Haven’t posted here in ages (haven’t had much to upload) but I’m going to AC for the first time this year. Wasn’t big on FWA last year and I suspect I’m not a “large con” person, but AC seems to be more like Megaplex, so if I like it I may consider it for next year since it’s relatively easy for me to get to.

Not debuting anything (but I am planning to pick up a fixer upper suit that won’t be wearable), I’ll probably have all my current suits there. Not doing any dance events since I don’t think I have any serious chance of getting in, I’m not very satisfied with my ANE tryout performance, and there’s just other stuff I’d rather do. I am actively taking dance classes irl and I’ll have something to show for it eventually, but that probably won’t be until next year. Ironically I’ve had a theme park-related dance idea for a while but I’m not in any hurry to do it.

Only real concrete plans are I have a river cruise booked for Sunday (kind of regret it since there’s a crapton of panels around that time and I only learned after booking) and probably going to Kennywood the Monday after. Panels have been getting shuffled a lot time slot wise, if you want to coordinate any plans there that’s gonna be case by case.

Got really lucky hotel-wise and got something sorta close to the con (Doubletree), we’ll see how the walk is in person and I may take the bus more if it annoys me enough.

I quit twitter about two years ago but I’ll give its near-identical twin a shot since people say it’s less bad for now. I’ll still upload here since it’s about the only relevant gallery site left.

https://bsky.app/profile/asterisk6.bsky.social

Not for any negative reason, I’m just enjoying my trip to Germany way too much and want to go back to Europe again ASAP, and I get more out of it than cons. I was strongly considering Megaplex next year but…. Berlin tho, or exploring more places

Still planning to do ANE since it’s in a really dead area of winter I need SOMETHING to look forward to in and AC is a strong consideration since I get July 4th-5th off anyways and it’s fairly convenient. I was thinking about Furrydelphia but again, I just would rather travel tbh.

I might look into pathways for working abroad for a couple years tbh. Not really shooting for permanent residence or anything but living somewhere actually designed for humans vs cars massively improves my mental health, screw all this wanking about feelings and the bandaid of meds. I don’t have the career to make New York or any of the really dense desirable US cities work, I’m a manufacturing engineer and not a particularly impressive one at that. It’s not really a career field that pays well enough to live alone in those places and factories are mostly outside urban cores anyways. Might see if my company has any pathways since it’s got locations all over. Language would definitely be a hurdle but tbh the feeling of being an outsider really doesn’t bother me since I feel alienated in the US anyways, I feel like an alien basically everywhere because I’m just too weird for a lot of people.

Always hated self-inserts outside of using them as horror protags because I get bored of/mad at myself too much and have no desire to write them (or be known as any true “me character”, because furry characters deliberately exist to hide what I’m actually like)

But hmm lately I got thinking that if I had to be an animal, I’d probably be the rare person to admit “yeah I actually WOULD be one of the staggeringly common social insects you’d statistically get reincarnated as most often” . I’ve always liked the idea of arthropods because they act cold and robotic but also do funny unexpected things and I think that just suits me. I’m also just way too hand-oriented for anything four legged or birds, I want my horrible little grabbers to rub all over things. Just none of them really clicked (I like the idea of crabs but don’t have a good grasp of their natures) until I got wrapped up in thinking about what biological creature I could be that would be closest to a sexless machine and went “ah yes social bugs”. Ants are a bit too group oriented for me, but I could do a bee… or better something a bit more funny and evil like a wasp (killing garden pests is a plus too). Usually one for specifics but I don’t have any specific species in mind besides “general paper wasp”

And tbh there are some oddly specific wasp traits that check out. I’m great with faces and terrible with names. I like bright colors, especially purple, and fluorescence. I tend to be intimidating but really am not a physical threat and will get away as quickly as possible. I deeply enjoy plant classification and looking for things. I’m viciously utilitarian and action-oriented when I’m actually happy and functional in an environment that works for me. I’m way too hand-oriented to be an animal that doesn’t have something akin to them


I’m about to go on a longer vacation soon but maybe sometime in the next month I’ll try to get my waspsona drawn out. Already picked out the name Zipporah because my mom/grandma considered it for me but it got rejected, and it just sounds like a good name for a wasp. Split between locomotive style chevron “wasp stripes” and just a big lollipop swirl, multiple ugly 70s color pallet options available because they look good on me (dark blorange, avocado green/harvest gold, and a black/white bald faced hornet/kiss coloration lol). It can be feral (average wasp size), anthro, or kaiju… because the -ra ending is already there and why not have a power fantasy giant wasp with laser eyes that blows up shitty infrastructure like the SILENCE BRAND crab?

Could be a costume character eventually I guess. Would be relatively simple, light, and comfortable if I just have spandex leggings/gloves for the limbs, since then it’s just head/wings/butt tail/maybe some armor on the body, which seems to look good on the rare few bee/wasp suits I’ve seen. Not really a character I feel a need to make a public performance of, but a giant wasp could be really hilarious in both furry and non furry settings. But for all I know I’ll lose interest in a month and I’ll go back to my “true self” just being the mech inside a Chuck E Cheese animatronic…. hey put the suit back on that thing, it only exists to make the character come alive.

Yeah that’s why I’ve barely posted art this year. I hoped having a way to draw in bed would get me to do it more but it’s the total opposite. It’s too damn stiff and I just haven’t found a brush that feels at all like the ones I like. I feel like they just don’t seem to have the dramatic tip size ranges the ones I like in MyPaint (weird older program I’ve used for like a decade) and it makes sketching unenjoyable. At least the skinny pencil giving me actual pain can be fixed by ramming a wad of foam on it. It’s been a massive deterrent because drawing is just shockingly unenjoyable on the thing so I have nothing in the wings to share. That and I can’t even pull up references on the same screen easily, the layout’s been aggravating any way I arrange it. I seriously regret paying like $1000 for it.

1/10 would not recommend for drawing. Technically functions but I hate it enough it may as well not. my crappo $40 tablet and janky old art program from like ten years ago felt better but I’ve been losing the war with bed gravity and it’s just as impossible to get myself to draw at my computer. Really wish there was a more minimalist procreate-like program for desktop that wasn’t MyPaint (it’s gotten almost too simple and antiquated at this point). If I still hate this thing in several months I may cut my losses and sell it. The real solution might be rearranging my room to visually encourage myself to use my laptop instead and just give up and be a troglodyte. Maybe better case scenario I’ll sketch on the computer and color/line on the ipad because inking’s less of an issue in procreate and coloring is certainly easier than mypaint (no selection tools it’s alllll manual)

I will say though, for people who want a really simplistic digital art software that feels like Procreate and isn’t iPad only, MyPaint is solid for that. Lacks a ton of features but I couldn’t get into stuff like gimp or sai back in the day because I couldn’t stand all the menus and stuff and being constrained canvas-wise.

-Bug’s Life and Finding Nemo are partly why I like bug/fish/non-mammal furry characters and so few people tend to talk about all the non-mammal anthro media out there. Even talking/living machines get more credit. As a kid I always wondered what fish and reptiles were thinking because I found the idea of being tiny in a huge world with a totally different perspective fascinating.

-Diane Foxington is just boring. I find most popular “furry crushes” boring though. I kept wishing she’d pull out an edgy joke about “Ha! I became a politician to legally become the biggest kind of crook at all!” and she didn’t and there just wasn’t anything interesting about her design or character to be into for me. I like the snake though because I’m a sucker for cynical characters. Then again I have such unconventional taste I think most people are crazy for going after types I find boring because of media oversaturation.

-My furry stuff is by far my most SFW side. I even make more dirty jokes on my plant shitposting account. Furry stuff just crosses over to irl way too much for me to ever feel safe being publicly NSFW outside of dumb jokes and I really don’t have a preference for anthro vs human for that stuff anyways. Faceless fanfiction sites where the characters of interests are nothing like me physically are so much more comfortable because people are comrades in thirst and not potential threats. Though the “no strong anthro preference” was the clincher for me giving up on having a faceless unrelated alt for it, just didn’t make enough stuff to bother and wasn’t going to put human art on FA lol.

- I have never gotten crap for being mostly SFW and totally straightedge, if anything I’ve had more people get excited that I was that way because they were looking for others like that. I seem to present a very unsexy presence at cons and I am grateful, not sure of it’s the teeth or threat of airbrushing wiping off but I’m not questioning it.

-I am very pro furries being dick-obsessed and repulsed by vag. I like being friends with men and if we’re mutually assured no romo/sexo that is SUCH a relief because that threat taints them so much for me. Never had an issue with anyone sapphic so kind of don’t care there.

-I’ve honestly had few issues with consent in furry spheres, they basically always ask before touching. Anime cons were definitely worse at least circa the mid 2010s. The one incident I had was someone taking a picture of my fursuit feet without asking and that’s so funny I can’t get mad. They’re not even impressive feet, they’re just Rainbow Randall’s “toes stuck on slide on shoes with fur slapped on”.

-It hurts this stupid part of my soul to see legit high end makers have pancake flat ears on suits, especially when they have like, full on pickable noses and stuff. EARS AREN’T FLAT and it cheapens suits visually so much. It’s such a small thing that drives me nucking futs

-Vultures that aren’t lammergeiers are painfully underrated. Also fish that actually look like fish and bugs that have full on bug faces but even those feel more common than fish.

-On a similar note, I unironically like how Shark Tale did anthro fish minus the faces

-Cats may be common species and tabby and tortoiseshell may be just normal natural marking but MAN when done well they’re actually really striking and not very common in suits (probably because they mean nightmare sewing or airbrushing)

-I find brown dogs/canines pretty dull as natural designs at this point but natural scalie colors/patterns can be GOD TIER and are not used enough

-I gave Asterisk unique hands because nobody really did that in 2016. It’s still criminally rare especially with hands being so much more visible and less subject to wear than feet. I can’t be assed to detail something that’ll be worn down by the dirty floor and barely visible.

-There’s so much depth in costume types I wish furries would look into vs just traditional fursuits. Stuff that’s cheaper, more comfortable, has a different feel. Making a cloth mummy suit sometimes has been an idea bopping around, as is making a leather mask/snippers of a crab or something. I feel like facepaint is something with a LOT of potential but I also get why it wouldn’t be common/welcome at cons with the yikes combo of potentially unsealed makeup and hard to clean costumes the cost of a used car

-I feel like the number of people that are sick of the constant EDM of con raves are actually a quiet majority. I’ve personally seen a lot of fursuit dancers going “bro why can’t they play more hip hop and not all wubwub I can’t dance to this” and go nuts for sets that play anything else.

-Airbrushing isn’t that fragile, I airbrushed my suits with watered down acrylic paint from walmart and they’ve held over over years of casual use and only rub off with heavy friction and moisture. Paint dyed fur is even more durable but it’s pretty obsolete now with more color options readily available. Rainbow Randall was all dyed and has been washed dozens of times over almost ten years and still very vivid.

-I get that hip hop and street dancing is probably most popular because it’s most accessible (and it is really cool!) but it would be cool to see more variety at dance comps. My style has grown more belly dance influenced in terms of using more weird isolations, just haven’t gotten into/done anything since I started those classes. There’s a particular style I want to learn more about for my horse character because it’s got very “horsey” foot motions.

-I actually preferred the earlier dates for Megaplex but I don’t go there regularly anymore so no say in that. If it was in late Aug/Sept I couldn’t have done it in college, before the school year was ideal. I’m laughably heat tolerant so that wasn’t a major deal for me. If it was in August this year MAYBE I could have considered but yeah not working with Oktoberfest.

-I actually like FA’s layout. Having an archive is criminally rare on sites at this point and I will hang onto it for dear life since deviantart shat itself.

I’ll be doing FWA next month, probably taking Amtrak there since it’s not much more expensive or slower than driving and way lower effort and I don’t trust airlines with my costumes. Currently looking yo be at the con Friday-Sat and at Six Flags most of Sunday, maybe maybe I’ll stay Monday if a local non-fur friend wants to do anything. No plans to do dance comp since finals are on Sunday and I highly doubt I’d stand a chance getting in, but I’ll probably try out for Floor Wars because tryouts for those kinds of things are usually tons of fun on their own. I have a really really stupid anthro-related song I’ll probably do if there’s karaoke and this time my voice cannot crap out on it, it’s impossible to sound too bad/stupid singing it because that actually makes it better. Unless something comes up I’ll have a cool new head (not by me) to debut, I’ll try and slap together an outfit for it in the meantime. Beyond that not certain which suits I’ll take, Rainbow Randall probably won’t be coming.

Megaplex is most likely out of the picture unless something major happens because boss has given approval for me to take two weeks off in late September to go to Germany for Oktoberfest, amusement parks, and other stuff. I refuse to do major trips/cons back to back anymore out of fear of getting sick and having to cancel the closely following event. I also probably wouldn’t have enough vacation hours anyways. But I do have a good idea of how I’d get there if I go next year or something, the Auto Train would be perfect to avoid the $90+ a day car rental costs I get for being under 25 and bring all the fans and costumes I want in my car on the train. It may be more expensive than other trains but good god the rental car thing more than makes up for it.

Beyond that, don’t really have con plans for later in the year. I’d probably be open to something in Nov/Dec (not MFF though lol) and I’ll probably do NYFB but that’s a small localish event.

Definitely still dancing even though I haven’t got into anything since MP2021. If anything I’ve been doing more formal classes and will hopefully make a glorious return or at least do more videos sometime.

The latter is only surprising that it met the clinical threshold, I’ve always had a laughably “stereotypical Asperger’s” personality but none of those traits have been nearly as detrimental as others describe (I don’t have meltdowns and don’t have major issues functioning in society other than food/housing being expensive because of my weird type of picky eating and not being able to tolerate living with others). I have limited social needs and feelings compared to most and my sensory issues are with things pretty easy to avoid in adult life (physical touch and food smells). It’s not something I’ll probably throw around much unless the full report gives a good reason why I hit the threshold because it’s basically just personality traits for me, but if people ask because I hate romance and touch and like trains I’ll just go “lol yep”

Adhd (combined type) I just… really wish hadn’t been treated as just an excuse to throw drugs at annoying little kids all my life or something people use as an excuse to get drugs or skip lines. If I’d even been aware of what it was actually like and that I did have serious traits of it pre-phone use I probably would have had a way better/easier time in college and my first few years of career life. But nope the mainstream narrative was “lol fuck you it’s ideopathic depression and a basically incurable chronic thing, your life will just continue to decay and you can only escape being terminally online through ~willpower~” which killed any desire to bother getting help for years because the meds seemed so ineffective for others and I can’t stand that positive thinking bullshit ot have trauma issues. I only gave in when I realized life wasn’t worth living the way it was and nothing was working so whatever, may as well try and fail several drugs and maybe they’ll throw ketamine at me or shock me because supposedly those work better. And then that was the only way I even took the adhd thing seriously because I mentioned it offhand and actually scored pretty high in a brief assessment and realized those traits DID go back far and weren’t all phone fry. Honestly I was scared I was going to test negative when I did a few months ago because I’d be back at square zero with my one real hope dashed. We’ll see how medication works, it’s supposed to have like an 80-90% effectiveness rate so I have way more hope in it vs antidepressants (which did make me less negative I guess but didn’t work long term or fix the actual root issue of not being able to do anything at home). Hopefully it means I’ll post more in the future?


It further vindicates my fondness for KISS and Never Too Young to Die because iirc Ace Frehley was confirmed to have it as an adult and man, is he the kind of sad embodiment of “lazy, unreliable, forgetful, and constantly late” and had major drug issues probably related to it. I always kind of hated to admit I relate to those former aspects of him and well, that’s why. I have some of his entertaining traits too but it’s overshadowed by the bad tbh. And Never Too Young to Die once again proves to be bizarrely progressive for a stupid 80s movie because dear god does the villain embody the impulsive/hyperactive type and there’s a weird thread about not being compatible with society you could spin into an actual compelling and kind of sad story about that character. People say that movie could never be made today but there’s so much stuff that would really be more relevant than ever now and you could translate SO well.

Definitely a con I’ll be going back to, though I’m gonna do Amtrak or something next time because parking was grotesquely expensive and taking the Acela from this one station in NJ would be cheaper and not much slower.

As said before, missed the dance comp submission deadline, also didn’t get into the dance battle, but I did some other stupid performance stuff. My voice kind of crapped out so the singing was not great, but people seemed to dig my ridiculously headbanging to Nightwish during karaoke. It’s something I’ll probably do at cons more often, maybe learn some Evanescence songs or do something really funny and stupid like Surfin Bird. I also did a “Cursed Facts About KISS” presentation for a deranged powerpoint night panel and really want to do that more as well, maybe something terrible but not incorrect about plant care or cursed fursuit construction methods (the most cursed being a NON-FURRY who made a terrifying mask out of a old torn fur coat. That’s how you get possessed by the ghost of a fox from the 30s)

I have video of the karaoke thing, though likely won’t post it because again, not fond of how I actually sounded. Someone supposedly filmed the whole powerpoint panel and I’ll link if I see it pop up. I have some physical photos from their photo room there I’ll probably post just because I have never actually posted Rainbow Randall post-refurb on here…. it’s been five years…

Asterisk’s ears were…. Yeah dodgy and are gonna need another rework, they were 90% reliable but uh, that’s not enough when I don’t want parts falling off mid-con. Might try a screw-on attachment using pill bottle tops since they’re pretty solid and about the right size. Managed to fit both that suit and Rainbow Randall along with some other clothes and platform boots into my two roller bags, and that was without a vacuum packer. I usually try to look inconspicuous out of suit but wore more tacky 70s dagger collar shirts and sometimes my new 4” platforms and a lot of people dug them.

I did the plant swap panel and ended up getting what sounded like a white variegated pothos with a sport mutation (person said a solid green plant started growing variegated leaves) and also got the official AND pink princess philodendron cutting and I’m obligated to bring back a piece of the resulting plant next year to pass it along again lol Some other stuff I did were go to some species/interest meetups and do the aquarium during a lul on Sunday.

I was overall impressed by the amount and variety of programming at the con, reg line was also run extremely well. The amount of escalators on the con floor makes me kind of nervous but eh, Megaplex seems to be the exception rather than norm in having a single-level convention floor. I’ll try to remember to bring earplugs next time because there was a band I kind of liked playing but I couldn’t stay long because the sound level was bothering me.

The ears are now removeable! That was a massive transit/storage issue for the head because they sprawl like a giant tarantula and don’t have a way to compact well.

I tried neodymium magnets and eh, weren’t strong enough when I stress tested and were an absolute pain to seperate and stick on. Tried some industrial strength velcro and BINGO it’s a pain in the ass to remove them but they will come off if you really try to and it holds up to bouncing extremely well.

Also rip I missed the dance comp application deadline for ANE so I can 100% confirm I will not be in that. Trying out for the floor wars type event but don’t have any expectation of making it, may go yolo and wear Rainbow Randall because that suit makes me ungodly hyper. I really need to find a good place to do videos at home because I’m probably not gonna even bother with FWA’s and that’s the only other con I have planned for the year. Maybe I’ll arrange something in suit for one of the little haflas my bellydance groups does, they love weird costumes and actually had a guy dressed as the Nittany Lion at one private class lol

Bessemer (formerly Bituminous) is a long-delayed character/fursuit project of mine that’s sat dormant for over two years now at the fur pinned on head stage. Kind of meant to continue her several months ago but then I had my resurgence of disgust at being seen as female and that kind of derailed it.

Ah well, the whole debacle I went through this weekend kind of got me thinking more about her design/character. I think I first designed her in 2018, maybe even 2017. Bopped around a ton of designs for a while and nothing really remained constant besides being monochrome, generally based on WWI-WWII era avant garde styles and late-era steam engines, and a vulture/skull equine unintentionally resembling a Threstral. Bopped around a lot of personality/backstory ideas I largely have forgotten, sometimes went with vengeful, sometimes with sweet and friendly, but usually had a sort of “ghost of abandoned industry” vein. An early direction I axed was making her a bit more gothic and being the ghost of an overgrown abandoned train.

Originally I wanted to do a long, slim, minimally padded body because Asterisk’s legs annoyed me. And welp, the head was too damn big for that already so platform boots and body padding it is. Original plans were for a blocky, art deco statuesque muscular build. Earlier this year I got thinking that just doing more of a big and solid fem build kind of like Floor Jansen would be an easier direction. It also comes with a lot of good stage outfits to study for design purposes, hers work incredibly well with her lines. I oscillate on being down for and repelled by it though. It’s a look I really like that’s rare to see portrayed positively in media in general. But I also can’t crush the feeling of discomfort of looking more visibly female and the prospect of being appealing to straight men. Haven’t had issues with any other groups but even that’s not much better because I’m so repelled by the idea of intimacy in general.

So eh, she remains on the shelf for a while longer at least. I’ve just come up with some interesting stuff for her background/design wise I thought I’d share.

I thought up an origin story for her the other night I think I’ll settle on. She was once human, a Rosie the Riveter type during WWII who then faced firing and a future of utter domestic doom after it ended. She realized she was a sickening combo of cold and utilitarian and wholly unfit for a future as a housewife or traditionally feminine career, and too passive and compliant to fight such a fate. So on her last day, she jumped into a vat of molten metal and prayed she’d reincarnate as a machine, the impossible ideal form for someone like her. And as it turned out, a power noticed. The freemartin Moloch, a being of pure utility out to destroy burn the entire human race for the sake of progress and then the entire universe until its complete heat death. Yes I made Moloch a freemartin vs the traditional bull because I think the combo of sterile/readiness to work fits “baby burning god who brings good fortune/embodiment of industry and capitalism” very well.

Bessemer was reincarnated under her new name as an industrial ghost in Moloch’s army. Moloch’s aims were harsh, but not objectionable. She had seen no escape from a forced role that fundamentally did not suit her, to the whole idea of being a biological being with an innate purpose to reproduce rather than a nonliving thing only meant to produce. Human extinction was just revenge for being forced into such a fate. Biological extinction was just revenge for her disgust in her previous nature.

She oscillates between mindsets. For some weeks, she is in a cold but blind rage under Moloch’s control, on the hunt to destroy both mankind and whatever power gave her her original form for its inherent unfairness and cruelty. For some she is simply a blissfully emotionless machine doing whatever her duty is. And for brief blips of time, she even feels almost human. She almost regrets what she did and what she is. Despite her burning resentment towards her original femaleness, she’ll feel some spark of latent homosexual attraction and question how she can do what she does. I haven’t decided on what timeframe these changes take place but it’s periodic and probably in vaguely weekly intervals. Something akin to how steam engines are kept hot for well over a week between cooling for hours for maintenance.

Yeah that gets weirdly heavy for being for a character that’ll just be a fursuit but I mean, Rainbow Randall’s origin story in his original source material involved him becoming perpetually high on marker fumes and starving to death because he has no concept of earthly needs. A lot of it needs clarified or fleshed out better but I like the origin story for her at least.

I also want to give her a sort of dazzle camouflage broken silhouette to symbolize how she attempted to but could not fully escape what she once was. And also for a double entendre of being a hidden predator. Still noodling around with markings on paper but I’m looking at making her markings run as counter to her form as possible to utterly shatter it.

Tbh I never considered Asterisk a ‘me’ character. I just designed it to look cool especially in motion as a costume.

Much as I often feel I’ve grown distant from the character over the years, sometimes I also look at it and realize it’s more appealing to me than ever. When I got into KISS I went “holy crap I really did unintentionally give that thing the best visual/physical attributes of my favorite members”. Somehow I gave it the lightning bolt arrows and floppy noodly underwater/spacey air of Ace AND the giant gaping maw, ambiguous monstrous form, funny tongue (lol), strong profile, and directional face of Gene. Also has the point down the nose marking both of their makeup designs give them.

Anyways, that feeling’s come back in a totally different way today. Unfortunately it looks like my meds are giving me PMDD and I spent the last week raging with self-hatred over being female. I posted a rant about it earlier today but deleted it. Nobody needs to see that, it benefits noone. It’s something I’ve been bitter over for roughly nine years with no real escape available. Today in a rare moment of calmness, I thought about an old spiritual belief of mine about feeling like I have the soul of an extradimensional sexless alien or robot. It’s how I rationalize my total lack of interest in romance and intimacy and how I feel most content when in a robotic, purely productive, out of body, emotionless state. And now I think I may have a way forward with my disgust for my sex and how I feel trapped in an equally repellant fire and ice scenario with the concept of physical sex in general. I will see my body as nothing but a puppet or the mech inside an animatronic. It means nothing to me, my true self is in my head and mind, and I will do anything in my power to be as invisible as possible. There’s no point in doing anything physical because I’m 5’10 and rectangular and I am beyond grateful for that. I’ll double down on seeing myself as invisible as a runway model, merely a clotheshanger. Maybe I’ll cut my hair short again come spring, especially if my medication messes it up like it has for some people. I’ve been told by at least one rando before that I come off as nothing and that makes me content.

Now I look back at Asterisk and realize that’s the kind of extradimensional electro-spiritual sexless alien I like to feel like I am inside. And it brings me peace. Maybe I really have gone full circle and accepted it as a true fursona.

Eh, this is a weird ramble but at least none of you had to see my furious ones from a few days ago. I’m not sure if I actually ever explained these aspects of Asterisk’s design before, but they’ve always been there since the beginning.

It’s not always obvious because I don’t have problems with hugs and fortunately people are otherwise not very touchy beyond the hands in everyday life, but yeah I actually hate most physical touch. A lot of people have been kind of confused/intrigued by the details of it and why and I have no problem explaining, because as seen in the title, it’s not a trauma thing at all. Frankly, the only physical trauma I’ve experienced was minor and just makes me irrationally angry/afraid of some really random things.

It’s a sensory issue I’ve had as long as I can really remember, at least since I was a small child. I think it might have been more bearable then because I remember my parents carrying me and stuff. Being touched directly with hands and the like is really overwhelming and unpleasant for me. Best thing I can compare it to is being tickled but worse or being the touch equivalent of microphone feedback. If grabbed directly I’ll tense up really bad, and close my eyes and seethe if it’s prolonged. That fortunately only happens at stuff like doctor’s appointments where there’s no way around it, which can make some readings and palpating anything difficult lol I don’t have any problems with touching things myself or clothing textures outside of like, overly hot/cold or really gross or scratchy stuff basically nobody would like. As a side note, my only other sensory problems are with food smells and textures/taste and I can avoid that probably 80-90% of the time as an adult. I also have the VERY double-edged sword of not being able to smell body odor at all on anyone unless I stuff my face directly into dirty laundry.

The main area it affects is basically anything a t shirt and shorts would cover. Legs below the knee, hands and arms below the elbow, and oddly enough, any part of my face and head is totally fine. Dentists are no bother at all if it’s not otherwise painful but having a stethoscope against my back will make me flinch and tense up. Blunter touch like hugs or being bumped into or squished against are also generally not bothersome, it’s mostly grabbing/feeling with hands that is. Level of trust and harmless intent does nothing because it’s a purely physical issue. There’s no difference between my reaction to my mom, a doctor, or a stranger doing it other than if I feel threatened for other reasons. Wearing thick clothing or a fursuit can also help to a degree but not entirely, I got patted down and still tensed up while wearing a winter jacket and two pairs of pants.

A lot of people who are this way still feel touch starved or crave something hug-adjacent for comfort, a famous example being Temple Grandin and her squeeze machine. I’m actually not. If I was never touched again and all medical appointments were done by light beam or something I’d actually be fine with and like that. Not being touched at all during covid lockdowns wasn’t a problem at all. I actively hate any kind of handsy touch and I’m glad it’s only an issue maybe once or twice a year. Part of the reason I’ve always felt blessed and relieved to be completely uninterested in romance and sex is that I’m so physically incompatible with it lol I’ll hug people as a formality but almost never get anything out of it myself, like a handshake. I can think of only a few times I have actively wanted a hug, usually in times of severe distress. In those few situations I actively wanted to hug a human it was more to squeeze them than have them squeeze me. But when I do feel that urge, I really don’t care if it’s even something living, a squishmallow works just as well and is more readily available. It’s also nice to have a pillow or plushie or wadded up blanket as something to hold when I sleep. Ironically I actually fantasize about cuddling a lot despite hating the idea irl


I feel like basically everyone I’ve known/seen who has non-trauma-related touch aversion is autistic but I really can’t say yes or no myself. Honestly I haven’t bothered finding it out. Even though I have some of the super media stereotypical traits, they’re just inconveniences I’ve learned to deal with years ago and there’s nothing having an official label would do to help me. There’s a good chance it could be something else, though. I am planning to get tested for ADHD in January or so because my focus issues have become so unbearable and I actually have had other huge signs of it since childhood. But I’m not gonna go into that situation because that’s a whole other can of worms and gets pretty dark and upsetting tbh.


I think that’s everything, really. It’s pretty ironic being one of the few furries who isn’t touchy at all with how they trend extremely physically affectionate overall. I don’t think that’s a bad thing because a lot of people crave that and men especially don’t get it and furries skew male. It’s probably a great outlet for them, just leave me out of it other than obligated fursuit hugs lol Fortunately I’ve never had issues with furries disrespecting that, anime fans in the cons I did in the 2010s were awful though.

Hm yeah you’ve probably heard a fair bit about what a mess it was. I actually had a decent time with reg, it was about a 20-30 minute wait. The temperature of the hotel was definitely an issue as a suiter, fortunately I was able to handle the escalators better than expected. My main frsutration was with the schedule, stuff I wanted to do was all clustered together than then there were massive dead spaces (and then Sunday didn’t have much at all so I just went to explore the area and do some museums). I think the real sticker for me probably not returning next year is that dance comp and floor wars prelims were during prime panel hours vs earlier in the morning/later in the evening as Megaplex does. Not gonna go into detail to not stir up drama but I’m also pretty pissed that I feel like I’m technically better than ever and improved my mobility in Asterisk by changing the tail belt design but got snubbed for the the least competitive dance comp I’ve ever tried out for seemingly due to several factors outside my control (and they didn’t even give me prelims feedback). So missing out on most of the panels I wanted to do only to not get in anyways is a huge damper on me returning until they can straighten/fill out their schedule better. I do plan to film a dance video to the song I planned to do just to stick it to them once I get a free cool morning to do it. I picked a really weird cool song that fit the theme and anything and I think it was partly just too weird for these guys.

That being said, they had some neat musical stuff there that really motivated me to get practicing that again. There was a person showing people some basics on guitar/bass on Rocksmith in the game room that was a cool hidden gem. I do think the con has potential and a big market but it was so frustrating and just not that fun that I’m probably going to try ANE and possibly Megaplex by train next year if I can modify Asterisk’s head to be more compact for travel. If FD improves I’ll look into doing it in 2024 though.

I was in a better mood outside the con issues though and I’m happy to say I’m more connected with Asterisk as a suit again, I’ve done some tweaks on it that improved comfort and mobility a lot and belly dance classes have given me a lot of fun new movements to use with the character. The horse armor at the art museum also really makes me want to complete my industrial hippogriff I’ve had in stasis for two years even if I’m wary about it not being compatible with con spaces like FD with the platform boot based feet (not having headless lounges on both levels was another irritant)

Confirmed I’m gonna be there, I’ll most likely bring both suits unless some car catastrophe comes up (had a scare with vehicle registration earlier this week).

I’ll probably be there Fri-Sun, possibly Thursday depending on work schedule. Planning to try out for floor wars and the dance comp, I have a very weird sort of sci-fi song planned for it that’s semi-relevant to the con theme I’d say. And if that doesn’t go through I may try and just film it in a hallway lol

I don’t really have specific plans outside of that. Hopefully I’ll be able to get Asterisk’s tail mount modified so it’s less horribly immobilizing than the current kidney belt. I’ve been taking belly dance classes and would love to try and use some moves from that but my waist is totally stiff with that belt and it doesn’t even hold the tail upright much.

Obviously no group is a monolith and my answers are only my own personal experiences.

Anyways, a lot of people are cagey or defensive about answering questions about their lack of interest in sex and romance. I’m not. I’m completely secure in how I am and feel absolutely zero shame or sadness about it. Here’s some common ones to start, if you have any burning questions not answered here though, fire away.


-Have you ever had any interest in romance at all?

Nope. I basically see it the way I did as a little kid, maybe even more negatively. Back then I remember at least once thinking that marrying a best best friend might be appealing. But I hate every aspect of romance and have never seen the appeal in it as a teen/adult. I hate living with other people and inevitably hate them. I can’t stand touch beyond hugs and don’t desire even platonic or familial physical touch. I am extremely ticklish and it’s unbearable and overwhelming. And the idea of being chained to someone possibly until I die and especially being financially interdependent with them sounds like an absolute nightmare.


-Are you autistic?

I can neither confirm nor deny that. I have several laughably stereotypical traits including my touch aversion and lack of interest in love/sex but have never been formally diagnosed and in online assessments I only score kind of marginally in the autistic range socially. Maybe I’m a zebra, maybe I’m a horse that stood too close to a picket fence being painted white.


-Do you have any kind of sex/relationship trauma?

Nope. I have no qualms with this question because I have never had anything of the sort happen to me.

I don’t include rape or domestic abuse in my stories for this reason, I just don’t understand that stuff at all and wouldn’t be able to depict it appropriately and frankly a lot of mostly women are really sick of seeing it anyways.


-Do you feel any pride/shame in it at all?

Nope to either. I just feel lucky as hell I don’t have to deal with relationship drama and dating crap, it just makes things so easy. Yeah, I feel kind of inhuman for it, but in a superior way, like a robot above such things. I actually like sexless/loveless robot/alien characters for that reason, unlike a lot of others.


-Have you ever been kissed (lips)?

Twice and it was disgusting. Once was a friend on New Years as a joke. One was at a Rocky Horror Picture Show virgin sacrifice. I do not want to smash my lips against someone else’s warm moist mouth hole. That being said, on exactly one occasion I have looked a celebrity’s lips and gone “yeah that guy might be vaguely tolerable to kiss as part of a Rocky Horror Picture Show virgin sacrifice I guess”


-Have you ever had a crush?

I kind of did once admittedly. There was a girl in high school I did find attractive and liked as a friend and talked to her as a closer acquaintance for a while but we eventually drifted away. I quashed that whole line of thought in my mind though because I hate everything tangible about love regardless of what monkey brain says and statistically speaking, she was probably straight. I also just felt like a creep and felt really bad about it and frankly, wouldn’t have wanted to be more than friends anyways. I don’t know if she ever suspected anything or just thought I was regular awkward.


-Do you enjoy romance or shipping in fiction?

Virtually never. Usually I find it about as boring and hard to follow as people going on about finances or tedious nuclear reactor safety regulations. Maybe if I really like a character dynamic and they seem like a pair who’d do particularly well in a domestic setting but that is very rare, I’ve maybe had one or two established romantic relationships in stories I’ve written. I have also written some horror stories about a fire demon seducing the narrator but those are more about my fear and disgust at the idea of falling in love. I’d rather read/write about unconventional friendships/alliances. One of my favorite movies the Yellow Submarine partly because it has no romance at all, only rainbow crazy crap lol


-Do you own pride merch or are active in the aromantic community?

I own some angel pins in pride colors I just got because I liked the surreal angel designs lol I would never advertise that I hate sex/romance because most people either wouldn’t recognize the colors or would take it as a challenge to woo me, so a net negative.

Hard no to the latter. I can’t stand the aromantic community and especially the “a-spec” one. From what I’ve seen its all bickering about identity politics and people who aren’t hard stop loveless like me, which I have no real commonality with with at all. I don’t want or need emotional support or validation for what I am so I don’t care about community at all.

If there was a spinster/confirmed bachelor club for dedicated solo people focused more on practical things like those damn “no single rider” rides at fairs and pet/house sitting for other solo people then sure, that I’d be down for.

-What would you do if theocrats took over and forced you to get married and have babies?

Be a nun at whatever cost because much as I won’t waste my time on religion, it’s sure as hell better than THAT. Barring that, probably consider sacrificing myself for whatever resistance movement there was.


-ArE AcEs/ArOs LgBt????

I won’t speak for others and I don’t care what they do/identify with but I don’t consider myself that. I don’t consider myself straight either but frankly, most issues that gay/bi/trans people face do not effect me at all and nobody has ever said anything negative about my lack of interest in love.




Bonus: technically, I am the polar opposite of “feels no sexual attraction, regardless of libido and sexual actions” but people seem to lump that in a “asexual” anyways. I’ve seen some sources include lack of the latter two as well which might be why, but I always see individual people listing the attraction bit as the qualifier. I’ll go into less detail here because I am extremely mum about being outwardly sexual at all in furry spaces because I aggressively want to look as unavailable and unfuckable as possible around anyone I might actually meet in real life.

In theory I can find people hot, exclusively unattainable characters. I’d say I fantasize about 90% male and 10% female/other, though partly because my “types” of women are near nonexistent in media. I’d say it’s like how tide pods look like tasty fruit to my monkey brain and probably yours too, but realistically you know it’s completely unappealing and will kill you so you’d never act on it. I mostly only fantasize about being ghost hands touching and cuddling someone else because it helps me go to sleep and beyond that, I refuse to elaborate. I have never felt genuine sexual desire and cannot overstate how much I hope I never will.


Anyways, that covers all the questions I think I see/hear decently often.

Only a hardened few who’ve explicitly sought out this account for some reason will read this vs the thousands who’ve probably seen the suit but hey, I just got thinking about 2014 and how much furry stuff brought me joy then despite being more isolated than I am even now. As mocked as the wub wub style of dubstep/brostep is my god it makes me happy to hear because it reminds me of then.

Anyways, Asterisk was first conceived of two and a half years before the fursuit appeared at Megaplex 2016. It technically debuted at AFO a week or so before but that con was a huge letdown and I didn’t stay long. Megaplex 2016 was actually a complete impulse decision since I was suspicious of going to fur cons until I was 18 because I was afraid it would be murry purry everywhere and I’d get raped. Honestly I don’t think that’s a bad mindset for minors to have with furry stuff and lament that online places with safer and more SFW circles have largely dried up. Fortunately Megaplex actually felt more family-friendly and respectful than anime cons had. Anyways, I got into fursuit making and amusement rides and roller coasters around the same time in 2013 and that grew and grew until spring 2014, when my dad took me to the Florida State Fair and I had my mind blown by what’s probably still the most spectacular lineup of fair rides I’ve seen in my life and I debuted my first fursuit Rainbow Randall at a tiny local anime con. Because Florida is the wintering grounds for most east coast carnivals, it typically has some of the first fairs of the season and can have absolutely ridiculous lineups of rare and elusive rides because units haven’t split up yet and there’s really no other major fairs on the east coast to do. I knew what a lot of them were because I had gotten obsessed with rare flat/fair rides over the winter but man were they nothing short of alien to see in person. One in particular I had a fascination with was the Mondial Top Scan model, the one traveling ride of this kind in the US being the Space Roller. Years earlier when I was 8-9 I saw one at the Ohio State Fair and while I was too scared to ride anything that went upside-down, holy crap it’s burned into me how alien it looked when I was used to truly “flat” fair rides like Scramblers and this was a freaky flipping star-shaped arm that looked like a dropped extradimensional artifact. And then it appeared again at the Florida State Fair, and I now knew what it actually was, and it quickly became my favorite carnival ride (it’s been beaten out by the Zipper now but still up there for me).

Pretty much immediately after the fair I went nuts drawing weird alien furry creatures based on various rides, to mixed success. Didn’t use most of the designs for everything and a lot of rides were just too weird to be too literal with. But a Top Scan-based on that swiveled through several prototype names until settling on Asterisk rapidly became a candidate to turn into a fursuit. The very first design was an Oriental Shorthair-ish cat thing with three muzzles and actually a TON of similarities to the more finalized Asterisk. It had the differently colored toes, lighting bolt arrow markings, stripes across the fingers and toes, and the six eyes and six ears that swiveled freely (which were always intended to be erect… until the costume came out how it did and gravity took over)

Asterisk went through a ton of revisions in those two years as I worked on a materials-priced suit head commission for a friend that I don’t think has seen the light of day since (OUCH). I won’t bore you with the details but the main difference is the markings morphed, color scheme changed several times, head grew longer and less cat-like and more akin to either a dragon, rat, or possum depending on how you want to take it, and some of the laughably physically impractical features like hands that were rotating star-splayed six-fingered things mounted on small motors were dropped. My old deviantart profile is XARALTA if you really want to see the dozen or so iterations, they’re all in their own folder.

But the gist of Asterisk’s final design was to be as edgy and spectacular as possible. I firmly believe fursuit dancers are the rockstars of at least the SFW side of furrydom, that’s the single best way to get attention as a fursuiter and those events have almost always been massively popular. And teenage me saw a similar mystique and draw to them as people probably saw rockstars in the past, and instead of picking up a guitar I decided to try and self-teach how to dance and make a bold edgy character that would be real freaking cool to watch and look good in motion. So here’s just a bulleted list of traits and why they exist:

Long head- most fursuits have smooshed in toony muzzles and I’ve always loved giving Asterisk a long, sloping profile to be completely counter that. Also makes their head a lot more directional and dramatic when I look around or headbang.

Six ears, six eyes, six toes, six-pointed star-tipped tongue- the six pointed end of the basis ride. Asterisk is not a demonic character and I hard disagree with 6 being an evil number and 7 being a good one. I think 7 is ugly and unresolved and yes, I have a character in a story who holds my own unconventional numerology. Anyways, I’d seen some characters with 4 ears or eyes and figured I’d add two more of each for edginess and to match the ride. Only reason for no six fingers was physical practicality.

Those damn ears- I cannot overemphasis that these are not tendrils or dreads. I even had someone think they were axolotl gills and tbh that was cool take I could go for. They’re ears. They were originally intended to be erect and create a star-shaped silhouette that the whole Asterisk name came from. Unfortunately gravity had its way and they became rather iconically floppy. Also, they can rotate on their bases because they’re mounted on office chair wheel axles. It was my dad’s idea to use the swivels because I had no clue how I’d do it. The effect is diminished because the ears are so floppy, but I can grab and twist any of them 360 degrees and you’ll sometimes seem them roll over.

Unique pawpads- I never saw people with truly unique hand pad designs and still basically never do. People are always kind of fascinated with Asterisk’s hands when they seem them in person. I jumped on the opportunity to make them deliberately bizarre and customized.

Ridges on pads and tongue and thin bars across markings- These are just to give that “row of lights” look and look vaguely like the lighting on the Space Roller in 2D.

Mouth full of wild crooked shark teeth- this is just a shitty carny teeth joke and because it meant I needed zero precision in how I glue them into the jaw. They’re apoxy sculpt with “roots” glued into the foam.

Mouth vision- also unintentional! Asterisk’s suit was designed with a huge/relatively shallow mouth for airflow because it was fantastic on Rainbow Randall. There’s dedicated tear duct vision spots but the mouth worked so much better I shifted to wearing the head differently for that.

Light up eyes- Asterisk used to have some light up face markings before the wiring mostly broke and I couldn’t be assed to keep fixing it. I always wanted to have the body markings light up too and hoped I’d learn how to do so in engineering school. But all I learned was that I’m worthless at electronics anything so this is completely abandoned and I’m a complete luddite in terms of fursuit electronics now. Complete luddite in general really with how I can’t get into digital sculpting and thus have no interest in 3D printing or VRChat and covid made me hate virtual anything so much I want to do everything as physical as possible.

Unique colors- BUDGET! Asterisk and Rainbow Randall are unique colors because their non-white fur was dyed with acrylic paint so I didn’t have to buy a yard of all those colors because I was in high school with tons of time and space and minimal budget. As a fun aside, I almost gave Asterisk black instead of white base fur because I was worried about the markings bleeding (the airbrushing sure did ouch) but there were too many edgy neon and black fursuits already.

Candycane stripes on legs, arms, and tail- edgy subversion of the popular ring markings on fursuit arms/legs. This was deceptively a pain to pattern on the tail because I had to make a clothe mockup and stuff it and then draw the stripe on and cut it up for the pattern.

Zigzag arrows- these are just taken from the actual ride and wrapped around the fursuit form in ways that looked cool and pleasing to me. The ones on the sides of the thighs were meant to look spring-loaded and dynamic. The arrows on the crotch were just natural terminations and not meant to be sexy. If you tried to bang Asterisk you would receive a free coathanger abortion because there are a total of eight wire hangers keeping the jaw and ears from sagging just waiting to stab you in the crotch (teeth are also fairly pokey)

Color scheme- originally had a sunset coloration to match the Space Roller in 2014, went through several changes and settled on the current one eventually. The really weird thing is the irl Space Roller got repainted to something very similar years later.

Floaty underwater movement- Asterisk was always intended to be sharp and aggresive but WOO BOY did the sheer weight and flop of the suit totally kill that. The mannerisms developed at my first Megaplex as a result of how I just had to move in the suit because I had to be pretty big and sweeping.



So basically, Asterisk went from a teen’s edgy flaildancing neon thing to kind of ambiguously dark, eerie, and psychedelic. I’ve attempted to give it more of a backstory or established charactee before but failed. In the end, it’s purely a costume/performance sona that shows up once a year and vanishes like the carnival coming to town.

That site is a cancerous cesspit only surpassed by facebook, which at least has some factors that make it vaguely enjoyable to use in the form of archiving and no restrictive character limit for all the harm its caused. But man sometimes I miss the following and interaction I had on there. Between deleting it all and leaving my family and most of my furry friends in Florida I’ve felt pretty lonely since I moved. Yeah there’s fur cons up north too but between falling out with my costume characters and being to depressed to get much of anything done at home man I’ve felt stuck as invisible since I don’t like to be known for my human form and fur cons are way less appealing without a costume on (partly why I relate to kiss a lot, I’m nothing as a base person and everything as a masked persona and prefer it that way). I think having some eyes on me forces me to actually make and do things too.

I just wish the online world as a whole wasn’t forced on everyone by the pandemic right around the all the social media sites went to shit. Whenever I see the news about Musk trying to takeover/buy twitter I genuinely hope he does and sinks it just so ANY alternate could be the new furry hub. I know it would suck for businesses but my god I hate everything about the site and how it’s steadily become more aggressive and reactionary and people increasingly corralled there with other sites shooting themselves in the feet.

Meh, another thing that’s discouraged me from returning is expecting everyone to be political. I’m not good with social sciences or economic stuff, I’m some dumb furry artist you follow because pretty rainbows. Go follow a real expert or actual news site, short of fundamental stuff like theocracy is awful I am NOT confident on stuff like effective protests or specific policies like taxes or the best approach to law enforcement or governing enough to be preaching to people about it. Hell, even as a woman I’m a crappy source on women’s issues because I don’t do that whole performing femininity thing, don’t work a poorly paid traditionally feminine job, and have no desire for a romantic relationship or children so a lot of them don’t even effect me.

I haven’t much will to actually post on social media, just lurk.

I’ve been starting to take some actual dance classes and they’re fun if hard for me because I’m so directionally challenged (can’t tell left and right to save my life). Done some tap and some belly dance workshops, I really like the music for the latter and if I can get remotely decent at it it would be fun to do at a con sometime and I have some interesting obscure music picks that would be great for it (a track from Triforce Heroes, which I never played but has a criminally underrated soundtrack, and a ridiculously obscure surf rock song). Of course I’d have to make a suit more suitable for it, Rainbow Randall might work okay but Asterisk is entirely incompatible because there’s virtually no waist/hip mobility in that suit.

Much as I used to enjoy furry cons I got really depressed the past year or so and moving somehow made it worse, so I don’t have any formal plans for now. Maybe Furrydelphia. I mostly just really lost my connection with my old suits, Rainbow Randall is fun on occasion but I never know what to do with him and Asterisk is just a reminder of brighter times I feel nothing but resentment for now and is physically just obnoxious to wear. I’d have to make something new because I don’t like to be known for my human side or face. But as said before, I’ve gotten only increasingly depressed in 2021 and early 2022 despite my best efforts and pretty much haven’t done anything. That and since I’ve moved my perpetual obnoxious sleep needs have turned to sleeping most of my weekends and evenings away even if I get 7 hours and slam energy drinks and there’s seemingly nothing physically wrong with me blood test wise.

I’ve still given the mummy suit idea a thought though, less plastic, less sweaty, and would be visually distinct and fun. I keep thinking about something red/black in with that searing Virtual Boy look with some drapey wings. Still like the idea of a lizard because I’ve just always liked lizards.

On a nicer note I did an embroidery class and that was fun.

I just figured I should put something on here since this is really my only link to the greater furry world. Most sites are dead and twitter becomes a greater cancer day by day. I only really talk to a handful of friends and lurk.

I’ve had this idea for a mid 70-mid 80s era amusement park horror verse kind of congealing into something over the last few months and around New Years the general plot came together. It’s basically about a series of suspicious but covered up workplace fires over a ~10 year period at a park loosely based on the early days of Great Adventure (bright colors, questionable safety standards, violent crowds).

Featuring

Gaylord Sechs, overly ambitious and romantic but careless mastermind, tegu

Polly, marketing parrot with an astounding knack for anagrams that has saved the park’s ass a surprising number of times

Rosemary, gullible but kind restaurant cook fox

Margaret, seasoned actress and dual-purpose clown/witch, very sweet despite her scary face, human

Sherman, grouchy fox squirrel mechanic, good at climbing in weird spots

Daniel Berenstain (Berenstein? Burnstain? It’s a mystery), haunted house actor with spectacularly awful spelling and endless edgy jokes, probably human but also likely a vampire or werewolf with those giant teeth and all that hair

Rainbow Randall, cameo of the fursuit character, glue and other chemical-sniffing painter who wildly turns between a cheshire cat and a ginger guy, the bane of Daniel’s existence

Mo Dolgoch, painfully lawful fire investigator cow


There are also more I don’t have names for, my favorite casting choice being a (maybe frilled) shark forensic dentist (very important with all those fires). Dunno about any kind of timeline but I’ll draw the characters eventually and the story has a general outline.

An anthro animal mummy. Egyptians mummified tons of cats, birds, dogs, cows, crocodiles, and other animals and they have a pretty distinct visual style that would be fun to work off of. Probably could use just regular fabric or even repurposed thrift store sheets for the bands of cloth sewn to some kind of jumpsuit and it would be way cheaper to make than a fake fur suit.

Since I live in the northeast now I’ll be there barring any unusual circumstances. Planning to bring Rainbow Randall and hopefully start the new year on a decent foot and decent premonition because tbh this year was awful mentally and even if my physical situation isn’t bad I feel lower than ever.

Last year’s premonition was that things would suck but at least I’d have my friends and that REALLY checked out. Met up with a lot of people I knew mostly at cons/online and I’ve made a really good non-fur friend on another site. Unfortunately I’ve also started craving more social interaction irl after years of being happy as a loner lol

Most of my followers are Megaplex people from Florida but in the off chance anyone else is going I’d be happy to do a plant cutting swap at the con, I have mostly succulents that I can share, nothing too crazy but I have a few more unusual kalanchoes and some common hoyas that can be expensive.

Bleh, I’ll try that drawing challenge again maybe next month, I’ve been so drowsy I can barely do anything besides work and it sucks

Now’s as good a time as ever to recommend one of my fav surf rock albums, Hot Rod Hanukkah from Meshugga Beach Party, about as un-Christmassy as it gets lol

It’s a novelty band that’s exactly what it sounds like and the promo material is ridiculous but they’re genuinely one of my favorite instrumental surf groups because a lot of more eastern folk music really translates well to surf (see Misirlou and Hava Nagila) and they have really nice organ and guitar interplay. The couple of vocal tracks are super corny as typical for the genre but the instrumental tracks are fantastic background music for writing cool spy scenes.

Sadly I think the drummer died last year and their media’s been dead since 2018 and they’re pretty much west coast only so doubt I’d ever be able to see them live, but it’s rare that I get into artists that are still around let alone perform live vaguely near me.

Saw them this weekend and I’d highly recommend them if they ever come to your area. Funk band that’s ten guys in mummy costumes with a fantastic live show. Despite the spooky theme and visuals most of their songs are dumb dirty jokes (like kiss LOL) but consistently solid and they have some amazing stage antics and bizarre instrument solos (they’re all very technically skilled and supposedly session musicians in disguise for contractual reasons). There’s angle grinders, flute beatboxing, and a dual-wielding saxophone duel which is quite the combo. Also some furry cred for having two guys in Anubis heads who have drum battles with the band in a few songs.

Their opening band was Yam Yam which isn’t as wild performance-wise but very nice mostly instrumental jazz-funk, it’s nice background music for something kind of interesting and atmospheric but not too distracting.

Definitely the best $25 I’ve spent.

Makes me want to dust off the idea I’ve had of making an animal mummy character since it would be cool and unique and relatively easy to make since you could just use straps of old sheets for wrappings.