v-e-r-a

Just a reminder - v-e-r-a.deviantart.com/journal… in summary: I'm keeping all my old art here, but now using my old account again for current anthro art! So please go watch me over at:





Thanks!

I'll be keeping this gallery up in case I change my mind, but for at least a year (as I paid for a premium account), I'll be using my very first deviantart account from 2004. It used to be crimsonsacrifice, which I hated the name, and only just realized you can change your username now. So from now on, my furry art will be at unless something happens to change my mind. Sorry if this is confusing x3 I know how annoying it is when people switch accounts all the time, but this is pretty rare for me. I doubt I'll be re-posting anything from here over there, too much work. So just watch me over there for more recent works. I still have a lot to post from my FA gallery, too. You can keep watching me here, because I still moderate my Langurhali community with this account, and may find other uses for it in the future, especially since :ktwdaicon: just gave me a year premium membership on this account x_x Thank you ;;

I mainly am excited to move back over there because I do have a lot of things posted there that are sentimental to me or that are still getting that account a lot of views and watchers (despite saying I was going to stop posting there several times ). I also have 1687 watchers here, and 2800-some over there. I'm sure most of those are old, dead accounts, though. Anyway. Thanks for all the birthday wishes today, guys! <3

I've made an FA group just for you, called TheToyBox! There's a rules/info journal, a members' journal and a current contest journal linked in every new journal and on the profile page, so you can't miss them. 12 members so far and over 100 watchers! Once we hit 30 MEMBERS, I'll be doing 3 random sketches for 3 different members So join now and get your friends to join!

I SO want to draw a group image of ALL the members once we hit 30, but my god that would kill me. ;_; Perhaps it could be a group project! Have one person sketch their character, send it to another member for them to sketch/ink in their character, etc. until the pic is fully sketched/inked by everyone... then I could ink and/or color? That sounds fun SO MANY IDEAS BLURGHGHHKLSJGHJ.

Anyways, if you have a toy character, or plan on making one, go take a look! I would make the same group on here, but I just don't think I could keep up with it as easily as over there. OH, and it doesn't have to be furry - if you have a doll character that's human or some other creature, that's perfectly acceptable. I might be adding my own Boogle (ball-jointed doll/clown girl) as well :> As long as it looks like a toy

Second time it's happened in my 7 years on dA! And I'm so glad it was on this: v-e-r-a.deviantart.com/art/New… because it gave me the opportunity to link to photos and educate people a bit on roaches, which is like, my goal in life, for anyone who knows me. They're so misunderstood and misrepresented.  I used to be a bit scared by them through my teens, but to show how drastically that's changed since simply educating myself on them, I now proudly display a tattoo of a roach: penanggalan.deviantart.com/art… It's now and will always be my favorite feature. I've educated a lot of strangers because of this tattoo. It makes me feel awesome.

I've dealt with some horrible crap because of my love of roaches, so pardon the incoming vent. Especially since the hissing cockroach birth video (as seen HERE: www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhOGQI… ), I've received daily death threats, people saying I'm a "filthy slut" and "probably put roaches in my ___" amongst other disgusting things, and other pretty much daily insults from some random dark corner of the internet or another for loving these bugs. I could disable comments, sure, but even all this harassment is worth the few good comments, or the people asking questions that I'm able to answer. It's worth it to educate. You won't see 60% of the comments I get on that video, as I don't even bother to approve them. I only approve the ones that are from semi-intelligent people who are either asking questions, or who say I've changed their views on insects... which is the most wonderful thing I could hear.

It's really sad to me that it's more controversial to love insects than it is to love stomping on them to feel like a higher, more powerful and evolved being. Roaches haven't changed much since they came about the earth some 300+ million years ago, but that's because they're already perfect and don't need to change much to survive far longer than any of us will. :> We're not as high above them as we like to think we are. In fact, we're pretty devolved to not appreciate these creatures more than the useless furry things that provide us nothing but cuteness; roaches have given us far more advanced artificial hearts, serve as food to multitudes of larger (and even smaller) animals, some even pollinate and many farmers intentionally release them into crops to destroy certain pests. They help break down matter on the forest floors and have taught us much in our experimentation on them. That's why it BLOWS my mind that people are so quick to accept their hatred of them, hell, even EMBRACE and be proud of their phobia/hatred of them as though they're part of some tight-knit group.

I can understand struggling with an irrational phobia of something that can't actually hurt you, but I can't comprehend ACCEPTING a phobia of ANYthing simply because "it's icky" to you. Your human brain is advanced enough to go beyond such an ingrained, devolved comprehension of insects; use it to educate yourself before cursing an entire species of animal. Fear of insects is NOT genetic. It's a learned trait. Maybe your mom shrieked at a roach when you were a kid, and you went from eating bugs to smashing them. Maybe your dad works in pest control and you saw only the "evil" side of insects growing up and think they're all like that. Maybe a cartoon taught you your learned phobia. Either way, we all played with, observed, even ate bugs as a kid til our mother told us not to. I don't expect anyone to handle my insects or adore them when they come visit me, but I do expect them to tolerate them and keep their mouth shut. I've had people actually expect me to hide some of my pets when they come over. Sorry, no. They are my pets, and just the same, I'd never expect someone to put away their cat or dog (unless they've had a history of biting/attacking people, of course), I'd never go to a youtube video of someone's cat or dog and say, "ew, disgusting! Why would you keep such a nasty creature??" (however much I DO believe cats and dogs are, if anything, more gross and dangerous than any insects I keep), and I'd never EVER talk about how much I love crushing hamsters around someone (or anyone D: ) who clearly loves hamsters. Just because they're insects doesn't make them any less worthy of respect and appreciation than all the "cuter", more relatable animals in the world.

It's sad how many people can only see the black and white whenever I talk about this, thinking that I expect everyone to love and adore insects. The most I'd ever ask of anyone is to have the sense to understand all of these things and if you have a phobia that you are struggling with, either try to overcome it OR just stay AWAY from things that scare you, especially if you're prone to bursting into comment spewage about how much you hate the thing you intentionally clicked on. Don't go seeking out people who love the thing you're afraid of only to say something rude and pointless to them when you clearly are too blinded by your phobia/hatred to have anything reasonable to say that's worth hearing.

Anyway. Second DD ever, woo~

Anyone up for one? Leave a comment with what you'd like in return! I will respond only to a couple people at most, so don't feel offended if you're not picked. And don't be intimidated if you see a lot of comments! (I doubt there will be many, as most people don't stay up til 5 a.m. browsing art sites and drawing like I do. P: ) I have something that I want in mind and will likely pick you based on how well I think you could portray it more so than anything else. :3 Wish I had money to commission people, but with bills and trying to save up for AC, I doubt I'll be commissioning nearly as often as usual for the rest of this year or longer. :c