*walks in*
*blows dust off of everything*
*gives a little wave*
*sets down a new journal*
*ducks right back out*

========================================================

Twenty years ago, February 16th, 2004, I got married for the first time.

It was twenty years earlier than I ever expected to.

2004 was an election year, and much like conservatives are whipping up anti-trans hysteria and anti-trans bills and propositions to drive out the vote today, in 2004 it was all anti-gay stuff. Specifically, preventing the evil scourge of same-sex marriage from destroying everything good and decent in the world.

Enter Gavin Newstrom. At the time, he was the newly elected mayor of San Francisco. Despite living next door to the city all my life, I hadn’t even heard of the man until Valentines Day 2004 when he announced that gay marriage was legal in San Francisco and started marrying people at city hall.

It was a political stunt. It was very obviously a political stunt. That shit was illegal, after all.
But it was a very sweet political stunt. I still remember the front page photo of two ancient women hugging each other forehead to forehead and crying happy tears.

But it was only going to last for as long as it took for the California legal system to come in and make them knock it off.

The next day, we’re on the phone with an acquaintance, and she casually mentions that she’s surprised the two of us aren’t up at San Francisco getting married with everyone else.

“Everyone else?” Goes I, “I thought they would’ve shut that down already?”

“Oh no!” goes she, “The courts aren’t open until Tuesday. Presidents Day on Monday and all. They’re doing them all weekend long!”

We didn’t know because social media wasn’t a thing yet. I only knew as much about it as I’d read on CNN, and most of the blogs I was following were more focused on what bullshit President George W Bush was up to that day.

"Well shit", me and my man go, "do you wanna?" I mean, it’s a political stunt, it wont really mean anything, but we’re not going to get another chance like this for at least 20 years. Why not?

The next day, Sunday, we get up early. We drive north to the southern-most BART station. We load onto Bay Area Rapid Transit, and rattle back and forth all the way to the San Francisco City Hall stop.

We had slightly miscalculated.

Apparently, demand for marriages was far outstripping the staff they had on hand to process them. Who knew. Everyone who’d gotten turned away Saturday had been given tickets with times to show up Sunday to get their marriages done. My babe and I, we could either wait to see if there was a space that opened up, or come back the next day, Monday.

“Isn’t City Hall closed on Monday?” I asked. “It’s a holiday”

“Oh sure,” they reply, “but people are allowed to volunteer their time to come in and work on stuff anyways. And we have a lot of people who want to volunteer their time to have the marriage licensing offices open tomorrow.”

“Oh cool,” we go, “Backup.”

“Make sure you’re here if you do,” they say, “because the California Supreme Court is back in session Tuesday, and will be reviewing the motion that got filed to shut us down.”

And all this shit is super not-legal, so they’ll totally be shutting us down goes unsaid.


00000

We don’t get in Saturday. We wind up hanging out most of the day, though.

It’s… incredible. I can say, without hyperbole, that I have never experienced so much concentrated joy and happiness and celebration of others’ joy and happiness in all my life before or since. My face literally ached from grinning. Every other minute, a new couple was coming out of City Hall, waving their paperwork to the crowd and cheering and leaping and skipping. Two glorious Latina women in full Mariachi band outfits came out, one in the arms of another. A pair of Jewish boys with their families and Rabbi. One couple managed to get a Just Married convertible arranged complete with tin-cans tied to the bumper to drive off in. More than once I was giving some rice to throw at whoever was coming out next.

At some point in the mid-afternoon, there was a sudden wave of extra cheering from the several hundred of us gathered at the steps, even though no one was coming out. There was a group going up the steps to head inside, with some generic black-haired shiny guy at the front. My not-yet-husband nudged me, “That’s Newsom.” He said, because he knew I was hopeless about matching names and people.

Ooooooh, I go. That explains it. Then I joined in the cheers. He waved and ducked inside.

So dusk is starting to fall. It’s February, so it’s only six or so, but it’s getting dark.

“Should we just try getting in line for tomorrow -now-?” we ask.

“Yeah, I’m afraid that’s not going to be possible.” One of the volunteers tells us. “We’re not allowed to have people hang out overnight like this unless there are facilities for them and security. We’d need Porta-Poties for a thousand people and police patrols and the whole lot, and no one had time to get all that organized. Your best bet is to get home, sleep, and then catch the first BART train up at 5am and keep your fingers crossed.

Monday is the last day to do this, after all.


00000

So we go home. We crash out early. We wake up at 4:00. We drive an hour to hit the BART station. We get the first train up. We arrive at City Hall at 6:30AM.

The line stretches around the entirety of San Francisco City Hall. You could toss a can of Coke from the end of the line to the people who’re up to be first through the doors and not have to worry about cracking it open after.

“Uh.” We go. “What the fuck is -this-?”

So.

Remember why they weren’t going to be able to have people hang out overnight?

Turns out, enough SF cops were willing to volunteer unpaid time to do patrols to cover security. And some anonymous person delivered over a dozen Porta-Poties that’d gotten dropped off around 8 the night before.

It’s 6:30 am, there are almost a thousand people in front of us in line to get this literal once in a lifetime marriage, the last chance we expect to have for at least 15 more years (it was 2004, gay rights were getting shoved back on every front. It was not looking good. We were just happy we lived in California were we at least weren’t likely to loose job protections any time soon.).

Then it starts to rain.

We had not dressed for rain.


00000

Here is how the next six hours go.

We’re in line. Once the doors open at 7am, it will creep forward at a slow crawl. It’s around 7 when someone shows up with garbage bags for everyone. Cut holes for the head and arms and you’ve got a makeshift raincoat! So you’ve got hundreds of gays and lesbians decked out in the nicest shit they could get on short notice wearing trashbags over it.

Everyone is so happy.

Everyone is so nervous/scared/frantic that we wont be able to get through the doors before they close for the day.

People online start making delivery orders.

Coffee and bagels are ordered in bulk and delivered to City Hall for whoever needs it. We get pizza. We get roses. Random people come by who just want to give hugs to people in line because they’re just so happy for us. The tour busses make detours to go past the lines. Chinese tourists lean out with their cameras and shout GOOD LUCK while car horns honk.

A single sad man holding a Bible tries to talk people out of doing this, tells us all we’re sinning and to please don’t. He gives up after an hour. A nun replaces him with a small sign about how this is against God’s will. She leaves after it disintegrates in the rain.

The day before, when it was sunny, there had been a lot of protestors. Including a large Muslim group with their signs about how “Not even DOGS do such things!” Which… Yes they do.

A lot of snide words are said (by me) about how the fact that we’re willing to come out in the rain to do this while they’re not willing to come out in the rain to protest it proves who actually gives an actual shit about the topic.

Time passes. I measure it based on which side of City Hall we’re on. The doors face East. We start on Northside. Coffee and trashbags are delivered when we’re on the North Side. Pizza first starts showing up when we’re on Westside, which is also where I see Bible Man and Nun. Roses are delivered on Southside. And so forth.


00000

We have Line Neighbors.

Ahead of us are a gay couple a decade or two older than us. They’ve been together for eight years. The older one is a school teacher. He has his coat collar up and turns away from any news cameras that come near while we reposition ourselves between the lenses and him. He’s worried about the parents of one of his students seeing him on the news and getting him fired. The younger one will step away to get interviewed on his own later on. They drove down for the weekend once they heard what was going on. They’d started around the same time we did, coming from the Northeast, and are parked in a nearby garage.

The most perky energetic joyful woman I’ve ever met shows up right after we turned the corner to Southside to tackle the younger of the two into a hug. She’s their local friend who’d just gotten their message about what they’re doing and she will NOT be missing this. She is -so- happy for them. Her friends cry on her shoulders at her unconditional joy.

Behind us are a lesbian couple who’d been up in San Francisco to celebrate their 12th anniversary together. “We met here Valentines Day weekend! We live down in San Diego, now, but we like to come up for the weekend because it’s our first love city.”

“Then they announced -this-,” the other one says, “and we can’t leave until we get married. I called work Sunday and told them I calling in sick until Wednesday.”

“I told them why,” her partner says, “I don’t care if they want to give me trouble for it. This is worth it. Fuck them.”

My husband-to-be and I look at each other. We’ve been together for not even two years at this point. Less than two years. Is it right for us to be here? We’re potentially taking a spot from another couple that’d been together longer, who needed it more, who deserved it more.”

“Don’t you fucking dare.” Says the 40-something gay couple in front of us.

“This is as much for you as it is for us!” says the lesbian couple who’ve been together for over a decade behind us.

“You kids are too cute together,” says the gay couple’s friend. “you -have- to. Someday -you’re- going to be the old gay couple that’s been together for years and years, and you deserve to have been married by then.”

We stay in line.

It’s while we’re on the Southside of City Hall, just about to turn the corner to Eastside at long last that we pick up our own companions. A white woman who reminds me an awful lot of my aunt with a four year old black boy riding on her shoulders. “Can we say we’re with you? His uncles are already inside and they’re not letting anyone in who isn’t with a couple right there.”
“Of course!” we say.

The kid is so very confused about what all the big deal is, but there’s free pizza and the busses keep driving by and honking, so he’s having a great time.

We pass by a statue of Lincoln with ‘Marriage for All!’ and "Gay Rights are Human Rights!" flags tucked in the crooks of his arms and hanging off his hat.

It’s about noon, noon-thirty when we finally make it through the doors and out of the rain.

They’ve promised that anyone who’s inside when the doors shut will get married. We made it. We’re safe.

We still have a -long- way to go.


00000

They’re trying to fit as many people into City Hall as possible. Partially to get people out of the rain, mostly to get as many people indoors as possible. The line now stretches down into the basement and up side stairs and through hallways I’m not entirely sure the public should ever be given access to. We crawl along slowly but surely.

It’s after we’ve gone through the low-ceiling basement hallways past offices and storage and back up another set of staircases and are going through a back hallway of low-ranked functionary offices that someone comes along handing out the paperwork. “It’s an hour or so until you hit the office, but take the time to fill these out so you don’t have to do it there!”

We spend our time filling out the paperwork against walls, against backs, on stone floors, on books.

We enter one of the public areas, filled with displays and photos of City Hall Demonstrations of years past.

I take pictures of the big black and white photo of the Abraham Lincoln statue holding banners and signs against segregation and for civil rights.

The four year old boy we helped get inside runs past us around this time, chased by a blond haired girl about his own age, both perused by an exhausted looking teenager helplessly begging them to stop running.

Everyone is wet and exhausted and vibrating with anticipation and the building-wide aura of happiness that infuses everything.

The line goes into the marriage office. A dozen people are at the desk, shoulder to shoulder, far more than it was built to have working it at once.

A Sister of Perpetual Indulgence is directing people to city officials the moment they open up. She’s done up in her nun getup with all her makeup on and her beard is fluffed and be-glittered and on point. “Oh, I was here yesterday getting married myself, but today I’m acting as your guide. Number 4 sweeties, and -Congradulatiooooons!-“

The guy behind the counter has been there since six. It’s now 1:30. He’s still giddy with joy. He counts our money. He takes our paperwork, reviews it, stamps it, sends off the parts he needs to, and hands the rest back to us. “Alright, go to the Rotunda, they’ll direct you to someone who’ll do the ceremony. Then, if you want the certificate, they’ll direct you to -that- line.”
“Can’t you just mail it to us?”
“Normally, yeah, but the moment the courts shut us down, we’re not going to be allowed to.”

We take our paperwork and join the line to the Rotunda.

If you’ve seen James Bond: A View to a Kill, you’ve seen the San Francisco City Hall Rotunda. There are literally a dozen spots set up along the balconies that overlook the open area where marriage officials and witnesses are gathered and are just processing people through as fast as they can.

That’s for the people who didn’t bring their own wedding officials.

There’s a Catholic-adjacent couple there who seem to have brought their entire families -and- the priest on the main steps. They’re doing the whole damn thing. There’s at least one more Rabbi at work, I can’t remember what else. Just that there was a -lot-.

We get directed to the second story, northside. The San Francisco City Treasurer is one of our two witnesses. Our marriage officient is some other elected official I cannot remember for the life of me (and I'm only writing down what I can actively remember, so I can't turn to my husband next to me and ask, but he'll have remembered because that's what he does.)

I have a wilting lily flower tucked into my shirt pocket. My pants have water stains up to the knees. My hair is still wet from the rain, I am blubbering, and I can’t get the ring on my husband’s finger. The picture is a treat, I tell you.

There really isn’t a word for the mix of emotions I had at that time. Complete disbelief that this was reality and was happening. Relief that we’d made it. Awe at how many dozens of people had personally cheered for us along the way and the hundreds to thousands who’d cheered for us generally.

Then we're married.

Then we get in line to get our license.

It’s another hour. This time, the line goes through the higher stories. Then snakes around and goes past the doorway to the mayor’s office.

Mayor Newsom is not in today. And will be having trouble getting into his office on Tuesday because of the absolute barricade of letters and flowers and folded up notes and stuffed animals and City Hall maps with black marked “THANK YOU!”s that have been piled up against it.

We make it to the marriage records office.

I take a picture of my now husband standing in front of a case of the marriage records for 1902-1912. Numerous kids are curled up in corners sleeping. My own memory is spotty. I just know we got the papers, and then we’re done with lines. We get out, we head to the front entrance, and we walk out onto the City Hall steps.

It's almost 3PM.


00000

There are cheers, there’s rice thrown at us, there are hundreds of people celebrating us with unconditional love and joy and I had never before felt the goodness that exists in humanity to such an extent. It’s no longer raining, just a light sprinkle, but there are still no protestors. There’s barely even any news vans.

We make our way through the gauntlet, we get hands shaked, people with signs reading ”Congratulations!” jump up and down for us. We hit the sidewalks, and we begin to limp our way back to the BART station.

I’m at the BART station, we’re waiting for our train back south, and I’m sitting on the ground leaning against a pillar and in danger of falling asleep when a nondescript young man stops in front of me and shuffles his feet nervously. “Hey. I just- I saw you guys, down at City Hall, and I just… I’m so happy for you. I’m so proud of what you could do. I’m- I’m just really glad, glad you could get to do this.”

He shakes my hand, clasps it with both of his and shakes it. I thank him and he smiles and then hurries away as fast as he can without running.

Our train arrives and the trip south passes in a semilucid blur.

We get back to our car and climb in.

It’s 4:30 and we are starving.

There’s a Carls Jr near the station that we stop off at and have our first official meal as a married couple. We sit by the window and watch people walking past and pick out others who are returning from San Francisco. We're all easy to pick out, what with the combination of giddiness and water damage.

We get home about 6-7. We take the dog out for a good long walk after being left alone for two days in a row. We shower. We bundle ourselves up. We bury ourselves in blankets and curl up and just sort of sit adrift in the surrealness of what we’d just done.

We wake up the next day, Tuesday, to read that the California State Supreme Court has rejected the petition to shut down the San Francisco weddings because the paperwork had a misplaced comma that made the meaning of one phrase unclear.

The State Supreme Court would proceed to play similar bureaucratic tricks to drag the process out for nearly a full month before they have nothing left and finally shut down Mayor Newsom’s marriages.

My parents had been out of state at the time at a convention. They were flying into SFO about the same moment we were walking out of City Hall. I apologized to them later for not waiting and my mom all but shook me by the shoulders. “No! No one knew that they’d go on for so long! You did what you needed to do! I’ll just be there for the next one!”


00000

It was just a piece of paper. Legally, it didn’t even hold any weight thirty days later. My philosophy at the time was “marriage really isn’t that important, aside from the legal benefits. It’s just confirming what you already have.”

But maybe it’s just societal weight, or ingrained culture, or something, but it was different after.
The way I described it at the time, and I’ve never really come up with a better metaphor is, “It’s like we were both holding onto each other in the middle of the ocean in the middle of a storm. We were keeping each other above water, we were each other’s support. But then we got this piece of paper. And it was like the ground rose up to meet our feet. We were still in an ocean, still in the middle of a storm, but there was a solid foundation beneath our feet. We still supported each other, but there was this other thing that was also keeping our heads above the water.

It was different. It was better. It made things more solid and real.

I am forever grateful for all the forces and all the people who came together to make it possible.
It’s been twenty years and we’re still together and still married.

We did a domestic partnership a year later to get the legal paperwork. We’d done a private ceremony with proper rings (not just ones grabbed out of the husband’s collection hours before) before then. And in 2008, we did a legal marriage again.

Rushed. In a hurry. Because there was Proposition 13 to be voted on which would make them all illegal again if it passed.

It did, but we were already married at that point, and they couldn’t negate it that time.

Another few years after that, the Supreme Court finally threw up their hands and said "Fine! It's been legal in places and nothing's caught on fire or been devoured by locusts. It's legal everywhere. Shut up about it!"

And that was that.


00000

When I was in highschool, in the late 90s, I didn’t expect to see legal gay marriage until I was in my 50s. I just couldn’t see how the American public as it was would ever be okay with it.

I never expected to be getting married within five years. I never expected it to be legal nationwide before I’d barely started by 30s. I never thought I’d be in my 40s and it’d be such a non-issue that the conservative rabble rousers would’ve had to move onto other wedge issues altogether.

I never thought that I could introduce another man as my husband and absolutely no one involved would so much as blink.

I never thought I’d live in this world.

And it’s twenty years later today. I wonder how our line buddies are doing. Those babies who were running around the wide open rooms playing tag will have graduated college by now. The kids whose parents the one line-buddy was worried would see him are probably married too now. Some of them to others of the same gender.

I don’t have some greater message to make with all this. Other then, culture can shift suddenly in ways you can’t predict. For good or ill. Mainly this is just me remembering the craziest fucking 36 hours of my life twenty years after the fact and sharing them with all of you.

The future we’re resigned to doesn’t have to be the one we live in. Society can shift faster than you think. The unimaginable of twenty years ago is the baseline reality of today.

And always remember that the people who want to get married will show up by the thousands in rain that none of those who’re against it will brave.

TL;DR - Decade-long depressive(?) episode lifting?

About 2012, we moved to a new place up in the mountains away from everything.
That turned out to not be good for me.
I was also put on a very bad set of mental meds that left me in a land of endless gray static that clogged my brain.

After the fires in 2020 that nearly burnt us down, we decided to get out and moved up to Portland last summer.

I also got on a new set of mental meds. They aren't great, but they're better than where I was.

The end result is, I'm actually... Feeling creative? Able to sit down and work on art for longer than thirty minutes at a time? Might actually be able to -finish- art?

I don't want to promise anything, but I'm alive and well, and feel like I'm crawling out of a decade long coma. Cautiously hopeful I might actually be back proper here in a few more months. Fingers crossed, y'all.

So, there's apparently a Podcast out there that reviews "unusual" hentai comics.
And apparently, at some point in the distant past, someone uploaded Naga Shower to a hentai-comic archive site.

These two facts have combined together to create one of the most personally bewildering experiences of my life: The official Nymphomercial podcast review of Naga Shower.

https://nymphomercial.podbean.com/e.....-gapped-gouda/

I mean, they aren't -gentle-, but they also don't say anything that isn't true or valid. This comic's old enough that some of you degenerates weren't even in grade school when I wrapped it up.

I loved it. You might like it too, even though it's not about something you personally created.

If nothing else, I will forever cherish the phrase "Josh's Dumptruck Ass™"

Not everyone follows me on Twitter (@beach_fox, tell your friends!), so not everyone knows.

For the last eight years, we've been living up in the Santa Cruz mountains. Very nice place. Very wild and beautiful Mite bit flammable.

This year, the Firestorm Roulette has come down solidly against us. The weekend of August 16th or so, dry lightning storms raced through California setting off what officials have termed "A Metric Shitton" of brushfires. Thanks to California's long-running policy of using poorly paid prisoners as their firefighter foot-soldiers combining with all the prisons being under quarantine because no precautions were taken against COVID and now they're all plague ships, combined with Trump having a hateon for our state and cutting as much fire funding as he can because we should just be "Raking the Leaves", we have about a tenth of our usual fire-fighting capability to deal with this.

In summery, everything's on fire, and we were given an emergency evacuation order last Wednesday to get the fuck out.

We got ourselves, our animals, and about three carloads (thanks, Nonfurry Work Friends, for the extra car!) worth of whatever we could grab quicklike in 100F+ weather hauled off the mountain while burnt leaves fluttered down from the sky like snow created by someone who never did the research.

We're safely camped up in San Francisco, now, in my parents' auxiliary storage unit. It's hot as hell, but it's not actively on fire, nor is it likely to become so in the near future.

All the fire maps suggest that our place is currently -not- on fire, and they're hopeful that the fire-line wont advance much further before they get full containment, so we'll see how it goes. Still going to be a month or so until we can go back, most likely.

Smash and Dragon weren't so lucky. Their place got fully leveled. Not sure how the other SCMountain furries are doing, atm.

Regardless: So far in 2020 I've gotten to deal with Trump, COVID, my dad dying of ALS while under COVID quarantine, and now this. Keeping my spirits up, but I also want to just find whoever's in charge of all this and shake them while screaming wordlessly in their face for a few hours.
Y'know.

So yeah! I keep getting concerned comments, so here's the official word! We're alive! Our animals are alive! Most critical portions of Our Stuff is not on fire, and our house is currently not on fire and may not be on fire at all this year!

Fuckhounds.

Hounds.

That fuck.

https://picarto.tv/beachfox

I'm here, I'm chilling. I've got a puma, I've got a sketchbook, and I've got a weekend of nothing to do in particular. Feel free to track me down and hit me up. Among the 10 million furries wandering around. Easypeasy! I'll be tweeting off beach_fox on Twitter, for easier tracking purposes.

Bedtime.

So, what with emails, passwords, and notes stolen, and the entire site's code in the wild to get combed over for whatever other holes undoubtably exist, I think it's time to give a headsup about all the other places where I post my art!

SoFurry: https://beachfox.sofurry.com/
InkBunny: https://inkbunny.net/Beachfox
Weasyl: https://www.weasyl.com/~beachfox
FurryNetwork: https://beta.furrynetwork.com/beachfox/
Tumblr: http://beachfoxverse.tumblr.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Beach_Fox

FurryNetwork's gotten a huge overhaul and is looking great. Weasyl has open-sourced their code for the community, InkBunny is excellent and would probably be the major furry art site these days if it wasn't for the content policies, SoFurry doesn't get enough love for how straight-forward it is, and Tumblr has tags! Who doesn't love tags?

So please, for the sake of us all, find a new site to cluster on so we can stop having to pay attention to this one!

(Also: Since the site notice seems to have vanished - FA Passwords -were- hacked. And people have been having their email/Steam/other accounts that used the same password accessed by others. Notes were also taken, so any information on those are in the wild. If you used your FA password -anywhere- else on the internet, it's time to change it. Immediately.)

Surprise! Beachfox and  Unrepentant reporting live from BLFC!

We are here! Find us! We'll be wandering, mingling, hanging with fine folks, and generally living it up Reno style. If I dont' know you, come on and say hi! If you do know me, hopefully you were going to say hi anyways! Help my puma in his hunt for awesome Reno twinks! Pass me money, and I'll draw dirty things for you. Hang with my puma and you'll get booze and stories.

I have gotten five hours of sleep in the last 48, can we tell?

Come on down to Reno! I'm the slightly chubby furry with a ponytail wandering the floor! One in a million!

Follow beach_fox on Twitter for updates of where I am. Or block me on twitter for the next week or so to avoid my spamming of BLFC updates and nattering.

I am hungry and am going to try and drag a puma down to buffet.

I'm at BLFC!

The ever-illustrious Charn has been holding fundraising auctions to raise money for Sharako, who's 12K short on a prospective surgery.

For my part, I'm putting up a commission slot for auction. All the money will go to Sharako's medical funds, and all the art will go to the lucky winner! Bidding starts at $40, and autobuy is at $150.
The more the winner pays, the more I draw!

Details can be found here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet.....mp;single=true

You can bid directly here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1mg.....WC2bg/viewform

And if you just want to donate without being a winning bidder, you can do so over here: https://www.giveforward.com/fundrai.....a-surgery-fund

So yeah! If you want a piece of Beachfox Brand Smut™, go on and bid! It's for a good cause, and you also get smut!

Beachfox will be in residence at BLFC from about midnight tonight to Way Too Early'o clock Monday.

No idea where I'll be hanging, what I'll be doing, or any of the rest, but if you find me, feel free to say Hi and I'll be as non awkward as I can! Just look for the clean-shaven 6-foot-something, 220-something ponytailed guy wearing fox shirts. Can't be more than a dozen of them there, right?

Will be willing to scrawl Beachfox-style arts in exchange for local currencies.

Happy news and sad news today.

First, the Happy News:
PUPPY!

Ever since Axel passed in March, we've been wanting to get a new dog. But we didn't want to get one before all the trips and Away From Home travels so we could focus proper attention on him when he was all tiny.

But now the holidays are over, and we have an adorable little six-week old ball of terror named Aziz. Who is flooding my twitter feed with his puddy adorable hijinx. (@beach_fox for those interested).

However, when jumping at the chance for Aziz, it -totally- slipped my mind that FurCon was only a few weeks away. Which brings us to Sad News.

Except for maybe a day trip up, I don't think Unrepentnant or I are going to be able to make FurCon this year. However, if anyone's at FurCon and wants to escape for a few hours, they should -totally- come up to our place to hang, chill, and socalize an adorable hyperactive ball of fluff and fur!

Also: If anyone could use a single king room at the Hilton from the 16th-20th for FC'14, drop me a line. It looks like we're not gonna be able to use it. >.<

The MST3K Turkey Day Marathon has returned! All day long, classic MST3K episodes streamed live! Perfect for distracting relatives from awkward conversations!

Currently, we're halfway through "I Accuse My Parents", in which a kid wins an essay contest and ends up in organized crime as a direct result. Somehow.

http://www.mst3kturkeyday.com/mst3k/marathon.html

I'm trying to pull together a project involving everyone's favorite Order A Slave service, Quik-Pik, and I need your questions! What've you always wanted to know about QP that's never been answered? What aspects of the business have you been wanting to see? What do you want to know?

(And if you don't recall what QuikPik is, a quick refresher!
The Origin
The Process
Processing
Black Friday )

I really need to have a place online that's not so attached to porn where I can offload with this sort of thing, but…

TL;DR: A blast from the past gave me Feels tonight.

When I was in Jr. High in the early 90s, we had an AIDS Speaker named Guy Nakatani. He came every year to give a (what was then, to kids like us) revolutionary talk of "Look at me, I'm a normal sort of guy who wound up with AIDS. It can happen to you too, so let's be safe out there. Also: Here's a whole bunch of stupid myths about toilet seats and spit you shouldn't believe."

I don't have a very good memory, particularly about things that happened before college. I auto piloted through life a lot, and not a lot stuck in long-term memory. What I remember about Guy was he seemed like a real neat guy. He had a cute smile. He was passionate. I was still a few years from admitting to myself that I was gay, so I never realized that he was my first real crush in a way.

Every year of Jr High, he arrived and gave a talk. When someone shows up repeatedly that much, they become A Figure. Everyone liked Guy. It was disquieting to see his cheekbones stand out so much by the 8th Grade. He was lean. He didn't move around the stage as much. His voice was quieter, more intense. He talked about medical treatments. The injustice of how slow research into treatments were. Hope for our future. I remember how he side-stepped the usual questions about his. And I worried. He was 26.

The next year was my first year of Highschool. Guy had been a speaker there too, but he didn't come give a speech that year.

Then there was the day when the morning announcements included the fact that Guy Nakatani had died. Like I've said, my memory of details isn't good, but I'm pretty sure I cried myself to sleep that night. It just didn't seem fair.

The year after that, his parents came and gave his speech. They brought pictures of him from Hawaii, towards the end. He was in a hospital bed with tubes in him. He was so thin and so tired. He didn't look like the figure I remembered from the stage. I hated them for showing me those pictures. After that, I couldn't remember what he'd looked like. I could only remember those tubes, and the metal bars of the bed. And the machines all around him.

We added his patch to the AIDS Quilt, our high school. He'd spoken across the country, but for some reason, we were chosen to add his patch. I'm still not sure why. The AIDS Quilt was brought to our school. There was a ceremony. I didn't attend. Partially because I didn't go out of the house for much of anything at that age, but partially because it just seemed too depressing for words.

I'm older now than Guy was when he died. He'd only be in his mid-40s now. We could've been the friends I'd wanted us to be when I was a kid and not quite sure why I thought he seemed so extra handsome.

I've talked about him occasionally with my husband, and my husband went looking for his quilt-patch out of curiosity. He couldn't find it, though. He did find a Glen Nakatani, and he thought maybe I'd misremembered his name. That whole memory thing again, so he did more searching tonight.

And discovered a lot more then I'd ever known existed.

Guy was the third of three sons. His oldest brother, Glen, was kicked out of the house at 15 for being gay. His father tore down all his pictures and proclaimed that he never existed. His middle brother was shot over an argument with a car. Glen died of AIDS at home in 1988. A year later, Guy was diagnosed as well. And had been gay as well.

I'd never known any of that. He'd presented as straight from everything I could remember. It was the early 90s, I could see why he would, but…

His parents had disowned his older brother, lost their second son, and were loosing their third when they finally had their wake-up-call of, Hey. Maybe We're The Ones Being Dicks. They have a documentary and a book about how they'd been assholes to their boys. Driven them away, removed their support structures, and lead to the circumstances that saw all three of them die. "If we'd been there for them. If we hadn't made it so they couldn't share their burdens with us, we might have them all with us still."

I didn't know any of this.

I'm trying to process it all. And I just feel an ache for Guy. He was younger then me, with parents he couldn't depend on, having to hide his gayness, try to be straight for them, and then coming down with AIDS in 1988. And then to respond to all that by going around the country and just… talking. For the last five, six years of his life. All in his early 20s.

I had such a crush on him. I'd hoped, -believed- that they'd find a cure in time and he'd be saved, and he would grow old, and be happy, and get to go skydiving and hiking and traveling and all the stuff he said he was too tired to do. He deserved to.

The articles had pictures, though!

I have pictures of Guy. And I can remember his face without the tubes, or the wasting, or the machines. And I can see him smile.

He was a really awesome dude. More people should get to know him. I wish I could've.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/.....n-diego-county

http://archives.starbulletin.com/20.....res/index.html

http://www.amazon.com/Honor-Thy-Chi...../dp/1573241989

http://www.vbtemple.org/images/peop.....katani_guy.jpg

Sometimes I get a little scene snippet i my brain that wants to get written.
Every few years, I manage to get it written without choking on it.

Blame this one on the fact that writing Nova City stuff makes me want to rewrite the DC-verse from scratch like crazy.

============================

-Money-? You think this was -ever- about the -money-?! I don't do this for dross lucre, I do it because I. Am. BORED!

I am beyond bored! I have this mind, this brilliant, BRILLIANT mind, and I can do -nothing- with it! Born the wrong color, born in the wrong part of town, born without enough money and they don't let you do ANYTHING with your mind! I wasn't brilliant, I was "a disruption to class". I tried to -show- them how smart I was, and that just brought in "the authorities". You ever tried to get into university with 'disruptive' grades and a juvenile record? OH NO!

And who would hire such a man? No job worth my brain would have me, and what's the point of having endless brilliant ideas if you don't have the funds to enact -any- of them? I had NOTHING! Just being brilliant. So I went to be brilliant on my own! I made my OWN money. I robbed people blind! And they Never. Even. KNEW!

The only way they could tell I'd done something is if I flat out TOLD them! But oh god, they just couldn't get it even then. So I started telling them BEFORE I did it, and they STILL didn't get it!
Until you… I thought I was the only brilliant mind in this forsaken city.

But you… You saw what I was doing. You saw the puzzles behind the mayhem. You saw what I was trying to say! You… You -understood- me. And you tried to -stop- me. You -did- stop me. You are the only one who's -ever- been able to stop me. You make it a -challenge-. When you're around, I can -loose-. Do you know how… treasured that is?

But you don't care, do you? I'm just another face in your pantheon of targets; B-Lister at best. I may be the smartest, I may be the most clever, I may even be able to BEAT you now and again. But it doesn't matter. You're always focused on that cat. Or that scarred nutcase. Or that miserable wretched CLOWN.

WHY?!

Well, we all know why for the cat. I could be that for you, but you aren't interested in that sort of antagonistic relationship with someone who doesn't require a D-cup, are you? What do the others have that I don't? What do I need to do to make you pay attention to ME?

When you get right down to it, there's only one -real- difference between my MO and the clown's.

Body-count.

There are twelve people in Gotham who will die tonight of 'natural causes - slash -accidents'. Unless you stop the events I've already set into motion.

You will give me my due, bat.

Or they.
Will all.
DIE.

Unrepentant and I are heading out to the mountains faaaar away from wireless signals for a whole week!

Though given my update schedule these days, I'm not sure it would've been noticed.

Regardless: Week delay on anything getting back!

Many thanks for all the kind birthday wishes yesterday, and many -extra- thanks to everyone who took the time to throw feedback at http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4739505/

I'm gonna be going through it all when I get back!

Stupid birthday/vacation timing!

It's my birthday, and the only gift I want from you is Honest Criticism!

See, there used to be this website called failin.gs where you could offer someone anonymous feedback, and I used it to get honest criticisms about my art and what I could do to improvement.

Then they changed it and that doesn't work anymore. And it's been awhile since I've gotten feedback on what I do and how I do it wrong and how I could do it better.

So here, in this journal, all of your names and icons are ignored, and you can tell me any damned thing about my art that you please.

Please!!!

Tell me what sucks! Tell me what I need to change! Tell me what I need to study harder! Tell me what I need to do to get better!

It'd be the best birthday present ever! <3

My good buddy  Wolvengamer has written a story version of my (infamous, ancient, the reason half of you started watching me) comic Naga Shower!

Check it out at: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/10604760/

Like the comic, it features mind-control, vore, evil nagas who don't get any punishment, and the good guy loosing. Beachfoxy Goodness!

(Original Naga Shower begins here: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/142411/ for those who weren't following me in -2006-)

I'd been doing YCH auctions to raise money to cover our dog's vet bills after he came down with cancer towards the end of last year.

His new medication was wonderful, and he was the perkiest and bounciest he'd been in years. It was like having a puppy again. Then, a few weeks ago, he hit a wall. Refused dinner one night, threw up his water, and passed in his sleep less than 24 hours later on March 7th.

Those who follow me on Twitter probably saw the joint breakdown Unrepentant and I went through in the aftermath. I was both expected and sudden, and it's been super hard not having his constant attention-starved presence around after over a decade of his constant companionship.

I haven't wanted to make a journal about it because I haven't known just what to say, but people've started asking after him.

I appreciate all the support people have given. I'm getting back on top of the commission list. We still have a pile of vet bills to make up for, after all.

God speed, puppy. We miss you. http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1030846/

As the one convention within easy driving distance, we shall be attending FurtherConfusion once again!

Hilton!
Thursday-Monday!
I will draw for you!
Ask before touching!
We can totally hang and chill!
Drinks are awesome, but I like them girly.
My hubby  unrepentant is going to be with, be sure to give him love too!
I'll be the dude with a ponytail and a little arctic-fox Squishable hanging off my backpack.

I think that covers everything. Anything I missed?

Well, we just wired the money. We should have keys tomorrow.

If you're following me on Twitter (@beach_fox), you're well acwainted with our three month oddesy of house buying. If not: Hey! Now you know why art's been so scarce lately!

Regardless, Unrepentant and I are buying a house. A proper house. That we own. And do not rent. It is huge. The top floor bedroom is the size of our current rental all on its own. It's up in the mountains. There are trees. And deer.

No more beachwalks for the Beachfox, sadly. But nine years of drunken screaching tourists is two years too many.

I can't believe we've lived here for nine years... I can't believe we've survived in 700 square feet without killing each other for nine years.

Our dog is going to have -so- much space to romp in.

If anyone in the Bay Area wants to help us move in exchange for free lunch and the chance to see deer prancing about the forest, let me know!

Art shall hopefully resume properly once we're all settled in!

Last week, there was a real rough day. During it, my brain broke a little, and something came out onto Twitter. Which really wasn't the best forum to express it. I wanted to have a copy stored/posted someplace in a single piece. Here it is.


Better thoughts: 43 years ago today, Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. Two men, encased in a fragile bubble of our world's atmosphere, standing on an alien shore. Long after we're gone, traces of our hands will remain, scattered to the solar winds. Monuments of metal, glass, and circuitry to a species that looked beyond itself to the universe beyond.

Nothing people can say, nothing people can do, no politician, no denials, no law, no movement can change this.

Even now, Voyager 1 drifts beyond our sun into the infinite night between the stars, joining the thousands of other eternally drifting ships. In the vastness between the stars, they sail in safety, wings outstretched to catch solar winds they have long since left behind.

Spinning in the expanse, they sing a chorus that echoes throughout the galaxy. Each singer deaf, never to hear their fellows. But still, our voice joins a mighty choir.
Together, we sing:
"Universe: We are here. And you are glorious."

So I'm heading off with the family for a week someplace without internet connection.
When I get back, there's a week of medical stuff to tend to, and then -nothing- in the foreseeable future until the winter holidays hit.

An excellent time to get out of this fucking art-slump I've been in and get my shit together.

To start, I need to untangle just what it is I owe, to whom, and how.

Art, mailings, whatever how. Leave your name, what I owe, your email address, and any details that seem relevant. Gonna work myself into an asskicking, jobworking mood if it fucking kills me, goddamit. >.<

Chose Your Own Beachfox-venture

In the grand tradition of "Chose Your Own Adventure", and inspired by the likes of Puzzle Detective,  Caesarcub, and  Felixpath, it's "Choose Your Own Beachfox-venture".

You, the viewer, will take control of a random hapless stud as he's swept up in Beachfox-verse style adventure, guiding him safely through the many pitfalls that exist for young studs in those lands as you quest for glory! Exactly what kind of adventure lies in wait and what counts as glory will be determined by the choices made as the plot progresses.

HOW IT WORKS
In each installment, there will be multiple choices of what to do next at the end, usually four. Readers may vote for their favorite option of what to do next in the comments. Highest voted option is what happens next. In the case of ties, the artist's own perversity will win the day.

BAD END
As anyone who's experienced Choose Your Own Adventure knows, Bad Ends lurk around every corner, often following the most innocuous of choices. When the viewers choose a path that leads to Bad End, the character's fate will be played out as if it were a normal installment (any particularly bad Bad Ends will be on BeachfoXtreme for peace of mind). Then, the second most voted option from the previous installment will be chosen and the story will continue off of that.
In the extremely unlikely event that all options lead to various Bad Ends, the story will backtrack however many steps is needed to reach a safe branching point. -Eventually-, the character will get to one of the few rare Good Ends, whatever that happens to be.

YOUR CHARACTER
The protagonist is a Husky Otter Geek.

The protagonist has the following Green Traits:
Sturdy: (From Husky) The protagonist is sturdy and wont get as banged up by getting tossed around as others might.
Aquatic: (From Otter) The protagonist can survive underwater for extended periods and is a strong swimmer.
Trivia Master: (From Geek) The protagonist has a wide array of knowledge about many subjects. There's not much he doesn't know already.
Quick Thinker: (From Geek) The protagonist is good at thinking on his feet. Actions which involve coming up with solutions quickly are more likely to succeed.
Techy: (From Geek) The protagonist is good with machines and computers. Actions involving them are more likely to result in positive outcomes.

The protagonist has the following Red Traits:
Low Fitness: (From Husky) The protagonist spends more time eating chips at the computer then getting exercise. His stamina is low and will be easily exhausted.
Shy: (From Geek) The protagonist isn't good at dealing with strangers or social situations. Actions involving fast-talking or charisma are less likely to succeed.
Unathletic: (From Geek) The protagonist isn't very physical, and has little experience with fighting or active pursuits. Such actions are less likely to result in positive outcomes.
Virgin: (From Geek) The protagonist has never gotten laid and is more nieve about the ill-intentions of others.

TRAITS
Green Traits are positive traits that make certain actions more likely to result in good outcomes and avoid Bad Ends when taken.
Red Traits are negative traits that make certain actions less likely to result in good outcomes and make Bad Ends more likely if taken.
Blue Traits are neutral traits which will effect actions and responses, but wont make Bad Ends more or less likely when effecting an outcome.

CLOSING
That's all for now. Further details will be added as they're needed. Feel free to ask questions in the comments, and let the game begin!

There's 24 hours left on the Shadowrun Returns Kickstarter (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects.....turns?ref=card) and if they make their final money goal, they're going to include Physical Adepts in the game.

Magic Ninja Orcs, people!

To celebrate/advertise/for the hell of it, I'm doing up some Physical Adept orcs.

EDIT: Naked Orcs have been funded! Naked Orcs will happen! Clothed orcs first!