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Ran into this on Twitter. Interesting. You can read the whole thing online:

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/even-furries-are-fighting-fascists



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What's a community built on principles of extreme acceptance to do when actual Nazis show up in their midst?

Beginning in January, Red started getting calls from groups of furries who wanted her help fighting Nazis.

Red—who did not want me to use her real name because members of her subculture who speak to the press can be blacklisted from events—knows her stuff. The 26-year-old Chicagoan has been dressing up in a fur suit since 2008, and joined Antifa International three years later, after getting involved in the Occupy Wall Street protests. Antifa International (for anti-fascist) is a group dedicated to fighting right-wing politics, and to achieve that mission antifas are prepared to do anything up to and including punching Nazis. But Red, who believes fascist rhetoric should be met with a closed fist—or paw—wasn't sure the furries were prepared to do what it took.

"Most furries find any kind of violence abhorrent," she told me.

The furry fandom is one of the most inclusive subcultures on the internet. Many furries are queer, and most are used to being ridiculed for their "fursonas," anthropomorphized animal avatars that are used in roleplaying that sometimes (but not always) gets sexual. But even the furry community isn't immune to the political upheaval sweeping through America. Instead, it's a microcosm—albeit an odd one—of the culture war that the rest of the country is consumed by. The furries who called Red faced a question all too familiar to many people today: What should be done about far-right figures coming out of the shadows?

To be clear, Nazis are not new to the furry community. All the way back in 2007, a group called Furzi clashed with Jewish users of the game Second Life, which is a popular place for furries to congregate. Several members of the fandom told me that the ideology has festered among some furries ever since. More recently, a group called the Furry Raiders has become emboldened by the campaign, and eventual victory, of Donald Trump.

The Raiders are led by Lee Miller, a 29-year-old Furry who goes by Foxler Nightfire—a blue-eyed character who wears a red-and-black armband that should be familiar to any student of world history. Although he's been a known quantity within in the fandom for years, Foxler drew wider attention in January when he tweeted out a picture of himself with the hashtag #altfurry.

In late November, before "alt-furries" or "Nazifurs" attracted media attention, group called Antifa Furries formed to try to address the growing problem. Its goal is to get Nazifurs banned from events and to encourage furries to get involved in politics—efforts that seasoned activists like Red think are insufficient when it comes to combatting the far right.

Red told me that when members of the Antifa Furs called her up to ask for advice, they didn't like what she had to say. Though being "anti-fascist" seems like an obvious position to take, especially at a time like this, many antifas advocate property destruction and other forms of lawbreaking—which, Red said, the Antifa Furs weren't up for.

"Everyone jumped on this antifa bandwagon, but they are getting in over their head," she told me. "It's not for all liberals. It's for anarchists and for communists. It's not for people who wanna hold a sign or sign a petition. It's for people who are willing to do whatever is necessary to stomp out fascism."

logo courtesy of Antifa Furries

Instead of fighting Foxler with violence, the Antifa Furries decided to go with a strategy of trying to convince people to boycott conventions that didn't ban the Furry Raiders from attending—a fairly roundabout way of ostracizing one's enemies.

Fiver, a soft-spoken 20-something member of a group called the Antifa Furries, told me that furries—who tend to be both gentle and geeky—may be reluctant to expel problematic community members because they're afraid of being as intolerant as the people who bullied them in high school.

"While we do desire to be as accommodating and accepting as possible, this attitude has also required the acceptance of Nazis who will turn around and tell you that if you don't accept them, you're the real fascist," he told me.

When I talked to Lee Miller, who lives in Fort Collins, Colorado, he told me he's been into the fandom since he was 12. According to the high school dropout, his Nazi-esque armband originated as a Second Life accessory—but it's difficult to pin him down on what it actually represents, or what he actually believes. During the course of our conversation, he oscillated between claiming ignorance and irony. When I asked why he won't just take off the armband to end the drama, he unspooled a story about how the character of Foxler was based on his deceased father and that changing it would be tantamount to disrespecting his memory. When I asked about his politics, he said that they're starting to change in reaction to all the backlash he's received from people offended by his outfit. Before all of this, he used to look exclusively at 4Chan, he says, but now he's starting to read about "SJWs" and "safe spaces" and getting more involved in what might be termed slightly more mainstream right-wing modes of thought.

"Why are people trying to control my existence or tell me what I can and can't do when it's within the law?" he says. "I've never really driven into politics, but I need to get more serious about them now that all this is happening."

Miller says he originally supported Bernie Sanders, but now agrees with at least some of Trump's views. He also admires Trump's campaign tactics and the way the orange-faced provocateur played the media into giving him coverage. Meanwhile, furries aligned against him say Foxler/Miller has emulated these tricks. They say that he'll say anything to anyone as long as it increases his popularity and gets him more followers. It doesn't matter that he's bisexual, or that his boyfriend is a minority, because aligning himself with white nationalism has given him a platform. His backstory and its apparent contradictions make him vaguely similar to Milo Yiannopoulos, the alt-right personality who has built a whole career out of saying things calculated to piss off the left. Miller even attended a Yiannopoulos event last month in full furry regalia.

As for how a furry might be radicalized in the first place, one hypothesis among furries is that members of the fandom congregate on anything-goes image boards like 4Chan, which are also frequented by members of hate groups like Stormfront that will deliberately appeal to lonely nerds. The Raiders, like a fair number of those on the far right these days, can claim that they're just conducting a social experiment or trolling, but their opponents say that's just an excuse that they use to hide their honestly bigoted views.

"Foxler is all about grooming and manipulating people that don't feel like they belong anywhere—and, let's face it, most furries feel like they don't belong anywhere," a Colorado-based furry named Ash told me.

Ash is a 28-year-old who, like Miller, lives in Colorado and has been working to ban Foxler and his crew from local meetups. Armbands are now almost universally disallowed from the local scene, she told me, and Foxler is also not welcome at a local bimonthly dance party called Foxtrot. One problem, however, is that since people in the community are almost always in disguise at these events, it's impossible to tell who is secretly an alt-furry. Ash and others have been monitoring Twitter and trying to suss out who's been communicating with the enemy, but it's been tough.

Her big target is the Rocky Mountain Fur Con, which is set to take place this August in Denver. Anti-fascist furries claim that members of the Raiders are on staff there and that the con has been silent about their pleas to ban Nazis because they fear violence like the chlorine gas attack that sent 19 Illinois con-goers to the hospital in 2014.

Sorin, the con's chairman, declined a formal interview but instead issued a relatively middle-of-the-road statement: "Rocky Mountain Fur Con does not support or condone discrimination or violence in any of it's forms and is saddened by the hatred and division that has been caused be [sic] a small minority of our community on both sides of this issue."

That division, like the larger one afflicting America, isn't likely to heal anytime soon.

"It's so strange that this is also happening in our community," Ash told me. "But since the fandom is growing exponentially and the group is getting bigger, we were bound to pick up a small sliver of people that are completely off the wall. Foxler would be that sliver."

Follow Allie Conti on Twitter.
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Thoughts?
-Dia

They messed with the wrong dog. ...Thanks to Sysable for this tip!
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Netflix has a new stop-motion animated series hitting the digital byways soon. Here’s what the creators say: “From American Greetings Entertainment and Stoopid Buddy Stoodios, Buddy Thunderstruck is an action-comedy, stop-motion extravaganza that follows the adventures of a semi-truck racing dog named Buddy and his albino ferret mechanic. It all goes down in race-obsessed Greasepit, a place chock full of larger-than-life characters and nitro-burning, gear-slamming, tire-squealing, fish-tailing good times.” In case you didn’t know, Stoopid Buddy Stoodios are the house that animates Robot Chicken, and American Greetings Entertainment are the original creators of the Care Bears — as the trailer says, Yes Really. [Thanks to Changa Lion from Furry.Today for pointing this one out. Visit there to see new trailer!]

image c. 2017 Stoopid Buddy Stoodios

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Hello Everyone!

Before we get into the content of this show, we want to advise you that this episode contains discussions on abuse (emotional, physical, and sexual). If you are sensitive to such discussions we caution you against listening to this episode. Please consider listening to a show from our library, or hugging someone, or waiting until next week to listen to our next episode. Thank you for your consideration! 

We open this week's show with a discussion on mouth wash and gonorrhea. While gingivitis and bad breath are the standard enemies of Listerine, is it possible that your daily hygiene regimen can mitigate against the spread of an STI?

Our main topic is on sex and romance after assault. As individuals who have gone through various forms of abuse, we open up about our experiences, our healing process, and ways that we were able to grow and learn to love ourselves (and others) after the fact. This is a rough subject, and a heavy episode-- however it is an important episode and we encourage you to listen. 

We close out this week with a question on suicidal mates and the burden of support. How can you support a suicidal partner, and what should you do if you no longer feel you can offer that support.

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

Thanks and, as always, be well!

FA 057 Sex and Romance After Assault - Does listerine help you with more than just bad breath? How can you move past sexual assault? How can you support a mate who is suicidal? All this, and more, on this week's Feral Attraction

From the creators of Care Bears and Robot Chicken ... Now there's a sentence I did not ever expect to type. "Buddy Thunderstruck is the coolest semi-truck racing dog who lives down in race-obsessed Greasepit, a place full of larger-than-life characters and nitro-burning, gear-slamming, tire-squealing, fish-tailing good times." Coming soon on Netflix. https://www.netflix.com/title/80081170 [1] [1] https://www.netflix.com/title/80081170
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Dear Mr Papabear,

Losts my beloved Husbear/Daddy Bear a year now. I am looking for love again, but there is a guy who loves me and I don't love him. Since keep triggers me a lot. I want love again. I don't know how to tell him it is over. I am tired of being alone and hurt. Do you know where I can find love again with a bear as well?

Lil' Gothcub (age 33)

* * *

Hi, Lil' Gothcub,

I am very sorry for your loss, hon. Glad you have the courage to move on with your life, though.

You don't really find love; it comes to you. But you have to be ready to receive it when it does come. That's the key. To do that, you have to do a couple things:

1. Let your heart be open to the possibility of love.
2. Do not be overly picky—that is, do not have unreasonable expectations and so many necessary qualifications that you eliminate every possibility of someone meeting your requirements. Not everyone is a gorgeous billionaire who is amazing in bed. Learn to know what matters.
3. Conversely, you should have some self-esteem and not take someone into your heart who doesn't deserve it simply because they are available. This goes especially for potential mates who are abusive, lazy, and/or users.

As for the person who loves you but you don't return the love: rip off the bandage. Tell him now that you simply don't have those feelings for him. You can soften the blow by telling them that it's not because they aren't a good person; you just don't have that spark of emotion for them, but you are sure that someday they can find someone who will love them.

Hope that helps,
Papabear
​

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

Domino, by Kia Heavey.
Greenwich, CT, Unfiltered Creative, January 2016, trade paperback $11.95 (267 pages), Kindle $3.49.

Domino is a large black-&-white barn cat on the Browns’ farm, encouraged to roam it for rodent control. He is unneutered to make him more aggressive. He is complacent as one of the socially dominant cats in the nearby residential neighborhood prowl, along with his best friend Flufferdoodle and others such as Tiger, Cricket, Mister, Lady, Rudy, and Izzy.

Then two new cats enter the neighborhood. Celine is a black field stray who likes a free life, living outside of being a housecat. She becomes Domino’s equal, supporter, and eventually mate. Socrates is a supercilious but charismatic Siamese intellectual who spellbinds most of the other cats with the philosophy that all animals are transcendent – they can transcend their feral instincts if they only try. They all have souls and similar emotions. The cats all have humans who feed them, so they don’t need to go hunting for prey. Domino is amused at first, then alarmed as he sees more and more of his friends listening to Socrates. He is gradually isolated and sidelined as a social boor and killer of helpless wildlife. Domino suspects that Socrates and his housemate, Max the dog, have an ulterior motive, but he can’t figure out what it is.

Then Socrates introduces the rats.

The cover by Damon Bowie shows that either Domino is a small cat, or those are large rats. Domino is a very large cat.

Heavey writes clever dialogue:

“The rat’s back end was invisible in the sharp shadow alongside the wall, but its front end was starkly lit in the harsh midday sunlight. It was still panting from its recent dash for its life, but with its would-be killer safely in sight, it soon regained its typical arrogance. ‘Well, well, not so fast today, are we, cat?’

Domino’s sensitive ears flicked at the squeaky tones of the rat’s voice. ‘I’m not the one who was so scared I pissed myself,’ he replied. While he spoke, his eyes scanned the scene, seeking a way to approach the creature.

The rat laughed. ‘Maybe so, but I’m not the one who ran through it. Even now, I can smell my piss on you. When you bathe later, enjoy the taste,’ it taunted. ‘That’s what you like anyway, isn’t it?’

‘And you little sociopaths wonder why we kill your species whenever we get the chance.’ As Domino bantered, his mind raced. If only he could gain the shadow, he could slither along the base of the tumbledown wall. He took a tentative step closer.” (p. 3)

—

“‘Come here, you’ve got to meet the new guy,’ said a tabby cat with the predictable name of Tiger.

‘Looking forward to it,’ said Domino. Since Socrates had not moved, he allowed himself to be led to the odd cat. ‘Welcome,’ he meowed when he reached him.

Socrates didn’t look at Domino so much as he evaluated the way the other cats treated the barn cat: with deference and respect. His eyes narrowed before he finally returned Domino’s look. ‘Nice of you to join us,’ he said finally. He did not come down from his strange sitting up position.

‘I know you’re new to the neighborhood,’ began Domino, ‘but around here, we greet by touching noses.’

‘How quaint.’” (p. 15)

—

“As Domino watched, a smaller creature emerged from the woods, ghostly pale and eerily calm. It was Socrates, trailing along behind Max to see that Rudy was properly dispatched. Domino’s fur bristled so hard it made his skin hurt. Socrates sat and watched with cold eyes as Max finished with the body and dropped it, eventually lost interest, and sniffed his way to a nearly tussock, lifting his leg to urinate on it.

Socrates was innocent, Domino remembered Rudy saying. But certainly not now, he thought. That cat is as evil and corrupt as the meanest rat ever born.” (p. 151)

Domino builds slowly, but once it reaches its climax, there does not seem to be any way for Domino to survive. The climax is a shocker. The novel’s ending, while pleasant, is a bit of an anticlimax. But don’t miss the book’s first 259 pages.

• Buy on Amazon.

– Fred Patten

Alkali has been crazy busy at work, so for now, a betweenasode! I'm pretty sure we are planning on doing a stream this weekend, so stay tuned!!! Reminder: We're on Patreon! If you could kick us a buck or two, we'd greatly appreciate it. www.patreon.com/thedraggetshow ALSO, we're not just on SoundCloud, you can also subscribe to this on most podcast services like iTunes! Don't forget to hang out in our telegram chat, now w/ over 100 members!telegram.me/draggetshow Mouse Talk - Addicted 2 Food & Vidya - Alkali has been crazy busy at work, so for now, a…

Here is the student film from directors of the upcoming short Shine: https://vimeo.com/198561383
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Recently, I posted “The history of My Little Pony and thoughts about growing up with cartoons” to prepare for chat with Sherilyn Connelly.  Sherilyn is a journalist local to the San Francisco Bay Area Furries. (She has given them notice in publications like SF Weekly.) Her first book is out this April: Ponyville Confidential, a pop culture history of the My Little Pony media empire. (Please like the book’s Facebook page!)

Hi Sherilyn, thanks for talking about Ponyville Confidential!  Let me start by asking – who needs to read it? Will it be manely for fans?  Will there be parts to tempt furry readers?

“Manely!” I see what you did there. Obviously everypony needs to read it, and it’s by no means intended just for My Little Pony fans; I hope that people who are interested in pop-culture history in general will give it a look as well. And there are many references to the Furry fandom, including shout-outs to Frolic, Further Confusion, and Anthrocon.

I know you as a committed, active fan who comes to Furry events and writes journalism about them (and movies, and more.) Can you give a brief intro about your background and writing?

I’ve wanted to be a writer ever since I was old enough to want to be anything at all. I started writing professionally for SF Weekly in 2011 — within a few months when I started grad school and began watching My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, so it was a momentous year in retrospect — and wrote quite a lot about the the local Furry scene at the time. I began contributing film reviews to the Village Voice in 2012, and became the Weekly‘s permanent film critic in January 2013.

I hear this is your first book, congrats – how excited are you? Would anything surprise you about how it might be received?

Very excited, and yet strangely numb; I don’t think it’s really hit me yet, mostly because as I write this I haven’t yet held the published book in my hands. I’m sure it’ll seem very real when that fateful package arrives. Indeed, it’s all so abstract right now that the only thing that would truly surprise me at this point would be for Joan Didion to come out of retirement and write about it for the New York Review of Books. And since that ain’t gonna happen…

Will it get fandom promotion, have a place in the regular publishing world, or will you do hoofwork to promote it yourself like with readings?

It’s being published by McFarland & Company, a well-established purveyor of scholarly nonfiction books — though, for the record, Ponyville Confidential‘s specific genre is scholarly sparkliness — and McFarland’s titles are found in both public and academic libraries around the world. (For sure, I’ll be checking WorldCat on a regular basis in the coming months to see what far-flung shelves it’s landed on, which is possibly the nerdiest version of ego-surfing this side of Google-Scholaring yourself.) That said, I will indeed be doing a lot of hoofwork to promote it on my own, including readings at local libraries and bookstores. As for whether any segment of the fanbase chooses to promote it, I can’t begin to predict — though I do hope the fans of My Little Pony Generations 1-3 enjoy the book, since it’s for them in a lot of ways.

You do library events with a screening and discussion of MLP:FiM. That’s a good way to connect with people for real. What part did it play for your book?

Truth be told, none at all. My monthly TV Club is for fillies and colts 4-8 years old (who are too young to read Ponyville Confidential) and is part of my other day job as a librarian. Between that and writing for the Voice and the Weekly, I’m fortunate that my paying gigs also allow me to engage on a professional level with the pop culture I already enjoy. Can’t ask for more than that, really.

The book comes out at the same time as BABSCON 2017, sharing some organizers with SF Bay furry groups.

You called Ponyville Confidential well-researched with a bit of a political view (but fun silly parts too.) What might be provocative about it?

The research was one of the most fun parts of writing the book; the last 40-50 pages are entirely taken up by the double-column Bibilography, and are preceded by about two dozen pages of double-column chapter notes, so I make a point of showing my work whenever I’m stating facts and figures. If you think the 1986 Transformers: The Movie is awesome and are offended that I would describe it as “a financial failure,” please direct your flames to the August 30, 1987 Los Angeles Times.

Some readers will no doubt be irritated that just like on Friendship Is Magic, indefinite personal pronouns in Ponyville Confidential take the form of “anypony,” “somepony,” and so forth — scholarly sparkliness, yo! — but what I suspect may prove most provocative is that the book is very much from my point of view and nopony else’s. Which seems like it should go without saying, and it’s of course the case with pretty much every single-author book ever written, particularly history books; that’s why even though there are already dozens of biographies of LBJ, the four books Robert Caro has written so far in his The Years of Lyndon Johnson series total over 3,000 pages, and yet he’s only now getting to Johnson’s actual presidency. But many more people have much stronger feelings about My Little Pony than LBJ at the moment, and my superhellaleftyqueerfeminist politics often shine through (in Ponyville Confidential, not The Years of Lyndon Johnson). The people who share my general worldview will like that aspect, and those who don’t will not — and I am not unaware of the irony that the publisher of this queer-positive, smash-the-gender-binary book is based in North Carolina.

Also, I don’t wave the flag of any organized fandom. The only My Little Pony fans I interact with on a regular basis are the kids at the library, so I didn’t realize until researching Ponyville Confidential just how different my feelings about the franchise are compared to many of the Bronies — particularly regarding the Equestria Girls films, the backlash against which by Bronies and civilians alike I examine in great detail. But I realized early on than I could either write the book I wanted to write, or I could choose to not fully express myself for fear of getting Tweeted at by strangers who are angry that my opinions about My Little Pony are contrary to their own, so I decided to take a cue from Lin-Manuel Miranda and not throw away my shot. (Again, that’s why I decided to use ponyfied pronouns for Ponyville Confidential, since they wouldn’t be appropriate for the new, non-Pony film history book I’m currently writing.) Other people will no doubt write their own books about the history of My Little Pony working from the same set of facts, and come to different conclusions — and I look forward to reading those books! — but Ponyville Confidential is my take on the subject.

“This live production of My Little Pony y Equestria Girls: El Show en Vivo is discussed on pp. 179-180 of Ponyville Confidential, and the show is still going strong in Mexico City!”

Do you have any feeling about coming as a non-household name to a property that is one?

Heh. Let’s put it this way: outside of my friends and family, I’m under no illusion that the anypony who buys the book is doing so because it’s written by the film critic for a disreputable alt-weekly. I’m also well aware that being the only critic whose reviews of all four Equestria Girls films are listed on Rotten Tomatoes also doesn’t count for a hill of beans, but I’m a little proud of it, which is clear based on the fact that I just went out of my way to mention it.

You told me about being inspired by David Gerrold’s writing about Star Trek. How does that relate to ponies?

Star Trek comes up a few times in Ponyville Confidential, and David Gerrold’s books The Trouble With Tribbles (about that making of that episode, which he wrote) and The World of Star Trek (about the original series overall) were my introduction to nonfiction about pop culture. I read The Trouble with Tribbles dozens of times growing up, and quote from it in my book regarding the Friendship Is Magic episode “Swarm of the Century.” Nothing would make me happier than for somepony growing up with My Little Pony to read Ponyville Confidential and be inspired to write their own book someday about a beloved pop-culture franchise — though, to be clear, I am not suggesting any kind of equivalency between me and Mr. Gerrold. In addition to him being a faaaaaaaaaaaar more accomplished writer, he has been intimately involved with Star Trek since the original series and is an authority on the subject, whereas I am merely a My Little Pony fan with no official connection to the franchise.

Think about how MLP is regarded among kid-type media… in the past and now. I have a feeling there have been a few surprising changes. What’s changed, and what hasn’t?

What has changed is that there isn’t nearly as much of a cultural distinction between media intended for children and that intended for adults, hence seven of the ten highest-grossing films of 2016 being franchise pictures based on properties originally intended for children — even the single R-rated film is based on a comic book character, albeit a quote-edgy-unquote one — and the three of them not based on an existing intellectual properties are PG-rated cartoons. What hasn’t changed is that the majority of them are geared toward boys (read: lots of shit blowing up and punches being thrown, albeit at a PG-13 level) and/or have primarily male casts. Though My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is popular across demographic boundaries to an extent that lead to widespread head-scratching in the media, it should be interesting to see how the My Little Pony feature film slated to come out this October will fare. I have a hunch that it won’t do very well, but I’m also a terrible futurist.

I know you used Transformers to compare and contrast – are there other shows or types of media that make good comparison too?

The Transformers toy range is the salient point of comparison with My Little Pony because they’re Hasbro stablemates that appeared both appeared in the early 1980s, and their fortunes have always been rather intertwined. Transformers: The Movie premiered a few months after My Little Pony: The Movie in 1986, though it’s worth noting that while the Transformers movie came after the third season of the original Transformers cartoon, there had only been two half-hour Pony television specials before the Pony movie was released to theaters, and the single-season My Little Pony ‘n Friends series had not yet debuted. That said, I also make references in Ponyville Confidential to Star Wars, the aforementioned Star Trek, and the current run of Marvel films, mostly in terms of controversies over commercialism. (Spoiler: there’s a huge double standard between My Little Pony and the others.)

Did you learn anything notable about the history of MLP, like that dormant period between 1992-2003?

Lots, and in some ways it’s the most important section of the book. (By the way, I’d like to officially apologize to the non-English-speaking countries in which the toys continued to be produced throughout that 1990s; it was necessary for clarity’s sake to treat the franchise as moribund.) What struck me the most about the period I call the Long Dark Saturday Morning of the Soul is how even though My Little Pony was no longer being produced in North America or the UK, it was evoked whenever somepony needed an example of what they considered to be the worst aspects of children’s entertainment, or by a producer who wanted to provide an example of what their awesome new cartoons would not be like. It was also frequently referred to as a Saturday morning cartoon, when My Little Pony ‘n Friends was a syndicated show broadcast on weekdays, and it’s lesser-known 1992 followup My Little Pony Tales was an afternoon show on the Disney Channel. It’s a minor but telling detail, because it demonstrates that criticizing My Little Pony for its misdeeds never requires knowing what its deeds actually are. One of my favorites was in 1999 when Billboard described My Little Pony as having “made the leap from retail to Saturday morning cartoons and then video” in the early 1980s, and that it “paved the way for numerous others,” none of which is accurate.

Did you learn anything about the fandom for it, like how how older generation fans compare to new ones?

Short answer: Oh my yes. Slightly longer answer, at least in terms of letters: Read the book.

Let’s look beyond the show. MLP is upbeat and positive and not so focused on competitive values… something we could use in difficult times. The book blurb mentions “cultural significance” of the show.  What bigger trends do you see?

I think the cultural significance of My Little Pony can best be summed by the fact that we’re still talking about it after thirty-some years. The bigger, more unfortunate trend that I found — and which has been played out on the national stage in a truly horrifying manner after I finished writing Ponyville Confidential last May — is that sexism, misogyny, and the fear of feminism are still alive and well in our culture. But I also find a glimmer of hope in the young boys who are growing up with Friendship Is Magic — such as the ones who attend TV Club, and participate just as enthusiastically as the girls — and I believe that some of them may become adults who make the world a slightly more compassionate place. And every bit will help.

Can you share a few words for writers who may be reading, especially from the semi-pro-fan level, like from the Furry Writers Guild?

Write! If you’re a writer, do it. Make many words about the things that interest you. Most of those words will be terrible at first, and nopony may want to put them on paper, but keep at it.

Boy, IDW Comics are jumping in with both feet (or is it all four?) with a new full-color comic called Animal Noir. “Anthropomorphic animals like you’ve never seen them before. It’s Chinatown meets Animal Farm, and just like the George Orwell classic, Lunacek and Juren’s animals are an allegory for today’s world. Private Investigator (and giraffe), Immanuel Diamond – Manny to his friends – has been asked by his uncle – an influential judge — to track down a prey fantasy movie. Adult films in this world are staged hunts where one animal eats another, and the judge’s wife starred in one that has been hidden (until now). Giraffe detectives, hippo mob members, prey-obsessed lions, street fighting elephants, and oppressed zebras are just part of this wild animal kingdom.” Should we mention that several critics noticed that Zootopia reminded them of Chinatown too? Nah, probably not. Created by Nejc Juren and Izar Lunacek, Animal Noir #1 is due on the comic book shelves this coming March.

image c. 2017 IDW Comics

I still find it amazing the quality of fan productions these days.
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​Hello,

I have a strange issue: I have fallen in love with a fursona/fursuit. I really like the person that is the creator of this character. When I see them, or are close to them, I feel like a teenager again. I feel my cheeks flush, and feel something stirring inside of me I thought was dead. When they are with me, I feel proud, like that guy who has the most beautiful girl in the room. I feel like I am in a bad SoFurry story. I know this isn't right. I have told them about my feelings.
 
Sadly, I love the person on the inside, but not romantically. I feel my feelings for the character may cause the person to feel I am romantically attracted to them. It makes me feel horrible, and I am afraid I will hurt their feelings, and that will just kill me. I do not know how to reconcile this in my head, since I know it is all fantasy, even though I wish it was real.

Thanks.
Xela (age 55)

* * *
​
Hi, Xela,
 
Thanks for your letter. Question: what is it about the fursona that you really love? Is it just the appearance, or something more?
 
Papabear
 
* * *
 
I will be honest. There are several things. Lookswise, I am immediately attracted in several ways. Someone I would love to be seen with, I find the attraction in my heart, I feel so up to be with her. And as much as I hate to admit it, she turns me on, as well. If anthros were real, I would do anything in my power to be her mate. Also, the hugs are magnificent, and she treats people so good, and has a great outlook. I realize the person inside has this component, but my mind makes all of this one package. When we are apart, I can rationally think this. When I am with her, my heart beats faster, my temperature goes up, and I just want to hold her. Like a teenager in love.
 
I hope this helps show my thinking. Thank You!
 
Xela
 
* * *
 
Hi, Xela,
 
Sounds like you are attracted mostly to the appearance of the fursona. This is not at all an unusual phenomenon, and it happens not just in the furry fandom but across the board with fictional characters (cf. http://www.themarysue.com/the-psychology-of-fandom/). People often become enamored by characters and then associate that character with the actor who plays them, and it can be difficult to disassociate the two. An extreme example might be someone falling in love with Captain Kirk and then having feelings for William Shatner, even after discovering that Shatner, in real life, is, well, kind of a big jerk.
 
You say you really love the fursona, and even though you like the person who created it, you don’t actually love them. You’re worried you might somehow be leading them on, but has she ever expressed any emotions toward you? My guess is no and that you are worrying about nothing. Now, if she behaved as if she was falling in love with you, you might have a problem and have to have a sit-down with her, but unless she does that, I would just say continue as you are and have fun with it.
 
Since you aren’t deluding yourself that the fursona is real and you could somehow have a genuine romantic relationship with it, you must have a solid grasp of reality, and that’s great.
 
You should be less hard on yourself and less fretful that this is all so so serious. It isn’t. This is all fantasy, and you acknowledge that. So have fun with it! There is actually nothing wrong with indulging in a little fantasy, allowing yourself to get twitterpated over the sexy, huggable, friendly furry and just be happy with that. Who knows, you might also gain some experience in having a healthy relationship in the real world, such as getting lots of practice with hugs and displays of affection and kindness.
 
My advice, in conclusion, is to just enjoy the moment; don’t worry about the girl inside falling in love with you unless she actually does; and just be happy and furry.
 
Hugs,
Papabear

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

Culdesac; A Novella from the War With No Name, by Robert Repino.
NYC, Soho Press, November 2016, trade paperback $9.99 (110 pages + an 11-page preview of D’Arc), Kindle $7.99.

This is a side-story to Repino’s Mort(e), reviewed here in June 2015. In Mort(e), the ants declare a war of extinction against mankind. In addition to fighting humanity by themselves, including producing human-sized ant warriors, they use their “mysterious technology” to transform all animals into anthropomorphic intelligent beings. “Suddenly, farm animals, ferals, and pets could think and speak. Their bodies changed, allowing them to walk on their hind legs and use their hands like a human.” (p. 1)

The protagonist of Mort(e) is Sebastian, a pet housecat. When he is transformed, he takes the name Mort(e) and becomes a warrior in the elite Red Sphinx guerilla company under Captain Culdesac, a bobcat. When the ants and animals win, he is given ownership of the home he used to live in as a pet. But he remains a loner, skeptical about the animals’ alliance with the Colony, the underground ant super-nest; and about the animals’ ability to build a new society more successful than the humans’ had been. When the last human survivors resume the war with a new weapon, Mort(e) rejoins the Red Sphinx. The conclusion of the novel reveals whether the animals’ new world is stable, what the Colony’s true goal is, and what happens to Mort(e).

Culdesac takes place during Mort(e). It focuses upon the bobcat commander of the Red Sphinx, who is only a minor supporting character in Mort(e). Unlike Mort(e), who had known humans as a pampered pet and had doubts about turning upon them, Culdesac was a wild predator who grew up knowing only the law of kill-or-be-killed. He brings that attitude to the Red Sphinx.   “Relentless, bloody, and unforgiving, Culdesac is the story of an antihero with no soul to lose, carving a path of destruction that consumes the innocent and the guilty alike.” (blurb)

“Culdesac was no mere conscript in the war with no name. He fought it his entire life, long before the Queen uplifted him, changing him from an animal to something more.

[…]

“He and his brother did not have names. Culdesac knew his brother by scent, and by the growling noise his mother made when she called him. When something dangerous approached, his mother let out two quick grunts: mer-mer. At night, when they ate from a carcass, Culdesac’s brother would sometimes lick the blood from his mother’s face and paws. In these moments, she would say his name more gently, both a salutation and a thank-you. Years later, after the Change gave Culdesac the ability to speak, he thought of his brother as Murmur. A fitting name for a powerful bobcat who rarely needed to speak.” (pgs. 6-7)

Culdesac is set when Mort(e) is a new member of the Red Sphinx. He has just become Culdesac’s second-in-command. Other feline warriors, Culdesac’s and Mort(e)’s mates, include Tiberius, Uzi, Dutch, Anansi, Dread, Gai Den, Seljuk, and others. The Red Sphinx has been advancing toward an abandoned East Coast town:

“The town itself did not make things any easier. Once called Milton, the little hamlet resembled so many other deserted places Culdesac encountered, with a lonely highway ramp leading onto a main street consisting of gas stations, bars, a church, a school, a strip mall. Several rows of houses cut into the forest beyond. An old factory, abandoned long before the war, sat rotting near the train tracks, its boarded windows covered with graffiti, a black hole of decay that sucked in the surrounding buildings. A decades-old housing project quarantined the poor from the rest of the community. Several monuments to the town’s history stood rusting in the more prosperous neighborhood, including a war memorial and a few plaques commemorating houses that were used for both the Underground Railroad and for bootlegging.” (pgs. 16-17)

Book poster

The ants and their uplifted animal allies have been winning their war against the humans, advancing on all fronts. The animals have been reclaiming the humans’ towns. But the ant Colony’s Queen is still directing the war, and she has ordered the Red Sphinx to go into Milton and evacuate the town.   Neither the warriors nor the civilian animals in Milton understand the need to evacuate:

“A few of the townsfolk gathered around the square, most likely attracted by the smell, but also curious about this band of feline warriors. Culdesac counted a family of squirrels, a few dogs and cats, a raccoon, a rabbit. As the only all-feline unit in the army, answering directly to the Queen, the Red Sphinx earned a reputation among the animals. But here, the fearsome soldiers played games with the children. Bailarina kicked a soccer ball along the cobblestone street with two kittens. One of them pointed to her gun, and she told him that it was not a toy. When a kitten slipped and fell on the wet stones, Bailarina helped him to his feet and brushed the dirt from his fur. Nearby, Folsom let a puppy wear his helmet. A few sizes too big, the helmet covered the dog’s eyes, making her giggle and wag her tail. Soon the other children wanted to try it on.” (p. 42)

As far as Culdesac, Mort(e), and the Red Sphinx soldiers are concerned, orders are orders. But the animals of Milton do not want to give up their homes. Their spokeswoman/cat is Nox:

“The cat shuffled out from her hiding spot. She rose on her hind legs to a height taller than the others, almost as tall as Culdesac. Her irises had a golden tinge. Brown, gray, and black stripes cut across her thick coat. Shaggy hair hung from her cheekbones, and a tuft of fur formed a little patch under her chin. Her bushy tail slid out from behind the crate like a python. Culdesac recognized the breed: a Maine coon cat, no doubt raised by wealthy humans to appear feral while at the same time being affectionate, loyal, docile. Like a goddamn dog, almost.” (pgs. 27-28)

Needless to say, Culdesac and Nox do not hit it off. Or do they? Nox was the pet of the owners of Milton’s Royal Inn, its biggest hotel. Since the animals’ uplift, she has become the new mistress of the hotel, which she has turned into a brothel for Milton’s cats and dogs. But her arguments to Culdesac against the evacuation are more intellectual than sensual. Why should they evacuate if the animals are winning? The animals and ants are supposed to rule the world together, in partnership and equality; why are the ants still giving orders? Culdesac, who is unused to logic and debating, falls back on “orders are orders”, at the same time getting the feeling that Nox and the other town animals have another, secret reason for not wanting to leave Milton.

Culdesac (cover by Sam Chung) is a worthy followup to Mort(e). The novella ends with a ten-page preview of D’Arc, the next full novel in the War With No Name series, due in May 2017.

• Buy on Amazon
• Interview with author

– Fred Patten

The cast settles in to some alternate podcasting this evening. Join Tal, Vox Roland and Adoom for some good laughs. Episode -12 - Alternative Sharks

From time to time we all take a breather and just get the little things off of our chest, and in this episode it's your turn to tell us what little things about the fandom drive you crazy! Ranji takes a break from his world tour to stop in and read your emails (and audio letters) about what really grinds your tail about the fandom. We also have Space News, Fifty Sheds of Grey, Get Psyched, the Mailbag (with real mail and cookies), and more! So get to it and push that play button!





NOW LISTEN!

Show Notes

Special Thanks

Ranji, our guest
Anonymous Anteater
Dronon
Phoenix
Anonymouse
Lyrick
Kira the Kitsune
Dee Otter
EpicRive
Timid Grizzly

Music

Opening Theme: Husky In Denial – Cloud Fields (Century Mix). USA: Unpublished, 2015. ©2015 Fur What It’s Worth and Husky in Denial. Based on Fredrik Miller– Cloud Fields (Radio Mix). USA: Bandcamp, 2011. ©2011 Fur What It’s Worth. (Buy a copy here – support your fellow furs!)
Some music was provided by Kevin MacLeod at Incompetech.com. Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. We used the following pieces:

Spy Glass


Space News Music: Fredrik Miller – Orbit. USA: Bandcamp, 2013. Used with permission. (Buy a copy here – support your fellow furs!)
Closing Theme: Husky In Denial – Cloud Fields (Headnodic Mix). USA: Unpublished, 2015. ©2015 Fur What It’s Worth and Husky in Denial. Based on Fredrik Miller – Cloud Fields (Chill Out Mix). USA: Bandcamp, 2011. ©2011 Fur What It’s Worth. (Buy a copy here – support your fellow furs!)

Show Bonus!
Tugs and Nuka talk about his research and findings about what grinds the fandom's tail at large! It's incredibly surprising!

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Next episode: We'll let you know by Wednesday, February 8. S6 Episode 10 – What Grinds Your Tail? - From time to time we all take a breather and just get the little things off of our chest, and in this episode it's your turn to tell us what little things about the fandom drive you crazy! Ranji takes a break from

Yes, Savrin typo'd the filename. We ran with it. This week Savrin and Fuzz talk some politics (boo), anime (yay), talk about RMFC's little issue last week (yikes), the convention game in general (scary!), and round out with some actual good news (yay!). We have a Patreon! If you'd like to help support the show, check it out on patreon.com/knotcast Episode 338 - Lesbian Moms The Anime