FA+
Shop
I'm Sorry, But... (NSFW)
5 years ago
Scroll all the way down for the tl;dr version of this. Otherwise, read on for all the specific details.
I realize I've been AWOL these last couple or so weeks and a month and a half since I first announced the Anthroverse account. Rest assured it's still going to happen, but that leads to why I'm posting this journal...
You see, I've come to a big realization on three things. I'll address them in no specific order.
1. FurAffinity is getting increasingly authoritarian. Anytime Fender posts another one of his policy updates, FA becomes more and more restrictive of what you can and cannot say/do. It used to be left at "post in good conscience and nothing illegal". Heck, just about any form of art is just that...art. Real life is one thing, but art is imaginative. Why else is the furry fandom such a popular escape for a lot of people? There are things like scat, bestiality and even cub art that while I personally dislike those things (to put it mildly), they are still works of art and not images of real life. Think of it this way, do you REALLY believe that someone who posts scat likes to eat shit in real life? Do you REALLY believe that someone who posts bestiality in whatever form is someone who fucks animals in real life? And of course, which I say a bit more tersely here, do you REALLY believe that people who post cub art are automatically pedophiles in real life?
The thing with art is it lets us explore our darker sides in a safe and controlled environment. It allows us to vicariously experience something we would never actually do in real life, but some deep dark corner of our psyches wishes to experience that thing. And heck, I'll admit, I post art of Rinji literally being mates with a non-anthro hawk. In a sense, that would be considered bestiality, yet I've made clear on many occasions that the character is as intelligent as an anthro, which are as intelligent as humans. To me, that intelligence level makes it NOT feel like bestiality to me. Would I go out and screw a large hawk for real? Definitely NOT! I don't even smoke in real life! I have NO desire to do anything like that. But here, in the fictional worlds we create from our imaginations, I get to vicariously experience these things and, in accordance with my more mainstream female muscle kink, hyper muscular hawk birb. But what I express here doesn't necessarily reflect who I am IRL. But at the end of the day, I know that character and all my other characters are just figments of our imagination that we bring out for some air. To be denied the freedom of letting out such dark impulses, however small, remote or minute out in said safe and controlled environment is to risk some people potentially taking it to unsafe environments, namely real life. And that is why I am against all these arbitrary restrictive policy changes being made.
Let me be clear, NO human on this Earth is truly pure. We ALL have darkness within ourselves as well as light. What we choose to act upon is what defines who we are as human beings. And I, for one, am able to sleep at night knowing that I have never acted on my dark and perverse impulses. I'm sure a LOT of us can say that, in fact. I may not agree with, and even find disgusting, some fetishes other people display here. But the beauty of keyword tagging is that it helps keep certain material out of certain searches. Is it infallible? No. I've caught sight of some scat thumbnails without warnings a few times and I just try my best to unsee it. And besides, who am I to judge what other people are into? I know I wouldn't like it if someone belittled my smoking fetish, for example, so I certainly wouldn't go around judging others the same way. Anyway, the furry fandom is not the messed up fandom that the world at large thinks it is. There are forms of expression that can make your skin crawl. Most just remain below the radar...but I digress.
2. I'm getting older. I'm 41 years old now. When I first set foot into the furry fandom, I was 28. Back then, I was still young(ish) and full of untapped creative energy to explore things I found personally hot. For me, that was female muscle, female characters demonstrating immense strength (particularly robotic female characters), women smoking with a cigarette holder and androids. There are other smaller subkinks, but these were my most prominent. I expressed those fetishes through stories; and let me tell you I was on quite a roll for a few good years. As time went on, that ambition and energy started to level out and my output slowed down to a more steady pace. Real life also played a part in tempering my creative endeavors because, hey, a man's gotta eat!
But cut to ten years later, when I gained some new friends and cut ties with some others. I've said and done things in those years that I regret and have learned from. Unfortunately, as I've witnessed firsthand, few people are willing to forgive and would rather hold a grudge against you for as long as you live. I won't go into detail or name names, but basically a lot of people on here expect you to practically beg for forgiveness and grovel before they'll even give you the time of day again. And when I know I was wrong about something, I will apologize for it. But if that person says the equivalent of, "That wasn't good enough." or "You didn't seem that sorry.", that's when I'll just say, "Go fuck yourself then, you heartless prick!". I was raised with the concept of forgiveness, both accepting it and giving it. In an increasingly forgivenessless world, it's just one of many factors that has resulted in my increasingly skewered sense of motivation to do anything here. And while I try to make things right with certain people, I don't have time for anyone who's just going to act all holier than thou towards me about it, despite my own attempts to fix things. But more pertinent than that, the fact remains that I'm getting old and like most people, I've changed. Life will do that to you. Which leads to...
3. Life happens/Shit happens. Even as recently as 2017, where I think is when I peaked. That was when I posted the longest story I have ever made, thanks to the collaborative efforts with my bro, Mimic. I'm talking about "The Secret of Dino Village". Not even a week after I had posted that story, I got fired from my previous job due to a vengeful peer who screwed me over over something quite petty. I had finally reached a respectable job position that pays decent and was full time. Luckily for me, I was able to rebound within a week and land the job I still have today. And while I was able to keep from having to file for unemployment, the experience still killed my story drive and any future works were few and far in between. I was in denial about that for quite some time before one of my friends helped me to see it.
But if THAT wasn't bad enough of a bad experience to put me into a creative funk, losing my mother was the straw that broke the camel's back. Not only did I have to take care of all the arrangements, sell the house (since I couldn't afford to take over the mortgate payments) and ultimately move to another state where the cost of living was a lot cheaper among other things, I did manage to (after over two years of working the same submanagement position) finally get promoted to assistant manager at last and get bumped up to a salary comperable to my previous one from my last job. Coupled with buying a home I could actually afford to keep up with, you would think I was finally back and ready to go full swing back into the Anthroverse. But there's just one thing...
I'm STILL older and no longer the younger energetic person that slingshot myself into the furry fandom at the speed of sound. For better or worse, I am no longer able to maintain any specific sense of work ethic when I'm already strapped with more personal responsibilites that come with owning a home, my job and keeping myself healthy. Suddenly, the furry fandom has ended up taking more of a back seat to me these days. I can stay in touch with my friends here and chat it up on a live-long day. But making new stories or even continuing the Anthroverse has proven more of a challenge to me than ever.
I guess what this all boils down to is this: I can't make anymore specific commitments to the universe I created and, from what I'm hearing, has developed something of a cult following, to which I am quite flattered to hear. I WANT to bring out more of the Anthroverse and I WANT to explore my other characters while guest starring other people's as well. The thing is...I can't do it so readily anymore. At the same time, it would be a lie anymore to say that I'm leaving FA. 9 out of 10 people ALWAYS come back after saying they were leaving forever. FA has the majority popularity of the furry art fandom, unfortunately. So while their TOS is becoming more and more draconian, to migrate elsewhere would just feel empty and not worth doing because those other art and story websites just aren't as popular. DeviantART doesn't allow adult art at all and is otherwise too big a place for my tastes.
What I'm saying is that I'm not leaving, but I'm not making anymore specific commitments. If I ever have a burst of creative energy and I happen to be on my computer when I do, then I'll surely put that energy to use. But like a fire, that energy can suddenly fizzle out. I have no way of predicting when I'll be making and posting anything new, storywise. I can't afford to keep buying art commissions either, because in the end, I always want them to tell a story and it's the same with authors as it is with artists: Most just draw their own desired content rather than pay someone else to do it, since they have that ability already. Same with me as an author. There WAS someone who does story commissions, but me and him aren't friends anymore...or rather, according to him, we apparently never were. Like I said, I've said things I've come to regret and I've tried to make amends. But some people just have no capacity for forgiveness, choosing instead to cling to their distrust and fears of the past to prevent themselves from giving things another chance. I can't make anyone like me and I know I'm not perfect. I've seen it in others as well. I'm sure I've also cut ties with someone to a point where I have refused to rekindle anything with that person. I don't pretend to be better than anyone else. We're all only human. However, I AM aware of my faults and limitations and acknowledge them.
But as far as new content goes, it'll come whenever it comes. I just can't provide a timetable anymore. I'm not as young as I used to be.
tl;dr - Sorry for my absence, but I've come to realize three things: FA is becoming more and more restrictive, I'm an older fart and life/shit happens. I'm no longer able to commit to any specific timetables. I'll make and post something whenever I'm able to. It could take days, weeks, possibly even months before that happens. If you can be okay with that, then great! No, I'm not leaving the fandom, just getting my priorities straight and sadly, the furry fandom now sits a lot lower on my priority list now.
I realize I've been AWOL these last couple or so weeks and a month and a half since I first announced the Anthroverse account. Rest assured it's still going to happen, but that leads to why I'm posting this journal...
You see, I've come to a big realization on three things. I'll address them in no specific order.
1. FurAffinity is getting increasingly authoritarian. Anytime Fender posts another one of his policy updates, FA becomes more and more restrictive of what you can and cannot say/do. It used to be left at "post in good conscience and nothing illegal". Heck, just about any form of art is just that...art. Real life is one thing, but art is imaginative. Why else is the furry fandom such a popular escape for a lot of people? There are things like scat, bestiality and even cub art that while I personally dislike those things (to put it mildly), they are still works of art and not images of real life. Think of it this way, do you REALLY believe that someone who posts scat likes to eat shit in real life? Do you REALLY believe that someone who posts bestiality in whatever form is someone who fucks animals in real life? And of course, which I say a bit more tersely here, do you REALLY believe that people who post cub art are automatically pedophiles in real life?
The thing with art is it lets us explore our darker sides in a safe and controlled environment. It allows us to vicariously experience something we would never actually do in real life, but some deep dark corner of our psyches wishes to experience that thing. And heck, I'll admit, I post art of Rinji literally being mates with a non-anthro hawk. In a sense, that would be considered bestiality, yet I've made clear on many occasions that the character is as intelligent as an anthro, which are as intelligent as humans. To me, that intelligence level makes it NOT feel like bestiality to me. Would I go out and screw a large hawk for real? Definitely NOT! I don't even smoke in real life! I have NO desire to do anything like that. But here, in the fictional worlds we create from our imaginations, I get to vicariously experience these things and, in accordance with my more mainstream female muscle kink, hyper muscular hawk birb. But what I express here doesn't necessarily reflect who I am IRL. But at the end of the day, I know that character and all my other characters are just figments of our imagination that we bring out for some air. To be denied the freedom of letting out such dark impulses, however small, remote or minute out in said safe and controlled environment is to risk some people potentially taking it to unsafe environments, namely real life. And that is why I am against all these arbitrary restrictive policy changes being made.
Let me be clear, NO human on this Earth is truly pure. We ALL have darkness within ourselves as well as light. What we choose to act upon is what defines who we are as human beings. And I, for one, am able to sleep at night knowing that I have never acted on my dark and perverse impulses. I'm sure a LOT of us can say that, in fact. I may not agree with, and even find disgusting, some fetishes other people display here. But the beauty of keyword tagging is that it helps keep certain material out of certain searches. Is it infallible? No. I've caught sight of some scat thumbnails without warnings a few times and I just try my best to unsee it. And besides, who am I to judge what other people are into? I know I wouldn't like it if someone belittled my smoking fetish, for example, so I certainly wouldn't go around judging others the same way. Anyway, the furry fandom is not the messed up fandom that the world at large thinks it is. There are forms of expression that can make your skin crawl. Most just remain below the radar...but I digress.
2. I'm getting older. I'm 41 years old now. When I first set foot into the furry fandom, I was 28. Back then, I was still young(ish) and full of untapped creative energy to explore things I found personally hot. For me, that was female muscle, female characters demonstrating immense strength (particularly robotic female characters), women smoking with a cigarette holder and androids. There are other smaller subkinks, but these were my most prominent. I expressed those fetishes through stories; and let me tell you I was on quite a roll for a few good years. As time went on, that ambition and energy started to level out and my output slowed down to a more steady pace. Real life also played a part in tempering my creative endeavors because, hey, a man's gotta eat!
But cut to ten years later, when I gained some new friends and cut ties with some others. I've said and done things in those years that I regret and have learned from. Unfortunately, as I've witnessed firsthand, few people are willing to forgive and would rather hold a grudge against you for as long as you live. I won't go into detail or name names, but basically a lot of people on here expect you to practically beg for forgiveness and grovel before they'll even give you the time of day again. And when I know I was wrong about something, I will apologize for it. But if that person says the equivalent of, "That wasn't good enough." or "You didn't seem that sorry.", that's when I'll just say, "Go fuck yourself then, you heartless prick!". I was raised with the concept of forgiveness, both accepting it and giving it. In an increasingly forgivenessless world, it's just one of many factors that has resulted in my increasingly skewered sense of motivation to do anything here. And while I try to make things right with certain people, I don't have time for anyone who's just going to act all holier than thou towards me about it, despite my own attempts to fix things. But more pertinent than that, the fact remains that I'm getting old and like most people, I've changed. Life will do that to you. Which leads to...
3. Life happens/Shit happens. Even as recently as 2017, where I think is when I peaked. That was when I posted the longest story I have ever made, thanks to the collaborative efforts with my bro, Mimic. I'm talking about "The Secret of Dino Village". Not even a week after I had posted that story, I got fired from my previous job due to a vengeful peer who screwed me over over something quite petty. I had finally reached a respectable job position that pays decent and was full time. Luckily for me, I was able to rebound within a week and land the job I still have today. And while I was able to keep from having to file for unemployment, the experience still killed my story drive and any future works were few and far in between. I was in denial about that for quite some time before one of my friends helped me to see it.
But if THAT wasn't bad enough of a bad experience to put me into a creative funk, losing my mother was the straw that broke the camel's back. Not only did I have to take care of all the arrangements, sell the house (since I couldn't afford to take over the mortgate payments) and ultimately move to another state where the cost of living was a lot cheaper among other things, I did manage to (after over two years of working the same submanagement position) finally get promoted to assistant manager at last and get bumped up to a salary comperable to my previous one from my last job. Coupled with buying a home I could actually afford to keep up with, you would think I was finally back and ready to go full swing back into the Anthroverse. But there's just one thing...
I'm STILL older and no longer the younger energetic person that slingshot myself into the furry fandom at the speed of sound. For better or worse, I am no longer able to maintain any specific sense of work ethic when I'm already strapped with more personal responsibilites that come with owning a home, my job and keeping myself healthy. Suddenly, the furry fandom has ended up taking more of a back seat to me these days. I can stay in touch with my friends here and chat it up on a live-long day. But making new stories or even continuing the Anthroverse has proven more of a challenge to me than ever.
I guess what this all boils down to is this: I can't make anymore specific commitments to the universe I created and, from what I'm hearing, has developed something of a cult following, to which I am quite flattered to hear. I WANT to bring out more of the Anthroverse and I WANT to explore my other characters while guest starring other people's as well. The thing is...I can't do it so readily anymore. At the same time, it would be a lie anymore to say that I'm leaving FA. 9 out of 10 people ALWAYS come back after saying they were leaving forever. FA has the majority popularity of the furry art fandom, unfortunately. So while their TOS is becoming more and more draconian, to migrate elsewhere would just feel empty and not worth doing because those other art and story websites just aren't as popular. DeviantART doesn't allow adult art at all and is otherwise too big a place for my tastes.
What I'm saying is that I'm not leaving, but I'm not making anymore specific commitments. If I ever have a burst of creative energy and I happen to be on my computer when I do, then I'll surely put that energy to use. But like a fire, that energy can suddenly fizzle out. I have no way of predicting when I'll be making and posting anything new, storywise. I can't afford to keep buying art commissions either, because in the end, I always want them to tell a story and it's the same with authors as it is with artists: Most just draw their own desired content rather than pay someone else to do it, since they have that ability already. Same with me as an author. There WAS someone who does story commissions, but me and him aren't friends anymore...or rather, according to him, we apparently never were. Like I said, I've said things I've come to regret and I've tried to make amends. But some people just have no capacity for forgiveness, choosing instead to cling to their distrust and fears of the past to prevent themselves from giving things another chance. I can't make anyone like me and I know I'm not perfect. I've seen it in others as well. I'm sure I've also cut ties with someone to a point where I have refused to rekindle anything with that person. I don't pretend to be better than anyone else. We're all only human. However, I AM aware of my faults and limitations and acknowledge them.
But as far as new content goes, it'll come whenever it comes. I just can't provide a timetable anymore. I'm not as young as I used to be.
tl;dr - Sorry for my absence, but I've come to realize three things: FA is becoming more and more restrictive, I'm an older fart and life/shit happens. I'm no longer able to commit to any specific timetables. I'll make and post something whenever I'm able to. It could take days, weeks, possibly even months before that happens. If you can be okay with that, then great! No, I'm not leaving the fandom, just getting my priorities straight and sadly, the furry fandom now sits a lot lower on my priority list now.
I know all your true fans will understand and be happy with whatever you're able to do whenever you're able to do it.