As potentially inflammatory as that title is, it's how I feel right now. On a lark, I was browsing through FA, looking to find some old work of folks that I have on my watchlist, only to find yet another artist who's work I thoroughly enjoyed has made the decision to not only leave FA, but take down all their work, and not put it up on any other sites.

Now, their reasons are their own, but I have a feeling furry drama played a heavy role in the decision. Particularly because the artist--who will go unnamed out of respect--cited "emotional baggage" as one of the main reasons for this departure from any future furry work. The other reason cited was FA's horrible security issues, which are a problem to be sure. But the overall tone of the journal implied that far more personal, emotional issues were the main source of this decision.

Personally, I don't really experience much furry drama. I'm notoriously open, accepting, tolerant and easy to get along with, and I don't make a habit of trying to make enemies or being a foot-in-mouth twat who then whines when people disagree with me or my views. But let's be clear, friends; half of furries tend to be teenagers and kids, the other half folks in their 20s and 30s. Those demographics are going to change as time passes, of course, but it does help explain why there's so much drama within the furry community, to say nothing of art thieves that have already caused many a furry artist to abandon the community entirely

So here I sit, disheartened at the loss of yet another solid body of work spanning half a decade, with (among other reasons) emotional baggage caused by childish bullshit as one of the key reasons. And it's not the first time I've seen it happen. It certainly won't be the last, either.

Listen, we're a community and fandom quite unlike any other (for both good and ill), and there's a ton of potential for a huge variety of creative bodies of work that can come from our shared passion for anthropomorphic animals.

So why are we, collectively, deciding to chase away some of the best talent we have by acting like teenage dipshits half of the time? It's small wonder it's still so hard for the Furry community to fully quite gain acceptance as yet another fandom full of decent people, when we keep driving away some of the more mature and capable individuals our community has attracted over the years, leaving behind the drama llamas, the art thieves, the childish and the vocal minorities to be the most likely faces folks outside of our community see first.

Or maybe I'm just a little depressed that some of my favorite art is now gone forever, and needed to rant. Hell if I know anymore.