Might be a bit late, your post seems a bit cryptic, but the year being 2024 and also reflecting on some things as well have given me some food for thought on my own relationships to the fandom.

Truth be told, i don't know most people here that well.

But trying to read through your words, it seems like you might have reflected, perhaps fondly, perhaps remorsefully over the memories you've experienced here. Both good and bad in the fandom.

It does kinda feel like you might have been in a spot i was in a few months ago. Wanting to open up, but afraid of getting preyed on like a bleeding heart. And tbh, that is kinda something that happened to me a few months back in the fandom vs irl tbh.

It's kind of odd to feel distant away from something you 'grew up' with at least, but it felt like life reversed a bit for me. When i was younger, the Furry fandom felt like a escape, you could be whatever you wanted to be, go on adventures, it was a escape from life. But now it feels like the other way around.

This last year has been a bender for most. I do not know your story, and i just know mine. And that's alright.

10 years ago it used to feel like be.
o IRL: "We don't care about your feelings, shut up and do these choices to make money for us in the future. You’re not here to be a kid, you’re here to make money for us."

o Furry Fandom: "We're all welcome here, feel free to draw, trade, make art, make sonas, color bases/sonas / flight risings/furvillas etc!, play with your characters, and have fun! Welcome welcome!"

Now 10 years later when i tried to 'relive' the past for my personal encounters.
o Furry Fandom: "You're a hole, i couldn't give less of a F about you" "Shut up and pay". "(Redacted genders/races im not even part of slurs)" "SXHUP UP! I onl y CAR ABUT GOON!" "STOP TALKING AND I CUM IN U!! [assorted grab bag slurs im not even one of]!"

o Irl: "Hey hey hey! There's our Team MVP!!" "Hey man, it's great to see you again!" "There's a frown on you, is something bothering you?" "Hey, just because we've had our differences man, doesn't mean i wish the worst for you.” “If there's anything we need to talk about, we can talk. We're both living life, me and you."


It’s a bit of a life switch up. Your post is a bit cryptic so I don’t know what’s going on, but I do know 2024 has been a hell of a year for many. And fostering real life relationships, as well as just watching things pile on within the fandom. It kinda feels like when fantasy is escapism, it’s alright. But now it feels like there’s kinda this odd freaky Friday scenario for me. The fandom that used to be a escape, is now what I go to reality to leave. Not in a “I want to abandon people and leave them behind way”, but idk.

I kinda get the vibes when I talk to people I thought were friends in the furry fandom. It’s gone from “Hey! This is just a roleplay, although it’s fiction, we still want you to have fun!” to “ShutUPp, giv me money, and be silent,WHOR!” kinda vibes.

For better or worse I’ve also have had real life people come and while not knowing much of the fandom, kinda nudge about where to spend resources, time and company. I don’t know your story, other than I think my mind’s foggy eye followed to you as the Pewter consort person in the mental picture? But idk. Being objectified myself as “SHUT UP HOL”, kinda just has like. Put a disappointing kryptonite or demotivational damper on me.

Like you, maybe I’ve shifted my priorities a bit. Many of us want things to work out but I got some indirect kinda lectures. “Being a adult is about more than jacking off. It’s also caring about your children, your family, your real spouse, your partner” “You can’t just ignore reality to live in a fantasy. Much less a person trying to milk any sap who comes by.”

The art is getting better but idk. Points of view are subjective, everyone has one, and as my friends say. “Points of views are valid, how we act on them aren’t always. Sometimes you have to prioritize what you want out of life. Career, family, children, exploration. "

"As kids we think we can have it all for just existing. As maturing adults, you need to realize that all things are a limited resource. And sometimes you need to spend it where it matters most, your family.”

But it really got me thinking. “Was I neglecting genuinely meaningful and positive real life relationships (neighbors, coworkers, friends, treats, hellos, waves, mugs of cocoa/fudge/shoveling walks / laughs/ trips, smiles, bbqs, potlucks, summer parties, and neighborhoods) for potentially “fake” ones? (“IDGAF about you, GIVE MONEY, NOW!”) And while it wasn’t over on here, but another site. It was just enough to jade me a bit. I guess that’s external stuff though.

My past in the furry fandom was good, but the present im not sure about. It’s not just about being “greedy”, there’s priorities. Many of my older peers have talked about the importance of investments as they gave their heart, and wallet. And the other person walked away and left them destitute in their 40-60s.

The 2024 economy is price scalpy and despite regional income variations, it takes like 10-50 projected years to buy a house on a degree/trade job in the 2024s here Vs the 4 yrs our grandparents at 18 yrs could buy on one income post ww2.


It’s just a different world and I can’t live in fantasyland, and I have to look at about 10-30+ years of setup just to make ends meet for kids, investment and housing. It’s not about inability but real life responsibility. I can’t just neglect real life people to buy or look at the fandom all day. It’s just time to move on.

It just seems like the furry fandom in 2024 mostly in my public interactions just wants to cum to something. Everyone wants their bills paid but everyone is trying to make it. Nobody wants to be the goose, but everyone wants to be fed a gift on a plate. Idk. Everything in 2024 is just, kinda complicated. Maybe even potentially fake, even(?)
Characters can be drawn perfect, but reality has limits while fantasy doesn’t need to.

I’ve probably overthink it, but feels like it can be strangely dehumanizing, even in a previous mood, to a "SHUT UP HOLE", instead of a "Would you want to feel wonderful, love? :3" vibe of the past to things.

2024 is definitely a hell of a year. I just mostly lurk now, but I guess that’s alright. Not everything virtual ended out the best, but real life ended up better at least. Life could be storms and rain or sunshine and smiles, laughing patters of feet on the doorstep and paws from our pets, with a community of fit, talented, and healthy people giving each other high fives.

Laughing, talking about networking opportunities and new places to dine in. And real life health benefits and gyming, slam some 200 lb weights, exercise, swim 12 laps, go for a jog.

It wasn’t initally about trying to ‘replace anyone’. But finding warmth wherever it was.
It’s just I feel like I poured out my heart a few months ago here, got ripped apart and stabbed months ago, nobody here cared.

But people did in the real world. Moved on, had someone notice I was sad irl. Got better, healed and moved on in the gaps. For some people that situation is flipped, the fandom is their solace while life is terrible. I was like that before too but life can change, be complicated and messy. Is what it is, I suppose.

We’re not perfect, but we’re happy with what we have irl. Although I wish many furry fandom things had gone better. But not all things work out. Such is life, I guess.

I appreciate you taking the time and care and effort to see what I wrote clearly despite how dismissive I made it. There's some desire to remain cryptic, as I don't particularly want to reveal the details of my experience in the fandom nor how it affected me to any but those who knew me and spoke to me.

That said, it is touching, and kind, for you to extend yourself in wanting to leave something meaningful and with weight. As I'm sure you know, with the way you alluded to the discomfort of the shift in attitude, it is a rare thing. I think this happened as we either became more aware of ourselves as furries desiring certain, specific things, or it became more comfortable overall and we learned to be less reliant on the respect and sense of safety that came with the early days... but that's honestly depressing, reaching speculation that isn't worth going into.

If I'm fully honest, it was only ever sexually driven, here. It was the canvas and we painted our stories over it, if we wanted to, like graffiti in an underpass over a writhing, twisting mass of fetish, desperation, sex and misunderstood desire for intimacy. I don't think anyone ever really appreciated what I wanted out of my worlds, characters, posts, any of it, without a bit of pushing and speaking to them to shake them up and make them realize I was more than a prehensile dick or a funny shaped creature whose lines were different than the usual anthro.

There's a lot I could say on it. Of how it shaped me, changed me, and I want to be bitter and angry, but truly, it was for my lack of perspective and understanding of how dangerous and forming the furry community can be and simply going into it before I had what it took to survive it. I got twisted, like everyone else does, and it's ugly. We all did it to ourselves, and each other, something like that. It's dramatic, and complicated.

I don't really blame anyone I interacted with but quite frankly I look back at the comments I got on my art, the distress bleeding in my words from wanting to be recognized for aspects and elements people simply weren't seeing... and there were things that truly I never spoke of nor understood that undermined my concepts as a whole. I think a lot of us go through similar disparaging, self destructive arcs regarding our creativity and the way in which we leave our mark.

That's my perspective on the fandom and where I see them currently and how I saw them before. It's a bright, burning flame with often only shortsighted, blinding compassion and desire to feel good, without deeper thought or consideration for consequences nor anything like it or related to it in the future. Most take their lives and put it in the hands of the first person who they really think understands them, and who they think they trust. And then the next when that is gone.

But, even all this thought and experience and sadness I've felt is sorta just, not good data. I was naive and experienced things from my own perspective of ignorance and miscommunication.

I feel I rambled into pure emotion and not logic or a constructive story, so, anyway, let's try again -- getting back on track to directly what you said, and just not how I feel regarding it...

I've seen pieces of your perspective in others I knew, the disparity between reality, the internet, its value and worth in life as we knew it, and are presented it. People still tell me that it's worthless video game trash, people who I care about deeply, and they're disturbed when I explain the depths my reasonings go to, and while they understand a bit, they are more confused and worried than anything.

For the furry community there was always the direct line of empathy and sympathy and shared circumstance to be able to understand each other and it became a point of yeah, escape, comfort, things like that. I imagine somewhere in the pursuit to be more comfortable overall it became less special and meaningful and we brought our crass disrespect and flagrant mistreatment of each other in its various forms into our safe space and made it normal there.

The hope though is still there, honestly, there are those, like you, who care, but they are few and it takes a bit for them to wake up. Someone's going to read our elaborate, rambling conversation via literal walls of text here and want to contribute. That's the only way it ever really happens... but when it does, we can make the connection, lit like a flame, and carry it between our internet lives, and our real lives, then use it to eliminate the barriers between the two and realize it's all for the same purpose, and try to live good, perhaps. I'm sorta in that ballpark.

I won't even say this is constructed or meaningful beyond the fact that I think it's a nice opportunity to talk and worth it for whoever has the context and will to take meaning from the swaying words of some disillusioned furry, honestly. Hope you have a good day and thanks for reaching out.

Yeah fair enough. And thanks for sharing your deep thoughts on the matter as well. And 2024’s certainly been a hell of a year. A lot is happening, political rifts, climate, economy, people hitting the wall, etc.

Maybe some parts of it were aging, 10+ years back, some of us who were maybe adults were maybe younger and wider eyed as well. Instead of worrying about taxes, bills, rent and mortgage and debt and car payments. People mostly seemed to care about having fun. Even though the 2008 recession was worse for wall street, it seemed like the crash made house prices affordable then.
That said, the burn out as it felt like things became more jaded definitely rings true. I think a couple months ago, I probably would have itched for something like this at the moment. But as weird as it might sound. I don’t know if I’ll stay deeply rooted in the furry community. Not to be a bad ending.

But like imagine how weird it might be if you tried to get like “the best ending” where everyone was back together. But instead things were wrong, maybe the people that were supposed to be smiling in your naïve dreams wouldn’t be happy with everyone together unless some hated the other, and idk.

But it just felt like a sobering part of reality. That while you might want everyone together in a healthy and happy manner. Maybe it might run into the same problems as the Coexist movement once did. How do you reconcile two “religions of peace” that both believe the other must be eliminated, one moreso than the other, and even the possibility that a naïve view might even be the most foolish/naive one?

I mean, it’s all just vents out in the air but it’s like missing a bus. And maybe a weird ending for me where I was unhappy with the ‘happy’ ending. Things didn’t seem right. It’d be like trying to play a game of undertale but half of the faces were soulless in the ‘Good’ ending. Something was just wrong, vs the ‘bad’ ending of just like the happiest.

2024 is a year but you can see it, it’s like zig zagged, a lot of things seem to be hitting the wall or mental health concerns this years. People are struggling to pay rent, concerns, people are wishing for like cartoon wish fulfillment fantasy billionaires and princes to solve every problem, just for the ‘privilege of sticking a stick into a hole’. In like their fantasies. And I admit I do love a good fantasy, and I did love world building.

But you’re definitely right that something seems wrong this year and idk. Maybe it’s a lot to take in. My defining emotion right now kinda sadly is just kinda apathetic. I used to care a lot a few months ago but just when you’re pushed down by a person you thought you were trying to lift up, and feeling walked over, taken advantaged of, or just the feeling of ‘compassion’ burn out shifting from online relationships to a couple moochers, idk.

I used to want everyone there but now after filtering people. I think I did some weed outs and im happy with the community I formed and people I found within the real world after sifting.

It’s a bit bittersweet. I did think I found happiness and genuine friends, but not in the place I thought I wanted. And im not sure if knowing what I know now, if I’d even still “want” what I used to think I did months ago.

I guess it is kinda true that, the stories and art written. It was definitely the thirst bait stuff. But like regardless it was like built over years. I did try sfw and nsfw at first and I think it was less just freakiness intended at the start. Just I wanted people to view what I made and the world.

I just noticed that my sfw things, no matter how well done or honestly loved, only ever brought in like 14-140 people. Meanwhile the smutty stuff brought in 378-2000+.
It was kinda a mix, I did try at sfw multiple times and I cherish them all the same, and I still try to view and support the pieces.

But I guess to be frank, dodging what people say, vs what their actions show. 90% of people say they prefer sfw over nsfw, 90% of people click nsfw over the same sfw of the same survey.

I guess ironically with life. Having the real thing be a positive thing made the sting of the virtual kinda funnily messes it up. I remember loving runescape as a kid when we had nothing to do, no car, no things in our area, dialup was slow. Friends were all over in summer. So we’d chat to fish. It was ‘inefficient’ but it seemed like people kinda used the mmorpg as kinda proto ‘social media’, people hung out to hang out, you know? When skillcapes came out, people talked about 99 parties.

But that’s when I notice the game became kinda neet grinding. When I went back, the game was identical, but the atmosphere had completely changed.

Like it’s a bit of a oldie but I remember someone sending this to me from a server I was in.

(WoW nostalgia about the past and friends leaving)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aue.....WSI&t=121s

I think some things are memories, and maybe that’s best. When we try to re live the past, we have our fun for a while, but then life kinda has to move on, you know? Anyone who’s ever been a deep mmorpg player might know that feeling. With ocs you can make your own rules in a world you’re just in. But in a mmorpg, you can be wildly successful, powerful, a top 1% raider with the best gear/achievements on the server.

But just, watch your own real life dwindle inversely proportionally to how much you spend on the virtual world. I’ve had friends and we ran a 400 man on and off guild and got mildly into speed runs/clears. I think we developed some good inter person skills there heading 400 as a guild master. But people talk about all the power, not all the stress.
We raised ourselves to be responsible but we had power trippers, but then we decided that running a guild wasn’t worth all the hassle it was cracked up to be. Guild drama, loot fights, leechers vs tryhards vs casuals vs competitive. We accomplished a lot but it was like running over 400 children. Maybe that’s somewhere i come from. Every person has their own stories, personal experiences, and I often got into word vs word stories with even my guild. And then after I got done running it, I still had college irl and was just happy to lurk a bit.
Maybe it’s a bit of a over vent. But I used to try and want a future everyone was “together, healthily”, now I think im kinda in a world where, I’d rather have the 1-6 people I feel closest too irl, like my vetted band of friends most.

Though you do seem like a good chat, though im kinda distanced away from the furry community and just like you, value my space. Though your character if it was the old days, does look like a fun one. Slit boys and cocky boys with good personalities, thoughtful views, and enjoyable antics could always be good fun.

But im kinda in that weird twilight zone of “Older now, have irl responsibilities, just like most of my responsible friends”, the people with 24/7 free time are.. also kinda.. either work from homers or just.. people who kinda aged like milk. They were sweet as kids but.. some people just.. legitimately aged wrong. And maybe I’m aging like whiskey vs wine.
Getting more bitter, oaky, and spirited or ‘garbage’ tasting to a person who wants honey haha.

Honestly, I used to be a idealist but I have nothing wrong with people being practical.
Even as my life friends say. “Friends should be a excuse to raise your expectations from a stranger, not lower them. You shouldn’t be impressed by people’s ‘highest effort’ being lower than a uncaring stranger’s bare minimum. Basic human two sided understanding and respect are the basics of communication.”

I was kinda looking at fandom relationships and jaded definitely is a word. While it definitely were times to be a horn dog… Taking everything away from it and just seeing the person as a hole to “shut up” definitely was like one of those core memory things.

It’s like if you were looking forward every day to a home cooked meal, not because you couldn’t “get a bigger meal, or a tastier meal, or a healthier meal somewhere else”, but because it meant a lot because you thought the other person cared and customized it around you.

Except one day, you come back, and after working 60 hrs and pulling 4 overnighters to pay for you, and some of another person’s lifestyle, you come back to a pile of shit, a dump, and them saying “I hope you choke on it, you ungrateful lot.”

So you start packaging your own meals and then they go “Why aren’t you eating my meals anymore?” “Why don’t you trust my food?” “there must be something wrong with you” and the person next in line is going. “Why are you still with them? They’re terrible, they give you less, treat you worse, and all you’re doing is being ‘loyal’ (stupid) to a person who treats you worse and gives you less.”

Maybe a bit charged but that’s kinda how that event kinda jaded me from the furry fandom as well. Like with the Wow example. Things can “be the same”, but not “really the same”, right? It sounds like a paradox. And maybe I’m speaking from my own pov here. But I think going back to old privates and osrs and wow here and there. I thought I missed the game, maybe I missed the people in a healthy relationships. Just chatting in catherby for 8 hrs, not even knowing what I was doing, but only remembering I was having a good time, talking about the latest movies.

Eventually everything someday becomes a memory. Just as much as Ironman 1 and 2 went from “NEW!” movies to old. Micheal Phelps went from 10+ Olympic gold winner talk of town to past 2008 contestant nobody. And those days in catherby became ‘inefficient’ and mmorpgs ghost towns. Idk.

Still I found a healthy nonfurry real life community, mix of coworkers, advice, online friends, and they have good but sometimes pointed advice. “It’s alright to remember and savor the past. But remember why it ended” “Invest your future in the path that’ll create it, not the path that would waste it.”

I guess it’s bittersweet, and a lot of people 90/100 probably might just go “Urgh, just shut up/fuck already” but idk. I think I’ve shifted from caring most about the 90/100 who want to skip past everything. But those kinda 1-6 in a thousands people who dig through it. I’m distanced myself here. But sometimes just spilling out the thoughts, even if everyone skims them is fine. It just gets the thoughts out of mind and onto paper, like journaling, you know?

I guess for passerbys. A tl;dr i guess might be.

'Time flew quick, and things changed, didn't they?'

Anyways it was good talking to you, and although yeah i suppose, it got a little sobering. Sometimes it's good just to let the steam cap off to vent a bit, right?(?)

Anyways, i didn't mean the comments at you or just anyone here in particular. Just things in general. Just like idk. Sometimes i look back at all the memories of what happened in the past, and what happened in the last few years. Both in furry verse and kinda outside. And i kinda wonder what could have happened kinda like that butterfly effect, had the slightest of smallest minute details just fell a little differently, you know?