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Dear Papabear,

When I was younger I was bullied, but I would always imagine myself as a superhero named Wolf Girl. She was the queen of a planet called Tacton, had green, light-green, blue, light-blue, and yellow scales.

I always imagined saving people and sacrificing myself, usually imagining myself dying in many different ways (even saving those who bullied me). But as I’ve grown older my infatuation with being the hero has lessened and being the “damsel in distress” has increased.

Now I see myself as a Leafeon furry, or a wolf furry that has an injured and horrific life, but I often find I’d rather live that life than my own....

My OC Leaf, who is the furry I’d rather be, lives a now peaceful life with a husband and daughter... I have feelings for the person who owns the husband OC. I even have my head in the clouds, imagining meeting him in real life.

Why would my head be in the sky wanting the horrific life Leaf suffered instead of the life I live now?... And wanting to die for others all the time... or simply wanting to die (as in the RP she always seems to die a lot but comes back to life too)?

Leaf

* * *

Hi, Leaf,

My early life has some similarities to yours. As a cub, I was bullied as well and was very much the outsider, rejected by almost all my classmates because I was shy and unathletic. I, too, imagined myself as an amazing furry, only for me it was being a dragon, usually, who was very powerful and lived in a cave with his hoard of gold but would also help knights and other adventurers on their quests. Sometimes, too, I was a wolf or a stag with a proud rack of antlers who lived in a cartoon parallel world rather reminiscent of the ones you see in “Marry Poppins” and “Bedknobs and Broomsticks.”

I would say it is not uncommon for someone who is a frequent victim of bullying to have such fantasies. In fact, I think that is why a lot of young people get into furry—because they are unhappy with their lives and themselves in some way and wish to become much more, such as a skinny kid who is picked on wanting to be a muscular wolf or gorilla or some such. In your case, you prove yourself to be better than your enemies not only physically but also morally in that you save the bullies from danger, too.

Now, the death scenario. This is a psychologically valid construct in that it is a kind of bid for attention. Most people who are bullied are the kind that are socially ignored by their peers. They feel invisible. In your fantasies you become this amazing heroine, and the heroism becomes all the more dramatic when you lay down your life. The result of this is that you have shown those around you how incredibly noble you are and you get psychological gratification in knowing they will weep over your dead body and miss you very much. But! How can you enjoy their sadness over your death if you are dead? Therefore, you must come back to life to observe their sadness, and then, even better, their utter joy when they see that you are not really dead.  It is, rather, something you see a lot in movies, too, such as the “death” and rebirth of the Beast in “Beauty and the Beast.” Baloo does a great job of it in "Jungle Book."
Why would you prefer this to the later life of Leaf when has a happy life with a spouse and daughter? For the same reason we don’t care what happens to Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella/Snow White/Sleeping Beauty/Ariel and the Prince,  Robin Hood and Maid Marian, and many more after they reach that “happy ever after” stage: it’s BORING.

There is your explanation, then, Leaf. Life is more interesting when it includes tragedy, for without tragedy there is no need to be a hero or heroine, and we love heroes and heroines and enjoy imagining ourselves as them.

Hugs,

Papabear

Web-to-print: Webcomics coming soon to a bound book near you. Dreamkeepers: Prelude and Not Enough Rings.

This week a pair of very successful projects, two webcomics breaking out into print. These projects have a huge advantage: they came equipped with a fanbase! And like Digger (three more days, guys!) both vaulted into success story territory within a few days of project launch. So check out Dreamkeepers, already an ebook series, and Not Enough Rings, a silly Sonic parody series.

And then a bunch of other stuff.

Dreamkeepers: Prelude

“If Dreamkeepers is Calvin and Hobbes against Hell, the preludes are more like Calvin and Hobbes.”

Dreamkeepers is a webcomic and graphic novel series–well, there’s the graphic novels, a dark fantasy series pitting dreamkeepers (anthropomorphic characters with a scattered assortment of powers) against the forces of nightmare. I’m not doing the series justice–though the Furaffinity page and  the trailer video help–so feel free to poke around the graphic novel previews or just pop over to the webstore and buy yourself a copy. The original GN series is pretty darn dark and epic. Preludes is more bright and friendly, the stories of the characters before they were thrown into a grim battle.

Well, of course, like all webcomics, you can pick it up online for the low, low cost of bandwidth. But the art in this stuff is beautiful, well worth the support, so take a look!

Not Enough Rings: A Sonic the Hedgehog Parody Comic

From the dark to the absurd (or, occasionally darkly absurd). Not Enough Rings is the second successful project from Veronica Vera (the first one is a very sweet anthro series about “high school, heartbreak, and cats.” Not Enough Rings takes an absurd look at the weirdness of the Sonic: The Hedgehog universe, dissects it, and spreads it on a table for you, the reader, to enjoy the laughs.

I’ll be honest, I’m not that well-versed in the Sonic universe, I only get one joke in five reading the webcomic. But the jokes–ridiculous killer architecture, demented mad science, and very, very disposable Tails the Fox–are easy on the eyes and good fun, even for a non-fan. The art’s a little quick-and-dirty, not as polished as the artists’ main project, Bittersweet Candy Bowl, but well worth the chuckle. And the Kickstarter’s already at double the original goal–the stretch goals are starting to kick in, so with 12 days left, check the project out!

 

Audio

Sockweb Werewolf (Ends: 7/22/2013)
8-year-old grindcore artist Joanie and her dad–Sockweb–working on “the only concept album ever made by an eight year old,” all about a girl that made friends with the werewolf under the bed. Oh, and musical screaming.

Books/Print

The Howl of the Dead (Ends: 7/12/2013)
The outlines are your basic zombie apocalypse novel–asteroid strikes earth, things turn cannibal. But this one’s zombie dogs, which is worth bonus points. And, great title.

“The Incredible Hare” (Ends: 7/20/2013)
Illustrated book/ebook project: Harold Hopper, Man to Rabbit to Reality TV Show celebrity. A gentle parody of fame, and a kid-friendly book about fame and the media.

The Dragon Princess (Ends: 8/2/2013)
A princess cursed to be a half-dragon, half-human creature looks for love to lift her curse.

Talonridge: Book II (Ends: 8/5/2013)
Heavily-illustrated young adult series of mice on a mission in a fantasy world, very “Mousegard”
Part two of a planned 63-book series. That’s ambition!

Children’s Products

The Great Safari Adventure Show (Ends: 7/13/2013)
A costumed, musical Las Vegas family production, with lots of chances for kids to get up and move. Plot: Child lost in Africa, finds magic talisman that transforms the local animals into exercise-obsessed mentors.
This would have been benefited by MORE exposure to the fandom, working through some anthro issues. Heart’s in the right place though!

The Tales of Shakespuss (Ends: 8/3/2013)
Stripped-down, lightened up, and retold versions of Shakespeare for kids, live action, theatre, and animated.

Clothing/Costumes

Halo Mini Illuminated Pet Collars (Ends: 7/26/2013)
LED-illuminated pet collars with deep color and flash mode.
I know, these are for dogs. But they’d match one of my costumes!

Comics/Graphic Novels

A Tiger’s Last Song (Episode 1) (Ends: 7/10/2013)
A graphic novel of the final days of the thylacine/Tasmanian wolf, in the talking animal-survival story genre.

The Digger Omnibus (Ends: 7/10/2013)
A dark fantasy graphic novel. Digger the wombat inadvertently digs her way into an underground world of hyenas, gods, and strange powers. A kickstarter for a bound edition of the original six-graphic novel series.
Great stretch goals and bonus items on this well-organized kickstarter!

Doggie Style: The Complete Dog Boy (Ends: 7/12/2013)
80′s indie comic, but could have easily been 60′s underground, featuring, well, a dog-headed guy.

Antarctic Press: Keeping it Cold in the Antarctic (Ends: 7/15/2013)
An ask from Antarctic Press to help restore their financial balance after some mass-distribution experiments and other financial challenges.
Before there was the Internet fandom there was Antarctic Press, makers of Albedo Anthropormorphics, Furrlough, Shanda the Panda…See also Radio Comix, who took on the furry mantle.

Kings of the Wasteland (Ends: 7/17/2013)
Action, revenge, and anthro dogs and cats in an apocalyptic wasteland

“Not Enough Rings” – A Sonic the Hedgehog Parody Comic (Ends: 7/19/2013)
A side-project of the Bittersweet Candy Bowl folks, a little romp through the wackier side of Sonic the Hedgehog.
Of course, you can already read the webcomic online, but lots of people have already made the book a success!

Dreamkeepers: Prelude (Ends: 7/31/2013)
A bound edition of the Dreamkeepers “prelude” webcomic, with a cast of graceful, stylized and colorful critters.
More artsnstuff on the Dreamkeepers FA account.

Animal Inphantry: Hupsalupa Beginnings (Ends: 8/2/2013)
A team of five critters takes to the street in a war against bullying.

World War Kaiju graphic novel (Ends: 8/12/2013)
What if the ultimate weapon that ended World War II didn’t usher in the atomic age, but the Kaiju (giant city-crushing monster) age? Excellent video, great retro propaganda visuals, and bizarre immersive stretch goal toys.
“Furry” is a stretch, but there’s a lot to like here for fans of giant, Tokyo-crushing armadillos.

Of Mice and Madness: Tails from Out There! (Ends: 8/15/2013)
The adventures of the mouse bounty hunter Othello and his trusted if dim cat steed as they travel the galaxy in search of riches.
More galleries and info at ofmiceandmadness.com.

Events

CANterlot, Ontario MLP Con (Ends: 8/9/2013)
Funding campaign for Ontario’s MLP convention in November

Film/Animation/Theater

SOLO Cannibal World (Ends: 7/13/2013)
One rat’s war in a post-apocalyptic word. This isn’t Redwall. Check the artist’s blog (it’s in Italian) for more art and world.
This must be the buffest rodent ever. Now I have to learn Italian.

Three Dog Night: Animated Film (Ends: 7/15/2013)
A group of revolutionaries–Wolf, Coyote, and Fox–set out to liberate the chained cats and dogs and start a pet revolution.

Batweasel: The Audacious Animated Web Series (Ends: 7/16/2013)
A loveable nerd falls victim to reality TV and becomes a terrible ass. Until he’s rescued by an evil genetically-mutated batweasel. You know, like you do.

The Taxidermy Wonders of Walter Potter (Ends: 7/17/2013)
A documentary about the man who single-handedly made Victorian anthropomorphic taxidermy a thing.

Razor: The Hipocrisy Eating Hyena (Ends: 7/19/2013)
Comedy/horror/action about a one hyena’s crusade against lies and double-speak. Live action, animation, comedy, and a bit of splatter. And hyenas.
Watch the video on this one :)

The Walking Tedd (Ends: 7/25/2013)
A young 20-something juggles her life, job, romance, and the sudden appearance of a zombie version of her favorite stuffed animal.
Finally, one zombie project reaches out from underneath the pile of hundreds…

“I Was Loved by a Rat” (Ends: 7/29/2013)
A twisted off-broadway fairy tale of a lonely woman, a chivalrous rat shut behind walls all his life, and their ill-fated love.
This theater group has launched some amazing dark comedies, I’m curious to learn more about this one, not a lot of information though…

24 Frames Animated Halloween Special (Ends: 7/29/2013)
A man faces off against an evil rabbit in this scary halloween short.
Animations, reviews, and shorts on 24Frames on YouTube.

Fursona Non Grata (Ends: 7/30/2013)
A play written for the fandom by the creator of American Dragon: Jake Long. What happens when a young woman brings her fiancée home to meet her all-furry family?
“This will be awesome if you can make it to California” seems to be a running joke in the fandom.

Solrac Ventures (Ends: 7/30/2013)
Animated short series for the bronies. Ponies: you can make it happen.
The art on this one’s pretty high quality. Pony fans should definitely take a look!

Cat’s View Feature Film (Ends: 8/21/2013)
A crime thriller filmed from a cat witness’s point of view, along with information about the life of a feral cat, trap/neuter/return projects, etc.

Anthro: Animating the Soul (Ends: 8/27/2013)
A documentary look at beloved anthro characters and their creators.
Stitchfan has broken this project up into a series of small-goal IGGs, interesting model and I hope to see it succeed!

BiPolar Bears (Ends: 9/1/2013)
Animated series about manic and depressive polar bear twins Manny and Preston (orderilies in a psych institute), the Post-Traumatic Puffins, Randolf the Alcoholic Reindeer, and other friends.
Bleah. The promo vid is “join me in my philosophy” rather than “here’s this cool product idea.” That plus very high goal/60-day campaign is a bad sign.

Tabletop Games

The Royal Dogs Playing Cards (Ends: 7/12/2013)
All pugs, all the time. Or at least all your card game. Whimsical, horrible little pugs in a Bicycle card deck.

Alliances: World Domination (Ends: 7/13/2013)
A trick-taking card game about world domination and, more importantly, dogs, for 2-4 players (well, three different games, for 2, 3, or 4 players)

Pelted Primacy (Ends: 8/12/2013)
A Bicycle style card deck with anthro court cards and paw-print pips.
More of the artist’s work on DeviantArt.

Toys

Little Moon God Plush (Ends: 7/24/2013)
“A soft huggable little moon god to call your very own!” A tiny little Miyazaki-esque plush.

Video Games

Fleish & Cherry in Crazy Hotel (Ends: 7/11/2013)
An isomorphic period adventure game and puzzler set in a 1930s wacky black and white cartoon. Lots of anthro characters and dancing furniture!
It’s a neat role-reversal to have the damsel save her boyfriend, but unfortunately for fox-lovers, you have to play the human :( Maybe there’ll be a fan-mod someday.

BEEF (Ends: 7/14/2013)
Now YOU play a sentient, walking mutant cow! Try to escape Meatjoy the Butcher and his abattoir of doom in this first-person survival horror/humor game.
…weirdly atmospheric.

Pooka Pets (Ends: 7/14/2013)
A cute sandbox/exploration interactive pet game featuring shape-shifting fairies. Very MLP.
Okay, maybe too many “pets” games this week. But bondage wolves and the African wild dog skin sold me on this.

Questria: Princess Destiny (Ends: 8/18/2013)
A life simulation game with very familiar characters, human versions of the “mane six” from My Little Pony.

Fable Kart (Ends: 9/1/2013)
Multiplayer kart game in which the hare, turtle, and lots of animal friends crash and zoom around as they try to rescue the pages from Aesop’s storybook.

Web

Dustbunny Pictures Comics (Ends: 7/17/2013)
A collection of five web comics, including Popiki’s Island, gearing up for an expansion and relaunch.

The Travelling Unicorn (Ends: 7/29/2013)
“A blog and vlog series about a girl who travels the world in a unicorn onesie.” Travel, interviews, a bit of randomness.

The Cyantian Chronicles (Ends: 8/11/2013)
A funding campaign for an online furry web comic.
I’ll take this entry down shortly, as this is an ongoing every other month fundraiser…

The World of Pokemon (Ends: 8/11/2013)
A rich look at the Pokemon universe, with artistic, scientific, architectural studies. Fascinating stuff! More images on DeviantArt

Adult

Naughty Dog Toys (Ends: 7/20/2013)
“new and exciting bedroom toys,” limited information on the IGG itself but you can check out their “Kaiju” model on FA, and more info in their FAQ/Blog.
Kaiju sex toy. Awesome.

Neko Adventures: Real Cat Girl Porn (Ends: 7/29/2013)
DVD/web release of cat girls, free from their imprisonment on DeviantArt and sexing it up IRL. Not just for manga anymore.

Pocket Pussies: The Legend of Seven Purity Seals (Ends: 8/9/2013)
Zelda/Pokemon hybrid exploration/battling seizure monsters game, loaded with cheesecake pokemon, cat girls, and assorted anime-esque hotness.

A Petgirl’s Story (Offbeatr voting period)
Petplay meets the children’s book format in a VERY adult and yet charmingly innocent story of a catgirl and her owner.
Okay, “charmingly innocent” is a stretch. Half the illustrations are online already. NSFW seriously. There’s a leather dogboy for canine fans.

Erotic Werebeast (Offbeatr voting period)
For transformation/female bodybuilder fans: a group of women test a formula that turns them into monstrous werebeasts (and soft-core stars).

…Meh.

Rat Realm: A Virtual Rat Sim (Ends: 7/16/2013): A virtual rat pet sim in development. I want to love this project but there is NO information available on it :(
“Meet the Mascots!” Animation (Ends: 8/18/2013): Relaunch of the “Mascots” project, teen angst with anthro sports mascots. No change to business plan, which already failed once…

…Causes

Save the African Wild Dog (Ends: 7/11/2013): Working to preserve the Wild Dog–veterinary costs, snare removal, tracking collars, research materials

…Just For Fun

Eeveelution Charms! (Ends: 7/15/2013): For the pokemon fans: A series of eevees in phone charms and tags by Peekingboo.
Undertale (Ends: 7/24/2013): A completely charming old-school RPG with a few cute anthro characters and a few good jokes. With art by Tuyoki.
Charcade: Burning Man 2013 (Ends: 7/28/2013): I wasn’t going to mention this totally-on-fire arcade in the desert, but…”Beat Beat Immolation,” guys.
Otakuware: T-Shirts for People who Love Snark (Ends: 7/29/2013): Anime and related fandom T-shirts. Add to your mildly ironic tee collection :)

submitted by HappyWulf
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submitted by WolfTweak
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How do I refuse an art trade? This guy wants my to draw something that I just won't. And I'm also all backed up on trades. The same problem screwed me up in the past and now I have to draw something I just won't draw. Same goes for when I don't like their artwork.

any suggestions?

submitted by Chris-the-skwirl
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Are they out there? I've found a few argonian specific ones(digi feet and bigger tail)

Any new races preferably, anything would be nice however. I haven't really found anything on the steam workshop or nexus.

submitted by aholadawin
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If you play any games for the PC or the 360, send me a message or post your info here. I just want to play with some other furs who actually enjoy a good gaming experience.

submitted by DeanAndMiles
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I want a fullsuit for aesthetic purposes, but other than looking more "real" or whatever I'm not finding any other reasons to upgrade from my partial. They're hot, and the climate is pretty warm for most of the year where I live, but during the cold months I can't think of anything I'd do in-suit that wouldn't be indoors, where the beneficial cold would be nonexistent. They also dirty more easily, with more fur touching dirt and grass and such.

So other than looking nice and more "fursuit-y" what are some perks to having a fullsuit vs a partial?

submitted by xxxCAT
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Author: earthfurst The winners of the 13th annual Ursa Major Awards for the best anthropomorphic literature and art published in 2012 were announced July 5 at a presentation during Anthrocon 2013 in Pittsburgh. 1,113 people voted, a decrease of about 37.5% compared to last year. Best Anthropomorphic Motion Picture Brave, directed by Mark Andrews, Brenda [...]

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submitted by JoJoJoshua
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submitted by lemoochan
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Hiya, I'm a long time lurker who's looking for some furry friends to add me on steam.

http://steamcommunity.com/id/TGCReptile

I'd love to talk to people _^

submitted by ThatGuyCalledReptile
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Anthrocon's approximately 5,500 participants this year are expected to generate $6.2 million in direct spending, the actual economic impact is likely much higher.

submitted by N4N4KI
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Previously on Love ◦ Sex ◦ Fur…

Okay, so we\’re hardly a television series here. Last time I wrote, though, I spent nearly two thousand words on just how interesting I think sexual role-play is. Once I started nearing the end of the article, though, I noticed that I really sort of forgot to include more than a few token references to just how role-playing fits in with relationships. Sometimes, my writing suffers from the fact that I get so easily focused on a smaller aspect of a larger issue, and it\’s hard to step back far enough to see things from a broader point of view without losing the train of thought. Also, given that I finished the article literally fifteen minutes before it was supposed to go live due to a ridiculous power outage, I figured it\’d probably be best to leave things as they were and instead dub that article Part 1 and save Part 2, this article, for an exploration of how TinySex and role-play in general fit into relationships, both romantic and otherwise.

No small amount of ink (or key-presses, for that matter) has been spilled on the topic of how we, as furries, create these avatars for ourselves and use them to interact with each other, often in the most banal of ways. We role-play being advertising agents, get pictures of ourselves running late to work, or write stories about football players in love. Sure, we have our spaceships and magic, but speculative fiction of that sort is hardly solely the realm of furries. We also have our slice of life stories and bildungsromans. We role-play full lives as our characters, not just the heroic segments.

Last week, the topic I focused on was primarily that of one of the more banal, yet no less important, aspects of life: sex. I talked about sex primarily in terms of the act itself. I think that the last article suffered particularly from a lack of talk about the relational aspects of sex, as I spent most of my time thinking and writing about psychological aspects such as transgression or mechanical aspects such as orgasm. They\’re important, sure, but sex is a social act, given that it hardly takes place all by one\’s lonesome. I think it\’s well worth taking that step back and looking at the social aspects as well.

There are, I\’ve found some relationships in which role-play Just Works™. That is, even though there are relationships that I\’ve had, friendship or more, in which I\’ve given the occasionally hug or nuzz, there wasn\’t any room, need, or desire for much beyond that. However, there were many that were just the opposite. There were relationships that focused almost entirely on role play, and for a variety of reasons. Both types (and everything in between), I feel, are valid. A relationship that consisted entirely of me being a fox person and the other being a different animal person, interacting primarily in those roles, was still a close-knit relationship, one that I felt comfortable calling such even in the romantic sense. Looking into why that\’s the case is what got me thinking about this in the first place.

Restating that thesis, I don\’t think it\’s out of place for me to say that there are relationships that do more than include this context of role-play: they flourish on it. For various reasons, even if the acts involved in the RP within the relationship were possible offline (and we\’ve talked about a few that aren\’t), the relationship just wouldn\’t necessarily work the same, if at all, outside of this context.

The opposite is also true. There are people with whom I am good friends, but we only ever just talk online, though we might be close physically or even romantically offline. That\’s hardly extraordinary, of course: I talk with all of my coworkers online primarily about work, and have at most every job, though we may chat and go drinking outside of that online context. It\’s as though there\’s a divide between where role-play will and won\’t work for us that we pick up on and take into account when interacting, no matter how close we are emotionally.

One aspect that I think is worth reemphasizing is that, although the emotional connection in these role-play heavy relationships may be different, it\’s not invalid and hardly existent in these role-play. The interactions that I have and have had with others online (as mentioned previously, and worth a caveat again, I\’m not as into this sort of thing as I used to be) were often deep, personal connections to another individual or group of individuals. The countless hours I spent talking to and fooling around with others hardly count as nothing, the others hardly faceless automata reacting solely to what I type.

A lot of that has to do with the idea of spaces, or contexts. Sex online is still sex, but it takes place in a separate context, a separate space from sex in person. As a good example of that, it\’s been my experience that sex in person usually occupies most or all of one\’s attention, whereas that\’s hardly the case with role-play online. In fact, beyond just potentially having more than one thing going on, one might have more than one scene going on in order to still have most of what one\’s up to fall into the category of sex. This is something that fits within the pornographic aspect of the act: rather than being solely a participant, you are also watching or reading something, and as with pornography, that needn\’t take up 100% of one\’s attention.

The social aspects of sexuality can be seen as a collection of innumerable moving parts. We are our own expert systems, in that regard, with certain tolerances that must be taken into account in order for things to mesh in any given context. Taken this way, having multiple contexts – especially when one of those contexts is notably free and lax on rules – may be of use to some. Much of the previous article was about utilizing such a context in a way that proves beneficial to a great many people on an individual basis, but also it works just as well in a relationship setting.

One example where folks benefit is in differing levels of sexual activity. This stems mostly from the disconnect between sexual acts in RP and sexual acts offline. One side of this is that there isn\’t necessarily a need for one to be sexually active in real life for one to be sexually active in character. Whether it\’s having a low sex drive, or just the inability to currently take part in sexual acts in person (dorms, work, and so on being common reasons), doesn\’t necessarily preclude one from taking part in intimacy with someone else. The inverse is also true, of course: one can still be sexually active in person despite being in a relationship with someone online, where RP may be common. Not everyone lines up sexually all the time, after all.

Another important example relates to sexual promiscuity, and the way it is perceived in a role-play context as compared to something more grounded in real life. While monogamy and polygamy are complex social topics most definitely worthy of being explored more deeply on their own, it\’s interesting to note a surprising number of relationships that are more open in an online context than they are in person.

Part of this, I think, is due to the relative safety of TS: the lack of physical contact and the role that consent plays do help to keep everyone safe. Even when one is not currently in a romantic relationship, however, there is little in the way of physical harm that might come from being promiscuous in role-play, and sexual satiation does help keep people healthy mentally, even if one does wind up having to tone down promiscuity when one does wind up in a relationship.

Beyond that, however, the idea of contexts once again comes into play. What it means to have sex in the context of typing out strings of sentences with erotic content at one another can very obviously mean something different from consensual physical sex. That said, one isn\’t simply alternating roles of narrator in telling some erotic story. One\’s characters are extensions of oneself, and so the waters are muddied. Some take this to be equivalent to sexual activity offline, while others separate the ideas totally, and there are those who treat it every way in between.

To round out my hendiatris of examples, a final one is the ways in which basal aspects such as gender and orientation come into play. This is something that I\’m not sure is as widespread, but it has figured large in my own experiences, and I find it worth investigating. Both gender identity and sexual orientation can be much more complex and intricate than society often gives them credit. Experience through experimentation help flesh out one\’s sense of identity and self within a social setting, as they interact quite closely. Gender-play and a safe-space to experiment outside of more simplistic definitions of orientation. JM wrote on [a][s] about this previously, noting the number of members of our subculture who re-evaluate their sexual orientation, and I think this is one potential aspect of it (after all, I came into the fandom as a gay male and who even knows what I am now).

A lot of these seem to boil down to relative levels of \”okayness\”. Being okay with oneself, being okay within a given context, and being okay both physically as well as emotionally and intellectually. The crux of the matter, after all, is that the physical is deemphasized while the mental and emotional are emphasized in role-play such as this. This is part of what goes into a safe space, and that\’s what\’s often required for maturation: a place in which one is both challenged without reduced possibility for harm, and an easy way out. It\’s a place to define the boundaries of okayness when it comes to things such as relative sexual activity, promiscuity, or countless other aspects of self.

There has been a lot of discussion over the last year about sex-positivity in furry. How sex and the fandom interact is more than just how sexual furries are in general, but how discussion around sex is framed between furries and themselves, and furries and the world at large. After all, this is a big part of why LSF was started in the first place. However, it\’s my belief that beyond being one of the more interesting aspects of that intersection, role-play is also one of the more sex-positive ones: interests are discussed and expanded on, websites such as f-list are created, and tools such as wixxx are used. There\’s discourse around the topic, and it\’s not just that it\’s relatively positive, it\’s also expected. A culture has built up within and around this RP context. It\’s no longer just singular acts.

Back in Pittsburgh for their eighth year, tomorrow they will go for the world record for the most full suited furries ever assembled in one place – 1,100 expected in all.

submitted by Enleat
[link] [8 comments]

Hi! So I have a really noob question here, how would I go about commissioning a first ref sheet? I don't personally know any artists, where could I get in touch with one? How much do they usually cost, and what method of payment is usually preferred? Any help would be hugely appreciated, thanks! <3

submitted by Thecoltonfactor
[link] [6 comments]