Borrowed the Meme from Labrynth. ^^

-Where are you staying?
At the hotel!

-What day are you getting there?
Friday morning at stupid o'clock (depending on flight)

-How are you arriving?
Plane!

-Who will you be rooming with?
Justin

-Who will you hang out with during the convention?
Justin, hopefully Labrynth and anyone else thats nice. Most of the aussies that i do know aren't going.

-Are there events you might be attending?
Maybe kinks, maybe some writing, maybe some art. Maybe the beach!

-Will you be suiting?
Nope

-Do you do free art?
I may inflict little tiger faces on people's pages, but I wouldn't call it art.

-Do you do trades?
Only if you wish to experience the Full Terror of my artwork.

-What is your gender?
Male

-How old are you?
39

-How tall are you?
5'9"ish

-Are you taken?
Depends on who you talk to.

-Can I talk to you?
As long as you're not creepy, sure.

-Can I touch you?
Depends on who you are. Please don't take it personally if I flinch if I don't know you. (Or even if I do!)

-How can I find you?
You can either find whoever I'm hiding behind at any given time. I'm pretty much completely unfamiliar with the Australian scene.

-Can I visit your room?
Its a shared room, so I'd say no. Hopefully the person I'm sharing with thinks the same!

-Can I buy you drinks?
Depends on the drink. I'm a cheap drinker. (As in usually water!) Albeit water is more expensive than soft drink in Oz. Go figure.

-Can I give you stuff?
Depends on the stuff.

-Can I hug or snuggle with you?
Only if you're on my list. If you try to do either and I flinch, please don't take it personally.

-Are you nice?
Nicer than these answers make me sound at least!

-How long are you going?
Flying in the 5th, flying out the 8th

-If I see you, how should I get your attention?
Ake (pronounced Ache) works fine! I've not really had another Aussie say my name, Americans tend to mangle it tho.

-Where will you be most of the time during the days?
Didn't I answer this already? Probably trying to find something of interest.

-What/where will you be eating?
I have no idea! I am not prepared

-Can I come with you for fun/food/etc.?
Sure. The more the merrier!

Apparently following loads of new people the last few weeks caused my submission intake to spike, so I'm a couple of thousand behind where I'd been up to a couple of weeks ago... Oops! Spent a few hours getting it down last night, and its gone up a bit more again, but not too too much. I think I might devote some quiet times on weekends to working on it, maybe in the morning before certain folks get up or raiding happens.

I've uploaded most of my post-2000 artwork now, minus some where I'd need to find what box certain sketchbooks are in (if I still have them). Theres a couple more pieces I'm debating putting up, but we'll see about it. Its nice getting to share previously private art, and I'm glad the artists in question have been so supportive of it. I've got a couple more characters to upload, and a friend is helping me with some long-awaited designs which I'm excited about.

After being introduced to the concept of folders a couple of weeks ago by a friend, I've been working on organizing artwork into different categories. I've now got things in some good order.

Resources - Where ref sheets and comics live. I've created a category specifically for SFW ref sheets to share with SFW only artists and to see who I need to de-NSFW
Character Art - All the artwork broken down into the individual participants, as well as the couples category for where there is more than one character in the pic (not necessarily mine)
Art by Factions - This is probably mostly of my own interest, where I've broken the various characters up into a number of categories. I'm still unsure exactly where to place Niut and Cendrine, they're in Neutral at the moment but might be able to go into Monster Girls. Note: Not all the Monster Girls are on the same side.
Ratings - So I've also categorized the art into three categories, SFW, NSFW and DAW.

What DAW stands for will be obvious once art gets uploaded into it, but it'll be a way to isolate it more readily from people that may get offended. What I will say is that it does not consist of anything thats on most artists posted 'won't draw' lists, but still some may not like it. I wouldn't have liked it before meeting someone that made a huge impact on my life and my way of looking at it and the people around me. Any of the DAW art will also go into the Scraps, so that folks won't see it if they're browsing the main gallery, and I'll come up with a special thumbnail for it.

But it means I'll send folks to look in the Reference Sheets or SFW Reference Sheets folders rather than the Scraps to look at characters in the future. I wish there was a way to have art not appear in the Main Gallery or Scraps at all, but unless there is and I have no idea how, its the best solution without just not posting art.

Despite a few hiccups the last few days, I'm doing pretty good. This is the most open I've been in a long long time. I've got some friends that I adore, I'm getting to check out artists that I wouldn't have previously, and I might even go to my first Furry convention in 6 years (and first Australian one ever!) My writing is still on the backburner, but I've been working on and off on my intro to 2017 story, which I'd intended to upload prior to getting the character art associated with it, but it'll be its own post now. Hopefully once its done I'll be able to recommit more to my novel.

Its fun being able to explore situations and settings you may never experience yourself, and have characters that are so far different from you. I hope that everyone stays for the future. Thank you if you're a watcher, and if you're just stumbling your way in here, welcome!

Doing a shout out to one of my fave artists,  kittentits

She's currently got openings for $40 Freestyle Commission slots which are based on how your character inspires her.

More info can be found over in her journal:

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/8115636/

I'm currently failing terribly at the submission cleanup. Back up to 205.6k to check (eep!) but the reasons that I've not had the time or focus to go through them are good. :3

Theres a big anniversary coming in a couple of months, which I'd like to do something big for. A hint is my having uploaded lots and lots of old art from way back. I've still got even more, but it'll do for the older stuff for now!

But in the meantime, I'll be bringing back female Akeashar / Niah's original design. Never fear for those fans of the purple haired and red eyed tigress, that design is definitely here to stay for good! However, I'll be working on getting some storyline art done for my novel. This means that for any scenes set prior to ~ August 2005, chances are that with artwork of the Female Akeashar it'll be back to the black and white striped hair and teardrop tattoo. So yes. White tigress with both of those sets of markings is very much still in canon, and of course the character with both designs is within copyright.

So for anyone wanting art with the original gal design, thats definitely open for exploring. I just hope your character is legal for the time its set! (I swear, the furrs just keep getting younger *old person grumbling*)

I was originally planning to have already brought it back for the one major storyline piece of art that has already been posted, however I went with it having Niah's current design, which works well within the story having it being explicitly her rather than female Akeashar.

My 2017 cast is pretty much complete, just waiting for art and ref designs from three artists to close it off. I've been working on writing an introduction to the new story arc, as well as the characters, and that will go up once its completed. The setting is completely different from the UK/US/Japan settings I've been playing with up to this point, and I'm happy to take advice and pointers from people that are native to, or more familiar with, the region. Exactly what will happen in the time skips will have to wait until I've caught up in the writing of the main stories. ^~ Of course, given the change of focus away from Japan, it means that Akeashar is currently the only male character planned at this point. I really need more!!

I've also got some art ideas in the pipeline, mainly surrounding one character, and the characters she interacts with. This is based off artwork that I had originally planned to get 7 years ago, but then the idea was parked along with the characters of the time. I'm planning on revisiting it (and have already gotten in touch with the artist, who I really hope to hear back from soon!) and expanding on it. So hopefully that all gets going soon! Whether any of that art will end up on my page, or just remain on the various artists pages, I haven't decided yet.

Exploring characters, concepts and situations that are far from your real self can be fun! Even if we end up quietly sweeping it under the rug if it doesn't work out. XD

And not of the cleaning up my gallery variety for once.

No, I've been staring at the submissions list that I've not really gone through, and I've got ~204,500 to check since 2007. According to where I'm up to, that is 3,496 days ago.

Just a little ovedue. I think I'll do 30 minutes a day... and probably never catch up!

Also decided that since its over a week since Valentines Day, I'd change-up my icon from the lovely icon of Calixa by Vera, to one snipped from a commission that Nim-Nim did for me a while back of Niah. Since it seems red eyed, purple haired white tigresses are on the increase, I thought I'd represent with my gal thats had her current design with the beauty mark since 2012, but first had it with her teardrop back around the turn of the millennium.

Project for the weekend! I need to dig up and scan that picture, since its a duo piece with Meiji and its been about 17 years since that variant of my character was sold as a print, and Meiji got her first pic. :)

Not a meme, or survey or anything like that (usually because I tend to find out things I really didn’t want to know about people that way) but just thoughts.

Now that I've finished the uploading catch up of reposting characters and art, I thought I’d do a brief discussion in regards to my characters and adult art.

Sexuality

The canon breakdown goes a little like this: (Name - Gender - Sexuality - BDSM - Duo vs Groups - Availability)

Mains
Akeashar - Male - Bisexual - Dominant - Groups Okay - Open
Calixa - Female - Bisexual - Submissive - Groups Okay - Open
Niah - Female - Bisexual - Submissive - Groups Okay - Open

Protagonists
Cendrine - Female - Bisexual - Switch - Groups Okay - Open
Eluria - Female - Straight - Submissive - Duo - Open
Kalandra - Female - Straight - Submissive - Groups Okay - Open
Matt - Male - Bisexual - Submissive - Undecided - Open
Nekoko - Female - Straight - Tsundere - Duo - Closed
Niut - Female - Straight - Switch - Groups Okay - Closed
Sgaile - Male - Bisexual - Dominant - Groups Okay - Open
Souji - Male - Straight - Hell No - Groups Okay - Open

Antagonists
Black Spiral - Female - Bisexual - Dominant - Groups Ok - Open
Iathaine - Female - Straight - Dominant - Groups Ok - Open
TBA! - Female - Bisexual - Dominant - Groups Ok - Open

Unaligned
Mounia - Female - Straight - Undecided - Undecided - Open
Selina - Female - Bisexual - Dominant - Groups Okay - Open

Non-Sexual:
Meiji

Of course, those classified as straight may have sexual encounters with the same sex in canon, but they consider themselves to be straight. An example would be Selina and Niut in college stories, where Selina classifies herself as Bi, but Niut considers it having fun with a friend, but swears that she's only interested in boys and meaning it, until the next slip up.

Characters like Mounia and Black Spiral are honestly harder to place, as each could be considered ‘beyond’ sexuality, but in relation to planned encounters, I’ve placed them in their respective categories. An upcoming character will find herself in the same classification as Black Spiral for that reason.

And of course there could always be Yaoi fanart of Souji, Akeashar and Matt, but that would only be for fun and completely non-canon (as much as Matt might like otherwise)

I've included BDSM and Group information since they're of interest to me artwise. Nekoko is included as the bakeneko is actually the second oldest of my characters despite her appearance. Closed or Open is whether I'd consider getting adult art of them outside of my own characters, which as you can see only applies to three characters. (Of course, close friends tend to be able to bypass rules)

Pretty much all my characters are very sex positive, with positive outlooks on it, and embracing it both within and without relationships. Some are much more positive than others. I don’t consider interest and exposure to sex and multiple partners outside of a closed relationship to be a bad thing, and it has a number of different facets depending on who it is. Black Spiral uses it for her goals, Niut as an expression of her love, Niah to blow off steam, and both she and Calixa because they enjoy it so much. There are a couple of shy more reserved characters, like Eluria, Mounia, Nekoko and Kalandra. And then theres Meiji.

Meiji is about the only sex negative character I have, which falls squarely on events that have occurred to her throughout her life. Aspects of the character were originally planned for a story arc involving Kalandra Beta, but when the character’s role was removed for a while, the story arc fell onto Meiji in a natural fashion. While Kalandra has returned, with a revised character, the arc remains with Meiji. If that aspect of her past and personality will ever get explored, and if she will move beyond it… I’m not sure. But until I get a grip on the character and where she is at and where she’s going, she’ll remain sex negative.


Canon vs Non-Canon

Of course, all this ‘who does what to who’, and that they’re all characters involved in a large story brings up the question of what could be considered and what isn’t canon. With Meiji this is rather simple, anything that is adult or fanservice for her is not canon, unless it is something that would make sense for the character such as bathing, being in a hot spring, or something meditative in nature in which case I'd do a case by case basis.

With everyone else, with first party characters (ie. Others of mine) I’ll note whether a particular piece of art could be considered canon or just for fun.

For third party characters pictured with mine, the default setting is that it isn’t canon, unless there is discussion and agreement that it is.

Why does it matter? Because it affects the characters story, and even if it isn’t included in my writing, it affects their growth, who they are, who they go home to, conflicts it might create, pain and sorrow it might sooth. So it matters to me and the story at hand. I’m very unlikely to enter my characters into actual canon serious ongoing relationships with third parties simply because of how it would affect my writing going forward, particularly if things change between the people involved.

Niah being in submissive sexual enounters, and enjoying multiple partners are canon traits to her. Exactly who the partners are would be the non-canon part without the agreement. Pouncing and domming her for non-canon fanservice is fine. Wanting to be Niah’s Master or Mistress for realz…? That’s a whole different story.

... of course, no one except me might care about the canon/non-canon but there you have it! Thanks for reading if you got this far!

So, I'm doing batches of uploads at the moment, which will consist of things from Niah's gallery; things that had previously been posted but taken down years ago; items that have been up in the various Artist's Galleries, but not in mine to this point; as well as art that has never been posted before.

I'm trying to not post too too much at the moment, so I'm going with a max of 10 items per day, but I hope that isn't flooding folks' submissions too badly.

I've got ~35 more pictures to upload, although I could probably cut out some of the variants to lower that, and I might be able to dig up some more art to upload.

As for content, just going to give a heads up that I've posted most of the G rated art, with about 8 more to go, and a lot of the art to be put up is M rated or adult. So... hopefully you're not offended by adult stuff! >.<; (If so, theres always the SFW option!)

I'm not sure what to say really. 2017 has had one of the roughest starts to a year yet, with poor health, and major changes.

Those that watch my gallery and have favourited art in the past will have noticed some of those, with a lot of the art having been taken down. I'm not going to go into the circumstances around it.

I'm pulling artwork from Niah's account over into this account so all the art I'll have of my characters will be found here. (and on the respective artist pages) I'll be reuploading older artwork, as well as uploading some artwork for the first time, of various characters.

While I'll continue working forward on the novel I'm writing, later acts are going to have to be redone, but until then I'll be trying to figure out where to take it, and what the new relationships between characters will be. An older antagonist is returning from their hiatus and a new prota/antogonist will be showing their hand soon.

Some things will be canon to the novel, and others will be just be for fun.

But while characters from the novel will turn up, details regarding them is going to be sparse because some of them by their nature are walking spoilers, and I'm not going to upload any of the actual writing.

However, I may be doing some other writing projects in which case I'll upload those, and theres always a chance of there being some characters that are there for fun rather than being part of the dark, morbid, gothic, horror tale of romance, hope and loss I'm doing.

So if you've been here before, I hope that you stay around to see if the changes are to your liking. I hope you enjoy the characters as much as I do. :)

Its that moment when you've been using a name for 10 years, which you plucked out of the air, and then when working the character into a story you decide to set up accounts for them. Enter the name... get told its being used. Do a search on Google to see where its being used and find the name in a census from 1901 in England, as well as some 19th century documents.

There is no way that I found this particular name on Ancestry.com

Just kinda... blew my mind since I never thought it could actually be a name.

She's a previous WoW character of mine that I'm working on integrating into a novel I'm writing as a future potential antagonist. I'll probably get a ref sheet of her done along the way, I'm just kinda stunned and amused by this. As an extra amusement, the other major hit Google had on the name was someone mispelling something from Wizards 101 and getting her name.

From a Land Down Under! (World hasn't ended yet, as usual)

Well, its been a few weeks and I'm still about so thats something.

Since I'm absolutely terrible at keeping my gallery up to date, and since my plans for the Aussie Halloween day were completely ruined due to trackwork so that there aren't any trains around Sydney I decided to update my Gallery!

Since I had already posted some of Niah's art to this gallery, I've uploaded all the recent and items I hadn't gotten around to putting up art together and sorted everything into folders. Characters with more than one piece of art get their own folder. Except for Matt, cuz no one likes him. :D (Kidding!)

Most of the art are of my three main characters, Akeashar, Niah and Niut. I need to get a ref sheet done of a few other characters from my writing who haven't got their own sheets yet. Theres one especially, Meiji, who needs a sheet but shes the Ultimate Walking Spoiler for my writing, which doesn't help.

On the subject of writing, I've written a Super Spooky Halloween story, which may or may not be uploaded depending on the recipient's thoughts on it. Lets just say it was born from several days of non-stop listening to Creepypastas of the Good Variety. Whether my story is good or not is another story, but it was interesting to write and its the first non-Slice of Life story I've finished in quite some time.

There is still at least one more Halloween piece to be posted once it gets done, and I think that folks that share my love of J-Horror games will get a kick out of it!

Life is full of change, cycles, days and nights, weeks and years. Sometime its good, and sometimes its bad. Sometimes its unnecessary (hello work restructures!) and sometime its painfully so. Sometimes its taking a long hard look into the mirror of the abyss and seeing yourself, and seeing that you need change, and that you need help.

While I've always made myself available to help others, helping myself has always been low on the list of priorities. Admitting I need help, and taking action to get that help is all but unheard of for me. Things with me reaching the breaking point, so that every time I'm having one of my fortnightly catchups at work with my manager, I end up breaking down in tears and admitting to her how broken I am, and how full of fear and self loathing I am is something that terrifies me. Its sad that I associate the meetings with having another breakdown, when she is so supportive but its important. Letting someone see past the mask of smiles, and see the pain, the complete lack of self esteem, and the dark emotions is ... alien. And now that the mask has been seen past, I find it almost impossible to put back on, and I find that I don't want to.

So I need to stabilize things, and get help, probably through work. So I need to make changes, to focus on my life, my house in order, to put myself in a place that I can't remember having been in so many, many years. I need to find a reason to live, to exist, something real. Something I can reach out and touch and say that even someone like me can achieve something. I need to find my footing. I need to stop having my existence being extended because of what might be, but for something that is.

I can't say how all the changes will be, or if they will save me. But I need to try. I've always tried to save others because I felt that I've had no worth, but if I can save others I can save them from the trap and the place I'm at. I guess its time to save myself. The thought of seeing a psychiatrist is daunting, partially because I'm afraid they'll validate all the dark feelings that I have about myself, or push me off the edge.

What does that mean for my FA accounts? (Since I'm sure thats what anyone that reads this will be caring about) I'm not sure yet. My characters will still be around, and they'll likely be joined by others, both old and new. They'll still have their stories, their explorations of themselves and myself, and the world.

So its not a New Year Resolution (or even the New Year yet, thank the goddess) but its time to find some changes and find a direction that will see me one day healed and whole. And who knows, maybe a day will come when I'll have a fortnightly catch up without tears in my eyes and my voice trapped in my throat. When I'll have a home that is mine and I'll know that I did it.