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IMVU’s big buy-in. These messages sponsored by hugs and scritches. Newsdump (3/20/15)
Furry gamers?
I was hoping I could find some furriends (Im not apologizing for that pun) who would be willing to skype and play games with me. my skype is xbilly6549 and my steam right now is {furry} billchow so come hit me up if you want. I await your reply with bated breath.
submitted by Billy6549[link] [7 comments]
Any other pups around?
So recently I've become keenly interested in puppy play and was wondering if there were any fellow pups and / or handlers around here that wanted to chat. The pup play and furry communities overlap in quite a few places, so I thought it couldn't bother to ask here! Feel free to either PM me or Skype me at rumtum_hyena.
Wags
submitted by pretzelbagel[link] [29 comments]
IMVU buys Fur Affinity; furry fans respond
Guest post: “On Tropes and Training Wheels” by Kandrel
by Kandrel
As happens fairly regularly on Twitter (and other social media outlets) I was asked for an opinion. I’m not sure why people are interested in my rambling, but whatever. I like talking, and apparently there are people who like listening. Who am I to complain? In this particular instance, I was asked to provide a list of ‘tropes’ I was aware of in furry literature. ‘Sure!’ I thought. ‘No trouble! Let’s see there’s… Well, and there’s… Um…’The perceptive reader might notice that of course I didn’t have trouble thinking of tropes. No, that was easy. The tough part was thinking of tropes that I haven’t used—or that I even continue to use on a regular basis. Obviously, I couldn’t give them as examples, because then some troll would post examples of me using them and call me a hypocrite. Talk about embarrassing! But I was asked for my opinion, so my opinion I would—by damn—give! So there must be tropes that I don’t use, but that are pretty prominent in furry fiction. It might be a shorter list, but I could definitely provide that.But thinking on it, even those ones that I didn’t use, I could recognize them out of my favorite works as well. The only reason I hadn’t used them is that the opportunity hadn’t arisen yet. It would. If I continued to tell stories (and I can’t see any particular reason why I would stop) I would eventually use them. So what, exactly, are we mocking here?
So I had a sit and a think. Had a hot chocolate. Listened to some music. I let myself cogitate. What exactly was it we were condemning here? Let me make it clear—this was a condemnation. People don’t collect tropes because they think they’re awesome. This isn’t a reader’s group talking about their favorite author’s techniques and tricks. When you hear the word ‘trope’, I’ll bet you that it’s meant derogatively.
Should it be? I mean, I know that I’ve called authors out on it while editing. Multiple times. Hell, I’ve had people rewrite entire sections of story to avoid tropes. It’s the right thing to do. It’s what a proper beta reader and editor would do, right? Right?
Well…
First, I want to have you think about the life-cycle of a storyteller. In the beginning, we’re all imitating the stories we like. Thinking about it now, this is where ‘tropes’ are most important—not because of what we should avoid, but because of what we should use. I mean it. An inexperienced storyteller can use the tropes to hone their art while making passable pieces of fiction. Think of them as training wheels. So here’s one I’m sure you’re all familiar with: “Story opens with furry looking at themselves in a mirror.” You’ll hear experienced authors moan about this. Ugh. Overused. Overplayed. Cheap excuse for an infodump-y description. Well, want to know why it’s a trope? It’s because it works. It’s hard to find a reason for the character to be giving a description of themselves, and even if it’s a trope, at least it’s giving those newbie storytellers a reason to actually do a description.
But just as we’re starting to get more comfortable with the process of writing, we age and we learn and we progress. During the next phase of a storyteller’s life, we’ll slowly recognize those training wheels for what they are. Over the next while, we start to remove them. We become aware of the tropes, and once aware, avoid them. We hunt for ways to fit things into our stories in new and novel ways. Using the example above, instead of a mirror, we look for ways to fit in small titbits of the description into the narrative so the person experiencing the story slowly gets a whole image of the character in their mind. This is more elegant. But remember that trope we’re now avoiding? It trained us. It had us writing descriptions even before we were ‘ready’ to. We’ve described a hundred characters. Sure, we had a bad excuse for doing it, but at least we can write a description. We know what’s important to describe, and we know how to do it with style. And now that we’re learning to do it in an elegant fashion, we’re well prepared. Would we be if it hadn’t been for the training wheels?
This is the phase of a storyteller’s life where you see the most complaints about the tropes. Authors like me who’ve recognized the training wheels for what they are look back at their own stories that used them and shudder. They read other people’s stories, and those tropes immediately pull them out of the story. They edit with a scalpel to excise those tropes from everything they see and read. It’s as if we’re over sensitized to them, because we see how we used to rely on them.
And we look down on the people who still use them, even though we shouldn’t. We’re the too-cool-for-school kids with their eighteen-speed bikes, looking back at the young kids with their training wheels. We’re pointing and laughing from our comfortable older age and greater experience. And the younger or more inexperienced storytellers feel ashamed, because every time they try to remove a trope, they end up falling. Their story gets away from them, or they never find a way to describe the main character, or they end up falling onto a different trope they didn’t even know was a trope until another one of us upperclassmen laugh and point again.
There is a last phase of this life cycle, though. At the end, those of us who’ve spent enough time picking on the little kids finally grow up enough to look back at those training wheels we used to use. We pick them up and roll them over in our hands. They weren’t really bad. They were perfectly functional, we just used them badly. We take a second look and realize there’s actually something beautiful and elegant about them, if we use them just right. We go back to those tropes, and we play with them. We use them to set expectations, then break them. We hide them in our work as jokes, waiting for someone to realize they were just “trope’d” and never knew it. We brazenly base our stories off a well-known trope, but write them in such a way that it feels novel and fresh.
The best part of this story is that it’s a circle. When I write a story that uses one of those tropes in an elegant fashion, new storytellers read my story. ‘Hey, that worked’ they tell themselves. ‘It’s an easy trick! I could do that!’ Then they’ll try to emulate it. They’ll see the training wheels I’ve artfully used, and bolt them inexpertly onto their own story. It’ll work—if only just. It’ll give them an excuse to keep writing. It’ll give them a safe opportunity to learn. It keeps them from falling down.
We know the training wheels are stupid-looking and juvenile. But we’re authors. We’re thinkers and storytellers. We’re the imagineers. Remember that with just the right amount of imagination, a bicycle with two extra wheels could just as easily be called a car.
This post first appeared on Kandrel’s blog. You can view the original post here.
AN interview with Dragoneer about the FA buyout
Happy FursuitFriday! I love you guys :3
Spaaaaaace Baaadgers…. Vanguard: Varmisk Fallen
Tabletop role-playing drama and action in a galaxy poised on the brink of war…
Kickstarter ending 4/9/15
Fair warning: This product isn’t for everyone. Indie tabletop RPGs (TRPGs henceforth) are a segment of a section of a percentage of the population, and a TRPG that steps outside the mainstream is going to be, by its nature, even moreso. The hobbistry (hobby+industry) solar system can support one or two giant planets, a few smaller ones that still seem capable of generating creativity, and a lot of little things that drift silently in space, the light of popularity a cold, distant, shining point.
That being said, good storytelling is good storytelling, and the ultimate destiny of most indie TRPGs is to get piled up in the bathroom, inspirational reading where most game masters do their best plotting. The idea that any of these things get played is so 1992.
Vanguard: Varmisk Fallen is set around the plane/system of Varmisk (Get it? Varmisk? Varmints?) A colonial world governed by the Confederation. Now, in the wake of a devastating alien attack, the Confederation is in ruins, and its various planets and colonies are plagued by bureaucratic corruption, outside attack, opportunistic criminals–it’s a civilization on the eve of war (Cue the music!)
For storytelling focused on intrigue and personal conflict, this is a great setting. And reviews of some of author Tim Westhaven‘s other products, it sounds like he’s a very strong world-builder and storyteller.
I wish I had more information about Vanguard’s game system. While it’s fundamentally a dice-light or diceless game (there’s some cards for randomizing, but there’s a lot of the old “Amber Diceless Game” mechanic of “you tell me if you should succeed, I’ll tell you if you’re right”), it’s not at all simple, and there’s some strange, fluffy language with mystical overtones that make me back away slowly and put down my cards. While the kickstarter says the game plays for ages 7+ and mature players as well, some of the materials available for review look a little complex. And there’s rules for vehicles and droids, and some strong tactical game play.
None of this is saying that the rules engine behind Vangard–the “Fatestorm System”–is a bad system, I haven’t picked up the book, and all evidence suggests that Fatestorm does some innovative stuff.. But according to at least one reviewer it’s a rich system that’s going to be difficult for new players, which fits pretty well with what little I can see of the product so far.
I will ding Mr. Westhaven for gratuitous* use of the word “pawesome.”
* Any use of the word “pawesome” is gratuitous.
In describing his inspiration, Westhaven says “…think of it as Wind in the Willows meets Mass Effect.” That…that doesn’t seem right. I think it’s a lot more Redwallian–herbivores (and badgers, because they’re awesome) vs. carnivores, the inevitable trope that bunnies are good and anything that eats meat is bad (except badgers).
All in all, the artwork looks good for a TRPG, and it is important to note that art is one of the main things that’s being upgraded. According to the project page, the two rulebooks–basic and advanced play–are both written and playtested, and funding is going toward art and professional editing–both very important things!
If you’d like to learn a little more about the game, the Fatestorm Blog is primarily looking at the Vanguard universe, with some decent excerpts–like the Badgerians here. Westhaven (and most of the TRPG industry) is pretty active on Google+ too, and has a lot of notes on game development and mechanics.
Lots of fun stuff for the kickstarter backer, including the ability to pick and develop new species for PC races, and developing an alien race or NPC for the advanced rulebook. There’s some stretch goal miniatures–and good anthro miniatures are hard to find!
One stretch goal that I really love–as a game master and general crowdfunding fan–is the CIN Database. Basically, every citizen of the Confederation has a unique ID linked to their DNA–and backers of the kickstarter can add their personal “name, species, and vocation” to this database, creating a ready-made collection of DM and player inspirations for creating background characters in a hurry. Neat! It’s a legitimate game resource, and a way to recognize backers.
All in all, Vanguard is a mixed bag. It looks like a good anthro sci-fi game, and it’s been a while since we had one of those (Albedo was before my time, and I was gaming in the 80s!) I can’t tell if it’s rules-lite or just rules-different, but there’s a lot of time spent on granular stuff like ships and equipment, which is one of the telltale marks of an old-school crunchy game–though even as I write that, I don’t think it’s a fair assessment, sci-fi/military tends to be equipment-heavy. The writing on the project page and the art varies widely–both are sometimes playful, sometimes childish, sometimes sophisticated. And it’s hard to know how to dance when that tune is playing.
As always, we have to embrace the risk. The digital release is a very reasonable $20, so if you find the story appealing, it’s not going to break your wallet, and reports from the reviews of some of Westhaven’s other projects say he’s a good read with some solid campaign inspiration.
Follow @furstarter on twitter for the latest fur-friendly crowdfunding projects!
In response to the FurAffinity buyout, Varka (Bad Dragon) is developing a furry community site!
Does anyone else feel this way?
I've never been confident in my own skin. When my cousin and myself were young, we'd pretend to be animals and do things that "normal" people do. I loved it. As I've gotten older, I've been noticing that my feelings about my physical appearance have always been askew. It wasn't until recently that I felt comfortable enough to post about something like this...
Am I a nut case for desiring to be my fursona? I know that if I had the choice in this life (and that somehow this was possible), I would be Oathkeeper. I find her to be a gorgeous representation of my inner self. I'm even at the point where I don't feel comfortable not wearing my fur gear.
Does anyone else feel this way...? Or... is it time for me to get my head checked further? :/
submitted by Oathkeeperx[link] [39 comments]
Found this at Chisos in Big Bend National Park
![[link]](http://i.imgur.com/XvTcnFH.png){kind=link}
FurAffinity bought out by 3D chat space IMVU
This is a surprisingly left field development. After a decade being independently ran, FurAffinity is now under the ownership of a bigger company.
Whilst the choice of owner caught me off guard, I would not be surprised if finances were a factor behind the sale. The stress of operating solely on advertisement and donations wears your soul out eventually.
Varsha, Director, Community Experience & User Safety:
Online furry and anthropormophic art gallery meets 3d artistic furry avatars...if they have not met already!We are proud to announce to YOU - especially our furry and furry-loving friends - that earlier this year we made FurAffinity.net community a part of our family. This started with IMVU advertising its services to the FA community, which led to further discussions about the obvious overlap among our members. Both IMVU and FA community members love to socialize and connect anonymously with people from around the world with diverse backgrounds. Both communities express their artistic and creative skills in a variety of ways - via their anthromorphic and furry art, photographs, outfits, and scenes and more. So our partnership was the natural and reasonable conclusion to bring these similar and often already connected communities together officially. For those of you who don’t know, FA is a community centered around sketching and animations, in which artists are afforded the opportunity to anonymously share their own individual creative talents. Sound vaguely familiar? Yes, it is indeed exactly what you - IMVU’s customers - do as well. What does it mean for the IMVU community? The FA site will continue to operate indepently and work toward enhancing the fun and experience of their members with our full support. You will continue to enjoy your IMVU experience - whether you belong to our furry community or not as always. We know many of you participate in both communities, so this just means you are always part of the IMVU family!