Sadly, I am forced to do this. Since Patreon has rolled out it's new age verification scheme, I have been unable to convince their machines that I am not secretly five-years-old. Their service keeps rejecting my ID no matter what I do to improve the input, and Patreon Support has been uncooperative. I've spent the whole month trying to get it to work or for our corporate overlords to pay attention to me to no avail. Started trying to submit ID on the 9th, contacted Support on the 11th, got all of ONE response since then despite me sending three more messages back at them since.

I told them that if the situation was not resolved by the 31st, I'm suspending this account. It's the 31st, and no response, so that's that, I guess.

Unless Patreon gets off their butts or if I get the latest iDon'tPayMyOwnBills 9000 with a camera sharp enough to actually steal your soul, I won't be getting money anymore from you guys through there.

The enshittification of the Internet continues.

If you want to keep supporting me, there are other options. My Ko-fi account is still live, and has the option for repeated donations IIRC. Also, I have opened a SubscribeStar page and have actually uploaded content there. I am loathed to direct you guys to SubscribeStar because I don't care for the clientele, but unlike Patreon, their staff has been very helpful in getting me set up, and also haven't found it necessary to invade my privacy in the process.

Honestly, I feel this might be the beginning of the end for Patreon. They have been openly contemptuous of their creators for years, despite their impassioned assertions about how they listen to creator feedback, and doubly so of NSFW content creators. I can't say for certain that this age verification system isn't broken on purpose specifically so they can make things more difficult for 18+ creators and drive them off of the platform.

Thanks for all the support you've given me, as undeserved as it has been at times. If you want to continue to support me, again my alternate pages are

SubscribeStar
Ko-fi

Well, that was a mess. Let's bring some levity back, shall we? You know the drill, ask me or one of my OCs anything on any topic and I will contemplate about how every day we wander further from God's light answer them for you.

https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10557600

4. Why am I hearing about this now?
While this policy has had several small changes that were announced throughout the years, enforcement was never taken against the Pokémon or Digimon in sexual content that look like children or cubs although they violated the rules. After years of receiving user feedback via trouble tickets, we have decided to end this internal policy on July 1st, 2023.

Okay...

...why did it take eight years for you to decide that you can do this? The rules didn't specifically exclude Pokémon and Digimon characters before, so why did you feel it necessary to close up a carveout that didn't actually exist? Don't you understand how this makes you look like imbeciles? Why weren't you already doing this?

See, this is why in the US we have the right to remain silent, and why lawyers recommend their clients to observe STFU Friday about litigation they're involved in, criminal or civil, because almost all the time, there is nothing you can say that doesn't make your situation worse. FA Staff, please, SHUT THE FUCK UP.

The reason why people are panicking so much is because it is an open secret that you guys tend to be very "flexible" in the interpretation of your own rules. When you come out and say you're dropping the secret part of "open secret," people assumed the worst. For some reason, this surprised you.

Actually, no, fuck that guy, he's an AI bro.

In my vain efforts to do some good in my life before its inevitable end, I always try to boost good artists who don't yet have the same reach as I do:

==>  redustheriotact <==

https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10552819

any reports we receive of Pokémon or Digimon who have childlike body proportions or appear as adolescent animals will be treated as any other when in the presence of sexual activity, sexual objects, nudity, or fetishized in a sexual way.

They...do know that this is like 80% of Pokémon and Digimon-themed art, right? Like Pokémon's core character design is childlikeness, large eyes, large heads, short stubby limbs, round features, you know?

I don't who is in charge of making these policy changes, but they need to be kicked off the team because they're leading the site down a bad path.

EDIT: Oop, now they added an addendum clarifying that they are totally not going to ban anything that happens to look like a cub if someone happens to be looking at your monitor through a slat in your house siding as they drive by or anything. That would be crazy...but they totally will if they want to.

This is a really reaching question because the number of content creators in my follows is somewhere in the neighborhood of zero, but I have to ask: is anyone else having trouble with the new age-verification system that Patreon is forcing on creators? My attempts to do it have been nothing short of infuriating.

Have any of you all filled out my commission form recently and not gotten a response from me? I've been ghosted multiple times over the past few month with people making inquiries, being directed to my commission form, and then I'm getting no response. I want to know if requests are not going through or something like that.

You know the drill: ask me or one of my characters anything and I'll consider whether life is still worth living answer them.

Crying about lack of diversity when you've been punished for denying the legitimate existence of a whole class of people is like crying when you got your ass kicked after you punched a pacifist in the face. Yeah, you made them break their code, but you're still the bitch who lost a fight with the one person you thought wouldn't retaliate. You didn't win the argument; you're just a bully who got what was coming to them.

Oh, and strong words coming from someone who keeps drawing dudes wearing thigh-highs and ponytails. Not saying your house is glass, but we can all see you poop.

(Casual reminder not to drop names if you recognize who I am talking about, or you'll get the fish.)

P.S. Oh, and claiming you had lots of support while locking the comments for the journal saying so? Also a classic loser bitch move.

I'm a bit troubled. It's not going so far as to say I am "concerned" yet, but I am a bit troubled.

I'm going to start off by stating a basic fact, which anyone who has run a Discord server knows and which we have been reminded of very much recently thanks to a certain unnamed formally-wealthiest man torching two of his companies and his personal wealth all at the same time: Content Moderation is HARD. You think it would be simple, but you can measure in hours it will take until you encounter an edge case, and will be forced to dance a very delicate dance with your rules, and failure could mean effectively undercutting your own authority by being too permissive, or turning into a capricious dictator and driving users away. If you're an especially talented fuck-up, you can accomplish both. Because of this, I tend not to be too quick to criticize moderators since their job is difficult and thankless, despite how important it is.

But that doesn't mean I don't keep an eye on them, and one of the things I pay attention to is how they word their rules. Back when Furry Life Online was getting started, I had set up an account, but I started getting the willies when I was reading through the rules and decided not to follow through with setting up an account there. Considering how that site collapsed (an impressive feat considering how Weasyl is still going,) I feel like I was justified in my suspicions about the people who were running that place. When you're telling your users to report people who are "making outrageous claims about site staff," that's a red flag big enough to march through Beijing.

I bring this up because I am getting the willies again.

I have objections to two of the changes, and I am not sure which to start with.

I want to make clear up-front that I am very firmly in the anti- part of the current "AI Art" culture war. I had been meaning to go in depth at some point, but my feelings are it's not art, and the people who promote it tend to be both greatly ignorant of and contemptuous to the artistic process, and are invited to stick their dick in a computer's power supply if they are so confident in their programs. I put it so bluntly so you understand the gravity of what I am saying when I think FA's AI ban is draconian.

It's one thing to be vigorous in wanting to make sure real artists are not being drowned in a sea of only-somewhat-less-random than RNG content on your art site, and quite another to forget that the reason it has taken off the way it has is because it is difficult for the casual viewer to tell it apart from regular art. It steals from human artists, so therefore it looks like human-made art. Because of that, any zero tolerance policy is inevitability going to catch innocent parties. A zero tolerance is impossible, and so obviously impossible that I am disturbed by anyone who even entertains the possibility that is. FA staff has assured me directly that they "have ways" of telling whether an image is generated or not. Considering their track record, I don't really believe them. Site-runners always "have ways."

However, it doesn't stop there: they've expanded it:
Content made using AI, machine learning, or similar generators is not allowed, including derivative works created from it (e.g. stories, audio, backgrounds, paint-overs, using one's own content to generate new content).(emphasis mine)

The actual fuck? You can't even write stories based on an AI image? It's one thing to be against AI art, but another to be so against it that you can't even draw any inspiration from it! I mean, they probably meant not to upload a story that has the AI image as a cover image, but that's not how they phrased it, and we know phrasing is very important to them because of one of other changes they made:

Minors may not have detailed bulges or outlines of normal or hyper genitalia, clothed or otherwise. Minors may not be fetishized. Minors younger than 13 may not be depicted as pregnant. Minors are defined as real or fictional humanoids with a childlike body or younger than 18 years old, and any adolescent animals.

Changes to section 2.7 are highlighted in bold. This change was made to close a loophole some individuals were trying to stretch past our initial intent.

What does this mean? What did this change? Exactly what kind of content was slipping past the rule before that doesn't anymore? Why would you even need this specific wording, since at least everyone who reads this has at least one story of a FurAffinity staffer who took down a submission based on an overly-broad interpretation of a rule? Are you afraid that you would get sued in FA Court who would FA Overrule your takedown and reinstate content because you wrote the rules on your own site which you own and control incorrectly? I have two interpretations of this, either

1.) It's the state of being a minor, or the appearance or the things associated with the state of being a minor, that cannot be fetishized. Essentially, any kind of ageplay is now banned, whether the characters are actually minors or not. Sucks to be you, diaperfurs.

or

2.) You're not allowed to do any fetish art involving minors, which has multiple problems.

I have a personal distaste for the "-ize" verbs (fetishize, sexualize, normalize, etc) that contemporary intelligencia have become accustomed to using. Whenever I hear someone using those words, I am roughly 60 seconds away from concluding that the person would more valuably exercise the use of their time by taking a break and pouring themselves a tall glass of Mind Your Own Business. It's a weirdly nihilistic way of looking at things, as if the thing cannot have innate trait but only the traits that can be imparted to it by others. But, let's entertain it for a bit, and break down what it means.

A fetish, used in the modern psychological sense, means a non-sexual object or act that is the subject of a sexual fixation (the technical definition actually omits even acts but I'm correcting for what seems to be an oversight.) That means when you fetishize something, you are imparting a sexual characteristic that didn't exist before. That's a problem for this rule because the objects and acts presented in fetish are inherently non-sexual and are typically used in non-sexual ways, so, how do you tell the difference? There is such thing as balloon fetish: does that mean we're no longer to make art that has both a minor and a balloon in it? If that seems nit-picky to you, I remind you that I'm not the one that started the nitpicking. This is legitimately concern of mine, because do I have to worry that someone is going to my slice-of-life piece about a father having to explain what a polysexual relationship is to his young daughter because she saw her mother aggressively making out with a family friend, interpret this as "fetish art," and squeal to the mods who will take this picture down, which, again, the mods here have a bad habit of doing? This meaning seems to me to be facilitating to abuse of power than doing anything useful.

And if by "fetish art" you just mean "sexual art with unusual themes," then it was already banned so why did you make the change?

A few months ago,  RickGriffin got one of his pictures taken down because he used an AI image generator to generate a small part of the background. Not even the whole background, just the very backscape of it, roughly 20% of the image IIRC. He speculated that he got pinched because he said that he used one in the interest of transparency, and not because of any of the "ways" that staff said they had. In the discourse we were having on Twitter at the time, I managed to get the ear of one of the policy makers of FurAffinity. I won't say who it was, but we went back and forth for about a day, and I left that conversation feeling that I had been conversing with a moron, a person who is impulsive, uncareful, and, while not openly hostile, was dismissive of negative feedback, specifically when I was explaining that I had perfectly predicted that a case like Griffin's would happen and staff had ignored me. As tempting as it is to try to write this off as "Oh, Furaffinity..." again, the interaction had left me with a very dim opinion of the rule-makers for this site, and that bothers me when they start drafting rules as overreaching as these.

Whenever I see a talented artist with fewer followers than I do, I do what I can and give them a signal boost.

...who thinks the UI redesign (barely) is hideous and I wish websites would quit trying to fix what ain't broken.

Like, the changes are small, but they are really bad.

Since this keeps happening, I'm going to have to address some things:

- I'm never going to beg you for a commission. If you want work from me, it is you who is going to have to be proactive about putting the deal together. The deal isn't made until money is exchanged.
- Related to the first point, if you're not serious about following through with a commission, don't bother me about it. I've been ghosted repeatedly on commissions (one person has done it three times in a row,) and it's getting a bit annoying.
- If you have questions about content, it's in the TOS! You have to scroll through it to even get to the form I provided. Can you read? I hope you can because otherwise communication is going to be really difficult. Don't ask piecemeal questions about what's okay; you're just wasting both our time. Just fill out the form so I will know exactly what you want up front, and then we can discuss whether it is doable or not. The worst thing I'll do is say no. I'm not going to call you out in front of everyone; that only happens to people who try to screw me on payment.

Posted using PostyBirb

Just letting you all know that my commission form is still open. There are some previously unexpected expenses coming up and I want to shore up some finances some more. Be sure you read the questions carefully: I got some loopy answers in the last go around.

Form: https://forms.gle/z9FwoXVdcFkP6csh6

I also have a Redbubble store, if you want something less pricey than a commission.

Redbubble Store: https://www.redbubble.com/people/LonelyLupine/shop

Posted using PostyBirb

https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10361702

Automatic reviewing systems have been a disaster in literally every place they have been implemented, and since it is FA we're talking about, the results are gonna be hilarious.

So, uh, I just found out that I am out of money, and payday is a whole week and a half away, so, yeah, I'm going to need some funds to tide me over.

Same deal as last time, go to the Google Form I have set up and pitch to me your offer. I'll take the pitches I like and then send you invoices over PayPal.

Also, a reminder that Lucia is no longer available for NSFW comms.

Go here to make your order:
https://forms.gle/CjTRNdFfFJwzS4kJA

Posted using PostyBirb

Meant to ask this in the morning but I forgot. You know the rules: ask me or my characters anything and you will be relentlessly mocked get an answer.

This is probably a mistake, but I've decided to try out Artfight this year, on the side of team Bloom.

My profile:
https://artfight.net/~LoneWolf

Posted using PostyBirb

Ask me or my characters questions, get answers, yadda yadda yadda.

Been playing with some new OCs for a couple months now so maybe you'd like to know more about them?

I think I am getting all the responses I'm going to, so I am closing up the form now.

I hadn't intended to reopen commissions for a while, but my regular job's schedule has been severely disrupted as we are relocating our machine operation center, and it's been a right mess. It would be nice to fill my coffers back up a bit.

I'm going to accept just three submissions at this time. Instead of doing it first-come-first-served, I've made a Google Form that you can fill out your pitch, and I'll pick those pitches I like from there.

However, there is a new rule that I want you all to see: LUCIA IS NOW OFF-LIMITS FOR NSFW! I know you all love your stern dragon mommy, but I have never been comfortable drawing her that way, and it usually left me feeling miserable. It was one of the reasons I burned out completely and stopped taking commissions entirely a few months ago. But, Daddy LoneWolf has pulled out his old sexdolls for you, so you can play with those instead if you want to. It's what they were built for.

The Form for pitching your commission is here:
https://forms.gle/5CEsPvFxDUvq3thc6

Posted using PostyBirb

Managed to squeak this in before Wednesday...kept forgetting I wanted to do one of these.

You know the drill, ask me more one of my characters and I or they will laugh at your stupidity happily answer them. I've shoveled a whole new set of characters onto you, so if you want to know anything more about them, now is the time.

Hi, today is my birthday, and I've decided that I'm going to celebrate with a chill stream later this evening. The tentative start time is 7p CST, but I don't know for sure if it will start exactly at that time since I am being treated to dinner before that. It should start no later than 8p. I'll do a more formal announcement when I do start.

Stream will be here: https://picarto.tv/LoneWolf. Go there now and subscribe if you care.

This might be the last you will see of them for a while.

Simply put, the sanctions levelled against Russia have mortally wounded its economy. Things are already plummeting there, and they're going to get much worse. It's probably too late to even send them money of any kind because how their banks have been carved out of the world economy. In response, Russia's government is going to start bringing the hammer down on their own people in an ill-advised attempt to bring things back under control. They'll probably be locking down their internet and maybe even their borders very soon.

Those with Russian contacts should get in touch with them ASAP. They're going to need it.

Also, fuck Putin.

Posted using PostyBirb