Without going into too much detail or throwing a pity party, I've been absent for around three or four months since a close family member of mine passed away recently. I've been mentally clocked out for a good bit as a result, but I'm feeling much better now. Expect new content soon. I also have a more ambitious goal of wrapping of Friends In Low Places by the end of the year, but fingers crossed.

Also if I still owe you a story, expect me to get around to it soon since I haven't forgotten about it either, just been preoccupied.

Most have probably seen the preview by now and I'm not going to repeat myself too much here.

This journal is just more of a warning that I might post a bunch of stuff soon and to provide some behind the scenes commentary since the project has gotten more complex than originally intended.

So the UTO setting has snowballed over time and gotten fairly expansive. The original writer, Hetzer, only wrote the Integration series and Homecoming as a spicy side story. Despite this, there's a ton of fanfics and fanart for the setting these two stories take place in. As a result, a lore codex for the setting eventually got developed as a tool to give fan artists and anyone interested in the setting basic info, but there's currently three codex versions with mutually exclusive information or other issues.

These are unofficial terms I'm using, but you have the following codex versions.
- The Classic Codex. Hetzer mostly wrote this version himself focusing on Integration. It's rough around the edges, but fully complete.
- The Modern Codex. This version is incomplete and was more of a wide community effort with an extended timeline established by Homecoming.
- The World Anvil Codex. This version is also incomplete and the most up to date, but only a small group of people were handpicked to work on it with entirely new species and lore added to the setting with Hetzer's personal involvement being fairly minimal or non-existent.

I prefer the classic codex overall because it's actually finished and focuses on the time span Integration takes place in rather than the far future. It just comes across as more of a rough draft. The other two codex versions suffer from issues where they're simply incomplete after multiple years, and I have creative disagreements with how they were written. I haven't really touched this setting since 2019, and progress on codex completion is almost in the exact same place six years later, so I figured I might as well do it myself with other fanfic writers dabbling in the setting. However, trying to comb through all this information while providing my own interpretations feels like I'm trying to translate the bible. I feel a bit silly overall since it boils down to a furry size kink setting. For better or worse, the setting really sucked me in all those years ago and still does to some extent since the size differences made for surprisingly excellent storytelling and worldbuilding that inspired or influenced my own content.

I'm calling this new version the 'Codex Redux' simply because I want to return to the roots of the setting. The reasons are twofold. As I said, I'm mostly interested in the invasion of Earth and the Integration time period, but I also have some qualms with the extended timeline established later on. I feel like it created some bloat or didn't respect the source material, especially if people who weren't Hetzer were the main minds behind adding a ton of random new lore and species independently. Like the annelids / slith completely upend a ton of previously established lore if you know about them, and it feels like they'd fit more in a setting like Warhammer 40k rather than the UTO setting if they're trying to enslave or kill everyone while being horrific, wormlike parasites... so I'm giving those things a footnote at most since they're originally from a canonized fanfic with Integration making zero mention of them.

But anyway, here's how I plan on going about this. I've run into an issue where FA has a 10MB post limit, and just the preview I posted for the codex redux is around 8MB large. So I plan on slowly posting the codex redux in segments so that people on Furaffinity can read it natively on this website and provide commentary or feedback. Once the project is fully complete, I'm going to link to a master file hosted on either Google Drive or Dropbox for a proper E-book for those that prefer it. Since Piershey / Jist is the main writer I'm collaborating with on this project, they're eventually going to make a post bringing attention to the completed master file as well.

I'm hoping this approach won't annoy my watchers though because I don't wanna spam their submissions tab, but you might see daily posts covering one species at a time. It's drip feeding content in a sense.

It's also a high-effort fan project trying to be faithful to the source material either way. It's not official. I have no clue if Hetzer will ever return to the setting or not. I still think he's a great writer, despite what happened between us in the past with Disintegration, but I don't wanna get into that. I'm just hoping this whole thing provides the resources I wish I had all those years ago to any aspiring fanfic writers. Even if things never continue officially, I think fan artists will continue the setting in spirit. I'm taking an open-ended approach for the project overall to accommodate official and fan material alike since I don't wanna invalidate any currently existing content, just fill in any holes and provide a basic lore foundation for the future that's timeless and easily accessible for everyone to preserve everything good about the setting.

I figured it's finally time to make a special announcement. Following the completion of Friends In Low Places and other short stories in the near future, I will be returning to the UTO-verse to do another full-fledged series about the invasion of Earth! Now, you might be thinking this is a silly move following all the excitement surrounding Disintegration, but hear me out...

The main character will be Joe Biden, and it will chronicle his actions and reactions during the rynar invasion in late 2015. This will entail eating ice cream and he has to save Obama from the rynar.

Also the other main character will be a ra'lai lioness milf since I don't have enough cat characters yet.

Thank you and god bless America.

You can find my content on the following sites.

https://www.furaffinity.net/user/retroinferno

https://retroinferno.sofurry.com/

I might also experiment with posting something like Friends In Low Places on Royal Road once it's complete, albeit I'd need to tone down the more mature elements potentially.

https://www.royalroad.com/profile/129408

Furaffinity is still my primary gallery for my content just because I've failed to find decent alternatives for my stories. I'm open to suggestions though.

Hey there! Do you enjoy niche macro furry trash content and giant feline fetish accessories? Well, well... there's an entire Discord server for like-minded internet deviants.

Retrohellhole!

https://discord.gg/njpcqvnkVt

Just click one of the links above to join. Read the rules and grab your roles and you should be good to go! Beyond talking about mutual interests, there's a small yet highly active community sharing various macro or kaiju related media between posting memes. It also has some exclusive content and previews I'm unable or unwilling to share on this website.

It's definitely a good idea to join if you want to get in touch with me, such as taking an interest in commissioning a story.

So what are you waiting for? Go to hell... NOW.

Unfortunately I fell short of the ten thousand word goal for this month. I think the strong showing last month was a direct result of almost never doing commissions in the past. Regardless, it's been an interesting experience. Whereas I didn't really know what I was doing starting out, I've developed a fairly solid and professional system for going about this with ten completed commissions under my belt now.

I'll try again next month with a little more advertising to accompany it. I do appreciate the support others have given me so far, especially from past or ongoing clients. Beyond making ends meet, I'm hoping any future efforts to turn my hobby into a potential source of income directly results in far more content for my audience!

The current commission batch for September is near completion, so I'm preparing for another!

Here's my terms and conditions alongside my current rates: https://www.furaffinity.net/commiss...../retroinferno/

If you're interested, just send me a note with a pitch for your story idea. Optionally select a preset outlined on my commission tab so that I have a general idea of the overall length you have in mind. You can also join my Discord server to contact me directly if that would be easier or preferable. I plan on selling somewhere around ten thousand words for this next batch, so I'll select a combination of commission ideas this weekend to meet that goal rather than having a strict number of commission slots like an illustrator.

I wasn't expecting so much interest or notes in a matter of hours, closing commissions for now and I'll open them again when the current batch is done.

I'm opening story commissions to the public!

Here's my terms and conditions alongside my current rates.

https://www.furaffinity.net/commiss...../retroinferno/

If you're interested, just send me a note with a pitch for your story idea. Optionally select a preset outlined on my commission tab so that I have a general idea of the overall length you have in mind and maybe your budget. I'm looking to sell somewhere around 6000 words minimum over the next week or so rather than doing a strict number of commission slots, so I'll take on a combination of story lengths to meet or surpass that word number.

You can also join my Discord server to contact me directly if that would be easier or preferable.

So the owner and administrator of Furaffinity is no longer with us.

It has me concerned for the future. Regardless of your opinion on the man, he's been running this place for about two decades with minimal changes. Although things are continuing to run as normal for the time being, new ownership does have the potential to shake things up. At which point it's all up in the air. Maybe a staff member takes over and things mostly stay the same. Maybe a company buys out the website for the traffic it rakes in, then decides to pull a Tumblr by purging any adult content from the site to appeal to advertisers.

I don't really know what's going to happen myself, and the rumors I've been hearing from others could just be wild speculation. The main concerns revolve around how Dragoneer heavily centralized everything around himself and the potential vacuum that's left behind...

Still, it doesn't hurt to be prepared for the worst. Admittedly my eggs are mostly in one basket at the moment, and I've hardly made an attempt to post outside this site beyond SoFurry.

https://retroinferno.sofurry.com/

However, my personal Discord server has been extremely useful as a hub for my content with the small community active on there. I also use it to create backups of almost everything and alternative ways to consume my content with PDF files and Google Docs links shared alongside the links to new Furaffinity posts. Nonetheless, participating on the server is the easiest way to keep tabs on my content and news relating to it, especially since I'll be able to easily communicate with everyone on Discord in the event that I do need to migrate to a new platform altogether.

Here's the invite link: https://discord.gg/njpcqvnkVt

But I'm not trying to spread too much doom and gloom in the wake of a tragedy. As I said, it's possible nothing really fundamentally changes. But we live in interesting times. I don't want all my content to get lost to the sands of time in a worst case scenario, so the news has certainly been making me think about the future... for better or worse.

You can find the link below.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfi.....?id=2608345768

Unfortunately, I've been unable to find proper replacements for the trait icons in the meantime. Placeholders are being used instead. The core functionality of this very simple mod still works though, and that's all that matters! I have not really worked on or expanded upon on the mod at all in the last year or so, however.

I do apologize for the time it took for me to finally update this, but better late than never.

I figured I should clarify my position on this. I’ve been on both sides of the fence over the years, whether it be making stuff for someone else or receiving stuff from others.

I’m all for it! People have my blessing to do whatever they please with my characters or settings, just as long as that doesn’t extend into trying to take credit for whatever might be considered my intellectual property. I’ve been a bit too controlling about it in the past if someone wanted to do something with my characters I wasn’t necessarily comfortable with, so I think a laid back approach would be far better in comparison.

The internet is gonna be the internet anyway. Once something gets popular enough, whether it be characters such as Loona from Helluva Boss or species such as the avali, people are going to run wild with it. It’s completely counterproductive to be a control freak about it, much less pulling moves similar to how Nintendo handles popular fan creations…

Still. This does not necessarily mean I’ll give things I didn’t create the ‘canon’ stamp so to speak. It took me far too long to realize this if Disintegration is anything to go by, but it ultimately doesn’t matter too much to begin with. Just have fun with it! People might consider it their ‘head canon’ anyway if they like it. But personally it might be too much of a headache for me to keep track of every little thing people make while trying to incorporate it into my own work, and I don’t want feelings to get hurt during the process.

It’s just flattering if I inspire anyone to begin with!

I do consider content to fall into the following categories, however.

Canonical: Official material made by the original creator or whoever owns the intellectual property. The mere concept of canon helps to establish a timeline and internal consistency with the overall lore, especially if there’s multiple creators involved.
Example - Fallout: New Vegas

Fanon: Fan content that tries to stay faithful to the source material. It generally tries to expand upon the original work while putting its own spin on things, but it’s the ‘head canon’ of fans at best if it’s not officially incorporated into the canon for various reasons.
Example - Fallout: New California

Derivative: Fan content that borrows characters or ideas from another work while making zero attempt to stay faithful to the original content. This can range from someone wanting to do a crossover of Warhammer 40k and Pokemon to poorly written erotic fan fiction created by weirdos on Furaffinity, such as myself.
Example - Fallout: Equestria

There’s other examples I could probably cite, but you get the picture. Certain projects I’ve seen such as Fallout: New California and Undertale Yellow go to great lengths to stay faithful to the original work, but they can’t really be incorporated into the official canon for practical reasons. There’d be issues regarding who owns what, and it’s possible that future canon content contradicts fanon material outright, so it’s better for everyone involved if it just remains in the ‘fanon’ category.

With that in mind, my official position is that only whatever I write is going to be considered canonical a vast majority of the time. Then of course whatever artwork I commission unless specified otherwise. It’d take something being a collaborative effort altogether for me to be comfortable with someone else writing about my characters or settings in any official capacity, but the astounding level of emotional and mental maturity I’ve witnessed among furry artists over the last five years means that I’m usually averse to it these days.

I hope that clears things up, and I’ll shoot this journal link to whoever asks for my permission to create any fan content accordingly.

I've been in the market for stuff like icons and logos. It's been surprisingly difficult to find people who do them well.

Something I've been meaning to do for a while entails replacing the icons for my Stellaris size trait mod, which is currently hidden on the steam workshop. Has been for about a year so far.

https://www.furaffinity.net/view/43821291/

Long story short...

The illustrator who originally made the logos kept spamming racial slurs on my public Discord server for months, ignoring any warnings and bemoaning any mutes. I repeatedly cracked down on him and his buddies for similarly edgy behavior. They eventually just made their own discord server once I started banning people for not following the new rules, which I specifically set in place because of their piss poor behavior. They then used their server to sporadically harass myself and others for nearly two years as I randomly received anonymous doxxing threats from throwaway accounts. So I eventually stopped using his artwork altogether and completely cut off anyone remotely involved or associated with that crap following a short hiatus on my part.

Overall not a fun experience. Things snowballed to an absurd extent, and I felt like I was running a daycare center until they were removed from the picture. Either way, I hid my Stellaris mod as a result, but I've failed to find anyone that can actually do things like emojis and icons very well in the meantime. I'm hoping to get the otherwise simple mod up and running again within about a week or so since a major expansion pack for the game is about to release in the near future.

Regardless, I figured it wouldn't hurt to throw up another journal explaining that situation and to ask for suggestions or recommendations.

So in the meantime I’ve been gradually fleshing out the setting for Looming Menace and putting some thought into things. I also got some hellcat commissions and sketches in the works…

One thing I included in the original story was something called rangers. Basically what I had in mind was something similar to the ranger concept found in fiction such as New Vegas, Wasteland, and the Metro series. Elite soldiers or special forces, really. I think the term might be a bit overused and something like Star Ranger sounds a bit too generic or cheesy, so I’m basically just renaming them to Star Marshals for multiple reasons.

Here’s sort of what I have in mind for marshals though. They originated on frontier systems to help govern small and sparse human populations. Since they tend to work alone or in small groups, they’re given plenty of legal leeway since they’re practically in the wild west. They often act as the judge, jury, and executioner when contending with space pirates. As a result, marshals tend to be very rugged and resourceful individuals with specialized skill sets, and the requirements for becoming one tend to be pretty high. Although they originated as a peacekeeping police force on the borders of known human space, their experience made them excellent at reconnaissance and tasks more suited for special forces.

When humanity went to war against internal or external threats, marshals acted as auxiliary forces fighting right alongside the marines. They proved to be so useful that the Interstellar Confederation officially incorporated them into the government, providing a central structure for the otherwise scattered and independent local marshal groups. Now they serve several roles. They can be incorporated into a marine unit to act as both reconnaissance and an internal military police force, often acting as bodyguards for high ranking navy officers.

Unlike the marines and their laser weaponry, marshals prefer heavy hitting ballistic weapons. This can include anti-material rifles, high caliber revolvers, and drum fed automatic shotguns. They can operate independently if the need ever arises, which can happen in cases where special forces are required to handle delicate or severe situations conventional military forces simply cannot handle.

The term marshal itself has had a variety of different meanings throughout history, but I think it suits them and the roles they serve. Albeit they’re more inspired by the marshals of the wild west. Either way, I’m going to edit Looming Menace before replacing every instance of ranger with marshal accordingly, and ideally I won’t have to do any sort of retcon or renaming like that ever again.

With that out of the way, here’s some lore and world-building for human infantry in general.

---

Militia: A part-time soldier at best. These are civilian reservists who train about once a month, armed and equipped with cost-effective military hardware to defend their homes.

The quality of human militias greatly varies world to world. Some are just barely trained civilians banding together with outdated firearms to fend off hostile alien wildlife or pirates. Others from rich and highly populated planets are not so different from the US National Guard in their organization. Regardless, they’re the most common type of human soldier you’ll find when dealing with the dangers of settling space, almost exclusively acting in a defensive capacity. They tend to be less than useless for offensive operations beyond acting as cannon fodder, but it’s far more cost-effective to train and equip a dozen militiamen to defend a settlement when compared to the same cost for a marine or two.

Militias commonly used outdated yet simple ballistic weapons for defending themselves. Although there’s exceptions, the fact that conventional firearms can be cheaply made in any frontier colony with an 18th century level of technology and/or industrial capacity regularly makes them the most practical choice available.

Marine: A full-time soldier incorporated into the navy. Marines are professionals with some of the most advanced armor, weapons, and training money can buy.

Marine quality is very consistent thanks to a centralized structure and military culture. Recruiting standards tend to be much higher compared to joining a militia since they’re expected to perform a variety of demanding tasks. This can include defending against or initiating boarding actions, fighting in zero gravity environments, and disembarking onto a variety of different planets with wildly different climates and atmospheres.

Due to these unique circumstances, laser rifles are their bread and butter. Although laser weaponry is very expensive and difficult to produce beyond the most advanced human worlds, it’s extremely easy to maintain. It makes logistics a breeze. Rather than needing to worry about ammunition, marines can use solar power to recharge the batteries powering their weapons. The laser beams fired travel as fast as the speed of light, they’re not affected by gravity, and there’s far less risk of an accidental hull breach, making them ideal for interstellar warfare.

Marshal: The elites. The special forces. Marshals are handpicked individuals either dishing out justice on the frontier or acting as the eyes and ears of the navy.

Most marines would fail marshal training standards, but the strict requirements make them exceptional in overall quality. A slim majority of marshals tend to come from the frontier worlds themselves, presumably because it requires a special breed to survive the circumstances of living on them. They primarily act as the confederation’s special forces, responsible for reconnaissance and internal security, especially on the borders of human territory.

Marshals are used to working independently and utilizing weaponry from their native worlds. Although they use whatever they can get their hands on, they have a preference for hard hitting ballistic weaponry that’s about as rugged and hard hitting as themselves. Anti-material rifles, higher caliber revolvers, and drum fed automatic shotguns are their most infamous preferences.

Mercenary: Soldiers of fortune. Sometimes these are professional guns for hire, at other times they’re not too different from pirates or marauders.

Mercenaries are usually former soldiers of some variety. Their quality can be wildly inconsistent as a result, but generally they fall somewhere between militia and marines. Rather than defending their home or their nation, their primary motivation is to make a profit. The mercenary occupation is usually lucrative due to the high demand for soldiers in human space. Beyond acting as hired muscle, they might be brought in to train or assist a militia if the local government distrusts the confederation, but they might also betray their employer and/or cut their losses whenever push comes to shove if it means saving their own hides or making some extra money from the highest available bidder.

Mercenaries bring their own armor and weapons if their mercenary outfit doesn’t implement or assign any standard ones, assuming they’re not just a lone freelancer altogether. They’re known for preferring expensive or exotic armaments overall, even using alien ones if they can get their hands on them through trade or scavenging.

For those unaware, I have a Discord server. It contains exclusive content that I'm currently unable or unwilling to share on Furaffinity and I can't go into too much detail beyond that. Regardless, it's the best way to closely follow my work. It's overall a relatively laidback place where people share size related art, discuss mutual interests, or post dumb memes.

https://discord.gg/njpcqvnkVt

Just read the rules and follow the instructions upon joining to gain access to the entire server.

So I technically wrote Disintegration about four years ago back in 2019. This gradually turned into the whole “LGM” or Little Green Men setting most of my current sci-fi content takes place in.

It’s no secret that it started off as a fanfic of another story called Integration to focus on the invasion of Earth. Long story short, I rewrote Disintegration to take place in my own original setting altogether after dealing with astoundingly disrespectful and immature behavior from multiple parties that I attempted to work with. I’d rather not go into too much detail since the point isn’t to re-open old wounds, I only bring it up because it’s something of a sore point for me regarding the setting in general, and quite frankly I was also fully at fault for how that situation unraveled by allowing my temper to get the best of me and saying things I shouldn’t have once I had my feelings hurt, but what’s done is done and the past is the past.

It’s been four years since that point. In the meantime, I graduated from a technical school around the start of the covid pandemic and eventually managed to get a job in my industry. I’ve had a lot of time to think about things. My 25 year old self wants to go four years back in time and slap the shit out of my younger 21 year old self for being so stupid and immature back then. I was not expecting Disintegration to get the fanart and attention that it did and I had no idea how to handle it all, much less everything else that it attracted afterward.

However, certain plot decisions aged like milk. I originally decided to make Disintegration focus on Russia to avoid conflicting with Integration’s lore and to write about eastern European military hardware, which I retained for the LGM setting rewrite. I’ve always had great respect for Russian history and culture, so I did glorify Russia’s military a bit during the story since they had a thing for fending off hostile invaders ranging from the Wehrmacht to Napoleon Bonaparte. This became awkward after Russia invaded Ukraine about a year after I finished writing Disintegration since Russia’s military became a laughingstock and they were an international pariah overnight.

So I rarely want to work with the setting anymore. Too much baggage and unpleasant memories associated with it among other mistakes from the past stemming from my inexperience. Oh, and its origins as a fanfic made it way too similar to Integration’s lore for my tastes. It ultimately served its purpose by telling Ishtar’s story, and it did a pretty good job in that regard based on the positive reception Disintegration received.

Now I want a clean slate. A fresh canvas. Ideally I can take the hard lessons I learned writing over the years by creating a new setting altogether.

Naturally, I want to focus on military sci-fi with a macro/micro dynamic. I’ve been contemplating a few potential angles, but nothing is set in stone. I’m still preoccupied by other projects such as Friends In Low Places and I don’t want to get too carried away yet. I felt the need to make this journal sharing my thoughts though just to sort of formalize things since I’ve been discontent with how LGM turned out despite the amount of time and resources I put into it.

I’ll start small this time around. Odds are I’ll just try short stories in the same setting and dabbling in worldbuilding rather than attempting to write another huge series... yet. At best I could try the anthology format if the stories share overlapping characters in a mostly chronological order, kind of like emotional support human. Thanks to my job and the occasional sixty hour work week, I don’t have the free time that I used to have, so just consistently updating my current series has been a struggle at times, and something more… bite-sized… could be more manageable in the long-term.

But that’s all I got. Expect content relating to that potential project to randomly spring up on my profile between chapters as I flesh things out and try starting something anew since military sci-fi is still my favorite genre in fiction and I want to primarily focus on it again.

It took me long enough, but I'm finally posting on multiple websites.

https://retroinferno.sofurry.com/

I'm still going to post here though. I just don't like the direction Furaffinity has been going recently if they give me an official warning for posting an AI chatbot of Farishta while getting into a ton of controversy for announcing that vore involving minors is perfectly fine according to their new content policy. So there's no point in putting all my eggs in one basket. Although SoFurry doesn't have as large of a userbase as Furaffinity, it's SO much better for posting stories, and the place feels far more clean in comparison since it has little to no technical issues and a modern interface. I'm probably going to put SoFurry links in the descriptions of my future stories as an alternative to Google Docs, and I'll slowly upload my previous stories to SoFurry rather than dumping them all on there at once.

A part of this expansion effort is also a result of FA getting significantly less traffic in recent months and a desire to grow my audience. So if people have any suggestions for potential platforms, I'm all ears!

I’ve had dozens of people asking me about what happened to my dumb little Stellaris size trait mod every time Stellaris has a major update to such a point that some specifically join my Discord server just to find out. It still exists on the steam workshop, I just hid the mod and only I have access to it at the moment.

As for why? I had severe issues with the illustrator who created the trait logo icons, so I wasn’t comfortable with using his artwork anymore before removing it all from my social media. I do plan on eventually replacing the icons and making the mod public again, it’s just been a very low priority compared to my other responsibilities and personal projects.

Here’s the long version. Making this public information might be a bad idea in case the drama involved causes more issues or turns the matter into a spectacle, but another part of me doesn’t really care anymore. A little under two years ago, I had to initiate a crackdown on my Discord server, RetroHellhole, due to extremely poor behavior. It’s… ironic considering its name. I wanted the place to be a chill area where people could discuss my writing or mutual interests with minimal rules or moderation, but a few people took advantage of that to act like they were basically posting on 4chan or something. So I had to make new rules in direct response to them saying racial slurs, posting gore, discussing fringe politics, and trying to use my server as a basis to harass others in the fandom.

This included the illustrator who made the Stellaris trait icons.

I had to remove other instances of his vocabulary manually if the bot didn’t catch it. He did not take any of my warnings seriously with one word direct message responses such as “cringe” or coming up with dumb excuses for his language by claiming he was half-black or actually using the Spanish word for black, therefore I was somehow actually the prejudiced one. Others also argued with me about the new rules against foul language by treating it like a free speech or an American constitutional issue with an emphasis on context when I just didn’t want people saying racial slurs to begin with. I did not care about the context. This also apparently made me a social justice warrior, so a vocal minority kept breaking the rules to protest against them, and I eventually banned the worst offenders to set an example to the others.

Afterward, I got derided as a tyrant of some variety and for allegedly ruining the original culture of the server… whatever they thought that was supposed to be. It was honestly my fault for not taking things seriously and tolerating poor behavior to begin with. I still had to berate others on the server for using the word “autistic” in a derogatory fashion whenever they were basically trying to bully people in my small little community since I wasn’t fond of it.

I thought that would be the end of it. It was not. Months later, someone accidentally revealed the existence of another discord server to me. I soon learned that the people who disagreed with my new rules alongside the few who got banned for their abhorrent behavior made their own server and/or multiple servers following my crackdown. It would have been one thing if they just left me alone and acted like edgelords by themselves, but their behavior got astronomically worse. They started making throwaway accounts to keep harassing people in the fandom. I had to contend with a dozen or so throwaway FA, Discord, and even Steam accounts harassing me on social media immediately after the crackdown. They left derogatory comments on my content or sent thinly veiled doxxing threats based on what little personal information they were able to find about me.

Oh, and according to one guy, the splinter server had some kind of secret discord channel for sharing art and a similarly secret politics channel inspired by 4chan’s /pol/ board.

It got to a point where they were regularly causing issues for nearly a year. People who were on both my server and the splinter server had a tendency to invite active members from my place to theirs before getting them involved in their antics. For example, I had someone who joined my server far after the crackdown arguing on behalf of someone who got banned during the crackdown because they happened to befriend them shortly after getting invited to the splinter server. They’d encourage people to move boosts from my server to their own. A guy I banned who repeatedly made doxxing threats directed towards myself and others he didn’t like deliberately commissioned people who made me fanart before ranting about me to them.

I could go into detail about all the problems this edgelord social clique caused every other week, but I’d rather not. It would be too frivolous. I tried my best to ignore them since I had an old adage of not feeding internet trolls, the problem is that cancer only gets worse the longer you try to ignore it. They eventually invited one of my discord mods to their server. Upon learning this, I talked to the mod about the whole problem, telling him that he could potentially collect evidence of the people on the splinter server saying racial slurs or whatever if they caused further issues since I was considering reporting their server to Discord’s trust and safety team.

The mod decided to immediately hop into a voice call on the splinter server to inform their members about our private conversation, causing things to blow up again.

The usual suspects got into extensive private arguments with me about it. I removed the mod role from the mod who leaked our direct messages. One person fully admitted to them harassing people in the fandom if they supposedly “deserved it”, but the idea that they harassed me too apparently made me delusional or paranoid. I couldn’t prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the people who had a history for this sort of behavior subjected me to the same treatment once I displeased them, so some gave them the benefit of the doubt before they tried to blame it all on a mysterious third party coincidentally targeting me immediately after the original crackdown for some reason.

This same person arguing also repeatedly lied to me about the server since the very start. First they denied the existence of the splinter server, then they blamed it all on a banned user known as Wulf because his username was similar to the server’s name, which was called Wafflehaus. Presumably for him to act as a scapegoat. Once that backfired, they tried to invite their scapegoat to another mutual server we shared and demanded for me to unblock them on Discord to talk things out. I refused. In the end, I learned that another one of my own discord moderators actually made the splinter server all along, so he stepped down from the position for facilitating the harassment of others in the fandom for his own amusement. Then the original guy profusely apologized for telling lies about the situation since it was only to “protect” me, then he backtracked and went back to claiming he never lied to begin with because he made a small sidenote about my other mod also helping with administering the splinter server.

I think the reality is that he didn’t care about people saying racial slurs, harassing people, or making doxxing threats if they made him free furry foot fetish artwork or helped edit his writing. If it didn’t personally affect him, he’d turn a blind eye to it, and he was more than happy to lie and argue on their behalf to protect them.

Still, it all made my head spin with the constant lies and shifting goalposts to such a point I’d call them gaslighting tactics. I started taking screenshots to prove things actually happened since those involved would vehemently deny any wrongdoing otherwise, but there was always a new excuse. People claiming they never said racial slurs turned into them claiming it was ironic or just a joke once I provided evidence, then I was called crazy for digging up messages from a long time ago to prove them wrong.

Regardless, I did not care for the fact that I got ostracized from a social group I literally created because I had to be the adult in the room by telling them to knock that stuff off. Much less people I trusted or considered friends repeatedly violating my trust or doing things I considered an outright betrayal without sounding too melodramatic…

I soon lost my patience once a former mod left my server and started attacking me elsewhere since he was upset about me removing his prestigious discord mod role over his DM leaks to the splinter server. Then I banned anyone remotely involved in the creation of the splinter server and told anyone who participated on the splinter server that they weren’t welcome on my own server anymore. So half a dozen people left and/or completely cut contact with some leaving walls of text or short messages to insult me on their way out, which included the illustrator who made the Stellaris trait logos. A few kept attacking me afterward in their social circles by deriding me as mentally ill or emotionally unstable for being angry at them to begin with… all between fabricating voice call conversations that never happened among other slander.

This might have been overzealous on my part, but I blocked or distanced myself from a garden variety of people on my social media if they sided with or associated themselves with anyone in this edgelord social clique as well. After giving it a few months, I eventually decided to delete any stories I wrote for those involved or removed any artwork they made for me on my social media whatsoever with the Stellaris trait mod getting caught up in that crossfire.

It’s all the real reason why I took a hiatus last year. I was extremely upset when I wrote that journal, but I didn’t want an emotional reaction on my part to become a subject of public ridicule. Much less making myself more of a target for people who wanted to get a rise out of me. That’s also why I heavily hesitated to make much of a public explanation about any of this, but it’s been about another year since all of that has happened, so that’s the only reason why I’m comfortable with making it all public information now since it’s mostly blown over.

My only saving grace is that my server is a much more positive space now with cool people that are regularly active that cause little to no issues. The whole experience has made me far more strict with how I try to run or moderate online communities since I’m far more willing to ban someone for saying something extremely racist rather than merely giving them a warning after deleting their message…

But yeah, that’s the long version covering the wonderful internet drama involved. That’s not even going over everything and I probably won’t bother with the more trivial details since this journal is already the length of an essay. I’m not gonna pretend I didn’t make mistakes during the process, but it was by far some of the worst or most abusive behavior I’ve ever had to contend with online since it sporadically lasted for a year or two. We’ll see if I can get the Stellaris mod up and running in the meantime since I doubt future illustrators will give me problems this severe, but I’m open to any recommendations or suggestions for new trait icons at least.

Forgive me if this journal lengthy. I basically just wanted to go over a few things now that I'm doing commissions and to address the status of my ongoing projects following the four month hiatus.

For starters, commissions have gone super well. All the clients I worked with so far have been very pleasant and I've had a ton of fun writing stories for other people! Admittedly I had no idea how things might go and part of me expected the worst, but so far it's been a fantastic experience and it serves as a really nice ego boost if people consider my writing good enough to commission it.

As a result, I'm going to keep commissions open indefinitely. I'll take on three clients at a time. The previous featured commission journal will be modified shortly after I post this one to account for this. I don't think traditional temporary commission openings like illustrators do will work as well since I had a tendency to finish one commission after the other in a few days at most, albeit the commissions have mostly been on the shorter side. Demand for commissions is also coincidentally just enough to fill most of my slots at the moment, but I doubt this will last indefinitely.

Then there's the ongoing series such as Terran Insurrection and Friends In Low Places.

It's been a year since I started both. I'll admit, I knew it was probably a bad idea, but I shouldn't have split my efforts between two series. It might have contributed to burnout. Updates for both were less frequent as I went back and forth between them, and most people eventually lost interest in following each one if updates took too long. So I would have been better off just focusing on a single series. Other stuff such as the commissions, sporadic short stories, and an alternative alias I made for exclusively SFW content have divided my efforts furthermore...

Nonetheless, I went back to read and edit both series, catching a few typos. I also determined the overall word counts.

Terran Insurrection: 25,120 Words
Friends In Low Places: 43,821 Words

I tweaked various things too! Terran Insurrection now has a proper thumbnail from the iPoke artwork I commissioned rather than a purple phoenix I found on Google Images. The more recent PDF files have gray backgrounds with white text to make them easier to read. Some physical descriptions were changed or snipped, such as making Amber from Terran Insurrection resemble more of a painted dog rather than switching between describing her as similar to a vulpine or a slim hyena.

Since Friends In Low Places is the longer of the two series and the most popular, I'm going to primarily focus on it from here on out.

Both series will be completed at some point though, even if it takes me literal years. Small sidenote about Terran Insurrection though. The original series was divided into three acts focusing on different things. Act 1 is near completion. Although I'm retaining the traditional sequential chapter format on this website to avoid confusion, it's still internally divided into three separate acts to account for time skips and major events in the narrative. Consequently, Terran Insurrection will still receive a few more chapters with an optional NSFW chapter for when Cain and Amber get more acquainted with one another, but work will stop once Act 1 is done to focus on Friends In Low Places before I return to Terran Insurrection in the future.

As I said in a previous journal, the Stellaris size trait steam workshop mod is just being maintained as is. It tends to always work, even if the mod is flagged as outdated. I doubt this will change unless Stellaris overhauls the trait system.

If you want to contact me directly about commissions, discuss my work, ask questions, post memes, ect... feel free to join my Discord server!

https://discord.gg/njpcqvnkVt

Otherwise, that's all! I do appreciate the support from people. The ones who regularly favorite my stories and leave comments... you know who you are. You're awesome. Thanks for helping me stay motivated!

Writing commissions are now open to the general public! I'm opening three slots to pick and choose my workload and favorite ideas.

https://www.furaffinity.net/commiss...../retroinferno/

Please read the terms above for more information. If you have an interest in receiving a commission, send me an FA note with a story length and a brief summary of your idea. Any information helps. Feel free to include your preferences, information about your characters and their personalities, and anything else you consider relevant. Ideally it's not longer than a few paragraphs. Although I can effectively weave scattered lore and ideas in your head into a cohesive story, it'll be difficult to do if you don't have a clear idea of what you want to make a reality.

I may decline your commission if I'm uncomfortable with the premise, but no hard feelings. Commissions will also be temporarily closed if all three slots are occupied.

---

FAQ

Q: Do you offer private commissions?
A: No. I prefer publicly posting my stories and can list the commissioner as anonymous at most if requested.

Q: Do you take payment beyond PayPal or GooglePay?
A: No.

Q: What does the commission process itself entail?
A: I'll work one on one with a client after selecting them. We'll chat through FA notes or Discord. You'll be sent Google Docs links containing first drafts for input and revisions. Once a first draft is created and you're happy with everything, you'll likely be emailed a PayPal invoice to pay for the commission through a method of your choice. The story will be refined from there before we create a final draft.

Q: Can I post my commissioned story to my FA profile?
A: Yes. You'll be provided with a free PDF file and thumbnail after the commission is done. Just give me credit and it's all good!

Q: Can I commission stories involving your characters and/or settings?
A: Only if I personally approve of the story idea. I will not write anything that isn’t faithful to my work or fitting for the personalities of my characters.

Q: Can I cancel the commission or otherwise receive a refund?
A: It happens. It's not a problem if it's very early in the process and I tend not to charge a single penny until a first draft is provided. After you read and approve of a first draft, you will likely be charged accordingly, then a refund will only occur at my personal discretion if you're unhappy with the end product.

This journal is just to gauge interest and gather thoughts from my watchers. I’ve been at this whole writing thing for a while, but I’ve never felt comfortable charging people for it despite my experience over the years and the art trades I’ve done with others. With how the economy is doing these days, I could use a little extra money, and I’ve always thought it could be really fun to write about interesting characters created by others!

I’ve already made some commission terms accordingly.

https://www.furaffinity.net/commiss...../retroinferno/

I’d charge about 4 cents a word. Odds are I’m going to open two slots next month just to get a feel for things and I’ll continue to do openings in the future if it’s a positive experience overall.

Would this be something people would be interested in? Are these terms fair? Is there anything I should know regarding payment processors? Feel free to let me know in the comments!

I’m taking an indefinite break with the current projects going on hiatus.

I’ll try to keep it brief. So… I’m changing jobs and it’s consuming most of my free time recently. I don’t feel like I’m making “real” art anymore compared to when I posted on Reddit for a broad audience in the past. I’m writing less and less with my interactions regarding the macro fandom being consistently negative. People are gradually losing interest in my content. Occasionally I’m embarrassed or insecure about being associated with the fandom or posting on Furaffinity since it taints any stories I consider more “legitimate” than the macro stuff by mere association.

So I feel like I need to move my ass and try something else to avoid burning out altogether! I’m going to retain the Retroinferno handle and keep the current content up as is so that I have the option of making it my NSFW account, but I might experiment with a new alias to write SFW stories for a while. The two handles will likely be kept strictly separate. As a result, I’ll be inactive on FA and my discord server, but I’ll still occasionally check on things if people need to contact me.

Odds are this will be temporary rather than permanent since I need time to figure things out. I hesitated to make a journal about this, but I wanted to publicly explain why this account might be inactive if people stumble across it in the future or if there's a lack of updates. Someone will keep the stupid Stellaris mod updated though. But until then and thanks for all the fish!

So I've been doing white text with a black background for the last year or so regarding the PDF files I upload to this website. I started doing it since I believed it was easier on the eyes. After talking to an experienced illustrator who read one of my things, I learned that it actually strains your eyes more than the default black text on a white background. Apparently my decision to do the inverse was super dumb and violated basic color theory, so now I might need to spend an hour or two replacing a great deal of the current PDF files on my profile to fix this issue.

Do not make the same mistake I did. Sometimes things are the standard or the tradition for very good reasons.

I'll keep commentary to a minimum since I'm simply raising awareness of information compiled by others. The current conflict in Ukraine has adversely affected a variety of innocent people within the community, particularly any illustrators who made their living through PayPal and/or Patreon. Those services are no longer available in places such as Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus due to either the international sanctions, boycotts, or the local infrastructure being destroyed or disabled.

 butterfly-dragon created the following journal with alternatives to PayPal among other online payment processors and banking methods. Extremely useful information I'd rather not repeat too much here.

https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10151629

There's a similar guide written in Russian being maintained and updated by someone else.

https://digitalbroccoli.com/2022/03.....o-crisis-2022/

Some have suggested using cryptocurrency too. This is a potential option, but I'd advise against it since crypto has a bad reputation for a reason. It's extremely volatile, and I could see some opportunists with zero morals trying to take advantage of the situation to scam any desperate Russians trying to learn how it all works for the first time. So exercise caution if you look into it. Despite that, this is more or less why crypto even exists, so it might be a legitimate choice for some people if things deteriorate enough.

With that in mind, you have two options. You can either create a wallet with online guides like this one or you can use a centralized exchange. Ideally you use both for processing transactions, but it's the difference between keeping your money in your wallet or a bank regarding personal security with the linked guide going into more detail. At the risk of some people thinking less of me, I have some experience doing speculative trades with cryptocurrency, so I can personally recommend the Kraken exchange over a popular one such as Coinbase since they have lower fees and are less likely to screw over their Russian customers, albeit it's also an American exchange at the end of the day in case the US government tries to do something about it.

A reputable exchange in your own nation would be preferable, however. Although the American ones probably won't do a blanket ban on Russia since it goes against the core values of the crypto community, some such as Coinbase are already investigating and banning sanctioned Russian individuals.

Edit: butterfly-dragon linked a primer on crypto in his own journal that goes into more detail on the technicals. It might have rendered my own little spiel on it pointless, but be sure to read that journal too if you're looking into it.

On a final note, I'd also like to remind people that this nightmare is the fault of the Russian government rather than the Russian people. Don't hate innocent Russians for this. I do try to keep my political commentary and opinions to a minimum on FA since this is a NSFW furry account if we're being real here, so it's not necessarily the best place to express my views, but it's all been making me sick to my stomach watching things unravel. People I know are currently trying to leave their countries since things are getting really bad and it might get even worse if the conflict escalates...

We live in interesting times to say the least. Feel free to give feedback or suggestions if you have more information that could be useful to anyone reading this.

This journal is just a quick overview for my watchers about what I’m currently working on.

For example, the whole Stellaris mod.

Right now I’m just maintaining it and tweaking the traits as new updates roll out. I’d like to potentially expand upon the mod by adding some new traits for machine empires and some events once species of different sizes are living on the same planet together. This could include a temporary happiness and society research bonus if your xenophile macros interact with human sized alien immigrants. However, I’m a complete novice when it comes to paradox modding and scripting, so this could take some time if new content ever gets implemented at all due to the potential complexity involved.

Then there’s Terran Insurrection. I got warned ahead of time that trying to dive right into rewriting another novel immediately after Disintegration might not be the best idea. It proved to be something of a flash in the pan since I went into it really excited and motivated by churning out a few chapters in several days, then I quickly lost interest in basically retelling a story I already wrote before. Although I’d like to return to the story in the future, it might be best for me to put it on hiatus for the sake of my sanity since I’d like to write something fresh first...

Lastly, I really like Friends In Low Places as a concept. It’s more or less an excuse for fluffy slice of life stuff similar to Spice & Wolf, albeit with a macro snow leopard gal. I’m going to make it my main focus when it comes to my “larger” projects. For now.

So, quick summary. Stellaris mod is being maintained, may or may not expand it. Terran Insurrection is on hold for now. My main focus in the future will be Friends In Low Places, which shouldn’t be surprising to some since I mentioned that I’d concentrate on one or the other when things were still generally up in the air regarding what I’ll do next.

Otherwise, happy holidays and all of that, I love you, ect. Hopefully this explains things for people waiting on updates, but ultimately I can't spread myself out too thin.