Well folks, today is the big day. It's been a rough year, hasn't it?

As of right now, almost half of all eligible voters in these United States have already voted. Today the polls open for the final time this election. Hopefully this won't be our last.

I know furries don't like thinking about politics. They want this to be their apolitical safe space and not have to think or talk about any of this.

Well too bad. As Tim Walz said on the campaign trail, it doesn't matter if you're not into politics, because "politics is into YOU."

This is a predominately queer fandom, with a rapidly growing number of trans furries to supplement its gay and bi majority. The stakes could not be higher this election, and it is the responsibility of everyone in a swing state to do their part.

I understand many of my compatriots on the left have serious problems with Kamala Harris. Yes, so do I. Didn't stop me from voting for her, because letting Trump back into power without any guardrails to spite the libs isn't good praxis, in my opinion. There's other ways to pressure her than withholding our votes, and unlike Trump, she's persuadable and closer to what we want.

This fandom depends on keeping Donald J. Trump out of office. You've all heard of Project 2025 by now. I don't care if Donald claims he doesn't support it; he's lying as always.

And to those furries reading this who have voted or plan to vote for Donald Trump this year? I tell you from the bottom of my heart: Kindly go fuck yourselves.

Unfollow me, block me, do what you have to do to remove yourself from my sight. I don't want to know you. I don't want you as part of the fandom that you cast a vote to harm. If Trump gets in, the quality of life for the overwhelming majority of the people here will get objectively worse. And someone who thinks that's a worthy price to pay doesn't belong here.

And to the rest of my American followers, the time is now. Get out there and cast your ballot if you haven't already. I did my part two weeks ago. Now, we're all counting on you.

Good day, and God bless America.

So, over the past couple of days, I had a rather interesting back and forth with another user of this site, who shall remain unnamed for reasons that will become clear shortly.

A person noted me asking me if I roleplayed and would like to set one up. There was a bit of an exchange, but then suddenly the person responded minutes after their most recent note with "I changed my mind. I'm not interested in people who love and praise Hitler. Don't ever contact me again." Then they blocked me.

Now, I suspected that this person had some rather *interesting* beliefs, as they listed on their profile that their primary social media account is on Truth Social - Donald Trump's vanity project.

Look, I'm a hard left guy, and I'm fairly open about that fact. That pisses off a lot of folks on this site, and they're welcome to their dislike. After this person contacted me and I noticed the Truth Social link, I figured they'd get salty after they found the lefty stuff in my gallery, and I think that's what happened.

But what's perplexing me about all this is how in the heck they got the idea that I love and praise Hitler. Like, what? At no point have I done any such thing - quite the opposite, in fact. The closest I've ever come would be my rather embarrassing Wehraboo phase way back when I first joined the fandom back in 2008, and that would take a bit of digging to uncover.

I just wanted to share, since that's the most excitement I've gotten out of this site in a while. Bottom line is: if you're gonna hate me for my political opinions, at least make sure you hate me for ones I actually have.

Heya folks, it's been a while hasn't it?

A lot's changed since I last checked in. I won't bore ya's with all the details except this one: I'm on my way to my second convention ever! Anthro Northwest might not be the most prestigious, and a local friend of mine suggested it's not well-regarded, but my sibling invited me out there from Thursday to Tuesday, so my bags are packed!

Anybody else going? :3

If that got your attention, ha ha! You have been bamboozled! For today is for the fools of April!

Seriously though, wishing all the best to everybody. If you prank somebody, please keep it benign and don't use it as an opportunity to be a jerk.

Until next time!

Originally posted to Sofurry.com on 9/12/2021.

It's that time of the year again. The 20th anniversary of the 2001 attacks on American soil. I know this is a day late, but guess I gotta blog about it all the same.

Now, I've made some rather performative, shallowly patriotic journals about 9/11 before - two of them come to mind that I wrote several years ago. However, my worldview has drastically evolved since those days. My politics have radicalized, which has shaped my attitude toward this uniquely American "holiday."

True, I still consider 9/11 a day of mourning. Unlike the performative grief the majority of my countryfolk put on, I don't just mourn the 2,977 innocents who lost their lives on that day in 2001. I mourn everything that came after it, inflicted by the US government in the name of those 2,977 victims.

I mourn the passage of the Patriot Act, which set us on a path towards an increasingly fascistic government and an overbearing security state endorsed by both major parties that protects nobody and threatens everybody.

I mourn the violence and discrimination that American Muslims and Sikhs have to endure on American soil, particularly each year around 9/11.

I mourn the over 900,000 people killed - more than a third of them civilians - and 38 million people displaced from their homes by our deranged, globe-spanning "War On Terror."

I mourn the normalization of dropping bombs on other countries without formal declaration of war, the de facto abolition of the Geneva Convention, and the destruction of human rights both at home and abroad in the name of "protecting freedom."

The world is a darker, crueler place ever since we embarked on our crusade (a very apt word to use, in my opinion) to "end terrorism." And guess what? "Terrorism" persists. It always will. Especially when our actions perpetuate a cycle of vengeance.

900,000 dead, 38 million displaced, and $8 trillion dollars sunk into forever wars all around the world that could have been spent improving the lives of ordinary Americans (Can't do that though, because that's "communism"). After all of that, what do we have to show for it? Sure, Bin Laden is dead, and not one of the tears I shed will ever be for him. But what else?

We've destabilized sovereign nations, destroyed and ended lives, and hollowed out the very soul of our nation. For what? So some asshole hiding out in Pakistan could be found and shot? Accomplishing that wasn't worth the price tag.

We didn't eradicate militant Islamism. Rather, we spread it through our imperialist aggression in the Middle East. We have given those people zero reasons to like or respect us. Their hatred is justly earned through every civilian casualty and war crime for which they can never be prosecuted in international courts.

It wasn't worth all this mess. None of it is justified. And we did it all in the name of 2,977 innocents. Do you think they'd be proud of us? How many would have wanted any of this to happen in their name?

One more thing that adds insult to injury: We lose as many Americans per day to COVID-19 as we did to 9/11. And yet a whole lot of the people out there lecturing me to "Never Forget" and to honor those lost on 9/11 refuse to cooperate with efforts to curb the pandemic, citing their "freedom." Pardon my French, but fuck that noise. People who can get vaccinated but refuse to, and happily go on helping the virus spread don't get to tell me which dead I'm allowed to think about.

That's all I have for you this journal. Just sharing everything that's been on my mind this year. If reading this made you angry, do me and everyone else a favor: Get angry at the government that did all this shit and the assholes egging it all on, not me for bringing it to your attention.

There is a proverb commonly but inaccurately attributed to Confucius: "If you seek revenge, you should dig two graves." We sought revenge, and dug our nation's grave in the process. If we keep going the way we have, you bet your asses we're going to fill it.

Hey folks. Can anyone give me a good artist recommendation? I'm looking for something particular.

Background: You might not know this, but I ended up writing a drastically expanded version of my story Griffon in Paradise. It is a complete overhaul that expands it into a full erotic novel, and is one of the biggest smutfics I have ever written. I might upload it here one day, but I haven't decided on that yet. In the meantime, you can find it hosted on FIMfiction here.

Here is my ask: I am looking for a somewhat affordable (budget of $100) porn artist who does top notch muscular women. However, there is a caveat. One of the kinks in the expanded fic is body hair play. I want to get art of Amazonian Gilda au naturale, if you get what I'm saying. I do have one artist in mind, but I can't tell whether he even does commissions anymore. I'll probably be DMing him later if all else fails.

So, any suggestions? I feel like my story needs some original artwork.

Well folks, today's the day. In-person voting has begun, and the last voters are flocking in. Some states have already been counting the absentee and mail ballots. Others, such as mine, weren't allowed to start counting them until 7 am this morning.

I'm sure I speak for others when I say that I feel like I'm cresting that first big hill on a rollercoaster, and I am staring down that fast-approaching drop. There's a lot riding on this damn election, and throughout the day I want everyone to keep some things in mind.

First, it is unlikely we'll know the outcome by the end of today. We've seen a historically unprecedented number of votes by mail this year, and many states do not have the infrastructure in place to handle that many. Even the ones that do, like California, may take several days to count them all. In 2016, it took New York almost a year to finalize their results (though fortunately the outcome was never in question).

Second, to my Democratic friends, don't be alarmed when you see the Election Day vote heavily skewing Republican. We knew it was going to look like that for the past couple months, as many Republicans reported they would wait until Election Day to vote. Trump has downplayed the risk of COVID and played up the boogeyman of mail-in vote fraud. Democrats, meanwhile, have overwhelmingly voted early.

Lastly, to any liberal centrists reading, don't think that you can just go home and back to ignoring politics once this election is over. Regardless of who wins this thing, legitimately or otherwise, this isn't the end of this sordid saga. Rather, it's the end of the beginning. There's lots of work to be done, and a reckoning in America that's long overdue.

Be safe. Be vigilant.

You'll notice that the third chapter of The Queer Couple has been taken down as of today (deleted completely from FA, placed indefinitely on hold on Sofurry). It is only fair that I offer an explanation.

The Queer Couple is a series I've had a complicated relationship with. It was one of my first big successes that brought in all the likes. Hell, just today I got a new fave on the second chapter. That said, as I have grown both as a writer and as a person, I look back on it unhappy with the way I have written the characters as well as the overall plot.

It is the third chapter that I am most unhappy with. At the time, I was still experimenting with my likes and dislikes within furry porn. Non-consensual sex scenes seemed popular at the time, and I decided I would try it out for myself. I did not enjoy writing it, and I do not enjoy reading over what I have written. My revulsion at what I'd written only grew stronger in the intervening years.

IRL, I am strongly opposed to not just the act of sexual violence, but the toleration or promotion of it as well. Now, I understand some folks here do have a fetish for simulated sexual assault, and that's their own business (provided it stays strictly fantasy with the consent of everyone involved). I'm not trying to kinkshame. The point is that I can't stomach having an erotic sexual assault scene associated with me any longer. For this reason, it has been removed from public viewing. I regret any inconvenience this may cause the people who enjoyed it.

~

On the upside, I have been feeling tempted to try a reboot of The Queer Couple. My writing skills have developed to the point where I think I can write more complex characters, instead of the one-dimensional stereotypes seen in the remaining two chapters of the original. I can't say when or if I'll actually do the reboot, but if I do, it'll be every bit as hot as the original you enjoy now, with a much better story and characters to go with it. The TF scene will mostly remain intact, as even now I greatly enjoy it.

The biggest thing you can expect from a reboot is a complete rework of Alex and Trevor. Alex is no longer an angry, abusive asshole who hates Trevor for no reason, nor is he cartoonishly stupid. New Alex will be the opposite - a friendly, outgoing fellow who is strong of body, kind of heart, and dumb of ass. Thinking isn't his strong suit, but he makes due with what he has. Despite having vastly different interests compared to Trevor, he still likes the Goth's company. There is some tension in the friendship, however. Alex knows the Goth is into him, but he's straight. The lug feels a bit guilty that he can't love Trevor back.

Trevor, meanwhile, will be a much more true to life depiction of a Goth. His portrayal right now is more punk/metal rocker and based entirely off half-remembered stereotypes mashed in from completely different countercultures. Slightly effeminate and well-mannered, Trevor acts aloof and annoyed toward his roommate, but harbors a fondness (as well as attraction) for the jock. He knows and respects that Alex is straight, but like Alex, wishes things could be different.
I'm not quite sure if/how much I'll change Raghib, but his homophobic attitude is critical to the plot, so that much is staying in.

Anyways, that's the reason one of my stories is no longer available for viewing. Any questions or concerns can be left in the comments below.

Good afternoon, folks. I was given today off from work, as today is a federally-recognized holiday. Currently, the federal government and most US states refer to it as “Columbus Day,” in honor of the Italian explorer and colonizer Christopher Columbus.

However, over the past few decades, there has been a growing movement among progressives and indigenous rights activists to rename the holiday “Indigenous Peoples Day.” Some local and state governments have taken the step of doing so. Meanwhile, some Italian-Americans - particularly older and more politically conservative ones - are very upset by the proposal, as they are invested in the image of Columbus as an Italian hero figure with (loose) ties to American history.

Now, I can’t speak to Italian-American heritage. My opinions are my own, and anyone of Italian descent is entitled to their opinion. I think in the long run that replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day is the right thing to do. With the exception of Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, Columbus never saw or set foot in what is now The United States. Moreover, his legacy of discovery is completely overshadowed by his enslavement and eradication of the Taino people, among other indigenous Caribbean tribes. To top it all off, Columbus’s expedition was not even the first to discover what would become known as “The New World.”

Columbus is not someone we should look up to, and I certainly do not want my day off to be in the name of a genocidal slaver. More important is the way that Columbus’s actions set the tone for relations between native groups and white settlers. It was a tragic precedence, and would be seen time and again all over North and South America. The wounds remain fresh in the United States and Canada, where First Nations continue to struggle to get the federal governments of both to even honor existing treaties, let alone grant them restitution.

I will grant that simply naming a day in honor of indigenous people is not a solution to centuries of injustice. Nor should it be. However, it can be a starting point, a means of opening the door to talking about stuff that usually gets glossed over in the history books. More than just a day when the mail doesn’t get delivered, this should be a day of remembrance and reflection for white Americans as well as the diverse patchwork of tribes still living among us.

In this spirit of remembrance and reflection, I am going to put my money where my mouth is. Now, I’m very careful when it comes to giving to charity, as I am leery of the pervasive corporate social engineering through what us leftists call “the Non-Profit Industrial Complex.” However, I was able to find a few organizations that I consider on the up and up for the most part. I have made two charitable contributions of $100 each to The Native American Rights Fund, and The First Nations Development Institute.

The first provides much needed legal services to indigenous communities and individuals that otherwise would not be able to afford legal representation, as well as educating these communities on their rights under US and tribal law. The second focuses on empowering First Nations through technical assistance and training, policy advocacy, and direct financial grants with an aim toward developing local economies and strengthening community and cultural institutions.

I encourage everyone reading to research and give to a charity benefiting indigneous communities today, and moving forward. In addition to the two I listed above, here are a couple more that you may wish to look into:

Adopt-a-Native-Elder Program: This charity is more local in nature, and focuses on providing basic necessities to roughly 500 traditional Elders of the Navajo Nation. Many live in remote parts of the reservation along the Arizona-Utah border.

Native American Heritage Association: A regional charity that provides emergency food, clothing, medicine, and other life necessities to reservations in South Dakota and Wyoming. NAHA provides critical assistance to the Crow Creek and Pine Ridge Reservations, which includes the two most impoverished counties in the United States.

Finally, I have a short list of recommended books that the First Nations Development Initiative has recommended as a good starting point for understanding First Nations history in the US, if my readers are so inclined.

Bordewich, Fergus M. Killing The White Man’s Indian; The Reinvention of Native Americans at the End of the 20th Century. New York: Anchor; 1st Anchor Books Trade Pbk. Ed edition, 1997.

Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. New York: Owl Books, 2001.

Deloria, Vine. Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1969.

Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne and Dina Gilio-Whitaker. “All the Real Indians Died Off” and 20 Other Myths about Native Americans. Boston: Beacon Press, 2016.

Limerick, Patricia Nelson. The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West. New York: W. W. Norton, 1987.

Lyons, Oren. Exiled in the Land of the Free: Democracy, Indian Nations & the U.S. Constitution. Santa Fe: Clear Light Books, 1992.

Prucha, Francis Paul. “Documents of United States Indian Policy.” Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000.

Rhetorical question: How much loss can one man be expected to take in just a couple months' time?

First my cat Romeo died. Then just weeks later my aunt died.

Now? Mom and Dad got rid of Edgar.

He's always been aggressive, prone to biting unprovoked. But he kept singling Mom out, no sooner than he'd adjusted to living here. Yesterday, he left my bedroom, walked all the way down the hall to the kitchen, where Mom was standing waiting on the phone, and sank his teeth into her calf. Today was his last chance. We couldn't get him to take the pills the vet prescribed to stabilize his moods, so he's out the door. There's no other way. Mom doesn't feel safe with him around.

I should be thankful he's not getting euthanized. That was what Mom was originally going to do. But her sister, who runs an animal shelter and has many cats, offered to take him. She just came and picked him up. I had to help get him in the carrier. He fought us like his life depended on it, and he was almost right about that. The horrendous wailing sound he made as we carried him out to the car struck deep. Only reason I'm not bawling right now is knowing he ISN'T being euthanized.

My bed's going to feel so empty without him sharing it. He'd snuggle with me every morning, purring like a motor. I got close to him in the weeks he lived here. Now he's gone.

It feels really petty to mourn a cat moving from one home to another, when the people around me have lost so much more. COVID-19 is destroying families almost as brutally and effectively as ICE is in their concentration camps. Parents are losing their children, children losing their parents. People are losing their homes in droves as the economy tanks and the nation crumbles.

Losing Edgar just feels so small by comparison. And yet it still hurts, especially on the heels of the loss I've already felt.

How much loss must I take? Romeo wasn't enough. My aunt wasn't enough. Will Edgar be the last one taken from me, at least for a little while? I don't know, and can only hope so.

Okay, so my politics have swung like a pendulum since reaching adulthood back in 2008. I voted socialist in my first presidential election. In 2012 I voted Libertarian. In 2016 I held my nose and voted Hillary, and then did so again in 2018 with the state-level Dems.

As it stands today, I am what the media derisively refers to as a "Bernie Bro" (I prefer Bernard Brother, thank you very much). In actuality, Bernie is the compromise candidate I, and many others on the left, were offering to the Democrats. He was our olive branch to the Establishment that would work towards the bare minimum of what we want. Instead, the DNC and many older voters moved heaven and earth to make sure Joe Biden got the nomination instead. As a result, a LOT on the left have already said they will not vote in November.

As of now, the Biden Brigade on social media has spent an inordinate amount of time scolding and shaming every Sanders supporter they can find, telling us that we need to vote for the candidate that has REPEATEDLY gone on record as being completely opposed to everything we want, and who has explicitly prioritized the interests of the billionaire donor class. "If you don't vote for Biden, you're voting for Trump!" they sneer, "If Trump wins a second term, it's YOUR fault!"

It does not have to be this way.

Here's the thing: It is possible for Joe to earn some of the progressive vote, and Joe's sure as Hell gonna need it if he wants to win. Right now he and his supporters are banking on Republicans crossing over, but partisan inertia is gonna suck them back into place just as it did in 2016. Best case scenario is a very narrow Biden win by no more than a couple points.

So to all the Biden supporters huddled around telling each other that us Bernard Brothers are unreasonable and can't be negotiated with, I'm gonna make a pitch to you. Below is a non-exhaustive list of things that Joe Biden and/or his campaign could offer to us. I'm going to be low-balling. These all fall WAY short of what I - a democratic socialist - want. But if Joe tackles even a few items on this list, then I won't feel as awful checking his box.

1. Authorize the release of his Senate records kept at the University of Delaware. <- This is the only one that is pretty much mandatory. You know which documents I'm talking about, Joe.

2. Commit to converting Medicare into a public option, and lay regulatory groundwork towards standardizing insurance billing and reigning in pharmaceutical price gouging.

3. Expand student debt forgiveness, and commit to exploring ways to reign in price inflation in higher ed.

4. Extensive aid packages to assist and develop rural communities.

5. Copyright and patent law reform.

6. Propose a carbon tax.

7. Repeal FOSTA-SESTA.

8. Expanding housing vouchers.

9. Increased funding for Amtrak, and revive the high speed rail proposal. <- Given Joe is a hardcore railfan, this one's probably the most realistic.

10. Repeal Trump's tax cuts, remove as many of his appointees as possible.

11. Open a dialogue with civil rights groups to address the issue of police brutality and race relations in the US.

12. End the War on Terror.

13. End the War on Drugs.

14. Increase Social Security and SSDI benefits.

15. Commit to a living minimum wage indexed to inflation.

16. Appoint Bernie Sanders to the cabinet. <- Preferably HHS or HUD.

17. Balance the ticket leftward by selecting a progressive running mate. <- Elizabeth Warren and Stacey Abrams would both be acceptable, even if they're not preferable.

18. Commit to abolishing private prisons.

Again, this is not an exhaustive list, presented in no particular order aside from as they came to me off the top of my head. The bottom line is that if Joe agreed to even just a couple of the things on this list (plus #1, of course), I and many other progressive-to-socialist voters would vote for him. Sadly, I will not be holding my breath that he does any of this.

In February of this year, my baby brother Romeo passed away. He was euthanized at the vet's office after a long decline in his health. He'd stopped eating and drinking, was badly dehydrated, and was struggling to breathe. Even now, I miss him dearly.

On February 25, I created a memorial thread for him on Twitter with twenty-three photos of him throughout his life. I apologize in advance for the massive photo dump incoming, but I decided I ought to add to the three lone photos I uploaded here of him many years ago. Text from each tweet will be carried over.

That's right folks! I'm all booked and ready to come to my first furry convention! I'd originally planned to attend MFF this year, but I wanted to start somewhat smaller. Plus, the Wisconsin Dells is closer to home for me, should anything go wrong.

So if you're at Aquatifur 2019, I'll be wearing my finest dragon shirts. Look for the dorky white guy with the glasses and mustache. I look forward to meeting new people!

Alright, probably gonna lose some watchers over this one.

I'm sure that most of you are probably still reeling from the massacre down in New Zealand. After thinking it over, I have some things I'd like to say about all this.

This latest shooting is the culmination of years of Islamophobic hate speech, anti-Muslim memes, and general bigotry. You want to know why I have zero tolerance for hate speech? Because it never just stops at speech. It infects the minds of those who listen, sways them into embracing ignorance. They parrot it back at each other, riling each other up into a bigger and bigger frenzy. Until finally one of them decides to act on their hate and shed blood.

Us folks on the left have warned for years that alt-right talking points and memes aren't "just an edgy joke." Over those years we've been ignored, told we're overreacting, just a bunch of hysterical "regressives" trying to take away "free speech." Well, my friends, look what has been wrought.


With all that in mind, I have a message to my fellow furs:

Let it be known that we have no place within our fandom for bigots.

If you believe that the victims of the massacre brought it upon themselves, or you try to blame "immigration," get out.

If you are scrambling to defend your favorite alt-right memes, YouTubers, and pundits from scrutiny, get out.

If you refuse to acknowledge the shooter's politics, or his idols' roles in motivating him, get out.

If your first impulse in the wake of this is to say "But the Left..," get out.

If you believe that Islam, Judaism, or any other established religion is fundamentally incompatible with so-called "Western" values and norms, get out.

If you believe a person's skin color or nation of origin is a reliable indicator of their character, get out.

Folks who match the above don't have a place in our community. All they know how to do is tear down others. They take pleasure in seeing harm come to people who are different than them. We need to say, as one voice, to these people: "You are not welcome here!"

No more negative peace. No more excuses. No more false equivalencies.

Islamophobes and white supremacists need to get the fuck out of my fandom, and preferably out of my country.

So I submitted a story for the first time in Lord knows how long. And I discovered that quotation marks among other characters are coming up as that little "?" symbol after uploading the txt file (I always do that for folks who don't have Office).

Is there some way that I can avoid this happening? It's breaking the flow of my story.

Be safe, and God bless. I'll be thinking about ya's.

After running into a spot of drama a few weeks back, I decided to do some deep introspection and really evaluate who I am and who I want to be. After several days of thinking on that, I have set a few short term goals for myself, which will lead into long-term goals. I am not even gonna think about the latter to avoid discouraging myself.

So! Here is a non-exhaustive list of short term goals to improve myself. Once I have achieved these, I will make a new list of goals that will use the previous list as a foundation. And they'll just stack from there.

1. Run across the downtown bridge without slowing down. Basically a babystep towards the grand, elusive goal of "get fit." I have started to walk a four mile loop every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evening. I walk a two mile route on Tuesday and Thursday to avoid hurting my legs.

I run as far as I can until I am winded, then I walk until I've caught my breath, then I run again. I repeat this until I literally cannot run anymore and walk the rest of the way home. There are only two points on the route where running is mandatory: the very beginning and across a good-sized bridge downtown. I use how far I get during those stretches to gauge my progress. As of right now, I can get about 80% of the way across before I have to go back to walking. My goal is to get all the way across.

2. Complete a chapter in my upcoming smutfic. One might not think that writing furry porn makes someone a "better person," but to me, this is about rekindling my interest in writing in general, and making my writing sexier in particular. I wanna make stuff for you again, but to do that, I have to stop procrastinating. So, I am gonna sit down and try to push out at least one chapter of a long-ish smutfic I made an outline for. If I can do that, it means I am on the way towards making it a habit.

3. Go to Midwest Furfest. I have decided that MFF 2017 will be my first furry convention. I know absolutely nobody else going there, and will be attempting to make friends from scratch. This is about me taking risks and wandering a decent distance from home by myself, without someone else's permission or guidance. If I can go to MFF, or at the very least strand myself in Illinois, I will have taken a step towards personal independence, AND I will meet more people outside of the internet.

4. Stop eating ice cream. I held onto this goal for about a year before falling off the bandwagon. I wanna get back on it. If I can do that, I can look for other things to cut out of my diet, thus eating healthier overall.

I'll update this list as I think of more things. I will also cross these off as I achieve them.

Just pushing that last pathetic journal off the front page, so it stops being an invitation for people to comment on it and work me back into another depression.

I have 270 watchers, and yet I get very, very few faves and comments anymore. Not to sound like an attention whore, but that seems rather odd to me. Is the stuff I'm posting just not interesting to people? Getting kinda lonely here, guys.

Heya folks. Apologies for the long drought in journals.

I decided that for the hell of it, with no prior planning or preparation, I will be spending this coming Saturday at Fur Squared. Just going for the day and poking around, see who I meet.

Any of y'all mofos going?

Dear Uwe Boll:

I am disappointed in you.

No, no, I am not disappointed in you because your movies suck. No, my disappointment runs deeper than that. It is an established consensus, I think, that your special talent in this life is making shitty movies. If you were a little pony, your cutie mark would be a film reel with a big long dog turd spooled upon it. Now you may ask, "Mein sexlich Drache, for what other reason would you be disappointed in me other than you can't comprehend how great my films are?" The answer, my egotistical friend, is quite simple:

You are squandering your true potential.

All this time, you have kept yourself in perpetual denial. Every day, you assure yourself that you are some profound artist, bringing video games to the silver screen so that your beloved fans may marvel at your brilliance. You know how you can get Michael Bay to stop making fun of you? It's really quite easy. The instant you stop taking yourself so seriously--the instant you admit that you suck as a director--people will love you.

You see, there is this perverse pleasure we, the moviegoers, take in watching a movie we KNOW is going to suck. Let's take, for example, one of your only "successful" films to date, an early one. House of the Dead has a loyal cult following by fans of the "so bad it's good" genre. They enjoy your film not because they think it's clever or original; they enjoy it because of how unintentionally hilarious it is. Most of those 80s horror flicks? People enjoy them for the same reason. It's why people love the first Evil Dead movie so much (aside from the fact that it lead to the truly epic Evil Dead 2).

Horror movies, the cheap kind, as a general rule are doomed to suck. It is incredibly difficult to invoke true fear in a moviegoer, especially one that's lived through the Hell that is modern life. Therefore, it behooves the aspiring horror director to not worry so much about being serious with their scares, because the bar is set so high that only one out of a thousand screenwriters and directors will be able to make something truly scary. As another example, let's take Peter Jackson's first blockbuster film, Braindead/Dead Alive. It's not scary at all, but people adore it. Why? Because he knew he was not his generation's Hideo Nakata, he accepted it, and he had fun with it. What he delivered was a ridiculously over-the-top splatstick extravaganza that is positively horrid from an objective standpoint, but has attracted people from all walks of life in the past, present, and assuredly the future.

That's the lesson I'd hope you take away from this, Herr Boll (but I know you won't). Don't think of yourself as the next great artist of his time. Just go out there, make a goddamn film, and have some fun while doing it. Let the actors and the writers have fun with it too. Know that it's going to suck. Enjoy its suckiness. Don't force jokes, let them come through unintentional hilarity. Your film should only have a very thin outer layer of seriousness, but underneath it should know exactly what it is and revel in it. It's the kind of film that let's a badass character stand up and proudly proclaim "This is my boomstick!" We eat that shit up, because of how awesomely bad it is. That, in its own regard, can make you the great director you wish you were. It's why we still remember and cherish Ed Wood; he's the official guide to what NOT to do when making a serious movie.

So Uwe, my homie, my main man. Know that you suck. Love that you suck. You're already halfway there with your complete lack of shame. Now all that's left is to learn to laugh at yourself and your hackiness. I guarantee that you will have a nice, juicy cult following to enjoy. There's potential in you, so go out there and be the worst damn director you can be!

After a recent episode of drama I caused and dragged two people into, I have come to decide that my presence on Fur Affinity is becoming a liability to my emotional health. I probably will still lurk every now and then, but I will make a point not to comment on anything from anyone I am watching. I hurt some people to day, and this isn't me.

I've mulled over this problem before, but only today have I resumed thinking of it. I have noticed that at least several RL females have taken to hiding behind a male fursona for whatever reason--be it because of persistent come ons by the sleazy male majority (I'll admit my guilt in holding rank with them; at least I am not as public with my filth), personal drama, or any other reason why they would want people to think they were male.

I am fully aware that this really should not be bothering me, and in cases where the person in question is transgendered, it doesn't. I should mention that this distress extends to males who hide behind curvy female/herm fursonas as well (though not as much, as it seems to be more for ease of acquiring a roleplay partner). I think the reason I worry about this is twofold: One, the abrupt change in fursona and gender is beyond my control and consent, so when it happens, I become upset over not guiding the change myself (autistics in general handle abrupt change poorly); and two, I feel that hiding behind a character that is of the opposite sex is dishonest and manipulative.

I hold honesty in high value, and I suck at telling lies. It bothers the crap out of me when someone is being dishonest with me, and I count fursonas that don't directly reflect the people behind them as a form of dishonesty (though again, I can be forgiving if it is a roleplay character detached from the player). I'm not asking for an explanation or apologies, and I will respect the right for furries to portray themselves as they wish, but I just wanted to say I don't like it. I especially don't like it when it's females having male fursonas because I feel like they were pressured into doing so to avoid the drooling masses.

First order of business: I am up WAY past my bedtime for reasons unknown even to me. Now that that's outta the way, check this out.

Anybody remember Sagwa the Chinese Siamese Cat? It was this charming-ass little show that aired for a few years on PBSKids. GodDAMN was it charming! It takes place in those magical last years of the Qing Empire (I was able to get a rough estimate of time based on the introduction of nitrate moving pictures by a white traveler in one episode). I will say that I liked that show; it appealed to my inner furry before I'd fully realized it. There's one episode in particular I have a problem with, though...

The main plot is set up by Sagwa and her siblings Shigwa and Dongwa getting teased because of what their names mean in Chinese. When they ask their parents why they have funny names, mommy and daddy tell this wonderful story about how they met and fell in love during an adventure in a melon field. Therefore, they named their children Dongwa, Shigwa, and Sagwa to reflect the happiest day of their lives.

Now that's touching, even for an unsentimental ass like me. It WOULD be touching, that is. Translated, Dongwa and Shigwa are Wintermelon and Watermelon respectively...okay, that's not too bad; it's kinda Chinese tradition to be artsy with names. Then we hear what Sagwa means. "Silly Melonhead." I had to shake my head at that, because even though it's cute when you know the backstory of the poor kitty's parents, who else but them can put that in context? I imagine they haven't told many of the other characters about this, so for all they know, Sagwa's parents were some sadistic bitches.

But wait! It gets worse! While perusing a Chinese dictionary of profanity (don't ask why), what to my wondering eye should appear, but Sagwa, printed bold and clear! Apparently, although the LITERAL translation means "[silly] melonhead," IN PRACTICE, it really means "retard," and is an insult. I imagine the writers of the show didn't take that meaning into account, and just jumped on the literal translation when naming the cat, but still...WHAT KIND OF SICK, DEMENTED, EVIL MOTHERFUCKER NAMES HER FIRSTBORN DAUGHTER RETARD??? Celestia above, they must have either completely misinterpreted its meaning as NOT an insult, or they secretly hate her frigging guts. Alright, this is bugging me now. Can anyone out there who speaks Chinese verify that there's an alternate translation of Sagwa that is more civil? Until someone reassures me there's other ways of using it, I'm gonna look at reruns and be like "Heya Retard! Good to see ya again!"

I REALLY need to go to bed...