Feed aggregator

Just curious as to what kind of music my fellow furs enjoy listening too. Im also curious to a theory I have that furs are predominantly electronically inclined when it comes too music.

I personally like to think I have taste all over the board.

I mostly listen to things in the metal and electronic genres. Things like Feed Her to the Sharks, Miss May I, Killswitch Engadge, Dash Berlin, Nero, and DJ Fresh.

But I also enjoy a bit of rap, ambient(i think?), and Classical...ish, and others I cant be bothered to list because this would become too long.

So tell us! What are you into and post some of your favorites! :D

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This week’s illustration is from the children’s book project, Animal Kingdom Construction Co. 

Wow! I have no idea what cosmic spigots got turned on, but this week was a flood of interesting projects, after a comparative dry spell. 15 fun projects! There was also a brief flash in the pan when a revival project of the Jazz Jackrabbit video game series got posted to Kickstarter. I was all set to write about it, too! But it was not to be, as the dark goddesses of “Copyright” and “Intellectual Property” whisked it away. Oh well!

Reviews this week: We seem to be having a “Latin” theme: JRPG dreamquest game Sanctum Polis and a long, long review of posthuman tabletop game, HC SVNT DRACONES. If you want me to double the wordcount on a blog entry, give me a really great project with a single mechanic I disagree with…

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For a “complete” list of furry/fur-friendly crowdfunding projects, check out the Project Page and Patreon Page! New Projects Art

Domino Ukae on Patreon (Patreon ongoing funding)
Art and manga by artist Domino Ukae.
Pretty raw illustration style…

Children’s Products

The Kegel Bear (Ends: 10/1/2014)
A fun read-aloud story about a bear who loves to hug, with built-in pelvic floor exercises for mom! Art by Bill Robinson.
Sometimes I think I’ve made something up and it turns out to be real. Or at least someone else made it up.

Animal Kingdom Construction Co Picture Book (Ends: 10/5/2014)
It’s like a furry “Where’s Waldo”–cartoon animals build a high-rise building!

The Magnificent Race (Ends: 11/1/2014)
A children’s book about cute but somewhat bored-looking lizards on a cross-country hot air race. Go Gekkards!

Comics/Graphic Novels

Zombie Bears: Bearlands, Season 1 (Ends: 10/2/2014)
A post-apocalyse hero, the Bear-with-no-name, defends Bearertown from the hordes of cuddly undead…
I am so very done with the zombie meme, but this is pretty nicely done.

Lionheart Tales (Ends: 10/12/2014)
The continuing adventures of Lionheart, a feline investigative reporter from WAY back in the fandom, the Critters anthology in 1985!
Already past goal!

Costumes

Claws for Paws (Ends: 10/9/2014)
Premade fursuit parts–claws and jaws and such
So a lot of this is cute, but there’s a really hidulous sculpt that the creator leads with, I personally would not have done that. Just saying.

Film/Animation/Theater

Magic of Love (Ends: 10/29/2014)
A CGI animated love story: a dog, a fox, an illusionist, possibly a spider.
Eh. This doesn’t look *bad* per se but the business model is ‘$650K goal and Flexible Funding,’ which I reallly can’t encourage.

Jewelry/Charms

Big Bad Spirit Wolf Medallion (Ends: 10/2/2014)
A fierce silver medallion for werewolf fans. There is an AWFUL lot of text there for a sculpt of a snarly werewolf.

Tabletop Games

HC SVNT DRACONES (Ends: 10/3/2014)
Or, ‘here there be dragons.’ A posthuman, anthro sci-fi game.
I like this one a lot, and did a full review of it here. Not a lot of quality furry RPG products out these days.

Fauna Wars (Ends: 10/3/2014)
A pretty woodcut-style card game
Rant mode on: This is one of the worst kickstarter projects I’ve seen in a while. Nothing about the game, nothing about the content, and the business plan says $50K for ~88 cards. Wow. No wonder there isn’t a single dollar in it. But the art’s kind of pretty.

Toys

Button Fox Plushie (Ends: 10/5/2014)
A cute little bespoke plush fox with button eyes. The swag at the bottom of the page is supercute!

Video Games

Sanctum Polis (Ends: 10/19/2014)
A 32 bit JRPG style game with elements of investigation and horror: a young shiba Caxton investigates the murder of his dorm roommate in the real world and the world of dreams.
Part of the kickoff for this was a fan-art competition on FA, here’s some of the results.

…Just For Fun

Solvang Faeriefest 2014 (Ends: 9/25/2014): A colorful, free festival for fairies and the fey-at-heart in California.
Ducksutes Inc (Ends: 10/5/2014): I don’t know what Ducksutes Inc is hoping to accomplish, but sit sure does involve ducks wearing suits, and that’s cute.
Great Inspirational People (Ends: 10/5/2014): It’s not wonderful, but a cute collection of chibi historical figures, with an adorable Florence Nightingale and Pythagoras. Probably your only chance to see a chibi Frida Kahlo, too.
Retro Reload Gaming Museum (Ends: 11/2/2014): A fun walk-through of ideas for a video game themed-business. No donations thusfar and very little original content, but it’s got some fun 8bit imagery and snack food.

TL;DR - Just discovered my friend with benefits is a furry and I think it's cute. Should I tell him I know? Do's/Don'ts for how to approach this? Anything I should know about the fandom? Thanks!

Background: I (23f) have been fwb (emphasis on friends) with this guy for about 6 months. We initially hit it off because he appreciated how open I was when talking about sexual things. About 3 weeks ago I came to the realization that I'm completely smitten with him.

Last night I googled his gamer name (don't judge me) and found pictures of him in a fursuit and his furaffinity profile, which also has his Facebook profile picture so I'm certain it's him. My initial reaction was surprise and feeling awkward because I have no real knowledge/experience with this interest. Now I mostly find him adorable for it.

He's a very private person and I'm an extremely open person so it's hard for me to judge what's ok to bring up.

Questions:

1) If you were in his shoes and someone found out your secret, would you want to know? Or is it more of an "I'll open up when I'm ready" type thing?

1.5) If I bring it up, or if it ever comes up, can I ask to see his fursuit? Or is that private/personal? And would touching it generally be acceptable? I would ask first, of course.

2) Considering he owns a fursuit and has a furaffinity page, is it safe to assume he's a furry? Or are those common things for people with casual interest?

3) I've always been under the impression that there is a sexual aspect to this, is that usually the case? If so is there a way to hint at my comfort with this? (e.g. I think those fur tail plugs are awesome)

4) What's your view on furry/non-furry relationships? (Is there a different term than "non-furry" I should be using?) Can you be equally satisfied/happy/comfortable with someone who is curious/accepting but doesn't share your interest in this area?

5) Is this generally referred to as a hobby/lifestyle/something else? Is there a FAQ or info for noobs page somewhere?

6) Is there anything I didn't ask but you think I should know?

If anything in my post was offensive please forgive me, I'm so ignorant about this and just trying to understand and am assuming this is the best subreddit to ask.

Edit: Thanks to everyone who commented; I'm feeling a lot more comfortable with everything and have a lot to think about. You guys are great :)

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Tabletop RPG set in a posthuman future…

HC SVNT DRACONES: Post-Human Tabletop Roleplay

Kickstarter ending 10-3-14

The tabletop RPG industry has moved, so far as any real creativity and innovation goes, to Kickstarter. Is this a good thing?  Hard to say–given that the vast majority of indie RPGs aren’t going to outlive their first print run, this may simply be selling directly to fans and cutting the retail arm off the hobbistry. One of the downsides is that most new TPRGs have this low-fi, “made for print-on-demand” look to them that’s becoming a part of the new TRPG world.

Not so with HC SVNT DRACONES, which is an amazingly slick-looking product, particularly for what, I assume, is a first effort. All the pages and preview material I’ve seen is of a great-looking, ready for print tome, and I’m excited to see this much professionalism in an anthro RPG (a genre that’s been hurting for a long time for quality product).

HSD is a sci-fi/mystery game with some philosophy and horror woven into the binding. In the distant future of…somewhen…humanity has gone and blown itself up, leaving its legacy to its gengineered children, the Vectors. The technology Earth developed let them not only terraform planets, but manufacture cities and societies, too, and the Vectors–animal/human melds–carry on where humanity is too weak or privileged to settle.

When the bombs finally drop and the sun sets on Terra one last time, the relatively new culture of the Vectors, only some 50 years old, is set free, without a past and without history, to create themselves as they will–like the creator, Pierce Fraser, says, the gift of a blank slate is a terrible burden.

Much of this is explored in the sample chapter, which will give you a sense of the HSD universe’s history and its writing and design aesthetic. I admire the writers’ effort to include a logical reason for furries to exist in an RPG beyond “yes, there are anthro characters.” In sci-fi there’s always some reason, but this is a little richer than “…um…supersoldiers!” and provides a rationale for ‘taurs and non-anthros as well.  Overall there’s a bit of the “Race + Clan” approach to character creation, and it’s not a bad approach–family and species to get the broad outlines fleshed out, and a few genetic wildcards like “extra limbs” or “crazy color patterns” to add more definition and specialization. Here’s the racial profile page for cats and dogs, and since it has a shirtless wolf guy on it, I don’t see any pressing reason to go further.

Being a tabletop gaming nerd, i have a few things to say about the mechanics of the game, which are both innovative and oddly early 90s. In a period where indie games are trending rules-light, the character sheet for this one is busy, looking a bit like a cross between White Wolf and Hero. The good: HSD has an innovative approach to stats that adds a lot of nuance–instead of a character being just “strong” or “charismatic”, they have a general “Body” category of stats that can emphasize toughness, agility, strength, brute force intimidation…and the same range for mental, community, and economy. I’ve never seen those last two in a statblock (although “community” assumes a lot of the social skills, economy is new.)

So just looking at the Community stats, a character might be a charming socialite with a lot of shallow contacts, more adept at playing “social chameleon” than, say, running for office (high Community/Dexterity and Community/Acuity); a matron with a powerful web of contacts who’s unshakeable in her community (high Community/Strength and Resilience, low Dexterity); a mob boss with terrible clout and a lot of kneebreakers at his disposal (high Community Strength and Presence.)

Neat!

After that, the system appears to be a “roll a number of dice based on the level of your sub-stat, and add your skill value to the roll.” Pretty simple and straightforward. It seems like it would be easy to min/max with this, but the design of the game is such that there’s usually multiple ways to reach a goal, some more effective perhaps, but still, options.

Where the game seems a little fuzzy and old-school is in the relationship between skills and stats–why is there a “coercion” skill and an “intimidate” skill, particularly when there’s a “force of presence” stat–or, technically, four of them? It seems a bit like having a “Perceptive” stat and then a “looking for something” skill. A touch redundant. The multiple dice sizes is right out of the 90s–not only can you have a range of stats from 0 to 5, but you can also roll on a d8, d10, or d12. I’m not sure this is really a meaningful thing to add, more a complication than anything else. That sort of weird mechanic is why the D20 revolution was such a big thing, and the legacy game systems have all evolved toward fewer dice and fewer variables that accomplish the same thing. Maybe this is unfair, since I’ve never played the system, but I’ve seen a lot of gaming history. There’s always a desire to make a dice mechanic that’s unique to your big new game, but I’m not sure this helps.

For deeper game wonkery you can check Youtube for the HSD combat mechanic videos #1 and #2, but for an allegedly short kickstarter review, to quote Mary Poppins, “‘That’s going a bit too far, don’t you think?’ ‘Indubitably.'”

What’s in the game’s future? Assuming it successfully launches, and it’s done fairly well week one, there’s at least 10 expansion books in HSD’s future, and a stretch goal for a web-based utility. There’s been some talk of a supplement for robots/constructed creatures, the “cogs”, over on Tumblr, there’s a lot more there to explore, and a few more sample pages on the creator’s FA account (but viewer discretion is advised there.)

To wrap up an increasingly long-winded review, I’ll just throw in and paraphrase some of Fraser’s own words about his universe: it may look like a game about animals and getting in touch with your beast side, but it’s not. HSD is a game about finding humanity, unalloyed by thousands of years of racism, sexism, sectarianism, and D&D edition wars. HSD’s big question is, “how do we define ourselves when we lose everything we were, and become only what we are?”

A good place to start building a universe.

Note: Images used above are included to promote the work of crowdfunding artists, and are owned by the original creator.

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Well? n _ n; Triceratops here!

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My brother is in the fandom. He's a wolf, super original there. I actually always assumed this because he has always been obsessed with wolf things. He also has a few close online friends that live far away from him. The way I officially confirmed him being in the fandom is when he was at my house. He turned on his laptop from sleep mode aaaaand furry porn on FA. I was standing behind him not in his line of sight so I just kind of played it off as I wasn't looking and he had no idea. Years later he "confessed" that he was a furry after I had my skype quote to something like "currently at rainfurrest." As if I didn't already know and it wasn't obvious. I personally found it more amusing in his approach. The vibe he gave was like he was going to tell me something that was actually a problem. I've never quite understood why people view the fandom that way. It shouldn't matter to any one that you're a furry or not.

Any way, you have any one in your family that's in the fandom?

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Now I know how people perceive their parents might influence the outcome but what species and extra flair would your parents fursona have?

Like I think my mom would be a regular whitetail deer. Skittish, dainty, but cautious and worrisome over her kids.

My dad would be a great horned owl, since he's not of many words and stoic, and he wears huge glasses and his yawns sound like huge hoots.

TL; DR - is your mom a sparkledog.

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I already sell electronics and inflatables on two different storefronts, have a small warehouse etc. It wouldn't be a big thing to add another storefront and add stuff in my inventory.

The thing I've been asked constantly is to start importing good quality fursuit materials to Finland - I have no idea what's the situation in the rest of Europe, honestly.

Also, plushies, kigus, all kinds of amazing fluffy stuff. What do you think?

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Just wanted to put it out there that I am Recca101! I had to delete my account due to some IRL issues but now I'm back under this account :)

So yeah if anyone is interested in art this account is where you can find me at as well as keishu13@fA and seafoamdoe@DA

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There is nothing resembling an easy way to describe God Hates Astronauts by Ryan Brown. But Image Comics gave it the old college try: “God Hates Astronauts follows the story of a group of incompetent, small-minded, super powered narcissists called ‘The Power Persons Five’ who are hired by NASA to stop all farmers from launching themselves into space in homemade rocket ships. Unfortunately for NASA, this goal is scarcely even addressed and the book focuses more on extramarital affairs, bank-robbing owls, big gross swollen heads, ghost cow heads, olde tyme boxers, tigers eating cheeseburgers in the Crab Nebula, buffalo judges, and tons of aggressive swearing. Not so much a superhero book as it is a parody of basically everything and a celebration of weird that is jam-packed with references to RoboCop and Die Hard.” Got all that? Oh they neglected to mention the army of magic bears, too. Image released the first God Hates Astronauts full-color trade paperback last year, and now they have a brand-new G.H.A. comic book series starting up this month.

image c. 2014 Image Comics

Dear Otherkin,

I read a post and some replies that did not show support for you.

Therefore, I am showing my support for you.

People become what they do. Compassion is a practice - something to do, from something that you believe. Your beliefs are your ideals. What you practice can bring clarity and focus to your ideals. So, compassion in practice can help clear the mind and bring focus to daily living. What we do for others has karmic repercussions.

I can have a difference of opinion about others and their beliefs without forcing them to agree. Mockery can be a form of social coercion, and I do not like it for that purpose. My ability to form rational decisions is not threatened by weird people. I am one of the weird people. "Normal" is what I fake to earn a living, not how I define myself.

In short, I am content that you be you - as crazy a you as you can be. Shine on you crazy star, shine on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMj7UcjPZ0U

And goodnight, everyone.

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I've only been aware of the furry fandom for about a month and a half. In that time, I've not spoken to a single furry who isn't into furry porn. If someone had told me this was just a massive publicized fetish I would have stayed away. I'm now wondering if that would actually be a fair description.

It seems literally everything in furry is sexualized somehow, and not by just a small number of people either. The most popular FA artists are almost all porn artists, /r/yiff has more subscribers than this sub despite being around for less time, and if you go into any thread here asking how people found the fandom, most people will say porn.

I found this fandom because I thought anthro characters were cute, and I thought I'd find people who thought similarly. And on the surface, that's what it appears to be. But if you look any deeper than that thin veneer, then it's a different story.

Am I the only one who feels this way?

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Mystery and magic in a world of dreams, and murder in the world of flesh…

Sanctum Polis: Rest Eternal Memory

Kickstarter ending October 19

NOTE: More than usual, the graphics in this project may change as the project migrates from RPGMaker to Unity. So think of the graphics here as building a sense of the world, rather than truly representing the final product!

NOTE II: If you like this project but don’t have any real $$ to throw at it–or just if you like the project–it’s currently accumulating votes on Steam Greenlight. So go lend them a hand and a vote if you want to see Sanctum Polis on Steam.

This…this hasn’t been a good year for Caxton, a mild-mannered young Shiba Inu. Of recent, he’s been thrown against his will into a tightly-guarded religious reform school, and you can’t get a degree in Computer Science or Radio-Television-Film at Solaris Notre University–no, it’s the priesthood. And there’s a creepy order of robed monk-things that keep you confined to the castle at night. Bummer.

To make matters worse, Caxton finds the body of his roommate, Soul, in the woods, and the aptly-named fennec’s spirit is beseeching poor Caxton to solve the mystery of his murder.

No, it’s not a good year at all.

Sanctum Polis: Rest Eternal Memory is a JRPG-style video game now funding on Kickstarter. It draws inspiration from the Persona series, Suikoden, Final Fantasy VI,  and some of the psychological horror of Silent Hill–I feel that most keenly in the game’s weird “cut off from the world” setting.

During the day, Caxton’s world is a reasonable facsimile of normal–he attends a college of a sort, makes friends and alliances, builds rivalries, attends (or skips) class, sometimes goes to detention. Much of the game’s branching plot spins out from these daytime interactions.

At night, it gets a bit weirder.

Fundamentally, Caxton lives in the real world. Sure, 99.9% of the people he meets are anthropomorphic animals, and the occasional human is a reject from the other side of the world, where humans were banished for being terrible dicks (it’s in the minicomic). But it’s fundamentally a non-magical setting–except for Caxton’s ability to explore other people’s minds as they dream.

In that dream world–well, those several dream worlds, there’s currently 10 of them in the works, depending on whose mind Caxton wanders through–SP opens into a fantasy world of magic, exploration, and more than a bit of violence. Here the game turns from a real-life mystery to a more fantasy RPG world, with dungeons to explore and enemies to defeat in a turn-based sort of way. The worlds influence each other–Caxton’s grades and world-happiness give him buffs and weaknesses in his night-time dream adventures.

Overall, while it’s hard to get a sense for exactly what the game will look like–one of the expenses the Kickstarter campaign raises funds for is to move the game from RPGMaker to Unity, which will significantly affect the game’s graphic quality–it looks like a nicely realized world. There’s a host of characters to interact with; at least 10 dreamworlds lurking in the minds of the school’s bishops, each with their own interesting look and feel and secrets and psychoses; and an interesting world that’s a little bit fantasy, a little bit sci-fi. Again, that prequel comic gives a few details on the setting, it’s on the SP FurAffinity page.

Looking at the Kickstarter campaign, the Sanctum Polis team–I want to call them the Sanctum Police–started off with a fan art contest,with some nice results in their gallery–great way to build some initial interest!

The kickstarter–well, it’s a bit complex, but that seems to be the nature of video game project pages–lots of different reward tiers, review videos, and such. Many of the rewards involve a “your character here” as an NPC, and those tend to have strong guidelines on the character (backers at the $2,000, for in instance, are advised to be pigs. Boars rather.) I’m finding myself a bit lost in the rewards, but there’s some clarifying text in the body that helps. (It’s generally useful to keep the backer reward bar as short and sweet as possible, avoid repetition, and carry the bulk of the description in the main body of the project page–but there’s a bit of a wall of text going on in the main body. It’s not overwhelming, but there’s a lot to sift through to find your perfect pledge point.)

There’s several ways for the community to get involved as well–three characters have already been introduced from the fans, like the incredibly cute ram-raccoon (ramcoon? Great horned red panda?) Ephias Belvidea. Backers can also write in-game notes to Caxton, become walk-on characters in the dreamworld or wandering sprites in the University halls–or even, and this is unusual, become villains–monsters, minibosses, even a major bad guy.

Overall, this project is visually appealing, with some loving anthro art and strong, mature story–although it’s hard to know where the look and feel might evolve as they switch design platforms. The creators’ intention was to create something with some of the great elements of their Crono Trigger-loving childhood, but updated for modern gamers. It seems like that’s an achievable goal.

Note: Images used above are included to promote the work of crowdfunding artists, and are owned by the original creator.