Just thought I'd write up a quick update that I'm still around. I've started my second year of college, so being that I'm on a student budget submission activity on my account will still be rather slow.

Ten years. Today marks ten years since I turned 18, the day that was a significant turning point in my life for reasons other than becoming a legal adult. I woke up on that day, not with excitement, but some dread... I cried, broke down, and was an emotional wreak.

Through my love of dragons I had found FA a few months prior. I had reached 17 without ever having any interest in a relationship, and having grown up in a Mormon step-family the thought had never occurred to me that there may have been non-religious reasons for such. As a teenager I was very innocent and naive, and practically oblivious to the world of sexuality. At the time my Mormon upbringing was just the natural excuse to fall onto, naturally pushing away any girls that made advances on me. I just wasn't interested, at all. My dad divorced from our step-family when I was 14, making me an only child once again, and it took several years for me to break the mold and begin forming my own opinions on things.

So, 17 and oblivious, one day I was googling new dragon portraits to use as my desktop background. That innocent google search was what led me down the rabbit hole, what led me to eventually find FA a few weeks later through a series of obscure websites. I had never looked at porn in my life, and now here I was... fascinated, intrigued, and more importantly finding myself looking not at the straight stuff, but naturally gravitating to the homosexual pictures and scenes. I'm sure you readers can likely imagine how confused I was, going from complete ignorance and innocence to plunging into the deep-end.

Back to that morning ten years ago... The thought that I may have been gay had never even crossed my mind. I had been exploring and lurking in the shadows of FA for several months by that point, progressed far beyond a simple curiosity. FA had awoken something hidden deep down inside me, and I was finally coming to terms with that fact, that there'd be no turning back. At this crucial and critical point things could have gone two different ways. Fortunately for me, when my dad came out of his room it was to console and comfort me. No judging, no guilt, no excuses, just complete acceptance... He made it clear on that day that he had been waiting, that he had suspected and known for a considerable amount of time. I told him everything, and I mean everything, and even ended up showing him several of my favourite pictures at the time. There was no secrets, and he even set me up with one of his bisexual friends to help me ease into the scene, a friend that happens to be his fiancee today.

One thing about this fandom is that people come and go. For me, however, FA and the fur fandom holds a special place in my heart... it directly helped me develop as a person. Further, by refining my character Slyther, I had created a role model for myself to aspire to, helping me build confidence and independence. FA and the fur fandom had a direct and profound effect on me. Now, ten years later, I felt that I should share my story.

---Birthday
As can be inferred from above, turned 28 today.

---Relationship status
Figured it was time to formally announce a change of status, having quietly broken things off with my boyfriend a few months ago. Been enjoying the single life and am not in any real rush to get into another relationship right now.

---College
Cruised through my first semester with no real issues. One final left and then my Spring semester starts in May.

---GW2
I still play GW2 and still co-lead FER with Ribsteak. If you play and would like an invite to the guild, send me or another officer an in-game message. guildwars2furs (link)

I've posted the introductory installment to the story series I mentioned I was writing. Just a warning that it'll be heavily vore themed, though I believe most of my watchers are into that subject anyway. Hopefully it's well received, and I have chapters 1 and 2 done as well that I'll likely post in weekly increments.

I'm writing these using word and converting them to txt when I post to FA.

Figured it's time for an update!

-School!
I've finally taken the plunge and enrolled in college last month. Got fed up with not being able to get anywhere in life and drifting from one minimum wage job to another. For those curious I'm taking Business Administration, majoring Accounting. Typical of a dragon, hmm? Considering going for the full CPA certification as well, which can lead to some rather lucrative jobs in an already broad field of work.

-Posting activity
I've a couple commissions in the works, as well as some sketches I haven't posted yet. I've also got a few chapters of a new short story series written up as well that have remain un-posted due to lack of a proper thumbnail and writing motivation. One of my commissions will provide a suitable thumbnail, and school has been helping to revive my writing drive, so I may begin posting stories on a more regular basis.

I should be able to resume buying commission at least semi-regularly, and I'd be willing to do split commissions with friends of mine as well.

May be slow to start, but what kinds of scenes would you like to see Slyther in? I of course have ideas of my own, and would love to do commission splits with quite a few friends, but if there's enough interest in certain themes I can certainly try to accommodate them!

Be it a roast, critique, consultation, whatever you want to call this thing it is your chance to chime in on some aspects of my character. Never done this before, so hopefully it will go well. This may help people gain some insight into some of the thinking that went into my original design, and why I'm considering making current changes.

1. Let's begin with overall personality and the general direction I've been going. At first, many years ago, I played Slyther as friendly. Over the years I've taken him towards an increasingly confident demeanour, smug, proud, almost outright arrogant at times. He's still friendly with friends, but takes a more indifferent approach towards strangers. He likes being the one in charge.

I don't plan on readjusting the personality I've developed for Slyther and myself, mostly looking for thoughts on it.

2. Build. Again, my personal taste here and being a critique of my character, might as well have a section. For those who have known me awhile, I'm sure you've noticed my change from my original version 1 of being more athletic, to a heavier bulky build. Recently I've added a gut as well, both because I found I loved bellies and felt that it fit Slyther's vorish nature. It seems most have enjoyed this route I took.

3. Height.
Anthro. I do admit this is one aspect I have been looking at, though not too seriously. While I do have alt sizes my canonical size is 7 feet, and I chose that height for Slyther because I wanted my dragon species to be interactable with humans, but still a larger size with 7 being more of an upper-average. It just seems that so many of my friends are larger than my character, though I suppose there's nothing wrong with a smaller dom! For reference the most common alt size that I use is roughly 10 feet. Keep in mind, larger size means bigger package too.
Feral. Generally been pretty happy with the 20 feet (at shoulder) I chose for my feral form, though have on occasion thought about a small bump to 25 or so. 20 seems a great size though, as it's larger than most dragons yet still of a size where smaller characters aren't insignificant. Again, I do use alt sizes at times, though it's far less common than the anthro changing size.

4. Endowment. Most seem to like my large double endowment. Not really looking to make changes here, but now's your chance to express thoughts on it!

5. Semen. This is one of the major things I'm looking at. If you watch me you likely know that my character's semen is of an orange hue. It was originally white WAY back, but a roleplay with a long-ago friend had me experiment with glowing lava semen. First I dropped the lava component, leaving the orange with a glow of which I soon discontinued the glow as well. That left just the orange semen I'm left with today, and I originally kept it around in an effort to have that uniqueness. There was plausible explanations for it too, as there are rare cases of earth species having off-colour fluids.

The problem is that it's off-putting and jarring for a lot of people when they first encounter it. Yes friends get used to it, even learn to enjoy it, but it's almost inevitable that any picture I ever post that has a messy aspect to it gets some variation of the rehashed comment again and again. Perhaps I should just continue to ignore such comments, but now is your chance to share your thoughts on the orange colouration.

6. Wings. I've been indirectly learning about wing anatomy over the years, and it's to the point where you may have already seen changes in recent pictures. Basically adapting a proper 'hand' structure, though the question is how many 'fingers' should I go with? Should I have a 'finger' coming off the elbow? How far down should the membrane be attached? Should I reevaluate the one and a half body length of each wing? Been thinking of finalizing on three fingers plus a finger on the elbow, with the membrane down to the rump/haunch area and keeping the 1.5 ratio.

7. Feet. Not changing them, but now's your chance to express your thoughts. Really I just need to find a better way to explain my foot structure to artists, as some have a hard time grasping the concept. Original inspiration was avian but with extra toes with the intent to have the functional purpose be to help spread out the weight. More relevant comparisons are mechs and even creatures like the Goliath from Evolve.

8. Additional thoughts?

So I've had an idea for awhile now for a character consultation of Slyther to try and gauge how people feel about certain aspects of my character. Having been largely absent from the commission scene for awhile now and looking to get back into it, as well as looking at a possible suit that I need to get a new up-to-date reference sheet for to give an accurate quote, I figure it's a good time to get opinions and thoughts. The results would help me refine an updated 2017 version of Slyther.

If there's enough people interested in giving input I'll create a small questionnaire of sorts on areas in particular I'm looking at, as well as general thoughts.

It's been two weeks since I attended my first furry convention ever, so I thought it was time to do a short recap on it.

I've been wanting to go to a convention for a very long time, and after a fair number of the local fur group went to Fur-Eh last year, I decided there was no way I was missing it this year. As usual the planning was atrocious however, so I ended up having to book a room entirely for myself. (Already got a potential room-mate for next year so yay for actual pre-planning and cost reduction!) I booked the room just in time too, as not even two days later the Fort McMurray fires happened...

For those that didn't see the international headlines and coverage, a massive wildfire sprang up in the wilderness a few hours north of Edmonton close to Fort McMurray. The city is the heart of Alberta's oilsands industry, and the entire city was put under evacuation with near ninety thousand people being forced to flee. About half of the evacuees went to Edmonton, filling up any available accommodations including the hotel hosting Fur-Eh. While I did not directly interact with many evacuees, it was something I constantly thought about while attending the convention. Entire families would come and go, people bringing groceries up to their rooms, evacuees dining in the hotel restaurant or drinking at the bar. I did get to see some children interacting with some of the suitors though, so I hope that the presence of the furry convention brought some light-hearted comfort to the families.

Unfortunately my offer to house a Fort McMurray fur in need went unanswered, and I think part of that has to do with poor timing as my tweet didn't get retweeted by the Fur-Eh staff until after the convention was over and we'd already left.

-The drive up
This deserves it's own section as the trip up to Edmonton was an experience all it's own... after my boyfriend and I finally secured a ride with a friend we were among the last to leave on Thursday night. The van was loaded with our friends equipment, as he was to DJ for an hour on Friday night. Everything seemed good, the vehicle in good condition, and we got our snacks. The first leg of the trip was uneventful.

Things changed as we entered Calgary however a few hours later, effectively the half-way point of our trip. Without any prior indications that anything was wrong, the van's engine had a loss of power on the hill entering the city limits and began making noises. We took the ring road, and pulled over a short time later for my friend to try to determine what was wrong with the engine. After starting up again we figured it was something internal, as they could not see anything, and thought it best to drive into the city to get the engine checked, and parked at a Petro-Can parking lot. Keep in mind it was after 10PM at this point, so most mechanics were closed... The decision was made to call AMA for them to come assess the vehicle for us and determine if we could make it to Edmonton.

The diagnoses truck arrived, and told us to immediately turn off the engine after not even two seconds of listening to it. He determined it to be a catastrophic failure, and highly recommended that the van never drive again... it would have also cost more to fix the engine than the van was even worth, and if we could even find a replacement engine there's no telling how much longer the van would have lasted anyway, as it was already well past the average mileage of the vehicles make. The tech was amazed we even made it into the city, and though the van was still technically drive-able chances were high we'd break down on the highway... The rod was ready to go through the engine block at any moment, seizing the engine and spilling oil.

The tech was generous enough to allow us to park the van at their parking lot for free over the weekend so we could retrieve any remaining belongings in it on the way back from the con. We were left waiting with a pile of luggage in the parking lot as we waiting for a taxi, where we then went to the airport as fortunately for us a vehicle rental company was still open there. To simplify this section, my boyfriend rented the vehicle and would be the driver for trip to Edmonton. It was past 2AM when we were finally on the road again...

So yeah, was roughly 6:30AM when we finally checked into our rooms, my boyfriend deciding to stay with me for the first two days of the con before spending a week with his family.

-The con
I managed to have a good time despite the fact I had little 'fun' money left after our little emergency. Decided to go to most of the writing focused panels as I'd like to get back into writing. The dragon panel was interesting too, as well as the CAH game I went to. One of my friends ended up placing second in the tournament, losing to the guy that won my table in the first round.

Met a couple of new people, and met up with the local fur group a few times throughout the con. Being a smaller Canadian based convention I was unfortunately not able to really meet up with online friends, as none really went to Fur-Eh.

Managed to get some tips on when I eventually get a suit of my own made as well, and an estimated ballpark number to save toward. Ideally I'd like to try and have a suit ready for two cons from now, but we'll see how my finances fall in place and what other large investments I decide to prioritize first.

Anyway, not much else comes to mind for the moment, so thanks for reading!

I'll be attending FurEh in Edmonton as my first ever fur convention. If anyone would like to meet up please let me know.

Just wishing a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays : )

For those I was unable to keep in the loop, I am now home after having spent two days in the hospital. I will be recovering for about a week.

To be short it's time for me to take a hiatus of sorts. I'm not disappearing entirely and will still be reachable, but I won't be actively initiating conversation with people.

Just signed up on Telegram, though I will hold the same policy as my other IM's and not have it publicly available. Note me if you want my contact info.

Finally joined the age of modern phone technology by replacing my roughly six year old flip phone with my first smart phone. Still looking at how I can make use of it, which leads me into my next point... Now that I have a smart phone I figure it may be finally worth signing up for Twitter as it's essentially made to be a mobile app. There's some other reasons for signing up too, lots of friends use it, and lots of artists do business through Twitter, so it was time I did a bit of social catch up as well.

For those curious my new phone is a Samsung Grand Prime
My new Twitter: https://twitter.com/Crimson_Slyther

I've updated the  guildwars2furs page with a journal of recent announcements, found here! http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/7003337/

With the mass migration over to Skype over recent years I've found that most other chat programs have become obsolete. Combine this with the fact that Skype does not cooperate well with third party chat programs such as Trillian and you've got a program that is now essentially nothing more than a glorified email notifier.

With this in mind I have just downloaded an Outlook.com Notifier extension for Chrome and will be discontinuing the use of Trillian, so here's what's going on:
-If you have me on AIM or Yahoo you can ask me to add you on Skype or Steam.
-If you previously had me as an MSN/WLM contact please know that I did not upgrade my MSN account to Skype, as I already had a Skype account. If you previously had me on MSN and lost contact with me, and would like to get in touch again please ask for my Skype or Steam info.

In one of the most exciting elections seen in Canada for some time, Alberta, traditionally one of the most conservative strongholds in the country, has turfed the long standing PC dynasty of 43 years!

To put this in perspective for the huge American demographic on here, Alberta had been known as "the Texas of Canada". In other words, what just happened here in Alberta would be the equivalent to the Democrats sweeping Texas away from the Republicans!

At the time the election was called, the PC's had 70 of 87 seats. The results now currently stand at 53 NDP/21 WRP/10 PC/1 Liberal/1 AP with one seat still up for grabs because of a tie between NDP/PC (And thus gets an automatic recount). The numbers should speak for themselves, PC's were utterly annihilated, not even qualifying as the official opposition! They've been reduced to third party status.

As is normal of a party suffering a massive defeat, the former Premier Prentice resigned his position as leader of the PC's. However, he left a huge sour taste when he also resigned his seat that he had managed to hold on to, leaving his constituents without an MLA before the ballots were even finished being counted!

I know politics isn't every ones thing, but Alberta is certainly awash with cautious excitement. The NDP majority here, a centre-left party in a traditionally right wing province, is sending political ripples throughout Canada. There's already speculation of the Federal NDP and even the Liberals looking to make gains here come the Federal election in the fall.

---Birthday
It's my 26th birthday today. Hard to believe I've been on this site for close to 9 years now!

---Relationship
Not many people know, but I am in a relationship. However, my boyfriend and I had a big talk last weekend and came to the conclusion that our status can truly be defined as "It's complicated". To put things short and simple, we have agreed to have full open status, allowing us the chance to date other people during the limbo of neither of us being able to fully commit to the other.

---Random Poll
Muscle-gut yea/nae?

Eight and a half months... I just now realized it's been quite some time since my last submission. That has now been fixed with the posting of my new feral reference sheet a few minutes ago! Seriously Neo, it's awesome, thanks so much! Adult version will be posted in the coming days, or you can look at it on Neo's Tumblr that I have linked in the image description.

As an update to the last journal I have recently acquired a new job. The pay is not as good as my old one, but it's in a convenient location and much more laid back in pace. This means I will be able to get art on a more consistent basis again, as well as have money coming in for Holiday gifts for family, as well as perhaps spoil myself with some new monitors, TV, and perhaps even a Wii U. Unfortunately my income won't be enough to make any sort of significant progress toward long-term goals I have, so we'll see if I can either find something better or get a more solid footing in my new job.

Also have met a friend in town that's pretty awesome, and he has been finding other furs close-by that is starting to make up the vague beginnings of an actual furry scene in this small city.

So, figure it's time I do an update on life for those who care to read beyond this point.

First off I should mention that I was let go from my job for unspecified reasons two days before my probation ended, and so I find myself unemployed again just as I had gotten out of debt from my last stint of unemployment. Hopefully I'll be able to get something relatively quickly. I had been planning to start getting art and such again, but that will now have to be delayed another few months as I try to find new work and get financially stable again.

I had bought myself a new SSD hardly even a week before I was let go, but it's a purchase I don't regret. It's been a huge improvement to my computer and I have not been able to really treat myself much for a long time.

I've been finding myself feeling a bit lonely of late as well, not just in regard to having no special companion, but with friends as well. I feel many have grown distant of late, but I suppose that's a natural thing to happen in such relationships. Trauron, my roommate, seems to have a real knack for meeting local furs despite no local fur community even really existing, but then again he knows a ton of people so it seems inevitable a few would be close. Perhaps it's time for me to start reaching out and make some local friends of my own to start hanging out with.

Anyway, I've started rambling. In regard to the last journal I decided to keep the bracers, but said friend has returned, at least partially, to the fandom anyway.

So I find I'm debating myself regarding a certain aspect of my character, in particular the platinum bracers that I wear. In short, they connect me to a person I've been friends with for quite a long time now, one of the first people I met in the fandom and been close with since. Some may know who it is, or be able to guess, but said person has now quietly left the fandom.

Now I'm left wondering if I should remove the bracers, or keep them as a legacy of a close friendship. He has influenced my character in many other ways too, so even if I remove them certain aspects of myself will remind me of said friend.

But then if I do remove them I feel it'd leave my character a little baren, those bracers have been integral to my design for some time now.

Turned 25 today, really not much else to update other than the new job is going well.

Seems I don't make many journals these days, here's a few updates for people who care.

---New job, just got hired and completed training which means I'll be financially stable again

---Single, I am officially single again, have been for a few months, though I didn't make my relationship exactly public knowledge to begin with

---Birthday, turning 25 on April 23rd

Yay 20000 pageviews!

Also journal bump, last one's pretty old.