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Hello Everyone!

On tonight's show we talk about how gender-stereotypical genes might play a large role in your attraction towards others in life. Viro talks about a recent study that might show how the stereotypes of gender affect interpersonal attraction. We also point out the problem areas in the study and why this is not yet a universal truth.

Our main topic is on how to be single and happy. For some, it can be difficult to attain both at the same time. We discuss ways and methods you can employ to achieve both without ignoring the fact that you are, in fact, not currently in a relationship. A lot of the methods can play a part even when you are in a relationship, especially if your partner(s) are long distance or prone to travelling often.

Our question this week is on how to handle your feelings of affection, romance, and sexual desire toward a roommate that may not be reciprocated. If you have had sex before you moved into an apartment with someone as a roommate, how do you handle a potential cooling off that might occur.

We have feedback on sounding advice and why, perhaps, our sound advice was a bit unsound. Confused? Sir Arcane, co-host of A Hairy Prone Companion and the President of the Lansing Pups and Handlers, takes us to school. 

We also would like to remind everyone to check out our appearance on the Alter Ego podcast. We talk with Athena, the host of the show, about fursonas, why we're furries, and what the fandom means to us. It's a great show and you should give it a listen.

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

Thanks and, as always, be well!

FA 029 How to be Single and Happy - Gender-Stereotypes, Being single and happy, roommate romance, why unsound sounding advice is bad! All this and more on tonight's Feral Attraction

The cast is all back together and discuss a man shot lying on the ground and a special way to treat your pets to a spa trip. Episode -29 - Always get your pets excersize...d

Vox has flown the coop in tonight's episode. Join the rest of the cast and have a good laugh! Episode -30 - The vanishing of Vox

Worst Job Stories (Pawsome! #20)
Bandit and Drake share their least favorable experiences from various jobs they've had in the past. ***NEW EPISODES BIWEEKLY ON WEDNESDAYS*** THANKS FOR SUBSCRIBING!!! FACEBOOK: http://www.Face... From: The Raccoon's Den Views: 1310 30 ratings Time: 05:55 More in Entertainment

This article in our series debating the Furry Canon is a roundtable discussion of Watership Down by Richard Adams, first published in 1972. Your panelists are JM, Jakebe and Huskyteer.

JM

Jakebe, Huskyteer

Thanks for letting me lead off this roundtable exploration of Watership Down for the [adjective][species] Furry Canon project. Jakebe, I know that this is a book close to your heart, as it is close to the heart of many lapine furries, and by asking me to read and comment you’re risking have me piss all over something personally important.

But before I do just that, let’s look at the book in more general terms. Watership Down is a 1972 children’s novel—my copy is published under Penguin’s Puffin imprint—about rabbits trying to survive in the Hampshire countryside.

The environment is one of rolling green fields and small family farms, an idyllic version of England but one that still exists today. Our rabbits are intelligent, quick-witted, and vaguely preternatural. The story is, at heart, an episodic adventure: our heroes fight various obstacles for their safety and their future.

It’s an easy read and also rather long. I can imagine that it is the sort of thing that young bookworms lose themselves in, become immersed in the world and form bonds with our lapine heroes.

Jakebe, to kick off, can you talk about your own relationship with Watership Down?

Jakebe

Hello JM and Huskyteer!

First off, let me tell you how thrilled I am to be talking about a book I love with two people whose opinion I respect a great deal. It’s pretty awesome. :D :D

I have to admit that I came to Watership Down pretty late, all things considered — up until the time I read it about ten years ago in Arkansas, it wasn’t much of a touchstone for me. The books that had informed my early furry aesthetic were The Wind In The Willows, and Mrs. Brisby and the Rats of NIMH, and the Spellsinger series from Alan Dean Foster. Now that I’m thinking about it, I really *wish* I had discovered Watership Down a lot earlier than I did — I’m pretty sure I would have made my way to rabbit as a species a lot more quickly than I did.

For me Watership Down is a simply amazing book — it talks about the importance of individuality, but also the importance of being a part of a community; it deals with learning how to be brave in an enormous, confusing, and often hostile world; it introduces the idea of spirituality as something that deepens your experience of reality instead of encouraging you to ignore parts of it, and it allows the rabbits to make sense of their world in a way that enables them to be more fully involved in it. The trials of Hazel, Fiver and Bigwig show us how people bond through shared experience even though they’re incredibly different, and how those bonds enable us to tolerate a wide range of personalities and beliefs. For me, the really impressive thing about Watership Down is how it deals with a kaleidoscope of personalities all struggling to accept the same lot in life, and how and why certain choices lead to such disaster down the road.

Personally, Rabbit is a Totem for me; it’s a spiritual partner that teaches me how to deal with fear and feelings of powerlessness. Watership Down was the first novel that felt like it dealt with those ideas head on, and showed the full scope of what it means to be brave instead of fearless. I think for most kids who are struggling to understand a complicated and scary world, the book can be an invaluable way to introduce a lot of concepts that would be difficult to explain head-on. It’s a story that serves as a wonderful escape, but also gives you something to take back with you to the “real world”.

Does that make sense? I hope I’m not talking it up TOO much, but it’s one of my favorites. :)

Huskyteer

By contrast, I came to Watership Down when I was young enough to be genuinely terrified by it. I must have been about 8 when I stumbled across the Film Picture Book, a large format book of stills from the animated movie with short narrative text. I was fascinated, and went on to the novel, which must have been the longest thing I’d ever read. I was all about the rabbits for some time, drawing pictures, attempting to turn the book into a play, and getting the one friend who claimed to have read it to join me in Watership Down playground games.

Strangely, although it’s a wonderful book which I re-read often, the novel has not left me with a particularly deep connection to rabbits. But I can’t see one peacefully nibbling the roadside grass on a summer evening without the word ‘silflay’ popping into my head.

JM

I find myself with mixed feelings, because I agree with all those positive things you have to say (and will undoubtedly continue to day). Watership Down is  such a special book, with so many terrific features that any reader—adult or child—can love and appreciate.

The characterization of our rabbit heroes is terrific. As you say, Jakebe, there are big personality differences between them, and its their ability to work together while taking advantage of each other’s strengths that shows the value of both community and individuality. And the lapine language is great, not least because it gives the author elegant euphemisms for certain unwholesome activities (i.e. “hraka” for “poo”). But I especially loved the rabbit fables, of El-Ahrairah exploring and defining what it means to be a rabbit. There’s great humour and a timeless quality to them: they could be published in a book of their own.

Yet I have some problems with Watership Down. There is an intrusive element to many of Richard Adams’s metaphors and similes that call attention to the time and place the book is written and set: Hampshire circa 1971. I found these aspects to be jarring on two levels: firstly because they don’t fit into our lapine narrative, and secondly because they are often political and negative.

On the benign end of the scale, there is a cricket metaphor describing Hazel’s confidence as he heads to Nuthanger Farm for the first time. It fails because it draws the reader out of the natural lapine world and firmly into the human one. It’s hard to escape the conclusion that Adams specifically wants to cast Hazel as an Englishman, enjoying an appropriate English activity, in this case “a batsman [playing] a fine innings”. That undercurrent of slightly intrusive middle Englishness rears its head less benignly in a different metaphor that characterizes the Cornish as coarse, and another that aimed at the Irish which is unambiguously racist: “a rabbit can no more refuse to tell a story than an Irishman can refuse to fight”.

And can I float a theory about Kehaar? I know from background reading that he is supposedly based on a Norwegian soldier, but I can’t see that reflected in his pidgin English: in fact, I read his patois as Caribbean. His character as an honourable simpleton, his deference to the authority to the rabbits, his poor hygiene… I find it easy to see him as a racist stereotype.

To put things in context: the UK had seen significant Afro-Caribbean immigration following WWII (the Windrush generation) and race was a political flashpoint at the time Watership Down was written. The 1968 Commonwealth Immigrants Act contained explicitly racial, and racist, provisions designed to reduce the numbers of black people coming to the UK. Kehaar is a foreign interloper into the English lapine world: that he is a positive character is neither here nor there, as with Huckleberry Finn’s Jim.

I have some other, related issues – the characterization of the does (as Kehaar would put it, as “mudders” rather than fully-fledged actors), and the rabbits’ specifically Christian God. But I’ve complained for long enough. Hopefully, though, this explains my mixed feelings about Watership Down. On one hand it’s quite brilliant; one the other it’s tarred by a bigoted Little England sensibility.

Am I being unreasonably harsh? I feel sometimes like I cast myself as a wet blanket when I write about furry (and furry-adjacent) art here on [adjective][species], but I promise it’s not out of any pre-determination to find fault. I really do love reading, and there are many books that I truly love. Unfortunately Watership Down, for all its strengths, isn’t one of them.

Jakebe

I don’t think you should worry about being a wet blanket on this one at all, JM. It’s perfectly all right to turn a critical eye towards the things we love; in fact, I’d say it’s more important to do so. Engaging with the entirety of a work — its strengths and its flaws — shows a complete understanding and commitment to it that “mature, respectful admiration” requires. At least, I think so.

And Watership Down definitely has its flaws. People have taken Richard Adams to task for his treatment/erasure of women in the novel, and he’s taken strides to correct that in subsequent work; in the (sorta?) sequel Tales From Watership Down, Hazel’s mate is the co-chief of the warren and the female characters are given much more page-time and agency. At least, that’s what I’ve heard because I never actually read the collection. I’m a bad rabbit. :)

As far as the attempt to “humanize” the rabbits leading to Adams’ use of time- or place-dependent metaphor, I’ll give him a pass on that. As far as I know, he wasn’t a professional writer at the time he constructed the novel and even among a lot of the pulpy SFF writers of the time metaphors and allusions that dated the text were common practice. It may speak to the somewhat-myopic social outlook of Adams that he didn’t think about how non-white Englishpeople or people from other countries might take them, and that’s a fair criticism. But I was never taken out of the story because of that.

Your scan of the Sandleford rabbits as white Englishmen is something I had never really considered before, and it opens up a very rich vein for criticism. If we’re to look at the novel as a fable, then it stands to reason each and every character should/does have a real-world counterpart that people in Adams’ social group would be in contact with. I took Adams at his word with Kehaar, but it kind of blows me away that you’ve taken a different (and problematic) meaning from it. I’m not from Great Britain, and I don’t have much knowledge about social and racial politics there. But if Kehaar (and now that I think of it, the mice and hedgehogs the rabbits meet along the way) are meant to be stand-ins for different groups, then it’s a good idea to unpack that.

Huskyteer, what do you think? Would you agree with JM’s assessment that the personalities and outlook of Hazel and his crew are distinctly…middle English, for better and worse? What do you think of the representation of the does in the novel, and do you find that his characterization of other animals have some real-world analogues that those of us in the States might have missed completely?

Huskyteer

I thought I was writing a short reply. Apparently I thought wrong.

Watership Down is indeed set firmly in the England I, born in the late 1970s in a county next door to Hampshire, grew up in. It’s not a place that changes quickly; today there would be more fields of oilseed rape and less smoking, but the landscape and people are still recognisable. 

The book is written from the point of view of an omniscient narrator, which is often necessary to get across concepts outside the rabbits’ experience without wasting thousands of words on them. But the voice of that narrator occasionally slips and becomes the voice of Richard Adams, which I think is what JM is complaining about. 

The ‘hedgerow patois’ in which other species are represented as having foreign accents is one of many items Adams contributed to the talking-animal-story toolkit; it’s much less subtle in Garry Kilworth’s Hunter’s Moon, where, if I recall correctly, foxes speak standard English, badgers sound German and cats French.

(Adams’s mouse sounds Italian to me. I’d love to think this is a jokey reference to Topo Gigio, the Italian mouse puppet who was popular in the 1960s, but that’s a bit of a reach.)

I always interpreted Kehaar as a comedy German, one of the key British stereotypes, though that may be because Norwegians, and indeed Jamaicans, were outside my experience the first time I read the novel. 

I see it’s been left to the Brit to talk about class. Well, I would certainly pop the rabbits firmly in the middle class, with hedgehogs and mice as the slightly dim but hard-working lower class. The upper class is probably represented by certain elil, like foxes and weasels: frightening, respected, and everyone likes a joke in which they get their comeuppance. (I’m now picturing a rabbit joke with the punchline “The name of our act? The Elil!”.) 

Rabbits seem a pretty good metaphor for middle England, in fact; resistant to change, and highly committed to the natural order of things and the ‘green and pleasant land’.

The treatment of women (or, more properly, does) is problematic. Looking at the principal cast, I can’t see any reason why one, some or all of them shouldn’t have been female. Adams does make more of an effort in Tales from Watership Down, and props to him for trying, but I don’t think he manages to pull it off. Frankly, I’ve read WD fanfic that works far better than Tales. 

Several excuses can be made, besides the obvious one that the lack of does is what leads to the conflict with Efrafa (not good enough; I’m sure the Watership rabbits would have run foul of Woundwort’s warren in some other way sooner or later). 

Firstly, Adams was writing based on rabbit behaviour, and the dispersal of young males in the wild. However, this isn’t an accurate reflection of dispersal (more males than females tend to leave their birthplace, and males tend to go further, but travel is not the exclusive domain of the bucks). Similar excuses are used to justify the exclusion of women and minorities in sci-fi, fantasy and historical fiction, and are deservedly shot down.

Secondly, Adams famously based the cast of Watership Down on humans he had known in the military. It’s apparent that he is comfortable working with male characters and the relationships between them. 

I’d like to draw a parallel with J.R.R. Tolkien. Here we have two authors who each fought in a world war (Tolkien in the First, Adams in the Second), and survived to write stories about bands of travellers who defend a pleasant, cosy place against a dark and powerful enemy. This view might not excuse the resulting bunch-of-white-blokes ethos, but I believe it goes a long way towards explaining it. 

Bottom line: I don’t think it’s at all surprising that the novel reflects a society that is white, middle-class, male-dominated and Christian, and I don’t think it’s necessarily a matter for condemnation. Dismiss the novel for its limitations and you miss out on the rich story it tells, as well as characters who might all fall into the same social class but are still an interesting and varied bunch.

The world of Watership Down is necessarily a small one, with the rabbits’ exhausting and dangerous journey covering only a few miles. I think this, too, reflects small communities on a small island, where national and international affairs often take a back seat to local news.

JM

I think that’s good analysis and it gets to the nub of my real issue with Watership Down – that to drill too deeply into the novel’s structure is to miss the point. It really is a special book, with a combination of characterization, anthropomorphization, and adventure that doesn’t have any parallels in my reading experience. (The Hobbit is as close as I can get.)

Watership Down is a children’s book, and doesn’t hold up well to analysis. And that’s why I am going to vote against its inclusion in the [a][s] Furry Canon: while it excels in its relevance to furry and persistence in general, it’s just too simple for to me recommend it as an exceptional book.

I’m pretty confident that my vote is going to overturned by the two of you, and Watership Down will be recommended to our canon 2-1. And I don’t have a problem with that. In fact I suspect that my opinions are, in this case, less valid than yours, simply because you both clearly love the book. So I guess I’m casting myself as the [adjective][species] Antonin Scalia: contrarian but ultimately irrelevant.

Given that, I’ll halt my final contribution to this roundtable here. There’s a fine line between being contrarian and being belligerent. This has been great though, and I look forward to reading your final thoughts.

Huskyteer

I have absolutely no hesitation in recommending Watership Down for the Furry Canon. I say that as a fan, but I think and hope I would have the same opinion if I hated it. Here’s how it matches up to the entry requirements:

Quality: The novel was critically acclaimed on its release, winning the Carnegie Medla and other accolades, and regularly turns up on lists with titles like ‘100 Books You Must Read’ and ‘Best Books of the 20th Century’. It has become the standard by which all books about animals who talk but otherwise lead more or less natural lives are judged. 

Longevity: See above. First published in 1972, Watership Down has, as far as I know, been in print ever since. Spinoffs have included the 1978 animated film, the late-90s television cartoon, theatre and radio adaptations, and a roleplaying game, Bunnies & Burrows. In 2016, UK broadcaster Channel 5 came under fire for airing the film on Easter Sunday, proving that it still has the power to traumatise small children, and at the time of writing a new four-part mini-series has been announced, with voice talent including Ben Kingsley and John Boyega.

Relevancy: Watership Down has a sizeable fandom within furry, with roleplayers, fanfic writers and artists presenting their own interpretations of both Adams’s cast and original characters. For some, Watership Down in one format or another was the gateway or catalyst that led them to furry in the first place. Finally, how many readers of furry news website Flayrah realise that the name is taken from the Lapine word for especially tasty food?

Jakebe

I would second the motion to recommend Watership Down for the Furry Canon. I realize how biased I may be about this, but there are also a ton of terrible rabbit-oriented stories out there that I really wouldn’t suggest anyone should read.

Quality: When most people outside the fandom think about anthropomorphic characters in literature, Watership Down is one of the very first works they think of — and for good reason. It really is an excellent book that stands up well to re-reading as you age; as a child, you get pulled in by the fantastic danger of these cute and relatable animals, and as an adult you realize how the various social systems set up in the warrens they visit have real-world analogs that are fairly disturbing. It’s a book that sticks with you, from the wonderful cosmology of the rabbit’s inner life to the rather visceral violence that frequently visits them.

Longevity: This book has been around for a while; it’s spawned an animated film that’s also a staple of many people’s childhood, an animated series, a sequel of short stories and a role-playing game. And even now, within the viper pit of Reddit, an AMA with Adams brought out a ton of folks gushing about what the book has meant to them. I don’t see its impact diminishing much in the future for those of us in the fandom.

Relevancy: Famous outside of furry, it’s nearly ubiquitous within it. Very few of us haven’t heard about Watership Down, at the very least, and what the book can teach us about courage, community and the fragility of life through the ordeal of the Sandleford rabbits is one of the reasons we get into furry in the first place. It uses animals to make us feel better about being human.

Submitted by Fred Patten

Kitsune-Tsuki, by Laura VanArendonk Baugh
Indianapolis, IN, Æclipse Press, September 2012, trade paperback $4.99 (v + 96 pages), Kindle $1.99.

Kitsune-Mochi, by Laura VanArendonk Baugh
Indianapolis, IN, Æclipse Press, October 2013, trade paperback $8.99 (xiii + 291 pages), Kindle $2.99.

Are Baugh’s Kitsune Tales Books 1 and 2 anthropomorphic or not? It’s impossible to tell until about halfway through Kitsune-Tsuki, defined in the glossary as “state of being possessed by a fox spirit”.

These two books are set in Heian Japan, the historical period from 794 to 1185 A.D. This was the period of the most formal Imperial courts, and when the belief in Shintoism, Buddhism, and Taoism were at their height. The imperial court’s most influential courtiers may have been the onmyōji, the practitioners of soothsaying, divination, astronomy, and other forms of fortune-telling. Hardly anyone, from the emperor to his concubines to their servants, did anything without checking with an onmyōji first to find out whether it would result in good luck or bad luck. The most famous onmyōji was Abe no Seimei (921-1005), who was believed to also be a powerful wizard. See the 2001 Japanese feature Onmyōji (it’s on YouTube) about Abe no Seimei as a good wizard battling evil onmyōji trying to destroy the emperor.

This was also the period when belief in ghosts, demons, and shapechanging spirits was at its height, including belief in nine-tailed kitsune (foxes) and fox-spirits possessing people. The insane were believed to be possessed by a fox-spirit. So in Kitsune-Tsuki a short novella or even a novelette), belief in fox spirits is not necessarily a fantasy about their reality. But yes, unmistakable fox-spirits do finally appear.

Tsurugu no Kiyomori is an onmyōji called to the court of Naka no Yoritomo, a powerful daimyō (regional lord) with a court rivaling the emperor’s.

“Naka no Yoritomo believed that a local kitsune meant to work mischief upon him or his new wife, Fujitani no Kaede. There had been strange incidents in the countryside of late, with objects of value disappearing and irrational stories offered by confused laborers for missing goods and missing hours. There had even been a recent case of kitsune-tsuki in the farmers’ village below, a poor young girl possessed by a fox spirit and driven to madness.” (pgs. 2-3)

Tsurugu, a genuine mystic, is politely skeptical. Nothing has happened that could not be explained by mundane superstition or trickery. He assumes that Yoritomo-dono has just used the incidents as an excuse to add a prestigious onmyōji to his court. Still, Tsurugu believes in giving value for the daimyō’s hospitality, so he conducts a supernatural inspection along with the lord’s regular investigator, Kagemura no Shishio Hitoshi, whom Tsurugu calls “Ookami-kun”, wolf-lad. The first book is more than half over before things happen that may be of a genuine supernatural nature. I would not give away a major spoiler except that it is hinted at in the book’s blurb:

“The handsome mute twin servants belonging to Lady Kaede are certainly suspicious, but it is the beautiful and strong-willed lady herself who draws Shishio’s mistrust. Tsurugu and Shishio must move carefully – accusing the warlord’s bride falsely would be death. But failing to identify the kitsune to the warlord is equally perilous, and there is more to discover.”

There certainly is! Kitsune-Tsuki (the winner of the 2012 Luminis Prize) has a major surprise ending. Those who like it will want to go on immediately to the sequel, Kitsune-Mochi (“fox possessor, a human who bound or used kitsune”).

It’s a true novel, almost three times as long. To review it in depth would give away too many spoilers in Kitsune-Tsuki, but briefly, Tsurugu returns along with the kitsune from the first book, plus “a host of oni, tengu, kappa, and others”. Tsurugu is gravely wounded; an unprincipled enemy onmyōji plots to destroy Lord Yoritomo and Lady Kaede; and there is a tender love affair between a fox-spirit and a human girl:

“She was cold, and hungry despite her distress, and she knew she should seek firewood and food. There might be berries ripening in the autumn woods, or nuts. But the tasks seemed too large and too difficult, and she could not bring herself to rise.

Something moved in the hut’s fallen doorway, and she glanced up with a start, half-expecting to see someone from the house come after her. But something else was there, and she stared in disbelief.

The fox took another step, edging into the room, and laid down the dead fowl it carried. It looked at her with an unnaturally steady gaze.

She stared at the animal, her heart pounding in her chest. ‘Kitsune?’ she whispered.

The fox was a pale color, almost amber. Its ears tipped back as she spoke.

She swallowed. ‘I have been driven out because of you, foul kitsune. I have lost everything.’

The pale fox dropped its head and nudged the dead fowl.

[…]

Murame began to pluck the chicken, her eyes still on the fox. The feathers hardly seemed to add to the litter of the hut. ‘You’re not much of a kitsune, are you?’ she said after a moment. ‘You have only one tail.’

The fox’s ears rotated backward in an expression that must have been embarrassed annoyance. This struck her as funny and she laughed, surprising herself.” (pgs. 55-57)

The other yōkai include a kyuubi (a nine-tailed fox), a bakeneko (a cat-monster), a kawāso, a river otter spirit; and more:

“Someone gave a keening cry, and others joined. Yips, yelps, shrieks, howls, and shouts rose into the dawn, an acclaiming cry as humans rarely heard, feet drumming the earth to replace the great drum.” (p. 230)

Baugh semi-apologizes in an Author’s Note to Kitsune-Mochi that “Folklore changes, of course, and in the last century or so particularly, the inhuman have been sanitized and de-fanged like never before.” Thus while her Not-Japan is generally as faithful to Heian-era Japan as possible, her kappa, tengu, and other yōkai are, if not as bowdlerized as the friendly versions in modern Japanese children’s picture books and movie and TV animation, not as fearsome as the ghoulish supernatural monsters of the past.

R. H. Potter’s cover for Kitsune-Tsuki is also available on a T-shirt on Baugh’s website.

– Fred Patten

• Buy Kitsune Tsuki on Amazon
• Buy Kitsune Mochi on Amazon

Leslie Levings is a sculptor and artist who created a line of colorful and imaginative clay creatures known as Beastlies before she even started high school. Now she’s all grown up — and she creates them full time! Each individual beastlie is a unique creation out of clay, made by hand. Most of them aren’t based on any recognizable animal species, but they are most certainly non-human characters with a lot of personality. Visit her web site to see her currently available models, and follow the link to her gallery of previous designs.

image c. 2016 by Leslie Levings

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! It's a show with Patreon sponsor, Nizzbit! We talk about all sorts of crap. Don't forget to hang out in our telegram chat, now w/ over 100 members! telegram.me/draggetshow Lastly, don't forget to check out our YouTube, where we have many extra vids, like a fireside chat. https://www.youtube.com/user/DraggetShow/videos ep. 127 - Patreon Guest, Nizzbit! - Reminder: We're on Patreon! If you could kick us …

This otter does public service in a proper fursuit, commissioned by local government. (Tip: Zeigler Jaguar.)

King County has two million people in the region around Seattle.  Their Department of Natural Resources and Parks has a new mascot who’s a uniquely Furry example of public funding for art and education.

On Twitter, Chrissy B asked who built the suit.  They answered: “Beetlecat Originals helped create Marta for river safety public outreach.”

I wondered how this came to be?  Why get such lavish custom art?  Since their Parks and Recreation Division covers 26,000 acres of land, hundreds of miles of trails, and a “world-class aquatic center”, it must be part of some serious public use and tourist dollars.

Meet Marta, the river otter, our newest advocate for river safety: https://t.co/zcQ3FfFk1l via @KCDNRP

— King County, WA (@kcnews) May 31, 2016

Marta was most retweeted topic of the month for their county services account with 50,000 followers. That could be a follower in 10% of households in their county – people in Washington must love their parks.  And now they’re getting zapped with Furry magic.

Marta has her own blog.  It mentions that this fursuiter doesn’t break the magic by speaking, she dances to an original song, and she shows off lifejacket fashion to help teach drowning prevention.  Besides adorable marketing, that must be an important reason to spend taxes on a mascot.  Saving lives saves a lot of bucks.

I don’t know of many tax-funded Furry-related activities – do you?  Canada gave $75,000 to furry social research by the IARP, but in the USA we just have the NSA spying on Second Life gamers and their “Cryptokids” cartoon mascots made to get kids into being spies. (More: “NSA To Recruit Children, Furries.”)

But I’m sure there’s nothing fishy about Marta except her lunch.

Speaking of Marta’s cost, in 2015 I compared furry art and high-end professional mascot building in my series about crossover between fursuiting and pro sports.  The amateur/hobby stuff is several times cheaper.  And doesn’t it look better?  With furries you get devotion to craft and bang for the buck.

Nice job, Beetlecat! Hopefully work like this opens doors for more and better commissions. Maybe those talents will soon be called to patriotic duty for building a presidential fursona.

Obama Commissions Fursuit So He Can Go Places Without Secret Service Hanging Off His Ass

— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) October 22, 2015

More from Comic Con… Thanks to Cartoon Brew, we’ve learned that Marvel Studios have hired Passion Pictures to create a series of Rocket Raccoon and Groot animated shorts to be shown on Disney XD. “The shorts are being directed by Arnaud Delord, who is known for creating game cinematics with his creative partner Jérôme Combe under the moniker Arnaud & Jerome.” No date is set for the new shorts to be released, but the Cartoon Brew article has the test footage that Marvel recently showed. Interestingly, Passion Pictures also animated the well known “Meerkat” series of commercials for CompareTheMarket.com.

image c. 2016 Marvel Studios / Passion Pictures

Here’s headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag.  Tips: patch.ofurr@gmail.com.

Mascot Boot Camp in the Washington Post.

They sent a reporter to attend Mascot Boot Camp. It’s run by Dave Raymond.  “Dave was the original Phillie Phanatic — the first to inhabit the green costume in 1978. In the mascot community, he is something of a founding father.”

Dave is also founder of The Mascot Hall of Fame. It’s scheduled to open in Indiana in 2017.  They said that he has run the Mascot Boot Camp for more than 20 years and it will continue at their new venue. Here’s a video for the 2016 camp.

In 2015 I did a series about crossover of fursuiting and professional sports mascots. Look for update articles next week with a Q&A from Uncle Kage, an MFF organizer, and Cornbread Wolf (who fursuits for fun at sports games.)

Frog and Toad are a proto-furry relationship story.

The New Yorker covers the beloved classic children’s book series by Arnold Lobel. “During his career, he worked on dozens of children’s books, both as a writer and as an illustrator… His specialty was animals and their misadventures.”

According to his daughter:

“Adrianne suspects that there’s another dimension to the series’s sustained popularity. Frog and Toad are ‘of the same sex, and they love each other… It was quite ahead of its time in that respect.’ In 1974, four years after the first book in the series was published, Lobel came out to his family as gay. ‘I think ‘Frog and Toad’ really was the beginning of him coming out'”…

It’s interesting to look at how anthropomophism, character and sexuality came together in simple friendship stories. You don’t need to know about the author for the stories to be just as good, but the writing is very personal.  These are mainstream children’s books, but I might dare to say that the hidden meaning gives them more in common with furry fan fic than anyone but us would understand.

“Furlesque” at Cincinnatti Fringe Fest.

“The play tells the story of a young girl, Nancy, who “grows up” in the wings of the Scratch and Sniff, a burlesque club for furries… The opening choreography, featuring five adults in full animal costumes dancing semi-seductively for five minutes, set the tone. I laughed, I was sometimes confused — and I got strangely aroused by a salamander.”

DAWGTOWN movie gets on Patreon.

This indie animated feature (with voice acting by George Foreman) has been long in production. That’s fine since it’s coming from one talented artist without a movie studio.  Furstarter covered it back in 2013:

“It seems like every piece of indie animation on Kickstarter–really, every piece of animation, period–has the taint of cheap CGI on it. The shelves are filled with the stuff. “Dawgtown” is a hand-drawn, dark, and serious piece of animation, right out of the late “Bluth” period. It’s about time for an old-school project like this.”

The director did an interview with Dogpatch Press.  It isn’t furry-made but it’s bound to have very furry-friendly results.  And this kind of thing is so rare that I really hope it succeeds.

Please help by checking out the Patreon, or like it on Facebook.

The New Pete’s Dragon Wants To Surpass The Original, And Being Furry Is Essential. At Gizmodo.

Why Elliott in the New PETE’S DRAGON is Furry. Read more at NERDIST.

Zootopia directors inspired by fan art and fandom.

MTV News talks to Disney directors Byron Howard and Rich Moore.  “In many ways, Zootopia has found a second life on Tumblr, where impassioned fans can engage with the material Howard and Moore spent five years creating. After all, Zootopia is so much more than a movie; it’s a world…”

Furries go on stage at Caravan Palace concert.

Spottacus shared that 20 furries went in fursuit in Oakland, CA, to see the electroswing band famous for the Lone Digger animated anthro music video.

TOOL band does a special surprise for their opener 3TEETH.

TOOL gets into #furry suits to prank 3Teeth on stage. #FurryNews #industrialmusic @threeteeth @ToolMusic https://t.co/W2mTykh85v

— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) July 1, 2016

Unique home listing includes person in a panda suit in every picture. (Tip: Ermine Notyours)

From Seattlepi: “Following three weeks of few showings and little activity, a real estate agent in the Houston area opted for a unique approach to selling a Spring home… She says that within a day of the listing-with-panda going up, she’s already scheduled several showings.”

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AMAZING FURRY NEWS COMING SOON – Don’t Tell Mom What Happened At The Con In #7!

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Amazing New Pill Turns You Furry - Side Effects Make You Scoot Your Butt On The Carpet

— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) November 3, 2015

At Dog Olympics, Everyone Wins Gold In Tennis Ball

— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) November 3, 2015

D.A.R.E. Program Wants To Educate Furries About Dangers Of Huffing Febreze

— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) November 4, 2015

Furry Eulogy Interrupted By Hairball

— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) November 4, 2015

Offended Furs Demand Respect For Cultural Tradition Of Murrsuiting

— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) November 5, 2015

City Asks Pranksters To Stop Calling Animal Control On Fursuiters Around Con

— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) November 5, 2015

Your con-trotting ed-otter did not get a chance to attend the Disney Comics panel at San Diego Comic Con, but he found out some interesting news from people who did. Drew Taylor of Oh My Disney writes, “Yesterday at San Diego Comic Con, there was a fascinating panel centering on The Dynamic World of Disney Comics. The panel was moderated by Gianfranco Cordara, Publisher for Global Magazines and Comics for Disney Publishing Worldwide and included Daron Nefcy, creator of Star vs. the Forces of Evil, Mike Siglain, creative director, Lucasfilm at Disney Publishing, and Roberto Santillo, Director, Art Development and Academia Disney. Attendees got an inside look at how fan-favorite stories, characters, and films are adapted for modern comic book audiences.” So what’s the big deal? Simply put: It appears that Disney plans on putting out a new comic book series based on Zootopia, which will continue the story from the end of the film as well as introducing new characters and new environments.  When, you ask?? No precise date was given but it was hinted it could be as early as next year. Follow the link over to Oh My Disney to check out the complete article.  We promise: You’ll learn more when we do!

image c. 2016 Walt Disney Animation

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Hello Papa.

I don't know what to say or think any longer... Not long ago, I accepted atheism as my worldview even though I desperately want to believe in more spiritualistic worldviews. The main problem is that atheists claim that their beliefs are rational and all other beliefs are not; it sounds right, but I don't agree with their militant behaviour and disrespect.

I'm so confused and don't know what to do, it's a huge dilemma :'(

Please help!!

Aurel (age 15)

* * *

Dear Aurel,
 
Religion, God, Life, Death have all been very much on my mind lately, so your letter is timely. I thoroughly enjoy discussing philosophy and spirituality with my readers. I will write more soon, but if you don't mind I want to send you a link to a PDF that you might find fascinating (a little academic, hope you don't mind): http://www.cogsci.uci.edu/~ddhoff/ConsciousRealism2.pdf
 
I'm not sure which atheists you are talking to. My sister is an atheist, and she's a very kind and wonderful person. Not in your face at all. That said, I do believe in more than just the physical world. 
 
How about you ask me a few specific questions about spirituality or other "Big Questions" and I will write you back? Now, these answers are based on my personal beliefs, so take them with a grain of salt (they are worth the price you pay for them). I will tell you that I am not a Christian, Muslim, or Jew. I am also not an atheist, Satanist, or Wiccan (although I respect Wiccans). 
 
Cheers,
Papabear

* * *

Thank you for your time but I'm not in the mood for ... anything, let alone philosophy, religion and spirituality. It's just.... I don't know, the whole atheist worldview isn't what I'm comfortable with in the slightest. I know that you once said that we have to stick with a view that we are comfortable with, and that's spirituality, but I'm always afraid that they might be right. Maybe the physical world is the only world? Maybe there is nothing after death? I don't agree with any of that since I do believe that there's something out there and that the universe simply cannot be a product of randomness and chance.
Sorry, I didn't mean ALL atheists, just the militant, in your face ones like professor Richard Dawkins. You know, the ones that don't respect other religious beliefs and that think religious and spiritual people, people different than themselves, are deluded and in a way crazy. I want to be kind and respect people different than myself and I don't think that spirituality and religion is just stupidity and delusion.

I'm not in the mood for anything because I don't think that the physical world is the only world but if I do think otherwise, I'm not rational and intelligent (judging by what many anti-theists say). And then there's death. Many atheists say that their decision to become atheist was the best thing that happened to them but I don't think that's true. They say that they appreciate and enjoy their lives more due to the fact that this is the only life they have. They say that they are generally more joy-filled and happier than when they were religious/spiritual. I don't agree, since the only emotions I could experience since I "decided" (unwillingly) to "become atheist" are sadness, fear and anger. I don't find my hobbies more enjoyable, my sex drive is almost gone, I don't have anything to wake up for and I have trouble getting asleep (I cried myself to sleep this night and had woken up two times unable to sleep). Without spirituality, everything loses its soul. Love doesn't make sense anymore if it's just a chemical reaction, and that sex is just a drive to reproduce. Nature isn't beautiful like it used to be, I don't feel like exercising, I don't find art interesting... Ironically, Dawkins (recently I watched a lot of his documentaries) said that this is more beautiful and interesting than "poverty-stricken religious views.”

I don't want to believe that we are just biological computers, I don't want to believe that there's no purpose to life. I refuse to believe that religious people are stupid and that religion and spirituality should just die.

I refuse to believe that this is "reality." I really, really don't.

I used to be optimistic... Now I just don't know. I would love to be spiritual again, to not worry about death every other minute...

I don't know anymore. If this is supposed to be rationality and reality, then I'll gladly chose ignorance.

I'm going on vacation tomorrow morning and I will possibly be home from said vacation in 10-11 days. Here are some specific things I wish to know, from your perspective.

1) God
2) Heaven/Hell
3) Life after death?
4) Did you follow more than two religions in your lifetime?
5) Were you indoctrinated and or baptized into Christianity?

Feel free to write back while I'm on vacation, thank you for reading my letter. You're a great guy!
 
* * *

Dear Aurel,

If you’ve read my column, you probably have seen me write that I feel that anyone espousing a religion and asserting that they “know” their religion is right and is the only correct way to believe is either lying or deluding themselves.

But the same goes for atheists. To say, “We know for a fact that there is nothing beyond what the scientific world can explain and that all we are is biological beings and death is the final word” is also an exercise in hubris.
NOBODY knows what life, death, the universe, God/Not God are. NOBODY knows their true nature. In that spirit (pun intended) I will tell you here and now that Papabear doesn’t know, either. I have my theories, my conclusions, my beliefs that I have come to after 50 years of thinking about such things (even as a little child my thoughts were on this matter), but all of them could be wrong or just partially right, or right but only in a limited way.
To answer your questions, I’ll start with the less philosophical ones and work my way up.

• Was I indoctrinated and/or baptized into Christianity? I have never been baptized, which is a little ironic because I was raised Southern Baptist. This is to say, my father took the family to Southern Baptist churches, but he never forced me to be sprinkled with water or dunked; he married an agnostic, and this tempered my gullibility quite a bit. I will always remember my mother losing it one Sunday when the minister declared that “Jesus wants the church to have a new red rug.” That was the beginning of my understanding of what a tax-free racket religion is in this country.
• Have I followed more than one religions in my lifetime? Well, I was raised Christian, as I said, but quickly became agnostic, after my mother. Even so, I craved a spiritual grounding of some sort. I briefly turned back to Christianity in my college days (I went to a college associated with the Methodist church and we had a very kind and loving minister named Jon Powers who restored my faith in Christians quite a bit, and then when I had my first real job in Detroit I met a couple other very good Christians). I’ve read my Bible (I own three, actually), but over time began to see how much in the Bible is contradictory or just plain incorrect, which made me doubt that it could genuinely be the work of an infallible God. I started looking around at other faiths (my best friend is Jewish, and the Jews I’ve met are wonderful people; but it’s always seemed a rather exclusive club to me); I find some very good things in the Qu’ran (I own a copy), especially how Islam keeps things very simple compared to the ridiculously complicated beliefs and rites of the Catholic Church, for example. However, as with the Bible, the God of Islam is too violent for my tastes. I believe that if there is a God, then God would be superior in every way to Man, which means he would not have the failings of Man, such as hate and a desire for vengeance or to punish people. I mean, if little ol’ me can have a heart and forgiveness and love, then wouldn’t a Superior Being be a billion times more compassionate and loving than I?

So, I started exploring other beliefs. Some, such as Hinduism and Zoroastrianism, seem too tied up in mythologies. When I found out about Wicca, though, I found much to appeal to me. Wicca doesn’t judge people and believes in kindness to others and to Earth. This is all great stuff, and I did some reading about it and considered myself a Wiccan for a short time, but I just couldn’t get into the ideas they have about “magic.” I don’t think there is such a thing as magic, really (again, I could be wrong), but I do admire that Wiccans make very clear that black magic—magic to harm others—is forbidden and if you practice it you will be harmed seven times over.

Next, I got into Shamanism, especially that of the Native American people. Even consulted regularly with a friend in Oklahoma named Blackbear Bright (wonderful person). I love the interconnectedness to the natural world that Shamanism has (similar to Wicca, which is a form of shamanism, really), but I still felt it was not exactly for me. I haven’t abandoned it, but now I flavor it with my pursuit of Buddhism. Buddhism is not a religion, of course, but it is a philosophy that is very spiritual in nature. So I guess you could say I’m into Shamanism/Buddhism but I also add to this my interest in quantum physics, which has become like a third religion to me.

• Heaven/Hell: I can cover this briefly by saying that traditional views of Heaven and Hell are created by religions as models for a punishment/reward system to control their flocks. Be good and do what we say and you will go to Heaven. Be bad and God (who’s such a bitch on these matters) will make you burn in Hell forever and ever with no hope of every escaping. So, I call bullshit.
• Life/Death: As you may know, I lost my love, Jim (Yogi), last October very suddenly when a pulmonary embolism killed him. Now, the topic of life and death has always interested me, but now it is at the forefront of my thoughts. I have been terrified (like you) by the notion that when we die that is it. Everything that we were is lost (except for those who remember us, but it is really lost when they die, too), and our consciousness dissipates as well. Death, following this model, is an absolute and there is no hope of escaping it. Some people find this comforting, I’ve heard, but I find it horrifying. For one thing, it means that Jim is truly gone and I will never see him again even after I die. For another thing, it means that everything we do in life is, ultimately, completely without meaning. Oh, sure, you can have a bit of fun in the present (and, actually, if you believe death is the final word why not just go have an orgy and commit crimes and eat anything you want and don’t worry about it?) but, in the end, nothing at all matters.

I can’t accept that. I can’t accept that all we are is an organ in our skulls and that we are, in essence, just machines that happen to be self-aware. There is increasing evidence that death is not the end. Some call it a transition, some a rebirth into a real world.

Aurel, you know that little voice inside your head? That’s not Jiminy Cricket—that’s your connection to your spiritual conscience. Pay attention to it. It is saying that although you don’t believe Christianity is your path, neither do you feel that atheism is the right choice because you feel in your heart that there is something more. Instead of ignoring or pushing away that feeling, make yourself more open to it. Listen to it. It is, in my opinion, your connection to the Godself.

• God: My conclusion has been that God is not a separate Being. Rather, God is literally EVERYTHING. God is omnipresent and omniscient because the universe is the body of God, and everything it contains, including you and me, is a part of God. Furthermore, evolution is more than biological, it is also spiritual—an awakening. Each of us has a bit of the Godself within them, and this includes the ability to create, imagine, and dream, but only if one has been awakened, not if one is consumed by the idea that the visible world is “reality.”

I believe that we are like eggs within the Womb of God. As we experience this life, we grow spiritually until we “die,” which is actually the release from the Womb when we are born into ourselves. Like eggs in a woman’s body, however, some of us do not become fertilized, so to speak, and are reabsorbed into the womb. Those eggs do not mature to the point where they are born. Those that do, become like baby gods, able to create their own reality that is based upon what they experienced in this life. Those that learned to be loving will create new, loving universes, and those that did not will create universes that are less than happy. I have a suspicion that we are in one of those less-than-perfect universes, but we have the power within us to overcome this rather ugly world and generate something much more beautiful.

Aurel, the key to finding happiness and hope again is to trust in your feelings that there is more to us than mere matter and energy. You are turned off by religions, I understand that completely; and I feel that you are also right not to trust the atheists, so certain in their denial of the spiritual.

We are each a piece of the Creator, gifted with the power to create new realities if we allow ourselves to awaken from the Womb and become born as our true selves.

And those are my conclusions … for now. Whether or not you believe them is certainly up to you, but what is more important is for you not to give up. Do not give into the hopelessness of the atheists, and do not be fooled by the dogma of the religious. In other words, while it is okay to listen to what others have to say, don’t let them dictate your beliefs but discover for yourself your own reality.
​
Hugs,
Papabear

Back from San Diego Comic Con 2016, and hoo wee is there a lot to talk about! Jeff Egli describes himself as “… a professional comic artist, illustrator and friend to all frogs.” He describes what he does as “Creating fan art for all and leaving no Fandom unexplored!” To that end he created fan art pieces by the hundreds and puts them on buttons — and other collectible items, but mostly lots of buttons. Favorite fannish subjects are cartoons and comic books, which means yes: Lots and lots of furry characters make their way into his work. Look over at Jeff’s shop on his web site to see a selection of his work. Want to see more? Look for Jeff’s booth (Fandom Flare) at a comic book convention near you.

image c. 2016 by Jeff Egli

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Reminder: We're on Patreon! If you could kick us a buck or two, we'd greatly appreciate it. www.patreon.com/thedraggetshow This time we're joined with friend of the show, Pandez! We reminisce about 80's/90's cartoons and stuff. Plus, your questions and stuff. we also did a live Periscope of the show, if you'd like to check out that video. https://www.periscope.tv/xandertheblue/1MnGnyWNmMmKO Don't forget to hang out in our telegram chat, now w/ over 100 members! telegram.me/draggetshow ep. 126 - Nostalgia with Pandez! - Reminder: We're on Patreon! If you could kick us …

Here’s headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag.  Tips: patch.ofurr@gmail.com.

There hasn’t been a Newsdump in a long time, so have three updates packed with two months of stuff: 

1. Furries in the Media. 2. Fandom News. 3. Fur-friendly Culture.

Furscience.com releases ebook of furry research.

The International Anthropomorphic Research Project has a shiny new website since earlier this year.  Here’s a good reason to check it out – a 174-page ebook full of 5 years of data about furry fandom, for the low price of free.  Download it here.

Fred Patten interviewed by Yiffytimes.com.

“My interview with Fred Patten” by Ahmar Wolf and Greyflank. With Fred’s history as a founder of Furry (and anime) fandom, it’s really interesting to hear this:

“Q: Where do you see the Furry Fandom headed?

A: Furry fandom is already a lot different than it was in the 1980s. There is much more emphasis on wearing fursuits, adopting fursonas, and embracing and publicly exhibiting a furry identity. There is also a furry literary community now, which is what I’m active in. A few furry fans who are publishers or fursuit makers or artists are able to make their living in furry fandom instead of it only being a hobby for them.”

Furries at San Francisco Pride.

New furry Whup stepped up in a big way to organize a booth.  (He’s yellow dog in the first pic).  Apart from a big “Bay Area Furries” banner, it was a very informal base for breaks from the sun.  There was a huge crowd to prowl around with on a hot day.  Street Fursuiting is my favorite thing, and street fairs are my favorite place for it, and Pride in SF is one of the most fun and accepting times. (It’s far from the only one – a furry in Edmonton talks about their float full of furries in “A big thanks to the furries out in pride festivals this month!“)

Culturally F’d – LGBTQ + Furry. (The first 5 seconds are me being a fabulous Husky, aww thanks guys!)

Dogpatch Press article to become Culturally F’d Episode.

Article: If there was a Museum of Furry, theatrical “Panto-Animals” would be a major exhibit.  I’m honored that some cool furs liked it:

“This is Underbite from Culturally F’d. I’m currently in the process of writing a mini-series on mascots/fursuits. One of the episodes was pretty well intended to be taken straight from your article on pantomime. We will likely get you to review the scripts.

FURRIES: The Documentary, at Frameline film fest in San Francisco.

Earlier announced for Pride month, ‘Furries’ screened at Frameline, the oldest ongoing festival for LGBT cinema that draws as many as 80,000 people. Director Eric Risher (Ash) had many Bay Area Furries come to his movie screening.  He shares:

“I think it was a really great screening, and I’m really happy with how the film was received. I wanted to make sure I sent you a link to the photos that were taken at the event (they got some REALLY good ones). The full album can be found here.“

“Fursonas” director Dominic Rodriquez talks about Anthrocon:

Dom’s movie also screened at Frameline, but recognition was not so friendly in Pittsburgh. He was banned at Anthrocon for filming.  That didn’t stop his movie from screening at another venue during the biggest annual furball – a bit of a renegade happening! I asked Dom to talk about being a black sheep:

“The Friday night screening of Fursonas during Anthrocon did not have a big turnout–there were no more than a dozen people in the theater. But the Q&A afterwards ended up being one of the best ones we’ve had. The few furs and non-furs that did show were passionate about the ideas brought up in the film and discussed them at length with me and Boomer. One Anthrocon attendee that didn’t agree with everything in the movie was, nevertheless, enthusiastic about it. He told me that he was glad he actually watched the thing instead of basing his opinion on rumors about it.

I spent the majority of that weekend walking around downtown, hanging out in bars and hotel rooms, and talking to new and old friends. Most of what I do at cons is talk with friends, anyway. That’s not something that they have in the Programming, but I think it’s the most important part. And it’s not something they can ban you from. This was my best Anthrocon yet, and I wasn’t even there.”

German fursuiting video: “Mascot Fur Life” (Tip: Maily.)

It’s a teaser trailer for a bigger production. Maily covered this at his Austrian Furry News site, Furry Stammtische (story in English.)

“a 25 minute mockumentary mainly told with fursuiters. A mockumentary is a semi documentarty, which means, while the way of telling the story is obviously a serious documentary, the topic itself is clearly a fake one. It’s about Willion, a young mascot who dreams of more then just being an ordinary mascot. He wants to play in the big league…”

Weasyl went Open Source. From Reddit’s r/furry.

Dalmydog’s guide to leaving FA. “A step by step guide for artists looking to migrate away, or expand their reach beyond Furaffinity.”

Ferzu blows up. The “social network and dating site for furries” launched about a month ago and it already has over 12,000 users.

RIP to JBadger.

JBadger passed away on May 28, 2016. This greymuzzle attended sci-fi cons as long ago as the 1970’s, went to his first furry party in 1986, and staffed other cons. His real-life obituary prominently mentions his fursuiting that entertained many. A scan was posted to a Facebook group dedicated to his memory which has much furry content.

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AMAZING FURRY NEWS COMING SOON – Big Scandal For What The Fox Says In #7!

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Sea Captain Unsure Why Furries Keep Giggling While They Ask How Fast The Ship Goes

— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) November 5, 2015

Gawker Media Offers Huge Reward For Trix Rabbit Sextape - @GeneralMills @Gawker

— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) November 6, 2015

Offended Furs Say They Invited Themselves To Party At Dragoneer's House And He Just Kept Trying To Sell Them Amway Products

— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) November 6, 2015

Mayor Of Pittsburgh Wants Cool Mayors To Quit Prank Calling His Office And Meowing

— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) November 6, 2015

I Met Tony The Tiger On Tinder And Then He Frosted My Flakes

— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) November 7, 2015

Dinosaur Chef Sad That His Soufflé Deflates Every Time He Stomps In The Kitchen

— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) November 7, 2015

Submitted by Fred Patten

Sixes Wild: Echoes, by Tempe O’Kun. Illlustrated.
Dallas, TX, FurPlanet Productions, June 2016, trade paperback $15.95 (155 pages).

This is a mature content book.  Please ensure that you are of legal age to purchase this material in your state or region.

This short novel is a sequel to O’Kun’s Sixes Wild: Manifest Destiny, an anthropomorphic-animal Western published by Sofawolf Press in June 2011. That won the 2012 Cóyotl Award in the Best Mature Novel category, and was a nominee for the Western Writers of America’s Spur Award in the Best Short Novel category. (For the record, there has also been a promotional 8-page Sixes Wild: The Bluff comic book, illustrated by Sidian.)

Echoes begins where Manifest Destiny ended. The setting is White Rock, Arizona Territory, a stereotypical dusty early 20th-century Western town (they have newfangled electric lights) except that the townsfolk are all anthro animals – sort of. (I still haven’t figured out how a big-winged fruit bat sheriff who flies and hangs by his feet upside town in his sheriff’s office can ride a horse.) The main characters are Jordan Blake, the fruit bat sheriff, and Six Shooter, a rugged hare bounty hunter. What nobody knows (well, they pretty much do by now) is that Six is really a crossdressing female, and she and the sheriff are secret lovers. Very graphic lovers; this is a mature content book.

Manifest Destiny ends with Six going after Tanner Hayes, the arrogant lion mine-owner revealed to be a villain who goes on the run. Echoes begins with Six coming back to town empty-pawed.

“‘Thought you had a lion to run down.’

‘Hayes has gone to ground. Haven’t got mah gun back either.”” (p. 7)

Meanwhile, she’s heard a new rumor that interests her.

“She rests her paws on those revolvers, one a silver heirloom, the other a blue steel substitute. ‘A spot of treasure hunting.’

I look up from my bookkeeping to take account of Six. One never can tell how serious she takes her tomfoolery.

‘Ah’ve been hearin’ rumors.’ She brushes the dust from her fluffy tail. ‘Folk tell of a cliff-house with all manner of lost riches.’

With a sigh, I lean back in my chair, steeple my wings, and put away the pen with one foot. ‘I wouldn’t put much stock in saloon scuttlebutt.’

‘Nor would ah, but ah heard it from an old ‘yote traveling with the circus.’

My wing fingers interlace. I wish I knew her better, and not just because I’d like to know if she’s poking fun at me. ‘If he knew where all this treasure was, why was he traveling with a circus?’

‘He said it was cursed.’ Her dexterous paws dance theatrically. ‘Everybody who went lookin’ met a grisly end.’” (p. 8)

The rumored cliff-house, if true, means an abandoned, hidden ‘yote (native) settlement. It would explain why it had not been found long ago. Six returns for Blake because he’s her boy friend, and because he’s a bat who can fly up to explore the steep cliffs of canyons.

Their dialogue is full of risqué double-entendres.

“‘I saw a tumbledown entrance to a cliff dwelling. No stairs to speak of and it’s tucked away in a gully.’ My wings fold up with a flourish. ‘I can see why a non-flighted treasure hunter would miss it.’

‘Getting’ fonder a’ those wings all the time.’ Silken paws run up their membranes, against the grain of the fine hairs thee.

I shiver, then stretch my wings for another flight. ‘Give me a launch, would you?’

‘Surely will, lawbat.’ She crouches to let me hop on her shoulders. Once she has me at a disadvantage, her ears spring up against the front of my trousers. ‘You know ah’ll get ya up anytime.’” (pgs. 10-11)

They find an ancient cliff dwelling considerably richer than any humans know about:

“Exquisite murals run the walls, carvings of desert tortoises in fantastical scenarios. Some are emerging from the Earth, others are taking the shape of mountains. ‘This is truly fascinating. This tribe must have revered them for their ability to survive in the desert.’” (p. 12)

But the deeper into the dwelling they go, the more Indiana Jones-type deathtraps emerge:

“My first inkling that something’s amiss comes when those murals begin to change. Gone are the depictions of placid desert-dwelling tortoises; ominous looking snappers take their place, jagged maws gaping menacingly.

[…]

I spy a glimmer of metal in one of the lower alcoves. In the dim light, I see the faint outline of a tortoise statuette, about knee-high. With such dry air, it too appears untouched by time.

Her boot clomps down on a rounded bulge on the floor. The tile emits a soft click. The grind of stone reverberates from the wall.” (p. 13)

Manifest Destiny contains 26 short chapters, each narrated by a different character, mainly Six and Blake switching back and forth. I said in my review that it is “mildly annoying until the reader figures out who is talking.” Echoes is the same, although there are only 13 chapters and an epilogue.

Six hears faint echoes or whispers warning her of potential trouble, mostly from the guns she inherited from her father, but not always:

“The instant I touch the watch, whispers tease just at the edge of my hearing. Just like when I first examined it, I’m struck by an odd compulsion to tell the younger ferret to straighten his whiskers and brush his hat. The watch is about average, as echoes run. But even a quiet echo’s enough to make something a treasured heirloom. The unearthly whisper between the ticks urge me toward the scruffy ferret. They silence only when I drop it in his paws.” (p. 39)

Then she learns that others also hear the echoes, and they know more about them than she does. They only come from objects made from silvery ore from a local mine. Six and Blake cross the Arizona-California border to a ghost town where there is a trading store stocking such items:

“Holstering, I scoff at such theatrics. ‘Speakin’ of ghost towns, how do ya stay in business?’ My eyes dance over the wares and windows. ‘Not exactly bustling around here.’

‘Oh, I manage.’ The wolverine hauls another drag on her cigar. ‘Local elk tribes come down from their high desert plazas to stock up. You’d be surprised how happy they are to get their hooves on modern salt lick and antler ornaments. Want nothing to do with echoes, of course: ghost fear. Good weavers, though.’ She hooks a thumb claw at a row of fine cotton sheets, which are about the first thing I’d buy without a worry in the place.” (p. 56)

To give away a spoiler, little is resolved. The mystery of the echoes is cleared up, and Six’s real name is learned. Mostly, Sixes Wild: Echoes is about Six’s and Blake’s off-and-on romance, whenever Six visits White Rock from her roaming bounty- and treasure-hunting and, Blake fears, petty thievery. He wishes she’d settle down in White Rock with him, while she has mixed feelings about giving up her freedom. She does want to learn more about his people and back-East society:

“We hop a train to Texas, which the lawbat tells me is the nearest place we can catch a true flying fox opera. The clattering passenger car’s near to empty. The sheriff occupies himself reading a paperback somebody left on a seat. Some manner of weasel romance, he says, full of twists and furious action. Reminds him of a whole mess of stories I’ve never heard of.” (p. 73)

Six’s description of fruit bat Italian opera is not to be missed. Neither is her NSFW erotic pillow talk for adults. This is a mature-content book.

Sixes Wild: Echoes (cover by ShinigamiGirl) delivers Western action, often kinky explicit erotica, and an anthro-animal society:

“I walk my patrol, rather than flying, just to enjoy the night. […] With the streets awash in moonbeams, I scarcely need to echolocate. My occasional tongue-click keeps me from blundering into a tie-post. It does nothing to warn me about the ne’er-do-well watching me from the alley.” (p. 60)

There are six full-page illustrations by different artists, mostly of the erotic scenes. Sixes Wild: Echoes, an excellent furry novel, ends with a cliffhanger with at least one more book to come.

– Fred Patten

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We talk about how we made our friends in the fandom, and share some advice on how you can do the same.

Metadata and Credits How To Make Furry Friends

Runtime: 34:10m

Cast: KZorroFuego, Levi, Near, Wolfin

Editor: Levi

Format: 96kbps AAC Copyright: © 2016 WagzTail.com. Some Rights Reserved. This podcast is released by WagzTail.com as CC BY-ND 3.0.

How To Make Furry Friends - We talk about how we made our friends in the fandom, and share some advice on how you can do the same.

We talk about how we made our friends in the fandom, and share some advice on how you can do the same.

Metadata and Credits How To Make Furry Friends

Runtime: 34:10m

Cast: KZorroFuego, Levi, Near, Wolfin

Editor: Levi

Format: 96kbps AAC Copyright: © 2016 WagzTail.com. Some Rights Reserved. This podcast is released by WagzTail.com as CC BY-ND 3.0.

How To Make Furry Friends - We talk about how we made our friends in the fandom, and share some advice on how you can do the same.