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Dear Papabear,

Lately, I have been feeling down and lonely quite often. The problem is I kinda prefer to stick to my old friend and not struggle to talk to new people. Do you have any advice?

Lara X (age 20)
 
* * *
 
Hi, Lara X,
 
When you say "stick to my old friend," do you mean just one friend? How is your relationship with that friend? Many people struggle to talk to new people. Telling me a little more about your life and background can help me to provide feedback.
 
Bear Hugs,
Papabear
 
* * *
 
Well, yeah, it’s mostly one relationships with new people don’t seem to last long and we get distant. As for my past life, I unfortunately grew up watching my father abuse my mother and sisters, and kinda feeling guilty for not also getting hurt. This has given me a distrust of most men, which is awkward considering I’m gay, but I also have a distrust of women because almost all of the girls in school used to bully me. This has caused me to be pretty lonely and to limit who I talk to.
 
Thanks for your time and patience.
 
Hugs,
Lara X

* * *
 
Dear Lara X,
 
I can understand why you might be socially shy, given your past. I don’t know why your father didn’t abuse you the same way he did your mother and sisters, unless it’s because of your gender (i.e., he would only abuse females), but please don’t feel guilty about that. Bottom line on that part of your life is that it is NOT your fault; it is your father’s fault. Assign blame and guilt where it is due. You are guiltless.
 
Recognizing you should not feel guilty is Step 1. Step 2 is to realize that just because your father was an abusive douche doesn’t mean all men are like that. As for women, your experience in school is pretty typical. Schools can be horrible social environments where kids who are seen as outsiders in any way are picked on and abused by their peers. Like packs of wolves seeing a weakness in a non-alpha, they swoop down to nip and bite you (both boys and girls do this). In your case, because of your father’s abuse, you were probably shy going into school. Kids sense that and go on the attack.
 
Okay, so, I’m hoping now you are out of the house and well out of high school. Getting out of negative environments is key to your mental and emotional well-being. What you need to do now is try to put the past in the past and focus on where you are today.
 
The good news, I believe, is that you have recognized and accepted that you are gay (some people drive themselves nuts for years refusing to believe their own identity). The other good news is that you have at least one friend, so forming friendships is not an impossibility for you since you’ve done it before.
 
The key to finding new friends is to start in a comfortable environment. Since you are gay, I would recommend that you look within the gay community and other people who are similar to you and will more likely empathize with you. See if you can find a gay men’s social group near you; I would not recommend gay bars (and certainly not gay clubs) at this point, since they might be overwhelming. Anyway, you’re looking for friends, not hookups.
 
See if you can find a social activity with gay members. A quick Web search, for example, shows me that there are several LGBT Outdoor Clubs in Wales. There is also the South Wales Gay Men’s Chorus (if you like to sing). If you visit the Meetup website and enter some appropriate parameters, you are going to find some social meetup groups, too. So, give that a shot.
 
Finally, don’t push yourself to make a lot of friends all at once. Start slowly, making one or two new friends to start. What often happens after you get a core group of friends going is that these friends will, eventually, introduce you to their friends, and so on and so on. Before you know it, you’ll have dozens of friends and probably some of what I call “good social acquaintances” who are not close friends but fun to hang out with. It is the lucky person, after all, who has more close, sincerely genuine friends than he has fingers on one hand.
 
I hope that helps. Good luck!
 
Hugs,
Papabear

There’s lots of furry movie outings, and sometimes they even rent a theater for a special occasion, but I’m not aware of many permanent furry movie clubs. Oslo’s Cinéma Anthropomorphique isn’t just well established, it seems to be the premiere fur meet for the capital of Norway. I’m going purely on stereotype about the frozen northlands of Scandinavia, but I imagine that in between good cold weather fursuiting and, I dunno, pulling sleds with husky friends under the Northern Lights, indoor movie time has to be a great pastime there.  I’m also assuming that the fur community there must be close-knit, making this an inviting gateway to fur stuff. Here’s what I learned about it from TF Baxxter – founder and administrator of the Norwegian furry community Norwegian Paws and department head for NordicFuzzcon. Extra questions are further down. (- Patch)

TF Baxxter continues:

Cinéma Anthropomorphique started in December, 2012. We were only four people. Now we average at around 20 – 25 (maybe closer to 20; our record was 27 attendees). The event is held in someone’s home in the Oslo-area (which means it can get really cramped); we have main hosts, but like to vary it when we can.

Meets are announced on the Norwegian furry forum, Norwegian Paws, and through a couple of Telegram channels (mainly Tigerstaden, the furry Telegram chat for Oslo-furs). We try to get people to tell us beforehand whether they’ll be showing up, but people are pretty bad at it and will often just drop by.

We have a different theme every month. This month it’s Halloween, so we’ll be watching three horror films (Zombeavers, Tusk, and Frankenweenie). Before that, we watched all of the Watership Down TV-series in one go, without sleeping (it was about 14 hours in length, I think); we try to do an annual series marathon. We also have other annual themes, like the “VHS Special” where we watch VHS-tapes with animation and animal films you can’t find elsewhere. We also have the annual “Rufserulett” (Furry Roulette), where we will choose the films randomly during the event from larger budget box-sets of animal films (like this).

One soft rule we have is that we only watch material we have physically available. It’s to make it feel a bit more like a proper film club, and to discourage us from going the easy route and just using Netflix, YouTube, and torrents. But if something is unavailable physically but fits into a theme we want to have, we might ignore the rule. One example of this is the Norwegian dub of The Animals of Farthing Wood TV-series. Only the first season of the series was made available for the home market (on VHS). So we had do download the remaining two seasons for our all-nighter marathon (which was the first time we did the now annual series marathon theme).

We also have a guest book that all guests either write or draw in. We didn’t introduce the book until a year or two in though, unfortunately, so we missed out on a few evenings initially. But we have some fun drawings and good memories captured by that book.

We usually order food together, some bring snacks or cake to share, and people are free to drink if they want.

I’m the main driving force behind the event, but we have a small “council” of organizers and hosts who help to choose what we watch, which dates work, etc.

Since starting the film club, I have started increasingly collecting furry films – films and series with animal characters. I will often scour through flea markets and charity shops, looking for hidden gems, and might have to do some detective work online to track down certain titles at affordable prices. Sometimes I get other furs to help with importing titles; e.g. Animalympics is currently only available on DVD in Germany (with both the German and the original English dub), so I ordered it on amazon.de and had it sent to a German furry, who then passed it on to me at Eurofurence. A Spanish furry who visited Norway helped me out with transporting a few film titles I’d ordered from amazon.es. I have gotten a pretty good personal collection, and must have spent several thousand kroner. It’s always exciting when I stumble over a VHS of some furry animation I have no idea what is and which might be a candidate for our annual VHS Special-themed movie nights.

Right now, it’s the only monthly furmeet event that takes place in Oslo, and people seem to enjoy it! I know many people have met good friends through the meets, including myself. Noise level can be an issue with so many people, and we have gotten playful complaints that the films and series we watch are sometimes too obscure or poorly produced (like Dingo Pictures films), but people keep returning and seem to have fun. While the vast majority of attendees are Norwegian, we have had a few Swedish and American furs drop by, and we try to cater to them if we know beforehand (like showing films in English rather than Norwegian, or at least with English subtitles).

We have had a couple of “specials” at NordicFuzzCon, a furry convention in Sweden. The two first years of the convention we had room parties where we watched some loosely animal-themed MST3K episodes (I believe Puma Man and Werewolf), inviting both Norwegians and non-Norwegians. The third year we got to use the hotel’s large auditorium/movie room to have a public screening, showing a few brief highlights from CinAnt (as we regularly abbreviate it). The last two years we skipped it, partially due to stress, but I’m hoping we can try having another CinAnt room party at the forthcoming NFC convention.

We chose a French sounding title for the film club to play up the snootiness of film clubs. We might not be watching art haus films, but that’s no reason not to be a bit snooty! And the tiger is because the city of Oslo is known as “tigerstaden”, which translates to the Tiger City or the City of Tigers. So it seemed appropriate with a monocled tiger.

Did you put on the Zootopia screening at NordicFuzzcon?

We didn’t put on the Zootopia screening, no! Alas. So that’s unrelated. Except I’m also on the board of NordicFuzzCon. Trax was the person who organized it.

When it goes around between members houses each month, are there any with special screening setups? And does it ever do a formal theater outing?

The gatherings are usually held at Emphy and Leophan’s place, who help to organize it. But we try to vary it when we can, and whoever has a TV and a living room that’s big enough is welcome to host! And it has to be in Oslo, of course.

No special screening set-ups, no. But a large TV is good, and we need to know what the hosts are capable of playing. If they have region-free players, if they can play LaserDisc and/or VHS, etc. Emphy has a pretty good collection of electronics like that, which is also why it often ends up being at his (and Leophan’s) place.

Would love to go full movie theater with this, but renting a location would cost a lot. Most would also exclude us from bringing any of our own food and drink. Maybe if we had the right contacts (I know there are smaller film showings at locations organized by student groups and fully official film clubs), but alas.

We are very much at the limit of the amount of attendees we can handle, and we’re considering options. Maybe requiring people to pre-register and having a hard cap, and actually turning away people who just show up unannounced to join – which would be rather sad. Or we’ve joked with consistently watching more bad films to discourage people from attending, reducing the amount of people who want to come.

Is this one of the biggest meets in Norway? Are there others that meet monthly or more in other parts?

I’m fairly sure that this is the biggest monthly/regular meet in Norway, yes. But there’s a yearly new year’s party that’s definitely larger, with 40-50+ people attending. We have thought about “franchising” CinAnt, but that would be hard to organize! And we’ve gotten a few requests to somehow stream it, but again, not that easy (especially when we are watching different formats on different devices).

Here you can also see the meet’s official thread, with the complete run-down of themes (with a lot of Norwegian).

UPDATE: Some meet photos.

• Crowd: Various ‘crowd pictures’ from a few different nights.
• Teasers: Pictures to tease about movies we are watching at forthcoming movie nights (Usually at the @CineAnth twitter account).
• Guestbook: Pictures from the guestbook! (A lot is in Norwegian.)
• Collection: Some of my movie collection.

Thanks to TF Baxxter. A super cool thing about furries is having an international conspiracy – wherever you go, there may be a nest of them to welcome you. Know of any cool or unique ones? Tips always welcome.

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.

Spencer & Locke is a new full-color comic series that slipped on by last summer, but we finally caught up with it! Locke: He’s a hard-boiled police detective. Spencer: He’s Locke’s imaginary childhood friend, now grown up into a 6-foot tall panther. Together, they fight crime. (Sorry, couldn’t resist!) Writer David Pepose describes it as ‘Calvin & Hobbes meets Sin City‘, and that sums it up pretty well! Illustrated by Jorge Santiago, Jr. and Jasen Smith, it’s available now from Action Labs. And check out the spoiler-free review over at Pop Cult HQ.

image c. 2017 Action Lab

Fayroe and Paradox are back after a two week break to churn through a plethora of news and links.

Download MP3

Watch Video Link Roundup:

• Fayroe was an extra for a film called Pottersville, coming out soon
• Paradox’s Flickr including Fursuit Photo Shoot photos
• Blue fox marketing
• Telegram Live Locations
• Hyatt Hotel credit breach
• Hiyu Explains Rocket Science
• Map divided into sections based on furry con
• SwiftOnSecurity continues to make fun of furries
• Fursuiters mock American Dad
• Wikihow: How To Be A Furry
• 14 Times People Tried in Vain To Understand Furries on Tumblr
• Anthro Northwest
• Furry’s grandmother loves fursuits
• Boozy Finds A Furry School Bus

News:

• Scientists Have Made Genetically Modified Low-Fat Pigs
• First Wild Bison In Germany For 250 Years Is Shot Within A Day
• Wild Badger Sneaks Into Home, Impersonates Family Cat
• Man uses blowtorch against spider left homeless
• First Evidence That Online Dating Is Changing The Nature of Society
• Bad News About Oral Sex
• Weird Science Studies
• Smart toilet’s bidet hacked via Bluetooth, gives new meaning to ‘backdoor vulnerability’

Emails:

• Avery – Becoming a Part of the Fandom’s Community
• Wisperkity – Fond memories for you, and interesting question.
• 0101 – Fanmail
• Wolfe – Went to my “fur-st” con

FC-282 Wildlife Wrestling Federation - Fayroe and Paradox are back after a two week break to churn through a plethora of news and links.

Fayroe and Paradox are back after a two week break to churn through a plethora of news and links.

Download MP3

Watch Video Link Roundup:

• Fayroe was an extra for a film called Pottersville, coming out soon
• Paradox’s Flickr including Fursuit Photo Shoot photos
• Blue fox marketing
• Telegram Live Locations
• Hyatt Hotel credit breach
• Hiyu Explains Rocket Science
• Map divided into sections based on furry con
• SwiftOnSecurity continues to make fun of furries
• Fursuiters mock American Dad
• Wikihow: How To Be A Furry
• 14 Times People Tried in Vain To Understand Furries on Tumblr
• Anthro Northwest
• Furry’s grandmother loves fursuits
• Boozy Finds A Furry School Bus

News:

• Scientists Have Made Genetically Modified Low-Fat Pigs
• First Wild Bison In Germany For 250 Years Is Shot Within A Day
• Wild Badger Sneaks Into Home, Impersonates Family Cat
• Man uses blowtorch against spider left homeless
• First Evidence That Online Dating Is Changing The Nature of Society
• Bad News About Oral Sex
• Weird Science Studies
• Smart toilet’s bidet hacked via Bluetooth, gives new meaning to ‘backdoor vulnerability’

Emails:

• Avery – Becoming a Part of the Fandom’s Community
• Wisperkity – Fond memories for you, and interesting question.
• 0101 – Fanmail
• Wolfe – Went to my “fur-st” con

FC-282 Wildlife Wrestling Federation - Fayroe and Paradox are back after a two week break to churn through a plethora of news and links.

Fayroe and Paradox are back after a two week break to churn through a plethora of news and links.

Download MP3

Link Roundup:

• Fayroe was an extra for a film called Pottersville, coming out soon
• Paradox’s Flickr including Fursuit Photo Shoot photos
• Blue fox marketing
• Telegram Live Locations
• Hyatt Hotel credit breach
• Hiyu Explains Rocket Science
• Map divided into sections based on furry con
• SwiftOnSecurity continues to make fun of furries
• Fursuiters mock American Dad
• Wikihow: How To Be A Furry
• 14 Times People Tried in Vain To Understand Furries on Tumblr
• Anthro Northwest
• Furry’s grandmother loves fursuits
• Boozy Finds A Furry School Bus

News:

• Scientists Have Made Genetically Modified Low-Fat Pigs
• First Wild Bison In Germany For 250 Years Is Shot Within A Day
• Wild Badger Sneaks Into Home, Impersonates Family Cat
• Man uses blowtorch against spider left homeless
• First Evidence That Online Dating Is Changing The Nature of Society
• Bad News About Oral Sex
• Weird Science Studies
• Smart toilet’s bidet hacked via Bluetooth, gives new meaning to ‘backdoor vulnerability’

Emails:

• Avery – Becoming a Part of the Fandom’s Community
• Wisperkity – Fond memories for you, and interesting question.
• 0101 – Fanmail
• Wolfe – Went to my “fur-st” con

[Live] Wildlife Wrestling Federation

Papabear,

​​First off, I apologize if I sent a version of this letter that is similar. I had a problem with my browser.

So, seven days ago (October 20th) I was feeling bad, possibly depression-level bad. I ended up self-harming using a rather sharp boxcutter. I've only cut three different times, causing a few cuts each time. I cut on my upper thigh high enough that my boxers cover them well. I had been considering cutting for quite some time before my first session. It's a way to show control over myself and I've started to enjoy the pain afterwards. I'm willing to risk the scars.

Now, to my question. Is this a truly unhealthy, unmanageable behavior that I need to stop? I don't want to stop.

AFoxThatIdentifiesAsADoggo (age 15)


* * *
 
Dear Doggo,
 
Thank you for your important letter. Cutting and self-harm is a subject I have touched on in other columns, but now I get to do so directly, so this is something that is good to add to the “Ask Papabear” column.
 
Cutting, by its very nature, is not healthy, but it is understandable and treatable. It is also quite common. Statistics show that nearly 1 in 5 Americans have harmed themselves in this manner at some point in their lives. Typically, self-harm occurs during adolescence.
 
There are a couple reasons why people cut themselves. One, as is the case with you, is depression or anxiety. If you are in a situation where you can’t express those feelings openly to others (family etc.), cutting affords a kind of release of emotional tension. The pain caused by cutting also distracts one from emotional pain, which provides some relief.
 
Another reason for cutting is self-punishment. People who feel unworthy of love and compassion become angry at themselves and feel they deserve pain. I don’t think this is what is going on with you, however. I think the former is more likely. I also don’t believe you are in danger of committing suicide; such drastic acts are usually not part of the self-cutting paradigm.
 
Answering your question, any time you cause trauma to your body, it’s not a good thing. It would be best if you stopped. You don’t want to stop because cutting yourself is offering you relief from your psychological and/or emotional pain.
 
The best solution, therefore, is to figure out what is causing that pain and put an end to it. You don’t explain what is causing it, so I would need more information there. You will stop cutting once you stop your emotional pain. This might come with a personal revelation, or with help from a therapist, or simply by outgrowing the need to cut.
 
Hope this helps. Feel free to write again if you wish to discuss what is really going on behind the cutting.
 
Hugs,
Papabear

We got this right from Animation World Network: “Belgium-based studio nWave Pictures has teamed up with French sales company Charades to help sell its upcoming 3D animated feature The Queen’s Corgi… With a budget of more than $20 million, The Queen’s Corgi is being directed by nWave chief Ben Stassen with Vincent Kesteloot. The screenplay is by Rob Sprackling and Johnny Smith. The movie follows the adventure of Rex, the British monarch’s most beloved dog, who loses track of his mistress and stumbles across a fight club with dogs of all kinds confronting each other.” With films like House of Magic, Wild Life, and Son of Bigfoot already in their repertoire, it looks like nWave are trying to be a very furry production company. This new film is due in 2019.

image c. 2017 nWave Pictures

This is the season ... Rhino produced this music video for Warren Zevon's Werewolves of London. Ok, Somebody needs to do this properly with fursuits. Also, Going to have to fine them $350.
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Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer

Furry Nation: The True Story of America’s Most Misunderstood Subculture, by Joe Strike. Illustrated.
Jersey City, NJ, Cleis Press, October 2017. Trade paperback, $17.95 ([ix +] 342 pages), Kindle $10.99.

Yes!

Here it is! What we’ve all been waiting for! The book about furry fandom!

Full disclosure: I’m quoted by name on a back-cover blurb, and cited as “a founding father of furry fandom”.

Is it perfect? No, but it’s probably better than any of us could have written. I gave up writing a book “all about” furry fandom long ago. If I may be permitted a moment of “I told you so”, I told those who asked me to write such a book in the late 1990s that it would take me around ten years to fully research and write such a book. They turned from me to find someone else who could do it right away. They couldn’t.

Joe Strike has been in furry fandom since the 1980s. He has been working on Furry Nation for at least fifteen years. It’s full of both his own knowledge and the interviews that he conducted. He has interviewed not only all the earliest furry fans, and the current leaders of furry fandom – Mark Merlino, Rod O’Riley, Jim Groat, Mitch Marmel, Dr. Sam Conway, Boomer the Dog, leading furry artists like Heather Bruton and Kjartan Arnórsson, fursuit makers like Lance Ikegawa and Denali, academics like Dr. Kathy Gerbasi, and so on – but those outside the furry community who have impacted it. The writers of newspaper and TV news stories about furry fandom? He interviewed them. The executives of Pittsburgh’s tourist bureau? He interviewed them. The directors of TV programs and theatrical animation features that have used furry themes? He interviewed them.

What Furry Nation covers: a definition of furry fandom, the influences that gave rise to it back to prehistoric times, the history of how it started, profiles of the earliest furry fans, how the rise of the Internet affected it, a description of furry fandom in North America today, with emphasis on its conventions and a profile of Anthrocon in depth, its artists and furry art, its fursuits, its public perception, an acknowledgement of its seedier side, and how it has grown from a tiny, unnoticed subgroup to an important influence on popular culture today. The book has 189 footnotes throughout it. There are over two dozen photographs and samples of furry illustrations from the 1980s (early fanzines and Furry Party flyers) to the present.

This flyer is an illustration in the book – by Mark Freid, from Loscon XXIII in 1996.

Some chapters: The Many Flavors of Fur. A Fandom is Born. Pretty as a Picture: Furry Art. Together is Just What We’ve Got to Get: The Convention Age Begins. Walk a Mile in My Fursuit. I Read the News Today, Oy Vey. Anthrocon: The Convention that Conquered Pittsburgh.

What Furry Nation does not cover: furry fandom outside North America, and areas of furry creativity in addition to its fursuits and art, especially its literature: the furry specialty publishers, the novels and anthologies and collections, the furry writers’ organizations, and the literary awards. This is deliberate and really nobody’s fault. I can confirm personally that Strike interviewed me at length about furry literature. Allyson Fields, the Marketing Manager at Cleis Press, apologized that Strike’s manuscript was so huge that whole chapters had to be edited out. A look at the attractive but small book tells why: Furry Nation is only 5” x 7.9” wide, almost a pocket book (most standard hardcovers are 6” x 9” or slightly larger) but nearly 1” thick; bulging for its size.

The result has unfortunately reinforced the stereotype that furry fandom is primarily an American subculture, and that most furry fans are only interested in wearing fursuits, and drawing or collecting furry artwork. There are mentions still in the book of the furry conventions outside North America, and of activities besides the furry art and fursuits; but they are so small that they are easy to miss.

A further flaw is that, as Strike alludes to in his first chapter, “And quite a few people who enjoy anthro characters no longer call themselves furry […]” (p. 5) Specifically, a few people who were crucial or influential in starting furry fandom in the 1980s and 1990s refused to be interviewed for this book, or to answer any of Strike’s questions. I know personally of one who hopes that it fails. For potential legal reasons, they are not mentioned in Furry Nation. Yet they were very important furry fans twenty and thirty years ago. Any history of furry fandom that does not even mention them is badly flawed.

So what are the merits of Furry Nation (cover photograph of “Madelein the Lynx” fursuit head constructed by Temperance, by Temperance; cover designed by Scott Idleman/Blink)? It’s always flattering to read an entire book that presents a favorable picture of your self-adopted hobby or lifestyle; that pats ourselves on the back. (Or should that be, scritches our fur?) For the furry neofan who wonders when and how it all got started, here is the answer! For the adolescent fur whose parents want to know what furry fandom is before giving permission to go to that convention or to attend that rave, here is the book to give them.

The main physical drawback of Furry Nation is its small size and paperback nature. Libraries tend not to get such books, so you probably can’t refer anyone to it. If you want to show it to anyone, you may have to buy your copy, or show it on Kindle.

Joe Strike has said that if Furry Nation sells well, he will write a second book that contains all of the material cut from it: Furry Planet. So what are you waiting for? Get it now!!

– Fred Patten

• Buy on Amazon
• On Cleis Press

Don't forget sub types like baby furs.

— Been Doxx (@PupRylee) October 27, 2017

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.

Bonus video from Cartoon network Asia! "Ever dreamed of being a car racer? Let Paddle Pop show you how!" Damn, I want to be a car racer lion now. Also I want a Paddle Pop now. [1] [1] https://furry.today/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/rejected-4-300.jpg
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This is just adorable.
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Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.

Civilized Beasts, Poetry Anthology, volume II, editor-in-chief Laura Govednik. Foreword by Jonathan Thurston Howl.
Manvil, TX, Weasel Press, August 2017, trade paperback, $8.00 (126 pages).

Well, this is a bargain. The 2015 Edition, volume I, was $8.99 for only 86 pages. This is only $8.00 for 126 pages. Let’s hope this trend continues.

This poetry anthology contains 84 poems of mostly one page or less. Several authors have two or more poems. There are many familiar furry fan names among the poets: Makyo, BanWynn Oakshadow, Thurston Howl, Televassi, Donald Jacob Uitvlugt, Thomas “Faux” Steele, Altivo Otero, Searska GreyRaven, Dwale, and Frances Pauli, among others. It is another charity for the Wildlife Conservation Society. “All proceeds from this anthology go towards the Wildlife Conservation Society.”

The poetry ranges from classic couplets to scintillating stanzas; from imaginative iambic pentameters to sparkling sonnets; from fantasy free verse to honorable haiku. (But do “rules” and “school” really rhyme?) The poems are divided by animal species: “The Carnival of Canids”, “The Festival of Felines”, “The Bolero of the Beasts”, “The Rally of the Rodents (and Rabbits)”, “The Aria of the Avians”, “The Circus of the Scales and Fins”, “The Interlude of the Insects and Arachnids”, and “The Menagerie’s March”.

As with the first volume, these are mostly not poems about anthropomorphized animals. They are more about the beauties of nature, or the probable thoughts of real dogs, cats, horses, deer, and others. In fact, only one is clearly about an anthropomorphic animal: “The Natural Order Disordered” by J. J. Steinfeld.

“What more evidence do you need?”

the well-groomed articulate fox says

to the slovenly tongue-tied hunter

with the newly-purchased rifle.

[excerpt]

Except for featuring a fox rather than a rabbit, it reminds me of an old Warner Bros. cartoon.

Anyhow, whether the animals – that’s any beast that isn’t a vegetable or a mineral – are anthropomorphized or not, for only $8.00, how can you go wrong? The cover by Darkomi is worth $8.00 by itself. And it’s for the Wildlife Conservation Society. Buy copies to send to your relatives and friends (like my sister did).

Full disclosure: I have two poems in this.

– Fred Patten

• Buy on Weasel Press

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.

Cucumber Quest is a popular on-line fantasy adventure comic for young readers, written and illustrated by Gigi D.G. Now it’s been assembled by First Second into a new full-color graphic novel, Cucumber Quest: The Doughnut Kingdom. It goes like this: “What happens when an evil queen gets her hands on an ancient force of destruction? World domination, obviously. The seven kingdoms of Dreamside need a legendary hero. Instead, they’ll have to settle for Cucumber, a nerdy magician who just wants to go to school. As destiny would have it, he and his way more heroic sister, Almond, must now seek the Dream Sword, the only weapon powerful enough to defeat Queen Cordelia’s Nightmare Knight. Can these bunny siblings really save the world in its darkest hour? Sure, why not?” The first volume is available now, in hardcover or trade paperback.

image c. 2017 First Second

Shut up and take my money. "Rivals of Aether is an indie fighting game set in a world where warring civilizations summon the power of fire, water, air, and earth. Untangle the mysterious conflicts of the planet Aether in Story Mode or take your combat skills online and challenge your friends across the world."
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Hello Everyone!

We open this week's show with a discussion of a recent article in the New York Times concerning the rise of anxiety amongst American youth. We look at recent studies done that try to explain the sources of anxiety that we face in the modern day, as well as ways we can work to counteract it in our everyday lives.

Our main topic is on Communication Mismatches. After a discussion in our Telegram group concerning relationships where communication styles are not complementary (especially in regard to Nonviolent Communication), we wanted to go over this in more detail. What are the more common types of communication styles, how can they be improved on, and what do you do in a relationship where the communication styles are so different the relationship turns combative more often than not.

We close out the show with a question on breaking up. A younger questioner is blocked from talking to his boyfriend by potentially homophobic parents. Should he break up or not? 

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

Thanks and, as always, be well!

FA 091 Communication / NVC ability Mismatches - How bad is YOUR anxiety? How great are you at talking? Is young love forever? All this, and more, on this week's Feral Attraction!

Hello, Papabear.

Well,I want too say that I have a problem with my fathers,I`m gay and My fathers are very strict and they are too awful with this things and I don`t know if I can say them that I`m gay or what

I want they too still love but I dont know what to do

AGH!! I really need your help,pretty please

I already have my beautiful boyfriend

please ,answer me the most fast you can

Kiss and hugs papa bear

Bye!

Sater (age 17, Mexico)

* * *

Dear Sater,

Apologies for the slow reply. I am still behind on my letters.

Being gay in the USA is difficult, but I have heard it is even more challenging in Mexico because of the culture there. Anyway, my advice to you is that you need to find a circle of supporters. I would not advise you to try coming out to your father all on your own. You need help and resources.

You don't say where you live, specifically, but if you are near Mexico City that would be lucky because, in Mexico, that is where you will find the most community and government support. I recommend you do a little research and contact some people for advice in your native land. Here is a helpful link: https://www.angloinfo.com/how-to/mexico/mexico-city/family/lgbt/lgbttti-organizations that provides everything from legal help to community information.

Hope this helps!

Take Care,
Papabear

Tempo (Tempe O’Kun) is a furry author in North Dakota.

Art: Rattusdingus

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If you support white supremacy…

If you play dress-up in the uniforms of genocide…

If you mock people who just want the same rights you enjoy…

…you don’t belong here. Not in my fandom. Not in my country. Not in my world. You cannot possibly play the victim enough for me to consider your murderous opinions valid. So cry all you want, but we’ll be here in the furry fandom having fun without you.

To the rest of you, to actual furries: this is our fandom, a place on the Internet that’s nobody’s but ours. We decide who gets to play here, and what the rules are. The offline world’s pretty messed up right now, but kicking the Nazis out of furry is a concrete, realistic, and powerful move toward justice.

I’M JUST HERE FOR THE TALKING ANIMALS

Let me tell you why to care.

I had one grandfather flee Germany before WWII and another fight his way in during it. Both were white, blue-eyed, straight Christians—yet they opposed Nazism in every form it took, because they believed every person had worth. They are dead and cannot tell you why Nazism isn’t safe to ignore. They are dead and I’d be a coward if I didn’t give you the lessons they paid for in blood spilled and horror witnessed. For them, I strive never to be a coward.

Until last year, I tried not to “bring politics” into furry. I consider the fandom a place for healthy escapism. But you can only afford to be “non-political” so long as the things you care about are safe. I’m making an exception because of these people we’ve been excusing in our fandom, who post comics crying about how black people want equality, who whine that Nazis “should be tolerated.” No. They are committing real-life terror attacks, literally murdering people on the street in the name of Trump. We would not allow open ISIS supporters here—we cannot allow neo-Nazis and KKK types here.

Sociologists call this problem a “tolerance paradox”—if you allow toxic people to twist your group’s tolerance to condone their hate, your group becomes less tolerant overall. Then more and more moderate people are driven out until only the hate group remains, having eaten your group from the inside out. This isn’t a flaw with tolerance. True tolerance is active. It’s sticking up for people with less power, attesting to their right to be different. Passively letting genocidal bullies take over your fandom others isn’t tolerance—it’s being a lazy jerk.

Charlottesville is a wake-up call to any furry who thought Nazifur was harmless make-believe. Anybody who sticks with Nazifurs now is showing you their true character. Publicly associating with that community after the terror attacks means you’re okay with what they did, that it’s no big deal to you.

CAN’T WE JUST GET ALONG?

I believe in tolerance. We can’t live in harmony with people who want to kill us. “Tolerating intolerance” isn’t tolerance at all, it’s putting your comfort above somebody else’s safety.

I believe in compassion. You do not serve the cause of compassion if you let murderous thugs gain power. Bullies rely on our desire for peace and tolerance, which is why the cry about being persecuted when called out for persecuting others.

I believe in diversity. The fandom is lucky to have people from diverse backgrounds, and we benefit from their unique perspectives when solving problems. But listening to different viewpoints only makes sense when both sides have merits. There’s no merit to “let’s kill everybody who’s a different race/orientation/religion than me.” What would a compromise there even look like? Only killing some of those groups? Idiocy. It’s treating self-described wannabe serial killers as having a legitimate philosophy we should learn from. Again, no furries have argued to me we should “just get along” with ISIS.

I believe in harmless fun. But Nazis are murdering people in the streets because we’ve been lulled into thinking it’s a weird fetish we shouldn’t kink-shame. It’s not. It’s literally the idea we should murder everyone who disagrees with white supremacism.

I believe people can change—some already are. And I spent months talking to folks in that community. But, for all their claims of being reasonable and logical, I got led around and around, having every logical fallacy thrown at me in the hopes of tiring me out and having me slip up so they could claim victory.

BUT BOTH SIDES!

Black Lives Matters is not shutting down furry cons. Feminists are not shutting down furry cons. Communists are not shutting down furry cons. Anti-fascists are not shutting down furry cons, doxxing, swatting, or costing $10,000s in legal fees. Nazis are. Our minds love binary opposites, but we can find no symmetry here. Pretending some balancing force exists only keeps us from confronting the problem, since it allows us to tell ourselves the two will cancel out without our having to do anything. I wish.

The time for smugly saying “what about?” and “both sides!” or “I never see it…” or “it doesn’t affect me!” is over. Nazis love these supposedly “centrist” excuses. Refusing to condemn Nazis doesn’t make you a savvy centrist. It doesn’t even make you coolly detached. Let me tell you about apathy. Apathy is fearful rationalization. Apathy is an emotional defense mechanism—and not a healthy one.

“Everything’s fine…” Apathy purrs in addictive tones. “Because if it weren’t fine, you couldn’t justify doing nothing. You’d have to Do Something. And where would you start? It’s such a complicated mess. And ya might fail. That would suck. And you might look stupid for changing your mind. Better to do nothing. Better to crouch here with me, between good and evil, and hope that’s enough to save your pride and your life. It’s fine. Both extremes are the same, anyway. They have to be, right? They’ll cancel out. +1 and -1 equals zero. We’re smart here in the middle. Everyone else is just stupid. That’s why they’re worked up. It’s fine. You couldn’t change anything anyway. Everything’s fine…”

But it’s not fine. We are past the point where you can be “not into politics.” Every furry in every nation is responsible for who we are as a fandom. Stand up. Either you oppose white supremacy in the fandom or you’re fine with it. (No, I’m not over-simplifying. There are literally just two positions. You either believe some races as sub-human or you don’t.)

And you can’t just wait for it to blow over. This isn’t just another fandom spat. It’s not “just online drama” when real-life people are being murdered. The Nazis in the fandom and the ones out marching with torches are the same people. They visit Stormfront, worship Trump, make death and rape threats to minority and female furries, and participate in the coordinated attacks. Some of them even traveled to Charlottesville to join in the terrorist attacks.

If you’re different, it’s their stated goal to literally murder you—no matter how much they say it’s for the lolz. They aren’t real furries.

WHY DO THEY WANT TO BE NAZIS ANYWAY?

Basically: because it filled an emotional void for them, at least in the beginning.

In another life, I worked in a drug rehab center. Hate’s like a drug. It pumps you up, makes you feel sure of yourself, gives you a rush of endorphins. It’s a powerful neurochemical response, designed to help you fight off physical threats. And you can get hooked on it. It follows the same pattern as any other addiction. Back in rehab, we called it “the only addict story.”

– First, you think you can use it casually, socially. You’re just playing around. You can quit whenever. Whoever supplies you frames it as users versus people not in on the fun. You feel like you’re one of the cool kids. (In the case of hate, we’re talking about “non-PC” memes and jokes about minorities and women. If you’re older: Fox News and talk radio.

– Then your brain acclimates to those endorphins. You need more to get the same rush. you think you’re clever enough to outsmart their own brain chemistry. Nobody has ever succeeded. (Moving on to harder stuff: racist articles on InfoWars, Breitbart, Stormfront—racist videos on YouTube.)

– Next, your brain acclimates so much, you feel like shit at your natural endorphin baseline. You start building your day around the fix. You keep it on you. You sneak a little during other activities. (If you’re addicted to hate, you bust out your phone and cruise the Nazi image boards or chats. Older folks just leave Fox News on all day.)

– Finally, your friends and family start to notice you’re addicted and freak out. They try to get you to stop using. So you hang out almost exclusively with the one group who won’t ask you to quit: other addicts. You tell everybody who’ll listen that you’re a rebel, because really you’re surrendering control. On some level, you know this is a bad move, so you shut yourself away from anything that makes you feel bad about using so you don’t have to think about it. (You start only listening to news sources that validate your hate, no matter how flimsy or convoluted the logic has to be to do that.)

– Then you’re really in a bind. The cool stuff in your life starts falling apart, so you’re depressed and crave fixes even harder. People start really taking advantage of you, since you’ve got nobody reliable to fall back on. Plus, you’re super easy to manipulate since you’ve built your identity around the fix and your brain chemistry is all over the place. (You get roped into doing stuff the “old you” would’ve rejected because it’s stupid or fucking evil—online harassment, doxxing, swatting, and, in the case of our own local Nazifurs, actual real-life terrorist attacks.)

Some asshole always benefits from these latter stages, and it’s never you. Like I said, this is the only way addiction goes down. Ruthless people who know how this goes down can get money, willing pawns, or heck even cult members by hooking vulnerable people. Addiction is vital to recruiting terrorists, but, since we don’t think of hate like a drug, it can seem like only someone inhuman to start with could be radicalized. Cult leaders punish those who drop out or speak up. Again, you don’t see antifa furries doxxing people. Remember: the human mind is wired to see mirror opposites, even when none exist—just like it’s wired to see faces in the clouds or the moon.

I don’t hate addicts. If I did, I never would’ve gotten into the business. I feel bad for them—they’re using to offset something they’re not getting in their lives. But you can’t let addicts run the show. Eventually, nothing is important as their next fix. Not their job. Not their family. Not their friends. Not another human life.

Thing is, you can’t force an addict to get clean. Even if you lock them away from their fix (and other potential fixes) for a few months —i.e. rehab— so their brain chemistry normalizes and they build new habits, they’ll fall back into addiction unless they fix the underlying emotional problem they had. Only they can decide to do that.

In the case of Nazifurs, I’ve seen the same underlying causes a lot. These sync up pretty well to other terror groups.

1) They don’t feel as powerful as they think they’re supposed to. You see a lot of young men there because we have this idea in society that men should be impossibly tough, strong, and aggressive. It’s called toxic masculinity. It’s also why Nazis idealize masculinity and get really threatened by trans folks, powerful women, gays, and anybody else who doesn’t fit into traditional gender roles. Hence why you see so much “SWJ” hate. Ever notice why so many GamerGaters got drawn into voting for a pseudo-manly strongman and now into Nazism?

Society is more accepting than ever before. We’re starting to see gender and race not as absolute categories, but as spectrums. This is threatening to the almost uniformly white and male Nazifurs because they feel like they’ve had power stolen from them. They throw a tantrum when they’re not the star of the show—when we get female Ghostbusters or a black gunslinger or a queer X-wing pilot. The openly-idiotic doublethink of “white genocide” resonants with Nazifurs, since it justifies horrible acts since you’re suddenly the victim.

2) They feel like they don’t fit in. Remember being a teenager? Yeah, pretty much any of those reasons. Ever wonder why there are non-white Nazifurs? Because they don’t feel American enough (or whatever country), and white nationalism sold to them as a way to be more so. Of course, they’re still brown, so they can fall out of favor with their new “community” dangerously fast.

3) They have a mental condition —anxiety, depression, et cetera— and are “hacking” their brain chemistry with endorphin rushes. We call this self-medicating. (We all self-medicate to some degree, relaxing meditation or video games or whatever. When it’s healthy, we call it a “coping skill.” Or, you know, getting real meds from an actual doctor. That’s also better.) But hate is really difficult to manage, even by drug standards. Mental illnesses get worse, not better, when you’re pissed off all the time and not learning to deal with your problems.

You’re probably feeling bad for Nazifurs. You should. That means you have empathy. Being an addict of any kind sucks, but being radicalized with hate is super insidious because there’s no physical external drug to blame or even notice—just your own brain chemicals. Pity these guys. But don’t let them use that pity to manipulate you: deflections, excuses, playing the victim. (Addicts quickly learn to be master manipulators, helped by the fact that you’re nothing compared to the craving.) Don’t let them off the hook. They’re not smoking pot. They’re addicted to being pissed off—pissed off that Jews and black people are alive. That’s really dangerous, because the brain is wired for violent confrontation, not peaceful cooperation, when doped up on hate chemicals.

Here’s the problem: we can’t lock Nazifurs up to break their habit. We can only lock them out. And we should. They don’t have the right to hurt people. Letting addicts hurt others only pushes them deeper, because guilt catches up to them when they’re not using, so they use more. The good news is the furry fandom isn’t the entire world, so their family and real-life friends may notice they got booted from that talking animal thing the liked. Or they might have to get arrested. Addiction sucks like that. In the meantime: fandom quarantine is best for everyone. Seriously, they’re fucking around with their brains and obsessing over the idea of murdering people.

WHAT CAN I EVEN DO?

First off, follow AltFurryBlocker on Twitter. Install the blocklist. Even if you don’t normally like blocklists. Even if you aren’t seeing the problem on your feed. The more regular furries who use it, the quieter the Nazifurs get. They may not have targeted you, but you’re helping to protect women and minorities in the fandom. Right now it’s just a basic blocklist, but they’re updating it into an auto-updating one that adds/removes accounts as Nazifurs make alt accounts or have changes of heart.

Next, learn about how fascist groups work. For those who haven’t seen it yet, this short video is a very good analysis of how fascist groups work.

Don’t be scared off by the creepy preview image.

After that, talk to your friends. Tell them you can’t believe this bullshit. If they make shitty racist jokes, remind them who they’re associating themselves with. If you have a friend who leans right, make sure they know where the line is and if they cross it. A conversation with someone you trust is miles better than avoiding arguments on the Internet. Talk to the people in your life, even (or especially) if they disagree with you. You don’t need to debate them, you don’t need to “win” an argument. Just talk to them and empathize and get them to see you and your concerns. Your moment of bold empathy inoculates them against this sickness.

Don’t debate Nazis. They’re just going to string you along. It takes way less energy for them to spew talking points than for you to refute them—and by the time you do, they’ve moved the goalposts. And don’t let them fool you with their newest sanitized hashtag. Tolerating intolerance isn’t tolerance at all.

Block users who spread hate. Report them. Delete their comments. Oppose them on every platform you use. Stick it to them in a thousand little ways. It makes a difference. We outnumber the Nazifurs 10,000:1. They can’t stop us. And they won’t try. I’ve been bullied to hell and back. Bullies are cowards. Always.

Don’t give money to artists who celebrate or excuse Nazis. Don’t favorite or share bigoted art.

Write to your favorite furry conventions. Tell them to ban white supremacist gear from cons, if they haven’t already. Don’t let Nazifurs shut down any more of our cons.

And sign on with your local Indivisible group if you live in the US—there are now at least two in each US congressional district (see Twitter and Facebook). That’s never happened before, and it’s all happened since the election. You might have noticed the largest sustained protest movement in US history. That’s us. If you live in another country: vote, protest, and stop this hatred in your country. Get organized.

If you found this journal compelling, share it with your furry friends. Spread the word. The world changed and Nazis can play the victim no longer. The free people of the world won’t play those games anymore. We’ve seen them kill six million people.

WAY AHEAD OF YOU

If you’re already in this fight, I give you this:

– Resist them in the streets and parks—with bravery, with organization, with solidarity.

– Resist them in your daily life—with compassion, with tolerance, with humor.

– Resist them in your heart—with beauty, with love, with self-care.

You rock, and I’m in this with you. If you want a daily dose of Liberal Cowboy Activist Tempo, please see my Twitter: https://twitter.com/tempowrites

See you out there. #resist

– Tempo

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