TheScaleTrain

Originally, I was thinking of sticking it out on here. That I was going to try and carry on as normal, despite whatever purges are going on around here and what new guidlines are supposedly going around. But after re-examining my gallery, as well as consulting with a friend on Discord... I'm not taking any more chances.

Starting this coming weekend, I'm going to be doing a MASSIVE purge of my gallery to remove any and all art that could be considered a rule breach in terms of "fetish" art. That means no more underaged characters in what could be considered "sexual" situations. This will include:

• Any and all Pokémon-themed images involving under 18+ characters (excepting the Lusamine images my recent Jessie one).

• Any and all obviously fetish-based art involving Toon Link, Tiff, Nate Adams and other characters under 18+.

• Any commissions/requests that I was made that involved said fetishes that feature characters under 18+.

Even if I don't think the intent was to portray anything fetishistic in nature, if I think for a MOMENT that the art isn't abiding by the guidlines, then it's got to go. Because it's quite obvious that intent doesn't matter when it comes to these kinds of pictures. And in future, any and all art that I upload involving said fetishes will very clearly involve adult characters.

This, unfortunately, will mean pretty much the destruction of my entire gallery, as some of my most popular images will fall under this banner. I understand this is going to upset a lot of people who follow me, and there will be some of you who will be asking for me to archive my work, upload it somewhere else or for permission to save it. I'm just going to be blunt about this.

NO.

NO, I will not upload my work anywhere else. NO, I will not archive it or give anyone permission to save it. I am no longer going to take any risks whatsoever. I have been on this site for seven, nearly eight years. And as much as I like to act with gung-ho bravado towards what goes on here, I am actually very aware that what I've been creating might not abide by the rules. The fact that I haven't been banned yet is a miracle, frankly, and I refuse to take this good luck for granted.

This is obviously going to upset a lot of you. Some of you will, no doubt, unfollow me, or try to tell me things along the lines of "if you age up the character, it's fine" or "it's only drawings, they're not real". But we're living in a world where what's real and what's fake is being perilously blurred, and even if the intent behind the art was good, only the surface level seems to matter. And I, for one, don't want to play around with technicalities when it comes to this kind of thing. I am going to abide by the hard, fast rules if I want to stay on here, no ifs, ands or buts. And I will not be dissuaded from this. If this makes you want to unfollow me for any reason, then I'll understand completely, but that's the sacrifice I need to make for myself.

I will say this, however. In the event that, even despite all this, my account gets banned regardless of this purge, then you can find me here:

https://www.furaffinity.net/user/thescaletrain

I won't be reuploading any content onto there that isn't already abiding by the rules, so don't ask me to reupload any specific pieces onto here. If I know which image you're on about, then the answer is most likely going to be a flat no. Suffice to say, I will need to pick and choose what art I can put up there, and it won't be anything that I'll delete from here.

So, yeah. Get ready for my gallery to shrink considerably in the coming week.

So I have bad news and good news. And I was putting off talking about this for a while, but I feel I might as well rip this particular sticking-plaster off now.

The bad news is, I'm gonna be moving home soon. Since my mum retired, we're not able to stay in the place we currently live in - and, regardless of that, the landlord is retiring anyway. Worse, we haven't really found any houses or flats to move into for ourselves due to the recession.

The house goes up on sale next month and we're going to have to try and keep it clean for if somebody comes around to take photos for real estate websites and things. This will mean that I might not be able to put out any art for a while as I focus on this. Officially, we'll be moving out February, so I'll pipe up on here when it's all done.

The good news is that we already have places to go, at least on a temporary basis. My brother's got a flat of his own I can move into and mum will be moving in with her own brother at his house. As far as I'm aware, this is only a temporary measure until mum finds a place suitable for herself and me, but even if it never happens, it's good for me to have a place to go anyway. The flat was only ever meant for one person, so it's gonna be a bit of a struggle to fit everything in, but hopefully we can make it work. And if things do pick up and we find a better place to move, I'll let you all know.

I can't tell you what effect this will have on my art output yet. I'll have to be there for at least a week, adjusting to the new routine and the extended commute from and to work to get a more solid idea. Not that I'm very productive anyway, so I doubt you'll notice much difference . But all the same I'll keep you all updated as time goes on.

So aside from that, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Hope you and yours are okay and that the new year brings you all something to smile about.

So, um… there is a tiny sliver of a chance that I might not have a job at the end of the month.

Long story short, I work for a very small IT company in Nottingham, which is a child company of a bigger fire security company. While I was doing app development over there, most of the company’s money came in from doing cabling work, which is drying up due to the upcoming recession the UK is facing. As a result, the company is having to do some layoffs, and two of us are confirmed going. But it is now down to me and one other person.

There is a plan in place, however. My boss is going to talk to the higher-ups at the other company to see if they can cover the wages of the other person, since they’ve developed the majority of the apps for them. If that succeeds, then I will be staying on and focusing on apps we’ve done for other customers, while the other guy focus on the apps we developed for our parent company. And even if that does not pan out, the boss has offered to try and get me a job for them at the service desk, which, while not my ideal sort of work, is still a job and a wage.

I know I shouldn’t really worry about this, for several reasons. I’m apparently favoured to stay on at my company, and the higher-ups at our parent company have been agreeable to the plan in the past. One of my co-workers has even said that if I go, he goes, because the parent company would be showing a bad hand. And my family has assured me that we’ll be able to survive even if I do lose my job - we have contingencies of our own in place and we were able to survive while I was unemployed before.

But all the same… I can’t help but worry. As an anxious person by default, I always assume the worst outcome when it comes to stuff like this, and I’m already low-key freaking out about how I’ll be able to cope or even find a new job. I like my current work, for all the annoyances it has. I don’t particularly like the idea of losing it through no fault of my own. Ever since I took the job, my one concern is being able to support my mother when she retires this coming November, and I can’t exactly do that with the pittance that Universal Credit gives every month.

I don’t know… all I can do is wait and see. I think I have a fairly good chance, all things considered, but I still can’t help but imagine the worst.

Okay, my account just got hacked because I clicked a link like an idiot. I'm posting this now to warn people to be on the lookout.

Basically, if anyone sends you a message accusing you of sending a friend some nasty pictures, as well as an invite to the server, DO NOT CLICK THE LINK.

I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH.

I'm still trying to re-add discord friends that I lost because of this. Also, be sure to put 2FA on your Discord profile just in case.

Okay.

Hoooooo-kay.

I've had the afternoon to calm down. I've had some dinner. No alcohol - at least, not yet. And I've thought about what I'm doing pretty carefully. And I've come to realize that, out of all the stuff I was planning to delete, it was really only those three specific images - the Zelda, Tetra and Link X Lavender ones - that were giving me the heebie-jeebies. Every other image/story I listed, I find that I'm not so down on them as I thought I was. I'm not doing anything actually pornographic with them, as others have pointed out - I intended them to be cute or funny in the vast majority of cases. And, in other cases, the character's age is kind of nebulous anyway, so you can make an argument for the upper end of the range for it to be acceptable.

So I guess the Great Purge isn't happening now. I'm mostly confident that I haven't broken any laws - if I had, I feel like I'd have known about it years ago. The fact that I'm not typing this from a jail cell or anything seems to be a big indicator. And if nobody else seems to have a problem with what I've put out, then I'll try not to.

But I really want to try to avoid crossing that line again when it comes to particular characters, and only lean in that direction when I'm sure the characters are of an applicable age to make it okay. At all other times, I'm going to lean on the cute or funny angle and try to ensure that what I'm drawing doesn't go over the border of actual titilation or anything. And if anyone who follows me - ANYONE at all - feels that I have gone over that line with ANY of my work in any way, let me know and I will do my utmost to make it right.

I'm still gonna delete Mulberry Farm Tales, anyway. That thing was a crock of shit