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At Furry Weekend Atlanta, an academic philosopher wins a job by the power of fandom.
The human species is diverse, but anywhere you go, there’s job-seekers hungry to start careers. At least one of them is a tennis-playing philosopher with a FurAffinity account, a raccoon fursona and a cool story: WildeCard. (Here’s his personal site.)
In human form, he’s a Postdoc researcher and ethics course instructor at Ohio State University’s Center for Ethics and Human Values. He’s working on a book titled The Environmental Impact of Overpopulation: The Ethics of Procreation, which explores the ethics of slowing population growth. (For humans — no word about raccoons, bunnies or others with prodigious proliferation.)
How did he get there? WildeCard writes in:
“I recently documented how my experience on the academic job market (in philosophy) overlapped with attending Furry Weekend Atlanta 2019. And by overlapped, I mean that I was literally doing job interviews from my hotel room while attending this convention. That part of the story comes near the tail-end of an 8-month search for academic employment, which was ultimately successful.
The relevant (and lengthy) blog post is here.”
His 8 months of searching started with a Google Spreadsheet with 196 possible jobs, of which he applied to 118. His story is aimed to help other hopeful seekers, with a twist.
“There are some aspects of this story that are extremely idiosyncratic and unlikely to be a part of anyone else’s job search.”
“How could one venture into the cartoonish landscape of ludicrous photo-ops and cringe-inducing animal puns, and then later be expected to discuss population ethics or how to approach teaching non-philosophy majors?”
Juggling 118 job applications was depression-inducing, but WildeCard made time for the fluffier things in life.
At FWA 2019, he ran a panel called Discussing the Furry Fandom with Non-Furries “to give people a little advice on how they can go about discussing the furry fandom with friends, family, coworkers, and other curious acquaintances.” (It covers topics like: Reasons to Disclose Membership in the Furry Community, Handling People with Strong Negative Views of the Fandom, and Impact on One’s Career.)
I get questions about this ALL THE TIME. So I never want to hear “what can you do with a philosophy degree?” It’s almost as silly as questioning the prestige and fortune that comes with Furry Journalism.
Literally made a Furry 101 playlist with all the basics you can ask for. https://t.co/SMLvBOBZJv
— 
David OK Boomervich (@Bookworm_Review) November 9, 2019
WildeCard’s story is mainly for other job-seekers, but also contains a good explanation of the fandom, with a demonstration of furry power from a great ambassador. It has self-evaluation about how he handled the handfuls of job interviews that came from his applications — some with great difficulty, and some with high confidence. That makes an intriguing clue about the secret to his success.
“In my first 100 applications, I did not get a single offer. In my last 18 applications, I got 3.”
“50% of my interviews at furry conventions yielded job offers.”
They do always have lucky rabbits feet there. (Also the rest of the rabbits, otherwise this might not be such a happy story.) Thanks to WildeCard for showing that furries come from many walks (and hops and scurries) of life, with lots of talent, smarts and success.
Like the article? These take hard work. For more free furry news, please follow on Twitter or support not-for-profit Dogpatch Press on Patreon.
#224 - Welcome to DOMway - https://youtu.be/guLLVy3yPXE for all things Drag…
https://youtu.be/guLLVy3yPXE for all things Dragget Show -- www.draggetshow.com support us on Patreon! -- www.patreon.com/thedraggetshow all of our audio podcasts at @the-dragget-show You can also find us on iTunes & wherever you find podcasts! Dragget Show telegram chat: telegram.me/draggetshow #224 - Welcome to DOMway - https://youtu.be/guLLVy3yPXE for all things Drag…
Trick or Treating in Fursuit
35 Years of Turtle Power
Hey! We’re easing our way into the Christmas Season… How ’bout a gift for the Ninja Turtle fan in your life, courtesy of IDW: The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 35th Anniversary Box Set. “Revisit the glorious origins of the TMNT during the 35th anniversary month! This special box set includes Mirage Publishing’s TMNT #1-4 and the Raphael Micro-Series at their original 8 ⅜ x 10 ⅞ dimensions enclosed in a box with new art from TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman. A must-have for all shell-heads!” You said it, dude.
image c. 2019 Mirage
[Live] TeaHC
We discuss possibly being sponsored, followed by the usual off-track news.
Link Roundup:- US Consumer Product Safety tweets about wolves
- Adobe and Twitter are designing a system for permanently attaching artists’ names to pictures
- BuckTownTiger returns to Jeopardy
- The Senate unanimously passes a bill that makes SOME animal cruelty a federal felony
- FurFest “I lost the room lottery” shirts
- Vlogbrothers: This Cat Makes No Sense
- Twitter thread judging every horse emoji
- Netflix says Beastars is coming
- MinuteEarth explains the realism of dragons
- The mayor of Washington DC posing with a drag queen and her pups for Halloween is a huge, huge mood
- Jacksfilms: How to fix your furry profile
- Voxian finishes public VRChat Taur model
- Gilead drama: Who Owns H.I.V.-Prevention Drugs? The Taxpayers, U.S. Says
Ev’rybody’s Busy, Just A Little Dizzy
Got this right from Animation Scoop: “This month marks Disney Television Animation’s 35th Anniversary, the studio that created pop culture phenomena beloved by multiple generations, including, among others: DuckTales, TaleSpin, Recess, Kim Possible, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Phineas and Ferb, and Gravity Falls.” Your ever-lovin’ ed-otter feels the need to make mention of Gargoyles, too! Take a look at the video celebrating the milestone and interviewing several creative folk about what it’s like to work for The Mouse on the small screen.
image c. 2019 Disney Television Animation
Green Eggs & Ham
Green Eggs & Ham is now a series on Netflix ... somehow. We can assume they will pad the story a bit.
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Yoshi Stranding
It's a Yoshi based parody of the new video game Death Stranding [1] and while I've heard good things about that game ... I kinda want to play the Yoshi version now. While not exactly furry here is a Rick and Morty crossover for good measure: https://youtu.be/KXf9O0OWe54 [1] https://youtu.be/tCI396HyhbQ
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Any Port in a Storm…
Another successful Kickstarter project we discovered at a recent comic convention: Franklin and Ghost, a full-color graphic novel series written by Garrett Gunn and illustrated by Nic Touris. Check out the glowing review over at Outright Geekery. And now comes news from the publisher, Source Point Press, that a Franklin and Ghost animated series is in development. So what’s it all about? “‘Franklin and Ghost is a sci-fi adventure story about two trouble-making aliens who escape slavery on their home planet by stealing a space ship and crashing it on Earth,’ says Source Point Press Editor-In-Chief Travis McIntire. ‘They inhabit the closest bodies to the crash site, one being a fox and the other a skull from a cemetery. It’s absolute chaos from there, as they cause all sorts of trouble, landing them on the radar of galactic police forces.'” Got that?
image c. 2019 Source Point Press
Stuffed
A beautiful short about a young cat with anger issues (to a near lovecraftian level) learns to deal with his issues. (I believe the first murder by some stuffing monster is free?) I think there might be a broken aesop [1] somewhere in this. [1] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BrokenAesop
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Underrated furry news sources
So, you want to know what’s up in furry news. There’s that site from the dog with holographic pants, but it’s blabbing about obscure art movies and being too sexy to handle. There’s that site that smells like carrots, but their comment section is toxic waste. Maybe there’s a more respectable site ready to grow. Hmm… nothing but a merchandising front here, and a spam blog there… why hasn’t this need been solved yet?
Writers have lives, and fandom won’t pay for 1/10th of the cost for ones willing to slave over a hot keyboard all day. Social media can make reach, but has negatives like users who bite the hand that feeds. If you find anything decent, it’s like a gift given despite the costs. You won’t find it for sale in the mainstream.
When it’s a labor of love, think of this oxymoron: “unbiased fandom.” That’s self contradicting, and it’s possible there will never be a news source for furries that isn’t run by some agenda (personal passion is a fine agenda). Don’t hunt for a unicorn, just go find the ones that do it well. There’s stakes too. When “sensational media” is blamed for image problems, the solution is “Be The Media”. That’s how fandom works, so be a fan for the little ones with potential.
1991 (from confurence.com)
InFurNation — https://www.infurnation.com
Weekly posts about books, movies, TV, art, games, and anything creative curated by Rod O’Riley (co-founder of the first fur con). On paper since 1991 and the web since 2009.
Our team of researchers scour the globe looking for new things and events of interest to furry fans. And who’s on that team? Us… and you! If you know about some cool upcoming things that funny animal fanatics might want to see – and buy! – then write to us! Contact our head writer at his e-mail, rodso64@hotmail.com.
Rod, Mark Merlino, and Changa Lion share Southern California’s Skiltaire house. I keep nudging them to consolidate effort because they do so much for too little recognition. Imagine one content stream, backed by a Patreon to sustain all their stuff under one brand:
- The Confurence Archive — artifacts of fandom curated by Changa.
- Skiltaire Party — The twitter presence for their monthly furry house party.
- Furry.Today — Changa’s daily short videos.
- Two Old Furry Fans — Mark and Rod’s blog.
- Ursa Major Awards — The annual best of fandom.
Finding furry info there is like drinking from a firehose. R/furry is sort of a forum just for art, you can barely get to know anyone, and there’s no curation of topics. Imagine the front page of Furaffinity, minus porn which all goes to r/yiff. Then r/furry_IRL is just for memes. That covers most of furry Reddit. But there’s potential in small subreddits. These look good:
- r/WagInHeaven: Stories of the furry community at its best.
- r/Furrydiscuss: News and talk, no art or memes.
It’s hard to call this a source, and beware of falling in past the event horizon. If you wanted to find all the great accounts to follow, it could take forever. (For example: Furries Out of Context, Unintentional Furries.) Try these:
- Furry News Network: Briefly a promising blog, now a Twitter feed worth watching.
- Furry news list: aggregating a few other sources.
In hibernation?
- [adjective][species]: Essays, issues, data.
- Culturally F’d: Not news, but more like documentary/popular education.
- Furrymedia: Livejournal petered out but news aggregation could easily happen on one of those subreddits.
- Furstarter: Furry crowdfunding was well covered there in 2016 and would be great to have as a feature here.
Got any others? Leave a tip. Or start one.
Like the article? These take hard work. For more free furry news, please follow on Twitter or support not-for-profit Dogpatch Press on Patreon.
Honest Trailer: Lion King
Have some honest trailers and speaking as a fan of the Lion King I have to admit about the "Live Action" one .... At least they will leave Lilo and Stitch alone right?
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TigerTails Radio Season 12 Episode 08
Meet Magferret, artist for October’s site banner.
(Patch:) Hi Mag. Very nice art and it’s a pleasure to host it. The site is commissioning regular new banners and featuring the artists, with a goal to give attention to ones outside the US. The last one was Alf Doggo from Chile. Can you give a little intro about yourself, where you live, and where to find you on social media?
Hi! My name is Mag, I’m from England and I draw cartoons and make music! I’m most active on Twitter where I post a bunch of my art!
- https://twitter.com/magferret – Art Twitter
- https://skooshed.bandcamp.com/ – Music (Also on Spotify)
- https://www.skooshed.net/ – Merch Store
Do you mostly do art in furry fandom, or somewhere else like for non furries? Do you do it for a living or just sometimes for money or for fun?
I’ve been taking commissions for over 10 years now, but went full-time with my art around 2 years ago. I’ve done some art for indie game projects, but the majority of my art is commissioned from within from the fandom which has honestly been such a pleasure! The fandom has some of the kindest, most supportive people ever and I’m really lucky to have such an amazing community of followers to interact with, I’m nothing without those guys!
Can you say more about your art? I notice it all looks SFW and wholesome, and it’s multi talented even involving music. For the art you did for the site, my favorite part is the zombie possum, who might just be playing dead because that’s what possums do. And why are you so good at toony ferrets?
I mostly draw toony animals, the cuter and squisher the better! As for being good at drawing toony ferrets, I think that just comes with how long I’ve been drawing for! I started drawing back in 2003 roughly, mostly drawing video game characters I liked. I wasn’t very good at it, but I enjoyed drawing and kept at it. I started taking my art more seriously in 2007 and began posting my stuff online / drawing a lot more. It’s surprising how quickly you can improve at something if you really dedicate yourself to it!
I also make music under the name Skooshed. I released an album called “Anxious Dreamer” earlier this year. It’s a personal, downtempo / chill album. You can find it on Spotify or Bandcamp (https://skooshed.bandcamp.com/).
How did you find furry, and what’s the fandom like where you live? Do you spend time with other furries in real life?
I don’t really remember the exact moment I found the fandom. I’ve always been into toons since I was super young and spent pretty much all my free time watching Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon, so naturally when I got on the internet I made friends with a few people on forums who were into toons and it kinda went from there.
There’s quite a few furries in the UK and I attend a bunch of cons around Europe too. I’ll have a table at Confuzzled in May 2020, so if you’re there, come say hi!
Do you have any favorite furry characters, whether in game or movies or tv — or favorite artists people should check out?
Oh man, I have way too many fav characters to list! Bonkers and Sylvester are a few of my favs. As for artists you should check out, go follow @gatorblits on Twitter – their stuff is always amazing!
Do you have one more favorite piece of art you drew that you want shared?
I’ve been playing the Links Awakening remake recently, so here some art of Mag dressed as Link!
Like the article? These take hard work. For more free furry news, please follow on Twitter or support not-for-profit Dogpatch Press on Patreon.
Infurnity 2019 in numbers
Episode 445 - Tornado Watch - This week~There's a convention fire that got put out quickly, Gender Reveal (GONE WRONG), Jeffrey Epstein didn't commit suicide, Florida Principal, and Shiva got to see Bingeing With Babish live. Patreon
This week~There's a convention fire that got put out quickly, Gender Reveal (GONE WRONG), Jeffrey Epstein didn't commit suicide, Florida Principal, and Shiva got to see Bingeing With Babish live.
Ponies in the Woods
Well, now that My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has reached it’s conclusion… *sniff* Excuse us, we need a moment… *Ahem* Well, now that it’s done, it’s nice to know that the IDW comic tie-ins will continue into the future. Including, now, another brand-new mini-series, My Little Pony: Spirit of the Forest. “The Cutie Mark Crusaders are back! When Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle take a trip into the woods, they find a forest filled with trash! Just what could be causing this mess?! Looks like it’s another mystery for our favorite fillies to solve — and one where not everything is as it seems…” Written by Ted Anderson and illustrated by Brenda Hickey, the full series is available now.
image c. 2019 IDW Publishing
原住民神話中的李克勞——雲豹印象
精壯的身材、悶騷的個性、始終如一的表情，可愛的克勞想必對獸圈的各位來說一點都不陌生。出現在《家有大貓》中的李克勞是隻魯凱族的雲豹，身上有著百步蛇的圖騰（圖一）。由李克勞身為雲豹的設定，以及他身上的百步蛇紋，我們得以窺見我國原住民族中與雲豹和百步蛇的淵源。
圖一，《家有大貓》中的李克勞，取自WikiFur
我國的原住民族和百步蛇與雲豹間有著密不可分的關係。在魯凱族的傳說中，族人的祖先們在死後成了kanavanan（靈蛇）（許功明，1991）。因此，當族人們看到百步蛇時便一定要祭拜牠，因為魯凱族的人們認為百步蛇就是他們祖先的化身。在排灣族的文化中，也同樣存在著對於百步蛇的尊敬與祭祀的行為（林建成，2002）。這樣的百步蛇神靈信仰，在具有蛇崇拜的原住民族中被稱為「蛇生起源」（李亦園，1956）。雲豹與我國原住民族間的關係雖沒有像和百步蛇般具有如此神聖的起源性質，但雲豹在各原住民族的傳說中亦多可見，如在泰雅、賽德克、布農、排灣、鄒族等族中，皆可聽聞有關雲豹的傳說與故事。其中最廣為人知的，或許是在各族間都大同小異的〈熊與豹的故事〉。以下節錄泰雅族的〈熊與豹的故事〉，供讀者參考：
很久以前，熊和豹於途中偶遇，熊便提議彼此為對方的毛皮染色。豹聽了欣然同意。接著，熊又表示希望豹先替他著色，但豹卻要求先為其染色，並且答應完成之後，將會幫熊染得更漂亮。於是，熊就拿起墨汁，為豹染上耀眼的黑色斑點，豹看了非常開心的說：「熊呀！現在請你跪下，由我來替你染色。」待熊跪下，豹拿起墨汁，由熊的背部開始染起，並將其全身塗黑，僅咽喉部分未染，然後一溜煙跑掉了。熊覺得很納悶，端視己身，才知自己為一身烏黑，憤怒的往豹離開的方向飛奔過去。從此至今，據說熊一見到豹就想報復。（中央研究院，2010）
由此看來，百步蛇比起雲豹，與原住民族間的關係應更為強烈。但近年來，台灣雲豹（Neofelis nebulosa brachyura, N. n, brachyura）在我國曾因其是否滅絕而多次躍上各家媒體版面。然而，在探討雲豹是否滅絕前，更根本的問題是：台灣雲豹（N. n, brachyura）這個雲豹亞種是否真的存在？
目前對於台灣雲豹最早的紀錄出現於Swinhoe在1862年發表於Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London上的文章。然而，自此之後，並沒有任何有關於台灣雲豹的科學材料出現。雖然許多未經證實的文字、口述紀錄曾經描述了對於台灣雲豹的觀察，但目前尚未有強而有力的證據來證明這個亞種確實存在。在2017年發表的《貓科分類學（A revised taxonomy of the Felidae）》（Kitchener, A. C, 2017）中，作者說明了目前對於台灣雲豹（N. n, brachyura）的證據尚不足以證實牠的存在，因此認定N. n, brachyura並不是一個正確的亞種分類。這意味著，台灣雲豹（N. n, brachyura）是個憑空捏造出來的物種。
但這不代表台灣並沒有雲豹的存在。或許台灣雲豹（N. n, brachyura）的亞種並不存在，但台灣確實可能曾經存在其他亞種的雲豹。就原住民的神話以及傳說來看，我國早期可能的確有著雲豹的存在，只是這些雲豹並不是我們認為的「台灣雲豹」，而是其他亞種的雲豹。至於存在於台灣島上的雲豹（無論他們的亞種為何）是否已經滅絕，這點仍有待進一步的科學研究來認定。唯一可以確定的是，台灣這座島嶼確實曾經有雲豹在上面生活著，並且被我國的原住民以各種形式記錄了下來。
儘管「台灣雲豹」的存在仍有許多爭議，雲豹的神秘性以及牠們的地位仍然使得人們創造出了各種與雲豹相關的藝術創作、工業產品等。在圈內，最為人所知的，或許便是《家有大貓》中的李克勞了。透過遊戲以及各種二次創作，克勞的形象也深深地烙印在了圈內各獸的腦海中。在了解完了原住民文化中與雲豹相關的故事，以及台灣雲豹在國際學術界上的爭議後，即便台灣雲豹的存在極為可疑，我們仍可以透過各種藝術創作，讓雲豹的形象存留在每個人的心中。就算台灣雲豹不存在，雲豹的印象也是我們每個人都能好好保存的文化產物。
——————
參考文獻：
浦忠成，〈混沌年代重要的神話母題：以台灣原住民族為例〉收於《台灣原住民研究論叢》第一期。臺北，台灣原住民教授學會，2007。頁159-207。
許功明，《魯凱族的文化與藝術》。臺北：稻鄉出版社，1991。頁60-61。
林建成，《台灣原住民藝術田野筆記》。臺北：藝術家出版社，2002。
李亦園，〈來義鄉排灣族中箕模人的探究〉收於《中央研究院民族學研究所集刊》第一期。 臺北：中央研究院民族學研究所，1956。
臺灣總督府臨時舊慣調查會著，中央研究院民族學研究所編譯，《蕃族調查報告書第七冊：泰雅族後篇》。臺北：中央研究院，2010。
Kitchener, A. C, et al., A revised taxonomy of the Felidae: The final report of the Cat Classification Task Force of the IUCN Cat Specialist Group, CATnews Special Issue 11(2017, Switzerland), p.p. 64.