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Article submitted by guest writer Duncan R. Piasecki. (Part 2 is here).

Let’s face it: we furries are a pretty theatrical bunch. Fursuiting is, in itself, a form of performance art, dramatic and striking, and probably the most visible aspect of our culture to anyone looking in from the outside. (It’s certainly what is talked about the most in the media).

None of this should surprise anyone here, even those of you who stumbled into the furry internet after straying off the normal path. In fact, it’s not even that surprising to the outside world. One need only look at, say, ultra-successful Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Cats, or the stage musical version of The Lion King, to see that the visceral drama of humans performing as animals is widely acknowledged the world over.

But that’s not what we’re here to talk about today. No, actually, we’re going into a deeper rabbit hole (har), one that many of you probably didn’t even know about: the furry musical.

No, not the ones with furries as the characters in focus. One with furries in focus. As in, us. As in, fursuiting, going to conventions, role-play, yelling at people online, and that sort of thing. More surprising to all of you, perhaps, is that there wasn’t one, but actually at least two musicals about furries being our regular old selves… both written by people not entirely within the fandom.

In Part 1, we’ll look at a musical where our request for documentation yielded a generous response by the director.  In Part 2, we’ll look at one that seems to be a fading memory with no record to be found – as well as an exciting happening to come in 2018.

Mom isn’t home tonight – how Yiff!/<furReality> came to be.

Back in the mid-00s, a British man by the name of Tim Saward was studying a Master of Arts degree in musical theatre at Goldsmith’s College in London. As part of the requirements to complete the degree, he had to come up with a final project, a performance of an original piece of musical theatre. Inspired by some strange friends of his who were into some things he himself wasn’t, but liking the possibilities for storytelling and innovative modern theatre, he picked the subject matter: furries. With idea in mind, and after input from actual furries on the internet about what exactly the musical’s story should be, he began to write. It’d be a little while before more would come of it than simply an idea. Let’s start there.

A song called “Fursonality”, performed by “Mortimer L. Wombat” (which seems to be a screen name for our friend Tim Saward) and Stage Lion (a furry resident of Buffalo, NY) was written as a test, recorded and released in January 2007. It was meant to be part of the musical, and seems to be the first song written for it.  Later it was cut and replaced with a song called “FurReality”, which became a little more important… but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. There was also a quick animation by the show’s animator for the song, but we’ll also get to him and what I mean by that properly in a minute.

At some point around this time (it’s hard to pinpoint exactly), there was also a release of a song called “Wolves in the Forest”. The version was called SCV (for reasons I only found out recently – it’s short for “Sondheim Comp Version”, a reference to Stephen Sondheim, a very successful and popular writer of musicals).  The SCV version had different lyrics and dealt with finding hesitation marks, rather than a drawing of a fox, and other subtle lyrical differences (such as referring to Lee, rather than Russell). It would later be retooled and become a mainstay in the production, under the same name.

In September, with the help of Darren Wayte, and fuzzy help in the form of Vahn Fox (story consultant) and Kyle Evans (a.k.a. Edge, on animation duty), Goldsmith’s College held a 45-minute concert performance.  Songs were presented for a musical that was, at the time, called Yiff! A Furry Musical, version 0.1.

The website for the musical sold the story as thus:

Childhood fantasies sometimes last a person’s whole life. Some furries just like anthropomorphic cartoons or dressing up like tigers. Others want something a bit deeper and more adult: more sexy; more yiffy; more taboo. Russ knows he’s a furry, but is otherwise clueless. Can he come of age in the furry community, both online and in real life? Is having a second life always a good thing? And how do you deal with the world’s wolves? All the intrinsic comedy of the furry experience meets some serious questions about growing up and the fluidity of sexuality in a decade of easy fantasy in a perky new musical that is unmistakeably contemporary.

That doesn’t tell you much.  Let me fill in the exact story, at least as it stood in its most complete form:

19-year-old Russell from Whitby is heterosexual, lonely, has no friends, no job, and no real prospects.  He struggles with his interest in anthropomorphic animals, and feels it to not be normal. He lives with his conservative Christian mother, after his father left or died (it’s unclear), and feels like she doesn’t understand him. Russell finds his way into an IRC chat with furries. Realizing that these are the people he’s been looking for, he takes on the persona of RedFox (gee I wonder what species he is) and makes a few friends.  In particular, there is JadeVixen, a sexy (but rather unpopular in the chatroom) kitsune girl that he starts to fall for. As his relationship with her grows, he gets deeper into the furry fandom and lifestyle.  Russell makes art and gets a fursuit.  Relations with his mother start breaking down over her misunderstanding of it all. Drama, hilarity, and explorations of sexuality ensue.  There’s a twist and cliffhanger ending that we’re promised will be continued, and would lead to darker territory, in the finished musical.

Yes, if the title didn’t give it away, sex is a fairly large part of this. I can hear your cringing from all the way over here, but it’s not the sole focus of the story at least. It does get pretty explicit at times (the performances were all strictly 18+, partly due to profanity), so it’s not great for stereotypes. Yiff is overtly discussed a lot, as you’d expect… I mean, you don’t go to Hamilton and expect them to almost never utter the name Hamilton, right?

The performance was not acted out per se.  Mostly the characters are just singing the songs (this is true of all performances ever held of material from it), but there were animations accompanying several songs (including the title song… awkwaaaaaaard).  Animation is projected on a screen on stage, and, yes, at a few points the actors dressed in fursuits (the cheap store-bought versions, but hey, still).  That’s pretty ambitious for the time in which it was done.

The performance itself was… fine. There were some obvious flubs and I wasn’t a huge fan of this particular version of Russell, at least compared to others, but it was a start.  It gained a little attention. Things would not remain totally static. Before we discuss what changes were made, we need to talk about 2008, which was a big year for Yiff!.

The 2008 cast and crew. As you can see, most of the “costumes” for the performance were just shirts with a picture of the character they were playing, in the same style as the animations. A few of them also played several different characters at different points. Not pictured are the two fox fursuits, but they were there on stage. That’s Tim Saward in the front, wearing the glasses and striped sweater.

In 2008, a bigger, more complete version, numbered version 0.2.0, was performed at King’s Head Theatre in Islington.  It had two dates, with a mostly new cast. It ran for twenty minutes longer than the first, at 65 minutes overall, with new and retooled songs.

The story remained much the same, but more story beats were expanded on.  The sexual side you expect from the title was expanded on quite a bit too.  Now there was a song called “The Ultimate Yiff”, about “desiring cartoons”, not being sure if it’s normal or if it even exists in other people (despite knowing the common-ish word for it used by other people).  It had the lyric “animation, masturbation, these are the only reasons I have to live“.  Then there was another song in which Russell is drunk at a furmeet and frustrated he couldn’t meet a girl.  An amiable, camp raccoon named RaccoonBoy grabs him and asks if he knows what a jailhouse gay is, and he gets a little… excited by scritching.  Then there’s a song that, well… you can’t hear it in the audio, but it featured actual simulated masturbation on stage while on webcam with Jade, who is telling him that he loves her. Make what you will of that, and the fact that he’s caught doing it.  (And you thought Rocky Horror was awkward to see with your conservative parents!).

The performance was more professional.  There were less awkward bits where people flubbed their lines, so it was overall better done than the original performance. This would, ultimately, be the most complete we’d ever see the musical. It was also the most attention the musical would get.  There was even a performance of some of the songs at the Rainfurrest 2008 masquerade.

In 2009 and 2010 there were two other performances, version numbers 0.2.1 and 0.2.2.  They had only about five or six songs, and again a mostly new (albeit much smaller) cast. Another thing also changed: the name. Gone was the suggestive (well, to us) title.  In was the rather complicated new name <furReality> (and yes, the angle brackets are part of the title), meant to invoke the IRC roots and backbone of the show’s narrative. It’s actually really hard to find out anything about either of these, since they were almost never discussed.  The videos are now long gone and I can’t remember anything about them.  Nor did I personally preserve them due to feeling at the time that they added little to nothing to what was said and done in version 0.2.0 (I know one was performed at the Scenic Route theatre, just can’t remember which one).

The four performances were all filmed in full (bar an accidentally unrecorded song in one).  The videos were put up on YouTube (except for the raunchy song “Yiff!” from the second reading – YouTube removed it not long after being uploaded, for being too raunchy. Apparently lines like “the juice of my sex is flowing like the surging of a tide” were too much in 2008, even if they might not be today).  The songs from the second version were put on FurAffinity as MP3s. I personally also managed to hang on to MP3s of the first recording, ripped from the YouTube videos, but not the videos themselves (to my chagrin).  The videos were never high quality (around 240p generally).  All the audio of the musical is just ripped from those (so it’s not great, quality-wise – low quality, sometimes hard to hear what’s being sung, audience laughing, distortion, compression effects, that sort of thing).

After the fourth, there was silence, though there was talk just after that performance that most of the songs were being dumped. It seems now that the project is all but abandoned. It was due to premiere in full in 2010, but the year came and went, and nothing more was said afterwards. The websites died. Saward did graduate his degree.  After playing around with pantomime theatre based on unusual concepts (such as Bram Stoker’s Dracula) and some other musical projects, he wrote a few unofficial Doctor Who audio dramas, and went on to eventually become the theatre manager for the London Borough of Hillingdon. He works there today. A few years after all of these events, he rendered private almost all of the videos of the musical, for reasons we didn’t understand at the time.  That’s why you’ve probably never heard of it unless you were there.

It’s hard to really gauge now what reaction was.  Little reaction to it seems to still exist, but most seemed mixed to positive, from what I’ve seen. At least, it was good enough for the project to continue on for several years. Perhaps surprising, considering the musical clearly had a sexual angle, and that was still a major prevailing stereotype at the time. (The title song, as you can imagine, was about a role-play that went sexual… and yes, there was animation to accompany it). The musical even started off with the infamous video “Sarah discovers the truth about furries”.

There was plenty of bad reaction too.  This video urging you to boycott it will have you know that.  Part of it, for the video creator at least, evidently had to do with minor character CanusWolf.  He was never shown in any reading (just hinted at offhand in the song “FurReality”), but billed as some kind of mysterious antagonist that’d crop up at some point, possibly in the flamewar hinted at in the first reading’s bridging section.  Also, I find irony in their insisting that the musical will be bad for furries, but that it should include groups like babyfurs and mpreg fans. Yeahhhh… that wouldn’t help it be any better for us than you think it will already be. Anyway, spoiler warning:

That sounds like an end, but it’s not. Patch got hold of Tim.

The director’s response, September 2017

I was quite floored that he responded, and very happy!  But more importantly, he cleared up a few things.  For one, the videos disappeared because the performers requested it. They were unpaid, and long-term video recordings of their performances were not part of the agreement.  Plus, everyone was a bit put out by the ol’ let’s troll the furfags business that happened when Encyclopedia Dramatica caught wind of it.

Second, we found out from him that the musical’s cancellation was due to his feeling it didn’t achieve what he wanted. Ultimately, he felt it stuck a little close to the theatrical conventions he was hoping to break. He then got out of composing entirely, and that was the end of that.

Third, and most excitingly, he shared a trove of files from the development of the musical.  There’s a lot of interesting tidbits that show development over the several years it was in the works.  Actually a bit too much to look at, in some ways, if you don’t know much about music/als (as is the case with me).  I’ve downloaded and backed it all up into a Google Drive folder.

Archive.org would be ideal for this in a more permanent setting. (Does anyone want to put this stuff in a nicely-sorted collection on there?  I’ll happily link to it with proper credit). But in the mean time, I’ll just share the raw files pretty much as I got them, supplemented with my collection of files.  Leave the sorting and proper preservation to someone else with more time and understanding and patience for Archive.org’s oddities.

Development files for Yiff!/<furReality> 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0By0x9b18IXxqN29GWFJVQlF0X3c

Here’s what you’ll find in there:

• MP3s of the first two performances.
• A programme for the second performance in PDF format.
• A WAV file of the SCV version of “Wolves in the Forest”.
• A recording of one of the songs that was never performed live, called “Russ Outfoxes The Counsellor”.
• An MP3 of the cut song “Fursonality”.
• Sheet music of all songs performed live.
• Scripts in various stages of development, as well as outlines that show at least two potential directions the story was set to go.
• Documents from development, including notes that give a lot more depth to certain elements not discussed in the stage show itself, as of the last-seen drafts at least.
• Bits of research, including chat logs with furries.
• Various draft versions of songs, mostly in MIDI format.
• Google Drive also saw fit, in the process of my backing the files up to my personal drive, to mess with the metadata that showed when files were last modified, so I included an HTML file in there that lists all of the files and their original dates, which should help anyone who wants to archive this stuff properly and try make heads or tails of what order various drafts were written in.

A pity we couldn’t get the animations, but oh well. Anyway, you can do almost anything you like with this. There are just a few stipulations:

1. Credit him as Mort L. Wombat, not as Tim Saward. This was his personal preference on the matter, and so we should respect it. His actual name being known and discussed in this article is partly because it was actually common knowledge at the time, so there was no reason to not include it.
2. Whatever you do with it, don’t make money off of it. Record it, perform it, whatever, just don’t charge. If you insist on doing something commercial with it, you’ll have to speak to him first.
3. Not all the stuff under the “Staging and Rehearsal” folder is his work, so he can’t give permission for its direct use, obviously. You’ll see what I mean. There are snippets from other peoples’ blogs and whatnot, used for research.
4. Tim intends for the videos to remain down, due to the aforementioned requests and drama. While I’d argue they should be kept for archival purposes, this is a point to consider before sharing them publicly. (Please do drop us an email if you have the videos, though, and we’ll discuss it.)

It would be quite fun to have better quality recorded performances.  Maybe something like a live show at a convention, followed by an analytical discussion panel about the musical, and the portrayal of fandom it presents.  But I’m just being a nerd and jumping ahead of myself. At any rate, enjoy all that stuff. I’ll leave proper analysis to someone who knows more about music(als), rather than just being a fan.

In Part 2:

We discuss the forgotten musical Furry Tales.  Then there’s an unusual and very cool happening that may bridge this middle chapter of fandom history to one of the biggest events for the furry world in 2018.  Many younger furs may not even realize this history happened.  That’s why we dug it up to help you appreciate the fandom better.

Duncan R. Piasecki and Patch O’Furr

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.

Lion Forge have brought a new dark fantasy for young readers to North America with the English edition of The Little Red Wolf, written and illustrated Amelie Flechais. As edited and translated by Andrea Colvin, it goes like this: “A young wolf, on a journey to bring his grandmother a rabbit, is charmed by the nice little girl who offers to help him… but nice is not the same as good. A haunting fairy tale for children and adults alike.” It’s available now in hardcover.

image c. 2017 Lion Forge

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I guess this week is turning into a WTF week. Here we have music by Denki Groove and animation by Cyriak (Who else?)
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Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.

Seven Deadly Sins: Furry Confessions, edited by Thurston Howl. Illustrated by Joseph Chou.
Knoxville, TN, Thurston Howl Publications, January 2017, trade paperback $16.99 ([4 +] 411 pages).

The seven deadly sins are Lust, Wrath, Greed, Envy, Sloth, Gluttony, and Pride. This anthology presents 27 stories divided into those seven deadly sins. Each sin is introduced by an Interlude by Thurston Howl in which three punk youths, Derek (German shepherd), Zinc (tiger), and Barba (horse), tell stories about those sins in a ruined church. They suspect that one of them is a demon…

An advisory usually fits an entire book, but the stories in this anthology are so widespread from G to NSFW that I’ve put my own advisory on each story.

In “Don’t Judge Me” by Sisco Polaris (Lust), an unnamed human man goes to a mixed human-animal gym, steamhouse, and sauna that is a gay hookup spot. He spends an evening playing enthusiastic submissive slut to the male dom anthro-menagerie that passes through, to get into the mood to go home and do his sexual duty to his wife. Very NSFW.

“Down in the Valley” by Billy Leigh (Lust) is narrated by Ralph Walter Travers, a Fennec British civil servant posted in Kenya at the beginning of World War II. He is invited to a dinner party of upper-class Collies, Foxes, Cougars, and others that turns out to be a wildly degenerate orgy, with excesses of drink and sex. There is a death. The police investigate. To tell what happens would give away a spoiler. PG for the orgy and some mild gay romance in a British early-1940s setting.

In “Click” by T. Thomas Abernathy (Lust), Jack is a suppressed human supremacist working with anthro animals. He has a job at a bank, but his wife gets pregnant, so he has to take a second job moving boxes at a warehouse to support the coming baby. He can’t have any more sex with his wife, so he fantasizes about a doe co-worker at the warehouse. His lust for “just an animal” betrays him. A mild R.

In “Fun at the Mall” by Teiran (Lust), “Wildfire” Fox is unabashedly gay, shopping for every sex toy at Yiff R Us at the mall. When he meets a smug wolf who sneers at “faggots” in the mall’s restroom, he teaches him a well-deserved lesson. Even a reader who isn’t gay will be satisfied at this sneering “superior’s” comeuppance. R.

“Bones” by Searska GreyRaven (Wrath) is told from the viewpoint of a husky belonging to a Lady who encourages him to Change partway to human, Changing her partway to a dog, so they can romp together. When a Bad Man forces himself on her and tries to make her get rid of the dog, she has him Change all the way to human to solve their problem. This is such a mild horror story that I’ll rate it G. Or PG, for those who think that any story more mature than second-grade level should be PG.

“Those Three Letters” by Rayah James (Wrath) are HIV. When Orion (wolf) learns that he has HIV, he’s sure he knows who gave it to him. He’ll get revenge… That’s it? This story ends before it’s really gotten started. G (or PG for implied violence).

“For the Sins of the Father” by Sisco Polaris (Wrath) is narrated by Forrin, a wolf who is passed over for a job he deserves because he’s openly gay. He’s angry, and he decides the best way to get revenge is to seduce his lion boss’ son. Things don’t turn out as he’d planned. (Well, he’d be the first to admit that he hadn’t been thinking.) This is also NSFW, but I liked it much better than “Don’t Judge Me” because it has a real beginning, middle, and end rather than being just a sweaty, sticky mood piece; and for showing intelligence once he cools down.

“I Burned the Bridges to Heaven” by Weasel (Wrath) is about Derrick (raccoon) who is in a very abusive relationship with Andre (wolf). But what it’s about is not nearly as important as how it’s written; very poetically. PG.

“The Collection” by T. Thomas Abernathy (Greed) is narrated by Coop, a tiger, but what’s important is neither his name nor his species. It’s his mania for collecting. The collector has to collect. He has to have the biggest collection; better than anyone else’s. What does he collect? Is it important? G.

“Stay” by Hypetaph (Greed) is about Cecil, her son Kal (Himalayan wolves), and Kal’s girlfriend Claire (panther). Kal is going away to college and Claire is helping him to pack. Cecil is an overprotective mother who doesn’t want her baby to leave home. How badly does she want to keep him there? Since Seven Deadly Sins is promoted as a horror anthology, “how badly” is pretty obvious. PG verging on R.

In “The Beauty Regime” by Evelyn Proctor (Envy), a nameless lynx goes through numerous self-mutilations to be as beautiful as the fashion magazines say and show what True Beauty looks like. This could be a funny-animal story, but Proctor keeps it furry by constant usage of the lynx’s fur and body shape. Gruesome, but how many real human women have hospitalized or killed themselves in their obsession to be Beautiful? PG.

“Richard Cory” by Tristan Black Wolf (Envy) is more about the narrator, Matheson Knox (rat), than about Cory (tiger), his roommate. “Somewhere, the Great Brain of the university must have thought it amusing to pair up a senior with a sophomore, or a feline with a rodent, or a jock with a nerd.” (p. 167) “He had it all, and he had it so easy. Rich family and private schools; picked for the college b-ball team in his freshman year, not a star, but a solid player; enough brains to get by, at the very least; a perfect body, perfect smile, perfect everything, and all the sex he could want.” (p. 170) Envy, for sure. So what happens to Knox and Cory? I’ll just say that this is the best story in the anthology, in so many ways that it would take too long to list them all. “Richard Cory” is worth the price of Seven Deadly Sins by itself. Read it! PG.

“Lucy” by Dax (Envy) is about an insane tigress who imagines herself to be the wife of a happily married tiger. She plots to get rid of his real wife so she can take her place. This plot is reminiscent of too many real news stories about obsessive fans, which emphasize the funny-animal nature of the story. PG.

In “Devil’s Snare” by Faolan (Envy), Savani is a beautiful black wolf in body but with unruly hair. She is envious of Amber, a vixen with perfect looks in every respect. Savani attempts to use black magic to steal Amber’s hair. The reader can guess that something will go wrong. PG.

“Black Fur” by Gullwolf (Envy) differs in detail, but it is the same plot as “Devil’s Snare”. Cherize, a jackal, is envious of Luciana, a red-furred vixen. “But when Luciana walked into the coffee shop after the fitful few weeks that Cherize had spent waiting for her, Cherize realized that this fox was the definition of perfect.” (p. 214) PG.

In “Repository” by Hypetaph (Sloth), Parks, a German Shepherd, is in bed with his lover, Simon, a coyote. At length. Reading this made me think of the nursery rhyme, “The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out; the worms play pinochle on your snout”. It’s a grisly mood piece. PG.

“The Bear Necessities” by Bill Kieffer (Sloth) features Ferdinand, a black bear; Prince, a raccoon (they’re married); and Sladek, a skinny tiger and their familiar. Ferdy, a Tantric magician, discovers a dimensional portal to our Earth; a world of hairless monkeys, unevolved animals, and LOTS of untapped Tantric energy.

“The monkeys were civilized enough to have brothels. More than one of these had bear skin rugs in them. Because the portal had been open for so long, it was easy for Prince to get a fix on a suitable item to copy. The two magic users made a rotisserie out of the tiger, creating a conduit that allowed them to copy and connect with the dead thing on the other side. Even as the bear came into his mouth and triggered the spell. Sladek could feel the bear flattening.

It had worked well.

Perhaps, too well.

Before Prince had even finished on his end, the magical energies had come roaring through the connection to the bear in an overpowering onslaught. They’d not only tapped into any sex on a bear skin rug on the other side; but they’d connected with a tidal wave of power.” (p. 248)

Ferdy remains a conscious bear skin rug. How Prince and Sladek are affected, and what they do about it, is the story. I give it an A+ for imagination. R.

“Relations” by TJ Minde (Sloth) features Aaron (mongoose) and Justin (rabbit) who have been open homosexual lovers for the last five years. Aaron’s sister Shelly thinks that Justin is shallow; Aaron can do better for himself. Aaron wonders if he really loves Justin, or if it’s just too easy to continue their existing relationship. R.

“A Voice Not Spoken” by Stephen Coghlan (Sloth) is about the predators in a predator-prey civilization gradually being persecuted, as seen by Smokey, a feline who doesn’t bother to protest the increasing indignities and dangers. I was reminded of Pastor Niemöller’s “First they came for the Socialists…” long before Coghlan rephrases it in furry terms. PG.

“Listmember Lost” by Banwynn (Suta) Oakshadow (Sloth) is a 15-page story in the form of an email from a fucked-up furry fan who becomes his fursona of Flare, a 7-foot-tall muscular tiger-man, and finds that it doesn’t help his psychological hangups at all. PG.

In “Victuals” by Dwale (Gluttony), Salma (Mau cat) runs a government-approved scrapyard. Adam (Saluki), a new inspector, introduces himself, to her dismay. What is Salma hiding? PG.

“Anthropophagy” by Zarpaulus (Gluttony) asks the old question: in a joint predator-prey civilization where the predators are forbidden to eat meat, will all the predators be willing to accept “meat substitutes”? “Another perk of being thought of as myth: those paranoid enough to actually look for us end up expecting someone completely different. We’re almost always thought of as either hulking half-feral brutes bloated with prey, or suave sexual predators who seduce you and devour you after making love. With these stereotypes, who would expect a petite little fennec?” (p. 307) I rate this R for its gory explicitness.

In “The Music on the Street” by NightEyes DaySpring (Pride), Shadow the wolf… no, I can’t give a summary without revealing too much. It’s a good story, though. PG.

In “Runaway” by Banwynn (Suta) Oakshadow (Pride), Drever (human) is driving from Pennsylvania to Atlanta when he picks up Ramble, a teen red fox morph hitchhiker. Ramble is the first morph he’s ever met. What’s it like to be a morph, and why is he running away? I certainly didn’t guess where “Runaway” was going! A strong PG or a mild R.

“Shelter” by Avin Telfer (Pride) is a classic example of a funny animal story. All the characters are called otters, but they could just as easily be humans. Todd is the captain on an underwater research station when nuclear war breaks out. Only the fact that they are underwater saves them. As the months pass, the rest of the research staff switch their efforts to survival, but Todd stubbornly continues his scientific research. PG.

“Drop Tower” by Varzen (Pride) features Daani Asrighelli, a goat reigning pop star, and Alexi Rosenbath, a vampire bat “Executive Accountant of Vertilaginous Projections” – her recording company’s assigned manager/keeper to her. Her delusions of “immutable musical brilliance” and her temper tantrums make Alexi’s job a nightmare. “‘Daani,’ he said, counting on his footclaws the thousands of dollars pissed away in lost recording time, thousands more burned in the wrath of Daani’s inferno.” (p. 370) But as the story progresses, you wonder which of them is the more prideful? “Pride goeth before a fall” – literally. PG.

In “Migration Season” by J. A. Noelle (Pride), Sophie, a snow leopard, and Breezy, a sparrow, are friends in school in Berrymount. When rivalry and hatred between Berrymount’s mammals and avians starts to tear Berrymount apart, will pride in their city or pride in their taxonomic classes prevail? PG.

The anthology concludes with a final Interlude by Thurston Howl that reminds us that all of the stories are supposed to be Horror.

27 stories. This is a long review, and it’s hardly a review at all; mostly just plot synopses. Well, all 27 stories are readable, from brilliant to mediocre at worst. My favorites, in the order they appear, are “Fun at the Mall” by Teiran, “For the Sins of the Father” by Sisco Polaris, “Richard Cory” by Tristan Black Wolf, “The Bear Necessities” by Bill Kieffer, “Listmember Lost” by Banwynn Oakshadow, “Anthropophagy” by Zarpaulus, and “Runaway” by Banwynn Oakshadow again. I’ve already said that “Richard Cory” is worth the price of Seven Deadly Sins (cover by Joseph Chou) by itself. Consider the others my personal roll of honor; and there are twenty more for your pleasure. Enjoy.

– Fred Patten

• View book at GoodReads.com
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Dear Papabear, 

I'm new to the Furry world, though I've always better identified with animals, and I really like pokemon, the games being kind of a refuge for me. So I've been wondering, is it ok for my furrsona to be a Pokemon? would it still be considered a furry?

Luxumbra

* * *

Hi, Luxambra,

Interesting question and one Papabear has not been asked before, so bonus points to you. Now, what I'm about to write to you is just an old bear's opinion, and there are likely to be those who will disagree.

"Pokemon," as you know, means "pocket monster," although some might translate it as "pocket demon." In Japanese folklore and mythology, demons, devils, ghosts, and other spirit creatures appear in many of the stories and are very important to that culture, so it is not surprising that in the modern-day world they should be reborn in television shows, movies, and games.

Now, let's compare that definition to "furry." A furry is an anthropomorphized animal. So, it is an animal that can talk, reason, and behave like a human being does. A pokemon comes from the spirit world and has no connection to humans. Only a couple of the Pokemon characters can speak, though most seem to understand human language and some can communicate telepathically, which is consistent with their folklore background. They can look like mammals, dragons, even plants, so as for species, they are kind of all over the place, whereas furries are limited to animal species, though they may include mythological ones such as dragons, minotaurs, and griffins (which in themselves are based on real animals). In many cases, Pokemon intelligence seems somewhat below that of humans, which is why, apparently, they can be captured and used by humans in competitive sports.

Another difference--and one that is often applied to Bronies, which many consider outside the fandom--is that they are part of a commercial franchise originating from the Game Freak video games of the mid-1990s.

All in all, I would consider Pokemon to be one of those tangential fandoms that include Bronies, Otherkin, and Therians. Some Pokemon might be more furry than others. But bear in mind that you are not limited to selecting a current Pokemon to be your fursona. You could create an all-new Pokemon with furry qualities and fit in quite nicely. Even if you don't, many furries are Pokemon fans and you'd likely get along well with them. Too, if you would like to get involved in furry culture and events, I'm sure no one is going to tell you "no."

Hope that answers your question.

Hugs,
Papabear​

In an era of Emojis and Netspeak, is there still a place where every word is carefully chosen and every letter carefully set in place? Is poetry still a thing in this day and age? Texas-based Weasel Press believes so. And they want to share the distilled joy of poetry with all furries. Civilized Beasts is now an annual publication - it is a showcase for all things poetic (and furry.) It is the only published work of its kind as far as I am aware.This second installment would be my first forray into the world of furry poetry. I am delighted to report that there is indeed a more lyrical, more romantic side to the Internet generation and the fandom as a whole.But perhaps calling Civilized Beasts a Furry Poetry Anthology is a misnomer. Were it not for the very distinguished clothed canine on the cover, this may as well have been an anthology of animal-inspired poetry by any mainstream press. The vast majority of beasts featured in this anthology are of the talking animal kind.Content-wise, the work is divided into eight sections, with the pieces grouped rather broadly therein. Canids, Felines, Equines, Rodents and Rabbits, Avians, Scalies and Sea Creatures, Insects and Arachnids as well as a Menagerie of Other Creatures.Common themes include the interaction between man and beast, as well as the relationships of beasts with their kin. It explores the relationships we forge with our furred, feathered, and scaly friends.Our senses are sharpened as we step into other creatures’ skins (or shells.) We are made to slow and reflect on life as seen from sometimes kinder, sometimes harsher eyes. And, of course, we are made to question our very own nature.The poetic styles in Civilized Beasts 2 are diverse. Word Pictures (such as July 4th, Assateague Island by Larry D. Thomas) and Quasi Lyrical pieces (such as Harmonize by Al Song) are my personal favorites. On the other hand, I never truly understood Haikus. But if you like them, they are here, too.In conclusion, Civilized Beasts has something to satisfy every taste. The tradeoff, however, is that hardly anyone will enjoy every poem. It is for this reason I have never given five out of five stars to a multi-author poetry anthology before and am unlikely to ever do. It simply is the nature of the (Civilized) Beast.Four out of Five. Recommended!

This is for WTF Wednesday ... This can't be unseen, you have been warned.
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Hello Everyone!

We open this week's show with a discussion of an article on nonviolent communication. A relationship counselor spoke of the power of the word 'ouch', which at first glance sounds rather strange, but in examination this word has the form of an emotional safeword with the power to potentially shift an argument into an empathetic, vulnerable discussion that leads to resolution.

Our main topic is on Planning Your First Con. While Feral Attraction is a show about relationships, it is also a show about the furry fandom. We have gotten several questions from listeners who are interested in attending their first con, and we have decided to do a two part episode on conventions in this lead up to convention season. In this episode we talk about how to choose and budget for your first ever convention. While not a super sexy episode, we hope that this helps everyone in their planning process.

We close out the show with a question on roleplay. The questioner loves sending yiffy pictures and then having sexy talk with the people he's exchanging the pictures with. His boyfriend doesn't want him to have those conversations and would like for him to just send and receive those pictures. Neither of them can see eye to eye-- what can they do?

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

Thanks and, as always, be well!

 

FA 088 Planning Your First Con - Is ouch a secret power word? Can we make budgeting sound sexy (spoiler: probably not). Is roleplay a type of sex? All this, and more, on this week's Feral Attraction!

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

Are you going to see Woody Woodpecker: The Movie? It’s coming out on October 5th.

In Brazil.

But it’s a Universal movie. Or at least Universal is distributing it there.

The American public may not have noticed it, but one of the cinematic trends of the 2010s has been the production or subsidizing by American movie companies of movies featuring their famous cartoon stars, for theatrical distribution worldwide by those companies – except in the U.S. We get them as direct-to-DVD children’s movies.

Examples: this Woody Woodpecker movie in Brazil, Pica Pau – O Filme. It’s distributed by Universal Pictures/Studios there. It will premiere in Brazil on October 5th, and be released in Chile as El Pájaro Loco (The Crazy Bird; woodpecker would be El Pájaro Carpintero Loco) on November 9th. It should be released in Argentina, Australia, Canada, China, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Spain, and the United Kingdom later in 2017 (probably as a kiddie Xmas movie) or in early 2018. And also probably as Woody Woodpecker: The Movie, a U.S. direct-to-DVD kid’s movie.

Universal has owned Woody Woodpecker ever since Walter Lantz introduced him in an Andy Panda cartoon, Knock Knock, on November 25, 1940. Lantz’s animation studio was subsidized by Universal. But the new movie is not produced by the main studio. It’s a production of Universal 1440 Entertainment, a.k.a. Universal Pictures Home Entertainment, Universal’s home video division since 1980. Besides releasing Universal’s movies on DVD for home purchase, UPHE also distributes the DVDs of, to mention just the animation companies, DreamWorks, FUNimation (anime), GKIDS, and Open Road Films (The Nut Job).

Woody Woodpecker: The Movie is a live-action/CGI animation combo. UPHE produced the live-action in British Columbia. Since it’s premiering in Brazil, the live-action features Brazilian actress Thaila Ayala. But the director is American Alex Zamm, who has specialized in direct-to-DVD children’s films such as Inspector Gadget 2 for Disney and Jingle All the Way 2 for 20th Century Fox. Woody’s voice actor is Hasbro/Nickelodeon/Warner Bros. Animation veteran Eric Bauza. Universal Pictures International is the division that handles theatrical distribution in Australia, China, Germany, Spain, the U.K., and most of those other countries where this Woody Woodpecker movie will be shown.

How about Top Cat? The TV cartoon series was created by Hanna-Barbera in 1961, and acquired by Warner Bros. in 1996. WB gave copyright permission and subsidized the production of two Top Cat animated features by Ánima Estudios in Mexico City in 2011 (Don Gato y Su Pandilla, a.k.a. Top Cat: The Movie) and 2015 (Don Gato: El Inicio de la Pandilla, a.k.a. Top Cat Begins). The first is in cartoon animation; the second is CGI. WB got theatrical distribution in Mexico and other countries; its division for that is called Worldwide Marketing and Distribution. Of course, the two movies were direct-to-DVD home video releases in the U.S.

Not a famous American cartoon, but Warner Bros. has subsidized the production costs of Happy Family, an August 24, 2017 theatrical release (for Halloween?) in Germany – by WB – that looks like a mashup of The Addams Family, The Munsters, and Hotel Transylvania. The theatrical releases include almost every country in Australia, Europe and Latin America, plus Canada – for WB. What do you bet that it will be a Warner Bros. Home Entertainment release in the U.S.? The CGI production company is Rothkirch Cartoon Film in Berlin.

Disney is producing its own own theatrical/DVD releases, most often subcontracting to Prana Studios in Mumbai, India for the animation. The six Tinker Bell movies — Tinker Bell (2008), Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure (2009), Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue (2010), Secret of the Wings (2012), and The Pirate Fairy and Tinker Bell and the Legend of the Neverbeast (both in 2014) – were planned, written, storyboarded, and voice-recorded by Disneytoon Studios in Hollywood, sent to Prana for animation production, then returned to Disneytoon for marrying the voice track to the animation, adding the sound effects, and the music. Taking The Pirate Fairy as an example, it was released between February 2014 in Argentina, Denmark, Ireland and the U.K., and the Baltic nations, and August 2014 in Hungary, Poland, and Portugal. The U.S. release was on April 1st, as a DVD. It was a DVD release in at least five other countries, but Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures released it theatrically in Argentina, Germany, Greece, Hungary, France, and the Netherlands.

I haven’t tracked every furry movie, but the number of them coming out as DVD originals is increasing. The Japanese invented the OAVs (Original Animation Videos) with Studio Pierrot’s s-f Dallos in December 1983. As an anime fan in the 1980s, I remember when we all wanted the American studios to make American OAVs. When we finally got them, they were called direct-to-videos. The first one was furry, too: Warner Bros. Animation’s Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation, on March 11, 1992. Today, who knows how many original home videos there are, and with more and more of them made abroad and/or getting theatrical releases. (And in this case, Canada counts as “abroad”.)

– Fred Patten

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.

On the heels of the news that Philip Pullman’s new Book of Dust novel is finally coming out we have word that Knopf Publishing have collected the recent graphic novel of The Golden Compass into a single large hardcover, The Golden Compass: Complete Edition. Adapted from the original novel by Stephanie Melchio and illustrated by Clement Oubrerie, the Complete Edition is available now. Publisher’s Weekly says, “The story’s signature fantasies—the dæmons, the armored mercenary polar bears, and the alethiometer—are realized with compelling force. [This] retelling will bring Pullman’s work new fans and give previous readers new pleasure.” Look for it at Amazon.

image c. 2017 New Line Cinema

Ivan might be a "finder," but now that the Holy Grail is in his paws, a whole cast of supernatural forces are out to find him ... and to wrench the relic from him through any means necessary. The game is afoot, but what's a finder to do when his allies, his enemies, and the fabric of reality cannot be believed?Faithless is a part of a series about Ivan, a "finder" who battles supernatural forces to find, recover, or destroy powerful items. Though part of a series, the book gives enough clues as to Ivan's past for the reader to dive in on his new adventure. Which seems simple. Ivan has the Holy Grail, and the powers that be, ALL the powers that be, want to own it. Very quickly, Ivan becomes the prize in an all out battle between God and the Devil. They can't take it unless he gives it over willingly, but these are the most powerful beings in existence, and they're up to their very best tricks. Ivan learns quickly that nothing is what it seems, no one is telling the truth, and more than just his possession of the Grail is on the line. If Ivan can't figure out who to trust, and what to do with the Grail, he'll lose everything. And the whole world could take a tumble straight for the apocalypse. Ivan's adventure is part Indiana Jones and part Faustian morality tale. It's a fast paced ride with enough twists to keep the reader guessing and enough fun characters to delight and entertain. It does stand alone, but references past events enough that I wanted to go back and read previous volumes right away. While occasionally rough around the edges, Faithless is a good, fun, read full of supernatural conflict. Anyone with an eye for adventure stories will enjoy reading Graveyard Greg's Faithless. The book has enough mythology and action for the Urban Fantasy fan, and anyone interested in biblical legend, demons, angels, artifacts or just plain furry fun.

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

The Kingdom of the Sun and Moon, by Lowell H. Press. Maps.

Bellevue, WA, Parkers Mill Publishing, September 2014, trade paperback $11.99 ([xv +] 297 [+ 1] pages), Kindle $0.99.

This Young Adult fantasy (winner of a 2015 Benjamin Franklin Award, for Teen Fiction (13-18 Years), of the Independent Book Publishers Association) is set in Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, home of the Habsburg monarchs of Austria, about 1820. In those days almost all royal palaces had large populations of mice (so did the average citizens’ houses), so the 19th century map of the palace and its grounds is accurate as to the location of the fictional mouse Kingdom of the Double-Headed Eagle.

The König is a tyrant.

His subjects are starving.

And all-out war is fast approaching.

Will a pair of young, courageous

Brothers save their kingdom? (blurb)

The König is the monarch of the mouse kingdom within the Schönbrunn Palace and its grounds. Brothers Sommer and Nesbit live in Long Meadow, a mouse colony in the palace gardens that is far away from the König’s court in the palace itself – but not far enough away.

“It was just as Nesbit was about to set off across the grass to warn his father of the potential intruder that an old mouse – the source of the scent – appeared from under the hedgerow. The mouse spotted Lavendel [Nesbit’s father] and hobbled toward him. Nesbit immediately recognized the visitor, and became unnerved. No! Not him!, he thought, sitting back and anxiously rubbing his snout. He began to shake with apprehension. This is bad – very, very bad!

The visitor, Field Marshal Osterglocke, was no ordinary mouse. He was commander of the entire Thistle Guard, the army of mice tasked with keeping order among the dozens of colonies scattered throughout the massive garden.” (pgs. 4-5)

Winter is coming, and the colonies need all the Essen, the food they have foraged during the summer and fall, to survive. They do not want to pay it in taxes to the palace. Worse, it is expected that the forest mice under Emperor Wolfsmilch, with a Forest Army of 100,000 mice, will invade to steal their Essen. The König does not want just a tax; he wants all the Essen removed to the palace “for safekeeping”, and Osterglocke wants Sommer for the Thistle Guard. When Nesbit protests both, Osterglocke exiles him to the Forest of Lost Life, the furthest colony in the palace gardens – a death sentence — but then appears to relent and cancel his order.

“Sommer watched as the three troublemakers scurried away. He then approached his father, who was clearly disheartened.

‘Why did he suddenly change his mind about Nesbit?’ he asked.

Lavendel thought about it as he stared at the spot where Osterglocke had left the meadow.

‘I’m not sure he did,’ he replied.” (pgs. 16-17)

The Kingdom of the Sun and Moon is a fast-moving adventure full of action, palace intrigue, wild predators, the König’s betrayal, hairbreadth escapes, cartloads of cats, revolution, an unexpected friend, and murine religion. Press shows an impressive vocabulary, including simplistic German. When Nesbit appears to control a predator, he becomes known as the Hexenmeister. The actual size and physique of the mice plays a large part.

“Nesbit knew that if he hesitated, he was a dead mouse. He clambered higher along the slippery bark, not looking down until he reached the top of the main trunk, where the tree split into two large boughs. Acker and Zimbel [Osterglocke’s henchmice] would be on him in no time. He gazed up, into the wind-whipped canopy. Branches smacked loudly against one another and dislodged leaves upward into a swirling vortex. Nesbit closed his eyes in an effort to regain his equilibrium and used his whiskers to process the chaos in the air, but nothing helped. He was losing all sense of up and down. He gripped the edges of the bark as firmly as he could with his claws, but still he feared being blown away at any moment.” (p. 25)

The story splits into two parts: Sommer’s adventures (pages 37 to 134) within the palace (he quickly becomes a commander of the Palace Guard), and Nesbit’s adventures (pages 137 to 188) in the garden. It seems that Emperor Wolfsmilch of the forest mice has agreed to call off his invasion if the Sacred Goldessen of the Sun and Moon (the palace’s best food) is delivered to him; so the König assigns endless squads of the Palace Guard on suicide missions to find the Sacred Goldessen (nobody knows what it is; they hope to find it by its “best scent”) in the Royal Kitchen and bring it back, despite the “cartloads of cats” within the kitchen for rodent control.

“Meir thought for a moment before deciding to endorse Edgemoor’s plan. ‘I never imagined I’d hear anyone say that too many cats was an advantage, but your plan seems the best chance we’ve got,’ he conceded. ‘I say we try it. But it’s Sommer’s decision.’

‘Yes, let’s do it,’ said Sommer. ‘Sergeant, you know the ins and outs better than anyone. Can you help us find some other ways into the kitchen?’

‘I’ll do my best, but this is the only way I know for sure,’ Taubnessel said.

‘If we search hard enough, I know we’ll find more,’ Sommer reassured him. Now fully in command, he turned to the others. ‘Once we’re all in and we’ve found our hiding places, we’ll need to move higher, away from the cats. With a good vantage, maybe we’ll be able to spot the Sacred Goldessen, if we haven’t already picked up the scent by then. I don’t know what it actually looks or smells like, but it will be unique.’” (p. 110)

Nesbit’s adventures in the palace gardens are in places named by the mice the Fountain of Certain Death (a fountain with steep slippery sides; any mouse that falls in can’t get out and drowns), the Dying Land (an open area exposed to eagles, hawks, owls, foxes, badgers, weasels, snakes, and other wild predators), the Forest of Lost Life, and so on. Nesbit quickly learns that his escapes have made him the rallying point for every garden mouse who has become opposed to the König’s rule.

“‘We’re ready to follow your every command. And there are hundreds more like us all over the garden who are sick and tired of the König taking all our Essen and letting us starve when the freeze comes. You’ve started the uprising, now tell us what to do.’” (p. 142)

The story returns to the palace on page 191, and Sommer and Nesbit are together for the final hundred pages. The very end of The Kingdom of the Sun and Moon (cover painting of Schönbrunn Palace by Bernardo Bellotto; cover elements manipulated by RD Studio) shows too clearly that Press has read Watership Down, but it is an admirably original story otherwise. “Teen Fiction” in this case means that it is an All Ages book that Furry fans will definitely enjoy.

– Fred Patten

• View book at GoodReads.com
• Book’s Website

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.

This seems a like Wes Anderson lite. In this installment Paddington goes to jail ... let's hope for less earwax jokes.
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Kickstarter is a hit and miss, it’s a mixed bag and it’s responsible for successes such as Rad Rodgers, Shovel Knight, Undertale, and Shantae: Half-Genie Hero (in spite of it’s inferior to its predecessor, Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse). There are times when some indie video game developing teams manage to meet the promises which they’ve set out to do in the first place and there are a few disgraceful rotten apples that didn’t bother to deliver the physical or digital backer rewards. I’m looking at all of you, Dante Basco, Jonah Feingold and the movie team behind Bangarang: A Short Film Before Rufio! Aside from Mighty No. 9 and Yooka-Laylee, this monstrosity of a horrendously mediocre film will be forever be named, shamed and frowned upon. If Dante Basco, Jonah Feingold and the film team have the gall to show their dishonourable faces on Kickstarter again in the future, you can bet I won’t be supporting them whatsoever under no circumstances.

As a result, potential and future backers refuse to trust Kickstarter with their hard-earned money. When I take my current frustrating experience as a backer with Bangarang: A Short Film Before Rufio into account, I can’t say I blame them. Therefore, this is why I usually back projects at the last minute, if not never at all and why I’m, admittedly, still sceptical about Griff the Winged Lion due to how slow it’s raking in cash by the dozen at the moment. It depends on what the project is about.

Our zoo friends from New York… er, Africa… er, Monte Carlo… WHATEVER are back in a new full-color comic collection. Madagascar: Escape Plans brings together issues #1 through #4 of the comic book series from Joe Books in one trade paperback. “Join Marty, Alex, Melman and the whole Madagascar crew on hilarious adventures… Featuring a buddy-cop adventure starring Alex and his arch nemesis Nana, a zany escape plan from Madagascar, a struggle between King Julien and the usurper who’s stolen his throne, and more!” Written by Patrick Storck and illustrated by Rik Hoskin, it’s coming on October 10th.

image c. 2017 Joe Books

Here is a wonderful music video from Indonesian furry filmmakers Chirros White & Gao Yu. Also they made the stickers in the video are available here: https://t.me/addstickers/chattingmrcat [1] "This film is inspired by some stories from an online relationship in the Furry Community. Today is the day that Mr.Cat and his crush going for a date. But unfortunately they both living far away from each others. So Mr.Cat going to do the date by keeping in touch with Her while he going out and explore around. Film by Chirros White & Gao Yu Featuring Gao Yu as Mr.Cat Shot, Edit, Animate by Chirros White Gao is visiting Indonesia back in August and he want to see Mt.Tangkuban Perahu. so we drove all the way from Jakarta to Lembang and decided to make a little film together!" [1] https://t.me/addstickers/chattingmrcat
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(Comment from blog linked below.)

Sugar-coating helps fascism worm its way inside a community. Even with cartoon animals when Altfurry brings Trojan-horse hate to furry fandom. See tagged stories here.

A regional furry organizer shared this story.  ID is withheld so their job can be discussed. They’re an airport terminal worker.

“Just encountered something that I never expected to see.

A line of badged, patched, and uniformed fascists just came through my airport. Like any other passenger group, I was assisting them. Noticing their crossed hammer imagery in red and white, I thought… maybe I was mistaken.

I asked them if they were Pink Floyd fans (imagery from The Wall). I got blank stares, followed by laughter.

“No” one of them said, “We’re humanitarians, on our way to go clean up Puerto Rico!”

Laughter from the others.

“We’re plumbers too, and carpenters, gonna rebuild this place!”

More chuckles.

Noticing the very particular tattoos a few of them bore, I knew. Still, I asked. “Oh cool, glad you’re reaching out, what organization are you with?”

One of them winked at me. Pointed at his patch. “How about you look this up. We’re doing great work”.

Fair enough. Finished helping him and the five others. And then researched the image they bore.

Hammerskins. A white supremacist group that’s been planning a rally in the area.

I just came face to face with hate. And. I still feel uneasy inside. Especially as they found it amusing that I politely pretended not to recognize what they represented.

But professional is all I can be in such scenarios . But inside. I need a shower.

And give Pink Floyd their hammers back. You missed the message.”

What did their symbols look like?

“They had pins and patches of this logo and symbol.”

Hammerskins are the most violent Skinhead Neo-Nazis in the US. What brought them to the location?

“There was a fascist/nationalist/white supremacist rally in the area, hosted by this group.  It was outside of town. I was safe. But seeing actual members coming through caught me off guard.”

Were they actually going to Puerto Rico at all? It’s a classic two-faced tactic to do nice things for people down on their luck, to sugar-coat and manipulate.

“They were flying out. I didn’t see their boarding passes to confirm. Last I heard Puerto Rico was still shut, so I think they were being sarcastic.”

“Stronger community”?

Was there followup?

“I reported this to my boss. I was laughed at. “Do you need us to send you home or something?”

One of the reasons that society isn’t improving is that a lot of people in positions of authority either don’t understand the seriousness of the threat OR are afraid to act on it because they don’t want to get involved.

I did do further followup, and could not confirm their destination but did what I could to have the situation monitored. I learned that every one of them went through additional screening and search at the airport. They had no contraband. Only hate imagery and dress. They’re being monitored.

More info

A music blog reported about their festival: “the roster also includes Definite Hate, a North Carolina RAC (rock against communism) band that was once the subject of a GQ article. Their lineup once included Wade Michael Page, the suspect in the 2012 Sihk Temple shooting in Wisconsin that killed six people.”

Final words from the furry source:

“Coming face to face with a hate group was a very unpleasant experience, that left me feeling rather ill for hours afterward. But at the same time, it gives me perspective on just how far things can go when people forget how to relate to each other.

In our fandom, we pride ourselves on how inclusive we are. We have people of all walks of life, and we love coming together to party, socialize, and express our anthropomorphic selves. That freedom and fun leaves us wanting more, and missing those experiences when they end.

Online though, large issues sometimes come up, and often, people find themselves on opposing sides. Online, it’s easy to filter out opposing views, block, unfollow, unfriend, and isolate themselves from that which challenges their point of view, and sometimes burn the bridges of understanding.

At the heart of all anger is a sense of having been disrespected. Whether its by the establishment, by each other, by how we feel at our job or in our craft. All of us are more agreeable to each other when we feel respected.

Perhaps every hate group can remind us of what we should not be. How we should strive every day to make sure that we understand that we’re all people, all fallible, but also capable of understanding if given the chance.

Building relationships and trust takes effort and time. Even if it’s hard, sometimes mutual respect alone is enough to get two people to agree to disagree. After all, you don’t always have to win the argument. If you remain friends at the end you’ve both won.

Let’s never see that kind of hate creep its way into the fandom. This is a remarkable place with so much capacity to lift each other up and make us better versions of ourselves. I suppose that’s how I feel about the world as a whole. If we foster mutual respect and communication from the start, extremists might never develop.

I spend time online trying to calm debates, encourage logic and try to reduce the anger people feel by being someone that will listen. If we all tried to do something, we could make a world of difference.  This doesn’t mean acceptance of extremism or illegal or abusive things. Just general differences. If we’re good to each other, that’s good for all of us.”

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 patron reward.  

Con*Tact Caffeine Soap is a popular furry business seen in dealer dens. (We wouldn’t mix any other kind with furry news.) For musky huskies or stinky skunks, you can be extra-perky and support furry writing too.  Patrons get a surprise soap in the mail every other month – or just order direct from Con*Tact.

Bolivar is a new hardcover graphic novel written and illustrated by Sean Rubin and published by Archaia. Here’s what Sean says on his blog: “When a young girl named Sybil moves to New York, she discovers that her next-door neighbor is a little unusual, even by local standards. Bolivar is the world’s last living dinosaur, but everyone in the city is too busy to notice him.When Sybil and Bolivar are pulled into an adventure that spans from City Hall to New York’s Natural History Museum, Bolivar must make a choice: He can continue to live unnoticed, or he can let the city see who he really is.” Turns out that Bolivar is already under development at Warner Brothers as a feature film, possibly to be directed by Kealan O’Rourke. Stay tuned for more about that.

image c. 2017 Archaia

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And speaking of Aftershock, they also have a completely different sort of scary story: A new comic series called Dark Ark. “The wickedness of mankind has moved the Creator to destroy the world by way of the flood. Noah has been tasked with building an ark to save his family and the animals of the world. But this is not Noah’s story. For darker powers have commanded the sorcerer Shrae to build his own ark and save the unnatural creatures of the world — such as the vampires, the dragons, the naga, and the manticore. But what will happen on a vessel crawling with monsters, where insidious intrigue and horrific violence are the rule of law? From writer Cullen Bunn (X-Men Blue, Deadpool, Venom) and artist Juan Doe (American Monster, World Reader) comes a sinister tale of biblical proportions.” Issue #1 is out now, and there’s a review at Bleeding Cool.

image c. 2017 Aftershock