RithmAlfortele

Finally, I can shed THIS username which no longer fits who I am.

I will be leaving this account up with all of my old stuff in it, but I'll be reuploading some of the newer stuff to my new account.

I'm getting really tired of being "Zachski" here.

I want to be Rithm, and for people to refer to me as Rithm without me having to correct them that, no, my username isn't what I'm called anymore.

But at the same time, I'm scared of losing people who have been following me. And also, reuploading a lot of my stories might end up being obnoxious. Then again, it might be worth it.

I dunno, I'm feeling torn on this decision, and I could use some input from people who have been following me, as well as my friends who happen across this journal.

(Disclaimer: This isn't me deciding, as a singular nonbinary individual, to canonize a word in such a way that no one else can use the original, this is just me trying to find something that works for me)

Soooo I've been into "Dad Bods" recently. As in, I want to have one as well as enjoy the ones others have.

...Except the "Dad" part of the "Dad Bod" makes me somewhat dysphoric.

So I'm sitting here, musing with  RustySteele about this, when suddenly I get an idea.

Dragon Bod.

And I don't just mean this because I'm a dragon.

Think about it. "Dad Bods" are the way they are because fathers are often taught to be handy around the house and do a lot of heavy lifting/physically intensive housework. But they're fat around the chest and belly area because they eat and drink a lot of comfort food and alcoholic stuff.

But it's not that different from how dragons were once typically depicted as.

Dragons have to be strong, muscular to defend their hoards from would-be thieves and invaders. But also fat, because they eat and sleep a lot.

Dads can be either inviting or frightening, and so can dragons (especially pear-shaped dragons, being incredibly friendly, even if they're usually given stick-thin arms as a result)

And honestly the big thing I am kind of dissatisfied with as far as recent dragon designs go is that they're often skinny and with overly plated bellies (when they're typically supposed to have *soft* bellies)

As for having pecs, well...

As lizards who lack mammaries, dragons shouldn't have pecs, but who the fuck cares? It's sexy and I want to feel sexy.. More tiddies for dragons. Nipples, too.

Even for the "feral" dragons. Especially for the "feral" ones.

If you draw porn of a real person, or even their online representation, without their consent...

You are doing legit sexual harassment.

Like, legit sexual harassment.

Stop drawing porn of youtubers who have not consented and have expressly asked that you DON'T do it.

Newgrounds is doing the right thing in stopping this bullshit.

This quarantine and pandemic have been kicking my ass mentally and emotionally, and even though I haven't *been* writing, the fact of the matter is, I've always had this "responsibility" hanging over my head, the entire time.

For a year straight.

Well, I'm gonna say right now, no. I can't write right now. I can barely function as it is. The time to thrive is not upon me, it is time to survive.

And that means saying "I forgive myself of the responsibility to write, whether for others or my own edification."

Writing will resume when I'm mentally restored and up for the task, and I do have a specific story drafted, but until I'm ready to write, it will remain a draft.

Thank you for your patience everyone.

EDIT: FOUND, thanks to, of all things, a random dive into Yerf history. The webcomic was called Spellshocked!


And by "old" I mean, like, 17-20 years ago.

It was about a quarter-dragon (one parent was a half-dragon, the other a non-dragon) attending a school for wizardry, his roommate was a fox (with just one tail) that was determined to prove technology could be the equal of magic (with disastrous results)

Other characters included a cockatrice necromancer (with the cockatrice being this artist's generally favorite anthro, as they often drew artwork of cockatrices with the same style - I think the eyes were all a solid color), a haughty sorceress who specializes in teleportation magic, and a bodyless dragon (as in, he was just a floating head) who hated the machinist fox (partially because said fox was responsible for the incident where he lost his body) and would punish students by swallowing them and ejecting them out of his, well, neck.

It's something that just popped into my head, but I don't remember the comic's name or even who the artist was. If I had that, I could, at the very least, find the comic on the wayback machine, but I can't remember that much.

One of the things I remember was that at one point, the school gave a presentation of what NOT to do at the school, and in addition to one of the slides being the machinist fox, the other was of the haughty sorceress who had managed to teleport *into* a wall and was stuck and calling for help - just in time to put the haughty sorceress in her place.

https://www.wowhead.com/item=119160/tickle-totem

I only found one video with it, "10 Most Annoying Items in WoW", and the item was at the very end, with distorted visuals (and also a huge crowd of people so I couldn't see it to begin with)

I don't have WoW and I don't plan on playing it any time soon, so I'm curious if anyone else has it and could maybe record a video of them using it?

I don't expect it to be fantastic, but I imagine it could give people ideas for something.

Art by CicerOrator over on Twitter!

Direct link to the tweet in question:
https://twitter.com/CicerOrator/sta.....45987440144386

My name is Rithm, and I'm a thembo! <3

https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/9707878/

He's doing a raffle for 2000 followers - all you need is a visual reference and three words describing the character you wish to have drawn.

He's also a really good artist, so I'd highly recommend watching him anyways.

My friend,  spellflare, has to shoulder the treatment costs as much as he can, but he can't handle them alone.

https://vaki.co/vaki/1604444050430/

His friend's family left him, he has no insurance, and he's suffering from both cancer *and* COVID.
If you can't donate, please at least signal boost this.

(I realize the site is in another language, but using google translate works well enough to figure things out)

I'm crying.

I'm actually crying.

Season 1 is looking beautiful, I'm just...

I thought all I was getting, as far as Sam & Max content, was a VR game that while it looks fun, I otherwise had no access to, due to not having VR and not having a computer strong enough to run it.

I already preordered it, in spite of my usual stance against preordering, because I *really* want to support Skunkape Games.

https://youtu.be/vIajN-DDmIk

I will remember these last four years for the rest of my life.

I will remember how my father went from what I thought was a reasonable Republican to a passive-aggressive bully who would launch into rants, calling me a bigot because I didn't watch or trust Fox News, then "forgiving me" and in the same breath saying that he "respects my politics even if he doesn't share them". I will remember the people he listened to, people telling him that people like me were trying to take away his rights and censor him and how everyone to the left of Trump was an evil communist, all while spreading lies about people like me, to the point where I will never be able to come out to him as nonbinary, for fear of what he would do to me.

I will remember the rise of white nationalist groups, emboldened by a president who only half-heartedly condemned them. I will remember mass shooters, people who worship Trump, acting on his fearmongering and shooting up places to "stop the mass invasion of illegal immigrants."

I will remember how propaganda trumped fact, whether it was the non-existent "mass caravan of illegal immigrants funded by George Soros", to "the coronavirus is a liberal hoax" (which isn't even the most extreme conspiracy theory surrounding this), to the strange double-think regarding Trump's own words (Ranging from "They were taken out of context!" even though they clearly weren't, or even "He was just joking" when he would later clarify in a private interview that he was entirely serious - and this happened several times!)

I will remember peaceful protestors with their hands up, saying "Don't shoot", as police dressed in military gear shot them. I will remember the media focusing exclusively on the riots, and not on the vast majority of peaceful protestors, as well as the people who previously didn't give one shit about black-owned businesses suddenly pretending to care, even as some of those owners continued to support BLM afterwards, because they would gladly sacrifice their business if it meant helping their community. Because the country cares much more about property damage than it does loss of life. And I will remember the self-proclaimed "libertarians", who practically (and in some cases literally) jacked off at the idea of starting a coup against the unjust government, suddenly turning around and being incredibly pro-police and pro-big government as long as it was "them dirty lieberals" being the victim of unjust government.

I will remember the attacks on the press, and the attacks on any fact checkers that didn't have a conservative bent, claiming liberal bias even as those same fact checkers came down on the left for repeating falsehoods, as well. The attacks on people who so much as quoted inconvenient words the President or other notable conservative icons said. The uplifting of a fake university in place of science, to counterbalance what they saw as "liberal bias" because it was too inconvenient for their politics.

I will remember. And I cannot forgive - for one cannot forgive the unrepentant.

For those of you waking up from this nightmare, realizing that you've been lied to and have been spreading lies yourself, or even those finally escaping the white supremacist cults that have been growing on the internet...

Thank you, for now the healing can begin.

And, well, I guess the question is also "How?"

I don't really know much about anything in this regard. I see, of all places, Amazon sells some cages, but they tend to have some pretty mixed reviews - especially the only brand of silicone cage they sell.

And to be honest, I'm kinda leaning in favor of silicone, since I worry that maybe metal or plastic would be too painful.

I'm guessing there will also be measurements I should take to ensure the best fit.

(And yeah, I am curious about trying it out - mostly because I want to try it out, but also the experience would be beneficial for writing chastity stories in the future)

Hope you're continuing to stay safe, with social distancing, wearing medical masks (not just the ghoulish ones) and continuing to protect yourself and others around you!

If you missed it, I uploaded a new story onto my  lustfulvensh account - my first story of that particular sort. Be sure to read the warnings on that story before you read it.

I actually had another story I wanted to write and publish today, but the problem with that is that I've had crazy insomnia recently, and I just went through another night without sleeping at *all*, so it will have to wait until another time.

As far as a general update goes - I've been starting to get some decent exercise, and consistently at that, so I'm starting to get healthier and break through my health problems. So, yay, good things! Also been working through my emotions by actually spending time with them, rather than reflexively repressing my anger until it boils over and disrupts my mental state. It's still a work in progress in that regard.

I feel like I'm a little loopy from the lack of sleep. Sorry about that!

Oh, I also started watching Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts while I've been dealing with insomnia. It's actually really good! Feels a bit like reverse Undertale (Overtale?) except that isn't giving it enough credit. If you waited on starting it like I did, I'd suggest giving it a go.

Anyways, have a good Halloween all!

So hey! Today's my birthday! Hooray! 32, huh? In 10 years, I'll have the answers to Life, the Universe, and Everything.

A lot's happened this year, but I can't really dwell on it anymore - heaven knows I've done enough of that. I've done what I could, now the only thing I can do is to move forward.

Anyways, that's really all I wanted to say - hope you all have a good day today!

As you may have noticed, I still haven't gotten to those requests I accepted nearly 5 years ago.

And honestly it's not for lack of trying - I've come up with outlines and everything, but actually going through with it, I hit a wall.

And I think maybe one of my problems was... three was too many to accept all at once, and it's been weighing on my mind ever since. And also a lot has happened since then - I lost two pets, a beloved friend, and my mother.

So I'm going to throw in the towel on this one. My biggest apologies to  spellflare,  rustysteele, and  friskecrisps for this, but... a lot's happened.

I'm going to find a way to work my way up to doing stuff for other people, now, because I do want to do better as a writer, but I need to take things one step at a time. Personal, one-on-one requests or commissions until I'm able to open for business, if that makes sense.

Again, my apologies.

https://twitter.com/HornyAnonDragon.....73299878268929

Chubby eastern dragons are canon!

You've come to talk with me again
How about
You don't.

https://youtu.be/LSCGpdB5y1k?t=1035

EDIT: Changed the URL because the old youtube link is gone due to the account being terminated :/ Thanks, youtube, you just love to erase history.

I-- I'm kind of at a loss for words here.

This ... this is an excellent concept. And apparently it's the winner of a contest? I can see why!

So... Disney... why the heck didn't ya make this into a fully fledged series!? I would've watched the heck out of this as a kid! Heck I'd have watched the heck out of this *as an adult*!!

I am so upset - for not knowing this existed until, like, 20 years after it came out, and for it not continuing on to become a series.

Cloud Dancer's really nice-looking, too, and being voiced by the late, great Tony Jay only adds to it...

(For that matter, whatever happened to the old trope of the Wise Old Dragon that helps inspire the youth? Puff the Magic Dragon was the most notable one and then there were a few others, like Quetzal, but then they just all kinda suddenly stopped.)

I said how I've overcome a lot of pain and such in the previous journal, about the year in review.

But there's something that still touches on a raw nerve for me. And it just came up and I think I need to talk about it.

Mind wiping, and memory erasure, which are basically two halves of the same whole.

And it's not because of any moral argument, though I have to be honest I do consider it a form of snuff, of the mind rather than the body.

No, it's not that at all. The people who are into this stuff are not bad people because of it, nor do I judge them. They're generally good people.

No, what hurts me is that I effectively saw this happen in real life, over the course of several months.

Watching my mother's personality and memories disappear each day, as the cancer ate away at her brain bit by bit.

Her lucid moments becoming farther and farther apart, more and more rapidly, as frequent trips to the hospital failed to detect the cancer spreading to her brain until it was too late to treat it - it was progressing too rapidly, and she was just too far gone to the point where she would never, ever be the same person ever again.

It was horrible. I'm still traumatized by it. I may be traumtized by it for the rest of my life.

...But I'm stronger than I was. I'm not gonna have a breakdown every time I see a picture like that. The worst I get is sad or upset, but I can recover from that just fine.
Thanks for listening. Sorry for posting two journals twice in a row, but I had to get this off my chest.

And while I appreciate that there are people do share my opinion about these fetishes, please don't be hateful or insulting to people who actually enjoy them. You don't need to bash others to validate my feelings.

I won't exactly be able to remember everything that happened but I'll go over what I do remember.

Note that I'm mostly gonna be talking about me stuff, and not gonna be bringing up politics. Mostly because I've had politics on my mind too much as it is.

Let's see...

Began the year still grieving and mourning Mom's death. Every little thing was still reminding me of her. The emotional wounds were still raw.

Tried to lose myself in everything. Video games, writing, eating, Pathfinder.

End up getting hospitalized due to a painful but treatable infection, discovered I had dangerously high blood pressure, go to a follow up appointment with my GP and get absolutely torn a new one for taking so long to get into the doctor, which naturally raised my blood pressure even higher. (Seriously why do some doctors think it's a good idea to antagonize their patients when keeping their stress low is necessary for their health? The only reason I'm still with her is because she hasn't done this again.)

By this point I'm terrified, because the doctor has me paranoid as all hell. The paranoia also landed me in the hospital a few more times because anxiety and terror tend to cause the same symptoms that your doctor tells you to immediately go to the hospital for when you've got high blood pressure.

Try to go on a low-salt diet to help manage my blood pressure, go TOO low salt for a bit and actually end up under-eating for awhile. Friends experience concern and I begin eating more again.

And from this point on I think things are going to stop being chronological.

Combined with this, the whole PTSD involving permanence and eternity and other situations that hit too close to both my emotions and my libido, and I'm basically at wit's end. Start working with a friend more actively to help myself overcome this. I wanted to get better. I wanted to stop hurting people. But I couldn't get over my own ego, my own frustration because even though I told myself it *wasn't* their fault, I was still blaming other people for my pain. Granted, I still think good tagging is necessary, but I'm not having breakdowns every time I see a permanence pic.

Some of them still *bother* me, mind you, because my own personal tastes, values, and distastes have not changed, but I can click off now.

Either way, I end up having an epiphany one day and it just completely turns around my thinking. I experiment and brush the dust off of my Vensh account.

I start getting closer to one of my aunts, who just recently remarried. I helped her by house-and-catsitting while she's on vacation in France. She lets me talk about things near and dear to me, even when she doesn't understand them. Of all my family members, she's probably the only one I can come out to as nonbinary.

Speaking of which, I also realized I've had dysphoria, ever since I was a teenager. I don't believe that dysphoria (a clinically significant distress) is necessary to be trans (having one's gender differ from one's assigned gender at birth), but I will say this realization made me a lot more comfortable with accepting the fact that I'm trans - so maybe I've got some internalized truscum beliefs.

(if you don't know who truscum are, they're people who insist that you HAVE to have dysphoria in order to be trans, and that to prove you have dysphoria, you must behave in a ridiculously specific way, and that deviating from this is proof that you're a "transtrender". A lot of cis transphobes have started using truscum linguistics because truscum are basically self-hating transphobes. Their name is short for "true trans scum", with "true trans" being the previous group of elitist, self-hating trans people back when LGBT rights were more underground.)

Realizing I had dysphoria helped me put the finishing touches on my new 'sona, and I was finally able to debut them to the world. And now they have a ref sheet, and I'm happy. I really am sincerely happy.

As far as fetishes go, which does bear mentioning, I went from only liking tickling, bondage, feet, nipples, hypnosis, denial, and sneezing, to quite the menagerie. Latex, transformation, dronification, some petrification/statuification (permanence still gives me the heebie jeebies here, but that's still an improvement), soft vore, soul vore, robotification, chastity, etc. etc.

Effectively I've been unchained and my libido has begun to partake in the sampler platter of fetishes. And I've been happier and more relaxed ever since.

And I think that's really all I'm willing to share. In fact, I'm pretty sure I overshared a bit, but it is what it is.

Either way, in spite of everything, I came out of 2019 a stronger person both physically and emotionally.

Hello to y'all. Hope you're having some happy holidays!!

For me, I'm making do. This is my second Christmas since my mother passed away, and while it's been easier than the last one, I still find myself missing her dearly. I miss telling her about the Christmas lights I'd see on my evening walks around this time of year. I miss our close talks, our heart-to-hearts, and how she was always tried to encourage me.

I never got to tell her I was nonbinary - by the time I realized it myself, she was already going downhill really quickly, and she was no longer herself. Where she would've likely accepted it before, she probably would have just been confused - and she was already confused enough as it was.

But that's not all that's been on my mind this season. My relationship with Christmas, as a holiday, has been quite complicated. When it comes to actually celebrating the holiday, it's always fallen rather flat for me, and yet I still have a love for the concept of it. And I think I realize why now.

It's about hope and community. The idea is, the weather is cold, but people find warmth in their community. The river is frozen over? Time to ice skate. Colorful decorations help contrast the bleakness of the snow and the clouds covering the sky. Children are encouraged to explore their creativity with snow sculptures, then come inside and sit by the fire for a cup of hot cocoa. Sweets are plentiful, to help bring good cheer during the bleakest of months.

Of course, this is an *ideal*, a *concept*. The cold reality is, it's not real. But that doesn't mean it's valueless. If even one person has hit up a friend and brought good cheer to them, then the holiday has merit on that alone.

It's just a pity it's become a consumerist nightmare, not unlike Valentine's Day or, really, any other holiday.

Ironically, lately I find myself more attached to the image of the Krampus - the demon goat that punishes bad children while Saint Nicholas delivers presents to the good children.
Not because I like his symbolism or the role he serves, or because he's hot (though that goes a long way towards it)
More the whole concept that he's a demon that Santa apparently tamed and bound to his service. So everything he's doing is basically under Santa's orders, making the distinction meaningless (which is probably why Krampus really isn't a thing outside of Europe and the Furry Fandom)

I suppose the real reason I'm attached to the image is that, once again, it's of a character being cast as an evil demon, given a bad rap, and expected to take the fall for another character who's more "saintly".

And believe me, I've been seeing quite a bit of that happening lately to real people. Especially in America and Britain. I won't go into depth to spare everyone's blood pressure, including my own, but if you have an inkling of my politics you can probably guess what I'm talking about, vaguely. (This is not an invitation to send me your guesses, I will add.)

The dark, the ugly, those symbols, representations, and outcasts that strike fear into people's hearts due to one religion's superstition becoming absorbed into secular culture...

I think all that deserves a "Happy Holidays" too, to be honest.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/art.....1723584999628/

Basically, the guy who started the "inktober" dag, Jake Parker, trademarked it a couple of years back, and is now issuing takedowns to any artist who uses the word "Inktober" when selling sketchbooks or the like.

Aside from the fact that trademarking a *public tag meant for artists to use* is scummy enough to begin with, now he's trying to make money off of other people's work while denying them the right to make money off of their own work.

So, avoid using the tag in the future, find something else to signify it, and spread the news to any artist friends you know who have or might participate in it.

Ta-daaa! I've survived another year.

A very, very harrowing and stressful year filled with a lot of mourning and growth.

I don't really know what else to say, though. I'm glad to be here, and I'm glad to spend time with you guys, and work on my stories, and other stuff.

And yet I just can't really get enthused about today. There's probably a lot of factors I haven't or don't want to consider.

Anyways, I've got a few stories I'm working on. I might only get two spoopy stories done this month, including the one I wrote a bit ago, at the rate I've been able to work on them. That being said, the stories in development don't JUST include halloween related stuff...~

Thanks for sticking with me so far, everyone.