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Back once more! Come join the cast for a talk filled evening Episode 20 - Shark meltdown

The crew is back with plenty to talk about! Episode 19 - Shark Neutrality

Audio from our very second session of Dungeons & Draggets!! Here is video of it w/ illustrations and more! --https://youtu.be/FyPsnAazO08 Our Patreon w/ great new rewards! www.patreon.com/thedraggetshow Telegram Chat: t.me/draggetshow Dungeons & Draggets #02 - Audio from our very second session of Dungeons & …

Furry hugs are amazing medicine, but sometimes you need something more. Here’s two guest submissions from two awesome furries who love the community and have something more to give.

Eye candy is best to start an article, so check out this adorable puppy Taebyn. He’s silly but has something serious to bark about. Even a fantasy world of talking animals has members affected by suicide. It can even be a special issue because of how surveys show this fandom has many young and LGBT people. When I met Taebyn in person at Further Confusion, the local community of the con just lost a young member who took his own life, but I wasn’t able to share about it for privacy. So this post is for remembrance as well as help and good vibes.

The Fur Health Training Guide – a message from TaxBeast

My name is Drew, or better know as @TaxBeast. The past few months have been what I feel to be some of the most rewarding I have had in this community. Through my years on twitter, i’ve always been known as “the guy who posts fitness” furry. It’s always been a hobby of mine. However I felt like I wanted to give something back to the community after having a lot of positive memories over the past decade. There has always been a somewhat consistent flow of of people asking what I do to to stay in shape, how to build muscle, or just how to get a better self image. For a while, I wasn’t sure how to answer. I had worked years in the nutrition and supplement industry, and even worked as a personal trainer for a bit.

In the Fall of 2017 I had a plan. I wanted to get like minded people together, and start a group with the goals of knowledge and motivation in mind. I talked to @FaarTheRam on twitter after seeing that he too was a fur into fitness, with a similar drive to want people to succeed. Less than a week later the original channel “The Furry Fitness Chat” was made. A month or two went on, we added admins, and in no time we reached over 100 members.

This led to making a guide to share everything I knew and for people to take as they wanted. I wanted to make something that was clear and to the point, something that I felt, and still feel that most of the health industry lacks. I began writing the “TAXBEAST WEEKLY GYM PROGRAM”.

Fifty-three pages of information to help you get your diet, exercise, and nutrition in line.

I wrote this for all of you. All I ask is you spread the word and Retweet this to help me help others. Google Drive Download will be in the link below.https://t.co/ScBvOI150z
pic.twitter.com/XX6dDDPllD

— TAXBEAST @ ANE 2018 (@TaxBeast) January 13, 2018

Within is an explanation of why I wrote the guide, an introduction to terminology and training terms, a four day workout plan, a way to find your nutritional needs, diet routines and tips, and finally supplements that I get frequently asked about.

It’s taken a mere 6 months to write this guide, created a safe and toxic free group for people to have an extra drive to better themselves, and help guide a twitter page for like minds to share and discuss their experiences.  Follow us at @Fur_Health.

Here’s a few words from individuals I’ve worked with:

“Comprehensive, no nonsense, and passionately written–Tax’s Weekly Gym Program is THE guide for anyone aspiring to be the best they can be.” – Fengalon

“Both the group and guide has helped me get the results I wanted. I feel more confident about myself and how people approach me to talk to me without me intiating conversation. I never experienced such a positive atmsophere with the group and Tax displaying his expertise on nutrtion and exercise. Also, both has helped me to be more knowledgable about fitness and my depression. With the group, I feel encouraged to continue in my endeavor to a better me and with the guide to understand what goes on in the fitness world. I never felt such a positive group and guide as this one.” – @Stryker_Fox 

“In the course of a week I went from stagnated to decimated.” – @SickleVox

Art by Tihusky

Thanks guys for sharing your good vibes and knowledge! Furries have some of the most creative people I know – add successful and healthy too. That’s what comes from following your passion far beyond what ordinary people do.  If anyone gets good results or help from this, please share in comments or on Twitter.

Like the article? It takes a lot of effort to share these. Please consider supporting Dogpatch Press on Patreon.  You can access exclusive stuff for just $1, or get Con*Tact Caffeine Soap as a reward.  They’re a popular furry business seen in dealer dens. Be an extra-perky patron – or just order direct from Con*Tact.

The Lost Rainforest is a new fantasy novel series for young readers, written by Eliot Schrefer (author of the Spirit Animals book series). The first book in the series is called Mez’s Magic — and here’s what the publisher, Harper Collins, says it’s about: “Caldera has forever been divided into those animals who walk by night and those who walk by day. Nightwalker panthers, like young Mez and her beloved sister, have always feared daywalkers as creatures of myth and legend. Until the eclipse. Now Mez has discovered that she can cross the Veil and enter the daylight world. Her magical power has unknown depths, but she must rush to discover it after a mysterious stranger arrives at her family’s den, bearing warnings of a reawakened evil. Saving Caldera means Mez must leave her sister behind and unite an unlikely group of animal friends to unravel an ancient mystery and protect their rainforest home.” With interior illustrations by Emilia Dziubak, The Lost Rainforest: Mez’s Magic is available now in hardcover.

image c. 2018 Harper Collins

The director of Rukus wrote in with a new trailer:

I’ve been reading Dogpatch Press for a long time and am a big fan. The film is called Rukus and it’s a feature-length doc-fiction hybrid, centered around my friendship with a furry from Orlando, Rukus, who took his own life in 2008. It goes into his life, and childhood, and some of the people he was close to in the furry community, but then also goes into my teenage years in Memphis, and stories relating to mental health, sexuality, and the politics of documentary filmmaking.

I hope you enjoy it, and I would love to hear what you think!

Brett Hanover
www.bretthanover.com

Movie synopsis:

A hybrid of documentary and fiction, ‘Rukus’ is a queer coming of age story set in the liminal spaces of furry conventions, southern punk houses, and virtual worlds. Rukus is a 20-year-old furry artist, living with his boyfriend Sable in the suburbs of Orlando, Florida. In his sketchbooks, Rukus is constructing an imaginary universe – a sprawling graphic novel in which painful childhood memories are restaged as an epic fantasy. Brett is a 16-year-old filmmaker with OCD, working on a documentary about kinky subcultures in spite of his own anxiety. After an interview leads to an online friendship, their lives entwine in ways that push them into strange, unexplored territories.

facebook.com/rukusmovie/
bretthanover.com/rukus/

Written and Directed by: Brett Hanover
Assistant Directors: Alanna Stewart and Katherine Dohan
Additional Art and Writing: Rukus
Animation: Karolina Glusiec, Ben Holm, Eusong Lee
Original Music: Brian Saia

A preview was provided for a guest review, with thanks to Marbles:

Rukus is a film that is simultaneously familiar and unexpected. Director and writer Brett Hanover transforms a story about a lost member of the furry community into a series of moments that are so very human, while also depicting the struggles of feeling inhuman. There is a beautiful balance between reality and fantasy in which the documentary aspect takes the foreground and the narrative melts into it, the fiction becoming a part of the reality.

Brett Hanover takes advantage of the documentary style of filmmaking to fuse the stories together into a coherent message of feeling different and lost. The varying styles of camera work and editing set a pace for the film that is anxious yet comfortable. The audience is not ready to relax, yet can not help but relate to one or more of the issues that are involved in the lives of the characters and people in the film.

The story itself is a portrait of a bittersweet reality with moments of uncertainty and pain, but also discovery and bliss. The quiet dialogue between the story and the connection to the furry fandom itself is a brilliant one, connecting the idea that there is a sense of anxiety or loss in the human world, yet there is still hope in the realm of animals. However, this concept does not take the foreground, decidedly stating that sometimes there is no escape for those that need it.

Brett Hanover masterfully captures raw emotion in a well constructed and carefully crafted piece of cinema. The symbiotic relationship between the art of the film and the reality within it create a unique experience that is a delight for a cinephile, and an emotional experience for just about anyone else. Rukus is not a film only meant for those in the furry fandom. While others may be more hesitant due to the relation of the community within the film, I believe it can easily be overlooked by anyone who truly enjoys a good film and an impassioned story.

– Marbles

For anyone near the San Francisco Bay Area, join our furmeet for the movie premiere on Feb 2 – there will be fursuiting and dinner with the director.

Like the article? It takes a lot of effort to share these. Please consider supporting Dogpatch Press on Patreon.  You can access exclusive stuff for just $1, or get Con*Tact Caffeine Soap as a reward.  They’re a popular furry business seen in dealer dens. Be an extra-perky patron – or just order direct from Con*Tact.

Jess “Rom” Looney — also known as Looney Raccooney — is a furry artist and a fur-suit maker. His web site is new and just getting built up, but he’s already got a backlog of his creative endeavors to show off. Besides taking commission work, he’s hoping to add his own comic series to the web site soon.

image c. 2018 by Rom Looney

So furs at JMoF made a parody of that weird Schmoyoho Chicken Attack video that was covered here September: https://youtu.be/h2pe01hEwUg
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Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.

Skeleton Crew, by Gre7g Luterman. Illustrated by Rick Griffin.
Lansing, MI, Thurston Howl Publications, September 2017, trade paperback $11.99 (215 [+ 1] pages), Kindle $2.99.

The title page says Skeleton Crew. The cover says The Kanti Cycle: Skeleton Crew. The spine says The Kanti Cycle. 1 Skeleton Crew. Which is the definitive version?

Probably the latter. Skeleton Crew is the first book of Kanti’s adventures. There will be at least a trilogy.

I am more uneasy about calling this a “First Edition, 2017”. I reviewed Luterman’s CreateSpace edition a long time ago. This new version contains minor revisions and all new illustrations by Rick Griffin, so it may be a preferred version. Thurston Howl Publications’ smaller type size has reduced it from 259 pages to 215 pages. But it is not so different that the plot synopsis in my earlier review cannot serve for this edition as well.

“This is the first hard science-fiction novel I’ve ever read with absolutely no humans in it. The cover […] shows two of the main characters; Commissioner Sarsuk, a kraken, holding Kanti, a geroo. All of the other characters in the novel are geroo. There are […] full-page illustrations […] by Rick Griffin of Housepets! fame, showing such geroo characters as Kanti, Saina, Tish, Captain Ateri, Chendra, and more.

The geroo are unclothed, with thick tails and fur. There are frequent mentions in the text of twitching ears, tail rings, and the like. Kanti is called Shaggy for his unruly fur.

Skeleton Crew is set entirely on, or within, the huge generation exploratory starship White Flower II in interstellar space. […] Four centuries earlier, the krakun came to the primitive planet Gerootec and offered to hire thousands of the overpopulated geroo as their starship crews. The geroo who went into space and their descendants would never see Gerootec again, but they would live in luxury compared to the backward geroo on their homeworld. Technically, the White Flower II belongs to the krakuns’ Planetary Acquisitions, Incorporated, with a mission of finding new planets that can be colonized.

New planets for the krakun. Never for the geroo.

After 400 years, some geroo are asking if the krakun are their employers or their slavemasters. Commissioner Sarsuk is Planetary Acquisions’ representative to the White Flower II. As you can guess from the cover, he is the novel’s villain.

“Strictly speaking, all krakun vessels prohibited alcohol. But enforcement of that law was half-hearted at best. Showing up to work drunk might land a crewman before a judge, but only the krakun really cared if anyone drank during their down-time.

If a krakun caught someone drinking, he’d probably toss that geroo in the recycler. But that’s how the monstrous creatures handled most problems they encountered. Fortunately, the White Flower II seldom hosted anyone from Krakuntec. The commissioner visited periodically to check on the ship, but he wasn’t liable to stroll down any of the decks – not any of the ones with a three-meter clearance, at least.” (p. 14)

“Kanti headed off to the gravity down-wells and hopped back to deck twenty-four. The wells were essentially stairwells without the stairs – simple platforms that geroo could jump off to reach the level below. The artificial gravity in the wells was turned down to a tiny fraction of normal, so each hop was slow and gentle.

Each platform shadowed the opening down to the next level; so to travel multiple levels, one simply hopped, turned around, and hopped again until reaching the desired deck. The overlapping structure ensured that a geroo could not fall multiple levels accidentally.” (p. 15)

The White Flower II has a crew of ten thousand geroo. Exactly. 10,001would be overpopulation, and the krakun’s policy for overpopulation is – messy. And that’s one “law” that Commissioner Sarsuk enforces ruthlessly.

Both the tech-talk and the plot are fascinating. This review is heavy on the novel’s technology, and reveals almost nothing about its plot, because the plot is full of twists and surprises. Even revealing this much of the technology probably gives away some major spoilers. But Skeleton Crew is a real page-turner. I could hardly put it down for wanting to find out what would happen to Kanti and his friends next.

“A well-placed kick into Kanti’s stomach dropped him back to the deck, grasping his gut and gasping for breath.

Ateri knelt before the shaggy geroo and whispered in his ear. ‘Listen very closely to me, kerrati. You will not discuss what was said here today—ever. You will never, ever, say the words, ‘skeleton crew’ again. Is that understood?’

Kanti nodded. Tears streamed down his muzzle.

‘If you do, I promise that I will find out,’ Ateri said calmly. ‘And when I do, I will rip chunks of you out with my bare paws … and toss them into the recycler one by one … until all that remains of you … is your blood in my fur … and your screams in my ears.’” (p. 133)

– Fred Patten

• Buy on Amazon

Like the article? It takes a lot of effort to share these. Please consider supporting Dogpatch Press on Patreon.  You can access exclusive stuff for just $1, or get Con*Tact Caffeine Soap as a reward.  They’re a popular furry business seen in dealer dens. Be an extra-perky patron – or just order direct from Con*Tact.

That’s how the artist known as Kiriska says it. On their web site they describe themselves as a “… Seattle-based artist specializing in surreal and macabre wildlife art, as well as monsters, creatures, and anime-inspired illustrations.” To that end they have t-shirts, prints, stickers, and other materials for sale through a variety of outlets like Redbubble, Inprnt, and Society 6.

image c. 2018 by Kiriska

Man, I wish the whole "Dancing on ice" on ITV was just bears.
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Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.

Red is the Darkest Color, by Brett A. Brooks
Atlanta, GA, Pandahead Publishing, June 2016, trade paperback, $15.95 ([4 +] 280 [+ 2] pages), Kindle $2.99.

The Devil Was Green, by Brett A. Brooks
Atlanta, GA, Pandahead Publishing, January 2017, trade paperback, $15.95 ([3 +] 278 pages), Kindle $2.99.

Pussy Katnip owns and is the popular chanteuse at the Kit Kat Klub in Mutt Town. But she’s not reluctant to step outside her club to help someone in need – especially if this involves clashing with an old enemy:

“With more than a slight jag to his turn, Todd looked back at the stage, and then back to the bartender. ‘Does … well, that is to say, do you know if Miss Katnip ever sees any of the people who come to see her?’

Robby snorted softly. ‘Depends on who it is and what they want. You a fan?’

‘I … truthfully, I’ve never heard Miss Katnip sing before.’ He picked up the scotch and took a small sip. ‘I was hoping that I might …’ There was a moments [sic.] pause, followed by Todd taking a much larger sip and then looking Robby in the eye. ‘I’ve heard that Miss Katnip can help people. Sometimes at least. I was truly hoping that she might see me tonight.’

‘Oh.’ Robby nodded. ‘Well, y’see, Miss Katnip tries to keep a low profile, y’know? She’s not the type who goes out and gets in trouble herself.’ Casually, Robby scratched under his chin. ‘But, just for conversation purposes, what is it you was wanting to talk to Miss Katnip about? You got law troubles?’

‘What? No. No, nothing like that.’ Todd sat up straight. ‘The police and I … they haven’t been an issue. In fact, they haven’t been willing to talk to me much at all.’” (Red, pgs. 4-5)

When Todd Crocker comes into her club looking for help against a mob boss who is threatening him, he is told not to worry. Boss Dogg and his chief enforcer Mugsy are familiar adversaries. Pussy visits Boss’ rival night club, the Dogg House, during the day when it’s closed and persuades him and Mugsy to leave Todd alone:

“Faster than the eye could follow, Pussy grabbed the chair and raised it up, smashing it against the brute attacking her. Splinters of wood showered down as Mugsy flew up into the air, landing hard on the ground.

She was on him instantly. Grabbing him by the shirt, she spun around, flinging him over ten feet into the seating area. The table and chairs he met did not respond well, and the sound of cracking wood filled the space.

Pussy looked to Boss. ‘Don’t move.’ He didn’t.

[…]

‘Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to drop everything that Mr. Crocker owes you. You aren’t going to bother him, or even remember that he exists. Your dealings with him are through. Am I clear?’   She stopped inches away from him.

‘Yeah. Yeah, sure.’ He nodded rapidly.” (Red, pgs. 20-22)

Pussy seems to be the clear winner, until a mystery vixen, Foxy Kitt, offers to take care of Pussy for free. All that Boss Dogg needs to do is to get Foxy hired as a singer at the Kit Kat Klub.

Their plot involves getting rid of the Kit Kat’s other singer, Jenny Foal.   Foxy Kitt appears to be an innocent replacement when Jenny abruptly quits and leaves Mutt Town. Pussy, suspicious, goes after her, leaving Foxy free to work.

Pussy finds herself confronted in Big City by crooked Bulldog Baxter and more of his goons than she expects. She needs her super-strength potion.

“In the hours that she waited at the station for the noon train, Pussy swirled the bottle in front of her countless times. There was barely enough to even register. One dose. That’s all she had left. No way that she could handle all those goons with just one dose. She needed to get back to the club. To her supply.” (Red, p. 85)

But it’s not there. Foxy has been busy. She has the fizz now, and she knows how to use it.

• §         §         §         §         §         §         §         §         §         §

Pussy Katnip is not Brett A. Brooks’ creation. In a Foreword to Red is the Darkest Color, he explains how he found her in an old comic book of the 1940s. Pussy Katnip was probably the most obscure, most forgotten, most improbable, and ugliest funny-animal series ever created. Brooks considers it his one-man mission to rescue her from obscurity.

Brooks isn’t a cartoonist, so he has done this through a series of novels and short stories rather than comic books; the two novels reviewed here, and the Kindle short stories Under the Gray, A Hand of Gold, and The Hillside Murder Club. (The protagonist in the last is detective Lila Ringtail, a supporting character in The Devil Was Green.)

Brooks can do this because the comic books that Pussy Katnip appeared in have long been discontinued. Their publisher went bankrupt in 1950; nobody knows anything about the signed “Len Short” (it may be a pseudonym); the copyrights have all expired; and nobody cares, anyway. Look at the sample here from the original comics and decide: would you want to claim responsibility for this?

The combination of crime noir thriller and superheroes never worked well before, although Brooks does a much better than usual job of blending them here. He has made a couple of slight changes: he has turned Pussy’s Katnip Kafe into the Kit Kat Klub (“Kafe” was not convincing as the name of the night club shown in the comics). He has turned Robert the bartender from a pig into Robby, a bird (robin?), and Mugsy from a fox into a wolf. And he has lessened the funny-animal atmosphere by describing background characters as “men”: a hog-like man, the bull-like man, a cute little lamb of a girl, a wolfish man. But this works against the nature of the Pussy Katnip stories as funny-animal stories. If you are not familiar with the 1940s comic books, you’ll never know that the bartender was originally a pig or that Mugsy was a fox. And there is no way to know what new characters like Todd Crocker are supposed to be.

• §         §         §         §         §         §         §         §         §         §

Red is the Darkest Color (cover by Valentina Barmina) appears to be somewhat inspired by one of the original comic-book stories; the four-page “Eviction Enigma” in All Your Comics, a December 1944 132-page one-shot. Brooks has combined that with his own origin story of Pussy and of the Katnip clan’s ancestral fizz.

The Devil Was Green (cover by Toth “Darbaras” Dávid László) begins with an old friend of Pussy’s appearing in the Kit Kat Klub:

“The sixth row. Table eighteen, to be precise. She weaved her way to it without pause, and before she arrived the only person at the table was already standing.

Pussy stopped three feet away from her. The other woman stood shorter than Pussy. A delicate white covered her body. Long ears lopped down on either side of her face, peeking out from under a stylish coiffure of platinum blond hair. If you knew where to look, you could see a dark brown patch over her right eye, hidden by a good bit of makeup. Pussy knew exactly where to look.

‘Of all the clubs in all the world …’ Pussy shook her head. ‘I never expected to see you here.’

‘Sorry, Princess,’ the bunny’s voice was soft but clear. ‘I didn’t see a sign telling me to keep out.’

‘It’s been a long time, Spot.’ Pussy shook her head.” (Green, pgs. 2-3)

Pussy introduces Spot, Coney Hase, to Robby and tells him how they used to be old friends; that when Pussy came to Mutt Town, they shared a room in a cheap rooming house and were waitresses together in a diner. When Robby leaves, Coney gets more intimate:

“Her hand stayed wrapped around the drink in her hand, but Coney did look up at Pussy. ‘I’m sorry. I … I really am happy to see you, Pussy. I wanted to come here. Honest. It’s just …’

‘Just what?’ Pussy prodded.

‘It’s kinda difficult to come in here and see,’ Coney’s head turned as she took a quick look around, ‘all of this. It’s hard to know your friend is a big star when you’re as much a … a loser as I am.” (Green, p. 9)

Coney gets drunk, makes a big scene accusing Pussy of being a false friend, and storms out. Pussy goes to the apartment house where Coney is staying, just in time to find her being murdered:

“Pussy blinked and shook her head. A moment later she put her shoulder into the door a second time. The door exploded off its hinges, falling to the ground in three pieces.

A female figure lay on the ground. She was bruised and beaten, but Pussy recognized her at first glance. Above her stood a man. At least Pussy thought it was a man.

He was tall. Well over seven feet. His skin was alabaster in color, with an obvious rough texture. At the end of his hands were long, curved claws. Similar claws were at the end of his long, three-toed feet. A thick, scaled tail slid back and forth over the floor behind him. Running from the tip of the tail, up his back, and onto his head were a series of raised black spines. These spines became hundreds of smaller quills, curling back off his head like jagged black hair. Two brilliant yellow eyes stared towards her above his snout. And it looked as though smoke rolled out of his nostrils.” (Green, pgs. 16-17)

Pussy is suspected of Coney’s murder. She escapes from Mutt Town’s police to find Coney’s fantastic killer and prove her own innocence, but she is closely pursued by relentless police detective Lila Ringtail (featured on László’s cover):

“She leaned out the window, looking at the glass. Clean shards of glass scattered all the way to the edge of the platform. She pulled herself back inside.

‘Anybody been down below?’ Lila asked.

‘I don’t know,’ the officer [a pig] answered.

‘Okay, well, then stop what you’re doing and go down to that alley. Let me know if you see any blood down there.’ She pointed out the window.

‘I’m supposed to look for prints,’ he responded.

‘Okay. Then go look for prints down in the alley. And while you’re down there, do me a favor and see if there’s any blood.’ She took the cigarette out of her mouth and tapped the ashes outside the window.

‘I’m not –’

‘Do it!’ Any hint of request was gone. This was an order.” (Green, pgs. 29-30)

Will Pussy be able to stay ahead of Lila long enough to find the real killer – whatever it is?

The Pussy Katnip novels and short stories are funny-animal crime noir/superhero fiction that you can’t find anywhere else. Brett A. Brooks has four other books out from his Pandahead Publishing, including Edible Complex featuring teenage zombies, and a set of seven art prints featuring the Pussy Katnip cast.

– Fred Patten

• Buy Red is the Darkest Color on Amazon
• Buy The Devil Was Green on Amazon

Like the article? It takes a lot of effort to share these. Please consider supporting Dogpatch Press on Patreon.  You can access exclusive stuff for just $1, or get Con*Tact Caffeine Soap as a reward.  They’re a popular furry business seen in dealer dens. Be an extra-perky patron – or just order direct from Con*Tact.

Benson Shum is an illustrator and animation artist at Walt Disney Feature Animation. (He worked on Moana, Zootopia, Big Hero 6, and other films.) As part of their Artist Showcase series, Disney-Hyperion published his illustrated children’s book, Holly’s Day at the Pool, which is available on Amazon. “Holly the hippo imagines the worst: Icebergs and icy water, penguins and seals! Her imagination bursts at every turn, making it harder and harder for her to step foot in the pool… Until she get the chance to be a hero. Holly may be scared, but she is a very brave girl.” Now on his web site Mr. Shum announced that he will be illustrating a new book, Go To Sheep, written by Jennifer Sattler. That one’s set to be published by Little Simon later this spring.

image c. 2018 Disney-Hyperion

Looks like I missed this one, video from Fall Out Boy. Thanks to Rodney for pointing this one out.
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Hello Everyone!

Welcome to our first episode of 2018! Thank you for your continued support this year and we hope that this is a year filled with love and laughter for you and yours.

We open this week's discussion with a review of 2018 so far. We briefly touch on Further Confusion and our panel and party there, and have a brief discussion of our respective vacations, cover bands, and how we use the support we get from our Patrons in order to grow our event schedule and make it out to more panel opportunities.

We then shift into our ninth all questions show! We've received a ton of email during our time away and we wanted to address some of the backlog. We go over questions ranging from long distance libido, sexual insecurity, and how to stop chafing your junk when you dry hump. It's a sexy question time this week on Feral Attraction!

For more information, including a list of topics, see our Show Notes for this episode.

Thanks and, as always, be well!

FA 098 All Questions Show Vol 9 - Vacations! Panels! Dick chafing! Questions of roleplay and libido. All this, and more, on this week's Feral Attraction!

Dear Papabear,

I've written to you a number of times, and I'm sure you know I've seen my fair amount of stress in my life thus far. There is someone I have mentioned before, one of my first friends in this fandom, and one of my closest friends to date. Basically, we both went through a lot together, and she was a breath of fresh air after the long time I spent isolated socially.

But the thing is, there is another person I'm gonna refer to as "Z" who a bunch of us met a while back. Z, no offense to him, just isn't the kind of person I really like. He is a little over the top when it comes to dirty jokes, and seems like he never could take something seriously, despite the fact half a year ago I saw him be serious. But then again, half a year is a long time.

Basically the thing is, when Z popped up, my old friend started spending more time with him. And yea this isn't bad, but it caught me off guard a little. He came out of what seemed like nowhere. This isn't something that bothered me, but eventually things like her drawing endless amounts of art for him, almost flat out ignoring if the three of us are all in the same room, and straight up acting more like Z than how she did before. And although I am severely angry at my brother for snooping Z's phone he promised he wouldn't, it turned out some NSFW things had happened with roleplay between them, as well as Z and almost everyone else I knew in that friend group. It didn't help my liking toward him, but I did realize that was private and isn't something I should be concerned about or really even know. Me and my old friend had actually dated in the past, and split over a matter of sexual orientation, so I couldn't decide if this was affecting it or not as well.

It’s no surprise to me what this is: jealousy. 

I have spoken to her a couple different times, and she has debunked a lot of worries I had. Like drawing a lot of art for him, his fursona is good as a template tester since it's not very complex. But for some reason it always keeps coming back to me, and I just don't know what to do.

I think part of it is she means a lot to me after everything that has happened, and I am just scared of being abandoned. I lost T.R. before (albeit in a much worse manner than this), and I still get scared of losing those close to me now.

Bottom line: what can I do to end this jealousy over my old friend and Z. It's been bothering me for months by this point.

Sincerely,
ScarTheFur
 
* * *
 
Hi, Scar,
 
Friendship jealousies in the fandom are quite common and are usually tied to one’s insecurities. The first thing to be done is to acknowledge that jealousy, recognizing it for what it is, and you have done just that—good for you. Next, you need to think about why you are jealous, and you have done that as well by noting that you are afraid you will lose you will lose her like you did T.R. and you will be abandoned. A third thing to do is to talk about your feelings and fears with your friend, and you have done that, too! My goodness, you are three for three so far. Excellent.
 
The only thing left is to figure out where to go from here. When we form friendships, we typically find that different friends fulfill different needs in our lives and enhance us and complement us in different ways. For example, Papabear has friends in the fandom with whom he can talk about furry stuff, but he also has friends who are not furry with whom he shares other interests, such as politics, religion, outdoor activities, movies, going out to eat. None of my friends fulfills all my interests, but all of them together do.
 
You talk about how Z is not like you in their sense of humor and, apparently, interest in furporn. These are things that your long-time friends seems to find interesting and so they have glomped on to Z pretty hard, spending a lot of time with them. This often occurs with new friendships but usually dies down a bit after a certain amount of time. Your old friend denies preferring Z to you, and I would take them at their word for it. It is just an early fascination.
 
What you need to do, then, is target the things that you and your old pal have in common that you can share and that have little or nothing to do with Z.  Say (just making this up) you are both into Pokémon Go and Z isn’t—then spend some time playing that together. Be the friend that fulfills interests that Z can’t or won’t.
 
The other thing is to diversify.  Like a stock portfolio, it is unwise to invest all your emotional cash into one or two friends. That way, if one of those friend’s stock crashes (i.e., they abandon you) you’re not left all alone. I’m not saying that will happen, but it’s just wise not to lean too heavily on just one person.
 
Hope this helps! Good Luck!
 
Papabear

Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.

Intimate Little Secrets, by Rechan
Dallas, TX, FurPlanet Productions, March 2017, trade paperback $9.95 (163 pages), ebook $6.95.

Intimate Little Secrets is a collection of nine “sensual” short stories by Rechan, published for Furry Fiesta 2017. The book is publisher-rated NC-17, for adult readers.

Robert Baird describes the nine stories in his Introduction as “alternately touching and titillating; tantalizing and tender. They invite us to explore the inner lives of characters consistently defined firstly by their refreshing believability.” (p. 7) Some of these stories originally appeared online, on Rechan’s SoFurry and FurAffinity accounts.

Indeed. I have complained before about authors whose characters are only funny animals; animal-headed humans. Rechan never lets that happen. His characters are anthropomorphic animals; a blend of humans and the species that they are described as.

“Fanservice” features Robin and Dean, two shy young mink, office workers on their first evening date. Robin dresses as Veronica Tamas, a TV actress she knows Dean likes. “Part of the problem was Tamas, as a deer, had wonderful legs put on display by the mini-dress lab coat and the sleek knee high black boots. With the longer torso and shorter limbs of a mink, Robin wasn’t pulling it off.” (p. 9)

Robin tries to make it up in other ways:

“For a moment Dean only squeezed her shoulder, then his digits inched up to graze her throat. A faint chirr bubbled up as he stroked her so-soft fur, and she reached out to caress his wrist and forearm.

When his touch moved up to her cheek and muzzle, Robin closed her eyes and tilted into it, a soft breath escaping from her. The scent of him drew her in, her body easing closer to his until they bumped.

That caress lasted only a moment longer before he cupped her cheek, her whiskers brushed his, and she instinctively moved into the oncoming kiss.

Their teeth knocked together.” (p. 14)

They eventually get it right. They never get out of their office that evening. The most unrealistic aspect of “Fanservice” to me was that Robin would go all the way on a first date.

Marjani, a serval in “Strange on a Train” is having a very unpleasant ten-hour nighttime train trip. She can’t get to sleep.

“Well, if she wasn’t getting any sleep then she needed some distraction. Marjani leaned back and tried to get comfortable, sliding her tail through the hole in the seat’s back and into the tail-pouch. A perk of having a shorter tail meant she had more room to flick it. She popped in her headphones, started an audio book, and tried to relax. Of course breathing in to calm her nerves just reminded her again of this miserable train; whatever filters they used to clear the air of mixed-species smells must have been broken, as the collective scent of the passengers, both past and present, had become potent. At lease she wasn’t canine.” (p. 28)

The erotic audio book that she is listening to makes Marjani horny. Another discomfort – or is it? It’s 3 a.m.; most of the other passengers have retired to sleeping cars, and she’s alone except for a handsome skunk who is already eyeing her.

“Like that hunky skunk. How big was he? How would it feel with him on top of her? Dwelling on that, she decided there was no harm in letting him see a little bit more. She even gave him a name in her mind: Hunk.” (p. 31)

See Teagan Gavet’s cover. As they fuck, Marjani can’t help comparing Hunk with Amadi, her absent husband. They have an open relationship, so she has Hunk take their photo while in coitus with her phone to share with Amadi.

“Missed” features Miss Pendigrass, the border collie librarian, and

Beth, her mink assistant, in a BDSM lesbian relationship. The setting seems to be a military academy; “The click-clack of Miss Pendigrass’ riding boots echoed down the hall in her wake, the sound helping to transform her walk from a stately stroll to the confident, no-nonsense prowl more suited to an executive.” (p. 43) Miss Pendigrass is clearly the dominatrix in their meetings in a disused storeroom. All goes well until Beth admits she’s tempted to end their relationship because she’s just met Connor, a golden retriever youth. “He doesn’t make me feel like the way I feel around most males, but the way I am with you, and the girls before you.” (p. 51) Since Beth is undecided about what she wants, Miss Pendigrass determines to experiment with bringing Connor into their relationship; to turn it from a BDSM couple into a sex triangle.

In “Fireworks”, Desiree is a gazelle who works for an escort service. Jacob, a deer who is tired of his family nagging him to find a girlfriend and get married, hires her to pretend they’re dating at a family dinner. The dinner is not a success, but Desiree persuades Jacob to get therapeutic counseling about developing a higher self-esteem.

“Teeth” is a three-page mood piece between Carli, a lioness, and the unnamed narrator who can’t climax until he feels about to die:

“In that moment Carli’s muzzle closes enough to stop my breath. Realizing I can’t breathe, my stomach jumps and I fight. Even as I fight, I come, and muffled as I am I cannot wail my delight. I’m not finished before she lets me breathe, and I spend the last moments of the rush clinging and pushing against her, in echo of a fight and in approval.” (pgs. 76-77)

“When the Paint Dries” is the most complex story here. Luis Rojas is a cacomistle high-school teacher and a would-be artist. He was married to Angelita, a nurse, another cacomistle who divorced him three years earlier because of his refusal to have children. He feels likehislife has been on hold since then. She has since remarried Doug, a rat. Now Angelita has returned to Luis with a request. She and Doug want a family, but they cannot breed together because their species are incompatible. She asks if Luis would be the sperm donor of their child, scientifically or the old-fashioned way. Luis must consider this carefully. He still has artistic aspirations to paint Angelica’s portrait. Does he still have any romantic feelings for her? Would he still have any moral obligations to the child? Luis’ decision lets him get on with his life.

“Rickety V” is a sequel to “Missed”. Connor, the golden retriever, is introduced by Beth, the mink, to Janie Pendigrass, the border collie:

“Dipping his nose to her wrist and sniffing, he picked up the scents of books and tea. She didn’t smell him in return, crossing her arms when he was done.” (p. 98)

Janine is frigid toward Connor, but when the women explain their BDSM relationship to him, he’s willing to try it:

“‘What?’ they said together.

‘If that’s something Beth likes, then I want to at least given [sic.] it a try, so that maybe I can do it too.’” (p. 101)

The three are determined to be open and reasonable about whether Connor should join the two, or whether Beth should drop her feelings for Janine and go with Connor. The story is about what they work out.

“Three to Tango” is a sequel to “Strange on a Train” from Amadi’s viewpoint. Amadi and Marjani sure do like their sex games, the lewder the better, especially in a threesome with Kahlua the chipmunk.

In “TLC”, Margaret and Henry are an older fox couple. Henry is dying of ALS; he has already lost the use of his arms. Their children and grandchildren take him out in his wheelchair, but Margaret has learned to masturbate him to an erection at night so they can keep up a pretense of a sex life for the little time he has left.

The stories in Intimate Little Secrets all have sex in them, but it is consensual sex between adults. They are more about the intimate little secrets behind the eroticism. The sex is secondary; Rechan concentrates upon the minds and souls of his furred characters.

– Fred Patten

• Buy on Fur Planet
• Buy ebook on Bad Dog Books
• Follow Rechan on SoFurry
• Follow Rechan on FurAffinity

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In the spirit of “How did this sneak up on us?”, it turns out that Condorito now has his own movie — called, appropriately enough, Condorito: The Movie. What, never heard of Condorito? The bird-with-a-beret was created in 1949 by Chilean doctor and political cartoonist René Ríos Boettiger. Since then, the bird has gone on to become practically the Mickey Mouse of Latin America… which is funny, given that he was created to make fun of Walt Disney’s over-sanitized version of Chile in the film Saludos Amigos. The Condorito gag strip (always ending with a lame joke or pun, and lots of characters fainting over backwards with a loud PLOP!) has become so well-known that someone was bound to make an animated movie out of it. And now Pajarraco Films (from Peru!) have brought Condorito to the screen in CGI. (It’s only been released in Spanish with subtitles, so far.) The plot? Condorito would desperately love to date his va-va-voom human girlfriend Yayita, but doing so means he has to get past her disapproving parents. Things get a bit more complicated when invading aliens capture and run off with Yayita’s mama — and who else but Condorito to try and rescue her? Admittedly the critics have not been kind to the film, some complaining that it smooths off the rough edges and adult content of the original strip. Though not very approving either, Lili Loofbourow’s review for The Week has some good background information on the strip. Oh, check out the official trailer too.

image c. 2018 Pajarraco Films

FC was a blast this year ... I wish I had gone to the dance now.
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Genetic modification? Check. A university for Furs only? Check. A nightly sex club with felines, canines, equines, reptiles, humans, and alien werewolves? Check, check, check, check, check, and check!In Joe Sherman’s novel The Student, Chris is a young human interested in the colony of Furs that human society seems to disdain perpetually. However, when he gets accepted at the University in the furry colony, he leaps at the chance to learn more about the strange creatures. What starts out as a geeky sci fi story quickly turns into an erotic novel when Chris’ roommate Marcus (occasionally spelled Markus) introduces him to the local sex club.Now, despite the interesting and perhaps unique premise of the book, I took several key issues with it. As a product itself, the cover is lacking in quality or intent, coming off as maybe a young adult horror with its Gothic font and focus on blood-red. In the print version, most of the image is just dark, so we get the sense of a dark force looming. Yet, nothing of the sort happens in the book. The editing is almost nonexistent. Characters’ names are spelled different ways throughout (even the main character gets a name change in the Introduction), and typos, grammar errors, and awkward formatting become consistent.In terms of overarching plot, there isn’t much of one. You could easily consider the volume a string of male sex fantasies with lots of head-hopping to go with it. Initially, I had the complaint that the book objectifies women to ridiculous levels, but the more I thought about it, the more I think every character exists for sexual gratification. This is about as far from realistic fiction as you can get.Also worth mentioning is the book has a very explicit gang-rape scene that becomes glorified and romanticized to the point where the MC’s general response was ecstasy near the end, publicly stating his annoyance at the gang, and having a mildly sore anus for the days following. This might have been less shocking had there been a trigger warning or any kind of sexual violence up to this point. As it stands though, it’s over-positive and really out of place.However, all these issues aside, the writing style itself is the selling point of the novel. I kept wanting to read more, and I hope to read the sequels when they come out. I think that with a lot of the episodic sex out of the way, the author will be able to explore some of the few plot threads (like the above-mentioned random alien-werewolf) he left open by the end of the book. And again, the writing style is very approachable, and that is hard to do with erotica. On one end of the spectrum is super clunky writing that has you rolling your eyes, and on the other end is super lofty writing that...also leaves you rolling your eyes. His style is wonderful, and I did find myself continuing to turn pages despite its flaws.The book is more porn than erotica, but, if that’s up your alley in a sci-fi setting, this is the book for you!