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spottoA potentially controversial opinion...
Furries.
The moment most people hear this word...is RAGE. I mean after all, it's a bunch of animals screwing each other! THAT. does not compute, not at all. And to an extent, I too agree with this opinion, but I always keep my own little philosophy of "different strokes for different folks"...if your best friend was into this...would you defriend them?
I certainly hope not.
However when I was younger...anthromorphic animals were everywhere. Today they are STILL everywhere, and as a child I very much loved these cute talking critters. After all, did a wolf standing on two legs and wielding a katana not seem awesome? The hilarity of animals talking in a TV show has been done over and over again...why, you ask? BECAUSE IT WORKS.
But that only brings up another question for me...what ARE furries?
I once decided to draw crack!drawings of my clanmembers, and one of them was named Wolfman. So I automatically thought, well that gives me an image of a wolf acting like a man, seeing as the wolf is before the word man. If it were say, MANWOLF, I would instead imagine a man acting like a wolf. So I drew it, and I thought it looked awesome because when I was younger I was very proud of how I drew animals. I really thought I could draw them so much better than anything else I ever drew.
I never, at any point when I was drawing it, considered that it would bring remarks of "furry". I DID NOT THINK OF THAT WHATSOEVER.
So it was to my surprise, and also to my "WTF SPOT ARE YOU STUPID?" thoughts when Wolfman himself asked me why he looked like such a furry. YOUR NAME IS WOLFMAN. WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO? Immediately my pride in that piece of artwork plummeted because of people's opinions. They didn't really tell me it was a bad drawing art-wise, it was just furry furry furry. WHAT. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?
Today, if I were to draw "Wolfman" again, I would not have drawn it that way. Instead I'd use a dead wolf's head as his hat, or something, but still...all this negative publicity because I drew a wolf that looked kind of human. AN ANTHROMORPHIC WOLF. I am an easily easily influenced person. If the majority hate something, I too will hate it particularly if it were all my peers. Of course, that would make you assume that I might be homophobic, but I am not. I luckily grew up in a city that I really didn't see much negative publicity against them. After all, my own brother is gay. I started getting into fandom filled with huge amounts of slash.
THOSE FANGIRLS were my peers. They influenced me as well as my brother. My parents and the rest of my family would never accept him this way, but seeing as my parents would prefer to ignore the day he told them he was gay (actually I told them, LOL SPOTTO YOU IDIOT) it kind of makes me rather sad hearing the family or my relatives ask my brother "when you're getting a girlfriend" or anything like that. It was only I myself who knew that would not ever happen.
So I never understood...why ARE furries hated? Well I think the answer it obvious. IT'S ANIMALS SCREWING EACH OTHER.
...BUT HOW DOES THAT MAKE MY DRAWING IMPLY THAT WHATSOEVER!?
I drew ONE animal. A WOLFMAN. That's the first thing I thought of. THERE WAS NO OTHER ANIMAL FOR THIS DRAWING TO GO SCREW. It was only an anthromorphic wolf. People like Fox McCloud. People like Sonic the Hedgehog. People like VGCats. People like Avatar. Wait, what? AVATAR?
I went to see the movie and I had no idea what it was about. All I knew was that there was lots of blue people in it. When I came out of that movie theatre I was quite amazed. However I noticed that a lot of hate on it (besides the storyline being OBVIOUS, PREDICTABLE, AND CLICHE) was that it was just a movie for furries. When I went to see it all I thought of were...BLUE PEOPLE.
Keyword: PEOPLE.
You know, humans? Some people called them cat people. I admit they had ears that kind of looked like kitty ears, and possibly the nose, but besides that they looked like really tall blue humans. They didn't even have fur on them! Doesn't that mean they aren't furry? I suppose taking terms to its logical standpoint is never a good idea, which brings me to another point.
So if FURRY means ANYTHING NOT HUMAN...what about LINK from LEGEND OF ZELDA? What about those ELVES in LOTR? They aren't human are they? They have POINTY EARS!!! That is totally not human and they are totally gross if they are paired with some other human or even another creature of their same species, OMFG!
Of course, then people tell me...well of COURSE they're okay to pair up, they look human enough for it to not be gross. I say the Avatar blue people look human enough too, they're just blue. But no, they are furry.
So let's back up here a bit. I know another super influential and beloved character in my life also known as a cat person: Rei Kon from Beyblade. He had yellow eyes, pointy ears, fangs, and could jump REALLY high!
But how are those traits in anyway limited to a cat? I'm quite sure cats can have blue or green eyes too, not just yellow! POINTY EARS MEAN NOTHING. An elf as pointy ears. ANYTHING can have pointy ears that point...to some creature or animal. Fangs also aren't just a cat thing. Lots of predators have pointy teeth to stab and rip things apart so they can eat! What's the big deal? Rei seems closer to an animal than just an elf, which has pointy ears.
Yet again it is perfectly fine to pair him up with like, Kai or Mariah or whatever. He looks human enough.
BUT WHAT IF REI WAS BLUE? If he was coloured in a deep dark blue rather than the human peach colour, WOULD HE THEN BE LABELLED A FURRY? Is a simple colour swap all that people need to start slinging ridiculous insults at each other!? This line between HUMAN and FURRY seems incredibly small, and those who look down upon it as well as those who defend it...seem really shallow.
I bring up the question again....what is a furry? Is it actually a sexual fetish with anthromorphic creatures, or simply some animal standing on two legs? Where do you even draw the line? Perhaps I shouldn't even be ranting about this because I rarely browse DeviantArt at all, the home of furry creatures. Perhaps these people with their different strokes go much too far with their fetish? It's too weird?
Simply drawing a wolf looking human-like apparently labels me as a furry. I loved drawing animals as a kid. I still do.
But I don't draw them anymore.
I don't because of this, because I have no idea anymore what it means to be labelled as a furry. I never draw them and I rarely post them online even if I did. If I'm going to get flamed because it's an animal standing on two legs rather than the arms being horribly out of proportion than screw it. There is no point in drawing what I love and showing it to a world too busy talking down on people for what they like, whether I agree with them or not.
It's not about "OMFG THEY'RE BEING RIDICULED!!!" anymore. I don't even know WHAT a furry is. WHAT ARE PEOPLE BEING RIDICULED FOR?
Maybe my opinion would change if I actually stepped out of my comfort zone within the fandom world of the internet. I like staying where I am. I largely don't step out and so I don't really see all the hate Hetalia gets out there, despite knowing it does get a huge amount of hate, nor do I browse dA for shits and giggles to stare at bad art and to see anthromorphic animals with boobs and lipstick. I don't go to Fanfiction.net anymore to stare at bad Mary-Sues being written, nor do I go to 4chan to see what they're hating today besides some obvious things I do agree with. (Scientology!) I don't even go to the main community of Hetalia so I don't even know how bad my own fandom's fans are acting lately because apparently that is the reputation of the fandom these days.
But on the days I do...I largely regret it.
It isn't surprising that I lost faith in humanity years ago.
Furries.
The moment most people hear this word...is RAGE. I mean after all, it's a bunch of animals screwing each other! THAT. does not compute, not at all. And to an extent, I too agree with this opinion, but I always keep my own little philosophy of "different strokes for different folks"...if your best friend was into this...would you defriend them?
I certainly hope not.
However when I was younger...anthromorphic animals were everywhere. Today they are STILL everywhere, and as a child I very much loved these cute talking critters. After all, did a wolf standing on two legs and wielding a katana not seem awesome? The hilarity of animals talking in a TV show has been done over and over again...why, you ask? BECAUSE IT WORKS.
But that only brings up another question for me...what ARE furries?
I once decided to draw crack!drawings of my clanmembers, and one of them was named Wolfman. So I automatically thought, well that gives me an image of a wolf acting like a man, seeing as the wolf is before the word man. If it were say, MANWOLF, I would instead imagine a man acting like a wolf. So I drew it, and I thought it looked awesome because when I was younger I was very proud of how I drew animals. I really thought I could draw them so much better than anything else I ever drew.
I never, at any point when I was drawing it, considered that it would bring remarks of "furry". I DID NOT THINK OF THAT WHATSOEVER.
So it was to my surprise, and also to my "WTF SPOT ARE YOU STUPID?" thoughts when Wolfman himself asked me why he looked like such a furry. YOUR NAME IS WOLFMAN. WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO? Immediately my pride in that piece of artwork plummeted because of people's opinions. They didn't really tell me it was a bad drawing art-wise, it was just furry furry furry. WHAT. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?
Today, if I were to draw "Wolfman" again, I would not have drawn it that way. Instead I'd use a dead wolf's head as his hat, or something, but still...all this negative publicity because I drew a wolf that looked kind of human. AN ANTHROMORPHIC WOLF. I am an easily easily influenced person. If the majority hate something, I too will hate it particularly if it were all my peers. Of course, that would make you assume that I might be homophobic, but I am not. I luckily grew up in a city that I really didn't see much negative publicity against them. After all, my own brother is gay. I started getting into fandom filled with huge amounts of slash.
THOSE FANGIRLS were my peers. They influenced me as well as my brother. My parents and the rest of my family would never accept him this way, but seeing as my parents would prefer to ignore the day he told them he was gay (actually I told them, LOL SPOTTO YOU IDIOT) it kind of makes me rather sad hearing the family or my relatives ask my brother "when you're getting a girlfriend" or anything like that. It was only I myself who knew that would not ever happen.
So I never understood...why ARE furries hated? Well I think the answer it obvious. IT'S ANIMALS SCREWING EACH OTHER.
...BUT HOW DOES THAT MAKE MY DRAWING IMPLY THAT WHATSOEVER!?
I drew ONE animal. A WOLFMAN. That's the first thing I thought of. THERE WAS NO OTHER ANIMAL FOR THIS DRAWING TO GO SCREW. It was only an anthromorphic wolf. People like Fox McCloud. People like Sonic the Hedgehog. People like VGCats. People like Avatar. Wait, what? AVATAR?
I went to see the movie and I had no idea what it was about. All I knew was that there was lots of blue people in it. When I came out of that movie theatre I was quite amazed. However I noticed that a lot of hate on it (besides the storyline being OBVIOUS, PREDICTABLE, AND CLICHE) was that it was just a movie for furries. When I went to see it all I thought of were...BLUE PEOPLE.
Keyword: PEOPLE.
You know, humans? Some people called them cat people. I admit they had ears that kind of looked like kitty ears, and possibly the nose, but besides that they looked like really tall blue humans. They didn't even have fur on them! Doesn't that mean they aren't furry? I suppose taking terms to its logical standpoint is never a good idea, which brings me to another point.
So if FURRY means ANYTHING NOT HUMAN...what about LINK from LEGEND OF ZELDA? What about those ELVES in LOTR? They aren't human are they? They have POINTY EARS!!! That is totally not human and they are totally gross if they are paired with some other human or even another creature of their same species, OMFG!
Of course, then people tell me...well of COURSE they're okay to pair up, they look human enough for it to not be gross. I say the Avatar blue people look human enough too, they're just blue. But no, they are furry.
So let's back up here a bit. I know another super influential and beloved character in my life also known as a cat person: Rei Kon from Beyblade. He had yellow eyes, pointy ears, fangs, and could jump REALLY high!
But how are those traits in anyway limited to a cat? I'm quite sure cats can have blue or green eyes too, not just yellow! POINTY EARS MEAN NOTHING. An elf as pointy ears. ANYTHING can have pointy ears that point...to some creature or animal. Fangs also aren't just a cat thing. Lots of predators have pointy teeth to stab and rip things apart so they can eat! What's the big deal? Rei seems closer to an animal than just an elf, which has pointy ears.
Yet again it is perfectly fine to pair him up with like, Kai or Mariah or whatever. He looks human enough.
BUT WHAT IF REI WAS BLUE? If he was coloured in a deep dark blue rather than the human peach colour, WOULD HE THEN BE LABELLED A FURRY? Is a simple colour swap all that people need to start slinging ridiculous insults at each other!? This line between HUMAN and FURRY seems incredibly small, and those who look down upon it as well as those who defend it...seem really shallow.
I bring up the question again....what is a furry? Is it actually a sexual fetish with anthromorphic creatures, or simply some animal standing on two legs? Where do you even draw the line? Perhaps I shouldn't even be ranting about this because I rarely browse DeviantArt at all, the home of furry creatures. Perhaps these people with their different strokes go much too far with their fetish? It's too weird?
Simply drawing a wolf looking human-like apparently labels me as a furry. I loved drawing animals as a kid. I still do.
But I don't draw them anymore.
I don't because of this, because I have no idea anymore what it means to be labelled as a furry. I never draw them and I rarely post them online even if I did. If I'm going to get flamed because it's an animal standing on two legs rather than the arms being horribly out of proportion than screw it. There is no point in drawing what I love and showing it to a world too busy talking down on people for what they like, whether I agree with them or not.
It's not about "OMFG THEY'RE BEING RIDICULED!!!" anymore. I don't even know WHAT a furry is. WHAT ARE PEOPLE BEING RIDICULED FOR?
Maybe my opinion would change if I actually stepped out of my comfort zone within the fandom world of the internet. I like staying where I am. I largely don't step out and so I don't really see all the hate Hetalia gets out there, despite knowing it does get a huge amount of hate, nor do I browse dA for shits and giggles to stare at bad art and to see anthromorphic animals with boobs and lipstick. I don't go to Fanfiction.net anymore to stare at bad Mary-Sues being written, nor do I go to 4chan to see what they're hating today besides some obvious things I do agree with. (Scientology!) I don't even go to the main community of Hetalia so I don't even know how bad my own fandom's fans are acting lately because apparently that is the reputation of the fandom these days.
But on the days I do...I largely regret it.
It isn't surprising that I lost faith in humanity years ago.
