I’ve been going over my notes for upcoming episodes to see if there is any room to insert the scenarios where Christine, Vicki and Kacey are living in Another Life as yiffy versions of themselves, as well as the alternate universe story where a door in the house opens on an alt Cygnus where the furs have visible sexual attributes.
These scenarios are proposed for the deliberate purpose of justifying yiffier art for the gallery, which I feel pressured to do if I expect Furry Fandom to take more significant interest in the series. Unfortunately, I find that the planned course of Serial 11 is already so convoluted there is just no room for these fan service scenarios.
My next thought was to save the scenarios for Serial 12, which needs padding out at this point, but unfortunately by then continuity will have made it impossible for those scenarios to include Christine, Vicki and Kacey, as their stories all get resolved before the end of serial 11.
Bottom line: any alt universe scenarios created specifically for the purpose of generating yiffy art of my characters have to be treated as external to the main series. I can create little windows in the main series to justify such external projects. I can mention that Vicki and Christine end up living in a house with Kacey on Twee’s property in Another Life, and I can have Kacey discover the room that opens onto the other dimension, but I’ll have to leave it to fans to grab those openings and do their own rule 34 spin-off projects.
Actually, part of my disappointment in the reception of Furry Fandom for Spectral Shadows is that so far it totally breaks rule 34. It exists, and there’s no porn of it. That makes me feel like my characters aren’t reaching the level of attractiveness I want them to have.
Yes, it’s kind of pitiful that we live in an age where you can gauge your level of success by the amount of porn you’re generating, but such is life in the future, and I have to learn to role with life in the future, rather than constantly lamenting that things ain’t what they used to be. So I will continue looking for places to drop in these openings for yiffy side ventures.
Another thing this series needs to be more attractive to Furry Fandom seems to be military stuff, which is generally not my thing. But fortunately the regular story has a war scenario coming up, as well as a lot of action adventure scenarios. Plenty already there to grab attention from the fans of general violence, destruction and death. But I think this will require a lot of technically inclined art that will be beyond TK’s range. So I’m going to need to hire a second artist to do townscapes, action scenes and military stuff.
Where I’ll get the money to pay for a second artist I have no idea. Times are really tough right now, and the money I’m paying TK is already more than I can justify. Perhaps I need to reconsider a Patreon page. But so far none of the artists I’ve written to have even ventured to write back, which leaves me feeling that, as far as Furry Fandom is concerned, I’m just a big joke that doesn’t even rate a polite rejection. I have a suspicion a Patreon page would be similarly ignored.
And of course, I have yet to see a Flayrah article or an Ursa Major nomination, or anything that is not coming from friends who have their personal characters in the series. So, as I begin my 12th year of internet publishing I’m still not feeling like an insider with Furry Fandom – at least as far as my Furry creativity goes. And the longer that situation goes on the less motivated I am to continue.
Anyway, I’ll give it at least one more year. But I feel like this is the year that will make or break me as far as being a writer is concerned. I’ll be writing some of the toughest scenarios I’ve yet attempted this year. If I get to the end of the year and feel like Furry Fandom still isn’t giving a flip, I may just write it all off as the folly of a wasted life and retire.
This begs the question, “Why is the fandom important?” What do I care how much of an audience I’ve got, or if anyone’s watching at all? Why can’t I just do this for myself? But I don’t need to write my fantasies down for myself. I could just enjoy my fantasies without all the time consuming bother.
It’s no effort at all making these characters live for myself. It’s making them live for other people that consumes the majority of my life.
It’s like what an old time Prog musician said when asked why he quit. He said simply that he needed applause, and he wasn’t getting it.
It’s not a matter of I need to feel like I’m the best or I’m a star of the fandom scene or something. Actually, I dread the thought of fame and fortune. But to go episode after episode, year after year, without hardly a comment while other people who write less difficult projects get pages of comments on every episode makes for an oppressive uncertainty that can get to be unbearable. One just can’t feel good giving their life to something like this without the applause.
Furry Times 