Feed aggregator

As some of my readers know, Papabear is working, along with several furiends, to launch the American Furry Association. Recently, a story about the AFA was posted on Flayrah. There were many negative comments about the idea of the AFA posted after the article, including some personal attacks on me basically calling me incompetent. At first, I responded to the attacks, but that was a mistake because it just resulted in more hateful responses, so I withdrew them from the comments board.

This was not my first negative experience with the fandom. When I first started this column, it was noticed by the hosts of FurCast, who quickly began mocking me and my efforts. I called into the show and they apologized, but I had to wonder, still, why furries (and humans in general, let's face it) feel a need to hurt people, especially people who are trying to do some good in the world? 

I think people are questioning my motivation. I suspect that people are just thinking that I'm out to get attention and to be a popufur. Let me tell you all, then, why I do this.

When I was a cub, I was very much the outcast. People made fun of me all the time and I had few friends. It got so bad that, when I was a freshman in college, I felt so discouraged and alone that I bought four bottles of sleeping pills, swallowed them all, and went to bed, fully intending to die. Fortunately for me, I overdid the dose so much that my body rejected all the medication. I vomited heavily in my sleep so hard I woke up a roommate who quickly took me to the hospital to have my stomach pumped. I spent many years after that trying to come around and be positive again about life.

Then, when I turned 40, I came to the late realization that I was gay. I struggled with this for some time until I finally confessed to my then-wife, which led to my divorce. It has been nearly three years since my divorce, and I am still struggling with it. 

In both cases I felt very alone and in pain. My mother was very angry with me for a long time for my suicide attempt. Many people wouldn't talk to me. Later, when I discovered I was gay, I experienced the strange sensation of going from a majority in this country (white, straight, Christian) to a minority (gay, well still white LOL, but pagan). I have questioned everything about my life, including God.

I am now 47, and I am just now beginning to feel like my life is getting under control again, but it has been a very lonely road in many cases.

In the fandom, I have made some very good friends. I find furries, for the most part, to be good people who have extended their paws to me and given me a hug.

When a number of the younger furries began asking my advice, I thought that maybe my experiences and what I have learned could help them. I talked to them online, and, eventually, I started "Ask Papabear." My only motivation is to help furries who are in pain and share with them what I have learned from my own pain so that they don't feel alone as I did.

Let me please emphasize here that I make NO money on the column, I do not EVER charge for my advice. Indeed, because I spend money advertising, this is COSTING me money. The idea for selling some Papabear items was to recover some of my advertising costs, but no one is buying them, so it doesn't matter.

I also started seeking other ways I could help. I had a number of ideas, such as starting my own furcon and starting a furry arts school, but after exploring the idea I concluded they really wouldn't work for one reason or another (people are criticizing me for "not following through" with these plans, but why would I want to spend money on an idea that was not viable?) But then I had the idea for the AFA, which is a nonprofit to help other furries. I am still working on this idea, hoping to get it launched next year, but I am optimistic.

The AFA, too, is not something I make money on. I have paid over $200 in fees of my own money so far and anticipate paying upwards of another $900 of my own cash before it is up and running.

The reason for the AFA is the same as my column: I want to help. It hurts me deeply that so many furries out there seem threatened by a project that is so well meaning, but I guess that is just the way of the world.

I want you all to know that I am going to proceed, with help, on my goal of forming a national furry organization. There will always be detractors, there will always be people who will question me and think, for some bizarre reason I cannot comprehend, that I am out to do some sort of evil upon the furry world. That really does hurt my feelings. I guess some people just like hurting others. But it will not break my resolve to help the good furries out there who want it.

It is my hope that at least some of you will understand what I am trying to do.

Love you,
Papabear

submitted by Norbenry
[link] [comment]

Rubes is a single-panel gag cartoon series created by Leigh Rubin. Many of his cartoons have been collected in a book called The Wild and Twisted World of Rubes, available on his web site. There you can also order his 2013 Rubes desk calender, called Zoo in a Box. And to top it off, with a purchase of the Zoo on the Go app you can receive a daily Rubes cartoon sent right to your mobile phone. There’s a free trial available on the web site too.

image c. 2012 Leigh Rubin

Back in August of this year, school has started and I was bored, decided to doodle around and drew something like this http://imgur.com/Vnv7a And then digitalized it to this http://imgur.com/l7bLD (This is an old version, a kinda better one is on my FA), I've been drawing during class (whenever I had free time or during recess), and yesterday I drew this http://i.imgur.com/f3anp.jpg And then digitalized it to this: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/9118500/ (Edited the right leg) It's actually something I can't believe, did something like that happened to you guys?

submitted by RegularTechnocrat
[link] [6 comments]

So here's my deal.

I've been a part of the fandom for, oh say, eight years. I've had a character for six of those years. I started out as a leopard, moved to being a housecat, before settling on my current fursona. Now, my fursona is a black fox, with purple running through him. I like my character, it really fits, but it seems other furs dismiss me sometimes for being 'too unoriginal' and the like. I'm putting this here for any fur out there he gets the same comments. YOU, yourself, are the judge of your character. If someone tells you to change it, simply because 'I see those everywhere, be something original', ignore them. A fursona can be so many things. Mine is an aspect of me, and is something I identify with. If you're the same, if your character is something from a part of you, then be it with gusto. Have fun with it, because it's YOURS. This also applies to anyone with a hybrid. Just because you want all these traits in your fur doesn't make it any less yours. Have fun with it, and when you get the chance, show us all exactly how awesome it looks, common or hybrid, 'original' or otherwise!

Take care furs! ~Schrix

submitted by Schrix
[link] [18 comments]

submitted by raccoonass
[link] [1 comment]

http://www.vice.com/read/the-furtastic-adventures-of-the-cabbit-and-the-folf

Gosh I love the smell of fresh furry media in the morning :D




For this series, titled "The Furtastic Adventures of the Cabbit and the Folf," I photographed Belgian, Dutch, French, and German members of the furry fandom, where adults transform themselves into animals by wearing plush costumes. The title of the series is meant to evoke fairytales and refers to their own made-up language. When something in the furry world is fantastic, they call it furtastic, a cabbit is a combination of a cat and rabbit, and so on…

I have chosen to photograph the characters in their own living rooms. The costumes, which signify that the participants are "in character," are juxtaposed with the homey, personal atmosphere and reveal small things about the participant, grounding their fantasy world in the reality of common life. Despite the somewhat humorous nature of my topic, I wish to approach the topic and photograph the subjects with respect. While the photos have a documentary nature and imply a straightforward visual language, I nevertheless put a great importance on my aesthetic choices. The characters appear like actors on a stage, in the décor of everyday reality.

Charlotte Lybeer is a Belgian photographer who's work has been exhibited and published globally. Currently she is working on a PhD in visual arts and is teaching photography at the Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp. More of here work can be seen here.

This is an edited reprint of an article that first appeared in Anthro #11.

It sometimes feels like I’ve tried to spend most of the last ten years of my life trying to explain the fast-growing Anthropomorphic Animal, or ‘Furry’, phenomenon to outsiders. Yet the trend absolutely begs explanation. Attendance at furry-themed events is doubling roughly every three years, fur-fans (or, simply, ‘furs’) are becoming a highly-visible presence in many online communities, and more and more anthro-themed marketing campaigns appear every day.

So what’s behind the sudden explosion? There have always been anthro-themed ad campaigns, as any consumer of breakfast cereals can testify. Practically all of us grew up with Tony the Tiger, Toucan Sam, and Sugar Bear. Nor are anthro characters anything new in entertainment, as attested to by Tom Cat, Jerry Mouse, Pepe le Pew, and Speedy Gonzales. Children have been sleeping with stuffed animals at least since the time of Teddy Roosevelt, and as early as 1922 they were common enough to serve as a powerful literary symbol in the classic story The Velveteen Rabbit. Even long before modern times, humanized animal characters occupied an honored place in the human heart; where would Aesop have been without them?

Yet there’s clearly a new dynamic at work today. Artists have drawn anthropomorphic creatures before, but never in such mind-boggling variety, or to such an appreciative audience. And, more pertinent to the blog you’re currently reading, writers have written tales in which half-animals appear since the very beginning of things. But never before has the usage of such characters been so widespread or executed so skillfully. Never before, in other words, have authors so openly and unashamedly incorporated anthropomorphic characters into works intended for adults, written with an adult level of depth and sophistication. Or, at least, it’s never happened frequently enough to be noticeable as an artform in and of itself.

Which brings us right back to our original question. Why now? Why is furry fiction taking off and growing legs today, after lying near-dormant for so long? Why are the adventures of cartoon-like bunnies suddenly acceptable as the stuff of serious novels, instead of for Saturday-morning-only consumption? There are two important and largely unrelated reasons for this, I think.

Everyone knows that children are very open to the power of suggestion. During childhood the human mind develops like nothing else in nature, desperately attempting to gather and incorporate everything it needs in order to master the environment around it. This adaptive process runs far deeper than merely mastering the art of counting to ten and learning that cows go moo-moo. In one key phase of development, for example, infants become obsessed with the human face and will spend hours either staring at the faces of others or else scrawling increasingly human-like visages on whatever surfaces happen to be handy. During this period the child is among other things learning what is human and what isn’t, not just how to read faces but what a face is and what it represents. The child is, in short, defining itself as a member of a group of others like it. Yet it is during this same key developmental period that children are perhaps most exposed to anthropomorphic animal images in the forms of stuffed animals, picture-books, and animated films. Furthermore, the level of exposure has increased dramatically both in volume and ‘quality’ (via television, DVD player and VCR) over time. Would it be any wonder if, surrounded by more and more anthro images during a critical developmental stage, kids began to blur the lines a little in learning what is human and what is not? Would it take a miracle for a substantial and growing percentage of kids raised in this way to grow up feeling most at home interpreting and understanding the universe through the eyes of half-animal characters? Might children raised in such an environment develop an otherwise inexplicable attraction to anthropomorphic art and fiction as adults? Indeed, wouldn’t it be even more surprising if, exposed to such a saturation of anthropomorphic characters at such an impressionable age, said characters didn’t come to play an important role in their inner lives?

The second key factor behind the new explosion of interest is, I believe, the Internet. For the first time, people who admire serious anthropomorphic art and literature have been able to find one another and share their creations. The pent-up potential is finally being released, and the result is the veritable explosion you see today in the anthropomorphic arts.

Furry art is still not for everyone. However, it does seem to be for more and more of us every year. Given the stratospheric average IQ among the furs I know and their tendency towards careers in professions such as IT and the sciences, it’s fair to say that the cultural impact of anthropomorphic art is not only well out of proportion to the numbers involved but continually rising. Today, for example, ethicists blanch at the idea of merging human and animal characteristics via gengineering. But tomorrow, who knows?

The future may be closer than you think. And it just may be brought to you by a guy who likes to look at pictures of horses walking around on two legs…

Hello Papabear,

I have been having some issues with my mate. I moved in with him a year ago and things were great at first then I slowly found out things about him: he would choice to watch yiff instead of being intimate, he would lie about things, borrow money from places and not say a word; he would lie through his teeth all the time. I lost so much trust for him; he would enjoy himself while I was at work. then lie. When we made love, I would cry and he would say he’d stop for our relationship; then the second I walk away he goes and does it again; he would lie until I proved it.

I finally got him to stop for about a week now, but other things came up. 

We were behind on the rent thanks to his borrowing, so I asked my dad for help. I got in so much shit for him and my dad put the money into his account. It didn’t go through to the man we pay the rent to, so today I said, "We are going to the bank to get it sorted." He flat out refused .... I ignored it, then I get a text from him: "What should I bring home for tea?" I said back to him, "Money in your account is for the rent, you haven’t spent it have you?" He had been buying himself snacks; he says he wouldn’t have "eaten into our rent," but honestly I know he is a big liar, I rang him and told him off. 

I mean, it wasn’t even his money to spend!

I don't know what to do. We have to move in with my family soon because of money issues, and I don't trust him. I used to trust him with money, but now I don't. What should I do? 

Sparkal

* * *

Dear Sparkal:

Papabear thinks you know what to do. This guy is not good in bed, he is cheating you on money, and he lies about all of it. What, in all the gods’ names, do you see in him?

This will be my shortest reply ever for this column. Dump the jerk, kick him out, do so post haste, and get on with your life. He’s a bum and you deserve better.

Good luck!

Papabear

submitted by GoingToTheStore
[link] [comment]

Not much news happening this week I know. But, to all the FurFright people going to the northeast, try not to get bit by Zombies and stay dry from the monster storm happening. Kind of all ironic that a storm and a zombie fur con is happening at the same time.

I'll be there and I look forward to meeting other local furs, making new friends, meeting old ones, and having a great time!

https://elliottsliveevents.org/

This Saturday the 27th out west of Orlando in the winter garden area

submitted by Snapples
[link] [5 comments]

submitted by N4N4KI
[link] [8 comments]

submitted by ThePiachu
[link] [1 comment]

submitted by maltesetigerotp
[link] [3 comments]

submitted by ThePiachu
[link] [comment]

Bruce R. Robinson
[link]
[link]
[link]
[link]

Robert C. Bellemare
[link]

Do you get bored with board games? Or are you the one in the family always bugging to have a Monopoly Marathon? We talk about these things and more, just in time to perhaps give you some ideas for family fun this weekend.

Stuff we talked about:

• Killer Bunnies
• Mega Monopoly

Hosts: Levi, Spenser, Tikaani, Wolfin
Picture by: John Nyberg

Daily Show: October 26, 2012 - Do you get bored with board games? Or are you the one in the family always bugging to have a Monopoly Marathon? We talk about these things and more, just in time to perhaps give you some ideas for family fun this weekend. - Stuff we talked about: -

I'm a 22 year old guy living a pretty normal life (in college about to graduate, plenty of great friends, hobbies, etc.) except for this anomaly of not being able to recall another human being I've wanted to reach out and touch. It's not often a problem, really. I'm usually able to just not think about it, but I would be lying if it doesn't trouble me. It's gotten in the way of more than one relationship.

I should clarify: the problem isn't with my libido, but with my attractions. I've known for many years now that the only things that "work" for me are furry things. Specifically, male furry art, stories, etc. This especially makes things complicated when most of my relationships have been hetero.

Due to the embarrassing and confusing nature of this problem I have only told three people in the world about this before now, but every now and then the loneliness gets pretty heavy. I'm tired of the silence, I just want someone I can be totally honest with about this because I don't understand it at all. Why am I attracted to imaginary things, and imaginary things only? I'm an optimistic dude, but it doesn't seem very fair to me and it's hard not to feel down about it sometimes.

submitted by throwaway09812374
[link] [52 comments]

Author: Isiah Jacobs Isiah offers his own thoughts and analysis on Roar as a part of a twelve-part review series. See also: Reviews of Roar 4 by Roz Gibson and Fred Patten. Find the full article here: flayrah – furry food for thought Creative Commons: Full post may be available under a free license.