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May 13, 2024: The second episode of Fur and Loathing is HERE (six episodes are coming out weekly.)

The 2014 chemical attack on Midwest Furfest was one of the largest in American history. 19 people were hospitalized. Nobody was charged and the case went cold. 10 years later, never-before-reported findings are here in this Furry True Crime podcast with journalist Nicky Woolf.

In the new Episode 2, Nicky visits Midwest Furfest and traces events in the 2014 police report, gaining unexpected insight. He gets immersed in furry culture with an insider guide, then introduces a complication that stalled the case. Until now.

Last week’s launch announcement had an exclusive interview for Dogpatch Press with Nicky and Patch O’Furr. A reader requested the transcript below. Come back for surprising developments in upcoming episodes.

TRANSCRIPT: EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW – lightly edited for clarity from the video

Nicky Woolf

(Nicky): Patch O’Furr in full regalia, looking beautiful with the glasses and all!

(Patch): Nicky, why don’t you tell the readers who you who you are and what the project is?

I’m Nicky Woolf, and for the last 7 months intensively, and the last 10 years, I’ve been obsessed with investigating the chlorine gas incident at Midwest Furfest 2014.

Before we get into it, let me ask you what’s your favorite thing about furries?

You know honestly, you’re starting me off with a difficult one. Because this is going to sound super weird… it’s the earnestness. The level of no one is pretending, by definition it’s a space where you no longer have to pretend. Which is ironic, considering the level of artistry that goes in, that leads you to a place where you don’t have to pretend, and I think that’s beautiful.

I love your vision.

(Puts on sunglasses)

What have you uncovered in the story that has never been reported before? You don’t have to give us spoilers, but some hints.

The things that really surprised us, the more we dug into this story, is how much was going on behind the scenes in terms of police and FBI investigation. Now it’s known, and a lot of it’s known through through your fantastic reporting, that there were some colossal mistakes made. By the police department — by the FBI in the general investigation — and obviously there were no arrests made. They never got over the line.

What we discovered, and we’ll get into this later in the series and what this means, but there was a lot of investigation going on as recently as 2019. Chasing down suspects, getting warrants, getting on planes, and going to find people for at least five years following… the word that’s used is controversial, we’ve been saying attack. Because I think it’s very clear that this was an attack. But the police and FBI were doing a lot more than has previously been known in the public domain.

From the public point of view, take me through what kind of life have you seen for this story. When it came out, when it died down, what’s your sense?

In the immediate aftermath — and I think anyone who’s familiar with this story who’s followed it either from within the community or outside of it as an interested viewer will know — the immediate reaction was the media did not cover itself with glory. The famous example of that is MSNBC where Mika Brzezinski cracks up laughing and is trying to get out words like, “19 people hospitalized” through laughter, which is a single piece of media that sums up the way the mainstream media has approached this community.

I think that’s the perfect one, that’s where we’re at in terms of the way the media and… I’m not within the community, so maybe I throw it to you, do you blame Mika specifically for that, or do you think she didn’t know what the hell was was going on there? Because I think that’s an interesting question. What’s your read as someone in the community of what happened on that MSNBC set?

I would say it was a brief human mistake. I can look at that from outside as a nonhuman, but I’m glad you’re here and doing the work you do, the amazing work that’s going to bring this story forward. Why should we listen, what are the good points of the story that really stand out?

It’s funny, when we were scripting, one of the notes early on that I got was that there needs to be — and this is something you get in every narrative podcast, in every piece of journalism, you have to do the “why should you listen, why should you care” and I found myself thinking to myself, the story doesn’t need selling. This is a vibrant and fascinating community about which very little is known, who were attacked in a way that no one has.

Shout out to the couple of places that have done good work investigating this before, specifically Vice and Robert Evans, and obviously you. I’m talking about mainstream media outlets here, but Vice and and Worst Year Ever deserve props having got the story to at least fighting the fight of having mainstream media pay attention to it. Not I think successfully, but the thing that really got me about this story is that it’s a sign of what was happening in the wider internet at the time, that’s only got more powerful since then.

Of the two big previous shows I’ve done, one of them was on Qanon. So I’m familiar with the way in which the dynamics of an internet community, or a primarily digital community, can have huge repercussions and teach us an enormous amount about what’s going on in the world as a whole. I think what this attack represents is a microcosm, of lessons that we can learn about how we deal with — trying to find a way of saying this which which doesn’t end up with spoilers — but I think I can safely say with rising extremism. And the way that extremism isn’t something that’s… like there aren’t the Nazis and other people.  There is a rising alt-right tide, and even furry, even the community is not safe from these forces of global change that are taking place. It’s something that we all deal with, no matter what community we have.

Let’s back up. Where do you think this fits into your previous work?

I’ve been covering the internet for a very long time. I was just a general news reporter at The Guardian a long while, and when you’re a general news reporter you need to carve out a little niche for yourself. I was an internet kid, I grew up in the Livejournal era, early in an era where everything was earnest, and it was a level of earnestness that I otherwise came to miss when the next step of internet development became the anonymous boards, like 4Chan. Which then became the power centers, and furry to me ended up representing a kind of alternate counterweight to a power center like especially /Pol…

Internet communities to me take on lives of their own, as life forms in their own, and I think that’s the same with any community historically, but the internet turbocharges the evolution of those kind of groups. I think the furry community has been a fascinating example of this, the way a culture develops and I think far right and trolling culture and something like Qanon is another example of that.

I’ve come to consider myself over my career as almost like a anthropologist of this new kind of life form that is the digital community, and the power that a digital community can wield and represent, to be a good thing for the world and its participants, or a bad thing for the world and its participants. For covering Qanon, that was the first time I got to do a story in yearlong investigative detail. I was covering — and I think it’s not a controversial way of describing it — a fundamentally evil new life form.

Whereas with this show it’s been joyous to be on the opposite side of that, and cover what I think is a fundamentally beautiful community, beautiful life form, even if I’m covering it from the perspective of… it came under attack and this is what happened after that. It’s a true crime show, so we’re looking a lot at the attack itself, but it’s been great to be able to do a little bit of that anthropology.

What’s it like to enter furry spaces as a guest, as someone who hasn’t been intimately invited in before, and earn some trust and have the insider view?

It’s been I think rightfully difficult, the mainstream media has not been great in terms of covering this community before, so we’ve really had to work very hard. As the show will keep going, I hope to work hard in terms of getting people in the community to trust us. We have to prove from the very first episode that we’re not looking to make a joke of the community the way a lot of people have. We’re not looking to paint the community as in some way deviant in the way that a lot of coverage has.

More literally we’re not looking to — we address this in in the first episode — we’re not looking to out anyone who doesn’t want to be outed. We’re not using anybody’s name until we get to the actual suspects in the attack. The line I use in the show is, unless there’s a journalistic reason not to, we address and refer to everyone in the community we speak to, the way they choose.

That gave us a kind of starting point, we made some contacts in the community we were able to say I’m coming into this with some experience. I’ve known furries, I’ve been aware and adjacent to the community while remaining a guest in these spaces, and I’m honored to have been invited into these spaces and these communications. It’s really a privilege to have been able to be at Midwest Furfest last year, to speak with members of the community, and it’s been a joy.

I think you had some interesting experience visiting Midwest Furfest. I don’t think we need to get into parts that are already in the show, but was there anything you saw that wasn’t able to make it into the show?

I’m so glad you asked that, because there is something that just didn’t make it into the show which I’ve been really pulling for, but couldn’t… I want to give a shout out to Atmos Deer, photographer Tommy Bruce, who has been a real helpful guiding light for me as I’m navigating this. We went to see on the Saturday afternoon, a review, an hour and a half long of lots and lots of little VR made films.

It was truly one of the most beautiful — there were lots of them that were… apologies to any of the makers who I say this about — slightly janky, but in this kind of beautiful raw emotional way. Some of them were in-jokes, some of them were truly hilarious, some of them were unintentionally hilarious and neither me nor Atmos had any idea what was going on. Then some of them just blindsided you by being heart-rending goodbyes and tributes to somebody that had been lost, or tributes to someone who lives a long way away and you don’t get to see very often, and they’d be these beautiful little vignettes. I loved it, I’m almost emotional just describing it, I thought it was one of the most beautiful experiences I’ve ever had.

This was obviously a story that was stalled, it was a cold case. What factors helped you to move this forward when nobody else was getting progress?

It’s worth saying that we don’t actually know! We did a lot of the standard things you do when you start this kind of investigation. One of those things is a big Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request for output… which, it’s worth saying, that the Vice team had done. Previous journalists have sent out FOIA requests regarding this story. What we got back — and I hope when people listen to the show they’ll see this — was very different in terms of the sheer scale of the documents that we got back. We don’t know for sure exactly why that is.

One of the things that — and we’ve spoken to legal experts — all we can do is an informed speculation that what had happened in 2019 was the five year standard statute of limitations had run out now. It was mind-blowing to me that something that was a terroristic offense, in reality, could have a statute of limitations. You can just not get found.

I think if that is the case, at this point we don’t know for sure because a lot of this was kept secret within the FBI and within the local police department, so we’re not 100% sure that’s why we had a different document response to FOIA requests, but whatever the reason, we did.

That gave us a starting foundational point of more information than has ever been made public before. There were just enough clues, like they heavily redacted lots of these documents, but there were just enough clues that could start us off on a investigation that could find something genuinely new.

When I’ve been working on stories like this one, or maybe negative topics, I tend to encounter friction inside the community. For example in this story a lot of people would tend to dismiss the attack, or memory hole it, or excuse it as “oh that must have been an accident” when you know there was always evidence that it was deliberate from the start. The police said it was deliberate, but people still ran with the idea that it was just a “mistake.”

Still to this day we had spoken to people who were fairly sure that that a latex chlorination accident was ultimately what had happened, and a lot more on top of that who were saying “oh it’s just a prank.”

It’s very striking to me — I don’t want to project a kind of a psychology onto what’s going on — to me it seemed like there was an element of trauma response going on, so that it’s easier to say “it’s not a big deal”.

I think there’s an element of an event like Midwest Furfest, a convention is such a sacred space, where you go to be free… that admitting that there’s a vulnerability there itself breaks some kind of spell. I’m hesitating to even say — because even thinking about that paradox some people are going to not love — in and of itself that’s looking this kind of spell directly on and undermining the magic.

I think that’s got to be balanced against, this is the real world, and not just the real world / the internet world, which to me is this kind of hyper reality and there are dangers looking.

I think it’s worth admitting, and investigating, and I’m just going to go ahead and say fighting, those forces that have emerged on the internet and represent real dangers for communities like furries and for the world in in general.

Where the weapon was deployed at MFF 2014.

I’m glad you used the term breaking the magic, that’s a meaningful term. We’re dealing with a subculture, to some people a very important one in their life, it’s the way that they express their identity. But a subculture can be marginal, isolated, it can be contained, and there’s a lot of alternative communities, sometimes I think they encounter problems that are wider scale than their reach. Do you have any ideas, thoughts or advice about how to solve problems that are wider than the scale of a small community like this?

That’s a ginormous question. A lot smarter people than me have have tried and failed to to answer that. All I can say is that in my experience, a start is solving it within the community before saving the world. Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.

Let’s take journalism for example… that’s a terrible example because journalism’s work is to talk about other people’s problems.

Journalists are the worst.

Barely more than a loose confederation of warring tribes.

Let’s take the local WhatsApp group around here to organize what day to take the trash out. If someone’s in there that’s been being an asshole, it is outside of the scope of this trash-collection WhatsApp group to solve whatever’s going on in this dude’s life that’s taken him there.

What is within the scope of a community is to look at itself, and say what help are we offering to people who may be experiencing something in their lives that’s taking them down this route.

How can we think of ourselves as a community while remaining open, while not breaking the magic, while also stop the Nazis… how do you deal with an asshole? Do you ostracize them, do you reach out to them? Those are the kind of questions that every community asks, and asking those questions is a good first step.

I think it’s good to be aware that you don’t necessarily want to be a doormat, by handling things the nice way, or just letting them go. This story opens a lot of questions about how we handle crime and policing — it’s one of those stories that we’ll continue to feed questions about, and it’s a great dialogue to have. We’re working in the True Crime genre here, and we’ve actually worked together and made Furry True Crime. I don’t know if there are any other examples like this, and I’m pretty happy about that.

This is a good point to really say thank you to everything you’ve done to make this happen with your reporting in the past.  You’ve been fighting a very lonely battle — I don’t know if it’s felt lonely to you — but as the voice doing the real solid journalistic work on this, none of this show would have happened without the hard work that you’ve put in, and without your incredible generosity in opening up to us and talking to us, and helping us on this journey. So thank you so much for that, we owe you basically everything of this show.

Let’s remember the reason for this community, it’s a fandom, we love what we do, and a lot of us are fans of other movies, music, writing, whatever… do you have any other media that inspires you? Anything you might want to share?

Are you getting at what fandoms, what inspires me… does Ska count? I’ve seen Reel Big Fish live 16 times, I’ve seen The Cat Empire live 18 times. I’m a ska kid by instinct. I was a Warhammer kid growing up, that was my first experience… the closest experience I’ve had to going to a con like MFF, and I’ve been to Comic-Con, I’ve been to the dumb commercial video game E3 which doesn’t even really count as a corporate thing. There was a Warhammer tournament that I entered and did all right in when I must have been 13-14, the time where a steam tank… It was fantastic, like that’s my finest work was the steam tank had a dragon head. Actually I think Warhammer is an interesting comparison to furries because it’s also a self-contained fandom.

I knew you’re a nerd, that’s amazing, I didn’t know all that. One more thing before we close: do you have any good animal jokes?

I have a terrible memory so anytime I ask to remember a joke my memory goes completely blank, I’ve never been able to successfully memorize a joke.

Hold that thought and come back to me later with it but thank you Nicky.

I’ll start messaging you animal jokes from now on.

It’s your job, deal. I’m actually on the way out, I’m going to World Goth Day. I’m going to see some goth bands in my fursuit. It’s so exciting, it’s happening on a battleship.

Where is this battleship?

Alameda, California, a World War II battleship hosting a goth day.

Send me some pictures, I’ll send you some animal jokes, you got to send me some pictures from this party.

You got it, thank you we’ll talk later.

With Charun, being a rat on ship at the @USSHornetMuseum in Alameda CA for #worldgothday 2024, seeing @Covenant_Sweden and https://t.co/nfnPCv5oSC. What a weekend! There was just 5 hours to sleep after the show, then I biked 100 miles with the #grizzlypeakcyclists century ride. pic.twitter.com/s03GzHhiSS

— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) May 7, 2024

I had so much fun at The Anual Goth Day Festival this past weekend

Thank you so much @DogpatchPress for bringing me with pic.twitter.com/wCYrq6j9tD

— Harper BLFC’24 (@2ManyStripes) May 9, 2024

Like the article? These take hard work. For more free furry news, follow on Twitter or support not-for-profit Dogpatch Press on Patreon.Want to get involved? Try these subreddits: r/furrydiscuss for news or r/waginheaven for the best of the community. Or send guest writing here. (Content Policy.)

I travelled to Rainybrook for a quick playthrough of the "Venture to the Vile" game being released May 22, 2024. Developed by Cut to Bits Studio and Aniplex, Inc., Venture to the Vile is a snappy 2.5D Metroidvania. I enjoyed the introduction to its movement and combat mechanics, and it looks like the origin story and pursuit of your doe-faced wife is going to be an intriguing ride.

Here's the Steam Description: "Dive into the strange town of Rainybrook, taken over by the “Vile” in this 2.5D metroidvania! Fight your way through treacherous terrains and defeat formidable bosses to absorb their powers! Will you save the town and find your missing friend Ella — or will you give in to the monster you've become?"

Check out Daxel's demo playthrough highlights here:

Wishlist the game here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2153750/Venture_to_the_Vile/

Watch the full playthrough Twitch replay here on DaxelTheDeer's Twitch Channel

This is certainly a different take on a very old legend. We’ve talked before about the author Greg Van Eekhout and his book Voyage of the Dogs. Well it seems he’s still in a canine mood with his new book, Fenris & Mott. “When Mott finds a puppy abandoned in a recycling bin, she’s ready to do everything she can to protect him. What she doesn’t realize, however, is that this is the legendary wolf Fenris, who’s prophesied to bring about the end of the world by eating the moon. Now Mott has found herself in charge of making sure the hungry pup—who’s busy munching on lampposts, cars, and water towers—doesn’t see all of California as an appetizer, while also hiding him from the Norse gods who are hot on his trail, determined to see the prophecy come true.” Typical canine hyjinks, of course. Find out more over at the publisher’s page.

image c. 2024 Harper Collins

Gaming Furever is looking for active gaming enthusiasts in our community of furry gamers that are interested in finding and reporting on anthro-centric gaming news, demoing and previewing upcoming games from up-and-coming developers, and playing and reviewing newly released games within our furry interest zone. Even if you don’t believe you’ll be able to contribute a lot weekly, feel free to contact us and let us know what you’d be up for! We want to be the preeminent place for news, previews, and reviews of furry games, and even the smallest amount of help helps! Below, we’ve laid out the type of staff activities we’re looking for, in various capacities. Each bullet point is its own task, and won't be required of every staff member.

Furry Game News Reporting

• Find and link to breaking and relevant news, updates, cosmetic DLCs, characters, and anything that fits into the “furry” and animal-based gaming genre and link to them in the Discord.
• Edit and post news that is found to GamingFurever.com and relevant social sites

Game Previewing & Demos

• Discover upcoming games being developed for Steam and other platforms that involve anthros/furries and link to them in the Discord.
• Edit and post previews of upcoming games (even without demos) with your thoughts, relevant furry details, and social media sources for game/developer.
• Play demos of upcoming games and upload videos of the playthrough to GF and Social Media
• Add games to the GF Furry Game Database

Game Reviewing & Playing

• Write reviews of games featuring furries in any capacity and post them on GF and share on our social media platforms.
• Livestream and post your playthrough/live review of games featuring furries/animals in any capacity on GF and our social media platforms.
• Occasionally receive review keys to play the game and then post reviews on our website or our Uncivil Gamers YT channel.

Editor & Writer

• Interest in writing opinion pieces or editorials on GF
  • These include things like “How Sonic changed the gaming landscape” or “Top 5 upcoming Indie Games featuring Foxes”
• Editor for received/posted news, previews, and reviews from other contributors. Posting these articles to GF and Social Media for the site.
• Social Media manager that keeps and eye out for relevant news and shares them on our social platforms.

If any of these tasks sound like the type of thing you’d enjoy (or you already do in your free time) please reach out to us at gamingfurever(at)gmail.com, me personally at @DaxelTheDeer on Telegram, or @Daxel on Discord, with what you’d be interested in contributing as Staff on Gaming Furever.com along with where it’s best to contact you (preferably Discord or Telegram.) If you have previous examples of content you have posted (either on another site or to your own X/Twitter/Bluesky/etc. account,) please include that as well. Our staff communication will take place on Discord, so having a Discord account will be required. Feel free to join our Discord server here if you want to get to know everybody and join in! NOTE: Content posted on Gaming Furever will not be restricted to Gaming Furever. We want to be a hub for our community to come and find fantastic furry creators and enthusiasts. You are free to post your content on your own timelines, video channels, and sites.

We can’t wait to meet all of you! If you’ve been a part of GF before and want to join back up, you’re more than welcome back aboard! If you’re a newcomer, we hope you’ll give us a shout!

This comedic video series from the Uncivil Gamers stream team for GamingFurever.com explores new released games on a weekly basis. Our streamers each select one game that was just released within the week and each play through their own game. We then edit together the best and funniest moments from the gameplay and deliver them to you every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 9 PM ET!

Description on Steam of "SAND LAND": " SAND LAND is an action RPG where you become the main character as Beelzebub, a Fiend Prince. Lead your company of heroic misfits and explore the legendary world of SAND LAND created by Akira Toriyama.

Link to video (also embedded below:) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jhh8QXYD-10

Subscribe to Uncivil Gamers on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UncivilGamers

Zero (white) and partner Siro_Kami (blue)

A misunderstood person moves to a new place, and faces more misunderstanding, but uses creativity to stand proud and reach people who do understand.

It’s a tale told a million times, known by a million furries worldwide (and subcultures of every stripe.) It’s the tale of Frankenstein’s rejected creature, who finds kindness from a blind person, but has to run from the prejudice and torches of angry villagers.

It’s a tale that wasn’t told by a local CBS channel who only reported the villager’s side, “Furries” with satanic symbols spotted near Sacramento County elementary school, parents say. They didn’t talk to any furries they reported about, or mention resources about them for the media like Furscience, or the history of Satanic Panic spreading prejudice and harming schools and communities like theirs.

Antelope, CA is 15 miles from Sacramento. Attitudes about order there may be influenced by history: In 1973 the town was blown away when trains full of bombs for Viet Nam exploded. It was rebuilt as a planned community where “most homes are new and the area is well planned out”. It’s rated safer than average for crime among 45,000 residents, and is unincorporated with policing by the County Sheriff, and nearby town departments under contract for schools and parks.

Natural Elements

Zero The HellHound is an 18-year old trans furry facing the villagers’ wrath. He recently moved to Antelope, where he doesn’t have a job or car, but you have to drive to get anywhere. On maps, the neighborhood doesn’t have a restaurant for hanging out within a 2-3 mile walk, and he also might have to fear going alone. So for about 2 weeks, Zero has been visiting Firestone Park (a name almost made for this story.) It’s a public park in sight of the family home that recently took him in. At the park he’s been chilling in nature, and practicing fursuit dancing for a Tiktok audience of over 14K followers. Instead of hiding inside with depression, it helps him to be confident to dance where anyone can see.

Zero won the dance competition at Golden State Fur Con, but at Firestone Park, he got eggs thrown at him by middle school kids who came to hassle him. Angry adults think he’s there to be Satanic, or target little kids next door at the Olive Grove Elementary school, but he says those kids only show positive notice. He also made two new friends who came up and complimented his fursuit. His reaction was “Wow, you know what a fursuit is?”

Many people confront him about the fursuit. Zero is a fursuit maker who plays a Skulldog, like a spooky creature from Ghostbusters or shows like Hazbin Hotel. It represents the story of a character who was originally a human with one abusive parent, which led to suicide, earning God’s judgement of going to hell. There he transforms and gets symbols burned on him, but has his own place to live. Many teens find catharsis in stories about overcoming trauma and asserting “it’s ok to be weird”. Some symbols on his character are trans scars and LGBT Pride colors (which have been targets of pedophilia accusation at the park). There’s also pentagrams, but Zero claims he’s not religious and they aren’t Satanic (pointing down), they are the kind that points up to represent natural elements.

Finger Guns

The story doesn’t communicate to the lady who confronts him one day to say, “do you think it’s OK to be in costume at this park?” She claims it’s scaring kids. As far as Zero knows, no kids have been scared. Only parents… although groups of many kids harass this 18-year old even when he’s not in fursuit. One adult was threatening almost to the point of punching him. But Zero isn’t leaving Firestone Park just because they’re mad. It’s public property and he has a right to be there. He also denies that he times visits for when kids get out of school, and says the park generally isn’t busy. Should he only go when nobody can see him or there’s no light for videos?

In one of Zero’s Tiktok videos, he and his friend sit on a park bench while people crowd up to take video and complain that kids can’t play there. “We’re minding our own business”, they tell an adult who isn’t holding back kids from bouncing a basketball at them and lining up aggressively like stereotypical jock bullies in a movie. Another adult demands to get Zero’s face in their video, and threatens to call police on him for legally wearing a mask.

Lacking real crime to complain about, they reach to accuse his Tiktok videos of being a school shooting threat. Zero exasperatedly explains that they went digging for a “very very old” (2022) video made in his house with a finger-guns meme that went around, or a “pope dance” meme with pointing. This came out in the CBS article, with a parent complaining about the school ignoring his complaints about someone legally using a park off school property.

Under this pressure, Zero tried going to the principal of Olive Grove Elementary to talk, and she said she just wants to keep kids safe. After the CBS story, Dogpatch Press called the school and emailed the principal to request contact with security or adults involved for comment, but there was no reply.

Collateral Damage

Then there was the incident with Mudpuppy. Zero wants support from friends, and gets a few to come sometimes for making videos. Mudpuppy is a 23-year old furry from Woodland, CA with autism and ADHD, and he was the only one who came on May 2. He was unfamiliar with the area: “I was actually attending an audio/visual workshop in Sacramento before going to the park. It was my first time meeting Zero.” He was wearing a tail but no mask.

With instructions to find a basketball court, Mudpuppy accidentally wandered towards the wrong one on school grounds next to the park. He didn’t realize it until seeing kids playing. Before being able to leave, angry parents got in the way, including one from the CBS article, Kris Williams.

“Kris and one other guy confronted and interrogated me about why I was there. They told me I wasn’t going anywhere and proceeded to call the police. One of them aggressively pulled my camera bag off me. When they asked me who I was meeting, I pulled out my phone so I could tell them. But one of them ripped it out of my hand. They treated me like I was an actual school shooter.”

Mudpuppy found the treatment and reporting hard to understand. “The whole situation was so terrifying that my mind blocked out what they said… I was told CBS was at the school about 20 minutes before I came.” The story was decided before Mudpuppy even became part of it.

Local news features Kris Williams complaining that the school is ignoring complaints that aren’t about school property.

Dancing Around the Issue

It’s easy to prejudge and terrify a lost and needful person who wanders in with a tail making them a target, even when schools are supposed to specially care about autism and bullying. Mudpuppy had to go through all this just to find Zero to give the support that furries do for each other.

That wasn’t all. After he found Zero and started taking pictures, Mudpuppy echoes that they became targets of egg throwing, neighbors yelling that they weren’t welcome and labeling them “pedophile”, and threats of more assault.

Ironically, angry parents were the ones calling police and guns to these scenes with hostility, making a threat of innocent people getting shot. Autism and communication complication has led to wrongful police use of force incidents.

As one set of adults who didn’t fail in this story, police protected the targets. At one point an officer went as far as staying with Zero for an hour at Firestone Park. One officer advised Zero to bring a lot of Sacramento furries there for a big event with security provided by police. It would be a way to assert right to use public space, and show that furries aren’t afraid and aren’t a threat.

Together or alone, Zero keeps doing what he loves. Despite accusations of preying on kids by making videos (of himself), his Tiktok followers are rising a lot. He says he isn’t trying to influence people with pentagrams, but with dancing. For example, one day a group of kids wanted to mock him, but he reacted with dance moves, and one of them actually started defending him. Why don’t mad parents learn from kids like that?

Followup notes

A post about this on r/Sacramento has surprisingly understanding comments with some local insight.

Like the article? These take hard work. For more free furry news, follow on Twitter or support not-for-profit Dogpatch Press on Patreon.Want to get involved? Try these subreddits: r/furrydiscuss for news or r/waginheaven for the best of the community. Or send guest writing here. (Content Policy.)

May 6, 2024: The first episode of Fur and Loathing is HERE. 

Think you’ve heard everything about the 2014 chemical attack on Midwest Furfest? Wait until you hear this.

The intentional release of chlorine gas sent 19 people to the hospital. It was one of the largest chemical weapons terrorist attacks in American history.

Who did it? And… why?

The targets deserve to know, because they were lucky to survive. The weapon’s deadly potential was only avoided by fast response. The level of crime fell just behind the 2001 anthrax attacks, but strangely, nobody was ever charged for it. The story faded into underreporting, disrespect towards the community, murky rumors, and hopes that it won’t happen again. There’s pride in resilience — but 10 years later, justice wasn’t served. It’s the biggest cold case in furry fandom.

The case revived when investigation by Dogpatch Press drew journalist Nicky Woolf and Project Brazen to seek FBI records, identify suspects, and fly across America to interview sources. Nicky is a journalist who reports on internet culture, with stories in The Guardian, and his original podcast series Finding Q and The Sound: Mystery of the Havana Syndrome. Nicky and Brazen’s series Fur And Loathing delivers never-before reported findings to empower the community.

EXCLUSIVE: Nicky Woolf’s introduction for Dogpatch Press

We discuss what was uncovered, Nicky’s work, earning trust among furries, and more. (This is off the cuff and unedited.)

Fur and Loathing is a Furry True Crime podcast of six episodes, releasing weekly.

Thank you to Nicky for his dulcet tones, and Brazen’s super pro team with Max, Lucy, and all who supported investigation that other media didn’t do (besides Vice and the Worst Year Ever podcast.) It was incredible to get first look at their progress, such as matching FOIA document releases with open-source findings.

FYI… we know the title was taken for a TV show episode a long time ago. Nothing else fit so well, so we’re taking it back.

Announcement at Variety and Trailer:

Like the article? These take hard work. For more free furry news, follow on Twitter or support not-for-profit Dogpatch Press on Patreon.Want to get involved? Try these subreddits: r/furrydiscuss for news or r/waginheaven for the best of the community. Or send guest writing here. (Content Policy.)

Looks like you’re stuck with me for another year at least! I am very proud to be serving as the FWG President for my fourth term. Alongside me remains K.C. Shaw as Vice-President, ScribblesCheetah as Markets Manager, and Resolute as the Public Relations Officer.

Watts Martin has decided to step down as the Treasurer, so for now we will be subsuming that role into the other officer positions, though we will likely put out a call for volunteers should anyone wish to step up. We will also be discussing with Maddie about the transition to formally handing over the Coyotl Awards to a new officer.

And speaking of the Coyotls – the winners have been internally verified and will be announced on Friday at FWA. K.C. Shaw will be presenting them live. We are looking into options for livestreaming, but we are currently unsure if this will be viable.

Blood and Water letters will also be going out on the weekend – it was incredible difficult to pick out a selection of stories from an incredibly competitive and skilled submission field. We firmly believe that this will be a fantastic anthology.

The guild officers will be meeting soon to discuss our plans for the year ahead. We will also share any calls for volunteers to fill any availabilities within the team.

For those looking to submit their stories to anthologies, we have the current open markets:

F/F Non Erotic Anthology – Deadline August 31st 2024
Indecent Exposure – Deadline When Full
This Is Halloween – Deadline When Full
Furry Femdom Erotica – Deadline When Full
Isekai Me! – Deadline When Full
Children Of The Night – Deadline When Full
Furry/Lovecraftian/Erotic/University Themed Anthology – Deadline When Full
Beyond Their Pale – Deadline When Full

Please also check out our upcoming and recent releases from FWG members:

Gravitational Pull, by Ty Fox. Released April 15th.
Far Flung, by Utunu. Released July 3rd 2024.

As always, FWG members – let us know when you have a new book coming out soon!

Until next time, and for another year, keep safe and happy writing!
J.F.R. Coates

Recently we met the folks at Headless Gnomes, who showed us their new comic book Fangs & Foul Play. “A deserted colonel, Richard, runs into a telepathic vampiric cat, Fang, while trying to flee the horrors of war. Now Richard has to find victims to feed to Fang and serve his every whim. Will he ever escape having to commit terrible atrocities?” Only writer L.K. Ingino knows for sure, ably assisted by artists Alex Guenther and Mariam Yasser. After a successful Kickstarter campaign, issues are available now on their web site.

image c. 2024 Headless Gnomes

Welcome aboard, detectives!

The demo for the newest installment in the World of Wilderness series is coming! Step into the shoes of detectives Moses and Plato, familiar faces from previous title. A crime is happening on the train, and the prime suspect? None other than Detective Moses himself. It's up to you to crack the case aboard the luxurious Clawville Express before it reaches its final destination. The demo will be released May 9th, 2024. Gaming Furever will be sure to post a preview with our thoughts once it arrives! For now, check out the new demo teaser trailer here:

Moses and Plato - Last Train to Clawville combines elements of point-and-click gameplay with a visual novel-style investigative adventure. Act quickly to expose the real perpetrator and unravel the murder mystery, or risk being framed as part of a global conspiracy of the Wilderness!

Check out the previous entry from the World of Wilderness,  Zipp's Café !   

This comedic video series from the Uncivil Gamers stream team for GamingFurever.com explores new released games on a weekly basis. Our streamers each select one game that was just released within the week and each play through their own game. We then edit together the best and funniest moments from the gameplay and deliver them to you every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 9 PM ET!

Description on Steam of "DogDogDog": "DogDogDog" is a horror adventure game set in modern times. Recently, you have been feeling like someone is stalking you, making you anxious with the feeling of being watched and hearing noises everywhere. Suddenly, you recall your past pet dog, only to encounter a "DOG" in the present.

Link to video (also embedded below:) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRLqiNyREf0

Subscribe to Uncivil Gamers on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UncivilGamers

Leslie Stratton is a Hollywood actress who has appeared in several movies and TV episodes. During COVID lock-down she remembered her mother’s love of pandas, and sat down to write a book based on that. The result was Let’s Share, Panda Bear, illustrated by Zuzana Svobodova. “Have you ever wondered why panda bears are black-and-white? Panda Pete, an incredibly kind panda, discovers a magical way to share colors with his animal friends. As the forest transforms into a vibrant rainbow, each creature joyously embraces their unique shades. Yet, in a touching twist, Pete and Jack learn that being black-and-white has its own special magic.” The web site has all the colorful details!

image c. 2024 Little Freckles Publications

We met writer and illustrator Cherie Okonski at the L.A. Times Festival of Books, and she introduced us to her creation, Gumper the Rabbit. Here’s the description of her first book: “The Secret of Gumper the Rabbit is a story about a bunny who is born different from the other rabbits. Gumper’s best friend Oink, an easily frazzled guinea pig, helps him to use his differences to save the day at the pet store. Gumper learns many new lessons about being different while discovering a secret that is taught to all bunnies.” Here’s part of the secret: Proceeds from the sale of this and other Gumper the Rabbit books go to help children born with congenital heart disease. The official Gumper web site has more, including links to the YouTube channel. (There’s a fursuit!)

image c. 2024 Xulon Press

At the L.A. Times Festival of Books we learned about Mythwalker at their big, impressive booth. Maybe it was the smiling corgi in armor that attracted our attention… Mythwalker is a geolocation fantasy RPG created by Nant Games for your cell phone. In it you can play one of three species: Human, Annu (a bird-like humanoid species), and Wulven (a canine species — from which the aforementioned corgi hails). Here is the lore: “Mytherra is a fantastical, parallel planet to Earth ─ a world where throughout history its people and mystical creatures have infiltrated the dreams of humans. Over time, these visions have formed the basis of Earth’s many myths and legends. After a prolonged period of peace, Mytherra is now under attack, which poses a direct threat to Earth as well. A powerful being, known only as The Child, has reached out through the Veil into our world seeking help. She recruits you – the Mythwalker – to uncover the truth about the attackers, explore the connection between the two worlds, and lead Mytherra’s heroes in the defense of their home.” And here is the idea: “MythWalker is a geolocation fantasy RPG adventure mobile game that brings The Child and Mytherra to life through an overworld traversal system, using real locations to tell the stories of Earth’s myths and legends. With narrative-driven quests tied to an intriguing storyline, a cast of magical and memorable characters, a deep progression system, and robust multiplayer modes, MythWalker will connect players worldwide through meaningful global gameplay.” Their web site has a whole lot more information.

image c. 2024 Nant Games

M. A. Kastle is a self-published author specializing in urban fantasy and horror — specifically, stories dealing with werewolves and other shapeshifters in the big city. Her series include the Cascade Wolves, the Cascade Saga, and Moonlight Territory. It’s a complex world where not only do the authorities know about the shapeshifters, but some of them actually work for the government — while others, the government is desperately trying to hunt down. Trust is hard to find on all sides, and death is seemingly waiting just around every corner. Visit the author’s web site to find out about her books, her characters, and what’s next.

image c. 2024 M. A. Kastle

 

Turns out yesterday’s entry wasn’t the only peacock-centric illustrated book we found at the L.A. Times Festival of Books. Peacocks are known for their beautiful feathers, not for their beautiful voices — but what if there was a peacock who actually could sing? What would their fellows think about it? That’s the premise of The Unique Beak, written by singer/songwriter Estani Frizzell and illustrated in watercolor by Sophia Frizzell. “Sai is a kind young peacock who lives with his royal family. He has brilliant blue tail feathers that any regal peacock would be proud of — and Sai loves to sing! But his family laughs at that idea, and at him! They say his beak is too big while making fun of his singing voice. Saddened by their ridicule, Sai finally vows never to sing in front of anyone again! He hides himself away and doubts his dreams. Will he take their criticism to heart? Will he give up? Estani Frizzell’s spirited and unique story shows children how just one special friend’s support can make a difference in carrying us where our talents are meant to take us.” Available now from Greenleaf Book Group.

image c. 2024 Greenleaf Book Group

At this year’s Los Angeles Times Festival of Books we met Bill Herrin, who was showing off his brand new illustrated book. It seems that while his granddaughters were visiting one day, they noticed his pet peacock interacting with a large wooden bear statue he has in his back yard. They asked him why the bird would do that… and he came up with this story on the spot. “A proud Peacock with beautiful colorful feathers belittles Paws the Bear brown fur, but Paws soon discovers through the help of Father Owl, what real beauty is. The Peacock and the Bear picture book takes you on a journey with Peter the Peacock and Paws the Bear through generosity and understanding that each forest animal is a special beautiful creature.” Illustrated in a striking style (it looks like an animated film!) by Ilham Fatkurahman, the book is available now in hardcover.

image c. 2024 Safe Skies

This comedic video series from the Uncivil Gamers stream team for GamingFurever.com explores new released games on a weekly basis. Our streamers each select one game that was just released within the week and each play through their own game. We then edit together the best and funniest moments from the gameplay and deliver them to you every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 9 PM ET!

Description on Steam of "Minotauros": Minotauros is a single-player horror game that lets you experience the challenge faced by the hero Theseus. Explore, fight or flee when the Minotaur finds you. You're both hunter and prey. Find the secret of the labyrinth to win.

Link to video (also embedded below:) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpIr9vfmCJE

Subscribe to Uncivil Gamers on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UncivilGamers

We caught up with author Janet Racciato at WonderCon, and she told us about her latest self-published fantasy series called Old Souls. The idea goes like this: “Have you ever met an animal who seemed different, who knew how to do thing that it shouldn’t? What about the news reports about wild animals saving people or entering buildings for no apparent reason? What if you learned that these animals, these Old Souls, were waging battles against the powers of darkness? This war has been raging since the beginning of time. The demons sent by Ahriman have been called abonsam, goblins… and gremlins. But while their names may have changed over time, their purpose has not. The only things stopping the creatures from causing chaos and suffering in the world are the Old Souls sent by Ahura Mazda. Now the creatures are after a little girl destined to be an instrument of the light, and a special Old Soul named Zada has been appointed to keep her safe.” Zada’s Story is available now in paperback.

image c. 2024 by Janet Racciato