Heya! It's been a while!

I still snoop around from time to time, most often when I can't sleep. And lemme tell ya, been lots of shit to lose sleep over. It's been a damn buffet, lol...not to mention we have utter fucking buffoon-class villains running this sitcom of a country into a Wile-E-Coyote wall.

Still planning on making a new user account, but...time. I moved up in the company I work for a few years ago, but then became the only person in the team who didn't retire, get fired, or move on. If I could be any further behind I'd be running into my own ass.

And that's one of the things on a long list of things I've been juggling.

So, this new account I keep mentioning every other year...well...I'll get to it when I get to it. For now, I just wanted to say hi.

Hi!

It's been...jeez, a few months shy of two years with no activity. I'm still here, if there is literally anyone reading this.

I've had a lot of time to work on myself and reflect on a lot of things. I've grown substantially since I took a step back.

I started HRT last summer, and just passed my one year mark a little over a month ago. And I had no idea how much better that would make me feel, as tropey as that might be. My mind and my mood are in so much better of a place today, a place so good that I had all but given up on finding it for decades. I never knew what running on the right hormones felt like, but...well, I'm not going back to before, that's for certain.

It hasn't been all good. I've had to deal with some shitty times...my marriage went haywire for a bit, so did my relationships with my family and friends. Lots of hurtful comments. Lots of pained nights crying myself to sleep.

But I'm in a great place, and looking forward.

That all said, I changed my name and my pronouns IRL, and I think it's time I made some changes here, too.

One of the things that bothered me about this account, for so long, is that I had these intentions from the start of what it was going to be, and these impossible ambitions. What I wanted to contribute, what kind of art I wanted to do. I had all of this rich lore, all of this story I wanted to say, and never said a word of it. For lack of a better word, I sucked at that mission. I got caught in giving what was wanted, instead of doing what made me happy. And I got caught in the trap of losing motivation partway through projects.

I look at this account and see a lot of who I used to be, and feel trapped to a degree. "Daniel" as a concept was doomed by a vast ambition - maybe if I wasn't married, maybe if this was all I did, could I have brought Daniel to life like I intended to...but that's not where I ever was, nor would it ever be where I really wanted to get to.

I'm going to create a new account to more accurately reflect who I am today, and move on from here. I'll make some updates here to point to my new profile when I make it, if you want to follow along, and maybe one last bit of art to say goodbye with.

I don't know when I'll have time to do art, I know I'll never have the time to become someone great and popular here with the kind of consistency that requires. But I will be around. I'll post when I can, and go from there.

Anyway, I hope you are doing well, and...thanks for sticking around.

- M

I don't owe anyone anything. I'm putting this out here to get it out, and in the infinity of the Internet, to maybe help someone out there questioning themselves see their answer someday.

I have felt wrong since I was very young, about maybe 6 or 7 years old. I was in the thick of a very violent childhood. And I killed the person I was supposed to be out of self-preservation.

When I say I had a violent childhood...I've had my orbital socket broken by a hammer, my teeth smashed out with a metal pipe, my nose broken several times (to the point that my left nostril doesn't work anymore), I've been stabbed in the throat with a pen, I've been concussed with a coal shovel, I've been thrown into a wall so hard that I was knocked out and lost two days of my life. By my own family. That's not to speak of all of the verbal and emotional abuse I went through. That doesn't cover what happened at school. But you get the idea.

Not for any particular reason, either, for what was happening at home. This happened to me because I existed. I was not wanted. My parents already had their alpha son, my older brother. My brother felt like I threatened him by living. He tried feeding me bleach as a baby, and he likely caused the miscarriage of my twin by football-tackling my mom when she was pregnant. My dad blamed our money problems on my mom and me. He never had patience for me, never wanted me to be around. He was never proud of me, because I was never the alpha. I liked action figures, and would focus on conversations and friendships when I role played with them. I was heavy into art, and non-masculine music. I didn't like sports. I enjoyed cooking. And that wasn't his idea of a son.

He told me once that I would make someone a good wife someday. He also threatened to hurt me when I acted outside how he wanted his son to act. I was afraid of him my whole childhood. Despite this...from him...all I wanted was his approval. I got straight A's, went into boy scouts, went into ROTC to try to win him over. I drank and smoked weed with him to try to be more like him...and to numb everything I felt. I built a person he would approve of.

And right before I made it on my own, when I was 19, the first child in any generation to be in college, just before I was going to prove him wrong and be a successful man, he dropped dead in front of me. Heart attack.

But I had already invested in this ideal person I was trying to be too far by then.

I have had thoughts about being a woman, that I was supposed to be a woman, push into my mind at various times in my life, and my brain did whatever it could to disallow those thoughts every time. So many people in my life...at home, at school...were abusing me so much that I never felt safe having these thoughts. I still don't, to a degree.

But this would be for maybe a week, maybe a month at a time. I would mentally beat the shit out of myself for feeling that way, until the feelings stopped...or, at least, until the knee-jerk reaction to the feelings and thoughts was "no, you're not going to think about that, because it isn't safe to. Not for your sanity, and not for the people you are engulfed by. Nobody can know this. You will be hurt if anyone knows this."

I have had a surge of feeling I should have been a woman. Every day. It's been over seven months. I've blown red lights and skidded through intersections because I was beating myself up in my head. I have trouble concentrating at work. I have trouble watching TV and not thinking about it. Any time I am not actively engaged in a conversation, or a social game, or something to take my mind off of it, I am back at beating myself up and trying to convince myself that I don't feel how I feel.

I build ridiculous gingerbread houses. I have a ridiculous water-cooled PC. I teach a robotics team after work. When people ask me to do things, I never say no. When I see an opportunity to do something for someone else, especially if I could impress them with it, I offer myself to it. I have a thousand hobbies that take up as much free time as I have available, so I don't have to think about who I was supposed to be.

I've never been here, in this misery pit of self-rejection, for this long before.

I started to realize that all sorts of little things I have done as an adult were like little compromises I was making with myself. I don't have breasts, but I can have piercings and feel that pressure and weight. I don't have a clit, but I could get my glans pierced, and sort of symbolically treat it like one. I wear thongs to accent hips and an ass I never had. I keep growing my hair out long, then rebounding and bic-shaving it. I wear baggy clothes to hide a body I hate, so nobody has to see it. I act tough and controlling at work to reinforce this idea of who I'm supposed to be. I have overconfidence and am good at reading people to best hide who I really am. It's just...all sorts of little things. And it's absolutely fucking exhausting to wear a mask and mirror what I think people want me to be all the time.

In secret places, where people can't see, these compromises are why I shave all of my body hair every once in a while. Why I wear my wife's stretchy jeans. Why I play female characters when I can choose that in certain games, it isn't because I don't want to stare at a guy's ass the whole time. Why I sing non-male songs in my car on the way to work, and justify it by saying it's just a tool to grow my singing ability.

Why I trained my voice to be able to sing between D2 and G5, to cover the entire male vocal range and break into the female range. It freaks my wife out that I can sing higher and more accurately than she can, and she did choir. It freaks her out that I can sing songs above and below the octave they were recorded in.

Even the last pictures I made were compromises...I hate my balls, and wish I was smooth there. I wish I had to pee like a woman, because peeing like a man feels wrong. I have sat to pee for years. But if I keep my dick I'm still "male." Even though I don't even like penetrative sex where I'm the top, because I feel weird experiencing it and hate the idea of sexually topping, having a dick would mean I'm still male. When I think of myself topping, I think about it from a perspective of doing what I'm supposed to do, not from what feels comfortable or right. When I think of intimacy, I think of talking, cuddling, soft kisses on the cheeks and forehead. I gossip. I have zero problems talking to women like friends. And none of this reads male, so I hide it.

Being involved in the furry lifestyle was part compromise. Exploring myself in a safe space. My character, Daniel, represents parts of me I wish I could be. He doesn't represent me. He started as a confident and sexually in-control character, and that has largely evolved. He doesn't top anymore. As I let myself explore, he changed to follow suit. As I saw more art, other artists, and felt that envy...felt the layers peeling away...Daniel changed to follow it. Trial runs. A different flavor of shirt for a while.

It's hard for me to have the time to make art anymore, but even if I did, I don't know how to express who he is anymore. Partly because, I don't want to think about who I could have been anymore. I'm on a path to be that person.

Assuming I was non-binary was a compromise. I may still be. I don't know. But in the way I initially assumed I was non-binary, that was a compromise.

Now...I have 37 years of male experiences that will never leave me. I will always see things through that lens. I will never experience what growing up as a woman would have been like. I will always have hurt and confusion because of what I've been through, and what I put myself through, and what I didn't do. And I need to reconcile all of that. Therapy will help reconcile that. I will need therapy, likely in some degree, for the rest of my life. And that's OK.

I had to really dig deep to figure out how much of who I really saw myself as was just being covered up by expectations and compromises. I knew I imagined mapping my sensations to female genitals during sex, but didn't believe it or embrace it. I know my brain expects to see a female figure with breasts and hips, but I kept telling myself I wanted to be a curvier man. I put on weight to attempt to be curvier, but it didn't collect in that way, which makes the disconnect worse, but I kept telling myself "this is who I am, it doesn't matter what I want, or feel, because this is what is." I kept trying to rationalize everything.

Last week, for the first time, I broke my self-abusive cycle and just allowed myself to feel how I felt, embraced it, and allowed myself to just sit there in it.

God, that freedom and warmth was nothing like anything I've ever felt before. My wedding day didn't feel like that. When I graduated college, it didn't feel like that. I'm still riding high off of the euphoria of just telling myself it was OK to feel that way.

And then I knew why I felt like this all my life, and why I was destroying myself in my own mind for feeling the way I do, and just fully saw it.
Why I hate my body hair, why I hate my social role, why I hate when I cry listening to certain songs, why I hate when I can't show emotions, why I hate the normal male presentation and banter. Why I don't relate to men. Why I have a hard time fitting in with and talking to them. Why I'm always the "really smart, but pretty weird" friend.

I always knew. I just had to take steps to really feel it, and feel OK feeling it, like it was OK to feel how I feel...rather than burying it or making compromises.

I don't really hate that I cry when I hear certain music, or see certain scenes in movies...I hate that I can't just feel it, and that I'm not supposed to, and my mind takes over and stifles the reaction. Like a ruined emotional orgasm. There are a million things that make sense now.

I thought for a long time that this was just a sexual kink, or that I was a freak who objectified women, and loved the idea of women so much that I wanted to be like one. Or, I told myself that at times, anyway. It is so, so much bigger and encompassing than that. I literally feel a body I've never had like a memory. I see it like a memory. It's not when I'm horny or having sex. It's when I talk to people, when I get dressed, when I eat, when I do my taxes, when I fill out paperwork with my gender on it. When I sleep. When I'm sitting doing nothing.

So...it has been a long time coming. It's relieving. I'm full of joy, but terrified at times, in some ways. The social aspect of transitioning, and being a person in the world among people who knew me as a man, and their responses...I know my mind is trying to knock this version of me down again, but I fear those looks of rejection and disgust I know I will, at some point, have to sit through. I fear comments. I fear scenarios. I fear being persecuted. I fear violence.

In my head, I've seen everyone's rejection thousands of times. My wife's, her brother's, my family's, my co-workers'. I have heard people berate me in my head, people belittle and make fun of me. People at the store, people I know. I have felt their anger, disgust, disbelief. On a loop. For about 30 years. And it's what has kept me from really feeling how I feel and just accepting it.

I know that it won't be all bad. The people who really matter will be OK. They'll accept it. And that will help.

But it's hard not to believe they won't, because that's what my brain has been telling me since I was a little kid. A product of abuse. You have to be this idea of a perfect man, a perfect person, and live up to that idea, or you will experience hurt and more abuse.

And...I just got to a breaking point where I couldn't keep putting myself in that pit of misery where my brain was constantly attacking me. Not the first time, but I considered suicide recently. To the point where I almost woke my wife up to take me somewhere safe.

I was thinking far too much about the gun on my dresser, and the hobby knife in the drawer furthest to the left of the kitchen sink, and the bottle of fresh muscle relaxers in my med bag. I felt like I couldn't be who I was supposed to be, but also couldn't keep putting myself through the pit of self-abuse, and had no other way out.

But I deserve to be happy, and loved. None of my other options give that to me. Transitioning isn't going to be perfect, and I likely won't get to exactly where my mind thinks I should be, but I can choose to walk back into the misery pit, or to take steps towards feeling right, and embrace it, and be happy that I chose life on my terms over death on everyone else's. Going back to that pit, I feel that I will either end my life there, or the stress of it is eventually going to do that for me.

I refuse to be broken like that. I refuse to let that be my story. And that's why I'm doing this. It's my choice to continue to be miserable, or to choose to be happy.

I will be seeking HRT and SRS. I have my first therapy appointment in less than two weeks with a gender specialist. I will have to find a second one for my insurance. And I'm going to keep taking steps towards feeling happy and whole, until I get there.

A lot of this process is going to suck. But I'm prepared for it. I'm excited. I'm excited that someday, I will finally be some form of what I was always supposed to be. I'm excited to meet that person in the mirror. And that fuels me.

A lot of this is going to suck, but a lot of it will bring me happiness and joy that I deserve. Something I've been afraid to reach for for so, so long.

And, I will be OK.

Hi, all!

So, some things have happened, and in order to be able to put food on the table, and keep a roof over that table, I will be opening for commissions.

I don't know what this will look like yet, since I've never done this before. I'll follow up with more details soon. Likely, I'll do sketches, inks, and flat colored pieces. Simple backgrounds as an adder. I can do a few shaded pieces, but I don't want to end up stacked up with fully shaded piece after piece, so these won't be off the table per se, but we'll have to talk about it if that's what you're aiming for.

If demand gets to a certain point, I will end up starting a queue, which I will publicly post, so you can see when your piece will be coming up.

Right now, I only use CashApp. But, if I can't get commissionees who are willing to set up there, I might look into other options for payment.

If you can help at all, I'd really appreciate it. Like I said, this isn't to get something or go somewhere nice, it's to help keep my home going.

DM me if you're interested!

18+ commissionees only, please.

Just donated to my first Kickstarter!

I didn't realize this was a Kickstarter, and a game being developed by people in my hometown! I've been seeing the art and following the account for a while, but thought this was being developed differently.

So, that said, check it out! Great concept - you can grow fatter and bigger to be more powerful, but you have to balance your weight and heft with the downfalls that come with it. It's a beat-em-up platformer, and honestly, the art is fantastic!

https://www.kickstarter.com/project.....?ref=user_menu

And check out @/Sortieready on Twitter for an idea of the art and how the game plays.

If you can, send a little their way.

I'm excited to get a chance to play this!

I originally posted this on my Twitter, but figured I'll post it here, too.


I don't think it's acceptable to approach someone who posts adult art and photos, like me, with sexy talk. Sometimes I get this with new people.

The act of doing art and making photos is a very personal thing. I can choose my level of comfort. If you're someone I've never met, I might not be comfortable with letting you in that far.

Speaking out loud is completely different than having a conversation.

It's no different than meeting someone in real life. Everyone has sex, but you still have to gauge how comfortable they are with you before you start talking about it with them, and it might take time for people to build that trust with you.

Some people loosen that trust faster than others, and it very much depends on how the friendship has been building.

But don't have the argument that since I post these kinds of things, and offer comfortable pieces of myself publicly, that you're entitled to build a friendship strictly your way, at your speed, about your desires, just because you know I might share them.

That's trying to take advantage of someone, stealing their influence on the friendship, and no better than the "but she dressed like a whore" argument.

Granted, the offense is not nearly that egregious. I'm not comparing rape to a social faux pas.

It's the argument, the mentality behind it.

Think of it like this: A chef will make food for people all day, but they might not want to come over to your house and cook for you.

They might not be comfortable talking recipes, if they know how to cook Asian dishes, if they like British food, etc.

They're people who are into lots of different things. Not every friendship they have is because of food. Food is their art, and they talk differently about it to family, friends, other chefs, and strangers.

A Bobby Flay might talk about his art in a completely different way with a Gordon Ramsay than with me.

Even so, there might be something that happened between him and Emeril Lagasse, and he doesn't really talk with him, or doesn't talk food with him.

And Emeril isn't entitled to know why that is, what happened.

My photos and drawings are my art. And my walls are high and vast. I've been through some shit, my life comes with a lot of very heavy baggage. Part of me doing what I do is working through some shit.

My username is a play on the word "darken" for a reason.

I want to build friendships with people. But I'm damaged, and complex. I'm not just my art.

In case anyone was itching to get some more of me.

Which is exactly zero of you.

Find me at https://twitter.com/arkendaniel

And...I don't know why it did that to my username.

Whatever, don't really care.

I used to be satisfied with a round belly, a huge ass, and some nice hulking tits. Maybe show some anal and a bit of precum.

Now, I'm less satisfied with superchubs and SSBBW's. I find myself more captivated by good stories, and half the time, I enjoy something not even for sexual reasons, but because it feels real. The comics Ritts makes. Tehweenus's interplay between Roland and Croix. Gillpanda's series work.

I don't even know if I really enjoy the fandom so much for porn anymore. Perhaps I've just grown out of it? I don't know.

Maybe I've just seen too much.

8:30AM - Breakfast:
A french vanilla and a cherry orchard Yoplait yogurt
A can of Blue Diamond smokehouse almonds
About 1/8th of a pineapple
An avocado
A chocolate cake donut
A 16oz glass of whole milk
Estimated calories: 2600

12:30 PM - Lunch
A Banquet Mega Meals TV dinner with mashed potatoes and three salisbury steaks
Two snack bags of Gardettos
A sleeve of Ritz crackers and Jif creamy peanut butter
Two 10oz bottles of Welch's apple juice
Estimated calories: 3530


4:30PM - Snack
A bag of Jack Link's Tender Bites teriyaki beef jerky
A banana
Two carrots
A head of broccoli
A large bottle of Fiji water
Estimated calories: 590

8:30PM - Dinner
A bag of Bird's Eye steamable peas, with a tablespoon of butter and some salt
Five Johnsonville beer brats, with cheddar cheese slices, Sweet Baby Ray's barbecue sauce and buns
A box of Mrs. T's Four Cheese Medley pierogies, cooked in the brat grease
Two 20oz bottles of orange Fanta
Estimated calories: 4470

(In about two hours, right before bed) - Dessert
About a 5th of a homemade strawberry swirl and white chocolate New York-style cheesecake, with fresh dark chocolate ganache and fresh whipped cream
A cup of french vanilla ice cream
Another 16oz glass of whole milk
Estimated calories: 1800

Total estimated calories: 12,990

Quelque part au-delà de la mer
Quelque part m'attend
Mon amant se dresse sur le sable doré
Et regarde les navires qui vont naviguer

Quelque part au-delà de la mer
Il est là à me regarder
Si je pouvais voler comme des oiseaux en hauteur
Puis tout droit dans ses bras
J'irais faire de la voile

C'est bien au-delà des étoiles
C'est presque au-delà de la lune
Je sais au-delà de tout doute
Mon coeur m'y conduira bientôt

Nous nous rencontrerons au-delà du rivage
Nous nous embrasserons comme avant
Heureux que nous soyons au-delà de la mer
Et plus jamais j'irai faire de la voile

Je sais sans aucun doute, ah
Mon coeur m'y conduira bientôt
Nous rencontrerons (je sais que nous rencontrerons) au-delà de la côte
Nous nous embrasserons comme avant
Heureux que nous soyons au-delà de la mer
Et plus jamais j'irai faire de la voile

Plus de voile
Donc longue navigation
Au revoir voile

...to get plowed in my ass.

Something like a 2-1/2" wide by 8" hard, throbbing cock.

That's all.

34.

Yikes.

I'm almost at a point where I need to start planning for retirement.

Or should I have already started? As if I ever will retire.

I feel old, and had an old person's birthday. Did nothing but sit around in sweats and a robe, eat leftover Chinese takeout, and watch movies all day. Including Kung Fu Panda.

I'm almost getting too old for that, like I'd have to wonder if people I know would look at me weird for watching Kung Fu Panda.

Whatever.

A few days ago I shaved my head. I'm balding pretty badly, and what hair I do have left just turns into a wavy, curled-up mess. This way, I clean it up when I'm in the shower and don't have to deal with it.

Again, whatever. Time passes. I've aged badly, so be it.

Gonna go play some Fallout 76. I have off of work for a while, and can get my sneak on. Or get pounded to bits by a Deathclaw.

I *am* also working on art, just slowly. I don't know that I'll do art on my new computer, since it's wide out in the open. We don't really have space for it elsewhere, and it isn't prudent to work where everyone in the house can see it.

My phone's been decent enough for that, so I think I'll just keep doing it on here.

Anyway, Happy Holidays to anyone who reads this. I hope you have a great time, see some family, and avoid politics.

That last part seems to be problematic for my family. But, I'll try to keep a smile on anyway.

Toodles.

I do, all the time. It's driving me insane.

For instance, I wish sometimes that I was built like Chris Hemsworth, and had a massive cock to fuck superchubs and SSBBW's with, or even just curvy people. Other times, I wish I was a superchub getting fucked by a muscle hunk. Other times, I wish I was a curvy woman being fucked by a superchub, taking his hot load in my mouth. Other times still, I wish I was an SSBBW having a train run on me by muscle hunks with huge dicks. Even further still, sometimes I wish I was a eunuch or a nullo, and only able to sexually satisfy others.

I have such wildly varying kinks and desires and wants that it makes it difficult for me to understand who or what I am. Part of me embraces being a man, and part of me wants to reject it and wishes I was not. Part of me embraces being in a heterosexual monogamous relationship, and part of me wants to be homosexual, part of me wants to be the complete opposite sex and homosexual, and part of me wants to be the opposite sex and heterosexual. Part of me wants to be a sexual slave for dozens of people. Part of me wants to be the master and commander of a single relationship.

What the hell am I? And why is it so hard for me to desire one thing? I look in the mirror disappointed every day, but what I wish I saw staring back at me is constantly changing. One moment, I imagine having large breasts, a wide and full ass, a plump pussy. I also see a buff body with a healthy cock. I also see an obese hairless man with barely any cock at all.

I'm so confused by my mind. Why is it impossible for me to look in the mirror and see myself, and be OK with that?

What the hell is wrong with me?

Need new brake pads and rotors on our CR-V. Mechanic says it's $400 for pads, and $800-1k if we also need new rotors.

I've done this several times on the old CR-V, and it's ridiculously cheaper than that - full pads and rotors are less than $200. But when I've done it, I did them at a relative's house. Said relative is a massive dick, and we've learned he's a racist as well, so I decided to skip all that bullshit, and picked up what I needed.

Can't get the lugs to break. Get help with that from my neighbor.

My 2-ton jack is shot out of the box, the moment it lifts the tire off the ground it goes PSSSSSH and lets it back down. The whole car is just over two tons, and I'm just trying to do one tire, so I know the jack is rated for this. Get a buddy to bring his beefier jack over.

Can't get the tire off. Get my buddy to come back and show me that I need to karate kick the thing.

Taking the two screws off that hold the rotor to the hub, I completely strip the head on one, and then proceed to shatter the impact driver bit inside the other one, and can't get it out.

I file the shard of the driver head down, put the tire back on, and put everything back in the boxes. Proceed to drive the car around the block to make sure it's driveable, then eat gobs of Chinese takeout.

Looks like I'm paying someone anyway. At least I had Chinese takeout handy, I can't fuck that up.

In case anyone even reads these things, I have a few things planned out, things I want to do.

I had a period of time where I was really discouraged, and as far as my art goes, felt like I was stuck doing things I had lost interest in. I also saw a drastic decrease in even the amount of other furries who were even seeing my work - I think I had spend 80-100 hours doing each of the last maybe 10 submissions, but was only seeing like 30 views per. It really killed my motivation.

My health isn't really getting any better, so I want to make sure that I spend the time I have on things I want to do. Kicked smoking for 8 months and picked it up again. Still gaining weight instead of losing it. Still feel my joints kinda falling apart.

Dat Chinese takeout tho.

At the end of the day, I do want to make art. It makes me happy, and instead of using skills I have for the benefit of my company or other people around me, it's a somewhat healthy way to de-escalate from my day doing something strictly for me. I wish I was faster at it, and had a computer up and running to really do it how I want to. But the Galaxy Note I have makes pretty good art...all artists can only use the tools they have in their toolbox, and this is what I have. I just need to get things out of my head.

Aeril is working insane hours, like since Saturday morning she's put in about 80 hours already, and still has the rest of tonight and tomorrow to work. Really puts the hurt on me trying to do things I want to do, since I end up doing almost everything at home. If I manage my time right, that also means I could have a lot of uninterrupted time.

So I need to stop being lazy and feeling bad for myself, and just do what I want to do instead of moping around thinking about doing what I want to do.

Ciao.

So I'm a few months out from having all of the funky electrical pathways burned out of my heart. The surgery itself sucked ass, as did the recovery, but I'd absolutely do it again if I had to. I don't remember jack shit, and my heart has stopped constantly flaking out and having arrhythmia. I've been feeling a lot better, especially since I don't have the stress of feeling like I'm about to die...or that things would be better off if I did. I've even been to the gym a few times.

To the end of feeling better and trying to stay feeling better, I'm going to give this ketogenic diet thing a go. My wife has already started doing it, she found out she's diabetic. Really sucks for her because her favorite food is pizza, and her second favorite food is literally any kind of cookies, donuts, brownies, cake, or even cereal we have in the house. But...yeah, a lot of things about both of our current health statuses make sense. My favorite foods are all salted, smoky meats. She's diabetic, I have AFIB and high cholesterol and blood pressure. Makes sense.

At any rate, this keto thing will suck for me to do, too, because I do like my soda and other starchy carbs like noodles and rice, and I *love* breaded foods like fried fish and chicken. But I'm planning on doing it for quite a while anyway, I mean, I really need to at this point. I have over 100 pounds to lose before I'm at a healthy weight (I'm 335 pounds now, and shrunk an inch to 5'11" because my back is shot). It's getting hard for me to do stuff and get around, with my back issues and all. I can feel my knees going bad, and I get out of breath doing simple things like getting dressed or walking into a store from my car.

Wish me luck. I don't really want to lose the weight, for lots of reasons, but I can't keep feeling like shit and in pain all the time.

Switching gears, my phone, a Samsung Note 3, was continuously freezing up and working like garbage. Aeril and I recently had a bit of a blow-up over a lot of things, one of them being the depression that I get watching everyone around me, including her and the kiddo, getting everything they want in due time...and I just wait, and wait, and wait. So, she told me to get something I wanted, something we could afford that I wanted, and we'd work around the aftermath. I got a Note 8 and the Gear VR headset...which, in hindsight, really isn't helping with me working on my weight.

But it's incredibly fun. The phone itself is a bit odd to get used to, I'm not used to an edgeless phone so I constantly hit buttons I didn't mean to. And they changed the keyboard slightly and rearranged where some of the alt characters are, so I'm constantly messing up (I'm used to no-look typing). But Sketchbook imported all of my art projects, and is a breeze to work in now - the extra RAM helps a lot with layers and speed.

But the Gear VR is where it's at. Comfortable, crisp, it's not as good as the Sony PS4 one or the VIVE, but it's also only $100. I only have a few games, and I'm waiting for the gamepad I bought to come in so I can try my hand at Minecraft. A lot of the games look pretty similar, though, which worries me a bit about the fun dropping off, and I haven't had a chance to play any online games with other people.

In due time, maybe.

Just figured I'd put this out there in case anyone reads these things anymore.

Monday early morning, I was in the emergency room getting 200 volts blasted through my heart while I was awake. Twice. I have a huge red ring on my chest, and another on my back, where they had the electrodes hooked up to me.

I have a normal heart rhythm again, but my cardiologist is telling me that I need ablation - where they sneak a probe through the artery in my groin up to my heart, with little nodes on the end, and burn very specific cells of my heart to stop a short-circuit that will keep coming back. If I don't get it done, I'll keep falling out of a normal rhythm until clots form and I have a stroke, DVT/PE, or a heart blockage, and die. Or, until they try to do cardioversion (shocking my heart) and it doesn't work or causes some other issue (like atrophy or asystole) and I die, or until the AFIB progresses into another type of fibrillation and I die.

I can't do this right now. I need to spend time focusing on much more important things.

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/24753564/

The auction ends tomorrow, a minute to midnight server time. Please stop by and take a look!

Posting here, so I don't have to do it every time, and don't clutter things up. I hope this is fair and honest, and I hope I can make some of you happy (and start saving to get a computer while I'm at it).

I only have my phone to work with, which is a Galaxy Note 3 at the moment. So I can't make a 6,000 x 4,000 pixel poster, and I can't do ridiculous photoshop filter effects with 100 layers. I also can't pump out 10 pieces a week. I can do some awesome stuff, but again, I just have a phone. I also have a salaried career.

I will only run one auction at a time, though I plan on doing themes. If you miss something you really wanted, I just might have another YCH in the same vein, same theme coming up. But I won't do duplicates of the same YCH.


My terms:

The money:
1] You must be an adult spending your own money.
2] Only post bids as replies to my post starting the bid, or if there's a high bid, as replies to the high bid.
3] Increment by $5 or more if the AB is less than $200, otherwise, increment by $10 or more.
4] Make bids before the ending date/time.
5] Pay up-front via PayPal within 24 hours of winning, or lose your spot to the next in line. Make sure you have FA notes enabled and that your PayPal is working.
6] I live in the US, and speak in USD.
7] Don't purposely mess up the auction/screw around in the bid chain. If you do, I may never do work for you.


The art:
1] The pose is the pose. I'll make changes as needed to fit your character, but that's about it.
2] Expression, eyes, props, clothing, hair, etc. is negotiable WITHIN REASON.
3] You need to have a character reference sheet. Also, I draw anthro things with two/four legs, furs and some scalies. I will let you know if I cannot draw something - if it's not like something I've already done, ask BEFORE bidding.
4] The character I draw either needs to be yours, or I need permission from the character owner.
5] I'll provide one WIP, but when I'm done, I'm done. I won't give your money back or work on something endlessly if you just don't like it, that's what the WIP/"not bidding on something you don't want" is for.
6] If I say that an auction is, say, explicitly male, you could do genital-less male, but not herm or female.
7] I need an e-mail that works to send the WIP and the final image to.
8] You'll get to post the art 10 days before I do, but I will post it. Give credit where it's due - mention that I made the art when you post it via a link to my profile. Otherwise, I may never do work for you again, and may just post it in my gallery immediately.

Seriously. I hope they fucking fail as a company, and turn into a lowly developer for XBox and Playstation.

What a complete disregard for their fans, for what? So they can promote the Switch and 3DS I couldn't give two shits about?

Sorry. Besides the nostalgia factor of the SNES, I'm into games like Fallout, Diablo, Dead Space and Final Fantasy. I get enough cutesy and political correctness all day...when I want to come home and shove a grenade up someone's ass while I shoot them in the face, I'm not exactly in the mood to throw mushrooms in the back of a kart. You can't offer me anything.

Except for this. Which you royally fucked up.

I decided to start chronicling the fetishes in my head as a running comic, as if I were living through them in an alternate life. It's called cognitive dissonance by no accident.

I don't know how long it will run, but there will be many, many different phases I go through. This will be much closer to who I am, or maybe wished I had been, than Daniel was ever intended to be. Given that he was made as a developed character within a storyline I have yet to draw out, the characteristics I gave him (many in my head, still) will be replaced with traits I posess. In a way, I'm shattering who I made Daniel to be with a bit of reality.

This might be the closest thing to maybe me coming to terms with and understanding who I am that I can get to. It will help to reconcile feelings I have and have buried for almost two decades.

It will be liberating, and cathartic, and I hope it's fun for everyone.

https://youtu.be/TbUAtnWwADI

I've been through some shit, like many of us here have. Some pretty dark shit. Physical and emotional abuse that continues even now, but took place the worst through my whole childhood. Painful memories, and even more painful regrets.

Before I get to something I feel is an achievement in my life, the darker parts of me:

The abuse I went through led me to become an alcoholic and a drug addict, which I've thankfully broken. The addictions and the abuse leave me with a deep depression that gets hard to manage at times. Sometimes I find myself lying in bed thinking about my suicide plan late at night.

Because of what I've been through, I'm always in search of who I am. I always feel like everything I do or say was somehow scripted and a lie I've made up to fit what it needs to fit. I have a hard time understanding or believing in what I am, who I am. I feel like there is no me, just the different masks I put on for people. I always wonder if things like being a furry, or being bisexual, are lies I tell myself to justify why I always feel so fucking wrong with who I am. I wonder if sometimes wishing I were a woman, and my eyes not agreeing with what my mind sees when I look in a mirror, and what my heart tells me when I'm forced to play stereotypical man roles, is just a passing and confused delusion caused by an absence of self.

I take perfectionism to an unhealthy level. I can't stand conflict and having someone dislike or disapprove of something I'm doing, which drives me to be perfect at everything regardless of the cost, and drives me to act and play the fence with everyone, even those closest to me. I'm very much obsequious and need constant approval that I've done something the way someone else wanted...and I get taken advantage of constantly because of my fear of people thinking negatively about me that's mistaken as "generosity."

I also come off cold and far too logical, because I've never had the chance to understand my emotions. I was always taught that successful men get these big jobs, and work all the time, and climb corporate ladders, so I set myself up to do all of those things. But how people see me...I know everything, seek attention and approval, go out of my way to do things for people, and have a knack for speaking too much and coming off like a self-promoting egomaniac. In reality, I desperately need to feel like someone else appreciates the fact that I exist, because I feel like I'm not worth it. I feel like I'm not worth anyone's time. I come off like I'm better than everyone, when all I want is to feel like I deserve to stand next to them.

And all of this...well...I will never feel comfortable about any of the "non-normative" parts of who I am. I will always feel an overwhelming fear, and therefore an overwhelming need, to protect myself from people finding out about what I really am and really think. And I'm tired of feeling like I'm nothing. I'm tired of feeling like I don't belong, and have no home. I'm tired of feeling like a fucking disappointment, to everyone around me, and to myself.

Today I made a healthy step.

At work, we had an event for LGBTQ awareness, a brunch for people to meet and support the company's inclusion and diversity mission, and to learn about resources for LGBTQ support outside of work. And I was the first non-corporate person to show up. For a while, I was the only one.

And a few other people came...maybe just under a dozen. Some surprising faces, and overall we had a good time with a themed game we played for the occasion. One person from the group I work in came, and I know it was for the muffins and for the time away from their desk - I saw them standing outside the room beforehand, peeking in to see who was in it. I also heard them making jokes about it with the others in the "good ol' boy's club" when they were all back together.

I might not have been strong-willed enough to yell over the wall and advocate for the community, and show that I won't stand for the internal pain that it causes everyone in the community - and really, in general - to have to dance around and deal with jokes and that kind of ostracization. I wasn't able to defend that being out, and being who you really are, allows you to focus on doing your job without having to focus on the cover-up and the acting all the time.

But I made a stand for who I am. Maybe they don't realize that's what it was, maybe they think I'm just an ally. But I acknowledged to myself that I can't be ashamed and afraid anymore.

Monday, when I go back to work, I plan on wearing my favorite jeans - my wife's pair she grew out of, with the cute swirl-pattern embroidered across the pockets, because they're way more comfortable than men's jeans and I'm not going to be afraid of things that are pretty. I plan on wearing one of the thongs I wear on the weekend, because thongs are a lot more comfortable to me than briefs or boxers. I plan on having my eyebrow, nose, and ear hairs waxed, which I haven't done in a long time, because "real men don't do that stuff," and I miss the clean feeling I have when everything is proper and not running amok and haywire.

I will have the haircut I've always wanted - a top mowhawk curled to the side over an otherwise bald head. I'm getting rid of my facial hair because the fact that I have facial hair makes me nauseated - I wish it didn't grow at all. I've been talking to HR to find out what ramifications there would be, since I'm a professional, to getting some ear and facial piercings I never got, and those will be coming shortly after I get the go-ahead. I plan on not smelling like a 40-year old suit with mint gum stuck to it, mixed with mildewed leather, which is how I describe musk and most "male scents." I plan on smelling like the scent I love most - japanese cherry blossoms. Maybe a hint of pomegranates, I really love how those smell, too.

And people might assume I'm gay, and did some kind of 180 degree thing. People might assume this is just another passing odd time for me. It's not. And this has nothing to do with any of the questions I have about my sexuality. I want to do what I want, dress how I want, and smell how I want, because I want to be comfortable. I don't want to feel like a Ken doll in a business-casual suit anymore.

I'm sick and tired of forcing myself into this mold of who I think I should be for everyone else. I think they should have to be uncomfortable with, and deal with, what I am...not me having to deal with what makes me blend into the other men at work. I'm not going to sacrifice another minute of my time trying to be something for someone else. I can't do that anymore.

And I'm probably going to have some shit to deal with from it all. I'll probably have some awkward conversations. I'll probably get some snickering and some behind-the-back off-color comments. And I'll have to deal with that. But I won't be dealing with the fear of it. I can't do that anymore, either.

I'm sort of not OK with this.

At any rate, at least it's nice weather for Anime Milwaukee. Saw lots of fursuiters there yesterday, hopefully I'll see some more today. Most impressive was the king rabbit avatar from Summer Wars, who happened to be at the showing of Summer Wars, sitting in front of us. I had no idea, hadn't seen the movie yet, and as the movie shows the character kicking ass, the suiter was nodding their head as if reliving the memories of the events, puffing their chest out and doing like "yeah, boi!" kinds of movements.

That was really awesome. I was going to comment on how awesome the suit was before I even realized it was from the movie, but I didn't get a chance...then, the suiter left before the end. Missed opportunity.

Just for giggles, I pulled out the scale last night. Haven't weighed myself in a while, since maybe before Thanksgiving.

I guess I've been putting on two pounds a week since then. I even got new batteries for the scale to make sure.

I've been having to run around day and night, and basically eat what I can when I can. A lot of it ends up being from gas stations and fast food, the rest is stuff like TV dinners and hot pockets, because I just don't have time. I'm not sleeping enough, or consistently, either.

So I'm not too surprised, but it was a bit of a shock to see how hefty I've gotten. I hadn't noticed. Looking in the mirror last night, my belly is completely folded over my pelvic area, almost touching the bits when I just stand. Lots of new stretch marks all over the place.

So, there's that.

Wow...I'm at a loss.

What a remarkable actress, and an inspiration to those of us who had to conquer our demons.

And this comes on the cusp of one of the most anticipated franchise expansions, and now, one of the most iconic characters can only be there in spirit.

May the Force be with you.

AND THIS FUCKING YEAR NEEDS TO END.

That is all.