I only have so much time and so much money, but my brain gives zero fucks and comes up with ideas well beyond my means to bring into reality.

Ideas like a magical girl manga where instead of the girls transforming into dainty costumes they instead bulk the fuck up into amazonian luchadors whose magical ability is "chase you down and beat your ass in".

Patreon is pushing through a change to how they charge for pledges, which will mean that PER PLEDGE they will charge an extra 35 cents plus 2.9% of the pledge amount. If you only pledge a few bucks for one creator that might not seem like much, but if you're pledging to a lot of campaigns that could add up VERY quickly. Personally I'm looking at being forced to pay an extra $40/mo because of this bullshit.

Details: https://patreon.zendesk.com/hc/en-u.....s/115005631963

PLEASE contact Patreon support and politely and firmly express your displeasure if you find this at all concerning. https://patreon.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

For those of you who I support, I deeply regret that I will no longer be able to do so if these changes go through. It has been a pleasure to help you make your dreams come true over all these years, and I still look forward to being able to support you on an individual basis through commissions and the like when possible.

EDIT: I've decided that since Patreon stuck their greasy mitts in my wallet and tried to take more than I agreed to give them, that my trust in the platform is too damaged to continue using them regardless of the outcome. I have deleted my pledges and I will not be returning.

The good news is I'll have a bunch more money to spend on commissions each month, so you can all look forward to that!

If you guessed FA, you get no points for correctly guessing something so pointlessly predictable.

Just in case your inboxes missed it, here's this week's haul:

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/25347934/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/25347849/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/25347810/

All but one of my uploads today timed out, which means that they probably didn't show up in your inbox. Maybe this journal will time out too? Who the fuck knows with this site. It's 2017, not 1997, FA: there's no excuse for this.

Anyway, the submissions for those of you who might have missed them:

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/24898113/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/24898177/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/24898235/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/24898293/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/24898374/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/24898447/

Might as well take the time to thank everyone for watching me, even if there's less than 2000 of you. That's apparently still enough to make this site shit itself, so I got that going for me, which is nice. Maybe when I hit the 2k mark FA will finally collapse into a hideous singularity of spaghetti code and wink out of existence.

Thursday: Is the badge line still open and/or a disaster? Where's the pocket guide I need to plan my activities! Must get to Walmart to clean out the booze aisle before everyone else does!
Friday: I cannot waste a single nanosecond of socializing time but oh god I'm so tired I just want to build a pillow fort in my hotel room with a "NO FURS ALLOWED" sign why am I even here???
Saturday: WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
Sunday: This can't be the last day already there's friends here I still haven't run into!
Monday: It's 20-fucking-17 where's my god damned self-driving winnebago.

It's almost like there's a con going on or something. Find me and say hi, I'll be wearing my usual badge http://www.furaffinity.net/view/12444000/ and occasionally my severed Nico head https://inky-tentacles.tumblr.com/p.....heck-of-a-time

Well, it's post-con for me. I know some folks will be hanging out until Monday or whenever their lube supply dries up but I'm planning on having a nice relaxing stay-at-home day.

The new space is pretty good, though it felt like having the den and hangout area in the middle and the panel/specialty rooms at either ends in the hotels wasn't super. It made the con feel a lot smaller since folks ended up strung out between the different spaces. Also putting a "creator's lounge" way at the far end of one of the hotels was pretty much useless, I think most folks didn't even know it was there. Luckily the tables around the main lounge area had decent lighting and people seemed pretty happy to meet up there.

I heard from a lot of artists that sales were down, and particularly that the merch sales vs commissions ratio wasn't ideal (too many commissions, too few merch sales). The art show looked really sad and half-empty. I don't buy or sell at cons (though I apparently make a pretty good booth babe) so it didn't really affect me directly.

It was great seeing all the usual folks and finally saying hello to some folks I hadn't before. The highlight, if I could even pick one, would probably be when I finally met the legend himself: Max Blackrabbit (I kid about the 'legend' part. Mostly). It was also great meeting folks who knew and admired my characters and liked seeing my commissions; given that it's pretty much the one thing I contribute to this fandom it's nice to know that other people get some enjoyment out of it too.

The panels were a bit of a mixed bag. It felt like a lot of them didn't have the same energy as I usually expect, but that could be because Mitti wasn't presenting any of them. Kyell Gold and his crew were a treat as usual. I didn't present a panel this year, as I didn't really have a good feel for a subject I wanted to share. I'd post a poll or something maybe to gauge interest on some subjects I could present on but, let's face it, there ain't nobody reading this journal.

I'll see you all at BLFC!

BLFC '16 was great. Kinda forgot to write a wrap-up journal.

FC and BLFC are on the menu for 2017, hope to see you all there!

Just a reminder that this is happening tonight https://countingdownto.com/countdow.....ountdown-clock

It's gonna be good! I hope!

Just reg'd and booked a boss-ass room for me and my lonesome, so you know I'll be there. Plan is to roll in on Scooty-Puff Sr though that could change if it's snowing through Tahoe again.

I'm hoping to do a panel on 3D for 2D artists, which will basically be a live demo of using 3D tools (blender, specifically) to sketch out scenes and poses quickly and accurately to serve as a sketch to paint over, a composition tool, and so on. The panel sign-up isn't open yet so who knows though.

In tangentially related news, I mentioned in a random stream chat that I've got that decapitated Nico fursuit head on order (which won't be done in time for BLFC, but should make an appearance at FC next year), and the reaction was surprisingly negative. For a moment I had some thoughts of self-doubt about the idea, but they quickly passed.

Thank you all for an awesome FC 2016! I had a blast, despite being pretty exhausted for a fair amount of the con. I'm not gonna do shout-outs because I'm well past the point where I can't even remember who I've said hello to while I'm still at the con. If I said "hi" to you, you're awesome. If I waved to you, you're awesome. If you scored a hug you're double-plus awesome.

My panel went well, but I think I'm going to change it up. It felt like people were either interested in the buying side of commissions or the selling side, and there wasn't much crossover of people who were interested in both. Plus there's easily more than 1.5 hours of material to cover. I've got some different panel ideas in the works, and I may come back around to revisit this one at a future date. If you made it out, or even if you intended to (hindsight counts too, give yourself credit) then you're awesome!

Again, thank you everyone for making FC amazing! A fur con is all about the people attending which makes it a really unique and special event, and the people at FC were the best!

Looking to the future, I'm pretty sure that BLFC will be on my list this year, so if you're planning to go (or if I've just inspired you to give it some serious thought) I'll be looking forward to seeing you there!

... but I'll be doing a panel about them at Further Confusion 2016! Huzzah!

Mark it on your calendars: Sun 11:00AM to 12:30PM - Marriott: Willow Glen

Arranged things by character for convenience, and added a folder for my own art.

Stats as of today:
Amy Del - 34
Aurelian Clove - 11
Cayes - 91
Megan Hilbert - 32
Nicoya - 159
Sella - 11

Clearly I have some characters that need a bit more love.

A person messaged me recently asking about an RP session they apparently had with one of my characters, and I thought it would be a good time to outline my position on such matters.

1: I don't mind what y'all do behind closed doors. Who you role play as is your own business. Just make sure the door is closed and stays closed.

2: ALWAYS be clear up front that you are not the owner of the character.

3: DO NOT present yourself publicly as a character (or owner of a character) that is not your own. This includes RPing in places where anyone other than you and your partner(s) can see it, sharing RP logs after the fact, posting F-List pages (or similar RP profiles) and so on.

4: Feel free to look at the art I commission or draw and share links with friends, but don't repost the images to other sites. It's not yours, so leave it where you found it. I promise it's not going to suddenly run away and vanish into the distance.

5: Chances are if you see one of my characters being role played, and you don't already know it's me: it's not me. I almost never RP (I just don't have the time) and I don't do it anywhere you're likely to stumble across me.

6: If you want to draw or commission art of my characters, please keep in mind the (N)SFW restrictions on each of them and please ask before pairing them with anyone. Chances are if I don't know the character you'd like the pair them with, I'll probably say no. If you'd like to draw or commission a solo piece (or a canon pairing like Cayes/Nico) and you stick to the themes of previous art I've posted of those characters, then I don't mind surprises. But in either case, do remember: art of my characters is gift art for me, not for your RP partner.

7: Put some effort into it. Spelling, punctuation, grammar: know how to use them to their best effect. You're trying to take people on a journey through a shared fantasy, not drag them illiterately through your wank session.

8: When in doubt, just ask. When you start an RP session with someone, ask "Do you own this character" and treat the session appropriately. Don't ask "Are you really [x]" because they're going to answer "yes" regardless of whether or not they actually own the character. Phrasing is important. Also don't be afraid to ask after the fact, through alternate, more reliable communication channels (FA notes are probably the easiest). I won't laugh at you, unless you share the RP log and it's so hilariously bad that I can't help but mock it (You probably shouldn't share the RP log).

9: Keep your feels in check, and pointed in the right direction. If you have a great RP session with someone, it's ok to have some feels directed at them. It is, however, silly to direct those feels at me: I wasn't involved in the session in any meaningful way.

I might add more to this list later.

So this past month I finally managed to reach my personal spending goal on Patreon. Well, goal and/or limit; I don't really want to go a lot over or a lot under.

As such, I need to start to being a bit more picky about who I fund, and today I cleared out a few pledges. My criteria has nothing to do with rewards or how well the creator is running their campaign, but simply how connected I feel with the work they produce. If you're one of the creators that I had to cut, know that you didn't disappoint me in any way. Patreon is about funding people to pursue their passions, and sometimes those passions just don't align with mine as much as I might have initially thought.

Goodbye  justdoug. We'll never forget the art you gave us, no matter how hard we try.

So I posted this on the Fender journal announcing the new porn ads, but nobody is going to scroll past 1200 other comments to see it:

So, there's ad networks that allow their ads to be shown alongside adult content, and there's ad networks with allow advertising of adult content. I've got no major beef with the former, so long as the ad quality and targeting is reasonable, but the latter is an irredeemable cesspool of garbage that nobody wants to see in their browser or next to their content.

I turned off my adblocker for one page load just to see what kind of banner ad would show up, and the very first ad I saw was offensive and unwelcome. This isn't going to improve by pushing back with guidelines on what you consider "acceptable". If you use an ad network that allows advertising of adult content then you will simply chase people away from using FA.

I saw an image set recently on tumblr where the artist sketched a few pictures of low/high D20 rolls on attempted actions and the absurd results thereof. It struck me that it would make for a really fun type of commission theme.

Like, the commissioner would provide a (set of) character(s) and an attempted action and then the artist would roll maybe a D6 and map the values to either a 1/2/3 roll or an 18/19/20 D20 roll and draw the resulting improbably epic failure or epic success.

Like, let's say the action is "Nico tries to pickpocket a dagger from the guard and stab him in the back". For a low roll the result might be "Nico's hand slips and, instead of grabbing the dagger, he accidentally caresses the guard's backside. The guard is now aware of Nico's presence and is feeling awkward and confused". Or for a high roll the result might be "in one smooth motion, Nico lifts the dagger from the guard and sinks the blade into a gap in his armor. An unexpectedly high knock back enchantment in the weapon causes the guard's now lifeless corpse to rocket forward with a force more than sufficient to blow a hole through the stone wall on the opposite side of the corridor, making it unnecessary to loot the keys to the room". Or something like that, idk.

Just struck me as something that might be fun.

This morning I dropped by the post office to pick up a package, delivery notice in hand. I was early, having slightly misjudged the opening time of the local branch, but sure as would be the doors opened at 8:30 on the dot and in I walked.

Without a moment's hesitation I slid the notice across the counter, hoping I hadn't misinterpreted the date written on the back indicating when my package would be available.

She took the slip of paper and examined it front and back, doing the same with my ID before handing the latter back and taking the former to the back room to find the package it matched.

It wasn't long before she returned, dropping he package on the counter with a solid thud. "So what's in this anyways?" she asked casually, and I wondered how much she expected an answer.

It was early enough in the morning that the question was likely an honest one, but I wasn't in a revealing mood. "Just some stuff," I replied, dodging the question while trying not to imply that any unspoken boundaries had been crossed.

"The packing list says there's 5 rings, so I wasn't expecting something this big and heavy." she continued, my non-answer not breaking her stride.

"Oh, yeah, they're not that kind of ring." I explained, not tipping my hand to anything that wasn't already obvious.

She considered the package for a moment, and nodded in a feigned understanding. "I suppose that 'rings' could mean just about anything, it guess they're not quite as picky about labeling these things over in China as we are here."

"Yeah, you know how it is." I replied, carefully leading the conversation into a dead end. I signed the electronic pad with a half-hearted scrawl and as she slid the package across the counter I wanted to believe that she was as wholesome and innocent as grandma's home cooked Sunday meals.

But I couldn't shake the feeling that she knew exactly what kind of 'rings' were hidden under the layers of packing and bubble wrap, that she knew all too well the muffled jingle they made as they rattled against each other. She knew exactly what 'Kevin' from Xi'an was in the business of making, because she'd seen these packages pass through her hands before. Surely most were destined for fine, upstanding postal customers as myself, but maybe a choice few would even be addressed with her name on it.

If she did know, she didn't let on, just giving me a courteous smile and wishing me an obligatory good day as I grabbed my 12 lbs of BDSM gear and headed out the door.

It wasn't a failure, but it wasn't really a success either. The presentation went ok, despite some technical glitches with my iPad, but only about 7 people showed up so the whole thing felt like a bit of a waste. I'm not sure how much of that was due to a last minute room switch, and how much of it was scheduling conflicts (I was in the same slot as a 'how to use copics' panel, and it was overlapping the tail end of the DD hours, and it was right before the fursuit parade, so not the ideal slot for a panel on commissioning).

I think I'd like to try presenting the panel at FC maybe to see if I can catch a bigger audience.


Other than that I'm running into the usual difficulties of finding it basically impossible to hang out with anyone I know for any reasonable length of time. Most of the folks I know are artists so they're generally stuck in the DD all day and then are either way overbooked on socializing outside the DD hours or cooped up in their rooms doing art or catching up on sleep or whatever.

I really need to start going to cons with people rather than just trying to bump into whoever I happen to know. Even when folks tell me they want to see me and hang out, it doesn't ever seem to actually work out that way (for genuine logistical reasons, not like they secretly hate me or anything. I hope). The trouble with going to cons with people, though, is that I'm not really keen on rooming with folks (I need my decompression me-time) and travelling with local folks to a con feels a bit silly (like why wouldn't I just hang out with them locally?). I dunno.


As for future plans, I don't think I'm going to hit any more cons this year. Califur was kind of a bomb for me last year so there's no sense in repeating that disappointment. I wouldn't mind hitting Rainfurrest, but there's only really one person I want to hang out with there so that feels like another recipe for disaster (and I'd rather just drag their butt down here for FC).


This journal is sounding a bit mopey, but I assure you all that I am actually having a good time. I just had slightly higher expectations, I think.

I'll be rolling into Reno on Thursday afternoon and staying until Monday morning, provided everything goes to plan. I'll also be doing a commissioning panel on Saturday at 4. Come find me and say hi!

Little known fact: Back in 2013 I had an offer on the table from IMVU, but turned it down when Google drove a dump truck full of money to my front door.

I'm not made of stone.

The good news is that the IMVU guys are a pretty chill group, so I think this could spell some good things for FA. Hopefully it'll inject some cash and maturity into the site's management, two things it desperately needs.

Apparently trying to body-check cars off the road on my motorcycle doesn't work too well. I will record this information for future reference.

Pics and deets here: https://plus.google.com/11291776362.....ts/NU1pv3PYJNE and please keep in mind that this is a public G+ post, so if you'd like to comment there keep the murring and purring to yourself and/or just comment on this journal instead.

Highlight of the con was watching  aycee molesting  ajin's infamous sylveon plush. It's a moment I'll never forget, no matter how hard I try. Wait, did I say "highlight"? I meant "I need to go sit in the corner now and cry".

Shout outs to everyone who made the con awesome. You know who you are.

This isn't exactly going to be a weekly thing and technically it's still Tuesday but I figured I've got a few minutes to kill so why not answer one of the many questions that nobody ever asked: What's the deal with Cayes's shell?

So first things first on the creative side of things I have to give credit where credit is due. The seed of the idea for Cayes was first planted when I came across this image by  chochi http://www.furaffinity.net/view/11152558/ of a Rule-63'd set of Ninja Turtles. That picture mixed itself together in my head with my desire to take an otherwise "ugly" species and anthropomorphize it into something beautiful. Toss in my love of corsets and a few other factors I might talk about in a future journal and the character that would become Cayes was an inevitability.

But, as I do, I couldn't just will her into existence without some kind of back story to explain how she came to be who she is. She's a turtle who doesn't look like any other turtle, and that's exactly the kind of thing that demands an explanation.

So the story is that she wasn't born that way. She was born with a pretty ordinary shell as turtles go: pale and flat on the front, coloured and domed on the back. But she lived in a society of mammals, who valued things that mammals value: soft curves, boobs, and looking good from every angle. The social pressures through adolescence were pretty rough to deal with. While the mammals told her she'd never be able to be beautiful in their eyes, the turtles told her that her beauty lay in who she was and that she should adjust her vision of what beauty was.

But Cayes didn't take kindly to being told to just give up on her dreams of achieving her personal vision of beauty, which was heavily influenced by the mammalian form. She wasn't going to give in to those people who told her that her opinion of beauty was invalid, and she wasn't going to give in to those people who told her she could never achieve it. It was only when she came upon the body-mod community that she finally found people who truly understood her, and reassured her that whatever her vision of beauty was, it was not only valid but she could achieve it.

And so she undertook a multi-year body-mod program which involved a slow process of repeatedly applying chemical softeners to her shell and then binding it with forms to reshape it, later followed by fine sculpting, polishing and redying to bring out the lines and make the front just as flashy as the back, and then topping it off by installing a set of pierced grommets up each side to hold the corset-style laces.

It was an empowering moment for her when she completed the transformation, one that cast the mould that would shape her persona for the rest of her life: She had taken full control of what everyone told her was uncontrollable, and made it her own.

That same drive to tame the untameable was what eventually lead her to take an interest in dominating Nicoya, the unruly hentai tentacle kitty. She saw the challenge and knew immediately that her place in life was to rise to it and conquer it utterly. But that's a story for another time.