at by Lady and asked multiple times by Secundus while at least one of his hands was inside my underwear, I eventually relented and some clothes started to come off.

I did put my foot down in regards to condom usage, so he went back to his room to retrieve one while I cuddled with Lady. She ended up falling asleep partway through my and Secundus's horizontal mambo, which annoyed me a bit at the time since she'd been so insistent she wanted to watch. Eventually things were over, we were both reasonably satisfied, and Secundus went back to his room. To me, this was another stupid decision on my part, and I've long since chalked it up to life experience.

I can't recall if I saw him again before the end of the con, though I do know he expressed excitement about the prospect of a repeat performance when he found out I was going to another con in common with him later on. I spent that con avoiding him. Again, there is no doubt in my mind that if he was to tell this story, he would not feel there was any coercion involved, and from where I'm standing I believe both of these perspectives are the truth.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Tertius, finally, shared a room with me when I came to another con. He was footing the bill not only for the room but had also covered my flight tickets, and we were decent friends. I was aware that he wanted in my pants, and equally aware that he was married with a wife who would not approve of extramarital shenanigans, and so I'd made it clear ahead of time that I wanted nothing to happen which his wife would object to.

We went to a pub with his two friends who were also attending that con, and over the course of the evening they all had ample amounts of beer while I had two screwdrivers or tequila sunrises or other OJ-plus-booze drinks. I have the alcohol resistance of a fasting shrew at the best of times, so I was pretty drunk, but this is not something I expect other people to realize; I'm also a fairly high-functioning drunk. Mostly I spent the time we were at the pub giggling my head off (totally normal behavior for me even when sober) and lightly punching Tertius in the arm at regular intervals.

Once Tertius and I got back to our hotel room, we did some hugging and cuddling, which I felt fell into the "acceptable" category in regards to what I expect reasonable people to not have a cow over. Things progressed south pretty gradually, and I was too caught up in the moment to call it off. If I had, I do expect he would have stopped.

Afterward, I was a bit disappointed in Tertius, since he knew I didn't want part in his cheating, but I knew he was a cad, and we were both inebriated to one extent or another. I lay on him the blame for asking the question, but accept my own responsibility to pull myself together (which I can do; first time I got hammered my mom wouldn't even believe I was drunk despite both me and the person I'd gone drinking with telling her so) and assert my position, which I failed to do. Other things eventually ended this friendship, but these events were no significant part of it. He did a shitty thing in the same way it's shitty of a friend to ask you to accompany them to the doctor's office if the place gives you the heebie-jeebies; it was thoughtless, but not abusive.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~

So what's my point in all this? Well, there's a few of them.

Firstly, I was young and stupid. Hell, I still am, just less so on most counts. The way to get over being young and stupid is to accumulate life experience, and I'm perfectly happy attributing all three of these instances to that. We all make decisions we regret, and have our moments of poor judgment; it's part of growing up. Importantly, though, none of these experiences were traumatic. I may have found it uncomfortable that Secundus expected a repeat performance when we next had the opportunity to potentially cross paths, but I also get uncomfortable speaking out loud about sex, getting compliments on clothing I don't normally wear, and getting blood drawn (understatement of the year!).

Secondly, what has scarred me to some extent about these events is constantly hearing others who've gone through the same thing being told they were raped, with an expectation that they should be traumatized. I'm not a rape victim. I'm not a rape survivor. I'm someone who happened to have a few experiences that involved sex and hesitation, in which I arguably didn't make the smartest decisions. I've honestly got more trauma associated with accidentally cheating in a tournament chess game in 4th grade. (Yes, that still eats me, to this day, and if I could get a hold of my opponent to apologize I'd do so.)

I'm not in any way saying it's not okay to be supportive of people who've been through this kind of thing and do consider it rape. By all means, have their back! I'm not even saying it's not okay to attempt to expand people's views of what "real rape" is. By all means, make sure the people around you know that rape is not just jumping out of the shadows and brutalizing some poor soul! But, here's the kicker, do not impose the "rape" label on other people's experiences.

If someone were, against all odds, to figure out who any of the guys (or gals) mentioned in this text are, and tried to use these experiences against them, I would be absolutely furious, and would step up to defend them against those allegations without hesitation. I hate being told what I'm supposed to feel about things, and this is one of those things. If I don't feel I was raped (and I'm not in any kind of relationship at all with the guys that might skew my perception), I don't believe anyone else has the right to impose that label on the events. That, to me, is far more of a violation than anything I experienced, effectively saying that my opinions and feelings on the matter are irrelevant.

Thirdly, I believe it's important to remember that not everyone has the same level of social skills that you do. I'm by no means a wizard of interpersonal relationships, and I've had enough experience in the course of just living life dealing with individuals who are socially inept enough to make me want to bang my head against a wall to realize that. Please do not assume malice where simple ineptitude would do; please do not assume lies are being told when the alleged liar may just have a different interpretation of the situation.

So, I've been incredibly inactive both here and on other accounts lately; pretty much all my FA time is spent doing administrative tasks, and I'm lucky to get one or two pictures of my ARPG horses posted in a week over on dA. There's a simple primary reason for this, which kind of avalanches into further reasons:

I've been suffering from depression and social anxiety for at least a year and a half, at this point. Between that and a chronic cold I've been carrying around for nine+ years or so (I wish I was exaggerating, but I've had this since I returned from living in the US early summer of '04), my energy reserves are severely limited. If I leave the house at all, to see my therapist, to buy groceries, whatever, I'm usually pretty much out for the rest of the day. Friday I baked a peach pie with my housemate's visiting girlfriend, and after that and running out to get ice cream to eat with the cake, I was walking around the rest of the day a zombie, about half awake.

I can't get started on things for the life of me; if I do get up to start on a task, unless someone's there to remind me half the time I forget what I'm doing before I even get started. I can answer trouble tickets because it's a very structured task, but it's a crapshoot whether I get anything else at all done. I'm just too tired to hold on to my thoughts long enough to do anything productive with them, most of the time. Pair this with the fact that I do have work to do (in fact should be working right now but that'd require getting out of bed...), and I'm not really in a good place to do even half of what I want to get done - I've not even started on my first reading assignment for my translation class this semester!

 ICQ is returning, I just can't say when.  veritas has been scripting ahead, and I've got one page inked ready to have pencil lines erased and get colored, whenever I have the time and energy for it. Hopefully there'll be a lull after my current batch of work in which I feel sufficiently well to git'er done, or my therapist will help me find a strategy that helps me focus without expending ridiculous amounts of energy on doing so.

After writing this journal entry, I kind of feel like a nap, that's how little energy I've got.

---

On an unrelated note, if you are a writer, or know a writer who'd like help touching up their stories before posting, throw  veritas a line. I have it on good authority that he'll be opening up proofreading services of some kind soon. It's not a charity, but whatever he ends up charging it'll be worth it, I promise. The man is a freaking wizard with words, twice published, and helped me out when I was writing my Bachelor's essay in English Lit. And if you don't write, go check his stuff out, because whatever you think of furry fiction in general, it's worth a reead.

I just lost a dearly beloved family member, my maternal grandfather, and would like to get a commission in memoriam. I was his first grandchild, and every time I saw him, he'd greet me with "you are fantastic" or "you are special". He and my paternal grandmother were the only grandparents I had left for the last 25 years, and he's always been a fixture, a cornerstone, in my life.

Ideally, I'd have wanted to get this from  swandog, but her commissions are currently closed. But it's something with that deep sense of emotion that I'm looking for.

What I want is a picture of my fursona as a child, on his lap and looking at the variety of lighting bug that can be found in Öland, with a magpie soaring upwards in the background. He was incredibly stubborn, and apparently silvered very early, so maybe a silvered badger? Going lighting-bug hunting in Öland is one of my strongest memories of him.

Tips about possible artists are appreciated. I'm not wealthy, but I'll scrape the cash together if I find the right person, because this means a lot to me.

I've long felt that the best kind of charity is the kind where you help people help themselves. So I'm all for things like buying some family in a third world country a goat, or similar. Something for the future.

So of course Kiva.org is right up my alley. And if you haven't heard of it yet, well... you should check it out!

You can even loan someone $25 for free for your first loan! That money comes from a sponsor, so you can't get it back and relend it, but otherwise that's the big charm of Kiva - as you get repayments on your loans money slowly trickles back into your account's credit, and you can make another loan! (Or withdraw the money, but I like making loans.)

Click here to join Kiva and the furry lending team I stumbled across today. Let's chip in to make the world a better place!

So today the fifth round of kink_bingo opened over on Dreamwidth, and for the second year I signed up for a card. This time, I already had a game plan in mind - I'm going to do a blackout of 25 pieces of art. It'll be sort of like my own mini-version of an Iron Artist challenge or something. And that's where you come in!

Here's how it's going to work:

1. All pieces must include (at least) one of four characters: Kaelinn Mann (dobie/goat hybrid), Camelia Frost (Carolina anole), Blanca Noir (striped skunk) or Vichay Chromus (shifter)
Note that since Vichay is a shifter, he can be pretty much anything you want; male, female, herm, neuter, eldrich abomination... Only limit really is that he can't do extreme size changes, so e.g. bus-trampling macro is out of the question.

2. Copy/paste the form at the bottom of this entry once per kink you want to sign up for. Signing up for more than one is totally okay, and to some extent encouraged!

3. I'm aiming to complete an average of one piece every four days (the k_b round ends Oct 31st and I want some elbow room), and I reserve the right to pick and choose which fills I pull from here and which fills I just throw a couple of my own characters into. I'll try to spread the love around a little, but please fill the form correctly or God kills a kitten.

4. I'm asking, but do not strictly require, that you help spread the word about this so my little "patchwork of kinks" becomes appropriately varied. If I draw for you, you may upload the image to your account with appropriate credits.

5. If you really want to claim a specific kink, you can note me about sponsoring it. Completely optional, though - if you're content trusting your luck, this is free!

6. Please try to be at least a little bit specific! I'm getting a lot of requests for "artist's choice" or similar, and quite honestly, if I was going to come up with the scenes entirely on my own, I might as well just use my own characters. The "payment" for getting your character included, if you will, is throwing ideas my way to work with.

The list of available kinks: (if an entry is crossed out, it's not available. You CAN sign up for the "wildcard" spot but be aware that I'll be picking that one last.)
1. Anonymity
2. Shaving/depilation
3. Tattoos/tattooing
4. Bodies and body parts
5. Guns/blades
6. Chastity devices
7. Watersports
8. Spaces, scenes and settings
9. Tickling
10. Silk, velvet, feathers, furs
11. Service
12. Dressup
13. WILDCARD
14. Collars
15. Bloodplay
16. Painplay (other)
17. Rough body play
18. Roleplay
19. Held down
20. Objectification kink
21. Confined/caged
22. Food
23. Voyeurism
24. Suspension
25. Phonesex/epistolary
For information about the items on the above list, please see this DW community

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The form:

Kink: (which kink is this entry for)
Character(s): (list both which of mine you want to see and the name of any of your characters you want included)
Character description: (only necessary if you're including character(s) that aren't mine. Please include some sort of reference if you have one)
Scene description: (how you envision the scene, positioning of characters, etc.)

This post will be updated with samples as I can get clean ones located/thrown together.

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Because I could always use the cash, because I've not done much in the way of commissions in a minor forever, and just because, I figured I'd give this a whirl. The concept is simple: you decide what you want to pay (minimum of $5 just to ensure PayPal doesn't nab stupidly much of the money) and you get art of a certain minimum quality.

The base level is maximum 2 characters, with flat colors, no (transparent) background. That's what everyone is guaranteed; if you pay $5 and your character is super-complicated I may simplify them somewhat while still trying to stay true to their design. I may do more than the minimum if I feel like it.

The maximum 2 characters includes small characters like babies and pets, and large props equivalent to a character in workload (e.g. a huge elaborate sword design), but I'll add one such small character for you free of charge if you signal boost me. Great if all you want is a picture of yourself, your mate, and your pet dog!

Otherwise, add $3 to the minimum for extra characters, up to a rough maximum of 4-5 depending on your idea.

While, as I said above, I may go beyond the minimum if I feel inspired to, you may also go beyond the minimum if you feel you want something extra:

$15 will guarantee you shading
$25 will guarantee you a simple background. Simple being defined as more than a flood/gradient fill, but no real detail - you can ask for a specific sort of scenery you want to evoke and I'll try to do my abstract large-stroke backgrounding to suit.

Note that any of these two can happen without you paying extra - this is not a pure ladder commission, or I would not feel comfortable calling it "pay what you want". Chances are most people will get at least some minimal shading on their piece unless there's a large amount of detail in the linework.

Media will be whatever I feel like doing - most likely you'll get traditional or digital lineart with digital coloring, but it's not impossible that I'll color something traditionally if the urge strikes. For pieces done wholly or partially traditionally, art will be mailed at cost.

Progression:
Comment here or note me with a message like "I want to pay $5 for a picture of my unicorn girl (reference) and my mate's dragon boy (reference) sharing an ice cream cup and being all romantic and would/wouldn't want to have an original shipped". I'll respond with something akin to "You got it!" when I start work on your piece, and once it's done, I'll respond to your commment (or note) again with a link to a grayscale, watermarked version of the image, and note you a link to a PayPal donation button (as well as shipping cost if I did traditional work). Once you pay, the submission file will be replaced with the unaltered piece and everyone will (hopefully) be happy.

Should you leave a request that I feel uncomfortable doing for whatever reason, I'll politely (but to the point!) tell you why. This message will be along the lines of "I'm sorry, you've requested three characters for $5 and the minimum for three characters is $8" or "I'm sorry, but I'm not comfortable drawing scat".

I'll do corrections on these only if it was my screw-up, and as always, I'm happy to work from written descriptions as long as you can provide some kind of general reference (if you want me to draw a capybara, find me one or a couple of good photos of capybaras).

My aim is to have a pretty quick turnaround on these, two days or less, but I can't promise life won't strike. (Either way, I'll probably be finishing stuff in a single sitting, so once you've gotten confirmation that I'm starting the work it'll be finished in reasonably short order.)

Characters, subject matter, rights:
I will not draw commercial characters or characters heavily based on commercial characters for money. My sincere apologies to those of you whose personal characters are e.g. Pokémorphs, but I just don't feel comfortable doing this. I do offer free art with various twists from time to time and you're welcome to request something then.

I will not draw minors in sexual situations, bathroom play, unrealistically obese characters (with possible exceptions for cutesy things along the lines of Fat Bunny Week), sexualized pregnancy, or zoo art where the quadrupedal creature is based on someone's RL pet. There may be other subjects I'm uncomfortable with, as well, and I will try to be as gentle as possible in turning these down.

You may include e.g. Kaelinn, Camelia, Vichay, Blanca, or any I.C.Q. character in your request, but please note that I will not draw them in situations that would be out of character for them, and while we're working through some stuff the adult work I can do with Toni is honestly so limited I'd just as soon say "don't count on getting porn with her".

I will not draw characters belonging to someone else into the art without their express permission. I retain the rights to art, but grant blanket permission for the commissioner and anyone else whose character is featured to repost it as long as I am given proper credit and the art is not used for commercial purposes, including as decoration on a commercial website. The only resizing/cropping I permit of my work is in order to create thumbnails and/or icons.

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Other work:
# This commission drive is for character illustrations only. Want a badge? Check out this post.
# I am willing to do comic work on commission; as a rough guideline count on paying normal commission rates per panel - while I'm running this pay-what-you-want drive those prices may apply to comics as well.
# I can also do needle-felted characters on commission, contact me with your idea to receive a quote.
# I will do cross-stitched pet portraits, contact me with desired size, resolution, and number of colors for a quote.

So, because I'm completely enamored with Vichay, my new random-character-to-use-in-art, I want to do some more arts of him. And if I'm going to do art with him, I may as well share the fun! This isn't first-come first-serve, nor do I guarantee I'll 100% certainly get it done; basically I'm open for new entrants until this journal is pushed off my front page, and when I feel like drawing something naughty and Skittlestastic I'll grab a character/situation from the entries. (I'm currently suffering through a bit of a burnout, so I have good days when I get a fair amount of stuff done, and bad days when I get NOTHING done - this will get done provided I have me some good days.)

Art will in all likelihood be done digitally, quality and style and whatnot depending on what I feel like doing at the time - I intend to throw some colors on it but how much and how detailed it is may vary. "Winners" will be selected not at random, but based on whatever idea grabs me at the time. I won't make a strict will/won't list (aside from "I won't draw anything I can't post on FA"; figure that one out for yourself) though some things are less likely to catch my attention than others.

This is Vichay, and what I'm looking to do here is adult art. Please have your age posted in your profile (and be at least 18).

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What you need to do:
1. Link to this journal post in your journal.
2. Post a comment here with a link to your journal post as well as the following information:

Your character's name: Self-explanatory
Your character's species: If your character is a shifter, the species you want them portrayed as
A basic written description: "A red fox with white wings and black markings" is plenty for most characters; if you lack a good visual reference you may want to go into a little more detail.
Up to three reference links: (optional - must be on FA or accessible without an account on another site; if you don't have a ref of your character finding a good reference photo of their species is helpful!)

Vichay's shape: What shape do you want to see Skittles in? Hybrids and crazy chimeric creations are welcome and encouraged! References for odd species are a plus!
Desired situation: What do you want your character and Veech to get up to? You may be fairly detailed here, or leave it very general, but try to include roughly what goes where. DO NOT link me to RL porn for pose references, or I'll hide your comment.

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You can totally enter even if your character has never been drawn before! You can totally enter if your character has been drawn a bazillion times before! If your idea includes a third or fourth character, you may use Camelia and/or Kaelin but please be aware that three- or foursomes, while awesome, will likely reduce your chances of getting picked because of the extra work involved.

Chances are my picks will be mostly based on what shape makes me go "HELL YEAH I want to draw Vichay like that!", but that doesn't mean that's the only thing I'll be taking into account. You can enter fandom-based characters (since I'm doing this for free), but please don't enter characters that you've no hand in creating at all. Pokémorphs are okay, asking me to draw Spyro the Dragon will make me side-eye.

If you have any questions, please ask!

So I just uploaded a couple of badges I've been working on, on and off, over the last week or so. These badges are only one outlet of my newly-rekindled love for papercrafting, and my budding interest in scrapbooky type stuff. (Still not convinced on the merits of actually doing it with photos and stuff, but all the techniques and fun grown-up toys associated with it can keep me happy for quite some time.)

For a limited time only, here's what I can offer:

Get me one of the items on my wishlist below, and I'll trade it for one of these badges. If pricing turns out seriously insane (I've tried to price check both the items and the shipping, but I know things may work out differently when one's actually standing there at the post office...) I'll see about throwing in some extras or whatever, make sure that nobody feels cheated, but for the most part both the items and the shipping should be reasonable.

What I'm looking for:
1. Ranger's non-stick craft sheet. This is currently <$5 on Amazon, but doesn't ship to Sweden directly from them
2. Tim Holtz Distress Ink pads, in order of preference I'm looking particularly for Barn Door, Spun Sugar, Black Soot and Mustard Seed. My local places don't seem to stock the brighter colors.
3. A stack of Stamp N' Stor panels for my foam cling stamps before they get ruined by cat hair.

All of these items sell for <$10, and most or all of them should qualify for free super saver shipping on Amazon if you buy them through there rather than a local craft store, provided you add a suitable quantity of whatever else for yourself to the order.

You can ask for particular colors or themes for the background and embellishments within reason - if I don't have it at home I'll try to see what I can do about procuring something suitable from my local craft store, if I can. Choice of ATC/ACEO size or traditional badge size - the traditional badge size gets a stamped name if I can fit it on there. (8 letters was a squeeze with the font I have.) I don't have a wide range of colors in stamp inking pads, but I'll try to pick what goes best with your character and/or the badge background.

Samples:
ATC/ACEO: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/7690052
Full badge: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/7690079

I've been thinking for a while that I need a pair of porn characters. Sure, for female characters I've got Josie and Katla who sort of work for many situations, but Josie is not in herself a very sexual character (she just gets roped into things a lot, that's kind of her gig) and Katla is firmly entrenched in her dominant mindset. I don't really want to end up drawing my personal character in all the depraved shit I get into my head to try, and Virtue belongs in her own little setting.

So with some brainstorming last night I believe I have the basic concept for both of them set. All I need to do is settle on names and do up some references of them.

Female:
Blue-phase anole, with a huge-ass back piece depicting the tip of a peacock feather, with the eye and the surrounding flimsy feathery bits.

Male:
Dobermann/goat hybrid, descended from Tanngrisnir and/or Tanngnjóstr. Always wears a Thor's hammer pendant and always wakes up the next morning (physically) good as new long as he has no broken bones. Thanks great-great-great granddad!

The male was the hardest to settle on; for the female I knew I wanted her to be a light-colored lizard/reptile to avoid having to explain how the tattoo could show through fur. I was considering a newt for a while but decided I'd rather avoid amphibians for various reasons. The male I wanted to have a muzzle (ruling out neddies and kitties as well as any birds or bird-based mythological creature), not have a super-complicated fur pattern while still having the potential for some variation, (ruling out hyenas and wild dogs) and at the end of the day I decided a doggy plus horns could fit the bill of what I want nicely enough.

The combination of breed and ancestry may have been chosen to allow me the potential of mutilating his ears and tail at some point in the future without keeping him that way. >.> Hey, if they're supposed to be basically-anything-goes characters, might as well go the whole nine yards, right?

This all is basically a note to myself so I can remember it by the time I have time to actually do some character sheets.

I'm an idiot, apparently. I've previously been able to convince Livestream to talk to my webcam, which is alright for when I'm working on traditional stuff. Unfortunately my computer seems to have since decided my webcam doesn't actually exist, so IDFK.

What do I need to get Livestream to stream my screen image, ie what's currently going on in Photoshop? It's probably something simple, but I can't figure it out.

So, yeah. Got some things to get on top of and once that's done I may consider streaming either some coloring or some felting.

Sort of got a clip of one of the raggies playing with the freet. It's cruddy because I can't figure out how to get moving pictures with the good camera and my cell phone doesn't like low-light recording, but...



I wanted to get a video of him with his new squeaky toy, but he decided he didn't want to grab it once I had the camera out.