I don't post too often, but recently I've wanted to speak up a bit more. (I don't care for tl;dr's. If you want to read it, read it. If not, don't.) Partly I want to connect myself more actively with the fandom, partly I just felt the need to say something.

In this case, in response to the news from MWFF.

When furries surface in mainstream news media, I get half excited and half terrified. A more aggressive, subversively-minded, we'll say "werewolf"ish side of me wants to say, "Yeah, damn right! Let the people see our fandom. Let them feel confused, struggle to understand, laugh or drop their jaws. Let them see that we, yes, are actually having a really good time doing what we're doing, in spite of how absurd it may look to certain attitudes. Because I don't care what they think." (The danger with this viewpoint is that I think sometimes I kind of want people to be confused and a little put off, just to prove to myself--what?--that I really am different? Why do I need to prove it when I know it's true? I try to keep this more aggressive reaction in check because I think it goes against what furriness is all about: inclusiveness, low stress...basically letting loose and having a really good time.) Another side of me, we'll say the "pack-minded, don't-mess, doing-my-own-thing timber wolf" side, says, "Oh crap." Because when furries end up in the mainstream news media, something has gone wrong. The fact that this is true is tremendously troubling to me; it is also utterly unsurprising. To a major part of the world--with, as its conduit to us, 1) news media and 2) internet trolls--the spectacle of furriness is not our fursuits and tails and wonderful artwork and stories, but all those things plus "I wonder if the rumors about sex are true?" or "God, what happened in their childhoods?" or "They might grow up some day." A common feeling which I and I'm sure a lot of other furries have gotten is the feeling that many people react to the fandom as a place of stunted growth. As if we've all somehow gotten stuck in our childhoods--we're forever eleven years old. There is actually, believe it or not, an ounce of perceptive acuity to these, we'll call them, "diagnosers": for me and a lot of furs I've talked to, an interest in furriness began around puberty. But that's the limit of the obersvation. What diagnosers do is take that observation and, from it, make this flawed argument: "Oh, they're obsessed with chilhood things. Therefore, they are clearly stuck in childhood." My experience has felt nothing like that; in fact it has felt exactly opposite. Through identifying with furriness (a road I found originally by walking the TF path for awhile), I have grown considerably. I have become a lot more myself. I have found comfort in my skin (er...various skins...bodies...whatever) that I had not understood throughout my teens. Yes, in this universe of stuffed animals, cartoons, giant furred and scaled and clawed people walking through the inroads of their imaginations, I have grown up, and wonderfully so. No, this is not the only arena in which I've grown up; and yes, I have needed to "be an adult" in more conventional understandings of that phrase, but it has been an integral part to finding my identity....which, for me, is an identity of change, transformation, different bodies and mindsets. I love that there is a world for this, and I don't believe it's wrong or regressive to grow up by deepening one's imagination.

A chemical attack--to avoid making unjust claims, I'll call it an "alleged chemical attack" since the police report is ongoing--an alleged chemical attack during the second-largest furry convention in the US is an act of xenophobia: a violent rejection of our right to be gathered as a cultural community, our right to be and to call ourselves what we wish as means of identification and social connection. Maybe it'll turn out the whole thing was an accident. Even if that were the case, that does not erase the undeniably xenophobic acts other furries have had to stomach. It doesn't erase the "Get the f**k out of our city, furf*gs" that I heard some kid shout out the sunroof of a car at AC 2013. This sort of discrimination is obviously not that unusual in our country's history. To be honest, it makes me happy to know that we have reached a cultural moment in which furry conventions are even possible. But what I hear in such reactions is basically fear, misplaced anger, disgust--all the more surprising since the furry fandom essentially amounts to a set of shared interests among a dramatically diverse population. But unfortunately, we are a regrettably easy target, not just because we stand out, but because aggressors have this on their side:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llmgFZz3Iio#t=79

Let's be honest, watching Mika Brzezinski lose it when she finds out what a furry is is kind of funny. I don't take the "we must take the furry fandom seriously at all times" line of defense because...I mean...so much of furriness is about provoking laughs, smiles, surprise, and fun (and I don't think there's any need to prove that the fandom doesn't take itself too seriously). As I say, that's why I like it: it is a place where I have a great time relaxing and having fun--it is everything that my schoolwork and studies and work can't provide. What's not so funny is when Mika Brzezinki's cracking up and leaving the set overtakes the story of a chemical attack at a major event--what in any other arena would be headline news, the stuff of serious primetime discussion, no laughing matter. Here, the news set becomes the story: the focus is removed from the convention and returned to the studio, where our eyes watch Mika running off. It's as if the studio wants to out-spectacle the furries (yeah, good luck). "Hey, where are you going? Come back!...Come back!...Hey, can you check on Mika to see if she's okay?" This is the soundtrack provided by the second anchorman, interrupting the actual substantive report that the third is trying to give. What happens, in effect, is that the serious matter of an attack at a major convention gets put below the level of stupid unfunny slapstick comedy. I know it was mostly unintentional, but that doesn't excuse what amounts to another version of xenophobia: essentially the spinning of the furry fandom into a perversion unworthy of airtime or even a whole, complete news segment.

To both the attack itself and the news coverage, it'd be easy to react with anger and aggression; equally, it would be easy to retreat into apathy (it's not like this is the first time furries have been the butt of EVERYONE's joke). I don't think either of these is the right call; the right call lies somewhere in the middle. For myself, it means speaking up a bit more, trying to get more involved. For others, it may mean creating more art, or new fursuits; it may mean writing more stories, and maybe taking up some of these matters in fiction or poetry. Maybe the right reaction from us is to do more of what we do best: more art, more furmeets, more creativity. If there is one thing that connects the various sides of the fandom, it is creativity. What diagnosers and aggressors and xenophobes don't understand is that, on account of this bloom of creativity, we have at our command by far the best defense there is. So I say for myself: Don't mess with this wolf. He'll write your ass to kingdom come.

I've just turned 26 yesterday, April 26, my "golden birthday." I've spent some time today thinking back on it all, and in general, I'm really happy with where things are. There's a world in which I might have never been myself; I might have become a persona of non-personas. What I mean is, I've always been a good actor, and I can imagine a universe where I never stopped acting....But I've been blessed to meet people who have demanded that I stop acting, take a breath, learn who I am. I am blessed to have met such people again and again, so that when I keep acting I have somebody to help me wake up and help me take hold of myself. Who would have thought that taking hold of myself would have involved becoming a character, actually owning who I am--including a love of all things furry. I tell myself it shouldn't be, it's not real, but of course it is. Of course. I know it, I can feel it--it's through the feeling that I know it's true. I've scarcely admitted to anyone "who I am," because I've been terrified to admit it to myself (I don't think I'm alone there). But what I do know is that I want to go through this next year with less fear: it's not wrong to like certain unique, particular, personal things; it's not weird, it's not stupid. I'm my own worst critic on that end. It just is, and it's wonderful. This community feels like a part of myself in a way that I'm itching to discover (and afraid of), but again, I don't think I'm alone. My resolution is not just to be myself more, but to be myself, bravely, in front of others. It takes work. It's like that whole idea of "coming out of the closet," which is itself misunderstood: this is not a process you do once and it's all over; you do it again and again, until it becomes easier, until walking out is itself not so much a matter of transition as the whole point. The transition is the part to love (maybe that's why I love TF so much). I want to go into this new year making new furry friends and just...being myself: Chipper, happy, protean--always changing, sometimes staying the same. I'm ready to put in the work (I think), and I'm ready to stop hiding. I damn well AM a furry (and quite possibly a werewolf too)--but i don't need to prove anything to anyone. What I need to do is go out there and give of myself, and just see what waits in store. I can't wait. Everything's unfolding, and I'm going to be there--my friends as well, everyone. Let's see what this year holds in store.

I have too much to say. Simply put, it blew me away, and I have rarely felt such joy as I did there. I shall provide a thorough journal entry on the wonder that was Furfright, but for now, I must thank  unregistered for his generosity in hosting myself and my friend in his room. I had an absolutely lovely time in his company; thanks again my friend!