Hey everyone! I'm finally pulling the trigger to move off of X entirely and migrate to bsky. Perhaps more notable though, I've decided to start transitioning to a new name. I know I've been TerdBurgler for over 20 years now but it's time to admit that the name no longer reflects who I am or my work. Therefore, I'm going to start moving towards a new name: CarolineTheWoof. I'll start by updating my Bsky and Itch but in time, I hope to move all my profiles to Caroline. Since FurAffinity doesn't really let you change your name, I'm probably going to keep this account open for the time being but there may come a day where this account becomes just a placeholder. I'll make another announcement if it ever comes to that. For now, you can follow my new Bsky!

https://bsky.app/profile/carolineth.....of.bsky.social

-CarolineTheWoof

Streaming more commission work!

https://picarto.tv/TerdBurgler

-TB

Streaming and listening to music while I work on commissions.

https://picarto.tv/TerdBurgler

-TB

Today is my first birthday as Elizabeth. I feel like it's kind of a milestone. Like, being a woman every day has gotten completely normal for me and this birthday is no exception. It's just another thing I finally get to celebrate as my true self and it feels good. Happy birthday, Elizabeth.

-Liz

Yeah, I just... decided to make some. Deal with it.

https://t.me/addstickers/TerdBurglerSticks

-TB

To any concerned, I just wanted you to know that I am just fine! Things have definitely been tumultuous but I can confidently say that I'm a much happier person now than I was three months ago. Many things have settled and while my life has shifted dramatically, it's at least gaining some level of consistency in certain places. I'm out at work now and to my surprise, they've been rather accepting of me! I still hear some people refer to me as "he" when they think I'm out of earshot but that's about the worst of it and it could have been FAR worse. That said, I'm presenting as a woman 24/7 now! No more boy disguise ever! This is my life from now on.

Things from the legal side have been pretty exciting too. My court order for name change finally arrived and now I can start the process of updating it everywhere else! Won't be much longer until my Driver's License has my correct name and gender on it. On a person's note, even with COVID, I've been more social than I've ever been! I have so many friends new and old to reach out to that it's hard to keep up on sometimes! It's just so nice to have people that still love and care about me, as well as seeing how new people have been reacting to the new, happier me.

For those curious about how this all effects my drawing or my game, I'd be lying if I said it hasn't been hard. All these developments have been emotionally draining and I'm still a creature of inspiration. If I don't have the mood graced upon me, it's very difficult to draw. Still, it does come by every now and again and I always try to get the most out if it. 3 out of 10 enemies in Warrior of the North Wood have been recoded/rewritten to incorporate the new graphics and I still sit down from time to time to get the game even further. As long as I never give up on it, it will get done some day.

I think that's about it for now. It's been a wild and crazy life. I really can't believe this is what my world would come to be in 8 short months but it's such a huge improvement. I guess this is what happens when you take control of your life instead of just going with the flow forever. Funny how that works...

-Liz

By Goddess, what a hell of a journey it's been... It's kinda surreal to see who I am today. I'm trying to get back into creating regularly but a lot of my days are spent just coming to terms with all the little things. At my core I'm still the same TB but in a lot of ways, I've completely changed. I'm single again for the first time since my twenties, I'm in full control of my life and I'm actually setting a direction instead of just going where life takes me. I'm making plans, I'm being responsible and I'm doing better about championing for myself. For fuck's sake, I'm finally living as the person I always wanted to be instead of just accepting the gender they told me I was. I am Elizabeth! Every day feels like it comes with new emotional hurdles and accomplishments and I'm still going! I am still working on Warrior of the North Wood because it's a project I love and once I'm feeling a touch more stable in my art, I want to get back to streaming. If I can get past a very big mental hump I may even start hopping on mic.

The key takeaway is that I'm still here and I'm still kicking. I've got a lot of healing and growing to do so please be patient with me but I ain't stopping. I still have a lot left to give.

-Elizabeth

Holy crap, here we go! The journey will be long and slow but it has begun!

-TB

Please, please, please, if you are American and you haven't already voted, make plans to go out and vote. Know your polling place, get there early and do not leave until your vote has been counted. Don't listen to the polls, don't listen to the propaganda, just VOTE!

-TB

It is with a solemn seriousness that I announce that I have to retire my characters Emily and Alice. I had originally based these characters off of my ex-wife and for legal reasons that I cannot explain in great detail, it is best if I retire them all together. It is also a rather painful matter for me as well so I'd like to ask that you please refrain from drawing any fanart of these characters regardless of context. I'll leave the artwork I've already done of them up but I won't be making anything new with them or including them in any projects. I only ask you to understand and respect that this is the way it has to be. I didn't want this to be the case but it is just how it has to be.

-TerdBurgler

So anybody who knows me well knows that I've avoided talking about my gender since, well... ever. I've been doing it for as long as I've had an online presence. There were reasons I was public about and there were reasons I never wanted to admit to myself but after my divorce, I've had an opportunity to go back and look at my life; look at myself and pick up what I started so very long ago. I would often tell people that the reason I didn't reveal my gender was because I didn't want people judging me based on my physical body. In a way that was true, but it was true for reasons I didn't fully understand at that time. I think I subconsciously knew all along but I was too embarrassed to admit it. I wanted people to guess what my gender was... but there was a result I always enjoyed so much more than the other. It was what I wanted to be- what I really felt inside and would feel this immense amount of glee whenever someone else saw that same glimmer in me, my true self. But now that I'm free to be whoever I want to be, I've been able to fully embrace it and I'm tired of hiding or being vague or simply denying how I really feel.

Stuart Packrell is not my name. It never has been. My legal name is not my name. I renounce it. I am Elizabeth. I am a woman. And I'm done denying.

-Elizabeth, TB

I know it's been a while since I posted an update and I'm sure many of you have already noticed that the itch.io link for Warrior of the North Wood is down. I was keeping things quiet as I took stock in my life and after a couple weeks, I realized I had to make some very difficult decisions.

To make an otherwise long story shorter, I'm going to be divorcing my partner of 14 years. The relationship just wasn't working and I have to move on with my life. I'm also going to resume work on Warrior of the North Wood. That said, there are still legal things to go through and I'm currently staying with family and have nowhere to setup my computer so new content will have to wait for a while but I know I'll be a lot more productive now more than ever. But until I get a job and a place of my own, everything artistically will be on-hold. Thank you all for your understanding and patience. I'm sure I'll be back in no-time!

-TB

I know it's been a while since I posted the first version of the Warrior of the North Wood game but I've been pouring a LOT of work into it. There have been a ton of UI tweaks, optimization and additional features based on your wonderful suggestions. I've already finished features like Saving/Loading, Fullscreen Toggling, Audio Muting and Leveling! I've also been working on a complete re-balance of the enemies and encounter rates to reflect the stronger player character as they gain levels. I am excited to say that I've gotten the tweaks, features and balancing at a place I'm happy with so I'm back on working on new content. I've got more story, more enemies and the first Boss Fight in the works! I want to make sure that the North Wood v0.1.0 Update is a really significant one.

At this stage, I've been thinking about a more unified community resource as well. I know the usual go-to for folks is a Discord Server but truth be told, I'm not sure if I'm online consistently enough to moderate that kind of community effectively. If there's going to be a space for that, I want it to be one I can be happy with and proud of. I've actually been pursuing the idea of launching a Message Board over on TerdBurgler.com. With a little extra work and some help from a proper Web Developer, I could even create a better marketplace for my Comics and Patreon Benefactors in the process! It would take an investment to get there but if that's something people would like, I'd put in the time and money to make it happen. Until then, if you want to get the most current North Wood updates, I update much more frequently over on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/TheTerdBurgler

You can also download the current release over on Itch.io

https://terdburgler.itch.io/warrior.....the-north-wood

If you just wanna do a quick play on your computer or mobile device, you can find a browser version over on Newgrounds.

https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/748489

-TB

After attending my first Furry Convention I can confidently say...

It's not for me. I met some new artists, attended some good panels, bummed around the Art Jam room but by Day 2, I quickly found I was running out of things to do. I didn't really click with anyone and soon, a strong sensation of feeling alone in a crowd set in. I ended up leaving early on Saturday feeling utterly depressed. Everyone else was having the time of their lives and I couldn't help but feel like I must have been doing something horribly wrong to not be enjoying myself. By Sunday, I didn't even want to go back to the convention space.

Before I continue, there are some important notes for context. I went to the convention alone and I had to travel to get there. I didn't have a car and I was in the Overflow Hotel which was a 10 minute walk through ~40 degrees F with rain and snow to get to the venue. That may not be very cold to you but I'm from Vegas so it was pretty darn chilly for me. Furthermore, with the Covid-19 scare, many of the artists and panelists I was hoping to meet canceled.

Despite this seemingly perfect storm of bad convention experience, it doesn't really change the core issue: I just did not feel like I fit in at all. I know how silly that may sound as the Furry Scene is supposed to be for everyone but that only makes the problem worse. What on Earth must I be doing wrong to not fit in with the most accepting group out there? I must have looked just as out-of-place as I felt because I kept having parents or friends who got dragged to the event approaching me to talk- which was nice to have someone to talk to but I was hoping to meet other furs. One could make the case that wearing big, fluffy ears, a tail or partial suit would help make the distinction but the thing is, that's not me. I don't have a fursona and I don't feel like I need to express myself as an animal. I'm an artist and I like to create Furry Media- that's about the extent of it.

In the end, I felt isolated, alone and often wishing I was on the other side of one of the tables. The artists were the crowd I felt I had the biggest connection with and I wanted to be showing my work alongside them instead of just cycling through the Den and Alley over and over again because nothing else interested me. Ultimately, my takeaway here is that furry conventions are just for a different Demographic than me. I may still do a Table or two at various conventions or if there's a lot of folks I know going to one con and it isn't to expensive for me to make it, I may still pop by. But for the most part, I found that going to a con just to attend is not for me.

-TB

Things get messy when a spunky, feline janitor decides to have a little fun with the specimens of a top-secret facility housing horrible, sex-crazed monsters. Now the monsters have broken loose and the only ones who can stop them are Red Fox Vixen and Director of the facility, Linda Wright, and the same spunky janitor who started this whole debacle, Mia Carpenter. Nothing could prepare them for what comes next as they have to subdue the perverted beasts, each with it's own unique powers and abilities. It's 36 pages of pure excitement with an utterly unexpected appearance at the end that you must see to believe! It's all available now in Digital and Physical Copies!

You can read the preview right here: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/29486809/

This really was an adventure to put together. I love creating comics and I hope you all enjoy reading them as well. To show my gratitude, in addition to making ASPR Outbreak available, I'm also adding a discount to the original ASPR, as well as a bundle so you can get the whole series for less. Each Physical Copy will also come with the Digital Copy too so you can enjoy both formats. Digital Copies will be distributed with an automatic download as soon as the payment submits so you won't have to wait for any emails or logins. Here's the many ways you can get the comic!

ASPR Outbreak - Digital: $10
ASPR Outbreak in Digital Format, available as a direct download.

ASPR Outbreak - Physical: $15
ASPR Outbreak in a Physical, Printed Comic that you can hold in your hands! Digital Format is also included.

ASPR Bundle - Digital: $16
Get ASPR: Academy for Sexual Parasite Research and ASPR: Outbreak together at a discounted price! Both come as a direct download.

ASPR Bundle - Physical: $20
ASPR: Academy for Sexual Parasite Research and ASPR: Outbreak both in physical copies! Enjoy the tactile sensation of the ASPR Series at your finger tips as well as Digital for maximum satisfaction.

-TerdBurgler

You read that right, ASPR: Outbreak has been completed and will available on October 28th! I want to thank everyone who has supported me along the way as well as all of you who have waited patiently for the final release. Your love and support has made this an incredible experience and I'm so pleased to finally be able to bring it to you. I'll be posting a few more preview pages here once the day comes as well as putting together a bundle deal for those of you who haven't read ASPR yet and would like to get caught up in ASPR: Outbreak. There's a lot I could still say but I'm going to leave that for release day because I could go on and on for far too long and there's still plenty of prep-work to be done to ensure you get the comic as easily and efficiently as possible. Until then, my friends!

-TB

I really do owe you all an update on how things are going. You can't exactly drop the kind of bombshell that I did and then leave it at that for months without any word. So here's a nice update on things!

My partner is back from treatment and settled back into our home. There's still a lot of work to do and there are still hard days but she's doing MUCH better than she was before. There have been some stress-related pains and there was a trip to the ER over a scare (turned out to just be extreme stress pains, nothing serious) but we've been making a lot of headway as well. We've been attending couples therapy, she's increased the amount of therapy sessions she engages in and I've started going to therapy as well. Among many other revelations, I have a tendency to think that because I don't have any diagnosed disorders, that means I have to be the strong one and endure the worst of everything and take all the burden upon myself to take it off of her. However, this has only lead to me being over-stressed all the time, constantly on-edge and so sensitive that I just shatter the moment anything goes wrong. It's been leading to a lot of sleepless nights for me lately but hey, you don't go to therapy to have an easy walk in the park. You go to therapy to confront the hard and ugly things in your mind and I have a lot more of those than I allowed myself to realize.

Another major update, I have quit my day job! Part of it is so that I can actually resolve the last of my mother-in-law's affairs as I was simply unable to handle taking care of that and working at the same time. The other part is that I have been working non-stop since I was 16 years old and just... FUCK! I need a break! The problem is that I've spent more than half my life consistently employed and being the sole bread-winner of the household so the idea of not working is just... hard to adjust to. I don't actually know how to relax and live a life not filled with responsibilities and deadlines. Every day has always been filled with work, work, work and project after project and not having any of that before me is messing with my head. I'm having to learn who I am outside of my job. But there is also a third part to quitting as well. That part being that I was going to have to do it eventually anyway because we've decided we won't want to live in Las Vegas anymore. It's just not the city we were hoping for. We were expecting a hip and progressive city, something youthful and artistic but when we got here, we found it was shockingly conservative. My partner, who is covered in piercings and tattoos, was unable to find work anywhere! Every prospective employer required you to look nice and non-offensive so as to not offend the international tourists. Furthermore, the health-care system in the state of Nevada is just plain fucked. Despite my partner working in Mental Health for six years and even building a high-complexity toxicology lab, she couldn't get a job in her field anywhere. Turns out Nevada requires that every single person who interacts with mental health clients be a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. Her experience and dual-degree in Sociology and Criminology do absolutely nothing for her here. But this also means that the field is ludicrously under-staffed and over-worked. After all, nobody with an LCSW is going to accept $12 an hour as a receptionist- but that's what the state demands. So she is unable to serve the people she is trained and experienced to serve and it's very difficult for us to find the help we need as well. So with that in-mind, we knew we had to leave. So hey, I was gonna have to quit sooner or later so I may as well do it now so I can focus on getting everything sorted out.

So in light of all that, it leaves us with where we want to go. I'm well on my way of tying up the last of my mother-in-law's affairs and at the end of the day... we kinda inherited a small fortune. Nothing enormous but the kind of money that could actually get us out from under our student loans and give us a pretty strong start on an actual retirement fund. We also got a house which we do NOT intend to keep so we're in the last steps of getting it fixed up and then we'll put it on the market. Once it's sold, that money will go to buying us a new house wherever we want to go! So after discussing it with my partner and going over several options, we ruled out just about everywhere else and are solidly decided on moving to Vancouver, BC. So that's where things are. We are both working on ourselves, tying up the last of the loose ends and then it's all about selling the inherited house and moving to Canada. In the meantime, we're also going to do some actual vacationing with the money we got. We're starting small right now, got a 3-day trip to the Grand Canyon in mind (I've never seen it!) but hopefully by December, we want to do a week-long Cruise! It's actually proving to be kinda hard to allow myself to enjoy myself without working but it's part of the process! We're breaking out of boxes and going for a big, needed change. We've got the opportunity and we're not going to let it go to waste!

-TB

This isn't a joke or fictional tale. It's not seeking attention or pity. I know I don't normally talk about myself or my personal life but I also think I owe it to you all to let you know why I've been so absent as of late. And, to be entirely honest, it's probably therapeutic for me to actually type all of this up instead of keeping it bottled up inside.

TRIGGER WARNING: This contains talk of surgery, depression, self harm and suicidal ideation

My partner has Clinical Depression and General Anxiety Disorder. She's had it ever since we met and it's always been present in our relationship. I've learned how to cope with it, the two of us had developed our patterns and we were doing our best to get by but it was clear that her symptoms weren't improving, even after several medication shifts. Even worse, she spent most of 2018 practically bed-ridden with us struggling to find out why until she was diagnosed with Endometriosis which ultimately resulted in her having to undergo two surgeries to remove her fallopian tubes and then both of her ovaries. It would have been nice if things had stopped there after 10 months of working full-time and being her caretaker but then in October of last year, we decided together to do something dramatic about her depression. She went in for 30 days of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (think Electro-Convulsion Therapy but with magnets instead of electricity) aimed and stimulating her inactive dopamine receptors. It was another hard process to get through but by the end of it, we began to notice a change. It wasn't sudden but it was definitely there and it was only getting stronger as the days went by. Her depression was decreasing.

Now, this is a wonderful thing, no doubt about it, but it didn't go without incident either. Our entire relationship had been built on the roles of her fighting her depression and me helping her through it. Without the depression, there was a big dynamic shift in our relationship and I found that all my previous habits and behaviors were no longer appropriate- effectively jumping straight to damage control and support because that is what we'd spent the past 10 years doing and her being frustrated that I was still treating her like she was depressed and fragile. We had to learn a whole new language, as it were, to interact with each other. It took a lot of focus and attention to identify and actively change long-standing behaviors and I felt like I was doing a good job- until May began to roll around. My partner was becoming increasingly agitated when I failed to respond correctly. She became frustrated how I wasn't doing more around the house or more to care for the pets (I work full-time while she is unemployed). Even with my work, she became increasingly judgmental that I stayed with my company when it was proving to be quite stressful in it's own instead of seeking out a new job. It all culminated on Memorial Day Weekend when she went on a full, shouting tirade about how I was worthless, spineless, ignorant and pathetic. Now, I'm a very empathetic person and this all went straight to my heart like a dagger- and this was made all the more crushing because we NEVER shout at each other, let alone like this. I quickly fell into a strong bout of depression and my partner, when she realized what she had done, completely imploded. She fell into an even deeper depression, deeper than any she'd had before and when I went to work as I always did the next day, in just a few hours, she went from depression to constant thoughts of self harm and suicide.

She'd experienced thoughts of self harm and suicide before. I'm still haunted by the day I came home to see her huddled in the bathroom with razor blade cuts all over the tops of her feet. It was the only time she'd actually harmed herself before and since but she was self-aware enough to know that these thoughts were incredibly wrong and dangerous. She called me at work but I was in the middle of a meeting at the time. I still answered the phone and I remember her asking if I could come home because she wasn't feeling well. I told her I was in an important meeting. I HATE that I told her that. I didn't validate her, I didn't acknowledge her, I practically screamed in the subtitles that my job was more important than her. She said it was fine if I stayed at work. I told her that if she really needed me, I could leave but the message had already been sent and she said she was fine and hung up. She called the suicide hotline. They talked for a while but she didn't feel any better after. She knew she wasn't in a safe state and couldn't be trusted by herself. She called me again a couple hours later. I was at the doctor's office.

"I'm going to admit myself to the hospital on Suicide Watch." The words hit me like a gut punch from a semi. I was in shock. I didn't know how to answer. I went with, "I'm at the doctor's right now." Again, the WORST thing I could have responded, once again reiterating that something else was more important than her and her very life. I forget what happened after that but it more-or-less went the way of she was dead-set on taking herself to the hospital and honestly, I didn't want to stop her. If she truly was feeling suicidal, that was exactly where she needed to be. I asked her to let me know where she was going so I could visit her as soon as she was able to take visitors.

I called my work, told them I would need to take the rest of the week off. I was going to visit her every day for as long as they would allow me. She never told me where she was going. I waited for three hours before I got a text from her. The hospital wouldn't admit her. They held her for two hours, interviewed her and determined that since she didn't abuse alcohol and didn't have a plan on how she would do it, they wouldn't allow her to stay there. They just... sent her home. Two hours later, I'm still pacing around the house, not knowing where she was, if she was safe, why it was taking her so long to get home. It really didn't matter when she walked in through the front door. Without a word, I gave her one of the biggest, tightest, longest hugs she'd received since our wedding day. She asked me if I could take the day off from work the next day and I told her I already secured the entire week. She liked hearing that.

The rest of the week didn't go well. I did my best to care for her, help and support her but the feelings still persisted. She didn't know why she had such strong and sudden depression, or the suicidal thoughts. I had to hide all the knives in the house just in case. She tried to see her psychologist but he was on vacation at the time. When she tried to see the psychologist who was filling in for him while he was away, she refused to see her. We never even saw her. She just said that she refused and if we had a problem with that, to go to the ER. Another hard and heavy blow. She made an emergency appointment with her therapist and when she walked in the door, the therapist immediately informed her that she had already contacted the State Hospital and they were willing to admit her immediately into their suicide ward. It was a crushing blow for her. She wanted to seek treatment, not accept defeat. Worst of all, it was at the state hospital and she already had a very bad association with sterile environments like that. Her father was forced to stay at a State Hospital after a suicide attempt and they always said he came out much, much worse after that stay. He was able to complete his suicide three years later. She didn't want to go there.

I did my best to keep her comfortable, to constructively talk and validate her feelings but the week eventually came to an end and I had to go back to work. She quickly came to realize that she still didn't feel safe alone. She also knew that I couldn't be her stay-at-home caretaker forever. I'm actually really proud of her for doing this but she began to seek out her own residential treatment facilities, ones that weren't so cold and sterile as the state hospital. By Wednesday, she had contacted a facility just four hours away and started looking into cost, our insurance and room availability. We agreed it would be for the best despite how hard it would surely be for the both of us. Then we got a call on Friday. A bed was opening on Saturday and if we wanted to get in, we had to take it. One day notice. She began packing that night and the next morning, I drove her there and dropped her off.

I cried most of the way back. Then I cried a bunch more when I got home. It quickly dawned on me that prior to this, I have never actually lived alone. I'd always had family, room mates, significant others, always SOMEBODY else in the house. I'd never lived somewhere where I was the only human being. Sunday was filled with that heavy realization, trying to find out how to live when all you had was yourself and a bunch of pets to take care of. But that realization didn't get to last very long. Life often throws you the most dramatic curve balls at the most unusual times. That Sunday, at 9:30 PM, I got a voicemail from my grandmother-in-law. I called her back shortly after and she told me: my partner's mother was dead. They needed to know what mortuary to take her to and somebody needed to tend to her affairs. And so... I took it upon myself. Anything I could do to take the pressure off of my partner in this horrific time, the better. Besides, it might have actually been a welcomed distraction from everything else that was happening. I was also the one who was tasked with informing my partner. If you want to know, just as a short-hand, telling the person you love most of all that their parent is dead is a soul-crushing experience.

I tried to go back to work on Monday. It was a terrible idea. I was completely out of my head and was constantly on the phone making arrangements and talking to people. It became quickly apparent that I had to go out to where my mother-in-law lived to tend to the estate and get everything settled. I was able to get another week off of work for bereavement and spent the next week in an absolute torrent of paperwork, lawyers, doctors, morticians, contractors and bureaucrats. I'd like to say I got it all taken care of but it couldn't be further from the truth. I STILL have items that need tending to and I don't see it stopping any time soon. The week was simultaneously one of the longest and shortest weeks I'd ever experienced. I came back completely exhausted, overwhelmed and once again, alone. For two more weeks, I did my best to carry on, barely able to keep things together, constantly feeling like I was falling apart and just trying to make it to when my partner would come back from treatment. There wasn't a single day that went by where I didn't have something on my agenda, some kind of deadline or to follow up on. Then I got a call on Sunday, a week before my partner was supposed to come home. She couldn't stand being away in some secluded place while things still needed to be taken care of with her mother. Instead of talking about her own problems, her anxiety, her depression and her grief over her father's suicide, the entire stay was talking about her recently-passed mother and she hated it. She had to get out of there and put her mother in the ground, so to speak. And so, late Sunday afternoon, I made the drive out there, picked her up, drove back, went to bed at 3 AM and woke up three hours later to go to work.

I worked through the rest of the week with an emotionally unstable partner at home who hadn't completed treatment until that weekend where we flew out to where her mother lived and spent another week meeting with lawyers, financial advisers, consultants, contractors and an estate sale company to clear out the house. It was another whirlwind week that ended with us towing the car we inherited behind a box truck back home with what few artifacts from her mother's house that we wished to keep. Over the next week, my partner knew full well that she still wasn't doing well emotionally, her therapy focusing on areas she didn't want to focus on and didn't address her core issues and so, the very next weekend, it was back in the car to drive my partner back out to the residential facility and back alone.

That was last weekend. Each day is still filled with tending to the affairs of my deceased mother-in-law, managing the house and pets, talking to my partner on the phone and attending remote therapy sessions with her. To put things quite simply I'm just... empty right now. I still have thoughts and ideas of things to draw but I'm just so tired, so worn out, and constantly plagued with the guilt that time I spend drawing is time that could be better spent calling so-and-so or faxing this and that or scanning in forms. Add to that my own significant layer of loneliness and depression which just leaves me emotionally and creatively drained. I haven't been able to draw for more than 30 minutes at a time for weeks now. I'm hollow. I'm sad. And my usual, creative release is just frustrating. I WANT to draw, I want to be able to create again and put my feelings on the page in a way that makes people happy, that makes people feel but it just isn't coming to me. About now, the only thing that does seem to be coming to me is the ability to just put my story down in words, however clumsy it may be.

So I guess that's the long and short of it, really. If you got this far, I guess I should say thank you for bearing with me. I hope you can understand and once all this has passed (please GOD let it pass), I hope I can get back to my previous self, or at least be a person that can draw again.

-TB

Well, I took a break from comics for a while, allowing myself the time to focus on finishing my flash game, Gym Jane, and take on some commissions. But now, the game and commissions are done and I'm not too eager to jump into my next game just yet. What I AM eager to do, however, is get back into making comics! I'm sure there are plenty of you wondering just what is going to happen next in the comic series, ASPR and I am plenty eager to tell you. I've had the sequel written for some time, as well as some monster designs and layout concepts just waiting for me to dive back in. I'm taking what I've learned from past projects and going to use that to build this as best I can. Now, the comic isn't ready to launch just yet. There's still some ground-work I need to lay first. I'll be bringing my Patreon back online for people who want to enjoy the comic as I'm working on it and also bringing my website back so I can do automatic distribution again. There are definitely things I'm going to do similar to what I did last time but there's also going to be a few updates too. The big thing is that I want to get a few pages ahead of the project before I take it live. This will help me stick to a schedule better as I'll have a little head-start, a buffer in case life happens and I can't produce as much in one month. I'm also going to put less emphasis on Live-Streaming the pages as I didn't get much attendance during the last comic's run and I feel like the time I spent on setup and troubleshooting is time I could have spent making more pages which is what people really want at the end of the day. If there's anything you feel could make the process better as well, now would be a great time to suggest it so I can take it into consideration while I get all my ducks in order.

Most of all, I just want to get back to something I feel motivated and passionate to work on again. I love comics and telling a story and I'm really excited to get this next one started! Expect more updates as everything begins falling into place.

-TB

Kinda snuck up on me... so yeah. It's that day.

Well, that was a miserable couple days... fortunately I got my machine back up and now it's better than ever! (For anyone's that curious, it was a bad motherboard.) I've still got to get all my programs installed and configured but I should be back up to operating speed in no time.

-TB

My computer is dead. I did a major overhaul on my system; motherboard, processor, memory, hard drive, the works. I get it all together, go to power it on and it immediately shuts off. I check the POST code and lo and behold, defective CPU. I COULD put the old parts back in but it would be a complete teardown and rebuild to put it back again and there's no guarantee it would work right because I don't remember the ports and slots I used in the original configuration. I don't want to risk damaging anything in the process either.

I'm computerless and it's really messing with me...

As some of you may know, I live in Las Vegas and I just wanted to assure you all that I'm fine. I was nowhere near the strip at the time of the shooting.

-TB

Of all the stupid problems to have, one that keeps coming back to haunt me is that I simply have too much new art to see. My submissions list has been over 5000 for over a year now. Usually when it starts to top 6000, I like to go in and view as much as I can, get it into the 4000s before I simply have to take a break and within a week, we're right back up there. People tell me I should just nuke it and start over but I don't want to miss anything! I've tried slimming down my watch list but honestly, I love just about everyone I follow and I'd hate to miss anything new from them. It's just that between here, Tumblr, InkBunny, Pixiv, deviantArt AND Furry Network, there's simply too much volume to handle. I love to view art for enjoyment and inspiration but at a certain point, I guess I just put too much on my plate. In all, it's a rather silly problem to have, isn't it? Too much amazing work and beauty to handle.

So yeah, if you see me faving and commenting on a bunch of three-month old art, this is why. I'm always working through a back-log and I simply can't give anyone up.

-TB

32 years ago, no less.