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A hypothetical question: you are given US$100,000, to be used for the betterment of the furry community. How do you spend it?

The first option is to simply spend the money on furry items. You’ll be contributing to the furry community by strengthening the furry economy.

I’m going to define the ‘furry economy’ as the sum of all furry-to-furry (F2F) transactions, where the good or service exchanged is a furry one. So purchasing furry art from a furry is F2F; purchasing furry art from a non-furry (perhaps a copy of the Lion King from Disney) is not. Purchasing a ticket to a furry convention is F2F; purchasing a ticket to a sci-fi convention is not.

Your $100k is a lot of money, but it’s small compared to the size of the furry economy. The money spent on furry conventions alone, assuming 100,000 annual attendees at an average cost of $200, is in the tens of millions. It’s fair to guess that the money spent on other F2F transactions is also in the millions. So your $100k is not going to make a big difference to the size of the global furry economy.

Still, your money is going to help some furry providers. This is going to make the provision of furry services marginally more profitable, and you might choose to purchase items that can gifted to the wider furry community, such as furry art.

Option 1: Buy Furry Art

Your money will help some furry artists, although it’s just a drop in the ocean and will have little benefit in the longer term. But the art will have secondary value if you allow it to be publicly shared.

You have a secondary consideration here: high art or low art?

Option 1a: Commission Furry Pornography

There is great demand for pornography within furry, a demand which isn’t easily met because the production of furry pornography is labour-intensive. Your commissioned pornography will find an audience and be appreciated, but its value will decline over time: pornography tends to lose its erotic power on repeat viewings. Your $100k worth of pornography will have a shelf life.

Option 1b: Commission High Art

High art, on the other hand, tends to last because it has greater intellectual and emotional heft. So perhaps you might commission some thoughtful pieces. Perhaps your money would allow an artist, or author, to dedicate more time to a project. You are less likely to find a mainstream audience, but you may end up with something that endures.

Here’s another way to add to the furry economy: why not invest in furry R&D?

Option 2: Buy an Experimental Fursuit

You could find a handful of fursuit creators, and spend the money pursuing risky suit ideas. Fursuit commissioners and creators will generally be risk averse, because neither party wants a bad outcome. So maybe you could spend the money in the hope of discovering a new technique or trick, which could then be adopted by suiters and creators worldwide.

Or:

Option 3: Fund a Website

Your $100k will find you developers and managers and testers. Perhaps you could build a website that provides a useful service, meets an unmet need.

Option 4: Fund a Convention

Our furry conventions are largely copycat; they’re based on iterative improvements from sci-fi conventions. Your money might be used to create something risky, unusual. You can afford for your convention to fail, and maybe you’ll create something that succeeds, and can be adopted worldwide.

But maybe you want to go a different route. By spending your $100k on the F2F economy, you’re essentially helping the community through ‘trickle down’ economics: you’re trusting that your money will indirectly help the wider furry community. Perhaps that all sounds a bit capitalist for you; perhaps you’d rather spend your money as a charity.

Most conventions have a charity event, and furries are generous givers. For an example, consider Confuzzled 2013: 872 attendees gave £11,484 to STA Ferret Rescue. Our convention charities are usually (always?) animal-themed, but why not spend your money providing charity directly to furries?

Option 5: Help Needy Furries

Okay, so the drama associated with this option would be off-the-charts. And your money wouldn’t have much of an impact on the furry community as a whole. But you would make a big difference to the lives of a small number of people.

You could always be a bit more targeted with your charity. You could, say, give the money to furries with instructions on how to spend it. There are options here:

Option 6a: Help Furries Travel

You could help furries travel; to conventions, to overseas furry groups. Send a furry group to one of our newer international outposts, perhaps Japan or Eastern Europe. Or gift dozens of furries travel and accommodation to conventions.

Option 6b: Help Furries Buy Art

Or you could help furries pay for their own art commissions.

As it turns out, this experiment is currently taking place on a smaller scale. Fur Affinity user KrisPup is currently running a raffle, where the winner gets $1111 in commissions (that are paid for by Kris).

It’s a compelling idea, and the size of his prize is interesting: it’s big enough to be valuable to those furries without any disposable income, and small enough to be affordable to most people with a full-time job. I wonder if it might be repeated by others. It has generated enough interest to have crashed FA’s creaky servers at least once as furries tried to enter en masse.

(Predictably, Kris’s offer has provoked drama: accusations that his raffle is fake, or that he’s trying to buy popularity, or simple jealousy. I wonder how he will be affected in the longer term, once the money is given and the excitement wears off. The raffle will be open until Christmas or so: see here.)

If the drama of giving charity directly to furries is all too much, you could use your money to subsidize loss-making furry enterprises. There are a few alternatives.

Option 7a: Subsidize Furry Websites

You could offer to pay for hosting and development time for non-commercial furry websites. Most furry websites are volunteer-driven, and most of them operate at a loss. [adjective][species], for example, costs Makyo about US$500 per year (including furrypoll.com). Undoubtedly the costs for larger sites are much higher.

With apologies to Makyo’s bank balance, I’m not sure that this is a good way to spend your $100k. I have no doubt that the help would be appreciated, but you’re unlikely to be helping the furry community in any way. You’ll be saving money for selfless volunteers, but they are already choosing to spend the money without dipping into your pot. So let’s look elsewhere.

Option 7b: Subsidize Conventions

Conventions sometimes lose money. It’s a double blow for an organizing committee, who spend endless hours making a convention happen only to see that they’ve underestimated attendance or, more likely, total costs. They have to make up the shortfall and, in some cases, the convention closes its doors. So why not offer a safety net?

And speaking of safety nets:

Option 7c: Subsidize Successful Artists

The life of a furry artist, even a successful one, is tough. Many artists simply quit to pursue greener pastures. A bit of extra money might keep our artists in furry, for longer.

Finally, your choice isn’t just between a furry economic stimulus or furry welfare: there is a third way. You could offer a reward.

Option 8: A Furry Art Prize

Your pot of money is large enough to create interest in a juried furry art prize. You could assemble some well-regarded furries and offer a windfall to the creator of a great work of art.

There are already furry awards out there, notably the Ursa Majors. But there is no prize for winning a UM beyond a signal boost, and this for an award judged on popularity. The outcome is that UMs are usually awarded to the best-known entrant, the one least in need of publicity. This is why Kyell Gold declined nominations for the 2012 UMs; he understands that the publicity is more valuable to others.

The Cóyotl Awards are a lower-profile award run by the Furry Writer’s Guild (disclaimer: I am a member). They are different from the UMs in that only members of the FWG are allowed to nominate and vote. There is a jury, however they only determine whether a nomination is eligible for voting. Like the UMs, there is no prize.

A juried furry art prize, perhaps $10k spread over 10 years, would be valuable to our community. It would help the winning artist, and it would shine a light on lesser-known (but high-quality) emerging artists. Your prize would be the Oscars to UM’s People’s Choice Awards.

This list of options has come from a long series of conversations with furries around the world. It’s not exhaustive.

How would you spend your $100k?

He will probably be done by tommorow

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The Furry Eve corp, SergalJerk wants YOU! If you've ever been curious about Eve in the past, now is the absolute BEST time to give it a try. The corp is healthy and happy. Times are exciting with things always happening. Eve itself is MASSIVE, and you do what YOU want. Use the links below to get the best deal you'll EVER get for making a new account. Or if you would like to come back, Amazon is selling subscriptions for a good price to revive your years old characters. Send in your app to join SergalJerk today!!

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Since 2009, artist and writer Roger Langridge has been playing in Jim Henson’s world by creating various comic book series featuring the Muppets for Boom! Studios. Titles like The Muppets, The Muppet Show, and The Muppet Show: The Treasure of Peg-Leg Wilson. Now, over at Marvel Comics, they’ve announced that all of these titles have been brought together to be released in march in a new hardcover collection, The Muppets Omnibus.  The Comic Book Resources page has a more complete preview of this full-color collection, coming next year on the Disney Comics imprint.

image c. 2013 Disney Comics

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Dear Papa Bear,

It's hard for me to write this, but I just really need advice on something very important in my life. Someone very important, that is.

I'm only 13, but I'm going through something very hard. My best friend, let's call her Daisy, has moved away 600 miles from me in June.

Her Dad lost her job a while back and then found one in Florida, very far away from my home in North Carolina. 

To start out, she wasn't just my best friend, she was my rock. We had done everything together since we were 6 and we have been through so much. We have laughed together, cried together, and traveled all over our state. We would always be each other's first choice and we stuck by each other's side through everything. We would do the unthinkable and we had so much in common. She understood me like no one else, and I appreciated every little thing she did. I know that she hates eggs, that she has a weird birthmark on her lower back and I know all of her secrets. She lived right up the street from me and we would spend every weekend together. We would spend a lot of time together in school too, and we just had fun talking about how each other's day was and what we did. To make it short, this girl was and is my best friend, and no matter what we did, every day I spent with her was a new best day of my life. Her moving was the worst thing that has ever happened to me and I'm not taking it well.

I visited her in the Summer around August, and her house and where she lives is amazing. I'm so jealous, it's such an upgrade from the old, boring town that she used to and I still live in. Me visiting her was the best vacation ever and she wasn't a changed person at all, she was just how I remembered her.

I talked to her the first day she started school, and she was bawling and she missed me and her other friends so much. She said that she wanted to come back and that she didn't like it there.

Skip forward to now, which is November. She has about 5 friends, 2 of them being close ones, and she is liking school very much. She seems to be fine there now and I'm very happy for her! Even though I wish I could go to Florida and tell her knew friends how lucky they are to be able to spend every day with this amazing wonderful person that I would give up so much for just to spend one minute with. 

And, since the day she stepped out of my life, I can't stop thinking about her. I miss her so much. I really only have one true friend that is still here and we both miss Daisy like crazy. It's not the same. I need her in my life. I need to be able to see her everyday and hear her voice. I need to be able to see her walking down the hall at school and I can say to myself, "That's her. That's my best friend. That's the person that I live for."

Fast forward to this week, she visited me. We had so much fun going to our old places and spending time together. She is still the same exact person, the same person that has been with me from the start. When we were together it felt like she had never moved. When we said goodbye I felt like she was just going to go back up the street to her house. But no, this goodbye is for at least a year.

Saying goodbye to her was the hardest thing ever. It wasn't just that she was leaving, it's that it didn't feel ... right. She's not supposed to live in Florida. We were meant to be best friends. She's supposed to live here with me, in North Carolina. She's supposed to be here. She's supposed to be here to cheer me up when I feel sad, she's supposed to be here to come over to my house at 1 in the morning, she's supposed to be here. For me. 

Everyone says that God makes this happen for a reason, but I just wish I knew what that reason was. I know that God put her in my life for a reason, so why is she not with me anymore? There's going to come a time when she forgets me. Just like when I moved away from Virginia. I don't really think about my friends there anymore, even though I used to call them my best friends. I don't want that to happen to me and Daisy. 

She's my rock. And every day I spend without her, is another day I feel like curling up into a ball in crying. I need her here with me. I don't want to text her, or Skype her, I need to feel her presence. I need her to be with me. 

She's the only thing that is still keeping me going strong. Everything I do is for her, and until the day that we can be neighbors again I won't stop at anything. So, my question for you, Papa Bear, is not how can I forget her or how I can live without her. That's impossible. My question for you is how can I keep living as if she is still here? All I want to do is pack my bags and run to Florida. 

Thank you so much.

CJ

* * *

Dear CJ,

Papabear knows exactly what you are going through. I was 14 when my family picked up and moved from Van Nuys, California, to (omg) Wheaton, Illinois, or, as I liked to call it, Corn Fields, USA. I didn’t have a lot of friends back then, but my best friend since third grade, Todd, was there and I had to leave him behind. He was the friend that I used to play “Star Trek” with, and the first and only kid whose bar mitzvah I got to go to. My parents were close friends with his parents, as well, and it was really rough on me. Unlike your BFF Daisy, I wasn’t good at making new friends or handling living in a new part of the country. I really didn’t even start to get over the move until my junior year in high school, but I eventually did.

Over the years, through high school and college and such, I had some friends but didn’t get a new best friend until I met the woman who would be my wife. All the other people who were passing friends drifted away and I don’t talk to them anymore ... EXCEPT for, you guessed it, Todd. He is my oldest friend, even though we only see each other once a year or so because he lived in San Francisco when I was in Michigan and now he’s in New York while I’m in California. So, that friendship has lasted despite the trials. Another friendship that has lasted despite a divorce that would ruin most such relationships is the one with my now-ex wife. Why are we still friends? Because we want to be, and we both mean a lot to each other despite what happened that caused the divorce (namely, my figuring out that I was gay, which you can understand would cause a problem).

CJ, as you go through your life, you will discover that you will have two kinds of friends—well, actually, three kinds of friends. 1) your fair weather friends, who are the people who just hang around you when things are good and you are having fun, but who will flick you away like a gross booger on your finger if you actually need them for something; 2) good friends who will go an extra mile for you and help you with things like, oh, needing a ride when your car has broken down or chipping in a couple extra bucks when you realize you are short of money for a movie ticket; and, finally, 3) your BFFs like you and Daisy or me and Todd. These are the people who will accompany you throughout your life no matter where you end up. My mate, Yogi, has several of these, while I have what I call my primary three: Todd, my ex, and now Yogi. When you get to be older like Papabear, you will count yourself really blessed if you need two hands to have enough fingers in order to count all your BFFs.

I know it is so much better when your BFF is close by and you can actually see and touch her, but at least you can keep in touch with her in ways that were not possible when I was your age. Video chats like on Skype were things from science fiction when I was growing up in the 1970s, but you can see Daisy via Skype any time you wish (I know, I know, you don’t like it as much, but it’s still better than, say, letter writing and waiting for the Pony Express). Also, while 600 miles is kind of far, I’ll admit, it’s not so far that you can’t visit once in a while, as you have been doing. You know, many families move to different parts of the country and only see each other on holidays and they manage to survive and love each other.

Learning to cope with such separations is a part of life, CJ. You and Daisy will both make more friends as the years go by, and you will lose some of those friends, too, and make more friends. You may even make more amazing friends like Daisy.

Life is about change. It’s human nature—especially when we are young and we have not experienced much change—to want things to remain as they are. A life without change feels stable and reassuring, comforting and familiar.

But if I had never moved away from Van Nuys, I never would have met my wife and experienced some of the happiest years of my life, and I never would have met Yogi, who is the sweetest man I ever met and a blessing in this new chapter in my life.

CJ, the fact that Daisy has moved away is not the end of a friendship. If you want to keep Daisy in your life, then keep her in your life. That is within your power to do so. It will take a little more effort because of the distance, but a BFF is worth that, I’m sure you’ll agree. And, not to be grim, but at least your separation is merely one of distance. She has not passed away and is very much alive and well, so that is a blessing. 

In the meantime, keep looking ahead to the possibility of new friends in your life. You will definitely meet new ones as you change schools, go to college, find a job, and, very likely, move to new cities.

You don’t have to forget Daisy, nor do you have to live without her, especially thanks to the assistance of technology. Maybe she will someday move back closer to you, or you will move to Florida. In the meantime, the best thing you can do is keep your attention on where you are right now and what you are doing right now. You have very important things to do, such as school and figuring out what you want to do with your life because you will be surprised by how quickly you will suddenly be making plans for college and a career and maybe even your own family.

You are taking a very big step in growing up right now, CJ, by learning that the world was not designed to accommodate your needs. When you say, “She's supposed to be here to cheer me up when I feel sad, she's supposed to be here to come over to my house at 1 in the morning, she's supposed to be here. For me.” Well, no, that’s not how real life works. 

How it works is this: we meet the people in our lives when we are meant to meet them. Each important person I have met has helped guide me through a stage in my life, and there have been more than just the three I mentioned above who are the primary three. There are my parents, of course, and my sister, but also people who have come into my life more recently. For example, just as I was discovering my sexuality and, at the same time, connecting with the furry fandom, I became close friends with Cyberbear, who, it turned out, had gone through exactly the same thing in his life of being married and discovering he was gay. He was really pivotal in helping me get through that part of my life, and I met him exactly at the time when I needed to (this is one big reason why this bear believes in spirit guides.)

CJ, I’d like to recommend a book to you: Mitch Albom’s The Five People You Meet in Heaven. It’s a little heavy-handed and syrupy, but it’s a good story about life and the meaning of the people who become a part of it.

Keep Daisy in your life. But don’t think that she will be the only one you will ever meet who will mean this much to you. If you keep your heart open, you will meet others like Daisy whom you will treasure for many years to come. And that’s something you can look forward to!

Hugs,

Papabear

So I woke up in my bed this morning and felt as if something wasn't quite right with the world. I couldn't figure out what it was and the feeling eventually subsided, but it did get me thinking; what if some bizarre force of un-nature was moving us into different realities while we slept? Would we notice any differences? Would we even care?

That being said, I have a little question for all you potential philosofurs out there: What do you think about the possibility of parallel universes? Could they exist?

Super Bonus Question: If they do; what would your ideal world be?

Super Lucky Bonus Question: Assuming you had any number of resources; how would you try to get there?

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Anyone have skype? I want to talk to more people and I've been comfortable with talking to new people, (but I hate the way my voice sounds sometimes). Anyway! My user is my skype name and if not just put in Blue Strike ane you should find it, hope to talk to some of you!

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I'm just looking for other furs that know a lot about redstone, people to play minecraft with that are at my redstone knowledge level. Possibly build something that's centered around the idea of redstone.

Images of my work: http://i.imgur.com/jcRgMFe.png http://i.imgur.com/dtxt667.png http://i.imgur.com/BR4SUwH.png

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with few weeks for ETA to getting my own, how many of you have one?

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Furfunding Week in Review 11-10-13

Charmingly dumb, peaceful and pastoral, violent and far-future: Steam in the Willows, Black Paw: Return of the Dragon, and Lobodestroyo.

New Projects

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

Art

Paint Splattered Pokemon Prints (Ends: 12/12/2013)
Prints preorder-style project of stylized, paint-splattered poke-posters, featuring the big three starter pokemon (Charizard, Bulbasaur, Squirtle)

Clothing/Costumes

Tail Lights (Ends: 1/2/2014)
Light up your mane–I’m sorry, your horse’s mane–with these breezy LED tail lights.
Hmm…Kickstarter goal and price point for the “get the thing!” level are really high. Not sure $160 for a set of strip LEDs is going to fly outside a narrow luxury market.

Comics/Graphic Novels

Darwin Carmichael is Going to Hell (Ends: 12/11/2013)
An afterlife stroll through mythicals and monsters in this web-to-print project.
Funded!

Red: A Cyberpunk Fairytale (Ends: 12/18/2013)
In a cyberpunk/anime future, Red teams up with a frighteningly massive robot wolf…

Film/Animation/Theater

Cats Vs Zombies: 9DKP Anime (Ends: 12/18/2013)
Large-headed magical anthro cats vs. a legion of the undead. There are transformation sequences, I’m sure of it.

Black Tusk (Ends: 1/21/2014)
Creature feature film in the “monsters hunt camping teens” genre, a strange avian/human monster stalks a group of hikers.

Print

Steam in the Willows (Ends: 12/12/2013)
A Wind in the Willows edition for makers and craftsmen. WITW text, but illustrations gently tweaked for a steampunk aesthetic.
I don’t know if the mole with little steampunk goggles is cuter than the badger generally. From the makers of The Steampunk Bible.

Toys

Dragon Ball Joint Doll Pets (Ends: 12/12/2013)
Cute dragon-head dolls by Bladespark, her third kickstarter for ball joint dolls projects

Video Games

Lobodestroyo (Ends: 12/11/2013)
90s collectathon-style VG. Mutt, the runt of the wolf litter, tries to find the parts of his pack’s championship belt and the escaped 10 members of the Liga de Los Villanos.
In the spirit of MegaMan and Metroid: Samus Aran

Web Projects

Get fLoRiDa off the ground! (Ends: 1/10/2014)
Fundraiser for the “fLoRiDa” webcomic
Frustratingly little information on this one. Link to original webpage? It’s hard to google ‘florida’ usefully…

…Coming Soon?

Fursuit Automation Project (Not yet launched): A suite of light sensors, LED automation and fan controls for tech fursuiting.
Ex Gender: A Wolf In Stilettos (Not yet launched): Started as pinups, ended up as a full narrative game, transgender tribulations and large-breasted wolves

…Just For Fun

Gamer’s WORLD Movie (Ends: 12/19/2013): I don’t normally stop to make fun of fail, but leading with the FurNation logo just invites it. A “gamers are people too” film project, and a complete trainwreck of a Kickstarter page. Read it. Love it. A part of me wants to see it. Don’t forget to read the bio.
Bring a Kaiju to Life (Ends: 12/30/2013): A personal project to bring a kaiju to bioluminescent, lumbering, cosplay life.