Fur Squared 2014 – In Summary

I went to a Furry convention. There’s really no need to beat around the bush, because I honestly don’t think it’s that big of a deal. I went into the den of the great evil! The big, bad, fursuited wolves! And found it to be no different than any other fandom, though I find preference to this than those who enjoy golfing, cars, and other conventions that happen around such mundane topics. I’m no Furry or even a Brony (much as my roommate will say otherwise, dammit, just stop), but I have enough geekdom/fandom/memes/etc. within me to understand that labels are bullshit. This Furry convention I went to is no different than any other convention I would otherwise enjoy.

OH!!! There’s a bunch of sexiness with animals going on! Sorry, not biting the bait of one “perversion” for another. Anime Central has its own bouts with sexiness, my favorite being the call outs of yaoi being sold, and fanart of the shirtless dwarves from the film adaptations of The Hobbit. If you look long enough you find perversion in anything, and while Furry DOES have it, it’s just a portion of the fandom. Anthropomorphic appreciation. That’s Furry fandom in a nutshell (to me at least), and if you enjoy fucking vampires you’re a fan as well, because they are undead bestial creatures. Cartoon animals! Almost everything in Dungeons & Dragons! There’s aspects of anthro in every fandom you enjoy, so Furry haters? Get over yourselves already!

ACen 2014 Adverts

Anime Central 2014 advertisements, business cards, and promos…GO!!!

• A Slap on Titan – In the vein of hilarious Team Four Star parodies, this one is for Attack on Titan, which is all the rage these days. Because naked giants chasing after you is scary as hell.
• Albert The Alien – Kickstarter for a new graphic novel and OH HEY! This is a venture from Trevor Mueller! Which means it’s badass and deserves to get pushed through. DO IT!!!
• Anime California – Anime convention that’s in California…obviously…and sponsored by Crunchyroll.
• Anime NebrasKon – Anime convention that’s in Nebraska…and DANG that’s fine word play! I’m sold!

Cryptic ACen 2014 Meanings

We once more bring you another annual blog post to explain the summarized tweet I always put out after coming back from Anime Central. It’s been another great convention of cosplay, fandom, anime, geekdom, madness, emotion, exhaustion, walking, laughing, and…*sigh*…I may as well just admit it. This was the worst ACen I’ve ever had. Not on the part of ACen or those I spent it with, because they have always been awesome to me. The reason for it sucking should actually be very apparent for those who understand what I’ve been going through, and should come as no surprise.

Depression – Of the many rules one must follow when going to any sort of convention, not going alone is paramount. Having strong connections with people to properly decompress with and bounce things off of just makes a con that much better, if not the very reason you go to begin with. As many know I’ve kept myself alone for the longest time, and this has resulted in me not speaking anyone right up to the point ACen started. The vast majority of my free time at ACen was spent sitting by myself and watching others appreciate each other’s company, and I did everything I could to keep myself from crying because I wanted and needed their company as well, but had no idea how I should go about it or even bother trusting in others for that matter.

To Be Thankful

This writing started near the end of Thanksgiving, which I spent alone in my apartment because I was going to have my family gathering on the upcoming Saturday. It has only been finished now because it’s a hell of a long piece and an emotionally invested one at that. Emotions are hard to translate into language and quantify in general, and the pauses between understanding what needs to be said about them and the crippling sensations they give tend to add up. But finished it I have, and it’s likely the only thing of worth that came from me this whole holiday season. *shiver*

Despite the obvious, this piece of writing isn’t Thanksgiving, Christmas, or even New Year related, though it could be said to have arisen as an idea when another talked about being thankful. I never undertook the idea because it was too large and over the top, and certainly not my style (never be a bother, hide in room, only communicate if it’s absolutely necessary, etc.). However, due to my life crumbling into depths I dreaded it could go, changing how I think, act and cope needs to become centric for survival. So why the hell not take on the one idea which could properly let the world know what I’m thankful for? I may not get another chance.

Geek.Kon 2013 – In Summary

On August 24, 2013, I attended Geek.Kon 2013, the only other convention I went to other than Anime Central. Given how I’ve always written something about ACen after coming home (six articles over the years…and counting), it only made sense to write something for Geek.Kon as well, you know? Granted it’s not going to be as large because I didn’t work the convention and only went there one day on my own dime, but got to give some notice to it, you know?

40 Days & 40 Nights: Pants

And thus I can pleasure myself again without any guilt, aside from the standard guilt society would place on me for not finding a mate. Not that doing so would be in my best interest, but as it goes. Needless to say I’ve failed the Lent, but it was to be expected. Habits die hard, though I thankfully wasn’t going out of my mind like I was last time. No messed up dreams, wonky sleep schedules, or other issues one would expect. Just fairly normal frustration one with no outlet would come to expect, otherwise business as usual. That’s an improvement I suppose, so I’ll have to see what should happen to me next time I should take this up. Hell, the fact I’m even considering this shows I’m getting better at this sort of thing. I think.

Now it’s time to get serious. The next Lent is one I’ve been thinking on for awhile now, and I’ve been thinking on it long enough that the thought of thinking on it anymore makes me sick, especially knowing I can’t do it during the Winter. Given how I now know I have a history of going through depression during Winter, I don’t want to deal with even more loathsome regret because of being too chicken shit to follow through on something I actually want to do. But this is indeed not only a big sacrifice, but one that will actually effect how I’m treated in public. I’ve been meaning to disturb the universe for awhile now, however, so the heck with it. It’s settled: I will be giving up pants for the next 40 days & nights.

ACen 2013 Adverts

And thus we round off another Anime Central with a list of all the advertisements, business cards, promos, etc. that I have collected through my walks in the convention space and hotel. I try and keep away from sharing duplicated adverts from previous years, so in other words get yon butts to those previous posts and giver yer business to them wonderful folk. There’s an industry and fandom to support, you hear? Onward!

• 8-Bit Pixel Visions – Pixel art made with Perler beads. Commissions are available. Erin Carroll? Bravo.
• A Certain Scientific Railgun – It’s an anime with lots of boom n’ bang. Filled with schoolgirls. So every anime ever? *shrug*
  

Cryptic ACen 2013 Meanings

You know the drill. I make a vague tweet, I write a blog to explain things, everyone reads it and become so enlightened by my insights they throw grand amounts of feels at me so I don’t think I’m just talking to myself and thus wasting my time. Oh who am I kidding, the latter happens pretty much all of the time, so whatever. Ever I need to get my thoughts out of my head, given there’s usually a mess in there if I don’t organize them in some fashion. Onward to breaking down key moments of Anime Central 2013, Sweet 16.

Corset – Two-parter. One, I finally bought myself a corset from Draconas Creations, the dealer I had pegged the previous year. I had thought I would eventually drive down to their locale and order that way, but no, just waited till the very next ACen. That works. The other half of this deals with the fact I dressed myself up in my pink dress getup. It was my first public outing in the costume as well, and what better place than at ACen where no one will really bat an eye? Save the sexist males who will slap your ass and think it’s totally okay because I’m a man, but as it goes. I’m still looking for pictures of me during Hardcore Synergy because I know they were taken (some with permission too). So if you’ve been wondering who that smiling and dancing fool was while the bass dropped, come at me bro.

UPDATE 12/2014: I do not recommend Draconas Creations. Paid money for a corset in ACen 2013, and it’s been almost 2 years with communication had with the company. I’ve yet to see the corset I paid for. Shame.

40 Days & 40 Nights: Alcohol

Isn’t there always a fun story of how I fail to keep chocolate out of my life? This last Lent of mine was no different, even though the focus was supposed to be on caffeine. But thanks to the fact chocolate normally has caffeine within it, I had to give it up again. Or at the very least try, because wow do I ever note how easy it is to slip or forget where chocolate is present. Ever I fail my attempts to do away with chocolate, but this time is was exceptionally odd.

My first break came when I got the hankering for some more Little Debbie snacks because I’m a fat bastard, or at the very least haven’t let go of my fat bastard tendencies. By this point I was dying for a Cosmic Brownie, but I went with a box of Star Crunch because it didn’t have any chocolate, and I was quite proud I kept to my commitment of. Problem being that a Star Crunch is literally covered with chocolate, and this fact apparently escaped my common sense until I was halfway through my first one. How does this even happen? I can’t even tell you what I was thinking at the time, or what I thought that brown stuff covering the snack was other than chocolate. All I know is I thought I was making the right choice of committing to my Lent, when in reality I had apparently gone insane.

Pwning Life: Finding Passion

On keeping up with Pwning Life (though I am ever behind), I took the step presented by Master Pain and took the T1Q Test. The test would “help me discover how to find my purpose in life” and find my passion. Before you all get to say, “That’s not how it works,” you are right with that thought in mind. I believe I went into it with that thought as well, but I did something I never really do these days, even with my writing : I put emotion into it. I was given the option to write full essays if I wanted to, so instead of writing short sentence responses, I made the most of my freedom I wrote about what I felt and believed with gusto.

Besides! The test couldn’t give me a proper return if I didn’t give enough data, right? You can only imagine how foolish I felt afterword. In reality, the T1Q test is nothing but a means to fish data out of you, asking challenging questions you likely never bothered with, and giving them back to you with some notes. The end result would be to have “your answers reflected back to you”…in other words, your passion is within the answers you wrote, but only you can see them. But we knew that all along, didn’t we?