pool toy

the marriott westchase had hosted yet again last weekend (2026.08.27-30) for which i showed up to do some sidequesting. i've chosen a few of the pieces to post over on the sketch doc because i thought they came out the best of all the submissions i received. i made enough to pay off the entire weekend badge and theoretically enough to commission someone at the dealer's for a character badge, but ultimately i didn't since i could just make my own.

instead, i visited remimakes's table and used some of the funds i earned that day to buy a plush of their oc. i've followed their fursuit creation since 2017 so, i was a little starstruck.

if it wasn't time for nite market, you would have caught me hanging out in the hotel atrium. the marriott westchase, while i personally feel like it's restricted when it comes to space, is still my favorite hobbyist forum. the atrium has a sun roof so fursuiters for the most part congregated there for photo operations (and i work better when there's people around.) sometimes i walked away to go the panels, of which my favorite was a presentation by fox @ artconomy on building a payment processor.

with the US putting more pressure on independently-owned businesses, it's more important than ever for human developers to fallback on middlemen other than paypal. a neighboring onlooker mentioned that even select banks are writing policies to ban any sales of adult artwork. if you're living in the south of US and the state has a track record of labeling completely innocuous concepts as adult-exclusive "content" or even printing policy based on fake stories, i think the last people i'd want to trust with my money is said bank, said processor, whatever. that said, i think its good that there's enough kneejerk to have discussion about it. i have a feeling that agorawr will be a little bit unpopular just because the layman is using paypal because of its convenience, so i think the most reasonable step is to encourage artists into engaging with computers first before pitching a world some might not even understand. that could be simply be making a neocities page. them learning html/css would by proxy give them a greater scope on how much government they'd prefer over their work. in return they get a portfolio website that promotes their brand and afterwards they'll think "if making a website is that easy, how much more can i unplug and modify? i must learn more." those are my thoughts at least.

nite market began opening around 8:00pm. i felt more like myself now that the right people were around. i think the vendor count was a little lacking. i'm considering applying next year so maybe it won't feel as empty. the foyer leads into the famous "backrooms" ballroom, where djs selected by stratosfur's board members performed and the main attraction was...

9:00pm, the chill pool toy lounge is now open for bounce. the nite market leads directly into the partitioned main stage and pool toy lounge, so that you aren't getting flashed by stage lights rocking around on the inflatables but you can still listen to the music.

pictures were taken in the morning when nobody was around so i could visit my inflatable crush. my favorite is zippy the bat dragon because i can lay on him belly to belly and i think he looks the coolest. the phenodtoy canines are also really nice to lay on (but i also slipped off of them the most, lol.)

most of the morning though, they weren't being played with. they just sat here washing in the stale air of last night's playtime just like they are in these pictures. put shallowly watching them makes me sad. a ring of over 20 pool toys, none of which will get to wrinkle their nubbed wrists into each other's vinyl skins nor do they have the ears to hear each other's squeaks; it's simply because they weren't made to pitch contact, only receive.

i don't remember the last time i got to really "play" on anything. i think because the toys are designed to hold human weight and made to be big enough to do that, i felt really protected by them since i'll never be small again like i would be to a pool toy. these guys were designed to be hugged by people, by people who needed them to do exactly that. isn't that cute?