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submitted by Burlapin
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Dear Papabear,

I’m a very young furry doing art secretly. I have been a furry for about 2 years now. My father is the type of guy who makes fun of things that are strange. If you tell him something, he gives you 1 answer and leaves it at that. He gets mad easily. I feel lonesome (hence the name lone owl) and I would like to get more involved, but without them knowing, and absolutely no furries live by me. I recently heard about your site and thought you could help me. I watch videos on the Internet, but still feel like this is missing in my life. Please help me.

Sincerely,

Lone Owl

* * *

Dear Owl,

Welcome to the furry fandom, hon. It can be very tough to be a furry, especially when you’re underage and living with parents who don’t understand anything that is beyond the accepted norm. My sympathies. Plus, you’re apparently living in an area that is a bit isolated.

One of the wonderful things about modern life is the Internet, which is how I discovered furries and made a lot of friends. But it is also frustrating because so many of those friends are far away and sometimes I never see them in person. Okay, so here are some tips that may help:

1) The Internet is your lifeline to the fandom, so guard your Web privileges carefully. I hate saying this, especially since I just wrote a letter about being honest with one’s parents, but if your father, especially, is going to freak about furries, you’re going to have to conceal your browsing behavior. At your age, I hope you are not getting into the kink of furry. Be VERY wary of that. Keep it clean at all costs. After looking at furry sites, delete your history and your cookies. I really hate that you have to do this, but this isn’t about you doing something criminal; this is about you being who you are in a household that sounds like it would promptly reject and oppress you. So be careful.

2) Since you can’t go to a furcon or furmeet, especially since you’re too young to even drive, you can try and create the furry experience via virtual worlds. If you haven’t discovered it already, go to SecondLife.com. An entire virtual world awaits you there. You can create a fursona there and there are many parts of SecondLife that are places for furries to hang out. You could also have a lot of fun with The Furry Gaming Alliance (http://furrygamingalliance.com/).

3) Modern technology has brought us the wonders of videochat programs like Skype, which is free to use if both people have a copy. IM software like Yahoo!IM also has video chat. It’s the next best thing to being there.

4) Your story is one of many reasons why I and others are working on founding the American Furry Association, which will be a national advocacy group for furries. One committee is being devoted entirely to young and new furries who need help navigating the fandom and getting connected to it. You can learn more at www.americanfurryassociation.org. We’re still in the planning stages, but I am hoping to get it launched later this year.

Right now, Owl, you are a bit too young to forge out on your own and get personally connected with furries, but happily you have the Internet, a useful tool that can help you a lot. Guard your surfing privileges well. 

In the meantime, launch an education program for your father to slowly get him used to the idea of furry. Surround yourself with G-rated furry stuff, such as Disney and Warner Bros. cartoons and books like Watership Down and the Redwall tales of Brian Jacques. This is to get your father more comfortable with anthropomorphic fiction and art, a process that could take years, but you have lots of time right now as you’re not going anywhere.

Hope these suggestions help. And, if you feel lonely again, feel free to drop Papabear an email.

Hugs,

Papabear

Author: Smokescale Aquatos A day earlier than usual you say? Well that’s because we’re changing our recording schedule! Due to relocation and the great strain it would put on cast members to be in attendance every week, we’re backing down to every other week. We’ll record Wednesday nights two weeks apart, giving you all extra [...] Episode 81 – Bazookas

submitted by Titanduck
[link] [6 comments]

Do you have good friends? They can make an astounding impact on our life and make a bad situation bearable, or make a good day that much more awesome. Today the WagzTail crew discusses how to choose good friends and how they became friends. Share your thoughts in the comments down below and let us know what you look for in a friend.

Metadata and Credits WagzTail Podcast 2.0 Episode 66
Runtime: 30m
Cast: Levi, Crimson, Wolfin
Editor: Levi
Format: 128kbps ABR split-stereo MP3
Copyright: © 2013 WagzTail.com. Some Rights Reserved. This podcast is released by WagzTail.com as CC BY-ND 3.0. If distributed with a facility that has an existing agreement in place with a Professional Rights Organisation (PRO), file a cue sheet for 30:00 to Fabien Renoult (BMI) 1.67%, Josquin des Pres (BMI) 1.67%, WagzTail.com 96.67%. Rights have been acquired to all content for national and international broadcast and web release with no royalties due. Podcast image belongs to sirenbrian, used with permission. Episode 66 – Choosing Friends - Do you have good friends? They can make an astounding impact on our life and make a bad situation bearable, or make a good day that much more awesome. Today the WagzTail crew discusses how to choose good friends and how they became friends.

Oooh, nice cover... http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/3/30/CTHS1992.jpg

Guess what 14-year-old me did when I saw that. :)

... I had to draw it better. Pretty soon I found out there was such a thing as "furries"... what an awesome find in the 90's.

submitted by Ipatfurries
[link] [5 comments]

submitted by linty-lint
[link] [3 comments]

Omg!!! Were you thinking that means sexual things? Well welcome to DailyFurBlog your new place to be employed … well that is if you want to take the job! We are looking for a few good writers to take on the task of making posts to the site and giving the site a boost. So if you want some $$ in your virtual box or whatever you might spend it on (I can only imagine for furries) then see the details below here:

Please sent e-mail to Syler@dailyfurblog.com for submittions and here is your topic:

“FA gets re-made into a newer version and it’s amazing!! Everyone is a fan, but there is  still some flaws.” You can use the beta site if you need a visual thing to help you along the way!

All posts for this thing, must be done by April 18th! Good luck!

Training will be required after this date and will happen on the employes discretion.

submitted by HappyWulf
[link] [12 comments]

A day earlier than usual you say? Well that’s because we’re changing our recording schedule! Due to relocation and the great strain it would put on cast members to be in attendance every week, we’re backing down to every other week. We’ll record Wednesday nights two weeks apart, giving you all extra time to write in! Sorry for the inconvenience, but it’s the best solution we can come up with to make sure everyone can still attend.

Speaking of, we were minus a Halfwit for this show as she was not at all well. We wish her a speedy recovery and miss her lots.

Anyway, we dive right in this week with Kyo talking about all of the drag contests, drawings, and such that he’s won, as well as converting someone to the way of the dragulator. Smokey goes on WAY too long about how much the noob he’s training isn’t going to work out and how much he would like to strangle him. Isty discusses the move he’s undergone as well as the problem of getting a full time job near his new place of residence. We wish him the best of luck in his endeavors, the best of luck to Kyo with his drag projects, and Smokey when he finally snaps and strangles the new guy with a mouse cord.

There were only three emails for this show, so we were able to focus rather nicely on them. The first discussed the writer’s friend seriously considering a rather drastic move (to New Zealand from the United States) and how to deal with this. The second talked about how another fur deals with stress. He mentions his struggle with depression (don’t cut yourself anymore dude! We like our listeners alive and not needing medical care!) by way of music and his pet lizard. The third is from long-time listener and writer, Marcus Nobel who updates us on his job situation as well as reporting on Fur The More.

Whacky shenanigans abound and yet we managed to squeeze this into just over an hour. There were some difficulties what with the new recording location but those should be ironed out in due course.

Next show’s topic will be “Somebody should really say something, so just say it already”. You know those times where you just know someone needs to step up and have the guts to say something about someone or a situation? Yeah, that’s what this is all about. Tell us about the times where you’ve wished you could have said something, or when you actually did. Are you looking for help in how to approach such a situation so you can work up the courage to be the one to speak up? Let us know! If you want your emails to remain anonymous, we can accommodate. Let us know at the start of the message and we will redact any information you request.

Remember, you have two weeks before the next show. That’s plenty of time! Write on in so we can help you out! Let us know what you think of the show! Changes are coming! Stick around!

Also, you might have noticed a couple of bleeps in there. If you can guess what it is we bleeped, you win a prize!*

*you don’t actually get a prize, sorry, budget issues.

Music – “Take Me Home” by After Midnight Project

Twitter: fuzzylogiccast
FA: fuzzylogicpodcast
E-mail: fuzzy.logic.podcast@gmail.com
iTunes: Fuzzy Logic Podcast

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Episode 81 – Bazookas
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Episode 81 – Bazookas - A day earlier than usual you say? Well that’s because we’re changing our recording schedule! Due to relocation and the great strain it would put on cast members to be in attendance every week, we’re backing [...]

submitted by The_Fox_Cameron
[link] [1 comment]

submitted by HammerBunny
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submitted by Animepony10
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submitted by CommonsCarnival
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Here's tha links!

Numba one! and Numba two!

submitted by Flutta
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submitted by killabydemand
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submitted by frostysnowcat
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I would really like to either buy or make my own fursuits and I'd really like the characters to look how I actually draw them. I haven't been drawing in a while, but my art style is sorta really toony. But, I don't want the fursuit to look too toony.

So, I'd just like suggestions on any fursuit makers or fursuit head styles that would best fit my art style.

Recent pic of my fursona: http://d.facdn.net/art/nya18/1365552947.nya18_vodka_maid.png

submitted by Nya18
[link] [2 comments]

submitted by Ellen-Natalie
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There are a lot of ways to think about furry. Tons and tons. It’s a bit confusing at times, trying to sort out how best to talk about what we are and how we fit together as a subculture. Even the choice of the word “subculture” is loaded with its own meaning, just as is the word “fandom”. Both imply certain ways of thinking about how furry works. It’s a bit confusing, but, well, it’s certainly served us well here at [a][s]: we’ve got plenty to write about, after all.

One more way of thinking about furry is to think of it as appropriation – or, rather, a series of appropriations – that help provide something of a common core to our being a relatively coherent group. Appropriation is a big and complicated word, and there are several connotations attached to it that I’ll get into closer to the end of the article, but first, I’d like to explore furry through this lens and see what can be gleaned from thinking of ourselves in this light.

One of the easiest forms of appropriation to see is commercial appropriation. Commercial appropriation is what happens when elements of commercial products are adopted by people in a way not necessarily intended by the producers of that commercial content. In a way, this is how many fandoms work: a producer will create and release content of some type intended (insomuch as intent matters) for entertainment or something similar, and a group of people will appropriate that content or object as part of their identities. With as loose of a group as furry is, it’s not surprising that commercial appropriations within the fandom happen often. Watching something such as Balto, The Lion King, My Little Pony, or Sonic The Hedgehog while holding in your mind this affinity for anthropomorphism, it’s easy to see why, too. This goes beyond simply creating TLK or MLP characters, too, but also in adopting and creating things within the newly formed fandom (or sub-fandom, in our case, as I’m speaking specifically of those who identify both with furry and also this appropriated creation). Even those who do not overtly participate in this appropriation can subtly add to it through their acknowledgement and interaction with those aspects of the fandom; JM’s recent articles on My Little Pony fall along those lines, in their own way.

Another form of appropriation that crops up within our subculture is that of cultural appropriation. One of the ways in which this crops up is through appropriation of spiritual or the adoption of ideas central to spiritual practices within a non-spiritual context. This can happen both overtly and subtly. Overtly, I’ve seen quite a bit of shamanistic art and design going into certain characters, reflecting north and central American native culture. To be more specific, a number of coyotes that I’ve met of late have talked of Coyote, a spiritual persona or even deity of many Native American tribes. Beyond these obvious connections, however, there are more subtle, subconscious appropriations that fit more neatly within those of us who reside firmly within Western culture. It’s not uncommon to see clever foxes and coyotes, or smug, aloof cats, or even the concept of lone wolves. This isn’t universal by any stretch, but it does show a reflection of western society’s collective mythology adopted in a very literal sense within our anthropomorphic inclinations.

There are other ways to think of cultural appropriation, as well. We adopt and adapt widely from the culture around us, much of which comes from the consumer culture of the western world, but some of which is new, and taken eagerly from what we know and consume. For instance, the fandom surrounding the My Little Pony franchise has mingled with the furry subculture within the last few years, mixing stylistically and idealistically in both directions. There are more subtle indications of cultural appropriation.  For example, some of the participants of FurCast (hey guys!) have argued that there are aspects of hermaphroditic characters furry fandom that have appropriated portions of the trans* experience into their characters and identities (though see the note on this below).

Even the idea driving furry itself, or at least a seeming majority of it, is one of appropriation: appropriating characteristics of animals and applying them to oneself in ways extending beyond their original “purpose”. Adopting ears is one thing, but appropriating a keen sense of hearing in role-play can indicate an entirely new purpose, and the same applies to scent, pack behavior, hierarchies, or even species specific talents, such as tracking, alertness, or affinity for shinies.

Appropriation is a complicated subject (as many things with their own Wikipedia disambiguation page tend to be), and it should be noted that there are a lot of different ways of thinking about the topic, and each has their own connotation to go along with it. The ideas of cultural and spiritual appropriation, for instance, are often viewed in a negative light. It’s not just that one is “stealing” or “not doing it right” by not participating in toto, so much as, by attempting to maintain one’s cultural identity, having an external party appropriate a portion of that identity for their own means can be seen as weakening the worth of the whole. On the other side, many disagree with this, especially when it comes to the concepts of commercial and social appropriation, as the current way of thinking is nothing if not cynical: by appropriating portions of art and commercial products, we are creating something new, something beyond, something worthier. I think that this is a lot of what drives fandoms in the current day and age. By taking something that was intended for a single, often financially oriented, purpose and making it a portion of our identities, we are giving it a life of its own as breathed by its more spiritual participants. And sometimes, it’s simply standing on the shoulders of giants: if we have seen further, then that is often the reason.

None of this changes the fact that, when we take a step back and look at it from a far, a lot of the core of our culture is based on appropriation, good or bad.  We’ve built ourselves up out of what we were given, in a way, and that helps to provide us with a set of ideas that many of us hold as part and partial to both our identity and also what we expect from others within the fandom, whether they’re producing things for us to consume (as in expectations in art, literature, and so on), or interacting with us as fellow members (as in social expectations adopted or character attributes appropriated). So much of furry is appropriated from elsewhere, though it’s the way we put it together and make it work that makes us who and what we are.

In the end, as with many topics as far reaching and variegated as this, it’s hard to tell whether or not this is a good thing for the fandom or not. It certainly applies, at least to some extent – after all, we are not a culture built totally on appropriation: all it takes is a glance at our own readily accessible productions. Even the examples that I’ve tried to look into, with my own limited scope, must be taken on an individual basis It has its positive and negative connotations, and it can be seen as both adding to and hindering our constructive growth as a subculture. All that said, though, I stand by what I stated earlier in that taking a step back and looking at furry as a whole in all these different ways can help us understand the ways in which we do grow, constructive or otherwise. By understanding that there are those whose productions we are appropriating for ourselves, or whose societies whose cultures we are adopting bits and pieces of, we can understand how we have gotten where we are now, and by looking at the things we are doing at this moment, we can help see where we might wind up in days to come.

Note: I know that I really shouldn’t get into this too much here so as not to derail the article too much, but I do feel that this comment is worth explaining further. The trans* community, of which I’d consider myself a part, is really quite new, and even much of the underlying theory of gender goes back only a century at most (though there were certainly descriptions of both before, it is important recognize the start of a cohesive idea or set of ideas, however). Those that I’ve talked to, along with myself, don’t agree one hundred percent that those who have hermaphroditic characters are appropriating portions of the trans* or intersex experience into a lifestyle or role-play so much as exploring non-normative gender as expressed though a character’s biological sex, but that hardly implies universal agreement, and there are certainly aspects of fantasy, particularly sexual fantasy, that can impinge uncomfortably on reality for many, many individuals. However, this is a very large topic, and [a][s] may not the place to explore it outside its own article, and so I’ll leave it be, with the warning that this is bigger than it might appear on the surface.