Starling Revelations, you say?

Nonsense. I just read all 8200 words, and nary a mention of Sturnus vulgaris anywhere.

As bios go, tho, an engaging and enlightening read.

I'm quite sure I have a small shotgun shed just north of Willow Run...
We do tend to live in our heads, us writers and artists, to such a degree that we sometimes forget the world around us.
I'm writing in the plural, because now there's two of us.
And I suspect, many, many more.

Building worlds and then getting lost in them - the trick is to convey the buggers, to include the world at large.
Lovely of you to share this bit of prose.

That was a fascinating read. I do feel empathy for the old-school furry artists that ended up disillusioned with the fandom by the Internet -- more specifically, the rampant piracy of prints, comics, and folios that came along with it. The pirates of said art always try to make themselves sound like heroes, bringing all this free exposure to the artists and spreading the word, but they don't account for killing those artists' livelihoods or making some great talents so fed up they stopped drawing furry art entirely.

Hmmm. *Nods* An interesting read.

I wrote this huge long thing on you, the fandom, its history, yada yada.

Then erased it. It just sounded pretentious. I'm just going to post my gushy sappiness, because I need to be honest. .Look..I mean this sincerely. Thank you. Not just for what you wrote but for being a part of this fandom and for helping make it what it is.


Because of this fandom, I made friends with a really sweet dude who was there for me one night when I wanted to kill myself. He talked me out of it. Without the fandom, I wouldn't be here. Because of this fandom, I have made some of the best friends i've ever had in my life. Because of this fandom, i've learned so much about myself but the biggest thing i've learned about myself is that I have value as a person. I actually give a crap about myself now.

Because of this fandom, I have Kurzar and Kataugh, my mates. I have been so blessed and this fandom is a big part of that...and you've been one of the people who helped nurture it along. I know it hasn't always been a fun ride. I can tell there is a lot of bitter to go with the sweet. I'm not going to say 'i'm sorry' because it's not my place nor am I sorry that things went the way they went..I will say that I hope you find more happiness in life than sad. I truly do, and I truly wish a full and healthy life to you.

Saara, if you are ever in the Bertram, Texas area you are always welcome in our home. Dinner is on me.

I would never say that furry fandom hasn't been of benefit to those that came after the pioneers -- regardless of whether or not it became what the pioneers wanted of it. Probably the first sod-busters to go West were disappointed when other settlers followed them, built cabins and fences all around them, and turned the west into something way to reminiscent of why the pioneers left the East in the first place. Such is progress...

My pioneering days are probably over anyway. The cost of travel and medical issues have done for that.

I still have a lot of old friends though, and some outstanding memories.

Not really that much as far as "startling revalations" go, but very well done in that you committed it to words as directly and un-selfconciously as such a thing can be done.

Whatever else you may think of your impact upon the world in general, you're still one of the artists that I've learned the most from - and not just about art, but about many things. There are reasons why some people, instead of wishing they had lived at some other period in history, wouldn't have wanted to live at any other time but now. You're one of the reasons one of those people is me.

I think the revalations are more likely to shock the more staid readers in SF fandom. After knowing some of the people I know in furry fandom, I can only describe myself as rather timid.

Umm... well, perhaps the members of SF fandom in the past... but some of the fans of the present? I think you'd be even more staid, compared to them, than you would of those in the furry world. (O_O)

Depends on who you call an SF fan, I suppose. As younger SF fans increasingly resemble ordinary media fans -- by dressing up silly and role playing, mainly -- I grow more and more conservative by comparison. But I never pay them any mind. They might as well all be Trekkies or Bronies, for all I have anything to do with *that* SF fandom. The SF fandom I grew up with, though, was the cutting edge of society in 1954 -- they were in advance of everyone else's thinking in being tolerant of socialism, homosexuality, drugs, jass music, and science fiction. At a time when most people didn't know what a galaxy was and couldn't tell the difference between a microscope and a telescope, SF fans did. They remained au currant up until the early 1970s ... when suddenly mundane society around them began to catch up, really fast! At this point, most of the Old Guard are 50 or more years old and have still not left 1974 in their heads. They may know computer science and Tweet and Stream and Woof or whatever... but their artistic and political sensibillities are pure '60s and early '70s. By their reckoning, talking to imaginary people or having sexual longings for cartoon characters is most assuredly "uncool."

Then again, maybe I just worry about it too much -- made sensitive by a few opinionated louts when I was still a young shaver in fandom.

You could hardly be accused of worrying about it too much - given the nature of the article you have written. You have a vantage point that only time and experience can give a person, and you cannot help but notice the view it gives you.