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FC-109 Bat Backpack
How many backpacks would a bat pack, if a bats could pack backpacks.
Watch VideoNews
Wash. firefighter, fursuiter raising funds to fight cancer
Cat ‘arrested’ for break-in at Brazilian prison
Comic books: 365 new superheroes; some anthropomorphic
Born Again, Again: The Ex-Gays
Emails:
- Cory Rivenwolf – “Porn in relationships! Does it exist?”
- Alpha – “Otherkin and such”
- Parodic – “Banned Forever and Tri Rainbows”
- Lokoti Wolf – “I Need Advice!!!!!!!”
- Anonymous – “Question”
Tales of a Blue Vulpine
- Fear the White Person
Emails (cont.)
- Hallow – “A bit of parent trouble and more”
- Crescent Zeal – “Idea for the show”
- Aleksandr – “Emotionally homeless”
- Joshua Ronfauni – “Home Duck Evolution and Superheroes”
- Enzi – “Could you please help me?”
FC-109 Bat Backpack - How many backpacks would a bat pack, if a bats could pack backpacks.
How many backpacks would a bat pack, if a bats could pack backpacks.
Watch VideoNews
Wash. firefighter, fursuiter raising funds to fight cancer
Cat ‘arrested’ for break-in at Brazilian prison
Comic books: 365 new superheroes; some anthropomorphic
Born Again, Again: The Ex-Gays
Emails:
- Cory Rivenwolf – “Porn in relationships! Does it exist?”
- Alpha – “Otherkin and such”
- Parodic – “Banned Forever and Tri Rainbows”
- Lokoti Wolf – “I Need Advice!!!!!!!”
- Anonymous – “Question”
Tales of a Blue Vulpine
- Fear the White Person
Emails (cont.)
- Hallow – “A bit of parent trouble and more”
- Crescent Zeal – “Idea for the show”
- Aleksandr – “Emotionally homeless”
- Joshua Ronfauni – “Home Duck Evolution and Superheroes”
- Enzi – “Could you please help me?”
FC-109 Bat Backpack - How many backpacks would a bat pack, if a bats could pack backpacks.
How many backpacks would a bat pack, if a bats could pack backpacks.
Watch VideoNews
Wash. firefighter, fursuiter raising funds to fight cancer
Cat ‘arrested’ for break-in at Brazilian prison
Comic books: 365 new superheroes; some anthropomorphic
Born Again, Again: The Ex-Gays
Emails:
- Cory Rivenwolf – “Porn in relationships! Does it exist?”
- Alpha – “Otherkin and such”
- Parodic – “Banned Forever and Tri Rainbows”
- Lokoti Wolf – “I Need Advice!!!!!!!”
- Anonymous – “Question”
Tales of a Blue Vulpine
- Fear the White Person
Emails (cont.)
- Hallow – “A bit of parent trouble and more”
- Crescent Zeal – “Idea for the show”
- Aleksandr – “Emotionally homeless”
- Joshua Ronfauni – “Home Duck Evolution and Superheroes”
- Enzi – “Could you please help me?”
Looking into Feet Again :-3
Since I have had time to ponder over various experiences with other furs in the furrydom, I found something quite unique about the sub-interest in the fandom.
When it comes to fetishes, I notice many of the popular fetishes are okay and acceptable except for foot fetishes get mentioned....Just mentioned, thought of, commented about, etc. As soon as the idea of a thought about it gets into the air, the big "EEEEEEUWWWW" and a scattering furs away from the one or two furs just barely commenting lightly about the thought or idea of having a passive interest on feet.
I noticed, when I compliment on a nice fursuit, and mention anything about the feet, somehow, I get this "WHY ABOUT THE FEET" look back at me, as if I slammed the whole con or furmeet into oblivion. It's just a compliment on the whole suit, and the compliment on the feet seems appropriate to me, because they do compliment the suit(s) nicely. Glad the extra effort was made to really make the suit awesome and complete.
I am aware a lot is done with and in suits when there's private costume play of sorts, but what is it about feet that makes furs cringe to unmentionable levels like they're being stabbed in the heart?
Makes it much harder to find others into feet, because after reactions like that, you become too gun shy to want to keep reaching out for maybe another with similar sub-interest in the fandom.
Maybe you can enlighten me some more on this subject Papabear.
--Paw
* * *
Hi, Paw,
I guess this will serve as a follow-up to the recent letter http://www.askpapabear.com/1/post/2012/12/mates-foot-fetish-has-boyfriend-bewildered.html on the subject.
I, too, am a little baffled by the reaction you are getting. There is nothing gross to go “Ewwww” about concerning feet, unless you are very unhygienic about your feet. Perhaps the furries who go “Yuck” have bad foot care? It is interesting they react this way, because there are other things furries seem to like a lot that are MUCH more germy and unsanitary. For example, oral sex is extremely unhygienic (the mouth contains literally billions of germs). And then, of course, there is both heterosexual, conventional sex and anal sex. We’re talking big time germs and the potential for very nasty diseases. Given a choice between playing around with feet and doing something sexually, feet are almost infinitely cleaner and less disgusting.
Papabear personally finds furry feet very adorable. And I agree with you that fursuit feet, when done well, can be extremely cute. Drawings of furry characters showing their footiepaws? Also cute.
Perhaps if you set about educating furries about why you find feet cute and then give them foot massages, they might change their minds? I mean, who doesn’t like a good footpaw rub?
Sorry I can’t help more on this. Perhaps my readers would like to chime in, especially those who run the other way at the mention of feet, and explain the revulsion?
At any rate, Paw, if you wish to join a community that likes feet the same way you do, you can easily find them online, on Facebook, and other sites. You might try that. If you are a member of Furry4Life, they have a group there you can join: http://furry4life.org/group/furryfeettickling. You might like that :-3
Hugs and Paw Rubs,
Papabear
Paint me like one of your french girls
Publishing Furry
In his recent article Of Rabbits and Rayguns, Phil Geusz described his fight to get the mainstream publishing industry to accept furry fiction. Phil is an accomplished writer, and he and I share a number of views and goals. He has chosen a different path than I have to attain those goals, but I think both paths are valid. In response, or perhaps complement, to his article, I’d like to offer my own thoughts.
I have for the past decade been becoming more and more familiar with the furry publishing industry. I have good friends at Sofawolf and FurPlanet and we talk business on a number of occasions. As a fairly high-profile author, I am always trying to figure out ways I can make our joint business more successful. At the same time, over the past two or three years, I have been talking with and listening to more people in the larger SF publishing world; mostly authors, but also some editors.
It’s probably instructive to define a couple things before we get into the state of the industry and its attitude toward the fandom. First, I want to draw a distinction between furry fiction and fiction with furries. Furry fiction, by my definition, is fiction in which the furries are the prominent, if not exclusive, characters, and in which their existence is accepted as a given. Fiction with furries is fiction in which furries are an explained part of the world, possibly protagonists, but not necessarily.
To give examples: my Out of Position books are furry fiction. Kevin Frane’s books are furry fiction. Watts Martin’s Ranea stories are furry fiction (but closer to the line). The San Iadras stories of foozzzball are fiction with furries (but again, close to the line). Most of Phil’s stories that I’m aware of would be in that same category, as would Cordwainer Smith’s Norstrilia and other underpeople stories, C.J. Cherryh’s Chanur books, Larry Niven’s Kzin books, Alan Dean Foster’s Spellsinger books, H. Beam Piper’s Fuzzy books and John Scalzi’s recent reboot…Fred Patten could probably add another hundred names to that list. Jonathan Lethem’s Gun, With Occasional Music is also fiction with furries, but much further from the dividing line: the kangaroo is a secondary character, and while his existence is never really explained, he’s also not that important to the story.
The reason to draw this distinction is that we in the furry fandom are used to furries. We are so used to them that now, stories that include the Origin Of Furries as a major part are very rare. We know all the origins: space aliens, created by humans (for war or sex, usually), or humans changed by magic or a virus (sometimes a magical virus). That is no longer as important to us as what the author does with the characters.
Non-furries, by contrast, often need the origin story, and so there is a gap between what is publishable in the furry fandom and what is publishable in the larger F/SF world (there is also a gap because of the general quality of furry fiction and the barriers to publication, and that gap is actually larger than the gap attributable to world-building, but that’s another post). And that leads me to the second thing I want to define.
The publishing industry is a business. It is a tricky business, because they are taking creative properties which people have a personal investment in and attempting to gauge how many other people will relate to those properties enough to spend money on them. Publishers tend to the conservative, because if they take too many gambles, and nobody buys the books they publish, they won’t be publishing for very long.
In general, publishers lump book submissions into four categories: (1) This is awesome and everyone will buy it; (2) This is pretty good and we know we can sell it; (3) This is good but we don’t think we can sell it; (4) No.
(It will not surprise you to learn that the vast, vast majority of submissions fall into category 4.)
Right now, there is no established market for furry fiction, not in the F/SF mainstream, not in the way that there is for space opera or Tolkienesque fantasies or wizard school stories. I’ll come back to this in a moment, but what that means is that a furry book, or even a “fiction with furries” that is close to the line, pretty much has to fall into that first category to get serious consideration from a mainstream publisher. And I don’t think that book has been written yet.
(By contrast, you will see from the above examples that there is plenty of “fiction with furries” in the mainstream market, and has been for decades. There’s no publisher I know of that would reject a book they otherwise would have bought just because some characters in it are furries.)
But the good news is that there’s another way to convince publishers that furry fiction is a winning proposition, and that’s by showing them. This is what Phil is doing with his books; this is what short story sales to F/SF venues (Renee Carter Hall and Mary Lowd have both had that success this year) do; this is what strong sales by furry publishers do.
Here’s where some of the burden falls on the fandom. The furry fandom is still small by comparison to worldwide SF fandom. In the fandoms’ respective awards, the Ursa Majors, which are free to all, do not get as many votes as SF fandom’s Hugos, which require a minimum of $50 to vote. Furry fandom is, I think, more active, more vibrant, and more creative—but furries just do not read as much as science fiction fans, whose fandom is centered around books.
Fantasy and science fiction books regularly make the New York Times bestseller lists; the industry supports thousands of midlist authors who sell thousands of books. I have friends in the fandom who buy hundreds—plural—of books a year. In many ways, furry fandom is stronger than SF fandom; books, for the moment, are not one of those ways.
And this brings me back to the statement about there being no established market for furry fiction. There is, clearly, a market. Sofawolf and FurPlanet and Rabbit Valley manage to not only survive, but prosper, selling furry books, but they operate on a smaller scale than Tor, Daw, Baen, etc. The good news is that that market is growing. Phil has found success outside the fandom with his David Birkenhead series. I’ve found success outside the fandom with my Out of Position books. With every sale outside the fandom, we are showing people that they can enjoy stories with furry characters, and opening opportunities for more furry books.
It’s a slow process, but that’s the way these things happen. Are we ever going to convince everyone in the world that they should like furries? No. I occasionally see the same comments Phil talked about, from people who just have to tell the world how much they don’t get furries, and you know what? That’s fine. There are people who hate vampires, people who hate boy wizards, people who hate science fiction. In fact, I think the appearance of these protestors is actually a good sign. The fact that they feel the need to loudly state their objection means that they feel like they’re in the minority. They look around and see other people appreciating these stories, and they don’t get it, and because they don’t feel like part of the “in” crowd, they have to justify their stance.
But I think it’s a mistake to assume that mainstream F/SF publishers feel that way, simply because they say “we don’t publish talking animal stories.” I had a conversation with an editor from a mainstream F/SF publisher in which she said, “Why does there have to be a distinction between furry fiction and ‘mainstream’ fiction? Why can’t it just be about good stories?” Amen. Remember, publishers are a business. If they find a story with furries that they just can’t ignore, they will publish it.
Furry fandom is growing, and the market for furry books is growing. I’ve mentioned this before, but I think this past year was the first time all five Ursa Major Novel candidates were written by furries. I remember a time when you could walk through a furry con’s dealer’s room without seeing a single novel; now you can choose from probably about fifty of them.
Are they selling at a mainstream F/SF level? Not yet. But readership within the fandom is growing, and the fandom itself is growing. I’m pretty happy selling my books to the people who are passionate about them. The people who don’t want to read them don’t have to. I’m just glad that there is a big, growing community of people who do.
Finally found a picture of my Legal Eagle suit from last FC. I hope to reprise that outfit. OBJECTION!
Oops!
Xiath: Hey there furry people!
Sorry that there wasn’t a new episode on the first. Both Rainstar and myself have been enjoying the holidays so we forgot to put aside time to record a new episode. But never fear! We plan on recording in the next few days so a new episode will be coming soon! I’m sorry for any inconvenience or any withdrawal symptoms this may have caused.*
*Fursonapod is not responsible for any ill effects that our podcast ,or lack therefor of, may cause to your health.
Remember to send us listenermail!
~XiathNewsbytes archive for October–December 2012
Episode 43 - A tale of one dragon's epic three-year jog, of sweater shops in Florida, and an heroic escape from animal control. Staring JWingy the airliner dragon, CrimsonX "the ancient one", Syruss who everyone assumes is Cuban,
A tale of one dragon’s epic three-year jog, of sweater shops in Florida, and an heroic escape from animal control. Staring JWingy the airliner dragon, CrimsonX ”the ancient one”, Syruss who everyone assumes is Cuban, and Wolfin who manages to be a store manager. It’s… THE WAGZTAIL CAMPFIRE IMPROV I.
Click here for a non-scored version (no background music).
Podcast image by bluepoetje.
Metadata and Credits
WagzTail Podcast 2.0 Episode 43
Runtime: 30m
Cast: CrimsonX, JWingy, Syruss, Wolfin
Editor: Silent
Format: 128kbps ABR split-stereo MP3
Copyright: © 2012 WagzTail.com. Some Rights Reserved. This podcast is released by WagzTail.com as CC BY-ND 3.0. If distributed with a facility that has an existing agreement in place with a Professional Rights Organisation (PRO), file a cue sheet for 30:00 to Fabien Renoult (BMI) 1.67%, Josquin des Pres (BMI) 1.67%, WagzTail.com 96.67%. Rights have been acquired to all content for national and international broadcast and web release with no royalties due. Podcast image by garden beth, used with permission.
Episode 43 - A tale of one dragon's epic three-year jog, of sweater shops in Florida, and an heroic escape from animal control. Staring JWingy the airliner dragon, CrimsonX "the ancient one", Syruss who everyone assumes is Cuban,
Still looking for a room for FC...
I'm arriving on Wednesday evening, and leaving probably on Monday or Tuesday, depending on when I can get a ride home. It's coming down to the 2-week crunch, so I'm pretty open to a space. =p I just can't spend too much so a nice low cost corner somewhere will be fine. =<
Edit: I may have found a room for Fri-Sun, but I still need a room for the early days, Wed and Thurs.... Anyone going really early who could take a few bucks to lessen the load while they wait for the rest of their group?
submitted by HappyWulf[link] [4 comments]
NEO Furs.
hey im trying to join the NEO Furs forum but im still not accepted. is there an admin here?or some one help me out? am i just out of range? any help is appreciated :3
submitted by Scraps_wolf[link] [19 comments]
Poor bear wanting hotdogs (x-post animation)
Future Furry marriage of Art/Engineering/Design?
This is just hypothetical but whenever I fire up Solidworks, I'm reminded of a surface modeling tutorial that shows how to model a car exterior using just orthographic sketches. I believe that this technique can also be applied to Fursuit Heads/Paws/Feet/Tails etc. and aside from the fur I think technology of the future could one day allow us to turn art into reality. I'm not saying that current fursuits are bad by any means, this is a post about the potential future of fursuits.
Materials - In printing the actual Skull/helmet, jaw, and teeth I would use a stiff plastic as it's rigid nature lends itself to complex shapes, vents, wiring and rigging other printed parts to it. For ears and other flexible features, a flexible material would be used. This could involve any single or combination of printer(s) from companies like Stratasys, with Rigid Printers and Rigid/Flexible Printers. Materials will play a very big role in everything here.
Artificial Fursuit Facial/Ear/Tail Muscles - Obviously we're not at a point where technology like this is commercially available but I think using something like this would nearly eliminate the artificial movement that's created with current tech. Just think that once the research has been completed and artificial muscles and limbs have been openly sold for medical purposes, why won't the entertainment industries and other companies use this tech as well?
Flexible Displays - This tech is being announced at CES 2013 by Samsung. Now it's only available through them but as time passes the flexible OLED market will greatly increase with more manufacturers and the cost of such products will decrease such that a private company could be able to purchase customized OLED screens for use in fursuits. I think that having 3 screens, 2 for exterior eyes (very customizable!) and 1 inside for viewing an Augmented Reality Environment would create an effective means of awareness for the fursuiter. There would of course be a small high resolution camera placed on the head to provide the visual field. The possibilities for eyes would be endless!!
Facial Muscles - This brings us back to the artifical muscles, how would we control them? Combining technology from present examples like the FACE robot and the well known Neurowear Necomimi product we could control the artificial muscles that manipulate the flexible parts of a fursuit without having to actually interface with anything.
Okay now all this sounds VERY VERY VERY expensive for a fursuit... but, it is my humble opinion that in the not so distant future when these technologies have become more commonplace, the prices of such would be outweighed by demand from the Entertainment Industry, Museums, Music, Education and of course private investors. Therefore it might be a reality one day that a company takes in sketches of your Fursona and measurements of your body to create a very realistic and lifelike fursuit for a reasonable price.
I've been thinking about these possibilities for a while now, and right now I'm just looking to inspire conversation about the future because as far as I see it, the future is bright, oh so very bright!
submitted by RhodeWolf[link] [12 comments]
Touch my football?
ORIGINAL POST BY KYELL INCLUDING LINK TO BOOK
Episode 4 - Chiaroscuro - Please Note: I incorrectly identified (and was incorrectly confirmed) that Matthew Ebel performed...
I had a question and figured this was the best place for it
I'm dating a furry. She has recently lost her favorite ears and since her birthday is coming up I figured I'd buy her some new ones but cant seem to find any that look good. Any help Reddit? I'm completely lost here.
EDIT: Found a good pair and bought them
submitted by Rorikmasq[link] [5 comments]