- New art up in Illustrations
Welp it’s official, I’m a furry stereotype. Gay, Canine fursona, works in IT (Datacenter Tech I for Microsoft), and fursuits to conventions once or twice a year. With some minor exceptions, I’m officially a part of the typical furry prototype and I find it hilariously ironic that, in trying to be different, I became a part of the norm.
(God I love feet, art by Userpage of Skaldaxe -- Fur Affinity [dot] net )
I’ll skip my tragic anime backstory (already discussed here) and get to the point: What comes next? In a few weeks I’ll be leaving the realm that was my 20’s and officially entering my 30’s and it’s got me feeling sentimental/reflective and also a bit anxious. I wanted to take some time to reflect on my life a little bit.
When I was 18 and officially entering the fandom as a member for the first time I had so many naive dreams: I wanted to be a popufur, rich from my created projects, beloved by all, I wanted big dealers den booths at the major cons, panels packed with people, dance competition champion, eventual con chair of a furry convention (I may as well have wanted to be president of the United States while I was at it).
(The OG KZv1)
The term “Monday morning Quarterback” can definitely be applied here (that is, realizing something after-the-fact) because, the reality of the situation is, was, and ever will be, that I used to be a very insecure child that was desperate for approval and used that as a direct measure of my own self-worth as I had none of my own. The wish to - what I can only summarize as - be a “furry champion” was nothing more than a damaged kid’s desperate cry for help and a high dose of copium.
Being bullied while also having a narcissistic parent is a hell of a recipe for mental health decline - I definitely needed a therapist but I grew up in a time where the concept of ‘mental health’ was frowned upon in the black community and ‘toxic masculinity’ was seen as macho and favored. Being an impressionable child, I internalized that by truly believing life was what was on TV and that being the ‘celebrity’ was the ultimate fulfillment of ‘worth/value’ (not knowing what I was seeing was largely the result of deceptive marketing, scripts written by depressed and possibly coked out/alcoholic writers, and false narratives with even more false morals presented in a way to manipulate the viewer into believing a fantasy presented as ‘real life’. Yay for showbiz.)
The Early Years
Ultimately, this led to my teenage dreams of wanting to be a “star” - even though I didn't have the talent and was afraid to fail (as failure would be internalized as humiliation and a direct attack on my self worth). I developed a toxic mentality both for myself and for others: it’s one thing to want to be a “star” as a career ambition (after all, who doesn’t want to be successful in their desired field?), it’s another to want to be a “star” to try and fill the bottomless pit of insecurity and self-hatred.
I treated others as “less than” and would spite anyone who stood in the way of this ambition. Any criticism was seen as a direct attack on my character and I’d no tolerance for it because, without this ambition, I felt as though I had no value and that my life was meaningless without it. Dramatic? Yes, welcome to teenage-hood built on unresolved trauma.
(Me during 24 Hour Comics Day in 2016)
My college years (age 18-22) were both exciting, hopeful, and a lot of fun but also depression fueled and harrowing. Don’t get me wrong, my time at MCAD wasn’t all bad, there were truly great moments, memories, and people I’ll always cherish, but I can’t pretend I didn’t completely fall apart there either. I had personal issues with other students (so much so the Dean of Student Affairs knew me on a first name basis), my time in the FBA ended terribly (though I’m not innocent in that), parents went through a divorce, my health declined rapidly my senior year when I got GBS, self-worth was always very low - I was just a complete mess but I held on to my same dream which I was excited to start upon graduating. I’d spent my college years developing my non-existent skills in illustration and writing and believed I was at a point where I could make my mark on the world. I was on cloud 9, thought I was Mr. Big.
After the Degree
“Everybody’s got a plan until they get punched in the face” is the famous quote from the great Mike Tyson and, boy, did life throw me a haymaker right to my chin. Any confidence I built up at MCAD was promptly destroyed after entering the job market for the first time only to realize no one was looking for people with my degree (Comic Art/Creative Writing). 200 applications, 0 interviews, lots of rejection letters (if they bothered to send one at all) and very little commissions as I tried to make money as a commissioning artist (didn't have the skill/knowledge in marketing). The jobs I got offered were jobs that didn’t require a degree (i.e Sales - which I tried my hand at for 3 weeks, Warehouse Labor, Substitute Teaching, Custodian, Grocery store laborer, etc.,).
(First started training Martial Arts)
(Original concept of Zach Cooner in 2017)
I started my first project in Zach Cooner that Fall and naively, set a production schedule that was very difficult to maintain with the amount of work I was doing. Very poor planning led to most of my free time being spent creating the comic rather than doing the very necessary marketing/networking and by the next year I fell into depression again; I got fired from my job (ran by shitty people), got burnt out creating the comic, and ran out of money to the point of having to get a loan from my parents. I felt like a failure in every way. Thanks to the very supportive people, my new job with Americorps Public Allies Iowa helped build me back up as a leader and set me on the path towards Grad school. This is when I got more into martial arts and what ultimately led to the creation of my fursona KZ3 (The third version of the OG KZ)
(First ref sheet of the character 2019)
Come 2019, I knew a path as a commissioning artist and a comic artist wasn’t what I wanted to do. I didn’t make enough to do it full-time (which meant I needed the day job) and I didn’t want what little free time I had outside the day job to be creating work that I didn’t have personal investment/interest in (outside of the money to pay bills). The catch 22 of being a commissioning artist is that most creators have to slog through that grind just to get to the point where they can do commissions full-time, if my ultimate goal wasn’t to be a creator of my own original works and projects I probably could of done it but, alas, my ambitions were taking me down a different road.
I was still being built up by Americorps during my 2nd year contract and I started grad school to pursue my Masters in Software Engineering. I was doing fine and created Kzmaster Entertainment 2020 LLC that would serve as the hub to launch my projects from (and to separate my general public projects from the nsfw ones). I had gotten interested in getting a vtube avatar (which was still novelty at the time), was taking an entrepreneur class, and was extremely hopeful for what the next decade would bring as we entered 2020…
(King the Kreator 2019-2021)
Enter Covid
I laugh now at just how little we knew; 2020, the world entered hell. COVID swept across the world so fast that by March, in the US, we went into an unprecedented lockdown. The business class I was a part of cancelled our graduation network event, my day job told me to stay home, no cons, no events, no sports, nothing but being cooped up inside the house with nowhere to go and no cure for the deadly virus in sight. My biggest regret (but one I fully understand) is I lost hope during Covid. There was no reason to train for or prepare for anything because I couldn’t go anywhere (low and behold, the athletes/performers who did train during this time are thriving in the present), I stuck to my studies with grad school and played video games (downloaded an emulator to relive and reflect on my childhood).
(Coby Carson of the UFFC)
I did do some notable things during Covid however: I programmed one of my big projects with the United Furry Fighting Championship (UFFC) which was very difficult since I didn’t use any AI assistance (nowadays I could have probably finished that project in two weeks rather than months). I learned the fundamentals of 3D (learning Blender, ZBrush, and Daz3D) and attempting my first custom furry model in Blender (which went terribly). I spent time playing games with Pythos, streaming, and spending more time with my family.
But ultimately I had a sinking feeling that I'd wasted my past years. I hadn’t accomplished any of my teenage dreams, had little money, and I swore that once Covid was cured and this lockdown was behind us, that I was going to live my best life and not take things for granted. There’s not much to say between 2020 and 2021 other than I gained Covid-19 pounds from having nothing to do but eat junk and fast food to make myself feel better about the state of the world. I finished out my Americorps contract so I was essentially unemployed that Fall and Winter and used the time to go to DMACC to pursue an opportunity with the newly invested in Microsoft Datacenter Academy (didn’t know this would pay off significantly years later).
Post Covid
By May 2021 I had graduated from Grad School and the world was finally getting back to normalcy now that vaccinations existed. Once again I’m on cloud 9 and, two weeks after graduation, I got offered a role at Medicom (now Xfinity) as a Software Dev - the very job I’d wanted since graduating art school 4 years prior. (And it didn’t take 200 job applications to get it, I only put out 8). Finally I had a career job that would fund my night passion, and everything was going to be okay.
Except I absolutely sucked at this job and was too tired after work to do more work. I went into a state of existential anxiety so bad that I developed insomnia. In the meanwhile, I was approached by one of my contacts from Americorps about learning about banking, how credit worked, fundamental financial literacy and investing. Once I got a taste for that knowledge I became addicted and threw myself into my studies - learning about financial literacy, watching seminars from experts, voraciously reading books on the subject and taking notes throughout every chapter, attending workshops and courses, etc., My evenings, Friday, and Saturday nights were spent with a book in hand reading for hours; I wanted to learn as much as I could because I wanted to use what I learned to help other furries find financial success in their passions.
I truly believed in my mission and thought I could use it to achieve the dream I had since I was 18, I wanted to be THEE guy. I was so confident in what I was doing that I even resigned from my role as a Software Dev in order to try and go for my dream. (Quit before they could realize I was a total hack as a corporate dev).
(Not the original graphic of the episode - this was the graphic to my response to it)
*sigh I was definitely in over my head but not due to incompetency - I made a very foolish mistake of going on the TFTuesday podcast in 2022 (since the TF community was where I was rooted and who I cared about the most) to discuss finance without using any of my notes. I thought I could speak on the subject as well as the financial gurus I’d studied in and out, but I didn’t have their experience, didn’t have their body of work to use as proof of concept, and I couldn’t explain the intricacies to each answer to show how and why they work, not without the notes anyway. Finance can be a touchy subject and dangerous when ill-explained advice is given out. In short, it was an interview I absolutely bombed and boy did the community let me know it:
"I'm disappointed in this episode both as an artist and an MCAD student"
"You're the LEAST qualified to talk to anyone about this subject"
"I can not and will not condone what's stated in this episode" (from someone literally on the episode)
"He's a cryptobro"
(The list goes on and on, it was a twitter swarm)
The episode was panned and taken off the internet a day later, the group hosting the show ended the series, I was seen as an incompetent charlatan, and I ultimately realized just how little I meant to the community - despite my good intentions. To say I was crushed utterly and completely would be an understatement. I went into a state of extremly high anxiety (couldn't eat or sleep for 3 days), I lost all my confidence in all of my skillsets, lost my sense of purpose, and I was humiliated to the point that I withdrew from everyone and everything. I became jaded/bitter and doubled-down on the need to prove my ‘worth’ to others by doing things so undeniably spectacular that others would have no choice but to respect it. If I couldn't win people over, then I'd prove I was better than them by doing things they couldn't dream of.
Around this time, I was able to use my knowledge to help the breakdance company be formed and I had planned to use it as a catalyst to become so undeniably great in dance and performance that people would have to pay attention to me and I could achieve my dream that way like my dance idols Les Twins.
(Me dancing at a community festival)
I was in a manic frenzy, I threw myself into my training. I gave up martial arts and focused solely on dance training. I made my new day job at DMACC a 2nd priority, I’d get 2-4 hours of sleep and then go do 5AM Yoga and calisthenic training back to back, then teach dance classes sometimes 2-3 a day. Street performance after street performance after street performance (ended up doing over 100), dance workshops with dance legends, choreo for festivals and shows, battles across state, you name it. I was under the guise that it would all be worth it when I hoisted the first place trophy and that, if I worked harder than anyone else, it would pay off and people would see my worth. Even though I was physically getting the healthiest I’d ever been, mentally I was worse off.
(Fursuit KZ3 at FWA 2023)
I finally got a fursuit of KZ3 from the great Aetherwears, but I learned the hard way, life doesn’t work on your own timeline no matter how much you want it to. I was cut from FWA tryouts 2023 for the showcase and battles, bounced out early in the battles at Furry Migration 2023.
(Didn't do bad in the dance comp, but wasn't really notable either despite all my training. FM Dance Comp 2023)
Due to a slew of issues, the dance company was failing despite working very hard to keep it together and afloat. By this point my self-worth and confidence was at an all-time low and, needless to say, I fell into chronic depression as I resigned from my job at DMACC before I could be fired (due to decreasing job performance from not prioritizing it). I was clinically diagnosed with Social Anxiety Disorder - as after the humiliation I faced from the podcast I became afraid to talk to anyone or make connections. My time with the dance company gradually came to an end as I could no longer commit to it. I had once again failed and was giving serious thought to giving up on my dream - which led to suicidal thoughts.
I still had one last hope after having learned from my past mistakes. If I could start anew, make a sona that encapsulated my skillsets and authentic personality I could create a platform that would allow me to do the things I’d always wanted to do but didn’t out of fear, thus Maverick Lobo was created.
(Original Maverick concept 2023)
(Bonus art for the paw lovers)
My lowest point
In my year as a custodian I hit rock bottom. All I did was go to work, go train, and come home. Even though I was rapidly developing as a creator and opening up windows of opportunity for high quality work (I used my downtime as a janitor to religiously study software and techniques for art and animation), I still felt great shame. I reflected on my many failings over and over every day, how I treated others, my naive wants and wishes, and ultimately just regretted my life and thought others were better off without me in it. I’d scrub the dirty toilets believing I deserved everything bad that happened to me, everyone was better off without me and that I don't matter at all. I disappeared (without physically removing myself from the planet anyway).
I quit making work, didn’t post to social media, and didn’t talk to anyone outside of a select few on telegram and Discord. It was in this mental abyss that my self-worth went from low/none to blatantly feeling unworthy of anything at all. My thoughts shifted from originally longing for acceptance to genuine surprise whenever someone actually talked to me - so used to feeling like nothing/invisible that anything outside of that was a surprise. I was simply defeated.
Something happened to me mentally during this period that I still can’t quite explain. I don’t know if it was emotional burnout or something else but I stopped ‘feeling’ things - everything became dull. I was unfulfilled and unhappy for so long that even when good things or accomplishments happened, I didn’t feel much. I was never excited, never disappointed since I expected the worst of something every time anyway - I internalized a sense of “Good things don’t happen to me, and if they do it’s only a matter of time before it’s gone”. It didn’t matter how much I progressed in my developing skillsets, it never felt like enough. I don't even have photos to represent this time period because I didn't take any - I literally did nothing but work, train, and study.
By the time the Summer of 2024 came around I was chronically unhappy to the point of making plans to go to another state to start anew and find a new opportunity since things weren’t working out for me in my hometown. After FM 2024 my heart softened, for the first time I felt like I was ‘seen’, and the people were so nice.
(FM Dance Cypher 2024)
I had it in mind that, in 2025, I was going to move to Minneapolis and dedicate my time to helpingMNFurs the non-profit organization, while working a day job that’d allow me to pay my bills (hopefully as a professor at my art school). That was the best I could hope for at the time.
Then the whole reflection on mortality thing happened with the Toasty Creationz post.
My dream shifted. I had internalized for so long that I didn’t matter despite accomplishing my goals but, it was in that acceptance, I realized the truths of mortality. Everything that’s ever lived, dies. One day everyone who’s read this will be dead, this blog won’t exist, and no one will remember our names outside of being a concept. So if we all die and nothing lasts forever, then truly the thing that does matter is what we do with our time alive. I wanted to live while I still could and I didn’t want to do it miserable anymore. So I was going to live by my own terms (within reason) and do what I wanted, not for anyone else's approval, but because it’s what I want and enjoy.
A new start
Plot twist, remember that Microsoft sponsored academic I participated in during 2020? Turns out Microsoft was desperately looking for interns to work at the city’s new data center so they could start showing ROI for their multi-million dollar investment. To qualify, you’d have had to have participated in the program, thus the opportunity was presented to me and I leaped at the chance to never scrub dirty toilets again. That winter of 2024 I was an intern for Microsoft.
Which brings us to present day Summer 2025. The internship went on for much longer than it was originally supposed to but it ultimately led to me returning to KZ3 and doing martial arts as well as being employed. Just like that, my money troubles are over (for now). Once again I’m in a career role and, unlike last time, I’m not going to make the same mistake as before. Still, despite having a much better day job, my dream still remains the same - I want to be a creator for a living, this is just luxury prison.
I recognize now that the dream can take on many different forms, I need 3000/mo in order to leave my full time position and it doesn’t have to be solely from artistic endeavors; it could residuals from investments, sales profits from merch and show performances, teaching classes, tips from streaming, literally anything that would add to the pool needed to be free from the bonds of the proverbial 9 to 5. But now that I’ve reached a semblance of stability heading into age 30, it has me thinking about “the rest of it”. How do I want the rest of my younger days to play out from age 30 - 40?
At this point I understand, it doesn’t matter if I fear aging and death, time’s arrow stops for no one and it will pass regardless of my input. Knowing that, I want to at least be able to look back and say I spent the time living true to what I wanted and who I was (within reason). There’s things I want to accomplish and do before it’s all said and done and one of them was being the best I could be as my true sona KZ3. While I do love my professional sona Maverick Lobo and he is authentically a part of me, he was created with the intention of being the face of a family-friendly platform for professionally created work (while making sure to remain authentic and not a pandering shill). In other words, Maverick is a job, even if it’s a job I really love and train my behind off for, it’s still a job; whereas KZ3 is my truest form of self-expression.
(Art by Nexus)
For the longest time I carried guilt from not succeeding in my goals set when I was a teen and even moreso when I felt my dream went up in flames 2022, but I understand now is that everything I wanted back then was simply a consequence of wanting to be ‘seen’; to be socially accepted while expressing myself openly. Part of maturing is realizing I needed to take responsibility for my own happiness and stop seeking it from external sources and to be more realistic about the true cost of trying to be an expert in all the fields I was interested in - in other words, I needed to stop comparing myself to other people which is where the vast majority of my issues of self worth stemmed from.
Free from the guilt that once haunted me I feel like a big weight was lifted off of my back - no longer am I pursuing my dream for vindication but because I simply enjoy it and think it’s awesome; no longer am I KZ3 to prove anything but because I love being the sona; no longer am I trying to build a platform for monetary gain as a form of success, but because I want to share my creations with the world while I still have time on this planet. The past grudges I once held towards others feels meaningless in comparison to pursuit of happiness and, while I won’t forget the past, I can finally learn from it and move on.
Forward
(Art by TsumeLeomon)
Moving forward, I know for sure I want to continue with Martial Arts as KZ3, get the triple BBB (Black Belt BJJ, Black Belt Karate, Black Belt Judo) and teach others martial arts until my number is punched. I know I want to produce my projects in the form of animations and visual novels, I know I want to try my hand at a career in Youtube using my skillsets as Maverick, and I know I’ll be with Microsoft until life circumstances change (thank goodness for plan B). I know I want to always attend furry conventions and do dance competitions but, rather than treating them as a direct connection to my own self worth, do it because it’s fun for everyone and just about enjoying the moment.
Maybe one day I’ll move to Minneapolis to more directly engage in MNFurs activities as I consider Minneapolis my second home but, for right now, I’m happy in my hometown training, learning, developing, and preparing to go on the run as my professional sona. If I had to reflect on my 20’s I would have to say it’s a mixed bag - some good, some bad. I accomplished a lot yet feel like I accomplished little; created a lot, yet created nothing; learned a great deal, yet need to learn further. I struggle to accept the fact that essentially 2 of my years were wasted under Covid and that I never really made any project outside of the first version of the Zach Cooner graphic novel. Yet, it’s only because of these shortcomings I’m able to understand and appreciate what I can do now and I’m able to definitively look back and see the progress I’ve made.
Conclusion
Teenage me would kill to have the skills adult me has now and, I’ve a strong feeling, adult me would kill to have the body of work elderly me will have, should I live to see it. I’m not unhappy anymore, just eager to make the most of what I feel like is a second chance. Thank you to all who supported me over the years, even at my lowest points. I had a lot of growing and maturing to do through my 20s, I just felt I had a lot to prove. I’m not a victim, I wasn’t perfect by any means and life kicked my ass for my hubris, but I’m done with the grudges I held. I’ve nothing left to fight about and no F’s left to give. I know what I want to do and know myself better now and the only thing I want to do is learn, create, and give back to others.
We’ll see how my 30’s goes should, god willing, I make it to my 40’s. Cheers to the future, I’m no longer afraid of it. ;)
