Hey everyone, before I get into this journal, I want to thank the folks who have really helped me understand the concept of otherkin/therianism to me, whether directly or indirectly, and how I’ve learned to accept folk for who they are inside and out.

First and foremost: I apologize to otherkins and therians. I admittedly wasn’t kind in the past and now that I understand this way better and improving I should apologize for how I felt and to learn from this experience.

So… if you have ever seen my FA page, near the bottom it used to say something along the lines of “furries are fans of anthropomorphism, therians actually believe they are animals, nuff said” I’m sure no one really paid any mind to it, and no one ever asked me about it, but when I had that on my page I was really being awful there. At the time I added that, I was not just unkind to the concept of otherkin, I was actively terrified of it. Let’s just say I was… very dumb, and did not understand that concept of identifying as an animal. I also thought it hurt the fandom reputation, as back in 2018 so many assholes on the internet would constantly say “furries identity as animals lol let’s hunt them XDDDDD!1!1!” (Like that joke was the only joke on earth) so younger me wanted to look as normal as possible and be “one of the good ones” in regard to being a furry. Yknow, like a fuckin loser. As you all know, being “one of the good ones” never works and you’ll always be a ”degen” in their eyes no matter how squeaky clean you are. I began to realize that so I took a step back. I realized that being weird and different is fucking cool and based, and conforming a certain way was a waste of time. As time went on I started listening to more otherkins and therians online, one prominent furry being Hearthfox, seeing their posts on the topic, and seeing them educate viewers on their experiences. It definitely opened my eyes and I began to feel less confused and more understanding about the topic of identifying as an animal. As of late I watched a furry twitch streamer named Joey Buckaroo play PMD Super mystery dungeon and have a blast with it. They also talked about being otherkin and all their experiences and… it really spoke to me. I already accepted otherkins at this point but this really expanded my view more. This also has made me realize I really should make a public apology, whether I made anyone uncomfortable or not, because I truly feel sad for being a jerk. I feel bad for being closed minded. I wanna be supportive of folk who are unapologetically happy being who they wanna be. I wanna help others feel happy and safe with their identity. So again, I’m sorry for being ignorant in the past, and I hope to be a much better ally in the future.

One last thing, am I an otherkin? I’m not sure. Over the years I’ve certainly have felt like I’ve had some of the hallmarks of it, like feeling I’ve got a tail, sometimes going on all fours when alone, not relating to human stuff and wanting to be wild, etc. but I don’t want to jump to conclusions yet. All I will say in regards to it is one of the reasons I was afraid of otherkinism; I was already being bullied in school and online when I was younger. People thought of me already as weird, so I was afraid I was going to get worse bullying if anyone knew sometimes I felt not 100% human at times. I just felt so lost, and not understanding my feelings i bottled them. I wish I could go back to my younger self and just comfort my past self, tell myself bottling feelings is a terrible thing to do, and to try not to conform a certain way and enjoy being yourself. It’s a beautiful gift to have, and it’s something I’m still working on internally to this day.

Thank you all for listening. I’m sorry, and also I am happy to be learning and more accepting now than ever before. I hope to keep working on myself and improve who I am. Whether I am otherkin or not remains to be seen, but I’m happy to be an ally and to make otherkin and therian friends out there who are very happy with who they are and not afraid to be different.

Before anyone panics: I am not leaving FurAffinity (voluntarily anyway)

So pretty much everyone on this site knows about the new rules regarding certain Pokémon and digimon and also short characters that “look young” (I.e. first evolution Pokémon)

While I think this new rule is quite flawed, I don’t want to get into the specifics.

I will say though my art that is mature/nsfw has and always will be depicting 18+ sentient/sapient characters who consent.

The problem lies with some of the Pokémon I’ve drawn now being added to that new FA list. While I don’t know whether I’ll be getting effected or not, in the case I do I want everyone to know where to find me and such.

Here’s what’s gonna happen:
-If I ever get a strike in the next coming days, or any strike in the future regarding my Pokémon arts, then I WILL DELETE ANYTHING I THINK COULD LEAD TO FURTHER STRIKES AND REUPLOAD ON OTHER WEBSITES/DISCORD

-I will start playing it safe from now on. I may not upload art I think could get hit, unless I’m very sure I’ll be fine

-Any art I think is too risky for FA’s current rules will be posted to other platforms

-In the case I somehow get banned I will be located on one of the other platforms/ discord. I will be very upset though if this account gets banned because this website I considered my home for the longest time, and I frankly dunno if I’ll ever find another place like this again

HERE ARE PLACES WHERE YOU CAN FIND ME:

-YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU.....2mcMH_fJum5WEg
-Itaku: https://itaku.ee/profile/joshthekataroo
-Weasyl: https://www.weasyl.com/~joshthekataroo
-Cohost (barely used):
https://cohost.org/Josh-The-Kataroo
-e621 (I am having trouble uploading there so this one may be a bust)
https://e621.net/users/1423176
-Discord Server:
PLEASE DM ME I WILL NOT PUBLICLY LINK

Thank you for understanding. I will try to stay on this site for however long I can

Hey everyone.
I haven’t made a journal in a month so I’ll give another rundown.

In a couple days all of the fall 2022 and spring 2023 graduates in college get to have graduation ceremony. I’ll be there and officially officially graduate then.

It feels good to be done but I’m in a position where I still don’t know what I want to do in life. I’ve wanted to be an artist, creating cool things and being able to work with amazing teams on projects larger than life itself. I think that dream has ended. Or rather, changed. As more artificial intelligence takes industry jobs and with the current geopolitical climate, I think getting a professional career in the arts is quite a dead end. I could still be a niche artist though, but there’s no money in that market. Eventually I’ll have to just settle for something local, which would probably be the smarter decision.

This all leads into something overarching I wanted to vent about. I feel very lost right now as a person, as a furry, and as a creator.

In my personal life I probably feel the most lost. I’m 21 yet I feel like I barely know what to do. My family wants me in all these different directions, from following my dreams to staying home and helping them out indefinitely. To be fair to the latter, my mother is nearing 60 and my grandmother 80. They need all the help they can and I’m glad to help them. Though family opinions clash and I feel in the middle. They all have different expectations for me. I’ve been so hesitant to follow any plan, so I’ve been sorta waiting until something comes. Probably leads to nowhere and nothing, as well as further feeling like I don’t do anything and that I’m supposed to be more grown up, but if I jump into something I have to make sure it works otherwise it will either be a waste of time or money, things that are kinda in short supply as of late.
I wish I could just go where I want to go in life while caring for family but I worry I cannot do both. I wish to leave my town and head somewhere else, but I know that it would be bad to leave family behind. I wish to get art job, but I know I won’t make enough to help them out. It’s a frustrating feeling in my life now, like I’m in limbo or something. It sucks.

Another place I feel lost in is in this fandom. I already knew a whole back I’m never gonna make any ripples in this vast fandom but now im not even sure whether I should toss a pebble into the vast ocean that is this fandom even. An ocean that is perpetually toxic in mindset and alienating in feeling. Yes, this fandom has helped me a lot over the years, more than any therapist at the very least. But at the same time it’s very difficult to say whether that same feeling is true as it was when I was younger. Maybe I’ve got wiser, or maybe I’ve been on furry Twitter too long, but all I’ve seen is people flipping out over the smallest details and turning on each other. “You have to agree with exactly my view or you aren’t my friend anymore” type of Pre-K bs mindset. Everyone throwing around extremely harmful labels like they are cuss words to hurt other folk. Plus the amount of transphobic and bigoted folk who get away with saying seriously screwed up things is appalling. It’s why I’ve barely posted art on Twitter and why this is my only place I post now. (There is the recent controversy with this site but I won’t get into that). With all I’ve seen on Twitter and Discord servers, loosing friends, seeing arguments unfold, etc. I think it’s best I stay in my little corner of the fandom, or at least build that little corner. Cause I don’t think I feel connected to the fandom at large anymore. I just feel so lost, feel like I’m doing something wrong or something that everyone will find a way to hate me for. I know it’s probably not so, but my stress level is definitely effecting how I see things. I don’t feel like fighting folk, I just want to vibe and post.

Lastly I wanna say I feel lost as a creator. I’ll admit, I enjoy making art, but I certainly don’t have the same drive I did when I was younger. It’s why I’d be terrible with commissions and also only do requests from servers and not here. I have a big worry I let everyone down by taking so long. It’s not that I don’t want to do it, it’s that I just don’t have the urge, or that if I rush it will look bad. I don’t feel happy with rushing. Though sadly sometimes that’s the only way I’ll finish something. It’s an uphill battle, something I feel stressed with more and more. I constantly compare myself to my past. How I could sketch so much a day, how I could ANIMATE with just a laptop pen in the middle of high school study hall. Make a bunch of YouTube videos, feel like I’m making a positive impact, etc. While I can draw better now everything feels much slower and an effort now. Again I want to do it, but it just feels so much. I can barely edit videos now. Videos I wanted to work on I’ve been working on for YEARS and they’re still not out. Probably won’t anyway. And now with AI, various art websites and their restrictions and toxicity, social media being a corporate slog, art theft, and furries being furries, it gets so frustrating to post anything anymore. I just struggled to post on e6 cause I didn’t know what I was doing, only to watch in real time the image get deleted because “quality was poor”. It’s demotivating as shit. Posting and being part of a vast community while real life expectations and goals get in the way while the whole world seems to be collapsing into a bickering evil washed out mess is just so… demotivating.

Maybe all this is a sign change is coming. Maybe it’s just another dumb rant.
Either way, I wish I was traveling the world in a little Camper, drawing folk and going to furry conventions and acting hipster and cool and not stuck here, feeling lost as ever.

A couple weeks ago I got my arm checked again. Good news is that the bone is fully healed. I can go back to “normal” again. Bad news is that I’m still gonna have pain there and less movement and such, as well as a potential to get arthritis in my elbow, because my cartilage by the radius is damaged.
So I may need to do physical therapy to keep it from not doing that, as well as not doing too much lifting and such. I’m glad it’s better but it sucks it won’t be the same again.

I also officially quit my pantry work. I have them a cake and card and wished them all well. If I do return there again I won’t do heavy lifting anymore. They told me I can come back at any time and understand what happened. I’m glad I finally got to talk to them today.

Also I’m really upset at the amount of transphobic and bigoted legislation being passed right now across the country. Even though I’m in a progressive state I still worry about the upcoming years as well as all my friends in those dangerous states. If you are trans, know that I fully support you and this page will be a safe place. Transphobia and bigotry has no place in this fandom

Hey everyone, here’s another update..

My arm is healing well and I’ve been out of my sling for a while but it still is sore. Also I’ve been quite busy helping family lately

I have been sketching so hopefully I will post more soon.

There’s been quite a few negative things happening but I don’t want to get into that.

Also the world is shit as always.

Hope to be more active again soon. Hope everyone is doing fine out there

It’s healing. Sore still obviously. I have been able to draw traditionally though so I may post those arts soon. Going to get arm looked at soon and I’ll update from there

Next few weeks will be hella stressful, so hopefully everything goes well.

Today while volunteering I broke my radius bone in my arm. I now am wearing a sling and will probably not be doing much art or anything much the next couple of weeks
I hope to heal up soon

My friend  CleverDerpy is facing homelessness. Here is a journal linking her journal about it.

https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10462452/

Please, if you would like to help, go there

Last journal of 2022, and preparing for 2023.
I frankly dunno where I’m headed, but I feel I’m nearing a point where I have to make a choice. I am frankly tired of worrying about what others think and say, when in the end it doesn’t matter. I literally loose sleep whether people will be mad at me or not. Maybe in 2023 I will share more of my arts that I’m less confident in, because it may be secretly my best arts and I am just doubting myself. I also want to experiment more. Create more videos too.

I’m also thinking (and I feel I’m gonna regret this, but I think it’s probably gonna be necessary) of making an e621 account for the purpose of posting art there as well. I am getting more and more worried about loosing the gallery, also somewhat worried about others reposting my art on other websites. E6 is kinda infamous for that so I think I might repost things on my own accord. (Or at least have something established so that if someone does repost my art, I can have an established page in the site for people to tag with.)

I hope 2023 will be better than 2022. Currently I’m not sure what to feel, say, or do anymore. It’s so tiring with everything happening, like there really isn’t an emotion to tie it with much longer. It’s just there. I’ve been feeling the same with a lot of other things lately as well, I just dunno how to feel anymore. It’s really been weighing on me, both online and irl. I’ve been interacting less in the internet because of it, not in terms of browsing but more in communication. I think the best way to describe it is feeling burned out. I don’t blame myself for feeling like this considering Everything lately. I just hope to get back into feeling less burned out soon.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all who celebrate this holiday! Hope you all are doing well right now

This Christmas sadly isn’t the best for me. My family is all sick including me. I am still feeling ill and probably will for a little bit longer. This has caused us to be a bit apart this Christmas, so it’s sad. We will get together after Christmas though so that will be good.

Also many other stresses have come up which is further stressing me out which isn’t good either.
I ain’t no grinch but this 2022 holiday season is a lump of coal x.x

Last journal I did was a downer. Thankfully things are getting right back on track again.

My family member is back home from the hospital now! He has to get antibiotics at home and go for future check ups, but that’s about it. He’s getting a lot better and I’m very glad he’s back home for the holidays

My cat is also doing fine now as well, he was so happy to see him come back from the hospital again. Probably was worried where my family member was

And I have officially finished my last College project!!!! I am so happy to be done with it now :)

Hopefully I will do a lot more now and not disappear for stretches of time. 2023 I want to be a lot better than this year. I want to be optimistic and have a great outlook, not a sour one.

Thank you all who were concerned for me for the past couple weeks, I appreciate all of your kindness and concern!

So much has happened since Wednesday that I can’t go into everything. The main things are trying to finish up college, my family member who is in the hospital, and trying to take care of everything while they’re gone.

My moms bf got a leg infection and they got very ill. I took them to the hospital friday, and they are still there. They aren’t getting better no matter how many antibiotics they put in him.
I hope he will be ok…

College is almost over.. just one project left that I’m too stressed to do…

My cat is acting strange.., he’s probably looking for my moms bf, and sad he isn’t here. I hope to fucking Christ my cat doesn’t get sick.

I hurt myself Sunday while taking out the trash (nothing serious) but it ruined my day for me mostly. My family fought too so that’s awful

Im so stressed with what has happened with my family member in the hospital and everything else that has happened. I don’t know what is going to happen anymore but I am very upset and tired and done. Pretty much everything is out of my control. I am super paranoid I’m gonna get sick or something too. My family doesn’t need all this happening at once. I just don’t know what to do anymore… I’m so lost and so done…

Yeah Twitter is crashing and burning.
Glad FurAffinity has my back at least, despite some jank. I may make a discord server or telegram server for my art as well. If I do I will definitely post it

Currently trying to follow as many people as possible before Twitter completely collapses

I have deactivated my DA account once and for all. I’m gonna say, being one of the first communities I actually was directly involved in, and making so many friends there, some I still have to this day, I’m gonna say this is fucking hard to finally put the account to rest. I did leave the account to rot since 2021 cause I thought leaving it be was the best decision. Now after the AI art takeover of the site I cannot in good faith stay there anymore, I will not willingly give my art to a bot. Another aspect is that I felt like I ran the account poorly and said and did things I regret on there. Plus folks being gross to me on there too. It pains me but I’m also happy to let it go. Goodbye DA

Gonna find out what horrors lie within this election. Whether we will have continued stagnation with the Dems or full on fascism and violence with the republicans. Either way America is going to shit. Even if the Dems win this there’s still so much happening to this nation that we all should be worried about.

Im worried for immigration rights, equality rights, LGBTQ rights, Womens rights, the rights to protest, the rights that you can be whatever faith you wanna be, the rights to privacy and security, and much more. All of it is on the ballot now. Any of it can be reversed and progress could be shut away.

I don’t know what 2022 or 2024 will bring, but 2028 there may not even be a second candidate to vote for, and only 1 party controls the government. The roots of authoritarianism has been planted, and they plan to choke everything else out. They say they are for Freedom, that is a lie, because I never heard of a group so willing to suppress the freedoms of others. Guess it’s only their freedoms that they want.

I wouldn’t mind meeting more older folks in the fandom, I think y’all are cool and fun to talk to. If you’re a ‘grey muzzle’ and wanna chat, don’t be shy.

Same applies for everyone else who is an adult but I feel like I wanna meet more furs that have been in the fandom much longer

So if you saw my past 3 uploads, I am currently using my phone to upload! I am happy I have actually found a way to use FurAffinity from here and a able to upload stuff as well. Now I can be much more active here and upload my sketches more often :3

Still, I wish there was an actual IOS app but Apple likes to censor things and be fussy

Anyways I’m glad I figured things out. Hope to get more uploads in

Also Happy Halloween folks!

Hey everyone, sorry for being absent for months again. 2022 has been quite stressful and I haven't had the energy to post anything. I have been making art but I don't think I'm posting too much at the moment. I feel I'm going to finish my semester in December before trying to do it. Truthfully I feel like the FA uploading system is stressful ,and confusing and not very user friendly, but that's just in my opinion. I may be on this site more often, though, if the way Twitter is going is any indication. If Twitter does collapse I guess this will be my only art site I'll have left. Sad but I guess the internet hates creativity and creative expression. I really really wish FA had an IOS app for phone cause then I'd be on here literally every day because I don't use my computers nearly as much as my phone. Maybe one day.

Anyways, I also turned 21 back in September, so that's kinda cool. Hope everyone is doing ok. I know I'm not uploading much or making much videos, but I do have to say I'm doing well on Twitch. 7 followers now, which is more than I thought I'd get tbh. Here's to the rest of the year being less shit.

My twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/josh_the_kataroo
My Twitter: https://twitter.com/JoshKataroo

Hello everyone. I'm very sorry for the absence here. A lot happened in the past month and a half. Before I get into it here is an announcement:

I HAVE A TWITCH NOW: https://www.twitch.tv/josh_the_kataroo Follow if you wanna see art and game streams, I'm sure you'll enjoy them

I also cleaned up my profile for a bit cause my page looked like cringe lol

Anyways, as for this past month, my great aunt sadly passed away and for this month we have been cleaning up that house as well as other obligations. I miss my great aunt but I am glad she isn't in pain from cancer anymore. I also got really sick during this time, to the point I had to go to a medical center. I am fully better now but it really took the wind out of me for weeks after. I've also been trying to stay out of the heat as the heat has been quite awful. I have been more active on Twitter but still haven't posted much. I did do art during the past few months but haven't posted much. Hopefully in the coming weeks I will start posting art again. I've also been painting a lot more so I may post some. But yeah basically I've been quite exhausted this summer and because of that I haven't been too active on anything but my close phone apps.

Thank you for continued support here, again if you want to check out my Twitter or Twitch I have them in my contacts now. Hope to post more updates soon.

Hello everyone, Josh The Kataroo here. Sorry for the lack of anything for a long time. There’s been a lot personal happening lately, including a lot of stress and anxiety happening in my personal life as well as upcoming loss. Long story short I haven’t been in the mood to make or post much of anything. Burnout has hit me hard. I’m not promising that soon I’ll be 100% ok again, but I am gonna say that I am planning on slowly getting back on track again. Not promising anything however, as when I promise things I tend to not keep them so I’m just gonna take things step by step.


Another reason I’m posting this is that I’m going on a trip for a couple of days with family. It will be more of a therapeutic trip for personal reasons. I won’t be gone too long but I won’t be on social media that much other than probably Twitter (as usual tbh). Again, thank you all for being patient. I’m sorry if I’ve let anyone down or anything like that. Hope things get better soon.

I will forever stand for LGBTQ rights, womens rights, human rights and freedoms for everyone.
Bigotry and hate has no home. I am tired of those in power trampling on anyone they don’t agree with, stripping away rights, and making life living hell for those they deem a “threat”. With the wave of Anti-trans, Anti-LGBTQ, and discriminatory laws being passed I cannot be silent on this. I am tired of keeping my mouth shut while those in power actively want to harm us. Hell, even some of them actually want us to disappear. They want to rollback everything we have fought for for fucking years. We are not going anywhere. We are all here to stay. They may cry that “morality is declining” but that is simply untrue. Their morality is based around subjugation and control over others. They are afraid of us, they fear the old world is dead. They fear change. One day they will realize that their fear of all things different will be in vain. Time does not stand still, and neither does progress.

Human rights are a MUST!!!

So yeah I'm back to college. 2 days into it actually. The Break is over, not that it really was a break from everything... more or less time off.

I'll be honest, I'm loosing steam both online and in my day to day life. I honestly don't know where I am going or what I am doing. Motivation is the biggest struggle for me right now and I might just have to keep resting for my motivation to come back. Sadly I'm worried it never will come back, and I'm worried how others perceive me. I know everyone says its ok I haven't been productive, but like, its still makes me feel like shit for completing nothing for months. Hopefully things start looking up for the upcoming months. Dunno when my next upload will be.

Hello everyone. Happy 2022! I know I am 11 days late to this and I'm really sorry of the lack of... well.. anything lately. Like I said multiple times in the past I'm going through a lot lately and hopefully I'll get into the swing of things. Speaking of that here's my plan:

I’ve decided to just go with the flow and not have a set plan. Too much I feel I limit myself and stress over the little things, so I have decided to just see where life and content takes me! I don't want to limit myself and rather I just want to experiment, maybe start full on commissions this year once a paypal or an equivalent is set up, and see where the waves take me. This year is gonna be a rollercoaster so I don't wanna bind myself on a set path until I figure things out. As of whats coming short term; I reeeeaaaally want to post the rest of my artworks that I finished in 2021, and try to port some of my old artworks from DeviantArt and Instagram that I am gonna shut down this year (Instagram is a maybe as of now)

Anyways, I wanna make a journal reaaly soon about whats been going through my mind and such, but right now I am leaving it here. Happy 2022 and I hope you all have a great year!

Another day, another frustration journal like I've been posting constantly lately.

Fist things first, this month has been hell. From feeling anxiety and depressed, to working on college and final exams, to taking care of the sick family member, to constant family arguments, and now a day ago my cat getting really ill due to bad constipation and having to keep him at the animal hospital so they can take care of him. Gonna be glad when things calm down again. My cat is feeling much better today as most of the blockage has been cleared, but will continue to be monitored there at the vet.
Tomorrow the last final project is due and then I'm on vacation, so I'm glad for that at least.

The art situation basically is that I have procrastinated in posting anything sadly and just not being around my computer as much. I promise once break starts I will post my art on here and a couple on Twitter. I also want to get at least one or two videos out this break as well.

Basically tis has been what's happening lately, I may post a following update concerning other things I've been feeling lately, thats it for now tho I gotta get back to my last studies

I’m nothing and will never be anything. My sanity has plummeted and I don’t really think it’s wise of me to pretend I’m ok. I’m an across the board failure, my personal life is shit, I can’t make content to save my life, and I’m a shitty person. I think I might take a hiatus ....