The next journal I make is going to be for 's contest, but I just wanted to unload a little bit.

Good news: I'm feeling really good about my commissions right now. I have found a very healthy, very zen disposition towards commissions in general that serves me quite well. It's so easy to get fed up with working for other people, but I've reasoned out that each commission I do I can use in order to better learn my craft. And so, instead of retarding my work, it's really an asset. Anyway, I have some very exciting commissions right now that I'm happy to work on, because the commissioners seemed very excited about about them. I think I do much better when I get to meet my commissioner face to face.

But the real reason I'm writing this journal is on the issue of furry hate.

I honestly don't know if I'm a 'furry' or not. First and foremost, I am an artist. I work all day, I love all kinds of art. I slipped into the anthro artist category because I really like animals, I like anthro art, and it seems a lucrative place for me to be. Besides that, I've met a lot of furries and other anthro artists who are great people. I attend cons in order to sell artwork and powow with artists and friends, but am otherwise not a part of the society. I suppose this makes me a furry friend or a furry supporter. I'm not sure.

Regardless of what I am, I find arbitrary furry ridicule to be somewhat depressing. There are some facets of the fandom that sincerely deserve some fun poked at--all the really ridiculous kinks and rather poor artwork, and especially the unethical things like the wishful-thinking cub porn and animal harassment and who knows what else. But largely, the group just seem to be a lot of peculiar but benign people who like anthro animals or whatever, and certainly don't deserve to be called pedophiles or animal-fuckers.

Now, I can totally understand if someone just doesn't get it, or is really sick of seeing mediocre anthro art all over the place (hell, sometimes even I get tired of it), or if someone has had a really bad experience with some people who identify with furries, but I have witnessed a number of people with an arbitrary and all-encompassing distaste for the art and the culture. I don't know who or what is to blame.

I've noticed the trend that the people who are most likely to ridicule furries without just cause are extreme nerds themselves who don't seem to get very much accomplished. So I wonder if it's some kind of insecurity, a need to poke fun at someone they perceive to be lower on the totem pole in order to cover up their own deficiencies. Surely they'd have to spend a LOT of time on the internet to cultivate such a strong distaste. Most normal, hard-working people don't even know what the hell a furry is.

I bring it up, because some people can't seem to get past that hurtle when viewing my artwork. They say: This would be good, if it weren't furry. Or, as I got from some of my acquaintances tonight, that the subject matter doesn't deserve the work and talent that went into it. Which is a compliment, I suppose, to my skill, but didn't make me feel very good regardless.

It hurt my feelings, to tell the truth. It's a real pity that some people have been so soured on anthro that any image that contains an anthropomorphic being, no matter how well-executed or potentially meaningful, is lame just by virtue of the subject matter. It also hurts my feelings that I need to be on the defensive around people who have irrational furry hate. I am annoyed when these same people indulge in hours of videogames, television-watching, internet-surfing, or any number of extremely unproductive activities, and are obsessed with anime, lousy television, or some other thing that doesn't seem any more cool (or less uncool) than liking animal people.

I, personally, like animal people. It's totally cool with me if other people don't, so long as they aren't irrationally hateful about them. It's totally cool with me if people are freaked out by some of the nastier furry stuff that winds up on 4chan or ED or whatever. (I will interject to say, also, that anime contains some pretty fucked up stuff, as well as just human sexual deviance in general. It's not just furries, guys). I can understand if someone's had a run-in with some stupid, childish, self-absorbed furries and have fled screaming from the culture.

But guys, that doesn't make every furry drawing lame, or every furry person a sexual deviant or a loser. Those sentiments, I am not cool with. I get the feeling a lot of the people who believe these things are just sheep that blindly dig whatever is on 4chan or who knows what other website that needs someone to pick on, or because it's the in thing to do on the internet by virtue of said websites. In reality, the label 'furry' or 'anthro' really doesn't count for much in terms of quality or personality, but somehow they've become the dredges of the internet.

A few have mentioned the strong sexual connotations in a lot of furry artwork. That's very true, a lot of furry work has sexual themes. But consider that the human erotic video industry makes more money than the regular film industry. That the internet is positively swarming with pornography of the 'regular' variety. Human beings are sexual animals. The vast majority of them have sexual thoughts, urges, etc. This is totally normal. Furries are not and should not be excepted from this. The subculture is not, as some people think, about an attraction to real animals, but an attraction to some fantasy person who happens to be covered in fur. It comes from the same place as people attracted to an anime character that doesn't exist, or a movie star that they couldn't possibly meet, or elves, or Klingons or whatever. Doing this to an obsessive degree is not healthful, no matter what the object may be, however, a lot of furries have normal, happy relationships with other human people. It's just a different kind of fantasy. Many many people have those in many different forms, and it doesn't point directly to a harmful subversion. Unless, in a few unfortunate cases, it really DOES, but again, there are more non-furry animal and child molesters, rapists, sadists than furry ones.

Exactly why all the kinkiest, wierdest, most disgusting fetishes seem most prevalent in the furry culture isn't something I really understand, but aside from the things leisure websites tend to dig up, most furry erotica is pretty tame and 'normal' by most people's standards.

I, personally, think people should be more responsible about the way they perceive and portray sexuality, in all aspects, not just the furry, but that is another rant entirely and something I won't get into at present.

I realize that I am always going to be misjudged by a lot of people on the internet, and that some loser's opinions of me are unimportant, if they are, in fact, a complete and total loser. The trouble is, I refuse to label anyone who dislikes furries as losers. They're just ignorant or insecure or hateful, or any number of things that a lot of people are or have inside of them. I also know that there's little I can say to change everyone's mind. I also know that it's silly and pointless for me to get depressed. I'm far less depressed about people on the internet. It's not serious business, especially such silly drama stuff perpetuated by preteens and persons with nothing better to do.

But what I am depressed about is the people in real life that I interact with, and want to get along with, adult people who ought to know better, misjudging myself, my work, and the subculture I groove on just because it's hip to do so.

And that's all I have to say, really.

Gotta get back to work now. Or to sleep. It's getting late.