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█ This journal is for the requesting of a series of images in regards to the ant theme commissions. You can request any number of images/panels/pages and I'll put it into consideration. Keep in mind that it will be $10-20 per panel depending on complexity and how many people will be involved per image. This number is flexible, especially if you are content with only like half/quarter of a body part drawn on the page to advance to the next parts. While on the flip side a half/full page spread as a highlight may cost more.

If you do request a series give me the following information:

- Character Reference
- List of panels and framing for each one (Quarter Shot, Half Shot, Full Body)
- Also tell me which panels are the most important and are a highlight.
- WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THAT PANEL SUPER IMPORTANT!
- Overall stat of your character (willing/resistant)

Panels will cost $10 if Quarter or half
Panels will cost $20 if full body or if there's to be interactions with an ant.

People are welcome to join together to request for a combined sequenced commission so long as they list me the panels they want in fair detail.

█ Please leave the details here in the journal, as I have a hard time tracking commissions via my notes. If you have questions about sequence and comic layout, do note me then.

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█ Sweet mother of mercy what have I done, this is going to drive me craaaazy! Anyways till the end of this month (and maybe then some) I'll be doing ant themed commissions along the lines of the ant comic I just completed.

This journal is for people who only want a SINGLE image. I will be opening up a second journal for SEQUENCED commissions after this one. I will be alternating days in where I'll be working on single commissions and sequenced commissions; starting with the SINGLE ones first.

█ I'll keep this simple, post a link to your character's appearance and what situation you want to be in. Which can be from the following:

Resin traps (wall/floor/mine)
Ant captures (being sprayed/cocooned/carried/placed in a pod)
Stuck in a pod (masked/unmasked)
Being completed (abdomen being attached)
Suited+bound/suspended by resin
Laying sugar eggs
Laying sugar eggs + ant eggs
(Not in the comic) Being extracted from the ant suit.

Make a note of if you want your head exposed, masked (eyes still visible), or fully masked. If your head or eyes are exposed also tell me an expression to be used.

You can also request a second set of arms be added to the 'ant armor' or other miscellaneous things such as the immobilized version of the ant armor in where the arms and legs are bound inside the shell.

These commissions will cost $10. 15$ if there's an ant involved in your situation binding you up / tending to you.

█ I will complete each commission in order to the best of my abilities. Please do not ask me about how to pay me, I will note you when it is completed. Again, this journal is for SINGLE images of the ant them only!

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█ With my ant themed comic project completed, there's two spin off projects I'll be working for the next 2-3 days. I'll probably be spending one day writing up a lot of material, and then creating some illustrations for them afterwards. This probably means I won't be streaming 'today.' Today being the 18th.

I'll also be putting up a journal to take ant themed commissions in a day or two as well when I figure out how I want to approach it. There's already been a lot of people asking me for a lot of things, and currently I'm overwhelmed of how to even being to execute it all.

Thanks for your support!

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█ So been running this comic for basically a week now, and it's been quite the week as I'm sure those of you who watch me can attest to. I started this project at the start of this month, and really started doing the drawing bit on the 7th; so today is going to be my 7th day straight basically cranking this thing out.

I think the volume of art coming out from me isn't too different from a few months back when I was pushing out 6-9 ten dollar commissions a day, it's just that in this case there's some flow and coherence to what I'm putting together. Which is good for me personally as it gives me the sense of achieving something a bit grander and larger, instead of one off things that doesn't standout too well on it's own as time passes on (there are exceptions when I get really inspired with someone's character or idea of how something should be presented) So far I've been pretty happy with the results.

█ The flow of this particular journal is going to bounce a lot because I have a lot of thoughts on the mind, but I'll get some of the more pertinent ones out of the way first:

I will be doing ant themed commissions after the comic is done, I won't know the exact nature of them but I'll probably have it set up as a $10 per image sort of deal with a maximum of like four images to build a sequence/illustration. In addition to that I'll probably have people opt in or opt out of a sort of group final image in where I mash up the related pictures into one larger one; just to tie the stuff together. I *might* be able to be convinced to do a two page comic related to the theme if it's presented to me in a solidly pre-thought out manner. I say two pages because I apparently do have the ability to crank out two comic pages a day, but that's likely going to cost $60-80. I'll give out more details and flesh this out after the comic is completed.

█ No I don't know when this comic will end, I think around page 22ish though give or take a couple of pages (probably give). The dice is basically writing the story for me, and no I don't mess with the rolls, as the "Game Master" there's plenty of other ways for me to make things utterly unfair than to do something so piddly as messing with the dice! Incidentally how I roll the dice is with a toilet paper roll that I taped a bottom too. I shake it a few times and then see what it lands on.

█ So if you've been following the comic so far and might have ended up in the mindset of "This is weird, but I like it" and if that's the case then that's sorta what I was going with. I'm not sure how to best explain it, but George Carlin's words come to mind in that he wanted to make people uncomfortable, but in the end glad they came along for the ride. This particular mindset means that I as an artist have to be incredibly mindful of where various people's lines are, and that I move up to that line and start poking and prodding. Being safe is boring, but being over the top can be off-putting; the challenge is walking the line like a tightrope walker, and I think I'm doing a decent job of it.

So when it comes to the ant theme, I came into it perfectly aware of what the insect trope typically was presented by other media and artists. Usually it involves mindless/instinctual predation mutilation/consumption/infestation/assimilation. I'm keenly aware that certain people do find such themes enjoyable, but I'm a person who likes his stuff 'reversible' as opposed to 'permanent.' While it might be a silly concept when it comes to fantasy, but all thoughts and idea can leave marks on a person, so presentation is important when you're playing with something that's potentially damaging. It's like juggling knives I guess, it can be done safely; but it is inherently dangerous. Just in my case it's not about blood and bandages, but eye bleach. My apologies to those of you who require it due to my ant colony thing.

█ So why ants? It was a childhood fascination thing personally, and it's still an interest of mine today. They pretty much rule the world, and a lot of things humans do, they have a species that probably does it too (and maybe even better). I do find wasps/bees more 'slick' looking, but I always considered ants far more interesting on a whole.

A comment that appears somewhat frequently is if I came up with the ideas of these ants myself and how long it took. As far as I know these ants are a unique design in their appearance and behavior, and I sort of created them as a species in around 30 minutes.

I suppose I can put out a little bit of my creative process. I don't normally design things with the express purpose of kink or fetish as the main focus, it's more of a secondary thought after I create the initial logic for why something exists. That there needed to be an underlying practical purpose or existence outside of the fetish or kink. The ant colony for example is it's own thing and functions fine without any of the events in the comic happening, but there is a thread of rhyme and reason to it which gives the whole experience an extra level of weight I feel.

█ I also plan to write up a 'bestiary' of sorts on my ant species and their behaviors in general. Give it a bit more weight and depth cause a lot of the finer details are just in my head and the comic isn't going to explore every facet of it. The most notable missing detail is that each colony has a 'personality' and that it's not really a "hive mind". I might describe it more as "hive emotion/drive"

█ Speaking of other things I'm going to write-up is an "RPG Comic Handbook" which will dive into the details of the dice system I'm using. I'll refine it, make some improvements on it. This was a system I came up with in about a day and is essentially being tested on in the comic in progress. It'll have explanations of how to do it, or why you should do it, rules, suggestions, outlines so on so forth. It's been certainly helpful in managing the flow of the comic. I'll probably add in some rules for "Player vs Player" stats with suggestions on balance and alternative stat uses with consideration to how it should be drawn vs the dice rolls.

█ Phew, that's a lot I put out there, might be a few things I've left out. I'm probably going to take tomorrow as a day off. My hand is a little stiff, but no where as bad as it was in the middle of December. At any rate thanks for watching/paying attention/stalking and the like, hope you'll continue to enjoy my utter weirdness!

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█ Been mulling over a possible thing I might do after I complete my current comic project, and that's to do an old art exercise I invented over a decade ago that I named "15 Minute Doom"

This was something that was a bit interesting to do when the Internet was much younger and participated in IRC with a small community, a few of which were aspiring artists. Quite a few of them became relatively famous among the furry community down the road as well, but I won't really name anyone because my interests diverged I think greatly from what these other artists ended up doing and I wasn't able to maintain any semblance of a friendship with them anyways.

Though I digress, as I often do. In any event because there was a sizable amount of artists of varying talents, most of us suffered from art blocks and the common insecurity of "This just isn't good enough." I devised an exercise that was originally I believe 5 minutes in length in where we as a community would pick a topic, which was pretty random, and we would all time ourselves to see what we could produce in that 5 minutes. The idea was to give zero time for doubt or nitpicking on the small details, and force us to get someone done on paper. After which I'd collect the 5 minute drawings and upload them to a central place so people could look at what people could accomplish in 5 minutes (and at times it was pretty impressive) Generally only had maybe 3-5 people participating at any given time, but it was fun to see the results of whatever given theme we decided to do that day. As time went on the time was bumped to to 10-15 minutes, giving people more time to refine line work or even add colour.

These exercises certainly helped improve my artistic skills since I had other people to compare with, and forced me to work quickly on the fly, made creating poses a bit less problematic because creating something whole then seeing what's wrong tends to be more helpful than messing around with a single circle when that circle can be technically correct for any given limb. While it would be interesting to create this exercise over again, there's no real practical way for me to manage it.

At any rate, I might simply bring back the "15 Minute Doom" for my own intents and purposes down the road. Maybe do it sorta commission based. Like $5 you leave an idea and I spend 15 minutes seeing what I can do with it. I'll see what I do with it when I get to that point. I might even just leave it free, and if what I do in that 15 minutes warrants a tip, then all the better I guess.

█ Things on the comic front are going okay, I think people are enjoying the plot of the comic being written by the stats of the players and the roll of the dice. Probably as close as you can get to a pen and paper RPG when you're the only active component. Only did one page today cause... well I go "outside" on Tuesdays, and that sets my motivation levels a few notches down when I have to think of something other than art!

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█ I had about twice as many people who wanted to be part of this comic commission project than I had slots for, so I had to go through the rather tough process of picking people. Probably my least favorite part of any commissions process cause I do want to try and include everyone who shows interest.

The title page
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/9614923/
Should give you an idea of what might happen to your character during the process of this comic.

If you're picked and find this ultimately disagreeable then you can bow out if you wish. Also as a reminder, I will not ask you for any money until I'm done with this comic project.

 blizzard_moons - Master (rolled 5)
 klonoap - Second (rolled 4)
 inaki Front Role (had lower ego than the other three, didn't roll)
 drakehavok Front Role (rolled 1)

Fodder
 balladaheart
 phenic
 rickybunny
 weirdseal

Background
 aodat
 NFSRacer
 pitchblack
 steel-Phoenix

My apologies to the ones I didn't pick! I'm only one guy and I think I'm going to be hard pressed to work with a dozen characters, let alone two dozen >>;

I will be doing one shot commissions based off this theme after the comic is done, so you can probably catch those otherwise.

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█|Make sure you read and understand EVERYTHING before posting a reply to this journal, thank you!

█ Since I shouldn't remain idle for too long, this journal is for the purpose of having people appear in my next comic project. This project I estimate is going to be around 10-20 pages in length with 8-12 participants. How long the comic goes is actually going to depend on how well the participants manage in this sort of "pen and paper" RPG done in a comic format.

The bulk of the information of what this is all about can be found in my previous couple of journals. Though the summary is that an anthro ant colony will be defending against an incursion of people out to try and catch some of them. (odds are the invading people will be the ones who get caught)

█ There's going to be 12 slots that are available, I can do this comic with as few as 6, but I have a hunch that there's going to be far more than 12 people interested.

The slots will be as follows:

4 "Front Roles" will be displayed prominently in the comic, in the front and will likely show up in most of the pages.

4 "Fodder Roles" will be in the 'middle' of panels and the like, and will show up in the front now and then.

4 "Background Roles" these will be shown mostly in the back of the comic panels, unlikely to be the focus in any of the pages unless for some reason everyone else gets caught and the background guys are the only ones left.

The pricing of these slots are as follows:

Front Roles - $90
Fodder Roles - $40
Background Roles - $20

There will actually be some dice rolling involved for the "Front Roles" so no one can actually 'pick' a front roll, you will have to mention in your post that you want to opt in for a front role.

█ Please submit a character that is relatively 'normal' looking and of 'average' size, I'm less likely to pick 'exotic' characters with odd body shapes. If you do have something that's a bit unusual and really want to be included, offer an amount to compensate for the extra complicity of what you're asking for.

Some other considerations that will be in place here is that everyone will be wearing a uniform (or will be wearing enslaved and wearing chitin) at the end of this. So the main important thing that will be shown is the body type of your character and their head. Though the uniforms everyone is wearing might get damaged/destroyed depending on what's going on and how the rolls are.

There will be two groups in this comic, so if there's someone you want to be in a group with; please do mention it in your posting as well.

█ I'll be leaving this open for participants for 2-3 days, then I'll pick from the people who are interested to be in the comic. This is not first come first serve

█ Here's the information you need to provide me with to have a shot at being in this comic.

Character Reference - An image link, I don't care how horrible it looks, I can work off nearly anything
Role - Background or Fodder
Front Role Opt In - Yes or No

RP STATS
Ego - A number from 0 to 6. Zero means highly unlikely to give orders, but will take them. Six means very likely to give orders, not too likely to take orders.
Fitness - A number from 0 to 6. Zero is unfit, with six being very fit. Also pick an attribute of "Strong" "Agile" or "Vigor" Your character will roll two dice and take the highest of two rolls in any situation that fits those attributes.
Cautiousness A number from 0 to 6. Zero means your character is reckless, and will always take the more dangerous course of action. Six means your character will always take the safest looking option.

If there's something about your character that you feel is important to mention, please do. If you get picked I'll try to put that into consideration.

Side notes: Low ego with high cautiousness will be viewed as someone who panics easy. High ego with high cautiousness would be calm under fire. High ego with low cautiousness would be berserker like. Low ego and low cautiousness would be the most obedient and follows orders.

█ One final note, after I'm done this project I'll likely do stand alone pictures along the theme of the comic, so if you don't get in you can still probably get something related to this comic project.

Hopefully I haven't forgotten anything...

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█ I'm a bit mentally exhausted, was a bit of work pushing through the last few XXXmas commissions that I wanted to do. Was fun doing them overall, but repetition gets to a person after awhile!

█ I need to write up a sort of commission FAQ to go along with my TOS, I'll probably do that next before opening up my comic project to be commissioned into.

█ Okay brain dump time again. This will likely be the last one before I actually open up the commissions. This one is not where you request to be in it. None of what I spill out is necessarily final, as I might change things if I feel a better idea/logic can apply.

First I'll be changing the stats & rolls. On the comic page itself I'll have some kind of display that will show who rolled what and what needed to be rolled to 'pass' This probably means I'll be creating icons for people who get involved in the comic. I'll probably make them in a way so they can be used as FA icons and the like if people wish to do so. These icons will probably be offered up as 'normal' commissions for something like $5 probably, but would be included for whoever ends up being part of the comic. I digress.

The rolls will still be done on six sided dice (I do have access to twenty sided ones, but that would just over complicate everything for me). Will follow something more logical to other dice games and have 1 as a 'critical failure.' A 6 will imply success, and will allow for a secondary roll to determine the level of success; of course in 'unwinnable' situations, the roll will determine how well the person will have resisted in that situation.

"Player" Mechanics

Since people can't directly participate in the events of the comic, I decided to have a roll determine if a person will take a more safe or more risky action. It will be a behavior roll based on the stat of "Cautiousness" and will range between 0 and 6. If a person has a cautiousness of 3, then any roll of 1-3 will have the person take the safer action, where as 4-6 will be the riskier option. This means a person with a 0 for caution will always take the riskier option, and a person with 6 will always take the safer path. This roll will be used by 'Squad Leaders' to determine where a group goes, or if a person is isolated they'll make the choice on their own. This isn't a combat roll, and will be replacing the 'insight' stat that I had set up.

Ego mechanics have been changed slightly, ego will be a bonus on top of a d6 roll. People can have an ego of 0 (extremely likely to follow orders) to 6 (likely to give out orders) So a 6 ego has a range of rolls from 7 to 12, and a 0 ego has a range of 1-6. Leaders will be picked at the start from the highest egos (equally high egos will be rolled against each other if necessary) When the group is faced with decisions, the leader will roll against everyone else. Those who end up rolling higher than the leader may buck the order given based on the "Cautiousness" stat.

Fitness mechanics will be changed in the same way, in where the stat will be a bonus on top of a d6, and it's also a range of 0-6. There's three specializations of strong, agile, vigor. On the relevant checks on strength, reflex, and endurance the highest of two rolls will be picked.

"Group" Mechanics

Enduring Technologies will send out units to conduct various tasks and the like, which will be formed by the following:

Master - Leads the unit.
Second - Second in command, referred to as "master" in the absence of the Master
Private - 6 to 10 "soldiers"

There will also be a retrieval unit that will be called in to collect whatever is caught or needs evacuating. These people generally won't be at risk or involved in the action, they sort of drive the vehicles and look after containment units.

The Master and Second carry hard-programmed slave balls for the purposes of capturing targets or disciplining subordinates. They are keyed to the wielders and the Second's cannot be used on the Master ranks.

All ranks carry an energy based stun gun, as well as three latex 'grenades' that stick and ensnare targets in a short range (about 2 meters / 6 feet radius) The grenades are reusable if they hit no living target reverting back into a sphere, otherwise will cocoon the victim to allow for transport.

The uniforms worn have mild resistance to blunt, slashing, piercing, elemental damage, and have gradual self-repairing technology. A helmet and oxygen supply can be added to the uniform for more hazardous atmospheric conditions.

When traveling the Master's position will be behind whoever has been assigned to the front. This person is determined by whoever has the least amount of caution who isn't in command. Everyone else will be sorted due based on their cautiousness rolls. High caution will be placed in the rear of the group. By default everyone else will protect the Master and/or Second. If both the Master and Second are caught/indisposed the rest of the group will likely panic and break apart unless someone else in the unit rolls a 6 for ego and rolls higher than everyone else.

"Combat" Mechanics

Rolls will be done against static numbers, or counter rolls.

The stun guns for example will roll a player's fitness(agility) against the target's fitness(agility) to determine of the shot hit or is dodged. The stun gun will provide a +3 bonus to hit. So a person with 0 fitness can roll a 6 to have a total of 9. Which means they can hit a person with 6 fitness provided they roll 1 to 3. Once the target is hit, they need to get 10+ fitness(vigor) or be knocked unconscious.

The latex grenades work under a similar mechanic, which is fitness (strength) no bonus to hit vs target fitness (agility) if it hits the target is caught. Though a fitness (strength) check is made to see how long it takes them to be fully caught and safely moved. Course if a target is unconscious then all of it is pretty automatic.

Roll Bonus Ranks
+1 slight advantage, typically provided by the environment
+2 moderate advantage, typically provided by the environment
+3 good advantage, device assists.
+4 great advantage, device assists.
+5 best advantage, high powered device assists
+6 master advantage, 'unbeatable roll'

The +4 to +6 bonuses typically won't be used by the players unless the setup calls for them. Those bonuses will be used for the 'trap' end of the 'game'

█ That's actually quite a fair bit of mumbo jumbo, this part is for the actual 'ant colony' stuff.

The ant colony in question that's going to be infiltrated is one that sustains itself via subterranean farming. The diet consisting mostly of seeds and sugar when obtainable. The crops are grown using light from glowing molds, the mold itself grown via the wastes produced by the ants. A form of animal 'ranching' is used to produce sugar, which is done via assimilating other creatures into the hive. Captured animals are encased in a shell of chitin, and specialized organs from the encasement are used to extract and form a sugary substance for consumption by the colony. Captured animals are typically fed the surplus crops. It is an inefficient procedure overall, but the ants prefer the sugar produced as opposed to the seeds. This procedure is also applied to the members of it's own colony, but the purpose of using different animals is simply for different tastes and flavors. A sort of 'luxury' item overall. Those that don't produce a sugar that is appealing to the ants are repurposed into other roles.

All members of the colony can spray a resin for the purposes of construction or defense, as well as hold a general idea of how many members of the colony there are and their relative status. They're all relatively strong and quick, as well as armored. Some may have wings for additional mobility, but this is dependent on how active the ants are on the surface.

Ant types

Queen - lays eggs to expand the colony, pretty typical, every other ant is a kind of drone (female) as per typical of insect societies. The Queen has mental domination over the rest of the population, though not in the sense of direct control over every individual but rather instilling 'urges' into the various castes. As such each drone is a kind of individual but is constant being driven to complete any given task based on their abilities and the overall demands of the colony. So a suggestion of "need more food" and individuals will mentally shift over to that task until the queen's mental link 'hears' that enough drones are out trying to collect food. The central intelligence lies with her, though if she dies the colony can replace her by rearing up any one of her eggs to be a replacement. Though under such circumstances all non-native drones are excised from the colony or immobilized as they'll regain full sense of themselves and probably cause chaos otherwise.

Warrior - More physically strong and heavily armored than her sisters. Along with being able to produce a resin, can release a more refined web, as well as release an acid. Generally will try to capture outsiders to be assimilated

Maintenance - Multi-purpose ants who take care of the infrastructure of the colony on a whole. Builds, grows, forages, scouts.

Caretaker - Oversees the health of the queen, eggs, larva, and assimilates outsiders. Physically the 'smallest'

Cattle - Selected to process the excess grown crops into sugar for consumption by the rest of the colony. Outsiders placed in this role typically remain 'lean' as the chitin they are encased in will siphon out any excess sugars to be stored in the insectiod part of the body. The favored ones are usually located near the queen as her personal food source.

Outsider Queen - A queen may divert some egg laying tasks to an assimilated outsider, which she knows won't be able to subvert her rule in where a natural born drone might be able to. These can only produce one type of egg determined by queen before hand, typically the maintenance drones as they are the most needed and common.

Outsiders can otherwise take any other role to the fullest extent as determined by the caretaker ants.

Technology

The members of the hive are intelligence to use any manipulate most known forms of technology adeptly, though despite this most colonies tend to be completely devoid of technology. This is likely mostly due to the heavy reliance on the flexibility of the colony's bioengineering. The Queen can produce almost any kind of egg needed to fill any desired function. This can range from types of ants to biological structures to ventilate air, produce traps, store luminescent mold for better lighting, so on so forth. Some structures need 'maintenance' others simply grow into whatever is needed before 'dying' and becoming a permanent fixture. The make up and structure of any given colony is completely dependent on the Queen.

The one Enduring Technologies has targeted is one in where the Queen is deemed 'inexperienced' and 'unimaginative' making it more likely that it's capture would be possible.

Colony Structure

There's two identified possible entrances: A ventilation shaft, and the main entrance. Inside there will be farms, a nursery, storage, processing area, the royal chambers, and various tunnels connecting everything. Some of the tunnels themselves can shift/open/close depending on input from the members of the colony, part of the larger living mass. It's in these areas in where the tunnels themselves might be able to spray out resins/webbing/other like the warrior caste, but are totally mindless and are simply 'built' to the specification of the Queen.

Outsider Conversion

Incapacitated outsiders will be brought to one of the processing chambers, their immobilized bodies placed in an egg sack with their heads remaining on the outside. The egg will absorb / dissolve / excrete out any items that don't belong to the would be host, after which chitin will start growing over the skin of the captive. The caretaker ants will have a degree of control over the process to determine the final structure of the chitin shell, which will be determined by how the captive behaves during the process. The egg itself will produce a tendril that will present itself to the captive to drink and be sustained from, though it is part of the trap involved. Once the captive is thirsty enough to drink from the tendril, the resin produced from it will coat around the captive as well as sedating them. It's at this point the caretakers will apply a colony mask over the outsider's face, which will keep most of their consciousness submerged and largely susceptible to the Queens imposed impulses. Stronger willed individuals will be able to resist, determined by a fitness (vigor) check. A 10+ total check to regain some sense for a short period of time. (Those with a 3 or less fitness have no hope of snapping out of the colony's stupor unless rescued)

█ Only one last bit of stuff to brain dump, and that's the mission itself: Enduring Technologies wishes to capture drones, assimilated outsiders, eggs, and the Queen herself for science. Success rate for this initial mission is probably very low.

I'll need to put in some thought as to the exact structure, possible outcomes, and more mechanics of this project; as well as actually draw the thing out. I'm not sure what the price will be for those who want to participate, but there will probably be different price points which I'll have to figure out how to manage later.

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█ Doing a bit of a brain dump for my next comic project which shall take the form of... well this journal. Next month I shall be playing around with a new theme, and it's probably going to be in the form of an expedition to an 'ant colony.' I'll probably be refining my RP system a bit more in advance of it, and this is where a bunch of the stats and the like will actually have use. I imagine the cost of participation will be around $30-40 since I would want people to be showing up for 3 or more panels depending on the situation. I'm sure some luckier people could probably show up for more if they pass multiple rolls and end up getting deep into the scenario. So people would be guaranteed like at least two panels, and could potentially end up 'winning' if I winning is something that is actually achievable.

So what's this expedition going to be all about? General overview is that Enduring Technologies wants some living specimens for research purposes. To try and capture some drones and the like, try and capture some 'assimilated' drones as well. Though most likely everyone goes in and gets caught and the like.

Unsure of what capturing fully entails, my brain is suggesting people getting stuffed into eggs in where they'll be encased in chitin, probably leaving the head exposed to be masked with a mind-controlling device to the hive mind; the order could be either way I guess. Course how people get captured will probably via resin/goo attacks/traps.

Either way I need to do a bit of planning as to possible scenarios, paths to take, so on so forth. Stats might determine 'caste' of the players caught as well.

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█ Spoiler: Nothing was accomplished in the hobbit, but I expected that out of the unexpected journey.

█ I'm sure some of you have read the reviews, praises, horror stories about the new 48 FPS and 3D mix bag that came out as a result of The Hobbit, and here's my personal experience of it all.

Before the movie started we were given a preview of the next Star Trek film, like... 10-15 minutes of it. Nothing remarkable from it, the 3D was okay and most likely filmed in 24 FPS, but don't quote me on that; I'm just relaying you what my eyes told me. Though why do I bring this up even? Well I think it served as an excellent contrast if my eyes indeed were telling me the truth. I was 'immersed' in the Star Trek preview. Nothing popped out at me that really took away from the experience, but honestly I don't believe it really enhanced my experience at all either.

Something I should mention is that I'm susceptible to motion sickness, mostly in the forms of FPS games, so I had some concerns that I would get it from The Hobbit since that was some of the problems experienced by other people from what I read. This did not come to pass, I did not get motion sickness. I probably didn't get motion sickness because my eyes never really believed what it was seeing was real.

There was talk about how prosthetic looked more fake, or the costumes seemed more fake, but I think that's just a bit of false outrage and people simply looking too hard. I only consciously looked to see how fake they were at only one point in the movie (staring at a dwarf nose), and my conclusion it looked fine; and the only thing that was really out of place was how human the dwarf king looked when virtually all the other dwarves looked... well like dwarves. Though that's more of a universal appeal drive as opposed to something about the technical stuff with the movie itself.

First off, 48 FPS is in my opinion detrimental to the movie experience as is. I suspect this won't be an issue when everything is in 48 FPS, because my eyes did adjust after about 30 minutes. Course people will say if your eyes adjusted then clearly it's fine, but I'm here to tell you that it's not. For the first part of the movie I was keenly and sharply aware that there was more frames than usual. Panning shots turned into slideshows, in where I could see every other frame. Again my eyes adjusted but during this time I was not immersed into the film experience, this wasn't a problem with the Star Trek 3D preview just right before mind you. My eyes were noticeably dry and tried during the adjustment period as well. Though it was worth it right? That with the full 48 FPS that the results were awesomesauce! Honestly, I didn't notice because I was immersed in the movie after. The only way you'd notice that you were watching twice as many frames is if you're not watching the movie, you're watching the frames.

So what of the 3D? It was... okay I guess? Again, this was something else that I just stopped noticing after my eyes adjusted. The only time I knew it was there was whenever I wanted to sag my head to the left or right a bit and then I'd get the double imaging, taking me out of the movie experience. I didn't feel immersed in the world of Middle Earth because of 48 FPS or 3D, those things were actually preventing me from settling into the movie 100%. The stone giants fighting each other I personally think is the weakest part of the movie on a whole because the whole part is screaming out "Fake" to me, and required a suspension of disbelief higher than I was willing; both in the CGI and people getting smashed between a mountain, and... well another mountain.

In the end what's the point? People were immersed just fine with older movies. I think the biggest thing to movie immersion was surround sound, when it comes to visuals the human eye is easily fooled. 24 FPS is what it takes to fool our eyes, adding more frames doesn't magically fool our eyes even more. More over our eyes are only designed to focus on a single thing at any given time. It's why even small screens with a proper movie that people will completely forget about the edges of the screen. Glue a person's eye to near the middle and the box that s the screen simply ceases to exist. I mean when you're reading this were you aware what is to the left and right of your monitor? Likely not. Though now that I've written it in, you're probably suddenly aware of it. It's that breaking of the illusion that is what needs to be avoided when presenting a movie, and 3D keeps breaking you out of it the moment you see a badly put together 3D scene or if you tilt your head. The 48 FPS, the adjustment time just kills that too. I imagine if the previews were 48 FPS you can spend that time for your eyes to adjust and the movie would be fine then; still what's the point? In the end you won't notice it. At the end of the movie I forgot that it was 48 FPS, I forgot it was 3D; but I honestly felt less immersed than older movies.

Honestly I'm still waiting for VR technology to fully come to fruition in where you put on a visor that will cover your whole field of view, and that if you turn your head the world will change with your movements. So that when you're watching a movie that when you look at something off to the side you'll see what's off to the side. How a narrative would be presented to people would be something that would have to be explored and would be an entirely new frontier to explore when it comes to entertainment.

█ I suppose I should mention Smaug, with me being a dragon fan and all. I didn't really expect to see him, and really you don't. Personally I don't hold any expectations for dragons in theaters as most of them I label as 'wyverns' to start with, and generally designed in a way that strips them of any potential character.

█ As for what I thought of The Hobbit on a whole, I can appreciate it for what it seems to be: A prequel that is to be watched before the original trilogy. That it is to be a series that adds to what LotR established (unlike certain movies riding the coat-tails of older trilogies) I never read any of the books, but I'm a medieval fantasy fan in general, and LotR was one of the few movies that got it 'right.' When I say right, I mean how it wasn't riddled with political correctness which ultimately damaged the narrative.

There were too many characters overall, I can't remember any of the names of the dwarves; though to be perfectly fair after 3 movies I still had a hard time remember who was Merry and who was Pippen; and mainly because they were introduced as a pair. You're just going to run into problems when you introduce a dozen characters at the exact same time and not enough time to develop them. This isn't necessarily a bad thing since this is a story about Bilbo Baggins, and when I think about it that way, it's a good story about him trying to prove himself to himself and everyone else.

Cause I'm sure for some of you Christmas has come and gone already!

Hope your holiday is or has been relatively stress free.

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█ Do me a favor and understand everything before posting █

█ The world didn't end and my hand/wrist/arm is still recovering, but I think I can still manage to do some commission work without maiming myself further... hopefully.

Anyways, I'm opening up commissions for a stand alone XXXmas image. You can pick stuff from what XXXmas series I've been doing which include: Snowmen, reindeer, xmas tree, gift wrapped, Santa's helper, and other things along that line, like say a "sexy Santa's helper fem suit" or I don't know a very oddly shaped candy cane, or tinsel bondage.

Procedure for this commission set is as follows:

- Post in this journal if you want a commission (Please don't note me)
- Provide a reference sheet
- Theme you want
- Level of Bondage Progression (1 to 5, with 5 being fully complete)

General ToS for commissions still apply.

█ I'll try to do these commissions in a somewhat timely manner with consideration to not making my current injuries worse.

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█ My wrist and hand are feeling a bit better today, but I discovered that there's a sore point above my right elbow as well. Supposedly mouse elbow or whatever the euphemism is now these days. I had to stop and think about why that area would be particularly sore while I was massaging the area, and I came to the following conclusion: My arm isn't supposed to bend that way.

To clarify, keep your elbows to your sides and try to rotate your arms out to side horizontally as much as you can. You can't really get to far unless you move your elbows out and horizontal as well. The thing is I've probably been doing this motion a lot without being conscious of it, the main reason being is that I want to center my chair with my keyboard, so my hands and arms are even with it. This of course means I have to make that motion that my arm isn't supposed to do (elbow slightly to my side, but bending outwards) to reach and manipulate the mouse.

Granted this is just a theory on my part, but seems to make sense as my arms and elbows are typically resting on my armrest so my elbow isn't moving around with the rest of my arm, probably straining it that way. Course without the armrest my shoulders then start to feel the ache instead. So as a bit of an experiment I'm repositioning my chair, keyboard, and mouse in such a way so my arm doesn't have to bend outwards to reach at and manipulate the mouse. Problem is my desk wasn't quite designed for such an arrangement (has a sliding tray for the keyboard/mouse). I think I might start searching for a keyboard that cuts out the num pad, because I don't need it and it's just that much more I have to angle my arm to reach the mouse.

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Eagle Snatches Baby!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CE0Q904gtMI
Countered by Gravity Grass Pull and Internet Skepticism Ultimate C-c-comboooo!
(My first thought was the kid should have been screaming due to the talon wounds)

█ Bought a wrist brace last night and slept with it on to keep it from flopping around like I assume a fish. My hand/wrist does feel slightly better, but I'm going to give it one more night at least before I attempt to go back to drawing. I doubt it's the best brace ever, and I might try to make some alterations to it, since it applies a bit too much pressure around my thumb.

█ While I'm writing a journal I might as well put out some details as to the next commission set. It's going to be the $10 set again, but it will be "XXXmas" themed which means it'll be stuff centered around what has happened in the past few comic series as stand-alone images. I'll probably list out the image selections on the actual commission journal tomorrow in the event my hand is like 90-100% For that commission series I'll try to do them all as how I did the old $10 commissions. Maybe I'll be all healed up just in time for the end of the woooooorld! I mean I'd do an end of the world themed commission set, but I don't think I can make earthquakes, volcano, tsunamis, and the rise of the living dead 'sexy.' Oh I'm sure that would be doable, but not by me, not my thing!

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█ I might be taking a break from arting for a day or few. In short my drawing hand is a little sore. It's nothing I wouldn't be able to tough it out, but I'd rather not exacerbate whatever is causing the soreness. I suspect it might have something to do with how I sleep, as I might end up resting on either arm all night or something that's probably not exactly good for my hands. Another thing probably adding the problem is how I draw. Probably bad angles, how I sometimes hold my tablet, my posture so on so forth.

Granted these problems wouldn't occur if I only drew for 1-2 hours a day, but when I get into the whole process I can be at it for the whole day with short breaks throughout. In any case me trying to take it easy on my hand had the side effect of shifting the pressure and the soreness to my shoulder and opposite elbow instead.

I really should take better care of myself. I suppose I should really start to consider buying maybe a brace for my wrist for when I'm sleeping.

█ I'll be opening up individual commissions once I feel my hand isn't going to falling off. They'll likely still be XXXmas theme though, as in you pick something of what I done recently and I'll draw it as a stand along picture. So hope for a speedy recovery on my part then!

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█ This is going to be one of them 'emotional' journal entries, so if you don't want to read about it bail out now.

█ So yeah, 20 kids dead, all of them between the ages of 6-7. I've been thinking about writing a journal on it for sometime now, but I don't have anything to add to the subject. Nothing has changed since Columbine, and if anything the gun culture has become even more entrenched. The past year has been riddled with mass shootings, none of them sparked a single lick of a response from the American government. Do I think this shooting will make things different? No.

America has gone through this song and dance dozens of times already. Don't talk about gun control, talk about how insane and unstable the shooter was. Blame video games, blame movies, blame music, blame the parents; blame everyone but the utter lack of gun control. You have people who constantly say how criminals will get their hands on guns away, how everyone should be armed, how less people would have been killed if only just everyone was trained and armed.

Even on the day of this most recent school shooting you had people saying that less children would have been killed if only the teachers were packing heat. They of course had to say if only the teachers had been armed, because these maniacs can't argue "If only the six year olds were trained and armed with guns"

Nothing has changed, and I'm going to say it now: Nothing will change. The fact of the matter is that on average three dozen Americans a day are killed by guns. That the mass shooting that happened, that happens on a daily basis in the span of half a day.

I'm a Canadian, I don't really care one way or the other about the American culture other than as an object that I can spit on safely, much in the same way I can spit on the American social safety net (or more accurately complete lack of one) I don't envy people living in the USA. I don't envy the near constant fear they live in. The fear of losing your job, the fear of getting sick, the fear of being shot to death. There's a massive fear culture in America, that you are never secure, that you are never safe, that you are on your own. How can anyone live like that? That someone is going to steal your job, that someone is going to rob, rape, then murder you. That the justice system will not protect victims in the least. That someone can be murdered in broad daylight, the killer known; and the killer goes free. That the place you work in can be bought out and sold for parts in an instant. That your insurance evaporates the moment you need it. With so much fear around Americans, it's of little surprise to me that a number of them feel more comfortable sleeping with a gun under their pillow.

In the end I laughed at the school massacre. You can think of me less for it, but I'll give you the reason why:

In a newspaper that reported on the mass killing of children was embedded an advertisement. That advertisement is of Santa Claus selling guns.

I think that's a great example of what the USA is today: Completely and totally not self-aware of it's own insanity. That it punctuates quite nicely the story: Guns are a toy, and had nothing to do with the massacre.

So I laugh, I laugh because even The Onion would never have produced something so absurd. Though I give credit to The Onion, they created an article that I think that probably sums up the feelings of Americans about the shootings.

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█ Do me a favor and understand everything before posting █

█ Next comic theme is going to be something loosely based off an idea suggested to me. It will be running with a 'gift' theme in where what, or rather who, the gifts are is obvious. So will be bondage and the stuffing of the orifices, as might be somewhat predictable as well.

It's going to be $20 as like the previous sets. There's going to be no stats involved for this particular one as this is more of a processing line. The information I'll need from you is the following:

Character Reference Link
Who the "gift" is for (can be for yourself if you don't have anyone in mind)
It will be from your character
STAGE: Holding, Processing, or Finished

Holding will just be your character being held with some implements being ready to be attached/inserted so on so forth

Processing is having some devices. bondage, wrapping in progress.

Finished will have your character bound on their knees arms bound to the front/side/back depending on what would work in the situation.

I'm not sure how I'll handle accepting commissions in this particular journal, so my apologies in advance if you don't get picked. However, I'll probably be able to accept a bit more due to how this one is structured. We'll have to see how well my sanity holds up when actually drawing.

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But it's so cute! Jurassic Prank

█ I'm slowly working out the kinks of doing these short comic series, and so far so good. I feel that this is something a bit more manageable now, and slightly more interesting for me personally than just doing a theme and essentially doing slight variations of a single image. It also has more direction than the $10 I'll draw nearly anything commissions I did awhile back.

Though I suppose I should perhaps what you the viewers think of it.

In addition to that, of what other "XXXmasy" theme you might want to see, or if there should be more of something that was shown in the previous two comic bits. There's still two weeks of the holidays left after all!

█ One thing I'll be changing if I do continue to do these comic-strip theme based commissions is that I'll be adjusting my roll system. I'll basically be rolling two dice: One for myself and one for the character that's involved. The stat bonus will be added to the roll, and it will be set against my own roll plus whatever arbitrary stat bonus I decide to give myself. Which is to say I can give my own rolls a +11 bonus to ensure no one can actually 'win' a situation of course.

█ I also still have my flash game project that I'll be working on and off on as well. I'm getting some help from Zenon on that front in terms of programming, but overall everything is still in the preliminary stages and I need to put in some more thought as to the actual flow of the game itself.

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█ Do me a favor and understand everything before posting █

█ I gave myself some reflection time on the setup of the last commission project and will be making a couple of tweaks to how I'll try this next set. After putting some thought into what might count as 'winning' I decided that I'd probably use Endium being a bit more personally involved with whoever is the last one standing so to speak. Something that was driving me a little crazy was drawing everyone grouped up at the start, I might do something a little different to setup the premise, maybe just something to the effect of Endium doing a bit of exposition before switching to what happens to the 'participants.' This will give things a somewhat more concrete start and ending point.

The next change I'm going to be doing is tweaking how the stats player present will be effecting the overall series of pictures. How well they do determining how far progressed they are through being caught/processing/ect. I'll probably try to think of two different methods of capture per themed project to make things slightly more interesting. The first method being 'avoidable' the second not so much. I might try to put in some kind of display that will show the results of the 'roll' or something.

█ The commission price will be $20 and I'll still be arbitrarily picking who I want to use for these projects until I find tune and iron out all the various kinks of how I want to do these things. Post a reply in this journal with the following info for a shot at me including you in it.

Character Sheet
Ego: 1-5 (personality trait)
Fitness: 1-5 (physical trait)
Insight: 1-5 (behavior trait)
Character Ability: (one special ability if applicable)
Fate: (Not applicable for this one, everyone is going to be a 'reindeer' in the end)

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I do not apologize for any mental scarring that occurs...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ5ziNOtoMU

█ Do me a favor and understand everything before posting █

█ Been four months since my last set of commissions, and this will be something new and different. I personally have no idea how this will pan out, but I'll be giving it a shot nonetheless. The gist of it is as I explained in my previous journal is that I'll be essentially doing a themed but somewhat RPG based commission set. There's going to be at least three images done for this particular commission, but people will likely only show up in 1-2 of them as opposed to all three; and this is dependent on the RPG elements.

I'm going to be somewhat vague as to what may or could possibly happen happen over the images, as that's part of the fun of acting as a game master; players don't really go into it knowing fully what will happen.

The Setting: An ornament production facility that's recently been gearing up to create various holiday themed items for sale such as snowmen, gingerbread men, Santas, reindeer, helper elves, various wrapped gifts, and various toys. Though how these things are made seem to be somewhat suspicious.

The Players: A group of out of town tourists have been unwittingly redirected into this facility to sight see. What production secrets will the bear witness to? And who will they be able to tell if anyone?

█ Commissioning Information
Cost: $20 (This will be paid after the commission set is done)

Your character will be facing some kind of holiday themed bondage/encasement kind of peril in a group with others.

I'll try to get this commission set done in a timely manner when I decide the make up the group that goes into this scenario.

It's going to be arbitrary who I pick for this, not first come first serve. I reserve the right to reject character submissions for the sake of my own very fragile personal sanity. That said should be a fairly high chance I take your character on so long as there isn't a huge amount of submissions and isn't overly complicated to draw.

I'm looking to basically do a group of around 5-6, though exceptions will allow for slightly more (see "FATE" below)

█ Character Submission Guidelines

This will be different from previous commission openings in where I only required a reference sheet. In addition to the reference sheet I will want some information about your character as well. There will be five things to describe about your character. Keep in mind that these things are mostly to do with how an image will be presented, so various nuances won't exactly show up.

First off I'm using a 1-5 scale to gauge 'ability'

1 - You're likely going to cause a disaster your ineptitude!
2 - You'll mess things up, but no one will get hurt.
3 - Average is average, it's good camouflage!
4 - You can solve the occasional problem.
5 - You might just bring about world enlightenment!

EGO: Determines the likeliness that you'll be in charge or not and how well you'll follow orders. Also determines if you'll confront something or try to run away. Overall this is meant as a brief description of person to person interaction. A couple of personality subcategories I think that apply here is "dominant" or "submissive" An example of a relationship that can happen is that a high ego submissive will not yield to a low ego dominant, a sort of situation in where an individual needs to prove themselves worthy to be dominated. Other subcategories that would work is "friendly", "aggressive", "selfish" so on so forth. Higher amounts of ego also comes with the implication that you'll be more like to put your own well-being above others as well. So a 4 might mean that you have a decent chance of pushing someone in the way of a trap, while a 5 would probably mean you'd most definitely would attempt to do so.

FITNESS: This is just going to be a general measure of how well your character would be able to handle any given physical challenge from moving things, to dodging stuff, or enduring the effects of being trapped in whatever thing my brain decided to come up with. Subcategories would be like "strong", "agile", "magical" so on so forth.

INSIGHT: More or less a combination of intellect and wisdom. Determines how quickly your character would be able to figure out a situation, and various ways to avoid or solve problems. Also determines the quality of choices your character makes. Subcategories here would be like say "curious", "cautious", "mediator", "quick-thinker" so on so forth.

SPECIAL ABILITY: If applicable, your character can have a special ability; but just one. The image series is short, so any given character would only have time to use a single ability for the purpose of this commission set. So I don't care if your character has 100 different abilities like some living Swiss army knife, you only get to use one (and even then you might not get the chance to do it)

FATE: This is a special case. If there's something specific you want to happen to your character you can put it in here, though of course this will largely go against the spirit of the RPGish theme I'm doing. There is one exception, if the fate you choose is "Already enslaved" then your character will be serving as a minion trying to capture the group (or as a wall decoration if the situation is applicable.

█ Character Submission Form

Name:
Reference Sheet Link:
EGO:
FITNESS:
INSIGHT:
SPECIAL ABILITY:
FATE:

█ And now I brace myself!

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█ A sort of status report among other things. For my own personal reference for down the future, it took about four months to recover from my last depressive cycle. Though for me the definition of not being depressed is actually having the energy to do the 'mundane' without an extreme need to distract myself with something else. Gives me a moderate amount of ability to focus.

I've been progressing extremely slowly on my flash game project, this is mostly due to having limited programming experience; but I'm getting closer to I suppose an epiphany in where everything actually falls into place in regards to my level of understanding of the programming language. Just one of those things that happen with enough repetition of any given skill. Though here's a bit of more detail of the progress of this project: The player sprite is going to have 124 different frames of animation. Or in other words is going to require me to draw 124 slightly different pictures. Thankfully enemy sprites won't be so massive, I think those can be restricted to maybe under 24 frames. I also of course have to put together a background and various effects.

I'm unsure of how long this will all take, and again I have no clue if I'll be able to stick to it to the point it's finished.

█ Let's see, commission stuff... Odds are the $10 commission thing won't be coming back to how I was doing it before. I might do it a couple of times a month. The main reason for this is that when I was reflecting on the experience in the past few weeks is that it was far too directionless for my own personal tastes, and I'm someone who enjoys a little bit of structure and direction. Which is to say that I'll probably be doing more 'themed' commissions that I occasionally did in the past.

Course I somewhat decided that simply doing a theme probably wasn't enough to satisfy my own needs in the long term, so I decided to do something a little bit different that would be more interesting for everyone involved. The idea I came up with is roughly becoming a sort of GM or "game master" along the lines of your pen and paper RPGs, but instead of telling a story I would be presenting it via drawings.

This has some inherent challenges on my part, namely my own concentration and focus levels which would pretty much restrict me to 2-4 pieces of art per 'story.' Odds are most stories would be presented in 3 pictures. The first one would be the party 'stumbling' across whatever situation I had setup, the second being them 'struggling' to get out of said situation, and the third ending up with them 'caught' or who knows maybe even escapes.

So what situations would be happening? Could be next to anything really. The ideas that came of the top of my head is a set of employees of Enduring Tech on an expedition to collect some samples of various exotic species of plants, or infiltrating a facility to retrieve something stolen, or a rescue party sent into an insect hive, or one that I figured would be appropriate for this month of touring through an 'ornament' factory.

Other details I'm not 100% clear on, but I'm getting there.

I think the cost per person is going to be around $20-50 depending on how prominently they'd be featured in the series of images. I think the party size would range from 3-8, I doubt I'd be able to manage more properly without certain exceptions.

Since this is going to be somewhat pen and paper RPGish inspired, yes there will be character creation / stats to be had. Though nothing as robust as your typical Strength/Agility/Stamina/Intelligence/Wisdom/Charm with sub categories of saving throws. That's kind of designed for on the go real time RPGing and I'm more or less using the stats to determine the flow of the images from one to the next (as well as success or failure of the given objective or story setup)

So what will be the stats involved? There will be three I'll be using for these series of commissions (should I decide to do it): Ego, Fitness, Insight. Each stat will be from 1-5 and can have some secondary descriptions/subcategories to them. So far my thoughts on it are as such:

Ego - Determines the likeliness that you'll be in charge or not and how well you'll follow orders. Also determines if you'll confront something or try to run away. Overall this is meant as a brief description of person to person interaction. A couple of personality subcategories I think that apply here is "dominant" or "submissive" An example of a relationship that can happen is that a high ego submissive will not yield to a low ego dominant, a sort of situation in where an individual needs to prove themselves worthy to be dominated. Other subcategories that would work is "friendly", "aggressive", "selfish" so on so forth. Higher amounts of ego also comes with the implication that you'll be more like to put your own well-being above others as well. So a 4 might mean that you have a decent chance of pushing someone in the way of a trap, while a 5 would probably mean you'd most definitely would attempt to do so.

Fitness- This is just going to be a general measure of how well your character would be able to handle any given physical challenge from moving things, to dodging stuff, or enduring the effects of being trapped in whatever thing my brain decided to come up with. Subcategories would be like "strong", "agile", "magical" so on so forth.

Insight - More or less a combination of intellect and wisdom. Determines how quickly your character would be able to figure out a situation, and various ways to avoid or solve problems. Also determines the quality of choices your character makes. Subcategories here would be like say "curious", "cautious", "mediator", "quick-thinker" so on so forth.

How the stats interact with each other will probably play a part in what happens. A high ego low insight character would likely end up being in charge of whatever group forms, and as such would likely lead them all to their doom pretty quickly. High fitness but low insight as another example might mean your character attempts to avoid a trap but only ends up leaping straight into another.

█ Feel free to leave some feedback on this idea. Depending people's reactions I'll probably setup a commission for this particular themed thing a few days from now.

I suppose a little bit of an update, I'm getting a bit closer as to what would have been normal pre-emotional breakdown. Though I wonder a bit if "emotional breakdown" would be the appropriate words to use because certainly when I read that word I kinda envision someone breaking down, curling up into a fetal position and sobbing, which certainly doesn't apply to my state of mind. I suppose that's part of the problem with mental health is that's the mental picture that's commonly portrayed: A weeping sobbing sad sulky person. There's nothing that really portrays 'emptiness' and generally when that's portrayed, it's of movie psychopathic villains who kill people indiscriminately. It's not really a 'real' thing it seems, when it comes to this particular culture of existing in an emotional vacuum. It's easy to put on a smile and be 'normal', but much harder to have actual feeling behind that smile.

Though I digress a bit. First off thanks to you all for your words of support, it's a cliched thing, but it does help a bit; but it's not really the warm fuzzies, and a bit more of me putting on a smile to be honest. It's sorta who I am for better or for worse, always having some kind of emotional barrier up.

Anyways when it comes to this particular 'reset' isn't as I suppose severe as it might seem to people reading the word. Simply it's just me cleaning up my various FA notices: Notes, submissions, comments, journals. As such I pretty much know next to nothing of what has happened in the past three and a half months. I skimmed what was visible on my shouts and what notes I had received (but responded to none of them). It's sort of me pushing everything up to this point into the past so I can move forward a bit. So if you're someone who sent me a note that requires my attention right now, you'll have to send it again (as I've deleted all my notes)

I'm not open for commissions, and I won't really be doing art for awhile.

Though it's not like I'm not doing something right now. My current project is actually a flash game I'm in the middle of working on, and it will be in line with the theme of my gallery. There's not much more to say about it until I get further along with this project and have something more interesting to show for it. When I do have something to show for it I'll probably put it in my scraps. If I can stay focused on it and bring it to completion I'm sure the majority of you who watch me will enjoy it, but I promise nothing; my commitment to larger projects can be rather... fickle.

I'll probably do some personal art now and then as well if the inspiration strikes, but my particular level of inspiration is still a bit on the low side.

If you are reading this, then I assume that you're among those who like to know about 'stuff' outside of art that shows up on FA; which is a good thing because that's all I can offer at this point.

What's the crossroad I'm at? I suppose I'm not sure if my time at FA is done or not. I've been here a little while (or a long while depending on one's perception of time) and for the most part I've done what I originally set out to do. Course my original intent was to simply share my thoughts/ideas/art to sort of fill a kind of niche of content that was on the rare side (still is, but one artist wasn't going to change that) I've more or less expressed all the ideas I've wanted to, and in a sense my cupth runs dry. This by itself isn't really a problem, I probably could keep repeating, improving, adding slight twists to what I've done in the past for a long time to come.

I suppose the problem creeps in due to my emotional instability. This isn't to say I'm crazy crazy, my logical mind prevents that; however the problem is more central to my artistic drive and ability which is rather powerfully linked to my emotional state. That unfortunately gets tested, strained, and broken far more often than I've revealed. I still do or did this kind of stuff primarily for fun and personal enjoyment, but there are just things that creep in that takes the fun away. The main thing is the disappointment of others in whatever form it may come, and this creeps in all sorts of ways. Of course this is a larger problem of "You can't please everyone" but I do my best to find what works best because that's just how it works for me.

To elaborate on this, at a very young age a space was carved out of who I was that was to be filled with disappointment, sorrow, and emptiness. It's not something I wanted, it's simply the end result when something you cherish and love deeply (whatever it may be) is ripped from you. It's happened to me perhaps just under a dozen times throughout my life, I certainly don't want to think about each event to give them a number right now. Though that isn't the point, the point is that the last few negative thing that happens to me will sit in that place in my mind for a long time; and it will eat around the edges of my conscious thought. Sometimes I can catch myself slipping to that thought and stop it, other times I can't. Such things makes my life on a whole more unpleasant, and perhaps is the main reason why I keep to myself, why I keep my emotions and heart locked away. Though I'm still a person, and I open up a little now and then; but that just opens me up to more emotional stress and trauma.

Which of course brings me to why this is a crossroads, because if that was all that I considered I'd of course would have said my farewells and goodbyes. It's of course not. I do enjoy the flip side of the equation of having the occasional company of like minded folk. It's nice to know that my madness is not isolated, and that what I consider to be fun and interesting can be enjoyed and shared. It's just harder for that kind of thing to reach me because of my life's journey, been hurt far too many times to ever drop down all my defenses; but life keeps showing me why I need to keep at least some up at all times. Though to be fair, my time on FA has been one of the periods of my life in where I could have my guard down for the most part for longer than any other part of my time on Earth. Another way to put it I guess, is that it's hard to stop being a warrior when all you've done is fought all your life.

I'm trying to come to grips of what I've done here on FA, and where I want to go with it; the answer is kinda fuzzy. Even going 'nowhere' with it might be okay with me. I'm not a strong person, and for the most part I'm 'alone.' These things might fly in the face of everyone else perceptions of who I am, and what I outta be experiencing, but reality is a personal thing. It's why people give up on life despite having friends and family, because their love wasn't enough to reinforce them from the pain they were experiencing.

I've mentioned on past occasions that it's 5% of who I am on a whole that is essentially who Endium is and that which makes the stuff you see here on FA 'function' but that part of me is currently spent, idle, and or gone. I wouldn't go as far as to say that means all that I do is a farce or a lie (not that anyone would) but the internet is a place of projections; where you do things and act out in ways you probably wouldn't in the 'real.'

Perhaps an underlying problem when I think about it, is that I've let my personal suffering bleed out into the 5% of me who has never suffered before, and because of that I've had to stop on several occasions to really prevent it from getting 'worse'

At any rate, such are the thoughts I've been wrestling with for the past while, and I'll see if I have it in me to continue my journey through here. Though in either case I wouldn't worry about my gallery here, I have no intention of removing it. If you're to worry should panic over thoughts about every FA server and it's backups spontaneously combusting.

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I resonate http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VvB_UmmIzk&

█ A couple of weeks ago my body got sick, and I suppose a few days ago it's my soul that got sick.

It's hard to give such things substance or context, and I have the meters in my journal as a way to try and make how I am something more... tangible.

My default mood is depression, I simply have too many painful and horrible memories for it to be anything else. My heart simply has too many scars, and scars are a reminder of what has happened. It's not a constant reminder, but any time I reflect upon myself I see them. I see them much like how when I look over my own body I'll see a scar here or there reminding me of what caused it. You're never really aware of either unless you're looking for it.

It is because of this that whenever I end up looking upon myself I start to spiral back down to depression, because my confidence and self-worth is a house of cards: It's carefully and delicately assembled over a pit of broken glass, nails, and burning coals.

I suppose a house of cards is an adept metaphor because most things I've assembled through my life have been crushed or destroyed in one way or another. Any sane person would ask the question of "Why do you create, when it's just going to be destroyed and cause you suffering and grief?" and answer with "That is stupid." My answer every time has been and still is "Because I love to." Though even though it's something I love, it's hard to ignore the pain, the hurt, the suffering, the agony. I can't stop creating, because it's the only thing about me I have left that's worth anything; it is the only thing people can judge about me that I have any real care about. It's the only thing left I ache or cry about, or find joy in.

The core of the problem is that my heart is far too heavy, and can easily crush whatever semblance of happiness I manage to cobble for myself, and I've never been able to find away to build in a way in which can manage the burden of my past. Personally I don't want to be petty, I don't want small things to be able to topple me; but I can't change how I feel, I can't change my past, I can't erase my scars. I want to rise about it, but it's hard, when what you stand upon is so fragile.

Having friends does help, I'm not alone as I once was, but having friends doesn't help too much with the problem of self-confidence, worth, and esteem. Some of you might be baffled at such a notion considering what I have created here on FA, but that's simply how it is for me; that despite all the things I've created, the attention I've gotten, the enjoyment provided for others; it doesn't do much for the heart. I think it's simply this: that I'm sharing my heart, my mind, who I am with others; but it doesn't really go the other way around. I suppose such is the reason why celebrities spiral down into paths of self destruction, because they're surrounded by the ravenous masses that want more more more, and think that the attention and money they give is what sustains them; but I think that's a rather hollow and shallow way to look at it.

Such reasons is also why I write journals, because I need some kind of outlet for who I am; and not for simply what I create and present. I wish I could change many things about myself; but who doesn't save for the most self-absorbed of individuals? I wish I could be happier, and I do find it in bits and pieces. It'll have to do, and it's probably enough.

█ I'm trying to do some personal art, and I'll probably resume doing commissions again when I do.

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Go go, no win situations.

█ Likely won't be streaming Wednesday, I need some 'me' time; don't want to talk about it. My apologies.