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Woyro talks about the hazards of being a postal worker. Also a report on Furry Connection North. and also talks about a special gift from a fan. Episode 88---Injuries and FCN - Woyro talks about the hazards of being a postal worker. Also a report on Furry Connection North. and also talks about a special gift from a fan.

This week on KnotCast, it's finding the fandom! Fifty episodes in and we're wanting to know what brought you to the party. Savrin, Zap, Fuzz, and Istanbul answer emails this week and share their own stories of finding the fandom. Zap even created a 100% true story for his. It's awesome. Also, we do read some off topic emails- asking about first time meetings, meeting people over the net, and more. All this on the omg 50th episode of KnotCast Episode 50 - Dr. Weirdlove

This week on KnotCast episode 49, it's paedogeddon. Savrin, Fuzz, and Istanbul summon Damien and Keggy from the depths of hell to really get into the topic of cub art, its defenders in the fandom, and our strongly held opinions on the matter of the art and those involved in it. Just as a warning - It's not nice, and it's not sugarcoated. However, this is the last time the topic will be given airtime on the show. Episode 49 - Drawing a Line

This week on KnotCast, Savrin, Fuzz, and Zap share the studio with Wolff and Horses Ghost of Sub Level 03 to chat about Pet Peeves. We hear from multiple listeners on the subject, get asked about giving head, and have a listener give Savrin a couple stories he could read aloud if he gets around to doing it all the way. (It's extremely time consuming!) All this and more on episode 48 of KnotCast. Episode 48 - Pet Peeves

First, its furry and convention news. Then, its a conversation with Marcus Noble at FWA about his first furrycon experience. Episode 87---After FWA with Marcus Noble and Furry News - First, its furry and convention news. Then, its a conversation with Marcus Noble at FWA about his first furrycon experience.

This week is all about the glory of the typed word. Well, the erotic, dog-people sort of typing. Savrin, Fuzz, Zap, and Istanbul are here again to read your emails all about your online erotic adventures. Also this week; Savrin is told he should read for audiobooks, we're asked about our First Time, and we make an important Special Comment. On the tail end of the episode we encourage our listeners to vote in the Ursa Major Awards. (http://www.ursamajorawards.org/). We don't say who to vote for, but we encourage you to participate in the voting. All this and more on episode 47 of KnotCast! Episode 47 - Them's Fuckin' Words

KnotCast Presents an Evening with Sub Level 03 We sat down with Sub Level 03 at FWA 2009 and had a nice chat. We discuss their current tour, their latest concert, old rumors that they had broken up, and discover why Savrin hadn't paid much attention to them before their current album. This and more on KnotCast Presents! KnotCast Presents - An Evening with Sub-Level 03

This week on KnotCast, Savrin, Fuzz, Zap, and Istanbul talk about all kinds of things! Fuzz and Savrin talk about FWA, and say they had an ok time. We discuss the fun stuff we did, and how we managed to make it back stab-free. Also this week, Savrin gives his review of Out of Position by Kyell Gold. (It's really good!) We discuss inconsiderate and dangerous boyfriends, get some writing advice from K. M. Hirosaki, are told that a listener was too shy to talk to us at FWA, and get an email from an actual straight female furry! Apparently they do exist! All this and more on episode 46 of KnotCast. Episode 46 - FW Eyyyyyyyyyyyy

Episode 3 of Analogues, recorded March 23, 2009 All content ©2009 Tanuke Media Analogues - 003 - Mar 23, 2009

Photomanip sequence set to a voiceover track. Uploaded with permission.Warning: Contains blatant adult content, nudity, and swearing. NSFW. Parents strongly cautioned.All Rights Reserved "Still Changing" - Donkey TF

Woyro recaps Furry Fiesta and previews Furry Weekend Atlanta Episode 86---From Furry Fiesta to FWA - Woyro recaps Furry Fiesta and previews Furry Weekend Atlanta

This week on KnotCast, Savrin and Fuzz have two new token females on! Kyo Foxtrot and Cyanni were visiting on spring break so we all thought it'd be fun to have them on as this weeks guests. Also, Kindle v2 makes a special text-to-speech appearance This week was an open topic. We discuss writing smut, writing dialogue for your smut, crazy leech-like mates, and a whole slew of somewhat related tangents in between. Its over two hours of podcast, so you know we had fun with it. All this and more on episode 45 of KnotCast! Episode 45 - 300 Percent

Viva Las Vegas! Where you can marry ANYTHING. This week Savrin, Fuzz, Zap, and Istanbul delve into the realm of commited relationships! At what point do you consider yourself married/mated/what have you? We go into this for quite a bit and have some really good listener input as well. Also on this episode, we discuss our impressions on pagans as an overall group, get a tale of a red badge at walmart, accents causing a problem in the bedroom, and find out that a relationship we've discussed before has been going better for the writer. We love updates! All this and more on episode 44 of KnotCast! Also- We has a new intro for Year Two of KnotCast. :3 Episode 44 - Tying the Knot - This week Savrin, Fuzz, Zap, and Istanbul delve into the realm of commited relationships!

Analogues special message Recorded Mar 6, 2009Images © Roy D. Pounds and Shiro.All other content ©2009 Tanuke Media Analogues - SPECIAL MESSAGE - Mar 06, 2009

This week on KnotCast, Savrin, Zap, Fuzz, and Istanbul discuss the wonderful magical world of Furry Fiesta 2009. We discuss our experiences at the con and our parts in it, and hear back from a few listeners who also attended. Also this week, we share tales of typefuckin' gone awry, get asked how to move a mate out of a shitty situation while unemployed, and are told that, hey, furmeets are good! All this and a whole ton of silliness on episode 43 of KnotCast! Episode 43 - The Aftermath

Holy crap, this is our live show from Furry Fiesta 2009! We answer a few emails, tell a lot of jokes, and get a lot of audience participation. We also get to tackle a very serious question from a member of the audience and do our best to give a very empathic and hopefully helpful answer. We had an utterly fantastic time at the recording and loved every minute of it. The audience really seemed to as well! We've been invited to do a live show at Oklacon 7 this year, and we're planning on it! Episode 42 - Knotstravaganza!

Woyro is hitting the road next week. he talks about Furry Fiesta and the US Postal Service Episode 85--Postal Service and Furry Fiesta - Woyro is hitting the road next week. he talks about Furry Fiesta and the US Postal Service

Episode 2 of Analogues, recorded January 30, 2009."Pogo Sticks" © AnimusicAll other content ©2009 Tanuke Media Analogues - 002 - Jan 30, 2009

This is a review is cross posted (after slight editing) from my own LJ. It contains a fair number of spoilers, so it'll be behind a nice big cut.



For those who haven't yet read the blurb on the back of the book/website, or read the first third of the book on the web, or even seen another review by now, the story features the football playing tiger Dev and the crafty cross dressing fox Lee. Lee trips Dev in to bed, and surprise, Dev likes it! This sets up the basic premise of Lee and Dev trying to make their way as a couple in the professional sports world.

The setting is essentially a furry copy of the current modern world, the same universe and time frame as Kyell's previous novel, Waterways. He even goes so far as to map the city names he's created to various locations in the US. It's a well constructed universe, solid and fleshed out. The small school scenes feel very real to me as someone who went to a div III school in the midwest, and the later scenes still kept that feeling of authenticity even as they went into places where I don't have the experience to know any better. The setting never detracted from the story, and mostly blended into the background of the character interaction. It felt like much more of the setting was assumed, unlike the stories set in Argaea (the setting of Volle and it's sequels) where the setting was more explicity described to point out the contrasts between that world and our onw..

It is a very character driven story, and those characters are once again magnificent people who are engaging and likeable even if they do have their own set of flaws.

Dev the tiger is my favorite character in the book, the one that I want waiting for me at home. I did have some issues with his characterization though... While the issues about coming out were very thoroghly explored in Waterways and I don't expect this book to spend all it's time going over the same sort of themes, Dev's acceptance of his own sexuality feels abrupt and rushed. It just came out of the blue after this chance encounter. Dev is confused for a couple weeks, then bam, he's back to get some more from Lee. From then on, he's suddenly ok with being gay, he's just primarily worried about staying in the closet. Has Dev really made it to his junior year of college without an inkling that he liked guys? Is it something he's thought about before but Kyell didn't find the space to tell us?

There's a bit of a time gap in the story, and when it picks back up it felt like a rather abrupt switch had gotten thrown that was not properly explained or explored. There's only a brief pause before Dev is again happily handling Lee. That is a relatively minor quibble for me, as I easily got swept up in the relationship interplay between Dev and Lee, and the progression towards pro football and his efforts to survive and thrive there. Dev is sweet (though he'd probably growl if you called him that) and straightforward. Most of the time it feels like his emotions are buried and restrained, but every so often these moments pop up that just are so beautiful it made me want to cry. In particular I was touched by the scene where he meets Lee's father and deftly short circuits a rather heated argument with his genuine sincerity, as well as a moment toward the end when he asks whether he should be thinking about the future as his or as ours [his and Lee's].

Lee is a more complicated character, though it didn't necessarily feel that way to me. The drive, intelligence and willing to be a bit underhanded at need felt very familiar to me. In a lot of ways we have similar views on commitments, which made his decision to quit school to take the job resonate with me. I don't know that I could have made the same decision as Lee, but I understand exactly what forces were pulling him in each direction. Lee also faded a bit into the background in the final section of the novel. While a critical player, he was often absent, off doing a job that those of us non-sports fans may not really understand. Lee's lack of physical presence was as much a character in the final section as his presence was. It was wonderful story construction and hightened the emotional impact, but it did let his character fade and subtly change (itself an important plot point).

This is an adult novel, and there is plenty of sex. I am happy to report that OOP is in my opinion the hottest of all Kyell's novels so far. For one thing, unlike Waterways, it didn't feature underage characters I felt weird getting aroused over. It also pushed a lot more of my buttons. One thing that did bother me a little was the seeming one sidedness of the sex in the relationship. It always seemed to be the same person taking the same roles. Dev tried oral a couple times and didn't like it... There was never any discussion of any possibility of him bottoming for Lee ever. That stuck out to me, and in a way felt like it was an assumption of Dev's dominance and masculinity, playing into both masculine stereotypes (i.e. big football player couldn't take it up the butt) and furry stereotypes of foxes being submissive. It made their sex life seem rather one dimensional over the course of the novel even if the individual sex scenes were always very well done, and not exactly condusive to being read while in public.

Final thoughts: Overall I really loved this novel. I read it twice from cover to cover on the way home from Further Confusion. It is most definitely worth picking up. I was a little worried about the football, but frankly I needn't have bothered. It's mostly a story about pro athletes in general, and could have been written with baseball, hockey or whatever players instead. The football action that is there is written in an aproachable manner, but still meaty enough (I hope) for actual football fans. It's the complete package in a furry novel, and I'm betting that it's going to be the furry novel of the year.

Final [Spoilery] Thoughts: Something about the ending that bothered me in retrospect was that it felt cribbed from the Ironman movie. While reading it, everything felt right and good, but after putting the book down, for a bit I thought that the whole press-conference revelation and quick end felt rather familiar, and realized that it was almost exactly like the end of Ironman with Tony Stark poised to issue a denial, then throwing caution to the wind and bursting out his secret. It was still a blockbuster moment for me, and nearly brought me to tears both times on the plane, even if it wasn't unexpected. One other thing that bothered me was the casual drinking and driving. While it may be in character (I'm from Cincinnati, I know how those things can go) it still worried me. I lost a friend in high school to a drunk driver, and that kind of thing bothers me.

Semi-unrelated note: I have read speculation that the first pro athlete to come out while active will likely be a solid 'franchise' player or backup who is still active but approaching the end of their productive career. It wouldn't be a big name, but someone who's worked hard, hasn't made a huge impact in any kind of record books but sees an opportunity to make a name for themselves by coming out prior to retirement. I do think there is also a plausible alternative scenario with the changing environment. I could see the first out active pro athlete as someone who has been out throughout their playing career, from high school through college and into the pros. That would be someone who was a natural and truly gifted athlete, a star who's talent ensures they cannot be overlooked by recruiters, but who stepped out of the closet such a long time ago that there would be no 'coming out' press because that happened so long ago that it faded into a non-issue.

Tangentially related note: On CNN headlines the other day there was a story about the progressive brain damage players in the NFL suffer due to repeated concussions and playing through concussions. That made me really worry about Dev, as he's the kind of player (at least right now) who would be very likely to suffer a concussion as a linebacker, but still play through it because he doesn't have the security in his job to sit it out, or play through it as a second string because he needs to stay in the game to stay on the team. It just made me concerned about the long term health and well-being of a fictional character.

Final Note: I noticed the map and the location of the Chevali dot. I wonder who you're going to be rooting for in the Super Bowl this weekend? :) Isn't that a funny coincidence?

This is a review is cross posted (after slight editing) from my own LJ. It contains a fair number of spoilers, so it'll be behind a nice big cut.



For those who haven't yet read the blurb on the back of the book/website, or read the first third of the book on the web, or even seen another review by now, the story features the football playing tiger Dev and the crafty cross dressing fox Lee. Lee trips Dev in to bed, and surprise, Dev likes it! This sets up the basic premise of Lee and Dev trying to make their way as a couple in the professional sports world.

The setting is essentially a furry copy of the current modern world, the same universe and time frame as Kyell's previous novel, Waterways. He even goes so far as to map the city names he's created to various locations in the US. It's a well constructed universe, solid and fleshed out. The small school scenes feel very real to me as someone who went to a div III school in the midwest, and the later scenes still kept that feeling of authenticity even as they went into places where I don't have the experience to know any better. The setting never detracted from the story, and mostly blended into the background of the character interaction. It felt like much more of the setting was assumed, unlike the stories set in Argaea (the setting of Volle and it's sequels) where the setting was more explicity described to point out the contrasts between that world and our onw..

It is a very character driven story, and those characters are once again magnificent people who are engaging and likeable even if they do have their own set of flaws.

Dev the tiger is my favorite character in the book, the one that I want waiting for me at home. I did have some issues with his characterization though... While the issues about coming out were very thoroghly explored in Waterways and I don't expect this book to spend all it's time going over the same sort of themes, Dev's acceptance of his own sexuality feels abrupt and rushed. It just came out of the blue after this chance encounter. Dev is confused for a couple weeks, then bam, he's back to get some more from Lee. From then on, he's suddenly ok with being gay, he's just primarily worried about staying in the closet. Has Dev really made it to his junior year of college without an inkling that he liked guys? Is it something he's thought about before but Kyell didn't find the space to tell us?

There's a bit of a time gap in the story, and when it picks back up it felt like a rather abrupt switch had gotten thrown that was not properly explained or explored. There's only a brief pause before Dev is again happily handling Lee. That is a relatively minor quibble for me, as I easily got swept up in the relationship interplay between Dev and Lee, and the progression towards pro football and his efforts to survive and thrive there. Dev is sweet (though he'd probably growl if you called him that) and straightforward. Most of the time it feels like his emotions are buried and restrained, but every so often these moments pop up that just are so beautiful it made me want to cry. In particular I was touched by the scene where he meets Lee's father and deftly short circuits a rather heated argument with his genuine sincerity, as well as a moment toward the end when he asks whether he should be thinking about the future as his or as ours [his and Lee's].

Lee is a more complicated character, though it didn't necessarily feel that way to me. The drive, intelligence and willing to be a bit underhanded at need felt very familiar to me. In a lot of ways we have similar views on commitments, which made his decision to quit school to take the job resonate with me. I don't know that I could have made the same decision as Lee, but I understand exactly what forces were pulling him in each direction. Lee also faded a bit into the background in the final section of the novel. While a critical player, he was often absent, off doing a job that those of us non-sports fans may not really understand. Lee's lack of physical presence was as much a character in the final section as his presence was. It was wonderful story construction and hightened the emotional impact, but it did let his character fade and subtly change (itself an important plot point).

This is an adult novel, and there is plenty of sex. I am happy to report that OOP is in my opinion the hottest of all Kyell's novels so far. For one thing, unlike Waterways, it didn't feature underage characters I felt weird getting aroused over. It also pushed a lot more of my buttons. One thing that did bother me a little was the seeming one sidedness of the sex in the relationship. It always seemed to be the same person taking the same roles. Dev tried oral a couple times and didn't like it... There was never any discussion of any possibility of him bottoming for Lee ever. That stuck out to me, and in a way felt like it was an assumption of Dev's dominance and masculinity, playing into both masculine stereotypes (i.e. big football player couldn't take it up the butt) and furry stereotypes of foxes being submissive. It made their sex life seem rather one dimensional over the course of the novel even if the individual sex scenes were always very well done, and not exactly condusive to being read while in public.

Final thoughts: Overall I really loved this novel. I read it twice from cover to cover on the way home from Further Confusion. It is most definitely worth picking up. I was a little worried about the football, but frankly I needn't have bothered. It's mostly a story about pro athletes in general, and could have been written with baseball, hockey or whatever players instead. The football action that is there is written in an aproachable manner, but still meaty enough (I hope) for actual football fans. It's the complete package in a furry novel, and I'm betting that it's going to be the furry novel of the year.

Final [Spoilery] Thoughts: Something about the ending that bothered me in retrospect was that it felt cribbed from the Ironman movie. While reading it, everything felt right and good, but after putting the book down, for a bit I thought that the whole press-conference revelation and quick end felt rather familiar, and realized that it was almost exactly like the end of Ironman with Tony Stark poised to issue a denial, then throwing caution to the wind and bursting out his secret. It was still a blockbuster moment for me, and nearly brought me to tears both times on the plane, even if it wasn't unexpected. One other thing that bothered me was the casual drinking and driving. While it may be in character (I'm from Cincinnati, I know how those things can go) it still worried me. I lost a friend in high school to a drunk driver, and that kind of thing bothers me.

Semi-unrelated note: I have read speculation that the first pro athlete to come out while active will likely be a solid 'franchise' player or backup who is still active but approaching the end of their productive career. It wouldn't be a big name, but someone who's worked hard, hasn't made a huge impact in any kind of record books but sees an opportunity to make a name for themselves by coming out prior to retirement. I do think there is also a plausible alternative scenario with the changing environment. I could see the first out active pro athlete as someone who has been out throughout their playing career, from high school through college and into the pros. That would be someone who was a natural and truly gifted athlete, a star who's talent ensures they cannot be overlooked by recruiters, but who stepped out of the closet such a long time ago that there would be no 'coming out' press because that happened so long ago that it faded into a non-issue.

Tangentially related note: On CNN headlines the other day there was a story about the progressive brain damage players in the NFL suffer due to repeated concussions and playing through concussions. That made me really worry about Dev, as he's the kind of player (at least right now) who would be very likely to suffer a concussion as a linebacker, but still play through it because he doesn't have the security in his job to sit it out, or play through it as a second string because he needs to stay in the game to stay on the team. It just made me concerned about the long term health and well-being of a fictional character.

Final Note: I noticed the map and the location of the Chevali dot. I wonder who you're going to be rooting for in the Super Bowl this weekend? :) Isn't that a funny coincidence?