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20 Years of Furry
Posted 3 days agoAt the time that I began writing this, 20 years ago, I'd of been on the family Windows XP computer in our living room signing up for a site I had been browsing for several months during an otherwise emotionally subdued year of my life called "DeviantArt". After all the time I spent browsing the site, sometimes even taking the art I liked the most and making CD-Rs to view on a DVD player hooked up to my bedroom TV later, I decided I wanted to be a part of this stuff myself with whatever destinations the journeys would take me in terms of self-discovery. I was weeks away from turning 14 and frankly, I had no idea exactly what I was jumping into!
Despite a better focus on individual websites and communities than now, I do not miss 2000's internet culture at all. In fact, seeing some of the more negative aspects crawl back into status quo (thanks to 20-year-rule nostalgia and a cultural climate always threatening to regress as badly as it had then again) makes my skin crawl. However, being a part of these communities back then as a developing, isolated-feeling teen whose semblance of any outside-family contact and sociability has crumbled to nothing was a big help to me just as sometimes it was...less-helpful. I think given the climate of the time, I joined this stuff far too young in terms of how I socially developed during those years. People may be overcorrecting to a point of puricanicalism now with making up for how little people cared or understood the reach of such websites to teens and kids and why some spaces need to remain 18+ only but the lack of even a semblance of careful hindsight so things don't read as "if you're not like us, you're a nobody" wasn't a great alternative neither (I blame no specific person here, it was just the climate). And it also sucked to express yourself online at a point where you'd almost daily worry what'd happen if certain Hate Sites knew you existed and decided to...y'know...become a search result for your given name so the worst reads of your harmless expressions are now public record info to your family and beyond.
I preface a lot of more wistful stuff about this with all this honesty because there was no guidebook for me then on how to tackle this stuff beyond the more rudimentary advice on online safety. Heck, even at a time where people want to shout loudly at how much they care about the safety of minors in the community and not having them steered to parts that they actually shouldn't go down, there's still nothing around to help actually help or educate people like that in the community that's not just louder members of the community going "we suspect this person is Awful so says I, everyone should blacklist irregardless of the reality of greater context". There's no good in nostalgia if we don't learn lessons from the past too and I'd like to think I learn't a lot overtime that I should've learn't (even if some of the lessons were unfortunately belated in necessities) but also believe the greater community still has a lot to still learn or re-learn.
So naturally, 20 years will come with a lot of down-periods. With my time in the community, there were some pretty major ones. But they are vastly outnumbered by the up-points. Having contact with the outside world at a time in my life where the climate of outer culture largely left me cold, learning that it's okay to grow up continuing to be imaginative and embraceful of that imagination, seeing and feeling the positive representations of underserved and otherwise socially-maligned people whose differences hurt nobody serve them (and me when relevant) like they should serve them elsewhere. It won't feel that way from the lens of modern social media or from a fast glance, but just as I'd like to think most people in the world mean well rather than the opposite, the community is upheld and built by people who merely want the spaces to create and feel connected/valid with each other. And the community is big enough to have so many corners for so many different variations on expression and validity, to which I have fallen into one almost as long as I've been around here. A harmless thing that so many people share that outer society is unnecessarily cruel over, especially in the 2000's but almost just as bad still now, finds acceptance here and sometimes even more than acceptance: defiant embracefulness. Seeing how positively that affects people and makes them feel more whole than they would be otherwise is a big reason why I can't just up and leave the fandom so bluntly and quickly for long.
Even when I was blacklisted from a community bubble that so soon before made up almost most of my friends, merely because I was in a panicked state and struggled with trying to manage myself after attempts to make amends after a small misjudgment suddenly severed ties, eventually the hole that was created was filled by new friends, new experiences within the same community and new understandings both within and outside of my usual reaches. And while it's unfortunate I can't reconnect with everyone I used to know, I've also been fortunate to be able to reconnect with some folk and get along with them great post-reconnection, sometimes better than I was able to the first time around. Granted, a lot of this also involved looking inward and learning to be my own best friend better too should something else ever happen, something I strongly believe as many people as possible should try and allow themselves to do for themselves better. While that necessity to look more inward was in effect of myself not initially being mentally ready for the types of sociability that being a community member involved in my earlier years, any progress and better understanding is better than none at all. I'm not perfect but I'm trying...which, it turns out, is a much more universal notion than it may sometimes feel.
A big thing for a lot is the idea of "hey, this is so good online, I wish I could know these people outside of the net too". While I don't think people should feel so tied-down by that if their RL situations make it that difficult, I feel very fortunate that this eventually got to happen with me. Initially 10 years ago when a former partner and someone close to them too generously let me hang out with them for a near-week (or a "extra-long weekend" as I put it then) at the apartment space in Scotland they lived in at the time. As someone who was somewhat sheltered beforehand, it was a very big step for me to try and be more social outside of comfortable confines and I cherish that time immensely, irregardless of the future. But what was even more rewarding is making good on an opportunity to visit one of my best online friends IRL that had been floating around even during the 2000's. Back then, they lived in Manchester and I lived further south of the UK. Given our similar ages and other complications, the transport required wasn't in our cards. A similar attempt I proposed less than 10 years on fizzled due to underdeveloped readiness and my own social anxiety...but in March 2024, after I had become so much better with mentally preparing for Big Days Out and having known the person so long and closely that the trust was obviously there and real...we finally made good on a RL hangout. And we got to do it again a year later. Both times were incredibly enriching and enjoyable occasions and I feel so overjoyed and happy that I know someone from this community who I know I can comfortably set up points to hang with beyond the online, creative realms. If you're the one reading this, thank you for being a wonderful friend, I hope I'm doing good by being as best a friend I can to you in return. <3
Initially, my plan from last year on was to wind down before I got to this point, feeling that it'd be "weird" to come to this point where I'm still here with enough of a concentration that I'd be saying "hey, I've been here for 20 years" like this...whole write-up is commemorating. Given my aspirations both socially and creatively in the greater world and society, I figured 20 years was a good stopgap. At max. Not that I have anything against those who've committed longer (some of the most fascinating people I know here are those who've been around not just years longer than me but decades longer), but I felt weird on how much this would continue to bubble in my life as if a "phase". Realistically however, I have to admit...no matter what happens next, there's always going to be some part of me here. If not a foot, then a toe or two. But while I've stepped back from being more proactive here on a public-facing fashion, especially with "selling myself" as a creative person and at least a tolerable social presence...like, I know too many people here who mean a lot to me and I still feel creatively and expressionally energised from here. Heck, I'm still creating characters and making art of them! I ask myself "what am I doing" before doing that and yet I still let it happen. Don't think it takes a genius around here to guess why that could be, creative expression is important and sometimes, you just want to create for yourself. Others enjoying what you do is a wonderful bonus, but the endgoal should be feeling like you expressed what you wanted without pressure. And frankly, we should remember to embrace such spaces because life for many would sure be, at BEST, much more boring without them.
Never usually do shoutouts but the situation calls for them so...shoutouts to:
collargogglebirdhorse (now goes by Bloatware)
Ghostbellies
Fatglaz (Glaz)
ZackBarzahd (Big Z)
SmallerGod (Jenny)
Gilson
Trihunter (Not on FA)
Hiro
Changa
and
LotsofMoon
Obviously there's far more than just those 10 to bring up as being continuously formative and helpful to me in their ways but if you're reading this and you've been a positive part of my time here too, thank you. Thank you just like I thank those 10 listed...and 2 more I will list:
RobCat (1954-2024), who I spent many comfortable hours talking to on voice chat via Yahoo Messenger in the 2000's, providing calm solace in an awkward time to grow up in
and, also from my formative furry years,
bentproplrprod (1973-2017), who in his own way taught me that you're never too old to be openly imaginative and that it's more of a strength than people let on.
Thanks for reading, take care all.
- "Nell"
P.S. Infinifennec site will get worked on more from next week on, more info on that when it's worth sharing.
Despite a better focus on individual websites and communities than now, I do not miss 2000's internet culture at all. In fact, seeing some of the more negative aspects crawl back into status quo (thanks to 20-year-rule nostalgia and a cultural climate always threatening to regress as badly as it had then again) makes my skin crawl. However, being a part of these communities back then as a developing, isolated-feeling teen whose semblance of any outside-family contact and sociability has crumbled to nothing was a big help to me just as sometimes it was...less-helpful. I think given the climate of the time, I joined this stuff far too young in terms of how I socially developed during those years. People may be overcorrecting to a point of puricanicalism now with making up for how little people cared or understood the reach of such websites to teens and kids and why some spaces need to remain 18+ only but the lack of even a semblance of careful hindsight so things don't read as "if you're not like us, you're a nobody" wasn't a great alternative neither (I blame no specific person here, it was just the climate). And it also sucked to express yourself online at a point where you'd almost daily worry what'd happen if certain Hate Sites knew you existed and decided to...y'know...become a search result for your given name so the worst reads of your harmless expressions are now public record info to your family and beyond.
I preface a lot of more wistful stuff about this with all this honesty because there was no guidebook for me then on how to tackle this stuff beyond the more rudimentary advice on online safety. Heck, even at a time where people want to shout loudly at how much they care about the safety of minors in the community and not having them steered to parts that they actually shouldn't go down, there's still nothing around to help actually help or educate people like that in the community that's not just louder members of the community going "we suspect this person is Awful so says I, everyone should blacklist irregardless of the reality of greater context". There's no good in nostalgia if we don't learn lessons from the past too and I'd like to think I learn't a lot overtime that I should've learn't (even if some of the lessons were unfortunately belated in necessities) but also believe the greater community still has a lot to still learn or re-learn.
So naturally, 20 years will come with a lot of down-periods. With my time in the community, there were some pretty major ones. But they are vastly outnumbered by the up-points. Having contact with the outside world at a time in my life where the climate of outer culture largely left me cold, learning that it's okay to grow up continuing to be imaginative and embraceful of that imagination, seeing and feeling the positive representations of underserved and otherwise socially-maligned people whose differences hurt nobody serve them (and me when relevant) like they should serve them elsewhere. It won't feel that way from the lens of modern social media or from a fast glance, but just as I'd like to think most people in the world mean well rather than the opposite, the community is upheld and built by people who merely want the spaces to create and feel connected/valid with each other. And the community is big enough to have so many corners for so many different variations on expression and validity, to which I have fallen into one almost as long as I've been around here. A harmless thing that so many people share that outer society is unnecessarily cruel over, especially in the 2000's but almost just as bad still now, finds acceptance here and sometimes even more than acceptance: defiant embracefulness. Seeing how positively that affects people and makes them feel more whole than they would be otherwise is a big reason why I can't just up and leave the fandom so bluntly and quickly for long.
Even when I was blacklisted from a community bubble that so soon before made up almost most of my friends, merely because I was in a panicked state and struggled with trying to manage myself after attempts to make amends after a small misjudgment suddenly severed ties, eventually the hole that was created was filled by new friends, new experiences within the same community and new understandings both within and outside of my usual reaches. And while it's unfortunate I can't reconnect with everyone I used to know, I've also been fortunate to be able to reconnect with some folk and get along with them great post-reconnection, sometimes better than I was able to the first time around. Granted, a lot of this also involved looking inward and learning to be my own best friend better too should something else ever happen, something I strongly believe as many people as possible should try and allow themselves to do for themselves better. While that necessity to look more inward was in effect of myself not initially being mentally ready for the types of sociability that being a community member involved in my earlier years, any progress and better understanding is better than none at all. I'm not perfect but I'm trying...which, it turns out, is a much more universal notion than it may sometimes feel.
A big thing for a lot is the idea of "hey, this is so good online, I wish I could know these people outside of the net too". While I don't think people should feel so tied-down by that if their RL situations make it that difficult, I feel very fortunate that this eventually got to happen with me. Initially 10 years ago when a former partner and someone close to them too generously let me hang out with them for a near-week (or a "extra-long weekend" as I put it then) at the apartment space in Scotland they lived in at the time. As someone who was somewhat sheltered beforehand, it was a very big step for me to try and be more social outside of comfortable confines and I cherish that time immensely, irregardless of the future. But what was even more rewarding is making good on an opportunity to visit one of my best online friends IRL that had been floating around even during the 2000's. Back then, they lived in Manchester and I lived further south of the UK. Given our similar ages and other complications, the transport required wasn't in our cards. A similar attempt I proposed less than 10 years on fizzled due to underdeveloped readiness and my own social anxiety...but in March 2024, after I had become so much better with mentally preparing for Big Days Out and having known the person so long and closely that the trust was obviously there and real...we finally made good on a RL hangout. And we got to do it again a year later. Both times were incredibly enriching and enjoyable occasions and I feel so overjoyed and happy that I know someone from this community who I know I can comfortably set up points to hang with beyond the online, creative realms. If you're the one reading this, thank you for being a wonderful friend, I hope I'm doing good by being as best a friend I can to you in return. <3
Initially, my plan from last year on was to wind down before I got to this point, feeling that it'd be "weird" to come to this point where I'm still here with enough of a concentration that I'd be saying "hey, I've been here for 20 years" like this...whole write-up is commemorating. Given my aspirations both socially and creatively in the greater world and society, I figured 20 years was a good stopgap. At max. Not that I have anything against those who've committed longer (some of the most fascinating people I know here are those who've been around not just years longer than me but decades longer), but I felt weird on how much this would continue to bubble in my life as if a "phase". Realistically however, I have to admit...no matter what happens next, there's always going to be some part of me here. If not a foot, then a toe or two. But while I've stepped back from being more proactive here on a public-facing fashion, especially with "selling myself" as a creative person and at least a tolerable social presence...like, I know too many people here who mean a lot to me and I still feel creatively and expressionally energised from here. Heck, I'm still creating characters and making art of them! I ask myself "what am I doing" before doing that and yet I still let it happen. Don't think it takes a genius around here to guess why that could be, creative expression is important and sometimes, you just want to create for yourself. Others enjoying what you do is a wonderful bonus, but the endgoal should be feeling like you expressed what you wanted without pressure. And frankly, we should remember to embrace such spaces because life for many would sure be, at BEST, much more boring without them.
Never usually do shoutouts but the situation calls for them so...shoutouts to:
collargogglebirdhorse (now goes by Bloatware)
Ghostbellies
Fatglaz (Glaz)
ZackBarzahd (Big Z)
SmallerGod (Jenny)
GilsonTrihunter (Not on FA)
Hiro
Changaand
LotsofMoonObviously there's far more than just those 10 to bring up as being continuously formative and helpful to me in their ways but if you're reading this and you've been a positive part of my time here too, thank you. Thank you just like I thank those 10 listed...and 2 more I will list:
RobCat (1954-2024), who I spent many comfortable hours talking to on voice chat via Yahoo Messenger in the 2000's, providing calm solace in an awkward time to grow up inand, also from my formative furry years,
bentproplrprod (1973-2017), who in his own way taught me that you're never too old to be openly imaginative and that it's more of a strength than people let on.Thanks for reading, take care all.
- "Nell"
P.S. Infinifennec site will get worked on more from next week on, more info on that when it's worth sharing.
My Presence Going Forward / "Where to Find Me" Redux
Posted 3 months agoWhile I've vastly already lowered my outwardly-public sides to being in the community over the years for various reasons, I was honestly going to wait until it was the 20th anniversary of me being here later this year to make more of a concious decision on how much of my life was going to be taken up by this...but then other factors came in and kinda made me have to make decisions sooner.
Namely, 1) I'm done with social media.
I do not count FA as social media, so this isn't affecting this site specifically (which is ironic given I had times I've fallen out with FA a touch to a point of wanting to distance but I guess, no one likes to try other platforms unless REALLY strongarmed into it, eh?) but in terms of more conventional social media sites like Bluesky and what was before Bluesky? Yeah, I'm truly done.
I was harrassed last week. I will spare you the details of why and who, I had talked about it on my Bluesky enough while trying to emotionally navigate it (and would really rather not talk about too much of the specifics anymore) but I'll say that its someone who has been harrassing others by using the loosest excuses pertaining to a controversial subsection of the community whose admins are deservedly villified for their abusive behaviours to target people they personally don't like for whatever reason. I guess their "whatever reason" for me was speaking out and saying such behaviours shouldn't be encouraged while being clear that the problem actors that WERE proven to be legitimately terrible deserved the concequences.
I wasn't necessarily disagreeing with the main facets of what this person was going after, I just didn't want them to keep using it as an excuse to hurt other people who *aren't* those abusers just because placing the worst words to describe people nearby other people's names means they're guarenteed hell for the rest of their lives, apparently.
I lived through the 2000's internet at a time when I maybe shouldn't of been so involved in community stuff. I feel endlessly disgusted that we're tetering back on the edge of how the climate of participating online felt then because some people feel so emboldened to thinking they're the Main Characters of the Universe that they have the authority and right to wrongly assume things about others yet still be treated as if they're right.
It doesn't matter if its Bluesky or Twitter or anywhere else, no matter how improved the platform is. If people will still bring their terrible habits with them to these other places, after many years of getting clearly reminded that their negative behaviours have concequences and they cannot live off ruining other peoples' lives while having a healthy existence themselves (periods of time where I'd like to think most people would actually internalise what went wrong and learn/grow from these things), then eventually as soon as they have a sense of power alloted to them they'll drag everyone else down.
I don't want to spend my time via this presence here worrying about my "social capital" anymore. I regret that outright. But when someone goes to the trouble of trying to pull the kind of garbage I was handed, without intentionally provoking the person beforehand, those fears of the validity of whatever my "social capital" is comes back as a means of ensuring that I'm not only ensuring others are safe, but myself. It's exhausting and, look...time doesn't stop for anybody. There's no pause button. We're all getting older. Every second passes by. The older I'm getting, the faster time is moving...therefore, I have to put my foot down on how I interact with these facets of the net and stop actively participating.
I may still use a platform or two that counts as social media to browse. To see what others are up to, to see art they've made if they don't do FA, etc. But I'm going to make, like...two or three final posts on Bluesky and that's it indefinitely. (More on what those are later)
Still deciding on what to do with Mastodon, as that's the one social media platform I think I'd be the most comfortable using but feels like only 6 people I know (tops) uses. Because of factors that're going to be talked about momentarily, I may make moves to change instances in case it helps anything but until I have definite proof that more than those 6 people I know use Mastodon so I could make the move easier, that too'll proberbly go quiet.
I don't think the world needs a Twitter 2, I feel too many people need to fix their hearts before we even get the privellege of a Twitter 2...OR, that and they massively revamp what a social media platform is for and what benefits people would get from them to be better concious of people's boundaries and sense of emotional safety. Either way, I'm done with that.
But also, even if I wasn't done with social media... 2) How the internet is going to be used in the UK is going to change for the worst tomorrow (25th July 2025)
I don't know what made me feel worse, the fact this is happening so soon in the way that it is or the fact that there's *shit-all* notice about this in the press or many other places outside of those looking for them...but there's an Online Safety Act that was voted for in 2023 that has been approved to go into effect tomorrow, as I type this...and other than certain actions I'm taking to ensure I can still comfortably use the internet with (hopefully) less compromise as a result, how things will roll out and go into effect from tomorrow is currently a nervous mystery.
Thing is, this is a Class A example of taking something with agreeable and acceptable moral justifications on the surface but when you look deeper is actually something far more sinister and seems much more concerned with shuttering innocent free expression while keeping files on almost every UK resident with online access than its supposed goals: to protect children from age-inappropriate material online.
Between that and the bullcrap happening with certain credit card companies, it's been an exhaustingly nervous time for everybody who just wants to exist innocently without the looming sense of surveillance and "how much my existence is allowed by what the powers that be view as right". I have sent an e-mail to my MP about my concerns, I have signed the petition on GOV.UK's petitioning site to repel the Act and I've taken some general steps in the hopes that things go okay without things getting even more strange, limiting and scary...but otherwise, I've done all I can.
This isn't all regarding how the Act works but the biggest concern for me is this: online-using people who are 18+ in the UK have to, according to this Act, send photos of their ID or a face-scan of themselves to a third-party "age assurance" company before they can view things deemed to be "age-inappropriate" (and due to how social media automates these things, this can range from "yes, this makes perfect sense to block for under-18s" to "huh, guess it's about THAT instead for this, isn't it?"), sometimes can't even be allowed to have DMs with others without going through this process.
The services running this stuff, or at least two of the most popular ones I've seen, are no-name upstart Persona and...Epic Games???! Via something they're calling Kids Web Services????! Like, the same Epic Games that is routinely criticized for virtually extorting children out of their and their parents' money for cosmetics in violent video games, that Epic Games???! What the HELL is even happening anymore?
Anyway, both of those services do not have the necessary transparency required to comfortably be rewarded with trust from me on such highly-sensitive data that they expect way more than half of the entire country to just...hand over. Imagine if either of their servers got a data leak, like...we'd be fucked. Really, really fucked. So while I'm not leaving FA, I'm bracing myself a little just in case they too have to suffer this Blighty blight that's about to consume many other sites and services...
...and that is, I'm retooling the "Infnifennec" site to be my primary creative portal for my presence here from now on!
Now, I'm not ruling out the "Infinifennec" comic project itself yet as I feel it might still be a fun and sweet venture if my time and energy allows (and if my normie-r projects don't get off the ground so much, shhh) but I figured centering those times I decide to tinker with this stuff on a site that I'm the one and only person behind will elimate a lot of issues I have with sharing this stuff in the community: I will no longer be pressured to specifically "front" for anybody I don't want to "front" for, I won't be constrained by the website's own limitations of style, I should have my own agency on how I curate the stuff I put out and it'll feel more like a Plus if anybody else cares rather than the point.
I was introduced to Neocities through
xinjinmeng's site and overtime, it just made more and more sense for me to do this...and makes much more sense as a means to combat this kind of exhausting atmosphere modern social media has given us in place of what Neocities was set up initially as a harkback to: allowing individuals to have their own presence online centered around themselves as people and their interests, not as just one more Number in a vast crowd trying to stand out in the hunt for validation.
As always, by the very clear basic terms of what defines something as so-called "age-inappropriate" or not, I don't intend on ever making anything that's not that. I've never posted any art on the public net that was directly sexual and am thoroughly uninterested in doing so in the future. If you could put an MPAA rating on the stuff I make, it makes more sense for it to be thought of as PG-13 rather than R. I'm here to creatively express things that're harder elsewhere while hopefully being validating to the far larger folk in the world that my characters may be similar to. I will make this clear as can be on the site itself once it's further along enough to say it's properly "live" but I mean...Neocities doesn't rely on automation to classify if something's a "moral good" or not so I'm confident that the way I catagorize these things won't be misinterpreted by those who care.
So, here's the plan going forward:
- When the Infinifennec site goes officially "live", I will have that be my main creative portal for the stuff I do around these parts.
- For as long as FA doesn't crap the bed in regards to stuff I mentioned regarding that Act, I will post many newer stuff I do on that site to here as well.
- I will stop using Bluesky as an active poster after 2-3 more posts that'll mainly just be echoes of what I talked about here, barring one final post for when the Infinifennec site goes live.
- I'll also no longer be an active poster on social media through this presence in general, unless Mastodon proves to have usable merit beyond itself as a platform.
This will free me of a lot of pressure that comes with being a part of stuff lately so the times I participate here remain fun rather than exhausting, while hopefully cultivating my own site for my own creative works will allow me to define my own stuff free from close-minded assumptions wether internal or external.
Once again, I do not know how the second part of my reasonings for these big sweeping changes are going to affect things come tomorrow. I did my best to research this once I knew it was happening and it barely helped clear any fears I had...but for now, I'm doing what I can with what I feel is currently possible as someone who just wants to creatively express non-sexual things to those who understand and relate to them without being hounded at as something I'm not from people who'll always refuse to understand and who don't deserve my energy.
And hey, just in case, thanks to everybody who has ever supported me and continues to over these more than 19 years. Whatever happens with how much or how little I still interact around here, I'll always be grateful for the things that helped me both creatively and personally and appreciate everybody who thinks time spent with me is still time worth spending.
- Nell/Alek
INFINIFENNEC WEBSITE (currently still under construction): https://infinifennec.neocities.org/
P.S. UK folk reading this who now seem concerned, I urge you all to sign this petition so that this Act is held back from fully going into effect:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/722903
It's still more than halfway close to its goal of 100,000 signatures, that'll enable this subject to be discussed in Parliament on the grounds of how much harm it could do if utilised as badly as people fear so...yeah, please sign it!
And I also encourage people to e-mail their MPs about this. To find out who your MP is: https://members.parliament.uk/FindYourMP
To find out also if they voted for the Online Safety Act, or at least its current form as it'll be enacted tomorrow: https://votes.parliament.uk/votes/c...../division/1926
Take care and good luck, everybody.
Namely, 1) I'm done with social media.
I do not count FA as social media, so this isn't affecting this site specifically (which is ironic given I had times I've fallen out with FA a touch to a point of wanting to distance but I guess, no one likes to try other platforms unless REALLY strongarmed into it, eh?) but in terms of more conventional social media sites like Bluesky and what was before Bluesky? Yeah, I'm truly done.
I was harrassed last week. I will spare you the details of why and who, I had talked about it on my Bluesky enough while trying to emotionally navigate it (and would really rather not talk about too much of the specifics anymore) but I'll say that its someone who has been harrassing others by using the loosest excuses pertaining to a controversial subsection of the community whose admins are deservedly villified for their abusive behaviours to target people they personally don't like for whatever reason. I guess their "whatever reason" for me was speaking out and saying such behaviours shouldn't be encouraged while being clear that the problem actors that WERE proven to be legitimately terrible deserved the concequences.
I wasn't necessarily disagreeing with the main facets of what this person was going after, I just didn't want them to keep using it as an excuse to hurt other people who *aren't* those abusers just because placing the worst words to describe people nearby other people's names means they're guarenteed hell for the rest of their lives, apparently.
I lived through the 2000's internet at a time when I maybe shouldn't of been so involved in community stuff. I feel endlessly disgusted that we're tetering back on the edge of how the climate of participating online felt then because some people feel so emboldened to thinking they're the Main Characters of the Universe that they have the authority and right to wrongly assume things about others yet still be treated as if they're right.
It doesn't matter if its Bluesky or Twitter or anywhere else, no matter how improved the platform is. If people will still bring their terrible habits with them to these other places, after many years of getting clearly reminded that their negative behaviours have concequences and they cannot live off ruining other peoples' lives while having a healthy existence themselves (periods of time where I'd like to think most people would actually internalise what went wrong and learn/grow from these things), then eventually as soon as they have a sense of power alloted to them they'll drag everyone else down.
I don't want to spend my time via this presence here worrying about my "social capital" anymore. I regret that outright. But when someone goes to the trouble of trying to pull the kind of garbage I was handed, without intentionally provoking the person beforehand, those fears of the validity of whatever my "social capital" is comes back as a means of ensuring that I'm not only ensuring others are safe, but myself. It's exhausting and, look...time doesn't stop for anybody. There's no pause button. We're all getting older. Every second passes by. The older I'm getting, the faster time is moving...therefore, I have to put my foot down on how I interact with these facets of the net and stop actively participating.
I may still use a platform or two that counts as social media to browse. To see what others are up to, to see art they've made if they don't do FA, etc. But I'm going to make, like...two or three final posts on Bluesky and that's it indefinitely. (More on what those are later)
Still deciding on what to do with Mastodon, as that's the one social media platform I think I'd be the most comfortable using but feels like only 6 people I know (tops) uses. Because of factors that're going to be talked about momentarily, I may make moves to change instances in case it helps anything but until I have definite proof that more than those 6 people I know use Mastodon so I could make the move easier, that too'll proberbly go quiet.
I don't think the world needs a Twitter 2, I feel too many people need to fix their hearts before we even get the privellege of a Twitter 2...OR, that and they massively revamp what a social media platform is for and what benefits people would get from them to be better concious of people's boundaries and sense of emotional safety. Either way, I'm done with that.
But also, even if I wasn't done with social media... 2) How the internet is going to be used in the UK is going to change for the worst tomorrow (25th July 2025)
I don't know what made me feel worse, the fact this is happening so soon in the way that it is or the fact that there's *shit-all* notice about this in the press or many other places outside of those looking for them...but there's an Online Safety Act that was voted for in 2023 that has been approved to go into effect tomorrow, as I type this...and other than certain actions I'm taking to ensure I can still comfortably use the internet with (hopefully) less compromise as a result, how things will roll out and go into effect from tomorrow is currently a nervous mystery.
Thing is, this is a Class A example of taking something with agreeable and acceptable moral justifications on the surface but when you look deeper is actually something far more sinister and seems much more concerned with shuttering innocent free expression while keeping files on almost every UK resident with online access than its supposed goals: to protect children from age-inappropriate material online.
Between that and the bullcrap happening with certain credit card companies, it's been an exhaustingly nervous time for everybody who just wants to exist innocently without the looming sense of surveillance and "how much my existence is allowed by what the powers that be view as right". I have sent an e-mail to my MP about my concerns, I have signed the petition on GOV.UK's petitioning site to repel the Act and I've taken some general steps in the hopes that things go okay without things getting even more strange, limiting and scary...but otherwise, I've done all I can.
This isn't all regarding how the Act works but the biggest concern for me is this: online-using people who are 18+ in the UK have to, according to this Act, send photos of their ID or a face-scan of themselves to a third-party "age assurance" company before they can view things deemed to be "age-inappropriate" (and due to how social media automates these things, this can range from "yes, this makes perfect sense to block for under-18s" to "huh, guess it's about THAT instead for this, isn't it?"), sometimes can't even be allowed to have DMs with others without going through this process.
The services running this stuff, or at least two of the most popular ones I've seen, are no-name upstart Persona and...Epic Games???! Via something they're calling Kids Web Services????! Like, the same Epic Games that is routinely criticized for virtually extorting children out of their and their parents' money for cosmetics in violent video games, that Epic Games???! What the HELL is even happening anymore?
Anyway, both of those services do not have the necessary transparency required to comfortably be rewarded with trust from me on such highly-sensitive data that they expect way more than half of the entire country to just...hand over. Imagine if either of their servers got a data leak, like...we'd be fucked. Really, really fucked. So while I'm not leaving FA, I'm bracing myself a little just in case they too have to suffer this Blighty blight that's about to consume many other sites and services...
...and that is, I'm retooling the "Infnifennec" site to be my primary creative portal for my presence here from now on!
Now, I'm not ruling out the "Infinifennec" comic project itself yet as I feel it might still be a fun and sweet venture if my time and energy allows (and if my normie-r projects don't get off the ground so much, shhh) but I figured centering those times I decide to tinker with this stuff on a site that I'm the one and only person behind will elimate a lot of issues I have with sharing this stuff in the community: I will no longer be pressured to specifically "front" for anybody I don't want to "front" for, I won't be constrained by the website's own limitations of style, I should have my own agency on how I curate the stuff I put out and it'll feel more like a Plus if anybody else cares rather than the point.
I was introduced to Neocities through
xinjinmeng's site and overtime, it just made more and more sense for me to do this...and makes much more sense as a means to combat this kind of exhausting atmosphere modern social media has given us in place of what Neocities was set up initially as a harkback to: allowing individuals to have their own presence online centered around themselves as people and their interests, not as just one more Number in a vast crowd trying to stand out in the hunt for validation.As always, by the very clear basic terms of what defines something as so-called "age-inappropriate" or not, I don't intend on ever making anything that's not that. I've never posted any art on the public net that was directly sexual and am thoroughly uninterested in doing so in the future. If you could put an MPAA rating on the stuff I make, it makes more sense for it to be thought of as PG-13 rather than R. I'm here to creatively express things that're harder elsewhere while hopefully being validating to the far larger folk in the world that my characters may be similar to. I will make this clear as can be on the site itself once it's further along enough to say it's properly "live" but I mean...Neocities doesn't rely on automation to classify if something's a "moral good" or not so I'm confident that the way I catagorize these things won't be misinterpreted by those who care.
So, here's the plan going forward:
- When the Infinifennec site goes officially "live", I will have that be my main creative portal for the stuff I do around these parts.
- For as long as FA doesn't crap the bed in regards to stuff I mentioned regarding that Act, I will post many newer stuff I do on that site to here as well.
- I will stop using Bluesky as an active poster after 2-3 more posts that'll mainly just be echoes of what I talked about here, barring one final post for when the Infinifennec site goes live.
- I'll also no longer be an active poster on social media through this presence in general, unless Mastodon proves to have usable merit beyond itself as a platform.
This will free me of a lot of pressure that comes with being a part of stuff lately so the times I participate here remain fun rather than exhausting, while hopefully cultivating my own site for my own creative works will allow me to define my own stuff free from close-minded assumptions wether internal or external.
Once again, I do not know how the second part of my reasonings for these big sweeping changes are going to affect things come tomorrow. I did my best to research this once I knew it was happening and it barely helped clear any fears I had...but for now, I'm doing what I can with what I feel is currently possible as someone who just wants to creatively express non-sexual things to those who understand and relate to them without being hounded at as something I'm not from people who'll always refuse to understand and who don't deserve my energy.
And hey, just in case, thanks to everybody who has ever supported me and continues to over these more than 19 years. Whatever happens with how much or how little I still interact around here, I'll always be grateful for the things that helped me both creatively and personally and appreciate everybody who thinks time spent with me is still time worth spending.
- Nell/Alek
INFINIFENNEC WEBSITE (currently still under construction): https://infinifennec.neocities.org/
P.S. UK folk reading this who now seem concerned, I urge you all to sign this petition so that this Act is held back from fully going into effect:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/722903
It's still more than halfway close to its goal of 100,000 signatures, that'll enable this subject to be discussed in Parliament on the grounds of how much harm it could do if utilised as badly as people fear so...yeah, please sign it!
And I also encourage people to e-mail their MPs about this. To find out who your MP is: https://members.parliament.uk/FindYourMP
To find out also if they voted for the Online Safety Act, or at least its current form as it'll be enacted tomorrow: https://votes.parliament.uk/votes/c...../division/1926
Take care and good luck, everybody.
Re: Removed Submissions / "Soft-Retirement" of Some OCs
Posted 4 months agoIn figuring out how I wanted to streamline my presence in the community so that I'd have substantially less stress and pressure than I felt in revent years, I decided to make a decision that for a while I didn't want to make but feel is finally the right time to do it.
I have removed submissions regarding two characters I had re-introduced to FA early on in my time with this account that I've hardly done anything with on a public-facing front in a long time, to which any use new use of them would be compromised by what I consider worsening community discourse brought on by bad faith. Nicasio, a character created in 2014 and Corey, a character created in 2019, I've now "soft-retired".
I'm in a far different place emotionally and socially here than I was back when I made both characters. Nicasio was concieved as a means for me to relive my own childhood through a character who was both an idealized version of my childhood self *and* a cartoon character role-model I wish I had then. Corey is largely very similar to Nicasio in those creative intentions, but was also a way for me to deeper explore my fascination with a specific time in pop-culture I was only alive in briefly (the late-1980's/early-1990's).
I'm happy with both characters and do not feel regret or guilt for their existences as at best, they've been helpful to me with navigating how to stay reconnected with my childhood-self in the earlier parts of my adulthood. Time has progressed enough that I feel like I can do that into my adulthood in a way that's less specifically tied to created, expressional OCs and given how little I've felt the desire to do new public-facing stuff with them even if the climate of community discourse wasn't like it was...I feel it'd help me more than hinder me if I didn't have to worry about them as facets of my public-facing self here anymore.
This is a decision I've come to by myself and was not forced to make by outside forces. Though I have been (and still am) openly-against the harmful practices people do to conflate innocent people who wish to sometimes creatively express in certain ways that do not involve vunerable members of the community and hurt no one by conflating them with some of the worst crimes to be conflated with, the process of continuing to push and spotlight those stances against those who do these scorched-earth crusades as a means to protect *myself* in regards to these characters is exhausting me more than helping.
At this point in my life, I want to look ahead more rather than look back and take things on my own terms at a more moment-by-moment basis. Having much more specifically nostalgic-tinged characters were/are nice for me to express those facets when I want(ed) to, but largely I'm feeling like they're encouraging myself to firmly stick to things that aren't in-sync with me as a person now rather than before.
If you want to see them again, you have options on how. Once again, I'm not ashamed of either Nicasio or Corey. Never have I ever posted things publically revolving around them as characters that I'd be uncomfortable with posting or feel were against my moralistic standings. Nothing has been inappropriate *or* harmful in any way, just the same as I'd never want to make anything inappropriate or harmful with any characters I make.
I guess deep down, complications with how certain tides of understanding have shifted aside, I wanted to have less potential baggage here now. I'm not here to "sell myself" as a person or hobbyist creator anymore, I'm here for the people who still think time with me is worth it and as someone who from a young age has always felt connected with fatness in some form or another and until discovering this sub-community didn't know how to express these things better without judgment.
I don't want to spend whatever time I still spend around here going forward to be filled with pressure and dread on what others think of me and even just what my idle existence here "means". I don't believe it's a healthy use of energy and time for those who still have hang-ups anyway, but just thinking about this stuff and how to navigate this exhausts my energy and time too.
I'm 33. Time is as fast as ever. I can't spend as much time anymore bogged down by the external. And while these decisions aren't what I wanted for a while, they're decisions I'm doing for *my* own good rather than making others feel like I'm bowing to pressure. I owe nobody anything, nor do I owe any apologies for anything I hadn't already apologized for and tried to make amends with.
Nic and Corey are still parts of me, but no longer am I going to have to worry if me expressing via them publically on the times I do are "right" or not. And either I tire myself with increasing justifications to terrible people I don't want to waste energy on...or I make the steps to stop myself from having to. This is me making those steps for myself and *only* for myself.
Irregardless of what happens externally, I want to live life in the present. I don't want to take each passing moment for granted, therefore I need this extra energy that was wasted elsewhere.
I hope you can understand. I have more things to say about what I may do around here later, but they'll be talked about later next week. Take care, folks.
- Nell
I have removed submissions regarding two characters I had re-introduced to FA early on in my time with this account that I've hardly done anything with on a public-facing front in a long time, to which any use new use of them would be compromised by what I consider worsening community discourse brought on by bad faith. Nicasio, a character created in 2014 and Corey, a character created in 2019, I've now "soft-retired".
I'm in a far different place emotionally and socially here than I was back when I made both characters. Nicasio was concieved as a means for me to relive my own childhood through a character who was both an idealized version of my childhood self *and* a cartoon character role-model I wish I had then. Corey is largely very similar to Nicasio in those creative intentions, but was also a way for me to deeper explore my fascination with a specific time in pop-culture I was only alive in briefly (the late-1980's/early-1990's).
I'm happy with both characters and do not feel regret or guilt for their existences as at best, they've been helpful to me with navigating how to stay reconnected with my childhood-self in the earlier parts of my adulthood. Time has progressed enough that I feel like I can do that into my adulthood in a way that's less specifically tied to created, expressional OCs and given how little I've felt the desire to do new public-facing stuff with them even if the climate of community discourse wasn't like it was...I feel it'd help me more than hinder me if I didn't have to worry about them as facets of my public-facing self here anymore.
This is a decision I've come to by myself and was not forced to make by outside forces. Though I have been (and still am) openly-against the harmful practices people do to conflate innocent people who wish to sometimes creatively express in certain ways that do not involve vunerable members of the community and hurt no one by conflating them with some of the worst crimes to be conflated with, the process of continuing to push and spotlight those stances against those who do these scorched-earth crusades as a means to protect *myself* in regards to these characters is exhausting me more than helping.
At this point in my life, I want to look ahead more rather than look back and take things on my own terms at a more moment-by-moment basis. Having much more specifically nostalgic-tinged characters were/are nice for me to express those facets when I want(ed) to, but largely I'm feeling like they're encouraging myself to firmly stick to things that aren't in-sync with me as a person now rather than before.
If you want to see them again, you have options on how. Once again, I'm not ashamed of either Nicasio or Corey. Never have I ever posted things publically revolving around them as characters that I'd be uncomfortable with posting or feel were against my moralistic standings. Nothing has been inappropriate *or* harmful in any way, just the same as I'd never want to make anything inappropriate or harmful with any characters I make.
I guess deep down, complications with how certain tides of understanding have shifted aside, I wanted to have less potential baggage here now. I'm not here to "sell myself" as a person or hobbyist creator anymore, I'm here for the people who still think time with me is worth it and as someone who from a young age has always felt connected with fatness in some form or another and until discovering this sub-community didn't know how to express these things better without judgment.
I don't want to spend whatever time I still spend around here going forward to be filled with pressure and dread on what others think of me and even just what my idle existence here "means". I don't believe it's a healthy use of energy and time for those who still have hang-ups anyway, but just thinking about this stuff and how to navigate this exhausts my energy and time too.
I'm 33. Time is as fast as ever. I can't spend as much time anymore bogged down by the external. And while these decisions aren't what I wanted for a while, they're decisions I'm doing for *my* own good rather than making others feel like I'm bowing to pressure. I owe nobody anything, nor do I owe any apologies for anything I hadn't already apologized for and tried to make amends with.
Nic and Corey are still parts of me, but no longer am I going to have to worry if me expressing via them publically on the times I do are "right" or not. And either I tire myself with increasing justifications to terrible people I don't want to waste energy on...or I make the steps to stop myself from having to. This is me making those steps for myself and *only* for myself.
Irregardless of what happens externally, I want to live life in the present. I don't want to take each passing moment for granted, therefore I need this extra energy that was wasted elsewhere.
I hope you can understand. I have more things to say about what I may do around here later, but they'll be talked about later next week. Take care, folks.
- Nell
Where to Find Me / Neocities site for "Infinifennec"
Posted a year agoFirst off, just in case, here's my socials:
Bluesky (usually use): https://bsky.app/profile/nellthompson.bsky.social
and
Mastodon (need to use more, plan to, may even make my new default depending on what happens to Bluesky): https://mastodon.social/@dorksandfats
Secondly! Well...I may still post updates on the "Infinifennec" project if it manages to start up here but due to what's happening in FA right now and feeling the desire to own my own space for when I wanna explore stuff in this side of the community for as long as I plan to be here before I segue out, I have a Neocities for "Infinifennec" now!
There is nothing on it right now and I intend to soon learn (or re-learn) how to build sites in the traditional HTML-esque fashion, something I hadn't been able to do for a really long time even if I have dabbled in site-making outside of that way of website-building in more recent times, buuuuuuut feel free to keep tabs of https://infinifennec.neocities.org/ for when things start to bloom. Naturally if FA haven't screwed me over before then, I'll be updating you all as soon as the site is properly live beyond a default "Hello world" screen like it has right now. x3
I'm thinking future "Infinifennec"-related posts, including the comic project itself, will be put on the Neocities site for an exclusivity window of 1-2 weeks before I cross-post on FA and socials. Again, if FA'll be cool to still have me but we'll see. >.> This month has kinda run away from me thanks to other hobbies and I have a busy month coming up so progress since posting art for Tega has been scant and unfortunately may still be scant for a little bit buuuuuuut as ever, when I have new stuff to talk about and share, I'll let you folks know. And when the site is more...existant, I'll let you folks know what the sharing situation with "Infinifennec"-related stuff (and maybe more?) will be with that site vs. the other places. :3
Hope all's going as well for you folks as they reasonably can be, see ya around. o/
Bluesky (usually use): https://bsky.app/profile/nellthompson.bsky.social
and
Mastodon (need to use more, plan to, may even make my new default depending on what happens to Bluesky): https://mastodon.social/@dorksandfats
Secondly! Well...I may still post updates on the "Infinifennec" project if it manages to start up here but due to what's happening in FA right now and feeling the desire to own my own space for when I wanna explore stuff in this side of the community for as long as I plan to be here before I segue out, I have a Neocities for "Infinifennec" now!
There is nothing on it right now and I intend to soon learn (or re-learn) how to build sites in the traditional HTML-esque fashion, something I hadn't been able to do for a really long time even if I have dabbled in site-making outside of that way of website-building in more recent times, buuuuuuut feel free to keep tabs of https://infinifennec.neocities.org/ for when things start to bloom. Naturally if FA haven't screwed me over before then, I'll be updating you all as soon as the site is properly live beyond a default "Hello world" screen like it has right now. x3
I'm thinking future "Infinifennec"-related posts, including the comic project itself, will be put on the Neocities site for an exclusivity window of 1-2 weeks before I cross-post on FA and socials. Again, if FA'll be cool to still have me but we'll see. >.> This month has kinda run away from me thanks to other hobbies and I have a busy month coming up so progress since posting art for Tega has been scant and unfortunately may still be scant for a little bit buuuuuuut as ever, when I have new stuff to talk about and share, I'll let you folks know. And when the site is more...existant, I'll let you folks know what the sharing situation with "Infinifennec"-related stuff (and maybe more?) will be with that site vs. the other places. :3
Hope all's going as well for you folks as they reasonably can be, see ya around. o/
Reminder to Watchers
Posted a year agoI've just learn't of the current admin/mod team for this site deciding to side with bad-faith actions based on things driven by perticularly loud and persistant members of the community who want to harm the lives of people who are themselves doing no harm whatsoever.
I'm not going to say what exactly I'm referring to...just that...guys...if someone's expressing what they are in a way that's not promoting or involving anybody vunerable in the community or elsewhere who didn't ask to be included, then they're proberbly not hurting those people after all or are indeed those Worst People Imaginable that some of those loud members of the community would claim they are just because throwing those terms around is enough for some people to stop having a sense of measured judgment on other's.
Those loud types in the community and those who tag along to their garbage are a minority in the community, not the majority. And are likely being that way either A) Because they get off on ruining other people's lives for clout or B) Thinking that because they don't understand or relate to a harmless thing that gives someone else validity, comfort and joy, that means as The Main Character of The Universe they can dictate what is or isn't objectively Good.
Don't let these people drive how you want to express yourself. We don't need a return to how the community was in the 2000's, where expressing yourself in any way felt scary and paranoia was a necessary survival move.
As for the admin/mod team, I'm disappointed that they chose to listen to those vitriolic voices in some of their decisions and as tragic and unfortunate as Dragoneer's death was, the post-grieve process shouldn't be an excuse in screwing over people who Dragoneer would've allowed to let express themselves so long as they're not using their uses of their self-expression to hurt other innocent people, vunerable in the community or otherwise.
And if you disagree with my stances on this and feel those vitriolic voices represent a sensible, grounded view point that helps more than hurts, then...I'm really sorry, but you should stop watching me right now. I don't even care if you block me or not at this point, I refuse to cater to people who view harmless self-expression as a threat just because they don't understand.
Still don't know what I'm doing in FA if this represents the New Norm post-Dragoneer soon, but just know my stances haven't changed. And I insist on them and will not pretend like the hurt that people have experienced has been in any way okay.
Be better, people.
I'm not going to say what exactly I'm referring to...just that...guys...if someone's expressing what they are in a way that's not promoting or involving anybody vunerable in the community or elsewhere who didn't ask to be included, then they're proberbly not hurting those people after all or are indeed those Worst People Imaginable that some of those loud members of the community would claim they are just because throwing those terms around is enough for some people to stop having a sense of measured judgment on other's.
Those loud types in the community and those who tag along to their garbage are a minority in the community, not the majority. And are likely being that way either A) Because they get off on ruining other people's lives for clout or B) Thinking that because they don't understand or relate to a harmless thing that gives someone else validity, comfort and joy, that means as The Main Character of The Universe they can dictate what is or isn't objectively Good.
Don't let these people drive how you want to express yourself. We don't need a return to how the community was in the 2000's, where expressing yourself in any way felt scary and paranoia was a necessary survival move.
As for the admin/mod team, I'm disappointed that they chose to listen to those vitriolic voices in some of their decisions and as tragic and unfortunate as Dragoneer's death was, the post-grieve process shouldn't be an excuse in screwing over people who Dragoneer would've allowed to let express themselves so long as they're not using their uses of their self-expression to hurt other innocent people, vunerable in the community or otherwise.
And if you disagree with my stances on this and feel those vitriolic voices represent a sensible, grounded view point that helps more than hurts, then...I'm really sorry, but you should stop watching me right now. I don't even care if you block me or not at this point, I refuse to cater to people who view harmless self-expression as a threat just because they don't understand.
Still don't know what I'm doing in FA if this represents the New Norm post-Dragoneer soon, but just know my stances haven't changed. And I insist on them and will not pretend like the hurt that people have experienced has been in any way okay.
Be better, people.
"Infinifennec" Update-ish
Posted a year agoWhat a strange couple of months this has been, though at least August has been much more enjoyable to me in my life than July, for sure. @.@
Anyway, even though progress has to be back on pause a touch while we annoyingly deal with more on-and-off heatwaves that'll get in the way of September transitioning smoothly into Autumn sooner, the "Infinifennec" project IS still something I want to do so it's still in development. Next time I'm able to do art on my computer, I'm going to try and do more with the "other characters" ref sheet for all the other folks who'll be present besides Nell herself. I had a dream earlier about finding an empathetic comic series about a dog who was disabled and bedbound (not due to being fat, though) and their life dealing with it with others around them, so that definitely brought the "Infinifennec" idea back into focus. Hoping for September sometime to be when this stuff'll start baring fruit, but nothing's set in stone yet!
Meanwhile, uh...turns out my use of Retrospring for user question submissions to Nell for potential later entries might be up-in-the-air now. @.@ Retrospring have announced that they're shuttering the site by September 2025 and while I'm unsure where I'll be by then in terms of creative project focus and etc, it *does* now make me think about what to do about this, if action is necessary. You're all free to suggest alternatives to using Retrospring for this purpose in the comments, but I assure everyone who HAS asked that all your questions will be preserved outside of the site, so those being used for "Infinifennec" entries will be held onto.
My initial idea with responding to the questions on Retrospring itself was to respond *on the site* with a link to the corresponding entry the question is featured/answered in too, but with Retrospring planning closure next year, I'm unsure about the value of that myself. Again, suggestions are welcome and hey, thank you all for your patience.
Hope you're all doing as well as you folks can be. :3 See ya around! o/
- Nell
P.S. Btw, if you were curious as to why I threw that "Robot Dreams" styleplay pic to Scraps...well, I'm redoing that! The way I emulated that style initially made it seem much more stiff and static than it is, so I'm redoing it sometime. Don't mind me. x3
Anyway, even though progress has to be back on pause a touch while we annoyingly deal with more on-and-off heatwaves that'll get in the way of September transitioning smoothly into Autumn sooner, the "Infinifennec" project IS still something I want to do so it's still in development. Next time I'm able to do art on my computer, I'm going to try and do more with the "other characters" ref sheet for all the other folks who'll be present besides Nell herself. I had a dream earlier about finding an empathetic comic series about a dog who was disabled and bedbound (not due to being fat, though) and their life dealing with it with others around them, so that definitely brought the "Infinifennec" idea back into focus. Hoping for September sometime to be when this stuff'll start baring fruit, but nothing's set in stone yet!
Meanwhile, uh...turns out my use of Retrospring for user question submissions to Nell for potential later entries might be up-in-the-air now. @.@ Retrospring have announced that they're shuttering the site by September 2025 and while I'm unsure where I'll be by then in terms of creative project focus and etc, it *does* now make me think about what to do about this, if action is necessary. You're all free to suggest alternatives to using Retrospring for this purpose in the comments, but I assure everyone who HAS asked that all your questions will be preserved outside of the site, so those being used for "Infinifennec" entries will be held onto.
My initial idea with responding to the questions on Retrospring itself was to respond *on the site* with a link to the corresponding entry the question is featured/answered in too, but with Retrospring planning closure next year, I'm unsure about the value of that myself. Again, suggestions are welcome and hey, thank you all for your patience.
Hope you're all doing as well as you folks can be. :3 See ya around! o/
- Nell
P.S. Btw, if you were curious as to why I threw that "Robot Dreams" styleplay pic to Scraps...well, I'm redoing that! The way I emulated that style initially made it seem much more stiff and static than it is, so I'm redoing it sometime. Don't mind me. x3
Some Words
Posted a year agoI don't know what to type over Dragoneer's passing that everyone else hasn't already said, from saying how gigantically formative what he's done has been for far too many people to count to lamenting the cynical carelessness of the American healthcare system to essentially lead him to his death due to their neglect and extortion, but I wanted to forward what someone else said on their journal about his passing as I feel the whole community could do with hearing them. From 
Eligecos:
"Please take care of yourself folks, and be kind to one another. Never hold back from doing good when someone we care about struggles, even if we were at odds with that person in the past. Harboring resentment and grudges against each other is like stabbing our own heart and expecting the other person who wronged us to feel the pain. It does us no good. Lets never forget how much Dragoneer cared about this place. We should care for it like he did and make sure it sticks around as he would have wanted it."
You can read his full journal here: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10924263
R.I.P. Dragoneer. Thank you for so much.
Eligecos:"Please take care of yourself folks, and be kind to one another. Never hold back from doing good when someone we care about struggles, even if we were at odds with that person in the past. Harboring resentment and grudges against each other is like stabbing our own heart and expecting the other person who wronged us to feel the pain. It does us no good. Lets never forget how much Dragoneer cared about this place. We should care for it like he did and make sure it sticks around as he would have wanted it."
You can read his full journal here: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10924263
R.I.P. Dragoneer. Thank you for so much.
Health Update / Retrospring Reminder
Posted a year agoAfter nearly 2 mentally-gruelling weeks, I'm finally COVID-negative! It may take me another day or so to settle back into more normal things, owing to the day I turned negative happening to fall on a heatwave day, but I no longer have to be bound so much by things that limited me so I'm going to get back on what I was building up to with the "Infinifennec" project, to which I was last at starting on the character designs for various other characters in this that aren't Nell (mainly relations, but also her Head Nurse). I had sketched out a comic already for it even, so I'm stoked to follow this stuff through when I can!
Meanwhile, if you guys had questions for Nell on her thoughts on her own experiences being immobile-fat/"infinifat", feel free to throw them at https://retrospring.net/@Infinifennec and your question may be responded to with a corresponding comic!
I intend to make official Retrospring responses to these, for the ones I take on anyway, after each corresponding comic relevant to them're done so bare that in mind. And no, having a question responded to doesn't mean you will get a cameo or free name exposure in the things so bare that in mind too.
Hope everyone's doing as okay as they can be themselves, see y'all around. :3
Meanwhile, if you guys had questions for Nell on her thoughts on her own experiences being immobile-fat/"infinifat", feel free to throw them at https://retrospring.net/@Infinifennec and your question may be responded to with a corresponding comic!
I intend to make official Retrospring responses to these, for the ones I take on anyway, after each corresponding comic relevant to them're done so bare that in mind. And no, having a question responded to doesn't mean you will get a cameo or free name exposure in the things so bare that in mind too.
Hope everyone's doing as okay as they can be themselves, see y'all around. :3
"InfiniFennec" project delayed a tiny bit (Health reasons...
Posted a year agoAfter over 4 years of managing to avoid it, COVID has got me, so I'll (to my absolute frustration) need a teensy bit extra time to get over that before resuming on the progress I had started on it.
Thank you folks for the great support on the new Nell ref, at least! Take care all. :3
Thank you folks for the great support on the new Nell ref, at least! Take care all. :3
More on "Infinifennec" project / Important words to share
Posted a year ago...and of course, this time when I say "Important", I mean the words of fat activist Aubrey Gordon on the double-eged sword of only using portraying and exploring fat lives through the gaze of "fetish"/"kink" and not my OWN words but we'll get to that when we get to that.
So first off, obviously my Retrospring is still open for submissions for the "Infinifennec" project - at https://retrospring.net/@Infinifennec - and I thank folk for what they've sent so far as they're great questions for Nell to explore later. But I had been prodded by a very good friend lately on when and how those questions would be answered and realising this is a bit of an unusual way to go about this that I may of opened up sooner than would be more useful otherwise, I decided to "soft-announce" what this thing is all about.
A lot of stuff is up in the air in terms of how I'm presenting this beyond the writing and what kind of upload pattern to go with, if any, but the "Infinifennec" project...is something of a comic series. Or an ongoing art project based around Nell and those around her's perspectives as their own people and as they are with each other. Either way, I'm aiming for it to be something of a casual slice-of-life thing. A window into Nell and those around her's thoughts and feelings, while aiming to try and make the kind of positive unjudgmental representation for Infinifat people beyond a certain weight threshold that I and many would wish they'd see in the world more often. Sometimes there'd be a light sprinkling of appropriate humour, other times there'll be earnestness. I feel like with that, I'd not only get to do more with Nell and express through her more, but doing something with fatfur art that I feel is still massively underutilised, something more than just "look how big they are, isn't that something?".
The questions asked through the Retrospring page that I feel are worth answering back to by Nell, to which atm I can comfortably feel all but MAYBE one I've recieved up to me writing this will all get to be included, will serve as springboards for new entries in this series where the entry is focused on what Nell answers with and any other info related. It's no guarentee that if you ask Nell something, it'll 110% be included in the comic and all askers will be uncredited on the series for the sake of keeping focus on the characters rather than naming other real users of something else...but I really do appreciate every good entry to this I get, to which so far I'm fortunate with all entries so far being such good quality in their ways.
I feel what may help is finally getting more characters introduced before the series properly begins: Nell's Mum, Nell's Dad, Nell's older brother, her Head Nurse/Best Friend Outside of the Internet (or usually the internet), etc. And I want to and WILL sometime soon. Fatigue, sleep pattern problems and difficulties adapting to Summer weather have made this harder lately but I strongly want to fast-track this soon. I'm excited with these ideas more than anything I've done in the fandom for a really long time, so I'm looking forward to having them materialise.
---
That's the main me-focused part of this journal done. I wanted to share an extra look into the stuff I've been reading as part of my concious retooling of how I write and talk about fat positivity. Given the weird hangups people in the community have had for a few years lumping fat representation and expression as "kink"/"fetish" materials (limiting and problematic terms IMHO), Aubrey Gordon's words on the double-edged sword of lumping fat expressions of desire and love under "fat fetishism" rather than something more normalising to me seem like essential reading for everyone who cares about wanting to not accidentally help stoke the flames of fatphobia on this stuff...
From Aubrey Gordon's "What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat". CW: Undetailed mentions of sexual abuse and general talk about fatphobic discrimination.
" When attraction to fat people is discussed, fetishism is never far behind. Fetishism isn't in itself necessarily pathological; fetishes can be as simple as consensual kinks, particularly intense attractions, or simple preferences. But when fetishism is brought up with respect to fat attraction, it gathers like a storm cloud.
To be clear, there are attractions to fatness that take such specific forms that they are undeniably fetishistic. Feeders, for example, long to feed their "feedee" fat partners, deriving pleasure from watching their fat partner eat and, in some cases, from watching them gain more and more weight. Squash fetishes, on the other hand, indicate a desire to be sat on or pinned beneath their partner's fat body.
Some fat people happily engage with these fetishes and find fulfillment (or paid work) in their role. Some do not. But many fat people have felt fetishism thrust upon them without their consent.
Fat fetishism has deep roots for many fat people, especially fat women. For some, size, desire, shame, and sex are a rat's nest, hopelessly tangled together.
People who internalize anti-fat stereotypes-including the pervasive cultural belief that fat people are categorically unattractive or unlovable-are more likely to binge eat, as are survivors of sexual assault. Fat acceptance spaces frequently include heartbreaking stories of people whose relationships were kept secret by their partners. Worse still, some tell stories about working up the courage to share their experiences of sexual assault only to be categorically disbelieved. Given the pervasiveness of their experiences, is it any wonder that some fat people come to experience anyone else's desire for them as predatory?
Of course, not all fat people have lived these sex and relationship horror stories. But many of us have become so acculturated to them that we come to describe the vast majority of fat attraction as fat fetishism. When fat sex and dating are discussed, there's rarely room for simple attraction. But thin people are frequently attracted to other thin people without garnering suspicion of fetishism. They may find themselves drawn to brown-haired people, muscle-bound bodies, or tall partners. They can speak freely of the physical characteristics they like best: chiseled jawlines, long hair, slim legs. In the world of thin people, these are types, a physical attraction so universal that it is neutral.
Everyone, we are told, has a type. But if a thin person is reliably attracted to fat people, that type curdles and becomes something less trustworthy: a fetish. Fat people are so categorically undesirable, we`re told, that any attraction to us must speak to a darker urge or some unchecked appetite.
There's no question that fat sexuality can be riddled with power imbalances and predatory behavior. But why is a healthy, natural attraction to fat bodies so difficult for us collectively to believe? Why do we so readily accept that thin bodies are universally desired and lovable, while so certainly rejecting the same prospect for fat bodies? Is there room to love the look of fat bodies without dropping into the sinister territory implied by a fat fetish? Can fat bodies be desired without becoming pathological?
In a world so insistent that fat attraction is impossible, fat folks can end up experiencing all attraction as fetishism. And the culture around us reinforces that at every turn. The few fat love stories we see are fat people dating other fat people, usually in shared weight loss or food addiction programs, as with "Mike & Molly" or "This Is Us". Fat people aren't just surrounded by pathology; our bodies are seen as manifestations of it.
We assume most-if not all-fat attraction is pathological. Even some of us with a deep commitment to body positivity and fat acceptance speak in hushed tones about fat fetishism and the shame of realizing we're dating a chaser, a feeder, or a fat admirer.
But when we do that, we imply that only thin people are worthy of genuine attraction-that, like health, happiness and success, love can only be earned by thinness. Our inability to distinguish predatory sexual appetites from everyday desire ends up reinforcing the false idea that thin people lead fuller lives, deserve more, are more loved and more desirable.
[...] I reject the notion that fat attraction is necessarily a fetish: something deviant, tawdry, vulgar, or dangerous. I choose to believe that my body is worthy of love - the electric warmth of real, full love. In many ways, its not that simple. But in some ways, it is. I choose to believe that I am lovable, as is my body, just as both are today.
I believe that I deserve to be loved in my body, not in spite of it. My body is not an inconvenience, a shameful fact, or an unfortunate truth. Desiring my body is not a pathological act. And I'm not alone. Despite the never-ending headwinds, fat people around the world find and forge the relationships they want. There is no road map, so we become cartographers, charting some new land for ourselves. We live extraordinary lives, beloved by our families, partners, communities. Fat people fall wildly in love. Fat people get married. Fat people have phenomenal sex. Fat people are impossibly happy. Those fat people live in defiance of the expectations set forth for them. Their fat lives are glorious and beautiful things, vibrant and beyond the reach of what the rest of us have been trained to imagine. Let's imagine more. " - Aubrey Gordon
So first off, obviously my Retrospring is still open for submissions for the "Infinifennec" project - at https://retrospring.net/@Infinifennec - and I thank folk for what they've sent so far as they're great questions for Nell to explore later. But I had been prodded by a very good friend lately on when and how those questions would be answered and realising this is a bit of an unusual way to go about this that I may of opened up sooner than would be more useful otherwise, I decided to "soft-announce" what this thing is all about.
A lot of stuff is up in the air in terms of how I'm presenting this beyond the writing and what kind of upload pattern to go with, if any, but the "Infinifennec" project...is something of a comic series. Or an ongoing art project based around Nell and those around her's perspectives as their own people and as they are with each other. Either way, I'm aiming for it to be something of a casual slice-of-life thing. A window into Nell and those around her's thoughts and feelings, while aiming to try and make the kind of positive unjudgmental representation for Infinifat people beyond a certain weight threshold that I and many would wish they'd see in the world more often. Sometimes there'd be a light sprinkling of appropriate humour, other times there'll be earnestness. I feel like with that, I'd not only get to do more with Nell and express through her more, but doing something with fatfur art that I feel is still massively underutilised, something more than just "look how big they are, isn't that something?".
The questions asked through the Retrospring page that I feel are worth answering back to by Nell, to which atm I can comfortably feel all but MAYBE one I've recieved up to me writing this will all get to be included, will serve as springboards for new entries in this series where the entry is focused on what Nell answers with and any other info related. It's no guarentee that if you ask Nell something, it'll 110% be included in the comic and all askers will be uncredited on the series for the sake of keeping focus on the characters rather than naming other real users of something else...but I really do appreciate every good entry to this I get, to which so far I'm fortunate with all entries so far being such good quality in their ways.
I feel what may help is finally getting more characters introduced before the series properly begins: Nell's Mum, Nell's Dad, Nell's older brother, her Head Nurse/Best Friend Outside of the Internet (or usually the internet), etc. And I want to and WILL sometime soon. Fatigue, sleep pattern problems and difficulties adapting to Summer weather have made this harder lately but I strongly want to fast-track this soon. I'm excited with these ideas more than anything I've done in the fandom for a really long time, so I'm looking forward to having them materialise.
---
That's the main me-focused part of this journal done. I wanted to share an extra look into the stuff I've been reading as part of my concious retooling of how I write and talk about fat positivity. Given the weird hangups people in the community have had for a few years lumping fat representation and expression as "kink"/"fetish" materials (limiting and problematic terms IMHO), Aubrey Gordon's words on the double-edged sword of lumping fat expressions of desire and love under "fat fetishism" rather than something more normalising to me seem like essential reading for everyone who cares about wanting to not accidentally help stoke the flames of fatphobia on this stuff...
From Aubrey Gordon's "What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat". CW: Undetailed mentions of sexual abuse and general talk about fatphobic discrimination.
" When attraction to fat people is discussed, fetishism is never far behind. Fetishism isn't in itself necessarily pathological; fetishes can be as simple as consensual kinks, particularly intense attractions, or simple preferences. But when fetishism is brought up with respect to fat attraction, it gathers like a storm cloud.
To be clear, there are attractions to fatness that take such specific forms that they are undeniably fetishistic. Feeders, for example, long to feed their "feedee" fat partners, deriving pleasure from watching their fat partner eat and, in some cases, from watching them gain more and more weight. Squash fetishes, on the other hand, indicate a desire to be sat on or pinned beneath their partner's fat body.
Some fat people happily engage with these fetishes and find fulfillment (or paid work) in their role. Some do not. But many fat people have felt fetishism thrust upon them without their consent.
Fat fetishism has deep roots for many fat people, especially fat women. For some, size, desire, shame, and sex are a rat's nest, hopelessly tangled together.
People who internalize anti-fat stereotypes-including the pervasive cultural belief that fat people are categorically unattractive or unlovable-are more likely to binge eat, as are survivors of sexual assault. Fat acceptance spaces frequently include heartbreaking stories of people whose relationships were kept secret by their partners. Worse still, some tell stories about working up the courage to share their experiences of sexual assault only to be categorically disbelieved. Given the pervasiveness of their experiences, is it any wonder that some fat people come to experience anyone else's desire for them as predatory?
Of course, not all fat people have lived these sex and relationship horror stories. But many of us have become so acculturated to them that we come to describe the vast majority of fat attraction as fat fetishism. When fat sex and dating are discussed, there's rarely room for simple attraction. But thin people are frequently attracted to other thin people without garnering suspicion of fetishism. They may find themselves drawn to brown-haired people, muscle-bound bodies, or tall partners. They can speak freely of the physical characteristics they like best: chiseled jawlines, long hair, slim legs. In the world of thin people, these are types, a physical attraction so universal that it is neutral.
Everyone, we are told, has a type. But if a thin person is reliably attracted to fat people, that type curdles and becomes something less trustworthy: a fetish. Fat people are so categorically undesirable, we`re told, that any attraction to us must speak to a darker urge or some unchecked appetite.
There's no question that fat sexuality can be riddled with power imbalances and predatory behavior. But why is a healthy, natural attraction to fat bodies so difficult for us collectively to believe? Why do we so readily accept that thin bodies are universally desired and lovable, while so certainly rejecting the same prospect for fat bodies? Is there room to love the look of fat bodies without dropping into the sinister territory implied by a fat fetish? Can fat bodies be desired without becoming pathological?
In a world so insistent that fat attraction is impossible, fat folks can end up experiencing all attraction as fetishism. And the culture around us reinforces that at every turn. The few fat love stories we see are fat people dating other fat people, usually in shared weight loss or food addiction programs, as with "Mike & Molly" or "This Is Us". Fat people aren't just surrounded by pathology; our bodies are seen as manifestations of it.
We assume most-if not all-fat attraction is pathological. Even some of us with a deep commitment to body positivity and fat acceptance speak in hushed tones about fat fetishism and the shame of realizing we're dating a chaser, a feeder, or a fat admirer.
But when we do that, we imply that only thin people are worthy of genuine attraction-that, like health, happiness and success, love can only be earned by thinness. Our inability to distinguish predatory sexual appetites from everyday desire ends up reinforcing the false idea that thin people lead fuller lives, deserve more, are more loved and more desirable.
[...] I reject the notion that fat attraction is necessarily a fetish: something deviant, tawdry, vulgar, or dangerous. I choose to believe that my body is worthy of love - the electric warmth of real, full love. In many ways, its not that simple. But in some ways, it is. I choose to believe that I am lovable, as is my body, just as both are today.
I believe that I deserve to be loved in my body, not in spite of it. My body is not an inconvenience, a shameful fact, or an unfortunate truth. Desiring my body is not a pathological act. And I'm not alone. Despite the never-ending headwinds, fat people around the world find and forge the relationships they want. There is no road map, so we become cartographers, charting some new land for ourselves. We live extraordinary lives, beloved by our families, partners, communities. Fat people fall wildly in love. Fat people get married. Fat people have phenomenal sex. Fat people are impossibly happy. Those fat people live in defiance of the expectations set forth for them. Their fat lives are glorious and beautiful things, vibrant and beyond the reach of what the rest of us have been trained to imagine. Let's imagine more. " - Aubrey Gordon
New In-Character Retrospring for Nell!
Posted a year agoFollowing on from how well that new ref went down and ideas bubbling in my head that I may try and make good on, I've taken the first step in helping the latter by opening an in-character Retrospring for Nell. :D
Want to ask my fursona stuff, anywhere from her interests to her experiences? Now's your chance! Hey, what you ask may even turn up in Future Things revolving around Nell too. :3
Here's where you can do that. :3 https://retrospring.net/@Infinifennec
Let's see where this leads, if anywhere...
TERMS: Any question answered in those future projects, even non-anon, will show up in that project as anonymous for the sake of decorum and protecting the identities of the askers. All flagrant discrimination will be ignored on the spot, as well as all questions written to share links.
Want to ask my fursona stuff, anywhere from her interests to her experiences? Now's your chance! Hey, what you ask may even turn up in Future Things revolving around Nell too. :3
Here's where you can do that. :3 https://retrospring.net/@Infinifennec
Let's see where this leads, if anywhere...
TERMS: Any question answered in those future projects, even non-anon, will show up in that project as anonymous for the sake of decorum and protecting the identities of the askers. All flagrant discrimination will be ignored on the spot, as well as all questions written to share links.
WOW!
Posted a year agoNot much to say this time, just wanna say thanks folks over the hugely positive responses over the new Nell ref. <3
I'm not here for social gains like I once was, this is all for fun and to give myself cool new challenges within this stuff and I had no idea how the differing way I was gonna explore and describe stuff with Nell now was going to go down but I feel really flattered and surprised by how well folks took to it so...thank you loads~
I'm not here for social gains like I once was, this is all for fun and to give myself cool new challenges within this stuff and I had no idea how the differing way I was gonna explore and describe stuff with Nell now was going to go down but I feel really flattered and surprised by how well folks took to it so...thank you loads~
New Nell Ref for Fat Fox Week (well, almost)!
Posted a year agoYep! I thought I'd make a journal about this because I'm itching to talk about this in lieu of realising that I may potentially not be able to finish this off before the day ends, given I initially wanted to finish this for "Fat Fox Week" but I've been awake a while so I can't guarentee it being done before I sleep...but then again, despite finding it a fun excuse to make more Nell stuff with the themed week going on, I've never been able to be on time for a "Fat Fox Week". I mean, who keeps coming up with these themed weeks and how rigidly does it matter anyway?
No matter, currently I've got to the stage where the actual "Nell part" of the ref is done (if not super-close to being done) but it's dawned on me that due to the way I draw characters now, thanks to brushing up finally on proportions better, that I'm drawing Nell just differently enough now that what used to be easy to express with what I had intended with Nell has kinda shifted somewhat.
You may of noticed that in that pic I made for a Discord server's "Yearbook" project that Nell doesn't quite have the same guargantian weight I drew her in past pics (a great example is the May 20th submission "Good Thing for Wide Angle Lenses", which while not perfect I was pretty happy with how I drew the fat). That was partly due to the rushed nature of making the pic, but also it was due to that being the first time I drew Nell in a way where it made more sense on how tall I'd draw her from the understructure level ('cause fennecs are short! Even while they're adults, they're shorties, makes sense)...and I'm now realising that having a character like that being that gigantically fat, like beyond "infinifat" levels (if you want a reminder of what's up with that term, check my previous journal: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10888851 ) is...surprisingly hard! Or it feels hard after not having to draw that many characters like that for a while.
Either way, I'd like people to temper their expectations with this ref. Maybe eventually, if I stick around that much more after a certain point, I'll make another ref when I've cracked how to draw characters of that stature who're that fat in a way that makes more sense again but for now? Uh...let's just say I'm going to quietly drop the idea of Nell having a specific weight number on default and I'm going to hope I can trust folk with their suspensions of disbelief when I make stuff later pertaining to the experiences of Nell being so beyond fat depending on the context.
Stuff I make with Nell from now on I want to have made with a more conciously fat-positive ethos, something I always intended but now want to explore more in a much more detailedly concious fashion. My intentions were to not compromise Nell's weight at all and I intended to try and have her weight akin to that "Wide Angle Lenses" pic but with the improved overall way of drawing a character's body structure to compliment...and I've gone over the linework over and over and over for a lot of today trying to figure that out and I hope at least that if nothing else, the way I draw Nell no matter what its like compared to past pics still brings the whole "point" of Nell, if she has one, across.
Nell has not slimmed down, nor would I consider her to ever do so...I'm trying to relearn drawing characters like Nell with her weight again so...constructive critique is appreciated but even with that in mind, know if Nell looks any smaller than Nell would typically be, it's on me and not her. xD If that makes sense.
I have lots of other ideas for Nell and indeed characters around and related to her but that stuff will come along at another time, I'd like to still get this new Nell ref out there however much I biffed the visual element of her weight. x3 Bare with me and uh, Please Understand, haha.
Have a nice weekend, folks! o/
No matter, currently I've got to the stage where the actual "Nell part" of the ref is done (if not super-close to being done) but it's dawned on me that due to the way I draw characters now, thanks to brushing up finally on proportions better, that I'm drawing Nell just differently enough now that what used to be easy to express with what I had intended with Nell has kinda shifted somewhat.
You may of noticed that in that pic I made for a Discord server's "Yearbook" project that Nell doesn't quite have the same guargantian weight I drew her in past pics (a great example is the May 20th submission "Good Thing for Wide Angle Lenses", which while not perfect I was pretty happy with how I drew the fat). That was partly due to the rushed nature of making the pic, but also it was due to that being the first time I drew Nell in a way where it made more sense on how tall I'd draw her from the understructure level ('cause fennecs are short! Even while they're adults, they're shorties, makes sense)...and I'm now realising that having a character like that being that gigantically fat, like beyond "infinifat" levels (if you want a reminder of what's up with that term, check my previous journal: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10888851 ) is...surprisingly hard! Or it feels hard after not having to draw that many characters like that for a while.
Either way, I'd like people to temper their expectations with this ref. Maybe eventually, if I stick around that much more after a certain point, I'll make another ref when I've cracked how to draw characters of that stature who're that fat in a way that makes more sense again but for now? Uh...let's just say I'm going to quietly drop the idea of Nell having a specific weight number on default and I'm going to hope I can trust folk with their suspensions of disbelief when I make stuff later pertaining to the experiences of Nell being so beyond fat depending on the context.
Stuff I make with Nell from now on I want to have made with a more conciously fat-positive ethos, something I always intended but now want to explore more in a much more detailedly concious fashion. My intentions were to not compromise Nell's weight at all and I intended to try and have her weight akin to that "Wide Angle Lenses" pic but with the improved overall way of drawing a character's body structure to compliment...and I've gone over the linework over and over and over for a lot of today trying to figure that out and I hope at least that if nothing else, the way I draw Nell no matter what its like compared to past pics still brings the whole "point" of Nell, if she has one, across.
Nell has not slimmed down, nor would I consider her to ever do so...I'm trying to relearn drawing characters like Nell with her weight again so...constructive critique is appreciated but even with that in mind, know if Nell looks any smaller than Nell would typically be, it's on me and not her. xD If that makes sense.
I have lots of other ideas for Nell and indeed characters around and related to her but that stuff will come along at another time, I'd like to still get this new Nell ref out there however much I biffed the visual element of her weight. x3 Bare with me and uh, Please Understand, haha.
Have a nice weekend, folks! o/
In Pursuit of Portraying Fat Acceptance Better...
Posted a year agoRecently, I've watched a documentary about fat activist Aubrey Gordon, her writings candidly talking about how society is monsterously biased against fat people while offering grounded ways we as a society can do better and her life during the time she gets a publishing deal for her first book.
Its name, like her formally anonymous internet persona, is "Your Fat Friend".
I'd liked to think that I did good by "fat acceptance", but that documentary taught me things about this that even after all these years in the fatfur community that I hardly had that much of a good idea on. Needless to say, I think its one of the most important documentaries out there right now and worth checking out when its avaliable where you are.
I bring this up because I'm finally planning on making good with doing new, original stuff with my 'sona soon and off the back of that and starting on Aubrey's book "What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat", I think it'd be a good idea to use this opportunity to re-evaluate how I portray Nell's day-to-day life, how much focus her condition should get (while taking extra care in ensuring it doesn't seem mocking or degrading) and how I present her generally as a character.
Not a lot of crucial surface things will change with her I don't think. She is still an immobile-fat (or "infinifat") fennec woman with a positive life outlook and some colourful, comforting pop-cultural interests. There will never be a canon version of Nell without her fatness. But that should be the point, I want it organically obvious that Nell is more than just her weight but Nell...IS Nell, y'know? She's always been fat, she's more than just her fat but she'll never not be fat and *that's okay*.
Whenever I make anything with Nell, I always wanted to make it seem like something that any actual Infinifat people could look at and find representation of. It's hard to guage because I don't know how many there are in this community who actually are that and I admit that Nell speaks for me only so much, as while I *am* fat IRL I'm on the smaller end of the fat size spectrum, but I always yearn for there to be positive stories and representation of much fatter people than what's set as the "new accepted limit" of sizes after the Powers that Be moved the goalposts in light of increasing calls for better body positive media. I hope after incorporating the things I'm learning from fat activist writers like Aubrey Gordon, I can be better with those intentions than I once was.
I'm thinking of fleshing out stuff regarding other characters around Nell's life too alongside all this, but the big priority is ensuring that I don't just maintain the facets of Nell that serve as alternatives in their own ways to a limitingly fatphobic media landscape and society, but improve them enough that actual Infinifat people could see themselves in Nell too and feel unjudgmental acceptance. Because Nell happens to be disabled. And happens to not be the healthiest. And DEFINITELY happens to be fatter than most...but she's herself and can't be changed. And I think that should be appreciated as valid rather than judged beyond simple surface gazes, personally.
So yeah, watch out for that stuff and I highly recommend Aubrey Gordon's writings *and* the "Your Fat Friend" doc. I also invite people who watch me who may care about fat activism/acceptance themselves to guide me where necessary on getting this stuff right too. :3
Take care for now, thanks for reading.
- Nell
Its name, like her formally anonymous internet persona, is "Your Fat Friend".
I'd liked to think that I did good by "fat acceptance", but that documentary taught me things about this that even after all these years in the fatfur community that I hardly had that much of a good idea on. Needless to say, I think its one of the most important documentaries out there right now and worth checking out when its avaliable where you are.
I bring this up because I'm finally planning on making good with doing new, original stuff with my 'sona soon and off the back of that and starting on Aubrey's book "What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat", I think it'd be a good idea to use this opportunity to re-evaluate how I portray Nell's day-to-day life, how much focus her condition should get (while taking extra care in ensuring it doesn't seem mocking or degrading) and how I present her generally as a character.
Not a lot of crucial surface things will change with her I don't think. She is still an immobile-fat (or "infinifat") fennec woman with a positive life outlook and some colourful, comforting pop-cultural interests. There will never be a canon version of Nell without her fatness. But that should be the point, I want it organically obvious that Nell is more than just her weight but Nell...IS Nell, y'know? She's always been fat, she's more than just her fat but she'll never not be fat and *that's okay*.
Whenever I make anything with Nell, I always wanted to make it seem like something that any actual Infinifat people could look at and find representation of. It's hard to guage because I don't know how many there are in this community who actually are that and I admit that Nell speaks for me only so much, as while I *am* fat IRL I'm on the smaller end of the fat size spectrum, but I always yearn for there to be positive stories and representation of much fatter people than what's set as the "new accepted limit" of sizes after the Powers that Be moved the goalposts in light of increasing calls for better body positive media. I hope after incorporating the things I'm learning from fat activist writers like Aubrey Gordon, I can be better with those intentions than I once was.
I'm thinking of fleshing out stuff regarding other characters around Nell's life too alongside all this, but the big priority is ensuring that I don't just maintain the facets of Nell that serve as alternatives in their own ways to a limitingly fatphobic media landscape and society, but improve them enough that actual Infinifat people could see themselves in Nell too and feel unjudgmental acceptance. Because Nell happens to be disabled. And happens to not be the healthiest. And DEFINITELY happens to be fatter than most...but she's herself and can't be changed. And I think that should be appreciated as valid rather than judged beyond simple surface gazes, personally.
So yeah, watch out for that stuff and I highly recommend Aubrey Gordon's writings *and* the "Your Fat Friend" doc. I also invite people who watch me who may care about fat activism/acceptance themselves to guide me where necessary on getting this stuff right too. :3
Take care for now, thanks for reading.
- Nell
General stupid question
Posted a year agoSo uh, if I was angling to have this year be my last officially-active hurrah with furry stuff before I double-down on prioritising other things...
...well, in that context, IF I suddenly had ideas for a couple of new OCs I'd like to figure out, uh...is that dumb? Should I make 'em? >.>;;
Just curious~
...well, in that context, IF I suddenly had ideas for a couple of new OCs I'd like to figure out, uh...is that dumb? Should I make 'em? >.>;;
Just curious~
OH heckie, time's going by faaaaast
Posted a year agoHey! You know how I teased I was gonna do a lot of stuff revolving around my 'sona, like, really deep dive into making more art of her, directly related characters and such?
Turns out the first quarter of this year has gone by really fast! Been able to do lots of really nice stuff outside AND within the community, heck one of those latter things're going to actually get ANOTHER OC of mine barring my 'sona created too!
But hey, if you're reading this and have any interest in this nonsense, thanks for sticking by and your patience. I have no fixed schedule nor am going to do anything out of pressure to appease anybody but myself, but I appreciate anybody and everybody who decides I'm still worth their time and I'd like to do more fatfur stuff this year before I go focus deeper onto other ambitions.
After Easter, I reckon I'll have more stuff put together and I'll get to the stuff I was alluding to, but otherwise I hope you all have a great Easter if you celebrate it or just a nice time in general. Hope everything's going as well for you as they reasonably can be. <3
- Nell
Turns out the first quarter of this year has gone by really fast! Been able to do lots of really nice stuff outside AND within the community, heck one of those latter things're going to actually get ANOTHER OC of mine barring my 'sona created too!
But hey, if you're reading this and have any interest in this nonsense, thanks for sticking by and your patience. I have no fixed schedule nor am going to do anything out of pressure to appease anybody but myself, but I appreciate anybody and everybody who decides I'm still worth their time and I'd like to do more fatfur stuff this year before I go focus deeper onto other ambitions.
After Easter, I reckon I'll have more stuff put together and I'll get to the stuff I was alluding to, but otherwise I hope you all have a great Easter if you celebrate it or just a nice time in general. Hope everything's going as well for you as they reasonably can be. <3
- Nell
Patreon and Obesity
Posted a year agoDidn't want to do many more vent journals on here, but this is affecting a giant amount of people I know who make a career over art in the community that's aligned with this kind of thing.
So...Patreon have amended their TOS to crack down on art that portrays fatness and obesity (likely bigger than certain points, because the "body wellness" industries don't actually care) as well as lifestylers who use Patreon as a source of income. If you'd like to read the entire statement, it's right here: https://tinyurl.com/ys95pwv6
I've been meaning to actually make some art that simplifies and makes more plain my stances on how the community's been with all this nonsense muddying the waters of what people can or can't do with fatness/obesity in a non-sexual context because of how certain really loud bad-faith havers are wired, even if they claim to be a part of the community that otherwise welcomes body-acceptance and fatness portrayed in things, but...well, if you've read previous journals I've made, this is the exact kind of thing I was trying to warn people would happen if this stuff continued without better moderation or debunking.
Now the policy makers in charge of ensuring their so-called favourite artists get paid for their harmless works are screwing them over because they're lead to believe that what they do is more harmful than it actually is, wether in terms of incorrectly attributing it to sexual explicity or more relevant to this...arributing it to that hidden discriminatory dog-whistle of "this promotes bad lifestyle choices, it's unhealthy".
The autonomy of what fat people should do with their bodies or want to do with their bodies should belong to them, irregardless of any judgment they may face.
Fat people exist completely outside of the gaze of sexuality and fetishism and should be respected as people first and foremost (I've dropped using terms like "kink" and "fetish" to describe what fat is to me given how loaded the terms have become and what they're associated with).
Fat itself is NOT SEXUAL and all types of people in all genders, races and ages can be fat and they will exist no matter what puritanical shrieking about your own version of reality suggests.
We have to let go of these tensions, these arguments, this...lack of a better word, discourse on what's right with people's handlings of non-sexual fat art and content as artists and creators vs. what's apparently wrong. The only people these puritanical crusades are protecting are those who want fat people to either change or die sooner.
The bullies are winning. Stop being on their side. If you actually support the artists in this community you enjoy the work of and care about, you'll have to drop these habits. Get off Twitter, stop letting bad-faith takes that hurt harmless people be normalised, don't be afraid to lose a "friend" or two because you're not another shrieker like them. Whatever it takes.
For decades while the capitalist world takes aim at fat people's sense of accepted autonomies, online communities like these have been safe havens. They have been eroding from bad-faithers scaring people into letting them lead their presence and now the capitalist world is starting to aim harder at these things by depriving those trying to encourage better by stripping them of their incomes. If you actually do care, you'll understand and if you have contributed, you'll do better from now on.
Please do better.
For more journals where I talk about this, see the links below this sentence. I can't bare to have to repeat myself more than I already have had to. Be excellent to each other, or at least try.
https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/9825991/
https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10312527/
- Nell
P.S. I still have plans with what I want to do with my presence here this year that I'd of done more with sooner if it weren't for being busy elsewhere but I really felt like it was necessary to comment on this.
So...Patreon have amended their TOS to crack down on art that portrays fatness and obesity (likely bigger than certain points, because the "body wellness" industries don't actually care) as well as lifestylers who use Patreon as a source of income. If you'd like to read the entire statement, it's right here: https://tinyurl.com/ys95pwv6
I've been meaning to actually make some art that simplifies and makes more plain my stances on how the community's been with all this nonsense muddying the waters of what people can or can't do with fatness/obesity in a non-sexual context because of how certain really loud bad-faith havers are wired, even if they claim to be a part of the community that otherwise welcomes body-acceptance and fatness portrayed in things, but...well, if you've read previous journals I've made, this is the exact kind of thing I was trying to warn people would happen if this stuff continued without better moderation or debunking.
Now the policy makers in charge of ensuring their so-called favourite artists get paid for their harmless works are screwing them over because they're lead to believe that what they do is more harmful than it actually is, wether in terms of incorrectly attributing it to sexual explicity or more relevant to this...arributing it to that hidden discriminatory dog-whistle of "this promotes bad lifestyle choices, it's unhealthy".
The autonomy of what fat people should do with their bodies or want to do with their bodies should belong to them, irregardless of any judgment they may face.
Fat people exist completely outside of the gaze of sexuality and fetishism and should be respected as people first and foremost (I've dropped using terms like "kink" and "fetish" to describe what fat is to me given how loaded the terms have become and what they're associated with).
Fat itself is NOT SEXUAL and all types of people in all genders, races and ages can be fat and they will exist no matter what puritanical shrieking about your own version of reality suggests.
We have to let go of these tensions, these arguments, this...lack of a better word, discourse on what's right with people's handlings of non-sexual fat art and content as artists and creators vs. what's apparently wrong. The only people these puritanical crusades are protecting are those who want fat people to either change or die sooner.
The bullies are winning. Stop being on their side. If you actually support the artists in this community you enjoy the work of and care about, you'll have to drop these habits. Get off Twitter, stop letting bad-faith takes that hurt harmless people be normalised, don't be afraid to lose a "friend" or two because you're not another shrieker like them. Whatever it takes.
For decades while the capitalist world takes aim at fat people's sense of accepted autonomies, online communities like these have been safe havens. They have been eroding from bad-faithers scaring people into letting them lead their presence and now the capitalist world is starting to aim harder at these things by depriving those trying to encourage better by stripping them of their incomes. If you actually do care, you'll understand and if you have contributed, you'll do better from now on.
Please do better.
For more journals where I talk about this, see the links below this sentence. I can't bare to have to repeat myself more than I already have had to. Be excellent to each other, or at least try.
https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/9825991/
https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10312527/
- Nell
P.S. I still have plans with what I want to do with my presence here this year that I'd of done more with sooner if it weren't for being busy elsewhere but I really felt like it was necessary to comment on this.
A Soft Return (Harrharr)
Posted 2 years agoHi, folks! Hope your New Year is going as well as it can be so far. :3
So, generally I still stand by a lot of what I've said in the last bunch of times I made journals here and I say all the stuff with cautious optimism given the implications of some FA rule-changes and what that means for a loud sub-section of the community turning more unnecessarily hurtful to those who aren't actually doing or promoting harm, but...yes, I think I'm going to return to FA after all. Activity may be spotty and there's no guarentee how long I'll be here doing what I plan to, which will be made clearer soon into this journal, but I feel like my enthusiasm and enjoyment of dabbling in here as a nice to-the-side comfort hobby is back to being strong enough that I might as well return after all.
So, what spurred this on after everything else? Well, first of all, its been 7 months since the "Sunset" journal regarding the FA policy changes and aside from seeing some people I cared about either entirely vanish out of exhaustion or entirely change up how they expressed themselves to compromise for people who didn't like them in the first place, it actually hasn't been as destructive to the people I was worried it'd needlessly hurt as I thought it'd be.
Secondly, and most helpfully to me, I mean...this is nothing I demanded or asked for but for the last half-year or more, from both longtime friends and those I've ended up meeting for the first time...I've had an almost unnecessarily huge amount of support and praise for my 'sona Nell, the stuff I've done with her and my general philosophy guiding how I like to express and explore her. I've been complimented for how I try and have Nell seem like a dimensional person with a personality and feelings that utilise her hyperobese weight as less of an object that purely defines her as a character and more of a part of who she is and a part of her own life experiences, rather than something she has despite of her personality and feelings.
I can only talk about how well I do on this stuff so much, that's for others to decide, but I feel very vindicated that these very specific things I really do try with Nell as a character are not only acknowledged and beloved by people even while I was more semi-public and to-myself, but that I've actually deeply inspired some people. The person I've known the longest in this community, for example, embraces hyperobesity and "blob"-ishness incredibly wonderfully with charming and dynamic OCs and some very wonderful WG-centric writing. And apparently, it was me through what I've done with Nell up to now that made them see the appeal in all that and that the way I did that taught them how that can be expressed creatively without it boiling purely down to "they big" and nothing else.
I'm beyond fortunate and flattered by all this and if you're reading this and were part of those who decided that not only was I worth your time but worth enough somehow for all this too? Thank you so much. You've helped revitalise what I enjoy from being here and exploring this stuff. You all helped me finally come out of the overwhelming malaise and exhaustion I was feeling and I genuinely wish there was so much more I could do to return the favour as I cannot really emphasize just how helpful you've all been and how lucky I am to know you all, no matter how long for after now.
So with all that said, it re-centered my focus back onto Nell as a fursona and a character to metaphorically bounce stuff off of. And the funny thing is, even with everything I've tried with her as a character before and what I've heard in feedback...the actual art side of what I do with Nell, the actual drawings I've made of her that I feel comfortable enough to share online? They...don't actually reflect these things I've expressed regarding her outside of the art AS much as I'd wish I could admit. So I guess its high-time I fixed that, eh?
So, that's the shape of what's to come here. For the foreseeable future, with no fixed times of when I post and interact with the community, I will be doubling-down on art revolving around Nell when I post things on here. I will do my best to explore her better as a character in art and do justice by Nell in exploring her personality, philosophies, experiences and interests. Her being hyperobese and immobile will always be there, Nell is not Nell without that, but I wanna have it reflected in art too that she isn't JUST her weight. Her weight affects her whole life but her whole life isn't *just* her weight. Beyond being self-expression for me and my sense of comfort and validity with hyperobesity as a concept, I want Nell to be worthy and positive representation even as a fictional character of the experience of being hyperobese and how no matter how much more beyond a bigger person is from them being "curvy" that they're still valid and valued as a person. And that being beyond a certain weight does not invalidate the person who's that, irregardless of medical contexts.
So yeah, look forward to a whole lot more Nell from now on! She will be the primary focus of my time spent here and what I do creatively with her will drive how I express. I have other OCs and I wouldn't say I'll never make another OC for this type of stuff again as I have other, somewhat neglected ideas for that sorta thing but this is certainly The Nell Show. And any giftart I do for others will be private and purely to those I already know and trust right now.
The fatfur community isn't as big a focus to me as it was. Outside of it, there are things I'm working towards that I'm very excited about, real dream-chasing kind of projects, so that and my own management of my wellbeing all come before this. However, for as long as I can practically still contribute here, I'm going to focus back on things that I know I don't have to compromise in the pursuit of creative expression and validation, while knowing that there's enough people out there already that I know that for them this'll all be a net-positive to them too, seeing me double-down on something that inspires them also to make wonderful things, dynamic expressions of the experiences of the hyperobese that are otherwise met outside of communities like this with unnecessary judgmentality and internal/external scorn.
Nothing from what I've posted before now will be deleted, or at least I'm not going to, I have no regrets on what I've posted on here beforehand as I insist that I've always posted stuff that's harmless to people beyond their own personal preferences of what they see represented of the experiences of being fatter. But I feel safe in knowing that I don't have to compromise over Nell, "current-day" Nell, so I'm back to feeling fully comfortable with creating and expressing with her again.
Phew, alright I think that covers everything. As ever, I'm a little too good with rambling and over-explaining so excuse me there. X3 But there we go, that's what I'll be doing here from now on and I'm looking forward to having all of this materialise for as long as I can still openly creatively express with Nell going forward. :3
Thanks for reading and for your continued support and whatever happens this year, make it your's.
With love, Nell. <3
So, generally I still stand by a lot of what I've said in the last bunch of times I made journals here and I say all the stuff with cautious optimism given the implications of some FA rule-changes and what that means for a loud sub-section of the community turning more unnecessarily hurtful to those who aren't actually doing or promoting harm, but...yes, I think I'm going to return to FA after all. Activity may be spotty and there's no guarentee how long I'll be here doing what I plan to, which will be made clearer soon into this journal, but I feel like my enthusiasm and enjoyment of dabbling in here as a nice to-the-side comfort hobby is back to being strong enough that I might as well return after all.
So, what spurred this on after everything else? Well, first of all, its been 7 months since the "Sunset" journal regarding the FA policy changes and aside from seeing some people I cared about either entirely vanish out of exhaustion or entirely change up how they expressed themselves to compromise for people who didn't like them in the first place, it actually hasn't been as destructive to the people I was worried it'd needlessly hurt as I thought it'd be.
Secondly, and most helpfully to me, I mean...this is nothing I demanded or asked for but for the last half-year or more, from both longtime friends and those I've ended up meeting for the first time...I've had an almost unnecessarily huge amount of support and praise for my 'sona Nell, the stuff I've done with her and my general philosophy guiding how I like to express and explore her. I've been complimented for how I try and have Nell seem like a dimensional person with a personality and feelings that utilise her hyperobese weight as less of an object that purely defines her as a character and more of a part of who she is and a part of her own life experiences, rather than something she has despite of her personality and feelings.
I can only talk about how well I do on this stuff so much, that's for others to decide, but I feel very vindicated that these very specific things I really do try with Nell as a character are not only acknowledged and beloved by people even while I was more semi-public and to-myself, but that I've actually deeply inspired some people. The person I've known the longest in this community, for example, embraces hyperobesity and "blob"-ishness incredibly wonderfully with charming and dynamic OCs and some very wonderful WG-centric writing. And apparently, it was me through what I've done with Nell up to now that made them see the appeal in all that and that the way I did that taught them how that can be expressed creatively without it boiling purely down to "they big" and nothing else.
I'm beyond fortunate and flattered by all this and if you're reading this and were part of those who decided that not only was I worth your time but worth enough somehow for all this too? Thank you so much. You've helped revitalise what I enjoy from being here and exploring this stuff. You all helped me finally come out of the overwhelming malaise and exhaustion I was feeling and I genuinely wish there was so much more I could do to return the favour as I cannot really emphasize just how helpful you've all been and how lucky I am to know you all, no matter how long for after now.
So with all that said, it re-centered my focus back onto Nell as a fursona and a character to metaphorically bounce stuff off of. And the funny thing is, even with everything I've tried with her as a character before and what I've heard in feedback...the actual art side of what I do with Nell, the actual drawings I've made of her that I feel comfortable enough to share online? They...don't actually reflect these things I've expressed regarding her outside of the art AS much as I'd wish I could admit. So I guess its high-time I fixed that, eh?
So, that's the shape of what's to come here. For the foreseeable future, with no fixed times of when I post and interact with the community, I will be doubling-down on art revolving around Nell when I post things on here. I will do my best to explore her better as a character in art and do justice by Nell in exploring her personality, philosophies, experiences and interests. Her being hyperobese and immobile will always be there, Nell is not Nell without that, but I wanna have it reflected in art too that she isn't JUST her weight. Her weight affects her whole life but her whole life isn't *just* her weight. Beyond being self-expression for me and my sense of comfort and validity with hyperobesity as a concept, I want Nell to be worthy and positive representation even as a fictional character of the experience of being hyperobese and how no matter how much more beyond a bigger person is from them being "curvy" that they're still valid and valued as a person. And that being beyond a certain weight does not invalidate the person who's that, irregardless of medical contexts.
So yeah, look forward to a whole lot more Nell from now on! She will be the primary focus of my time spent here and what I do creatively with her will drive how I express. I have other OCs and I wouldn't say I'll never make another OC for this type of stuff again as I have other, somewhat neglected ideas for that sorta thing but this is certainly The Nell Show. And any giftart I do for others will be private and purely to those I already know and trust right now.
The fatfur community isn't as big a focus to me as it was. Outside of it, there are things I'm working towards that I'm very excited about, real dream-chasing kind of projects, so that and my own management of my wellbeing all come before this. However, for as long as I can practically still contribute here, I'm going to focus back on things that I know I don't have to compromise in the pursuit of creative expression and validation, while knowing that there's enough people out there already that I know that for them this'll all be a net-positive to them too, seeing me double-down on something that inspires them also to make wonderful things, dynamic expressions of the experiences of the hyperobese that are otherwise met outside of communities like this with unnecessary judgmentality and internal/external scorn.
Nothing from what I've posted before now will be deleted, or at least I'm not going to, I have no regrets on what I've posted on here beforehand as I insist that I've always posted stuff that's harmless to people beyond their own personal preferences of what they see represented of the experiences of being fatter. But I feel safe in knowing that I don't have to compromise over Nell, "current-day" Nell, so I'm back to feeling fully comfortable with creating and expressing with her again.
Phew, alright I think that covers everything. As ever, I'm a little too good with rambling and over-explaining so excuse me there. X3 But there we go, that's what I'll be doing here from now on and I'm looking forward to having all of this materialise for as long as I can still openly creatively express with Nell going forward. :3
Thanks for reading and for your continued support and whatever happens this year, make it your's.
With love, Nell. <3
Places to Find Me Social-Media-Wise
Posted 2 years agoI just redeemed a Bluesky invite and I'm the most close-knit with people on this side of the net so, while many places need better attention from me, then in order of use (barring Bluesky, which I just joined):
BlueSky = nellthompson.bsky.social
Mastodon = @dorksandfats@mastodon.social
Cohost = Cohost.org/NellThompson
Tumblr = Tumblr.com/whatactuallyeven-blog
(Nellthompson-fennec is my follower account)
I've largely ditched "Twitter" since October last year with no intentions to reuse beyond checking it specifically to check in on holdouts, but there we go. :O
No schedule or promises on when I'll post on these platforms, but I'll certainly give BlueSky a big ol' go when I'm next on my computer. Mastodon's the one I'm most comfy using atm, though.
See you all around. o/
BlueSky = nellthompson.bsky.social
Mastodon = @dorksandfats@mastodon.social
Cohost = Cohost.org/NellThompson
Tumblr = Tumblr.com/whatactuallyeven-blog
(Nellthompson-fennec is my follower account)
I've largely ditched "Twitter" since October last year with no intentions to reuse beyond checking it specifically to check in on holdouts, but there we go. :O
No schedule or promises on when I'll post on these platforms, but I'll certainly give BlueSky a big ol' go when I'm next on my computer. Mastodon's the one I'm most comfy using atm, though.
See you all around. o/
GoFundMe for Jirris/Laurel's family
Posted 2 years agoI'm still inactive on FA, as per what I wrote last month, but I...god, I can't bear to imagine how incredibly awful this kind of loss is. Any human life lost is terrible, but this is clearly someone who mean't so much to so many people. Let alone was taken so suddenly that a family no longer has a mother, just as many of her friends have lost a friend and relatives have lost a relative. So I needed to make a journal to help the GoFundMe get extra traction.
On Sunday, 25th June 2023,
jirris (Laurel) lost their partner 
moredena in a sudden car crash. They wrote a journal about this, which I will link below the GoFundMe page.
The GoFundMe was set up by a close friend of the two and it helps cover funeral costs, housing costs from a new house perchase they made only a month ago and crucially, support for Laurel and their son (as mentioned in the description, additional funds will go to the son).
The most striking thing out of what I remember about whenever me and Laurel used to bump into each other in Skype groups and Discord servers from long ago is how safe and happy they felt with their partner and how deeply they cared about them and beyond happy about the family life they shared with her. Hearing how much of a positive force she was for Laurel and how much of a positive person she was to so many people in the furry community and outside of it, something that's extra-evident now with people saying their goodbyes and condolences right now to Laurel, the loss seems all the more unbearable.
Please consider donating to the GoFundMe and spread the word: https://www.gofundme.com/f/Jenn-P-L.....customer&utm_term=undefined&mibextid=Zxz2cZ
Laurel's own words about this situation: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10589023/
I only wanted to share this so others can donate to the GFM, Laurel doesn't have to see this journal themselves but if they end up doing...Laurel, you have my deepest condolences. I hope one extra person sharing the GFM to more people helps just that little bit more, you and your family deserve the support. Take the very best of care right now.
- Nell
On Sunday, 25th June 2023,
jirris (Laurel) lost their partner 
moredena in a sudden car crash. They wrote a journal about this, which I will link below the GoFundMe page.The GoFundMe was set up by a close friend of the two and it helps cover funeral costs, housing costs from a new house perchase they made only a month ago and crucially, support for Laurel and their son (as mentioned in the description, additional funds will go to the son).
The most striking thing out of what I remember about whenever me and Laurel used to bump into each other in Skype groups and Discord servers from long ago is how safe and happy they felt with their partner and how deeply they cared about them and beyond happy about the family life they shared with her. Hearing how much of a positive force she was for Laurel and how much of a positive person she was to so many people in the furry community and outside of it, something that's extra-evident now with people saying their goodbyes and condolences right now to Laurel, the loss seems all the more unbearable.
Please consider donating to the GoFundMe and spread the word: https://www.gofundme.com/f/Jenn-P-L.....customer&u
Laurel's own words about this situation: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10589023/
I only wanted to share this so others can donate to the GFM, Laurel doesn't have to see this journal themselves but if they end up doing...Laurel, you have my deepest condolences. I hope one extra person sharing the GFM to more people helps just that little bit more, you and your family deserve the support. Take the very best of care right now.
- Nell
Sunset (RE: Recent Policy Complications)
Posted 2 years agoTW: At one point, I confess over when I was in danger in the community as a minor. I will not go too in-depth but I feel it needs to be mentioned to drive points home.
So...yeah, the rise in "puritanical" social pressures and moral panics over how sexual expressional art is that's actually non-sexual has hit the places that are in charge of policy-making in how giant communities are run.
And once again, unfortunately, this is yet again one of those cases where the easy, lazy options are the ones chosen rather than the ones that actually work to help protect vunerable people in the community and minors in the community while not hurting actual consenting adults' spaces for expressing explicit material of themselves with each other and resorting to a vicious mob mentality that can turn on a dime.
Nobody who crucially has to do the deep community work in looking out for vunerable members of the community are doing it. It's still all the quick and easy solutions.
To hell if it means people who aren't predators and have zero interest in hurting anyone (many aren't even interested in sexuality at all) get to be lumped in and judged as if they are.
To hell if it means the community continues to hurt each other over miscommunication and thinkless expression policing, turning a space of self-expression into something closer to a hate website than too little are willing to admit.
I've been in this fandom since the end of 2005. At around 14, I admit that (especially given the climate of 2000's fandom) I likely should've started being a part of it later than I did because of how underdeveloped my own social skills were but it was still a platform I clung to in a world that was judgemental of LGBT+, scorchingly fatphobic and underdeveloped in its understanding of neurodiversity, while I was isolated from most natural real-world social opportunities due to home-schooling. Eventually, I let myself into situations that were dangerous. That while usually my own fault still counts objectively as abuse towards myself from others, as I wasn't 18 yet. It had nothing to do with me seeing any art of characters who were implied to be kids as obese, even if I was definitely making fatfur art at the time. So, what lead me to doing that stuff and letting myself get in situations that I shouldn't of and would never encourage under-18's to do?
Pressure. Not even directly from anybody, barring one or two people, but the general "feeling" of what I got out of the communities at the time. Even though I met some of the best people I've had the pleasure of with some I'm lucky and too fortunate to still have as friends (the person I've known the longest's the same age as me), I still had nobody to really guide me or look out for me in terms of someone trustworthy and good at community management to tell me that it was okay to be myself and not necessary to do things I wasn't ready for to "gel in better" with others socially. That crucial community work by older members was either an afterthought back then, or at worst, a dismissive joke.
The point of me bringing this up is this...back then, too many people didn't care that some people who weren't 18 or over would find the fandom, use it as a self-expressional and comforting place in their lives and then start...well...seeing how much more popular and celebrated explicitly sexual artists and users were vs. those who either didn't relate to sex or couldn't/shouldn't express like that. Being ignorant and self-serving put many people like me in potential danger because my existence being myself I internalised as inconvienient at best and at worst, villified.
In one sense, I think it's great the community is finally acknowledging past habits and in theory, trying to make things better. BUT...the problem right now is that the solutions are just the other extreme of the problem, which ignores the necessary and difficult work in managing communities, communicating and looking out for others involved in properly protecting vunerable people from abuse and instead goes for a "target and judge everyone and deal with the mess later" tactic where people can muddy what is or isn't sexual (fat in itself is NOT, but genitalia and direct sexual actions are) with the excuse that it "weeds out" potential problem actors. Because it's faster. Because it requires as much effort as mud-slinging and yelling surface mantras. It's a pump-and-dump approach to something that should take considerate time and effort and the negatives of it far outweigh the supposed positives.
When was the last time anyone actually put effort into discussing online safety tips for minors in all of this? I bet the answer is less than once as I've still not seen anyone promote that. Which proves my point...it's not really about protection, it's about surface projection. Actual minors aren't really being protected, but a lot of innocent, non-sexual people are villified and bullied to hell and back now over muddled interpretations of what counts as """sexual""" or not.
I've seen people being told they're being too sexual for finding comfort in portraying themselves as fatter in a positive light...despite the fact they're asexual. Even asexuals are being puritan-splained about being asexual because of this and its hurting them. This is not a case of "cancel culture" being a thing, its abuse and bullying each other on the excuse that maybe one of these ducks could magically reveal themselves to be geese.
*sigh* I mean...this journal was going to sum this up before explaining how I'm conducting myself now and places to find me, but I just...am so fed up of all of this shit that's been going on for 2+ years. How this wave of surface-"""wholesomeness""" aiming for and hurting the wrong people over and over isn't only going unchallenged, but has reached places of admin. This is only going to get worse before any of this gets better, if the right people will even let that happen.
But NOW I've got that out-of-the-way, here's the jist of what I'm doing in the community now and that's...well...no, I'm not "leaving". I'll still be around. But I will no longer use FA outside of lurking for as long as this policy remains this wide open on its interpretations of what kind of characters can be portrayed and how, wether they're entirely non-sexual portrayals of not-adult characters or even just characters looked at as problematic even if adults due to height and proportions (uh...short adults exist, do they know that?).
I'm 31 and had been beaten down by too many things in my own experience in the community for things outside of this garbage for long enough that this adding to it's just...well at this point, exhausted isn't the right word anymore. I was exhausted soon after this movement started and I'm very, very exhausted now. I've not felt safe or like "myself" in the public-facing side of the community for years and my improvements bouncing back from things that happened to me have been negated hugely with this having to deal with too. I initially was willing to fight this with everything I could, but the reality is life's too short. Not only do I want to move onto other facets of creativity now instead and focus on those, but I kinda feel like I need to.
If keeping sexual actions and genitalia out of self-expressional art I make and post still gets ire from the right persistantly loud, pressured-friend-circle backed problem actors enough because they moved what should be a clean-cut and obvious line not to cross to be past the "no-no" side and therefore paint me as something I'm not for clout, what's the point?
I'm still active in a semi-public fashion on Telegram and Discord and will continue to be here and there.
I also have a Co-Host but I'm still unsure how free of this...shit that place is in actuality as I've had to block a lot of people I worry may be part of the puritanical sides of this.
And well...the most public-facing thing I do in the fandom now is VRChat. Actually being around people rather than communicating in text feels way more natural and less intimidating now vs. seeing art they do or seeing their comments, then checking their social media for "signs" on if they're fine or not. I'm even attending Furality Sylva next week so...DM me if you want my VRChat, Telegram OR Discord and I may oblige.
In conclusion, well...yeah. This is not the first time I've talked about this. I've done a few other journals covering these things, though here's the more crucial couple:
https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/9825991/
https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10417975/
I want the community to finally let go of these social media-fuelled tendancies that started 2+ years ago and decide to work together in a more understanding and less judgemental way on how we can make this stuff safer for any vunerable members or minors who fall into it while keeping the explicit corners both inaccessible to minors *and* yet not so inaccessible that its a compromise to the actual consenting adults. There should be more trustworthy people in admin out there willing to make the time and effort to look out for the communities within and looking out for the vunerable on a person-by-person basis to ensure they're safe from harm. I'm sure the right mediums to make this all work are there.
But it needs time and effort. Just because a method is faster and more convienient doesn't make it right. Too many people who're harmless have been very badly hurt, some have had their lives entirely ruined over so little. Sure, better late than never, but the community should be better with understanding that sometimes, the solution takes time, work and energy. All this I'm sure some people can handle. So...those who can and fill the criteria, can you start? Thanks.
Take care.
- Nell
So...yeah, the rise in "puritanical" social pressures and moral panics over how sexual expressional art is that's actually non-sexual has hit the places that are in charge of policy-making in how giant communities are run.
And once again, unfortunately, this is yet again one of those cases where the easy, lazy options are the ones chosen rather than the ones that actually work to help protect vunerable people in the community and minors in the community while not hurting actual consenting adults' spaces for expressing explicit material of themselves with each other and resorting to a vicious mob mentality that can turn on a dime.
Nobody who crucially has to do the deep community work in looking out for vunerable members of the community are doing it. It's still all the quick and easy solutions.
To hell if it means people who aren't predators and have zero interest in hurting anyone (many aren't even interested in sexuality at all) get to be lumped in and judged as if they are.
To hell if it means the community continues to hurt each other over miscommunication and thinkless expression policing, turning a space of self-expression into something closer to a hate website than too little are willing to admit.
I've been in this fandom since the end of 2005. At around 14, I admit that (especially given the climate of 2000's fandom) I likely should've started being a part of it later than I did because of how underdeveloped my own social skills were but it was still a platform I clung to in a world that was judgemental of LGBT+, scorchingly fatphobic and underdeveloped in its understanding of neurodiversity, while I was isolated from most natural real-world social opportunities due to home-schooling. Eventually, I let myself into situations that were dangerous. That while usually my own fault still counts objectively as abuse towards myself from others, as I wasn't 18 yet. It had nothing to do with me seeing any art of characters who were implied to be kids as obese, even if I was definitely making fatfur art at the time. So, what lead me to doing that stuff and letting myself get in situations that I shouldn't of and would never encourage under-18's to do?
Pressure. Not even directly from anybody, barring one or two people, but the general "feeling" of what I got out of the communities at the time. Even though I met some of the best people I've had the pleasure of with some I'm lucky and too fortunate to still have as friends (the person I've known the longest's the same age as me), I still had nobody to really guide me or look out for me in terms of someone trustworthy and good at community management to tell me that it was okay to be myself and not necessary to do things I wasn't ready for to "gel in better" with others socially. That crucial community work by older members was either an afterthought back then, or at worst, a dismissive joke.
The point of me bringing this up is this...back then, too many people didn't care that some people who weren't 18 or over would find the fandom, use it as a self-expressional and comforting place in their lives and then start...well...seeing how much more popular and celebrated explicitly sexual artists and users were vs. those who either didn't relate to sex or couldn't/shouldn't express like that. Being ignorant and self-serving put many people like me in potential danger because my existence being myself I internalised as inconvienient at best and at worst, villified.
In one sense, I think it's great the community is finally acknowledging past habits and in theory, trying to make things better. BUT...the problem right now is that the solutions are just the other extreme of the problem, which ignores the necessary and difficult work in managing communities, communicating and looking out for others involved in properly protecting vunerable people from abuse and instead goes for a "target and judge everyone and deal with the mess later" tactic where people can muddy what is or isn't sexual (fat in itself is NOT, but genitalia and direct sexual actions are) with the excuse that it "weeds out" potential problem actors. Because it's faster. Because it requires as much effort as mud-slinging and yelling surface mantras. It's a pump-and-dump approach to something that should take considerate time and effort and the negatives of it far outweigh the supposed positives.
When was the last time anyone actually put effort into discussing online safety tips for minors in all of this? I bet the answer is less than once as I've still not seen anyone promote that. Which proves my point...it's not really about protection, it's about surface projection. Actual minors aren't really being protected, but a lot of innocent, non-sexual people are villified and bullied to hell and back now over muddled interpretations of what counts as """sexual""" or not.
I've seen people being told they're being too sexual for finding comfort in portraying themselves as fatter in a positive light...despite the fact they're asexual. Even asexuals are being puritan-splained about being asexual because of this and its hurting them. This is not a case of "cancel culture" being a thing, its abuse and bullying each other on the excuse that maybe one of these ducks could magically reveal themselves to be geese.
*sigh* I mean...this journal was going to sum this up before explaining how I'm conducting myself now and places to find me, but I just...am so fed up of all of this shit that's been going on for 2+ years. How this wave of surface-"""wholesomeness""" aiming for and hurting the wrong people over and over isn't only going unchallenged, but has reached places of admin. This is only going to get worse before any of this gets better, if the right people will even let that happen.
But NOW I've got that out-of-the-way, here's the jist of what I'm doing in the community now and that's...well...no, I'm not "leaving". I'll still be around. But I will no longer use FA outside of lurking for as long as this policy remains this wide open on its interpretations of what kind of characters can be portrayed and how, wether they're entirely non-sexual portrayals of not-adult characters or even just characters looked at as problematic even if adults due to height and proportions (uh...short adults exist, do they know that?).
I'm 31 and had been beaten down by too many things in my own experience in the community for things outside of this garbage for long enough that this adding to it's just...well at this point, exhausted isn't the right word anymore. I was exhausted soon after this movement started and I'm very, very exhausted now. I've not felt safe or like "myself" in the public-facing side of the community for years and my improvements bouncing back from things that happened to me have been negated hugely with this having to deal with too. I initially was willing to fight this with everything I could, but the reality is life's too short. Not only do I want to move onto other facets of creativity now instead and focus on those, but I kinda feel like I need to.
If keeping sexual actions and genitalia out of self-expressional art I make and post still gets ire from the right persistantly loud, pressured-friend-circle backed problem actors enough because they moved what should be a clean-cut and obvious line not to cross to be past the "no-no" side and therefore paint me as something I'm not for clout, what's the point?
I'm still active in a semi-public fashion on Telegram and Discord and will continue to be here and there.
I also have a Co-Host but I'm still unsure how free of this...shit that place is in actuality as I've had to block a lot of people I worry may be part of the puritanical sides of this.
And well...the most public-facing thing I do in the fandom now is VRChat. Actually being around people rather than communicating in text feels way more natural and less intimidating now vs. seeing art they do or seeing their comments, then checking their social media for "signs" on if they're fine or not. I'm even attending Furality Sylva next week so...DM me if you want my VRChat, Telegram OR Discord and I may oblige.
In conclusion, well...yeah. This is not the first time I've talked about this. I've done a few other journals covering these things, though here's the more crucial couple:
https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/9825991/
https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10417975/
I want the community to finally let go of these social media-fuelled tendancies that started 2+ years ago and decide to work together in a more understanding and less judgemental way on how we can make this stuff safer for any vunerable members or minors who fall into it while keeping the explicit corners both inaccessible to minors *and* yet not so inaccessible that its a compromise to the actual consenting adults. There should be more trustworthy people in admin out there willing to make the time and effort to look out for the communities within and looking out for the vunerable on a person-by-person basis to ensure they're safe from harm. I'm sure the right mediums to make this all work are there.
But it needs time and effort. Just because a method is faster and more convienient doesn't make it right. Too many people who're harmless have been very badly hurt, some have had their lives entirely ruined over so little. Sure, better late than never, but the community should be better with understanding that sometimes, the solution takes time, work and energy. All this I'm sure some people can handle. So...those who can and fill the criteria, can you start? Thanks.
Take care.
- Nell
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone!
Posted 3 years agoTake care. Just wanted to say this real quick before I head off. <3
Will talk more after Christmas, enjoy yourselves.
Will talk more after Christmas, enjoy yourselves.
Putting my foot down
Posted 3 years agoGonna do a more comprehensive journal later but for now, here's some words that I previously shared on Co-Host that I think would be important to flag here too. By watching and following my content, you should agree to understand my thoughts on this and accept them. If not, feel free to not bother watching/following me in the first place. But yeah, here we go...
...I DO NOT want people to lump any of my fat-representing art or how I conduct myself here to catagories such as "kink" or "fetish".
Here's why:
1) I believe it boils down everything I make like that purely into the context of it being for sexual gratification despite being a purely SFW (as in, zero sexual activities or visible shows of genitalia) person in terms of fat-related art I'd make and openly post online.
2) BECAUSE of such terms and catagories lumping everything to being interpreted as being only worth viewing via a sexual-leaning gaze, it limits the kind of fat-positive representations and ideas I get to create and explore as viewing something purely through the gaze of sexuality entirely throws away a lot of ideas that reasonably cannot be mentioned in the same breath as sexuality.
3) I believe exclusively lumping fat-positive work as purely so-called "kink"/"fetish" work objectifies the universal voices of real fat people who exist in the world completely outside of certain communities' gazes. And...
4) Not enough people, certainly not on other social networks, want to have grounded conversations where there's room to understand and empathise with people who want to portray fat-positive works and representations that're entirely devoid of sexuality when they're obsessed with the limiting, destructive and objectifying view that the only fat-positive work that's of any non-contentious value are those built entirely for sexual gratification, even if the works have nothing to do with sexuality.
I will never make standard content representing fatness with no sexual content Mature-rated, no matter how big the character portrayed is, unless there's either more intense portrayals of medical problems or more intense portrayals of slob and even then, they're merely there so people who're squicked by that stuff can avoid it rather than signaling that the art is as adult-only-warning worthy as literal pornography.
For actual pornography (genitalia at least and definitely directly sexual interactions) posted here, as ever, I think it's good to use the Adults-only content ratings and signaling very clearly that the work should only be viewed by people aged 18+. But I'm very adamant on ensuring that kind of miscommunication and toxicity that's hurt nuanced conversation on this not stop me from expressing myself in the way that I'd want to, as I know what I make isn't just non-pornographic but poses no harm to vunerable people.
If this kind of take and my stance on this bothers you, you can unfollow me or block me. People's own fragile, intense and toxic views that hurt representation of fat people in positive lights aren't something I'm interested in catering to, nor do I want to pretend I'd want to ever again if I did.
But at the very least, please...treat people with respect if you disagree with something they feel that doesn't hurt vunerable people. When it DOES hurt vunerable people in a direct and deep way, that's another matter, but we cannot pretend we're being kind and empathetic people while this toxicity that hurt so many over bad-faith uses of loaded terminology continues like it does. It's not protecting vunerable people, it's only hurting people who aren't even doing anything wrong.
TL;DR: Don't call the stuff I make or share "kink" or "fetish" content. I'm big on fat-positivity but boiling it just down to those terms limits creativity and harmless representation. And if you don't like that I feel that way, well...fuck off.
...I DO NOT want people to lump any of my fat-representing art or how I conduct myself here to catagories such as "kink" or "fetish".
Here's why:
1) I believe it boils down everything I make like that purely into the context of it being for sexual gratification despite being a purely SFW (as in, zero sexual activities or visible shows of genitalia) person in terms of fat-related art I'd make and openly post online.
2) BECAUSE of such terms and catagories lumping everything to being interpreted as being only worth viewing via a sexual-leaning gaze, it limits the kind of fat-positive representations and ideas I get to create and explore as viewing something purely through the gaze of sexuality entirely throws away a lot of ideas that reasonably cannot be mentioned in the same breath as sexuality.
3) I believe exclusively lumping fat-positive work as purely so-called "kink"/"fetish" work objectifies the universal voices of real fat people who exist in the world completely outside of certain communities' gazes. And...
4) Not enough people, certainly not on other social networks, want to have grounded conversations where there's room to understand and empathise with people who want to portray fat-positive works and representations that're entirely devoid of sexuality when they're obsessed with the limiting, destructive and objectifying view that the only fat-positive work that's of any non-contentious value are those built entirely for sexual gratification, even if the works have nothing to do with sexuality.
I will never make standard content representing fatness with no sexual content Mature-rated, no matter how big the character portrayed is, unless there's either more intense portrayals of medical problems or more intense portrayals of slob and even then, they're merely there so people who're squicked by that stuff can avoid it rather than signaling that the art is as adult-only-warning worthy as literal pornography.
For actual pornography (genitalia at least and definitely directly sexual interactions) posted here, as ever, I think it's good to use the Adults-only content ratings and signaling very clearly that the work should only be viewed by people aged 18+. But I'm very adamant on ensuring that kind of miscommunication and toxicity that's hurt nuanced conversation on this not stop me from expressing myself in the way that I'd want to, as I know what I make isn't just non-pornographic but poses no harm to vunerable people.
If this kind of take and my stance on this bothers you, you can unfollow me or block me. People's own fragile, intense and toxic views that hurt representation of fat people in positive lights aren't something I'm interested in catering to, nor do I want to pretend I'd want to ever again if I did.
But at the very least, please...treat people with respect if you disagree with something they feel that doesn't hurt vunerable people. When it DOES hurt vunerable people in a direct and deep way, that's another matter, but we cannot pretend we're being kind and empathetic people while this toxicity that hurt so many over bad-faith uses of loaded terminology continues like it does. It's not protecting vunerable people, it's only hurting people who aren't even doing anything wrong.
TL;DR: Don't call the stuff I make or share "kink" or "fetish" content. I'm big on fat-positivity but boiling it just down to those terms limits creativity and harmless representation. And if you don't like that I feel that way, well...fuck off.
Back-ish
Posted 3 years agoMerely waving to whoever cares . :O I disabled my account here just before I went on a bit of a 2-month sabbatical from the public-facing sides of the community.
Now with a more mentally-helpful routine and, most crucially, no longer using Twitter (even before things *really* took a nosedive), I feel more comfortable to dip back in sometimes in a more open way. Definitely not like I did before, but certainly just enough that some kind of activity's returned.
Besides, uh...no idea if I'll get this sorted before or after Christmas but I have a new OC that I'd LOVE to finalise sometime this Winter. But yeah, hope everyone's doing as good as they reasonably can be.
Btw, I'm on Co-Host now too! Note me if interested. :3 Talk again soon.
- Nell (Oh yeah, happy 5th anniverdary to that huge fennec of a 'sona I have too!)
Now with a more mentally-helpful routine and, most crucially, no longer using Twitter (even before things *really* took a nosedive), I feel more comfortable to dip back in sometimes in a more open way. Definitely not like I did before, but certainly just enough that some kind of activity's returned.
Besides, uh...no idea if I'll get this sorted before or after Christmas but I have a new OC that I'd LOVE to finalise sometime this Winter. But yeah, hope everyone's doing as good as they reasonably can be.
Btw, I'm on Co-Host now too! Note me if interested. :3 Talk again soon.
- Nell (Oh yeah, happy 5th anniverdary to that huge fennec of a 'sona I have too!)
Addendum to the "Burnout" journal
Posted 3 years ago3 weeks ago, I wrote an FA journal about my frustrations lately with the fat fur corners of the furry fandom, a lot of the never-ending animosities going on that affect way too many people despite them not doing anything genuinely wrong, a muddling of what should be clear-cut that's getting ultra-destructive and abusive too often in the wrong hands and from all this, how much more disassociated I've been feeling of late. You can read the journal here, if you missed it. --> https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10295497
At the end of the journal, I openly said that I'd be down for feedback over these things. I get 2 comments a few hours ago but while the comments themselves tried to be nuanced on the subject, they boiled down to "I don't see fat people as subhumans, but I feel awful supporting positive fat representation as it's really unhealthy IRL and yet I LoVe ThE fEtiSh". I don't want to encourage mob behaviour, so I blanked out their username and icon but the original comments can be seen here (they are hidden in the journal so don't bother hunting for them to reply back). --> https://tinyurl.com/ve4h8m5u
Okay. So...I guess this is happening because there's a guy who's also another artist in the fat-fur corners of the fandom who's gone shaudenfreud-viral recently for similar hypocritical mental crisis nonsense regarding if its "immoral" or not to create and be interested in positive fat representation, wether in physical attraction of that or not, due to beliefs that same person has that're...kinda mean to fat people, let's be honest...so count this as my reply to this, here's my stance:
No, it's not immoral to find obesity physically attractive so long as you don't mistreat people's boundaries and consent for it...
...but it IS immoral to make an income from sexualising obesity while not actually believing fat people should feel happy to exist within their own bodies, on their own terms. THAT is the "immoral" thing here.
Fat people do not need those who aren't fat to concern-troll them (or, how about this for a better term to use, bully them) into feeling devalidated for existing, they should be allowed to make their own decisions on what they do with their own bodies. And if behind their backs, you're treating them purely as sexual objects, like...honestly, take a step back and think about how this might be a problem, yeah?
Why exactly are you attracted to obesity when its on others, or portrayed, while disliking the notion that fat people can have their own autonomy to a point of being against that for regular "ew, unhealthy because the TV says it is" reasons? Do you get extra gratification and thrill on the idea of being into something that's "bad" so twist something that's actually quite benign into an issue? What are you trying to achieve by talking about this openly on someone else's journal even if it's (let's be honest) largely irrelevant to what the journal's about barring the fact we share a niche community...to help try and muddy understanding of this stuff? To "debate" me?
This should not be a debate. You don't get to decide what other fat people do with their own bodies and no one asked for your opinion on real fat people's autonomy.
What WOULD constitute as "being dangerous to them" is stuff that would be immediately lethal to people...heck, anorexia is more harmful to suffers of that (and anorexia *is* a genuine problem that should be thought of as such due to how intensely unhealthy it is) than how obesity is to fat people regularly. Yet we hardly hear enough concern over anorexia sufferers. Interesting, eh?
Even if someone's so fat that they count as being more likely to have worse health problems than fat people who aren't as big, they are proberbly way too aware of the risks as is. Talked to beyond boredom by every medical professional out there. And if they decide to embrace or make peace with that rather than make decisions that would possibly put them in worse health risks than if they didn't do anything, then...hey, that's how they wanna go about that stuff and it's their decision and not your's. Just as much as if a fat person, even a gainer, decided to try and lose weight for any of their own reasons.
You have to be respectful for whatever someone's decisions are with dealing with being fat, if they are, and if they are fine with being big or even want to be bigger? Let them.
It's their life, their body, their choice. Not your's.
If you can only think about someone's own features through the gaze of sexual attraction rather than also or instead through the gaze of someone's own valid existence, then...seriously, maybe rethink how you empathise with other people because if you can't appreciate someone's humanity and only their visual assets like an object, then people will tell.
And let me tell you, people aren't fans of hypocrites as-is but...to be fatphobic in secret yet profits and objectifies fat people for financial gain and weird sexual gratification? ...oof.
These comments weren't even all that relevant to a lot of what I said in that journal aside from "I can't really pinpoint what you're going at here" at the beginning which...well, you might as well of not replied to the journal at all if you didn't actually care for feedback on my own dilemma that...was totally detached to the weird fatphobic hypocrite stuff you've got going on so...thank you? Hmmf. :S Ah well.
So...yeah, I couldn't let that stuff slide. Fat people deserve dignity and respect. Fat in itself is not sexual and should not be looked at just through a sexual gaze.
You don't get to decide what others do with themselves if they're fat. No if's, no but's. Journal done. =P
- Nell.
At the end of the journal, I openly said that I'd be down for feedback over these things. I get 2 comments a few hours ago but while the comments themselves tried to be nuanced on the subject, they boiled down to "I don't see fat people as subhumans, but I feel awful supporting positive fat representation as it's really unhealthy IRL and yet I LoVe ThE fEtiSh". I don't want to encourage mob behaviour, so I blanked out their username and icon but the original comments can be seen here (they are hidden in the journal so don't bother hunting for them to reply back). --> https://tinyurl.com/ve4h8m5u
Okay. So...I guess this is happening because there's a guy who's also another artist in the fat-fur corners of the fandom who's gone shaudenfreud-viral recently for similar hypocritical mental crisis nonsense regarding if its "immoral" or not to create and be interested in positive fat representation, wether in physical attraction of that or not, due to beliefs that same person has that're...kinda mean to fat people, let's be honest...so count this as my reply to this, here's my stance:
No, it's not immoral to find obesity physically attractive so long as you don't mistreat people's boundaries and consent for it...
...but it IS immoral to make an income from sexualising obesity while not actually believing fat people should feel happy to exist within their own bodies, on their own terms. THAT is the "immoral" thing here.
Fat people do not need those who aren't fat to concern-troll them (or, how about this for a better term to use, bully them) into feeling devalidated for existing, they should be allowed to make their own decisions on what they do with their own bodies. And if behind their backs, you're treating them purely as sexual objects, like...honestly, take a step back and think about how this might be a problem, yeah?
Why exactly are you attracted to obesity when its on others, or portrayed, while disliking the notion that fat people can have their own autonomy to a point of being against that for regular "ew, unhealthy because the TV says it is" reasons? Do you get extra gratification and thrill on the idea of being into something that's "bad" so twist something that's actually quite benign into an issue? What are you trying to achieve by talking about this openly on someone else's journal even if it's (let's be honest) largely irrelevant to what the journal's about barring the fact we share a niche community...to help try and muddy understanding of this stuff? To "debate" me?
This should not be a debate. You don't get to decide what other fat people do with their own bodies and no one asked for your opinion on real fat people's autonomy.
What WOULD constitute as "being dangerous to them" is stuff that would be immediately lethal to people...heck, anorexia is more harmful to suffers of that (and anorexia *is* a genuine problem that should be thought of as such due to how intensely unhealthy it is) than how obesity is to fat people regularly. Yet we hardly hear enough concern over anorexia sufferers. Interesting, eh?
Even if someone's so fat that they count as being more likely to have worse health problems than fat people who aren't as big, they are proberbly way too aware of the risks as is. Talked to beyond boredom by every medical professional out there. And if they decide to embrace or make peace with that rather than make decisions that would possibly put them in worse health risks than if they didn't do anything, then...hey, that's how they wanna go about that stuff and it's their decision and not your's. Just as much as if a fat person, even a gainer, decided to try and lose weight for any of their own reasons.
You have to be respectful for whatever someone's decisions are with dealing with being fat, if they are, and if they are fine with being big or even want to be bigger? Let them.
It's their life, their body, their choice. Not your's.
If you can only think about someone's own features through the gaze of sexual attraction rather than also or instead through the gaze of someone's own valid existence, then...seriously, maybe rethink how you empathise with other people because if you can't appreciate someone's humanity and only their visual assets like an object, then people will tell.
And let me tell you, people aren't fans of hypocrites as-is but...to be fatphobic in secret yet profits and objectifies fat people for financial gain and weird sexual gratification? ...oof.
These comments weren't even all that relevant to a lot of what I said in that journal aside from "I can't really pinpoint what you're going at here" at the beginning which...well, you might as well of not replied to the journal at all if you didn't actually care for feedback on my own dilemma that...was totally detached to the weird fatphobic hypocrite stuff you've got going on so...thank you? Hmmf. :S Ah well.
So...yeah, I couldn't let that stuff slide. Fat people deserve dignity and respect. Fat in itself is not sexual and should not be looked at just through a sexual gaze.
You don't get to decide what others do with themselves if they're fat. No if's, no but's. Journal done. =P
- Nell.
