Feed aggregator

There was a silly post here that mixed politics and the friendly community of furries. I got a little heat from all sides for that. (I wouldn’t have it any other way… whether it’s a controversy or a furry cuddle sandwich, I like being in the middle.) Why do that? Because it’s a group of people just like other people, so they mix it themselves sometimes.  Not my fault for noticing.

It relates to a post by another blogger. Let’s get to his in a minute, but first meet Zachary Byron Helm. He’s a talent I have appreciated since Livejournal, the kind who would be considered some kind of subcultural mogul in a big coastal city.  He has gathered a following of his own from his lair in Colorado. It’s an entirely different subculture, but you might have seen me post about loving punk/goth and industrial music from time to time. (Subcultures are at their best when they mingle and mutate.)

Zach makes up for lack of fluffy tail with outrageous fashion sense. Look at this guy:

• He collects hearses, rebuilds them by hand, and customizes them with no-shit working flamethrowers on top.
• He gathers fellow hearse enthusiasts for an annual event called Hearse Con.
• That’s totally a goth thing to do (goth in Colorado: why not), so he also makes goth-flavored Youtube videos with his own bad-ass auteurial vision under the moniker S.O.R.P. films.
• They’re funny. Goth humor can be as unexpected as seeing mainstream tastemakers act like they just discovered a cool new trend called “furries”. It makes me wistful for when SNL had Sprockets with Dieter.
• Check his Nine Inch Nails parody. I think there’s a micro-genre of those and it’s the best one.

• Zach has a super-ambitious labor-of-love DIY B-movie in the works, called “Death Hearse on Satan’s Titty Highway.” Look at that title. It’s a finely-crafted string of magical power words. The little bits shown so far have stunts with flaming police cars. Is that not bad-ass?
• So, like I said, a bad ass and he blogs like it. (I hope he replies and tells us his favorite or most widely-shared pieces.)

That stuff is a great example of true passion and creativity. I hope this brings him a new follower or two.

Recently, I saw Zach post stuff with some politics in it, about the 2012 movie theater shootings in Aurora, Colorado. (Zach said he knew people at the theater.)

It caused a problem specific to furries, a chill on activities that are close to our hearts.  Look no further than 2016’s biggest movie, Zootopia.  Many of us wanted to celebrate it in furry form, but theaters aren’t so tolerant about masks or costumes any more. (Previously a topic in “Furries and security worries“.)

Blame the shooter, James Holmes. That jerkwad ruined our fun (on top of everything else.) He was convicted for the murders and thrown in a hole for a few thousand years.  But sadly, that didn’t make it easy again for us to have movie meets and spread hugs in fursuits.

Despite the issue, Zootopia meets DID happen and boy were they popular. My article about furries renting theaters was the most viewed ever on this site.  I didn’t give it a fraction of the effort that some other Furry News gets, and it had thousands of shares on Facebook and quotes in national news.  Back in 2000, Vanity Fair did a hit piece about us on the level of a class jock picking on you every day in high school and then following you home to keep it up for 12 years. They were led to quote Dogpatch Press while positively covering furries and Zootopia. Our enthusiasm won out.

Zach probably doesn’t know about any of this, but he looked at another side.

Several victims of the Aurora shootings sued the theater chain because they said the theater didn’t have sufficient security to prevent a mass killing.

First off, WHAT theater in this country is equipped to stop a mass killing? ANY!? The whole lawsuit hinged on the notion that another victim in this whole tragedy (The theater chain) should have done something to stop a horrible event that no one could have foreseen….

…The one person we can blame isn’t someone we can go after any more than we already have, so people go “Well shit, who can I go after!?” Then someone suggests the theater chain and they see a payday for their suffering.

I’d like to mention the woman who sued McDonald’s for spilling coffee in her lap. It was widely ridiculed as a frivolous lawsuit.  If you take a closer look, it wasn’t (third-degree burns, skin grafts, and two years of recovery after the restaurant was warned about serving molten lava.) She made a statement about corporate practices. Don’t judge so fast!

With the Aurora victims, I doubt they were just looking for a payday. Look at how little money was on the table. It would have been $30,000 each for three worst victims and less than $2,000 each for the rest. I wouldn’t take that for suffering unconsensual noogies. That’s “condolences, have a jumbo bucket of popcorn.”

It’s known that movies are some of the last large gatherings with little to no security. They were looking for a change to corporate policy to stop future shootings. Justified or not, that’s good intentions. But the court couldn’t find the theater liable.

Fine, but… then they piled $700k in cost penalties on the last holdout plaintiffs, who apparently had so much grief that they would be martyrs for a message about corporate responsibility. IANAL, but I believe it should be said that was due to a special quirk of Colorado law.  Usually, sides are supposed to bear their own costs. So good intentions were treated as frivolous in a manner usually reserved for exceptional malicious litigation. Uncool, man.

That’s my small beef with Zach’s opinion. The theater isn’t Mom and Pop’s sandwich shop defending itself from an evil billionaire developer like in the movies. It’s a damn national chain. That’s not a person vs. person dispute. Getting to throw costs back just makes me think, even if nobody was a winner, it seems to award suited executives power to not even have to listen to The People for anything at all.

I sympathize at least with the victims intentions. And I’m a furry who wants less paranoia!  This connects to fandom in the way it involves business vs. culture. With the bigger-dumber blockbuster business, I see a trend towards soullessness, where art and passion is an afterthought.  They could be herding passengers on and off of busses as much as putting butts in theater seats. “Ass the movie” isn’t far off.

Caring Citizens and Fans were the losers of these broad happenings. Corporations and Holmes won that.

In the Furries and security worries articles, one is by Andrew, a furry movie theater employee. He discussed how Holmes used costuming (and how it’s unfair to judge us by his attack and ban all masks).

I’m no Dr. Fureud, but I think Holmes could be an example for Fandom Gone Bad. That genius confused movies with real life and somehow decided to be an actual Batman villain, at everyone elses expense. Unlike some of our own Fandom Problem Children I can’t find anything sympathetic about that.

You can say that the antithesis to Holmes is guys like Zach, and every furry who makes the activities we love possible. I’m not inviting Zach to a cuddle sandwich (it might mess up his mohawk) but I have dreams of wacky-ass mashups like the furries vs. Klingons bowling meets and Goth Day at Disneyland.

That huge preamble serves to make a point. I wanted to mention what convinced theaters to let furries come in costume to Zootopia shows.

Caring about community. We had to find the small, independent, or personally-caring theaters who would overlook things like liability or furryphobia or whatever, and let us come be silly animals anyways.

That’s the antidote to corporate soullessness and empty evil narcissism. It might bring a little of what those plaintiffs could use.

I don’t find it anywhere more strongly than with my furry friends. If you organize a meet, think about how to get support by showing what a great community we have. I don’t know if goths would care, but you can see the appreciation here. (And they have flamethrowers!)

The Harry & Bunny Show is a series of slapstick comedy short cartoons running on The Disney Channel (and several on-line video channels for young viewers). It’s produced by Animasia in Malaysia. “Introducing Harry the magician, Bunny the stage rabbit and Madam Penny, a Gypsy fortune teller. Harry and Bunny have a very close relationship, but yet they dislike each other sometimes. Every episode features the conflict between Harry and Bunny in their daily life, where Harry always construct a new plan trying to get his magic wand back, while Bunny sabotages Harry with the magic wand.” Seems straightforward enough. Watch the showreel over on YouTube and you’ll get the idea.

image c. 2016 Animasia

How do I become a furry? And where can I go?

Anonymous (Cape Town, SA)

* * *

Hello, Furiend,

How do you "become a furry"? Well, it is a very long and arduous process. You have to find someone who belongs to our secret furry organization to sponsor you. Once you've paid the $100 to join, you must go through a grueling period of training on how to be a "true furry." This is followed by an initiation that can be quite physical and painful (I cannot divulge the details lest I be punished). When you have been trained, you go into your apprenticeship during which you must find 20 furries to be your benefactors/owners. You will be their servant for the next year and you will have to do all they ask. Next, you are in your journeyman period for another year. This is when you must learn to make your own fursuit and you must wear it all the times, day and night. When that is completed, you are taken to the Super-Secret Furry Den, where you will be given a special ring you must always wear and swear your oath of fealty. If you ever break it or try to leave the fandom, you will be hunted down and eaten.

I'm kidding, of course. Please forgive a silly ol' bear. We all tend to make things much more complicated than they need to be.

Want to be a furry? Then be a furry. If you like furries, you're a furry. Ain't hard, hon.

As for "Where can I go?" That's all up to you. Easiest thing to do is simply search online for furry groups in social networks etc. and start chatting with furries. These days, you can't shake a proverbial stick online without hitting a furry.

Since you kindly provided your location, however, I can point you to a couple places in your area.
​

• ZA Furries at https://forum.zafur.co.za/ is a board where you can find local furs to chat with.
• There is a South African Furries group on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/SAFurries/
• On Tumblr check out a small group called South-Afrifur at http://south-afrifur.tumblr.com/

Good luck! Have fun!

Papabear

Here’s yet another cool animated series the rest of the world gets, while apparently we here in the USA have to do without! Hence why Adventures in Duckport flew beneath our radar — no pun intended. This is from last year at Animation Magazine: “San Diego-based Lawless Entertainment has partnered up with Italian producer Mondo TV to co-produce and distribute a new 2D HD animated series based on the Adventures in Duckport characters of internationally popular brand Suzy’s Zoo. The 52 x 11 series will be distributed worldwide by Mondo (excluding North America), while Lawless handles global licensing and merchandising (except for some reserved by Mondo) and NorAm distribution. [When, is the question…] The Adventures in Duckport series will feature original Suzy’s Zoo characters, including the duck Suzy Ducken and her friends Jack Quacker, Penelope O’Quinn, Corky Turtle, and more. Targeted to ages 4-8, the show will offer charming adventures of these characters as they interact with the world and do their best to help the elder members of their community with love and respect.” At least we can see the trailer on Vimeo.

image c. 2016 Mondo TV

Save

Here’s one we missed: Just this year DHX Media (home, of course, of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic) premiered a new animated TV series for preschoolers. “Rainbow Ruby is the story of a spunky, resourceful little girl who magically transports to Rainbow Village, a whimsical land inhabited by her toys, and transforms into different jobs to help save the day! This CGI-animated preschool series takes the childhood fantasy of dolls come to life, and mixes in an aspirational heroine who proves that you can be anything you want to be!” The series has been showing in Canada on the Family Channel. Not sure if it’s broadcast in the US or not! Check out the trailer over on Vimeo.

image c. 2016 DHX Media

I have a couple questions for you, Papabear.

For a while I have been looking for some fanzines or projects that are looking for artist submissions but have been unsuccessful in finding them. Could you tell me where a good place to look is or recommend some?

Second, I have wanted to do a zine/compilation project of my own but I'm not what people would call popular. How would I go about reaching artists to submit works to my zines? They would be pay what you want .pdf zines on gum road or something.

Zombunny

* * *

Hi, Zombunny,

Thanks for the letter. Couple of questions: 1) which fanzines have you contacted thus far? Which publishers? I don't want to take time suggestions people you have already tried. 2) Do you have any experience in magazine publishing? If not, I would suggest you get some before diving in to launch, edit, manage, promote, and sell your own zine. It's not an easy thing to do and you just don't decide "I'm going to publishing a magazine" and voila! 

Hugs,
Papabear

* * *

Hey Papabear,

I hadn't really contacted any publishers or anything like that to be honest and have no experience in publishing at all.

What I was looking for were projects that were openly accepting artist submissions.

I may look into publishing my own zine in the future so if you have any suggestions on publishers I would be happy to know about those too.
Just mainly looking to get my name out there and build a brand for myself.

Thanks so much for responding!

Sincerely,
Zombunny

* * *

Hi, Zombunny,

If you are interested in publishing, I would suggest you get some experience in writing, editing, and publishing. If you are looking for publications or "projects" (whatever those are) that are accepting art submissions, I suggest you contact those publishers. I have absolutely no idea who is accepting work for hire and who is not, since I don't work for any of those companies; that is up to those who are looking for the work LOL!

Getting into this field takes work, lots of work. There are no shortcuts, hon.  I have been in publishing since 1988.  You don't just start a magazine with no experience.  You don't just get instant leads on art or writing submissions.  Research the publishers you're interested in to see if they take submissions at all and to see what sorts of things they are looking for.  You have to contact them one by one.

Good luck,
Papabear

Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.

The Dragon Tax, by Madison Keller
Portland, OR, Hundeliebe Press, June 2016, trade paperback $9.99 (141 pages), Kindle $2.99.

This lighthearted little book is an expansion of the short story that appeared in the RainFurrest 2015 charity anthology, A Menagerie of Heroes; now out of print. Sybil Dragonsbane, a young professional dragon slayer, is called to the Kingdom of Thima. It has a dragon problem – but not the usual kind:

“‘Actually, we quite like having a dragon on the island,’ the King sat forward, eyes shining. Multiple chins jiggled as he wagged his hard around theatrically. ‘They bring lots of adventurers through the town, adventurers who all pay for a permit to hunt the dragon. They drop gold at local businesses before going off on their hunt. Whether they survive or not, that is not my problem.’” (pgs. 5-6)

None of the previous dragon hunters have survived, and the dragon has amassed quite a pile of gold and gems. Now King Jonathan has decided to tax it. The problem is getting the dragon to pay the tax. That’s why he has summoned Sybil; to offer her the new post of Thima’s dragon tax collector:

“‘My fee is double.’ Sybil placed her hands on her daggers.

‘Double?’ the King roared, surging to his feet. ‘I’m not asking you to kill the thing.’

‘True, what you’re asking is even more dangerous. You’re asking me to leave a dragon alive, a dragon that now will know my scent and my tricks. If that won’t work for you …’” (p. 8)

What happens, about a third of the way through, is unexpected. It is probably supposed to be a major surprise to the reader, but it is impossible to keep from giving away a spoiler and to go on reviewing the final 2/3 of the book. Briefly, Riastel the dragon turns human; Sybil learns that King Jonathan and his wizard Baldwin lied to her and have a more sinister plot, and the dragonhunter and dragon-turned-human team up to save both their lives. Also, Sybil is a young woman and Riastel makes a very handsome and hunky human male. Romance ensues. This is Book One of a series, so the reader will not be surprised to have an ending that leads to further adventures.

The Dragon Tax is Book One of The Dragon Tax Saga. It’s good fun, but it’s very lightweight. From a furry viewpoint, the dragon can talk – that’s it. Some of the rationalizations are not really convincing; for example, the laborious reasoning why Sybil doesn’t quickly kill Riastel when he’s turned into a helpless human in front of her:

“‘Look, it’s just a guess. In the meantime we should get out of here.’ The girl cocked her head, her eyes raking up and down his new form.

‘We?’ Riastel snorted and scooted back again. A sharp rock dug into his rear and he yelped.

‘Yes, we. You won’t last a day without some help.’ She stood and offered her hand to him.

Riastel shivered and flinched back. ‘You have a cloak made of a dead dragon. You’re a dragon hunter. Why would I let you help me?’

‘You think I want to work with a dragon? You’re all killers, but, look at you, I …’ she trailed off and shook her head, hand still extended out to him. ‘Just, I’m offering to help you. If you want to return to your scaly, fire-breathing self, you need my help.’” (p. 43)

I may be disappointed because I read The Dragon Tax in its short-story form in A Menagerie of Heroes. That was only 26 pages; a tightly-written gem. The 141-page novel seems bloated by comparison. Sybil’s refusal to kill the dragon-turned-human there could be justified by her surprise at Riastel’s turning human, and deciding not to do anything final until she’s found out what’s going on. The more that she consciously rationalizes the choice in the novel, the less convincing it seems. The first scene in the short story, of the dragon on the beach, seems weaker when rewritten to appear after the throne room scene. But for those who have not read the short story, the novel is fine.

Keller has done her own cover. It’s good in showing exactly how Sybil Dragonsbane is supposed to look. She might get a different cover that fits the paranormal romance genre, and package the book to play up the growing romance between Sybil and Riastel-as-hunky-human.

–Fred Patten

• Buy on Amazon

More recent news about Arctic Justice: Thunder Squad, a new animated feature we have mentioned before. Straight from Variety: “Jeremy Renner [The Avengers] has signed on to voice the lead character in 3D animated family film Arctic Justice: Thunder Squad from AMBI Group. Renner joins previously announced Alec Baldwin, James Franco, Anjelica Huston, and Omar Sy in a rag-tag group of inexperienced heroes combining to thwart the evil Doc Walrus, voiced by John Cleese, and save the Arctic. Renner will be voicing a fox named Swifty. The movie is fully financed and produced by AMBI principals Andrea Iervolino and Monika Bacardi, with animation work being done out of their AIC Toronto studio by Dimos Vrysellas (Shark Tale). Cal Brunker and Bob Barlen (Escape From Planet Earth) co-wrote the screenplay.” Still no word on a planned release date, but you’ll know when we do!

image c. 2016 AMBI Group

New members

After a big July, we didn't induct any new members in August. Maybe our next new member will be you? If you'd like more information about joining, read our membership guidelines.

Member news

Members Mary E. Lowd, Skunkbomb and Frances Pauli sold stories to Scratchpost Press's The Society Pages, a forthcoming anthology.

Televassi will have a poem in Thurston Howl Publications' Wolf Warriors III, their charity anthology. In addition, his story from Gods With Fur will be reprinted in THP's 2017 wolf anthology.

From Spring's Storms, the sequel to Patrick "Bahumat" Rochefort and Keith Aksland's novel From Winter's Ashes, has begun serializing on the web.

GoAL Publications released the third (and final?) issue of their eponymous magazine.

New markets

• ROAR 8 is open for submissions (as of September 1). This general audience anthology always has a loose theme; 2017's is "Paradise." Editor: Mary E. Lowd. Publisher: FurPlanet. Length: 2,000–18,000 words; prefers 4,000–12,000. Payment: 0.5¢/word. Deadline: February 1, 2017. Submission call.

For ongoing markets previously covered but still open (and occasionally, open in the future), visit the FWG web site:

• Paying short story markets
• Non-paying short story markets
• Novel/novella markets

Remember to keep an eye on the Calls for Submissions thread on the forum, as well as other posts on the Publishing and Marketing forum.

Cóyotl Awards

The 2015 Cóyotl Awards were awarded at Rocky Mountain FurCon! The winners:

• Novel: Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard, Lawrence M. Schoen
• Novella: Koa of the Drowned Kingdom, Ryan Campbell
• Short story: "The Analogue Cat," Alice Dryden
• Anthology: Inhuman Acts, Ocean Tigrox (editor)

Congratulations to all the winners! Remember, to the best of our knowledge, the Cóyotl is the only literary award you can hug. (Okay, you could hug a Hugo, but it wouldn't be comfortable.)

Odds and ends

Thurston Howl set up a FWG Submission Deadlines Calendar using Google Calendar; you can visit it on the web, or subscribe in a calendar app of your choice. The calendar not only hits the markets that get picked up in this monthly newsletter; he does a good job of finding "furry-adjacent" markets.

While the Guild blog is not blogging as hard as it should be these days (your president-slash-editor accepts full blame), the forum remains quite active. If you are not part of the activity there, go add to it! Also, consider writing a guest post. See our guidelines for the details.

As always, the FWG Goodreads group needs more good reads. (Get it? I'm here all week.) Go add things to our members' bookshelf—see the instructions here on how.

Have a terrific month! Send news, suggestions, feedback, and legal awoos to furwritersguild@gmail.com, or leave a comment below.

Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.

Fairytales Written by Rabbits, by Mary A. Parker. Illustrated by Michelle Cannon.
Melbourne, Vic., Australia, Ferox Publishing, September 2015, trade paperback $12.99 (x + 228 pages), Kindle $2.99.

Despite the charming cover by Michelle Cannon, “Fairytales” is a single word everywhere except on this cover.

Its countryside world seems very familiar —

“But first they must catch you.” (p. 1)

With a major difference –

“The dust came in the late evening, many seasons ago.

Flashes of light flowed and danced across the twilight sky. Green, orange and purple streaks twisted among the clouds and stars. The rabbits were frightened at first, fleeing to the familiar darkness of their burrows, away from the unknown.” (pgs. ix-x)

Fairytales Written by Rabbits is both fantasy and science fiction. It begins with the same scenario as Richard Adams’ Watership Down; the peaceful realistic life of a countryside rabbit warren. This is interrupted by an unknown world-changing spectacle similar to that at the beginning of John Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids; the sky is full of something strange.

What happened? It’s never explained. But man never comes to the countryside again. And little by little, over generations, the wildlife grows more intelligent.

Heath and his sister Millet are the young rabbit protagonists of Fairytales Written by Rabbits. In the first chapter, while they are foraging for food in the nearby meadow, lightning during a sudden violent thunderstorm (it’s implied that weather conditions have changed drastically since the dust) sets fire to a tall eucalyptus tree near the entrances of their burrow. A black hawk, also grown more intelligent since the dust, uses a burning branch to set backfires driving foraging rabbits away from their warren:

“‘We need to be upwind,’ she [Millet] said, ‘I think we need to get to the other side.’ Heath wasn’t really listening; he was too preoccupied staring at the hawk as it dived towards the warren. The hawk rose on the hot air from the flames again, clutching not a rabbit in its talons, but a glowing stick.

‘What does it want with that?’ Heath wondered out loud. He’d never even heard of such behaviour from a hawk. But the flicker of curiosity quickly turned to a wave of dread as the hawk sailed closer, and dived towards them, burning stick still in its talons.” (p. 10)

The hawk pursues Heath and Millet, possibly because they’re two rabbits close together. They are driven by both the hawk and the spreading grassfire away from their warren, towards a large stone burrow that readers will recognize as an ancient human drainage pipe.

The rabbits are familiar with the thing, but fearful of it. It’s become known as the Great Stonecutter Rabbit’s burrow in the rabbit’s religion that has developed since the dust:

“The legend of the Great Stonecutter Rabbit was born, a giant that dug through rock and hills so that a little water would still flow to the rabbits. It was a gift, and worthy of respect instead of fear.” (p. 5)

Heath and Millet enter the large pipe farther than any rabbit has explored before. They are unexpectedly swept still further by a threatening flood that almost drowns them (readers will recognize a flash flood from the storm) and washes them out the other end, into unfamiliar territory:

“Hopefully there would be some decent grass and a chance to properly recuperate before attempting an overland journey home. But which direction to go? He assumed the stone burrow travelled more or less straight, but the more he thought about it the less certain he became.   They might end up in a completely different direction. They may never see the warren again.

This idea was not as distressing as he expected it to be. He was a young buck, and would have been expected to move on from the warren eventually anyway.” (p. 35)

It would be a spoiler to give away what Heath and Millet find and what adventures they have, but they are both science-fictional and magical, together and separately. There is mystery and excitement. There is heartbreak and redemption. There is death, both old and new. There are other animals that readers will recognize; notably Stares-at-moon, the longtail. Fans of Watership Down – and who isn’t? – will want to read Fairytales Written by Rabbits.

The author says, “All author royalties earned from the sale of this book will be donated to the Big Ears Animal Sanctuary, Tasmania.”

– Fred Patten

• Buy on Amazon

Stumbled across this: It’s a new Disney coloring book, decidedly “with a difference”, called Art of Coloring: Disney Animals. It’s part of the Art of Coloring series, designed to “inspire creativity and relaxation”, where familiar images are split up into many small segments designed to be filled up quickly with small dabs of color. In this case, images of Disney animal characters from several decades. “Relax, and let the creativity flow through you. Whether a skilled artist or an everyday dabbler of drawings and doodles, fans of all ages will enjoy these stunning pen-and-ink illustrations of beautiful landscapes, elaborate patterns, and memorable characters from Disney’s hit animated feature films themed to cute and cuddly animals.” It’s published in hardcover by the Disney Book Group, and it’s available now over at Barnes & Noble.

image c. 2016 Disney Book Group

Hello Everyone!

We open this week's show with a discussion on whether or not money makes a relationship happier and longer lasting. We go through a Chinese study to find a possible answer to whether or not money can buy love and happiness. 

Our main topic is on financial responsibility. Your hosts, with guest RhythmFox, discuss different issues that you might encounter in your life, from difficulty setting a budget, attending a convention in a fiscally responsible way, or learning the difference between a national bank and a credit union. We talk about our lives and how we've made mistakes in the hopes that you can avoid doing the same yourself.

We close with a question on how to handle being in a relationship where you're supporting a mate who does not seem motivated to find work of their own.

For more information, including a list of topics, see our Show Notes for this episode.

Thanks and, as always, be well!

FA 034 Financial Responsibility - Can money buy love? Should you buy a fursuit instead of pay rent? Should artists pay taxes? Should you support a mate who refuses to find a new job? All this, and more, on this week's Feral Attraction

Pokemon Go (Pawsome! #21)
Whats the deal with Pokemon Go? Thats what the group is talking about today. ***NEW EPISODES BIWEEKLY ON WEDNESDAYS*** THANKS FOR SUBSCRIBING!!! FACEBOOK: http://www.Facebook.com/TheRaccoonsDen... From: The Raccoon's Den Views: 1564 23 ratings Time: 12:43 More in Entertainment

also, here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIbIZSNFIXo ep 132 - Indy Fur Con LIVE - also, here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIbIZ…

Hi,

I am gay (although I don't tell people) and I met a guy a few years ago, who I suspect might be hiding his sexuality. We met through a mutual friend and we very quickly became friends. He is a foreign student who was studying in Scotland and was leaving to go home for the summer only a few months after we met.

He suggested that I could go and meet him in his home country over the summer, which I was delighted about. I though maybe he liked me. We spent a couple of weeks together and just became better friends. Nothing happened.

After the summer he returned to continue studying and we spent more time together. We would walk home from his work each week which took about an hour and we would just talk and talk. 

A few months passed, and one night, out of the blue he asked me if I was gay. I was very surprised by this as because I think I am fairly straight acting. So I was honest and said that I am. He then asked me if I liked him. I thought maybe he was wanting to come out to me, and I told him that I do like him. At this point he told me that he was straight, which was pretty disappointing.

The next day, he deleted me as a friend on Facebook, and wouldn't reply to any texts or emails. We didn't speak for 8 months.

So one day, out of the blue around the time he was planning to return to the country to study (after the summer) he added me as a friend again and said we "could talk". Over the next month or two we saw each other a few times. We made polite small talk although things felt pretty awkward. He went away home again (for Christmas this time) and when he came back he asked if he could stay on my couch (he had done this occasionally at first after I'd spent time with him over the previous summer). So he slept on my couch most weekends over the course of four months, and then or a prolonged period of 7 weeks when his lease ran out on his flat - but he was leaving for the summer again so didn't want to renew it. By the time he was leaving to go home, we had become really close agian. Maybe even close than before because I often felt he flirted with me.

On two occasions he described something I said or did as "cute." He was always singing and substituting my name into the lyrics. I started going to the gym and he would comment that I was looking good. Just little things like that.
He would also watch football and rugby matches with me and comment on how muscular some of the players looked.

He has now moved to London, and having not seen him for 3 months, he invited me to go to visit. During the course of my visit, he said several things that I don't know if he meant as flirting. We were walking along and he bought some peanuts. After eating them he said that the peanuts had made him "horny."

I had claimed that the break away to London felt like a mini-holiday. Towards the end of the holiday he said that usually on holiday he would "make-out" with someone. He was looking for something in his backpack and he said "it won't be in this section, that's where I keep my condoms." He constantly asked me about my sexuality, and any time he saw a gay couple holding hands, he would point it out to me and say something like "if you had a boyfriend that could be you." If he saw a gay bar he would say that if I wanted to go in he wouldn't mind and would come with me. Like I said earlier, I am quite straight acting so I don't go into gay bars.

All of these little things just have me wondering if he is confused about his own sexuality. I am older than him. I'm 34 and he is only 22. When he was asking about my sexuality I told him that when I was 23 I had a girlfriend.

The most confusing part of this whole situation, is that over the course of this summer (the period after he left my flat and meeting him in London) he got a girlfriend. She lives abroad so he doesn't get to see and spend time with her.
In between saying the things I mentioned before (which may or may not be flirting), he never stops talking about her, and what they did over the summer. He was quite detailed in telling me about their sexual encounters. He's constantly taking pictures so he can send them to her. He seems to be happy when talking about her, but I wonder if it's possible he is overcompensating by being ultra-macho. His flirting has definitely gotten stronger sine he got a girlfriend, but is talking about his girlfriend him trying to reassure me that he is off-limits? Is he flirting with me just because he is sexually frustrated?

I have never repeated to him that I like him. I love him as a friend. He's an amazing and funny guy... but I'd like there to be more. However, I don't want to lose his friendship again.

What do you think? What should I do?

Confused and Frustrated 

* * *

Dear C&F

You don't say what country he is from, but I'm wondering if he is from a culture that is extremely anti-gay (e.g. Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Iran, Korea....), which would result in his being very very nervous and uptight about coming out. Another issue here is that he is very young and probably still struggling with his sexual identity. These two added together, along with all the mixed messages, tell me that you are walking into a big ol' mess of a relationship if you try to push the issue. 

My advice? Do not initiate an intimate relationship before he gets his head together about who he is. To do otherwise will lead to much misery on your part.

Hugs,
Papabear

Submitted by Fred Patten

Doglands, by Tim Willocks
NYC, Random House, September 2011, hardcover $16.99 (308 [+1] pages), Kindle $9.99.

This has been published by Random House Children’s Books, but packaged to look like an adult title. Most reviews (non-furry) have compared it to London’s The Call of the Wild crossed with Adams’ Watership Down. The dogs in it talk to each other, which qualifies it for reviewing here.

“Once upon a time in the Doglands, a blue greyhound gave birth to four pups in a prison camp that the dogs called Dedbone’s Hole. The blue greyhound’s name was Keeva and she named her firstborn Furgul, which in dog tongue means ‘the brave.’ Keeva loved Furgul from the moment she saw him, but as she licked his newborn body clean and gave him her milk to drink, her heart was filled with fear. Furgul had been born with a terrible secret. And she knew that when the masters discovered his secret, they would take him away.” (p. 3)

Furgul is born into a puppy farm, specifically a greyhound breeding farm whose purpose is to produce as many greyhounds for dog racing as possible:

“When the pups no longer needed Keeva’s milk, they joined the other hounds in the exercise yard and Furgul got a better look at Dedbone’s Hole. A lot of greyhounds lived here, in a compound surrounded by a high wire fence. Outside the fence he saw a junkyard and some shacks. Inside the compound the greyhounds were locked in crates – one crate each, where each hound lived all alone – which were even smaller than the whelping cage that Furgul lived in. For just one hour a day the hounds were released from the crates to feed and exercise. The masters made sure there was never enough food for all the hounds, and so the hounds had to fight one another, snarling and biting at the filthy troughs of grub to get enough to eat. The older dogs said the masters starved the dogs on purpose to make them compete, so they could find out who was weak and who was strong and who might make a good racer. They did it to teach them that it was stupid to make friends. They did it because they were bullies who thought it was fun to feel so powerful.” (pgs. 4-5)

Furgul learns that his father was named Argal:

“‘Where is he?’ asked Furgul.

Keeva shrugged. ‘Your father is like the wind. He goes wherever he chooses and he does whatever he likes.’

‘Wow,’ said Furgul, ‘he must have a really great master.’

‘Argal doesn’t have a master,’ said Keeva. ‘He’s free.’

Furgul frowned. ‘What does ‘free’ mean?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Keeva. A troubled look came over her face. ‘Argal tried to explain it to me – something to do with what he called the Doglands,’

‘The Doglands?’ Furgul felt the fur on his back stand up on end. The word sang in his blood. ‘What did Argal say?’

‘I wasn’t really listening. I was in love.’

‘Where are the Doglands?’ asked Furgul.

‘I don’t know that either,’ said Keeva. Confusion and pain clouded her eyes. She looked out between the bars of the cage in which all five of them had to lie day and night in their own pee. She gazed out beyond the high wire fence, past the rusting heaps of trash in the yard, to the mountains on the far blue horizon. ‘Maybe the Doglands are somewhere out there.’” (pgs. 8-9)

Furgul’s secret is that Argal wasn’t a bloodhound, so he’s a crossbreed – a mongrel – and when he gets older and it’s obvious to the masters that he’s not a pure bloodhound, he won’t be eligible to race, and he’ll be put down. He has to escape first; to become free to look for the Doglands and his father.

At first, Furgul doesn’t escape as much as he goes through a series of terrifying mishaps that he is fortunate to get through alive. Then he becomes a pet, which is safe but both boring and frustrating. Whatever Furgul wants to do seems to get him a “No!”

“Then there was walking.

You would think that walking was the easiest thing in the world. But no. Walking was a whole new dimension of yelling and rules. First of all Furgul had to wear a collar all the time, which he hated. Then, whenever the dogs went outside, a leash was attached to the collar, so that Furgul had to walk in step beside a Grown-Up. Whenever he stopped to examine an interesting, unusual or delightful smell – like another dog’s pee – the Grown-Ups would tut and mutter and pull him away.” (p. 64)

When Furgul tries to escape from that life, Doglands turns into slapstick comedy. Here Furgul tries to disguise that he’s a loose dog by mixing in with eight other dogs being walked by an improbably oblivious dog walker:

“Furgal slipped into the middle of the pack and slunk along as close to the ground as he could. He blended in like Kinnear [a bulldog] at a squirrel’s birthday party. There was a Pomeranian, a cockapoo, a mini schnauzer, a Jack Russell, a Cavalier King Charles, a Yorkie, a dachshund and a chow. One had a bright pink collar with golden studs and another a leopard-print leash. Some wore ribbons and jewels in their hair. The dachshund wore a little red dress.

The tallest of them was twelve inches shorter than Furgul.

Worst of all, every one of the eight ‘dogs’ was a girl.

They all gaped at Furgul with their tongues hanging out.

‘I’m traveling in disguise,’ whispered Furgul. ‘So just act natural, girls. Don’t attract attention – and, please, keep your voices down.’

He was instantly deafened by a clamor of giggles, squeals and chatter.

‘Who’s this tall drink of water?’

‘Don’t look now, ladies, but he’s a dog. A real one.’

‘You know what they say about a long snout.’

‘Look at those scars!’

‘And those thighs!’

‘I bet he goes like a train.’

‘The cheeky devil isn’t even wearing a collar!’

‘He’s stark naked!’ (pgs. 88-89)

This is followed by the Dog Pound, and the story turns grim with the threat of death again. Then – well, Furgul has lots more adventures. Always going towards the Doglands.

Doglands (cover by Angelo Rinaldi) is very readable, but it’s no Watership Down or The Call of the Wild. The mood swings in the story are too artificial; they destroy any believability. Furgul often uses a simile in his vocabulary to something that he couldn’t know about. Here’s one of the worst:

Finally, Kinnear – who had watched these disasters with amusement – explained it to him. ‘Don’t you get it?’ he said. ‘Rupert is you new name. Your pet name.’

‘Rupert?’ said Furgul, horrified. ‘That’s even worse than Kinnear.   Or Tic and Tac. It sounds like a bear’s name. A bear who wears checkered pants.’” (p. 63)

That’s something that Furgul wouldn’t know about – Doglands covers his life from his birth, and there are no bears in it. It’s also a reference to the English Rupert Bear children’s newspaper feature; he wears yellow checkered pants. Willocks’ inability to refrain from putting jokey in-group references into his novel have made it a clever writing exercise rather than a narrative that you can get lost in, like Watership Down or The Chronicles of Narnia.   But how many furry books are classics? By all means, read and enjoy Doglands.

–Fred Patten

• Buy on Amazon

Join Tal, Roland and Adoom tonight sans one gryphon as they discuss the weeks news! Episode -26 - Everything has been sharked

And once again, a young lady who finds herself in over her head — in the kitchen! This time it’s Malice in Ovenland, published by Rosarium, written and illustrated in full color by Micheline Hess. “Lily Brown is a bright, curious, energetic young girl from Queens, New York. When her mom forces her to stay home for the summer and do chores, Lily fumes. Little did she know that the greasy oven in the kitchen was going to give her more excitement and adventure than she could possibly handle.”  Apparently that involves a visit to a land of giant lizards and other fantastic creatures. Now Rosarium have released the Malice in Overland graphic novel, collecting the first four issues of the comic in hardcover. Check out the new trailer on YouTube.

image c. 2016 Rosarium Publishing

(Continuing yesterday’s Part 1.)

Here’s the thing – most of the anger towards Fursonas is because it wasn’t the doc we expected, or to some, what they wanted.

A lot of that comes with the general history of the fandom. How media took our hobby and portrayed it as a pagan cult of sex crazed orgies, by animal-suited maniacs.  From Vanity Fair, CSI, MTV, etc portraying us as a fetish rather then a community of artists, writers, dancers, and more.  The way they just don’t get what we are about is what many members in the fandom have been fighting to overcome for years.

And it’s been more or less a success, even with the press, as the fandom evolved to what it is today.  To how we see each other, what we believe in, and just enjoying the weirdness that we are.  After newly turning that corner, perhaps Fursonas could threaten to bring back all the negative old things they been working to overcome.

But that’s not what Fursona is or ever tries to do.

[DR]: My movie is meant to question what a “negative view” of the fandom is. While furry is definitely an accepting place, I do think that there’s a double standard in this community. People want to be accepted for themselves, but sometimes find it hard to accept things that are outside of their own comfort zone. I see this all the time in communities and I see it all the time in furry. Just look at babyfurs, and how plenty of more “normal” furries don’t want to have anything to do with them.

I love this fandom so much that I want it to be better. I think if we’re going to keep patting ourselves on the back for being so accepting, that means having to ask some difficult questions of ourselves—how much do we accept? What is the price of individual expression in the fandom? What is a “good image” and much is it worth? I still grapple with these questions all the time.

This is something I agree with. Our fandom does have a double standard. I know it because as a gay man I’ve seen how a community that views itself as open minded and accepting of all walks of life is also filled with selfish, shortsighted, rude, or even despicable people. Same with the kink community, with it’s view of itself as open minded and accepting to all walks of life, only to see some sides view other sides as inferior or even taboo.  It’s the very same with the Furry fandom. We’re a community that is open minded and accepting, and guess what I’m going to say next.  We’re also regular flawed humans.  It’s not hard to see a pattern when you’ve seen it repeated many times.

This is what Fursonas talks about, and it’s not what everyone in the fandom wants. Which is why many have seen Furries as the preferred doc, with its more positive view of the fandom over Fursonas criticisms.

But here’s the other thing, Furries wasn’t made for the fandom. Let me ask you a question: if you’ve seen Furries and are a member of the fandom, what do you learn from it?  What information does it provide that hasn’t already been discussed time and again from other members of the fandom?

I love Furries, it’s a good doc, but it already features information I knew by heart. When I saw it with my partner at Califur, he learned more about the fandom from the doc because he’s not apart of it. He knew very little besides what I told him. Furries works best for people on the outside to look into what we’re about while shedding away the tabloid crap. It does a great job of showing how open and creative the fandom is, while talking a bit about the history of why Furries are sometimes looked down upon.

The only problem I have with it is that I feel it’s too short. Especially since the doc brings up so many different areas of the fandom and only gives a small glance on some subject matters.  But some of that can be chalked up to independent filmmaking and what resources Eric’s team had to work with. His team had some of the same issues when looking for subjects to interview.

[ER]: When I began work on my own documentary, this was probably the biggest concern that furries had when I approached them to be in the film. They wanted to know precisely what they were getting into, and they were curious about where the film would end up and how they would be portrayed. Because the media had a precedent of representing furries in a way that was overwhelmingly negative and/or satirical, this was an understandable concern.

I see the film works best to show outsiders what we’re about, but as Eric began showing the film at cons and film festivals, he’s been amazed by the reception for the film from the fandom itself.

[ER]: I’ve been thanked for including a diverse group of furries in the film that represent different aspects of the fandom, particularly when it comes to art and writing.  A few people have told me that they would be comfortable sharing the film with their parents as a means of discussion their own furry identity, and I’m honored the film can initiate that kind of dialogue. I have even seen the film bring a few to tears, and I’ve been told it’s renewed and/or affirmed their drive to participation in the community. After working on the film for so long, I was acutely aware that furries were going to be my toughest, most critical audience. I feel fortunate that the film has been well received, and it’s incredibly rewarding to share the film with a community I care so much about.

That last quote actually makes me want to bring up one more point. The Furry Fandom is pretty much a sandbox fandom. We all have a basic agreement of what we are – people who like walking, talking animals. But that’s just the sand in the box.  The fun is what we can make with that basic concept. How we can make something that can help us figure out who we are, or what we want to be. How to awaken the inner child as the years go by. Or explore adult areas about yourself.

The two docs show that. Furries shows all the avenues the sandbox can offer, while Fursonas points out some of the limiting walls of the sandbox and asks how we can work with them. Which is why Dominic wasn’t surprised to see the initial reaction to the film, but is happy to see what has been coming out of it.

[DR]: Polarizing, haha. Some people love it and some people hate it. Some people hate it without having watched it, which is the only thing that bums me out. I like to think the reaction has been more positive than negative. I think that so many furries start out on the defensive when they watch media on the fandom, because they’re waiting to see how the media is going to get it wrong. And so I wasn’t very optimistic about how the film would go over, because it holds a mirror up to the community and suggests that maybe we need to think about this stuff in a different way. And honestly? I thought that furries would be way too stubborn to want to listen to some asshole filmmaker trying to tell them that maybe they should be nicer to Boomer. But I was pleasantly surprised. The film appears to have opened up a discussion somewhat. I see people having informed, productive arguments about it. That was the best I could hope for—for the film to start a conversation.

Even the two filmmakers have agreed that each film explores different areas of the fandom.

[DR]: I’m a pretty competitive person, I have to admit. I had been working on Fursonas for a little while and then I found out about Ash’s documentary and I was all geared up to hate it, because I’m an asshole and wanted to be THE BEST! When it showed at Morphicon in 2015, I drove from Pittsburgh to Columbus by myself just to watch it. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the filmmaking and by its earnest message. I went into it thinking that it would be some kind of PSA, but it really isn’t. It gives you a nice slice of the fandom from his perspective. We had a long discussion about it afterwards. When I showed Fursonas at a limited furry screening in San Francisco, Ash surprised me by showing up unannounced the same way I did to him.  Some people want to label his movie as propaganda and my movie as sensationalism, but I think both movies go much farther than that. Ash and I both adore this community and have dedicated over four years of our lives to exploring it as honestly as we can—just in different ways.

[ER]: Overall, I have seen furries respond positively to both films. That is not to say I haven’t seen critiques, but that’s to be expected with any work of art, particularly when two films with a similar subject matter are released around the same time (I recall the year when The Prestige and The Illusionist were both released). I don’t really see it as a contest, as both films ultimately have different focuses and serve to illuminate different themes, so if anyone is interested they should probably watch both.

I would say that certain differences in our philosophies as filmmakers is what produced two unique films with unique outlooks on the furry community. It’s difficult for me to be critical of Dominic’s approach because his goals were not my own. In many ways, Furries represents my perspective on the furry fandom at large, and I think it summarizes my feelings in a way that’s more well-rounded than anything I could put to words at this point.

That is the biggest take away I feel we should look at the two. The fact that we even have two docs about Furries released in the same year still blows me away. It’s not really fair to compare the two, since they have completely different purposes. For Fusonas in particular, it raises questions that are not easily answered. As Eric points out about AC…

[ER]: Given that Anthrocon is not only a non-profit organization, but also the largest furry convention in the world, I can understand and appreciate their need for discretion when working with the media.

Considering what Kage and AC have had to work with over the last decade with the media portraying us as a fetish, and being a go-to punching bag for other fandoms.  Even with all that, AC has come out on top, having its biggest year so far with over 7,300 people attending. A 1,000+ increase from last year. It’s not hard to see why things are the way they are. I don’t see Kage as a bad guy. I have never met him, but you don’t have to see much to know how he loves and cares about the fandom.

But what Dominic presents is a question of how far love should go, even with good intentions, when it may have negative effects too. Is it good to have a sandbox with pre-made molds so kids in another box don’t make fun of you?

While Dominic shows his bias as clear as day, there are people in the film who agree with Kage. The subject, Bandit, agrees when he’s watching one of Kage’s lectures about how a good image can take fifteen years to make, but can be destroyed in fifteen seconds. Diezel Raccoon was fired from his job just for telling people what he does on weekends. Kage even tells us in the film himself. When Dominic goes onto one of his Winestreams, he poses a question about Boomer and Chew Fox, and Kage responds with fiery passion how they don’t represent him and his side of the fandom.

To be fair, Dominic shows it as a gotcha moment, but thinking about it shows more or less why Kage does what he does. I know people will point out that I don’t have anything from AC or Kage themselves for this piece. I reached out to them through their AC Media Liaison email, but never got a reply. I would have loved to have their view of the two docs here, but that is neither here or there. Instead, I want to wrap things up with this.

There are many levels of the fandom. I have had the privilege of seeing both the childlike wonder and the adult fun. I saw a ten-year-old girl in a partial fursuit dance her tail off in her first fursuit dance competition and have a blast, and I was part of a talk with an HIV-positive group learning about Furry as an alternative sex avenue. I have great respect for what Uncle Kage has done in the fandom, but I do not always agree with his policies.

I believe we need to be open toward criticism when presented to us. If not to see what other people think of you, then to see if there are areas you need to explore yourself to grow or reexamine. And from some of the reactions to this, I have a little less respect than before.

Fursonas does have its problems. The biggest being how it doesn’t go into detail about the fandom in general. Look at some of the reviews and they’ll say how they were interested in the project, but wished to know more about the fandom and its history. Plus the fact it doesn’t mention what a Fursona is can’t be ignored. Fuzzwolf & Savrin do a more negative review if you want to know more. But after seeing the film, I don’t see it as much of a film about the fandom as it’s a look at individuals in the fandom and the politics inside it.

Of course these are just Dominic’s, Eric’s, and my voices about what’s happened. Now I want to know what you guys think.

If you saw the films, what were your takeaways? Did you like both films or did your levels vary? Where do you see the fandom going? What are your thoughts about this article? I’m open to know and discuss what we see in the fandom. I want to end here with one more quote from Dominic about the need to learn and examine who we are.

[DR]: Something I struggled with when working on this film was how to avoid sensationalizing material that, in and of itself, was sensational? A lot of furries want to think of the fandom as a boring place when you examine it. They’ll try to downplay the strangeness of furry by comparing it to other communities. I think that furries are right on one level because yes, you can draw comparisons between our community and so many others. But I think if you look closely at sports fandom or religion or whatever else, you will begin to find these communities are anything but boring. They’re filled with drama, they contain hierarchies, there are politics, there is sex, and people that are living and dying for this shit every day. I think that the whole world (furry or not) is so fucking nuts and that it would be less honest to omit all sensational material than it would be include it. I look at this fandom and I see a chaotic living community with tons of people trying to exist under the same name. Sometimes it brings people together and sometimes it drives people apart. Maybe I’m way off base, though. Maybe it’s just cartoon fans. What do you think? 

Thanks for your time with this beast of an article. I await your discussions and have a nice day, you crazy fluffer nutters.

-Matthias