I can't believe the people who come to NFC. Every time I go to run my daily event I'm worried that people will be disappointed. It's not elaborate. It's not flashy. It's not even remotely interesting. Of course people are going to be disappointed. But if they are, they are hiding it really well. They seem to genuinely enjoy it. They thank me. It's a strange feeling to be surrounded by loving people.
On the last day of the con, I decided on one last run of my event. I didn't expect anyone to turn up except maybe that one guy who went to all of them. Turned out half the damn lobby was there for me. Instead of a handful of people like usual, I had a small army of people. I really ought to have gone home from the con right after that, it would have been such an amazing feeling to end on.

You know what? I'll do that next year.

And like, I was so overwhelmed by all the people I couldn't manage to take on my other role as game master for the entire con. It wasn't until the last day that I could bring myself to do it. Was anybody upset? Did people say anything negative at all? No. They politely lined up, worried about my health, told me how amazingly great it was to see me and how much fun they were having.

You guys.

I don't have words.

Ask for Dook by name.

An increasingly large part of getting older is losing people who were part of your life. As I am, so they were. As they are, so I will be. It's nature. Happily for me I am almost a decade older than most of my close friends, and have a couple of chronic diseases to boot. I won't have to outlive them.

But I guess I have to outlive Dragoneer.

I didn't know him. Never met him, spoke with him or even exchanged messages with him. It doesn't matter. I live and breathe - figuratively speaking - in this community that he was a large part of creating and maintaining. And now he is gone. I don't know the circumstances. Like I said, I didn't know him. I barely keep up with social media. But like with Snout a couple of years ago, he was a pillar of the community. Part of the foundation of my world. And now that pillar is gone, an uncomfortable reminder of mortality, and of what will ultimately happen to me and to everyone I care about.

Starting tomorrow, I'll be there. See you there? Ask for Dook. Accept no substitutes.

Would you believe me if I told you that I only just now finished unpacking from NFC 2019? Actually most people who know me probably would not just believe it but expect it.

Turns out I put down my swag bag when I came home and never picked it back up until now. Lots of fond memories, and some embarrassing ones. I remember sitting at a table and drawing, and someone comes up to me and says hello, and they apparently know about me. Socially awkward me says hello and struggles to figure out what to say next. Spotting their badge I say "oh, you're a hyena! I like hyenas!" and they say "yes, I follow you on FurAffinity" which immediately brought to mind just what kind of hyena drawings I post...

Had this been a cartoon, this would have been where I threw a smokebomb and vanished.

But no, I was just putting it off.

Here you go.

https://tapas.io/episode/2889355

I have one again. Expect Dook comics in relation to it to appear. The first birb comic related to it is already completed in my head. It just needs to be drawn.

https://tapas.io/episode/2751021

Go and read it, subscribe, all that jazz. I need some encouragement.

Finally!

https://tapas.io/episode/2740364

It lives! Now to scan my backlog of naked birds.

But my scanner is. So that's gonna put a bit of a damper on my production for a while.

In light of a recent misunderstanding, I'd like to clarify a few points:

Yes, I do take suggestions.
In fact, I love taking suggestions.
Drawing something that pleases both me and somebody else is one of my greatest joys in life.

They are, however, suggestions.
If it inspires me, I'll draw it.
Or something similar to it.
Or something on a tangent.

If it doesn't inspire me, it might stew a bit in the back of my mind and then surface later.
Who knows?
But if it doesn't inspire me, it's not happening.
I draw on my own time, for my own sake and that of the poor misguided people who I can only assume accidentally followed me and now can't unfollow me for fear of hurting my feelings.


"But you drew [ similar thing ] before!"

Yes. Before. Not now. Also, similar, not this specific thing.


"But you draw [ other character fanart | other person's OC | cucumber ] all the time!"

Because I know them and I like them, which coincidentally, inspires me more. So I draw it more.


I hope this doesn't come across as too harsh, I just don't want to make anyone disappointed.
As long as you are okay with the fact I may, or may not draw what you suggest, please do keep the suggestions coming.

Thank you for your patronage!

I made one

https://tapas.io/episode/2427659

I'm getting sick of "ew penis"

Like, great, you spotted the penis. Fantastic. Your parents must be really proud of you.

BUT

I would like to invite you to ALSO look at the remaining 98% of the drawing, specifically the characters' faces which are RIGHT IN THE CENTER, being the focus element of the picture, and which take up 50% of the surface of the drawing.

But sure, obsess over the dick.

I mean, if getting hysterical is your kink, go ahead.

But don't drag me into it, okay?

I just can't get into inktober this year. Last year and the year before that I had a character that I followed, but I just can't motivate myself this year. Can't think of a character that's interesting enough to draw over and over like that, and then write about.

Finally done. I fell behind on the uploads and FA doesn't allow bulk uploads and I can't be arsed to spend half an hour uploading one text file at a time, so I'll just link the site.

https://sites.google.com/view/nanoi.....tober2020/home

Enjoy!

So a couple of readers have been confused by the jumps in time period in my stories. They're due to the fact that I'm writing about two different Shalinas.

One of them is Shalina al-Sayeed, a barbary weasel from Sebta in northern Africa. She lived in the 1650:es and made a living as a fisher and smuggler of books until she was kidnapped by the British East India Company and forced to work on one of their ships to the Far East, where she disappeared.

The other is Shalina Maloof, who is a contemporary person. She also lived in Sebta until a (fictional) civil war broke out and she fled to the USA but suffered maltreatment due to racism and islamophobia. During an islamophobic protest which turned into a riot she badly injured a woman and fled once again, this time to Botswana via Panama. There she met her boyfriend Shem, who is from Kenya.

Hey.

I'm not the only one to have lost someone close to me this month. Some of you may already know Snout, cofounder of Sociopolitical Ramifications MUCK and cohost of EuroFurrence 2 died earlier this month.
His husband is, unfortunately, in need of help.

Read more here.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/snout039.....co+share-sheet

As you already know if you read these, my has been in bad shape for a couple of weeks. As of today that is no longer the case. He drew his last breath around noon today.

This morning at around six o clock, we had to call the ambulance for my dad, who was being unresponsive. He recovered enough to walk to the ambulance on his own, but shortly after he got worse. Turns out it's a cerebral hemorrhage. A big one. The not going to be waking up again kind. He could die next week, tomorrow, in an hour... he could already be dead as I am writing this.

Hope the whole SARS-CoV-2 is treating you all well.

It's curious how the enforced isolation is affecting me. I don't actually isolate much more than I normally do, but the psychological aspect of it somehow makes the cabin fever worse. Heck, I even go out more now than normal, what with me trying to go for a walk every day.

I am looking forward to when it becomes warm enough outside that going for a walk doesn't involve dressing up as if for an arctic expedition...

Yay! I met a fan at the con! An actual fan! I was too shy to react much. It went something like

Fan: "Hey! You're Mickel!"
Me: "Yes! And you are a yeen! I like yeens!"
Fan: "Yes, I know. I follow you on FA."
Me: *suddenly reminded of what kind of yeen stuff I post on FA* "...oh..."

Socially awkward Dook, awayyyy!

I failed my saving roll against buying all the days. I'll be there for ten days. Madness. I'll be so sick of it at the end...

It was my first time with the new therapist and I was kinda nervous, but it went well. A little nervous in the beginning but I decided to jump in the deep end and ignore the apprahension. I'm dealing with a medical professional after all.

So we're talking about this and that and dealing with things with routines, and then it happens.

Therapist: "Do you have any other recurring social things that you do?"
Me: "Yeah, the first Sunday of every month there's this gathering of... uh... do you know what 'furries' are?"
Therapist: "What animal are you? Do you have a fursuit?"

I'm going to be completely honest here. I did not expect that.

Back from CabinCon 2019.

It's PCD, my dudes.

Before the depression causes me to forget it, I'll write down some highlights.

Amazing view from the cabin. Sure, the area right around the cabin looked like they had mowed down a swath of forest and plonked some cabins down, but that will improve once stuff grows back. The view to the valley below though? Amazing. I'm not used to being above the clouds, looking down at the rain. And when the clouds crept up and started leaking in through the balcony door, that was otherworldly.

Really nice dinner too. I'm not a gourmet, so it was largely wasted on me, but the food was nice and the company too.

The new Lion King. Utterly amazing. Breathtaking. I loved it. One of the people described it as "the way Disney would have made it originally if they had had the ability then". I didn't grow up with it and don't have the rose tinted glasses that others do, but this line came from someone whose childhood it was part of. So that's saying something. The fact that they had dialed down the incessant musical numbers and instead gained time to develop the story and characters was a huge plus for me too. #thereIsaidit

The roads. Norwegian roads are pretty fun. And the scenery is nice too. Driving in the northern half of Sweden kinda sucks. It's going to suck even more after having this to compare it with.

Dook.