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submitted by Featherfell
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submitted by Matthews_Atelier
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Dear Papabear,

My problem revolves around some furry drama. Isn't that a surprise. Furries are never dramatic. 

Anyway, omitting sarcasm, my letter actually revolves around a small, close-knit group of furries I'm a part of. We have this group chat, and we used to get along very well. We're internet friends, but close internet friends. 

However, over the past month or so, I've realized I'm not really like them. I mean, I have fun around them, for sure, but... It's hard to explain. Its almost as if our base morals conflict with each other. Plus, I'm partly, pretty much mostly, to blame. 

You see, I've always had one simple fault- it's hard to offend me, so I assume everyone else has my thick skin, when in reality, everyone's unique in how much they can handle.

I was playing therapist one day, trying to give advice to one of the furries in my 'tough love' sorta way. I don't really believe in the "aww it ok baby lemme give you a hug" sort of method that's become all too common. Yes, it may work short-term, but, let's be honest, true problems are more deeply rooted, and if the person truly believes something is bogging them down, they should locate what is broken and fix it. 

That furry didn't take too kindly to it. I tried to word it sensitively, but I was blunt and to the point, and they took offense. I hurt them. 
This isn't the first time I hurt the others, either. My very nature seems to offend some people, ironically, because I assume people don't get offended.

I'm a loving person at heart, I swear, I'm just terrible at communicating and keeping my mouth shut, but after hurting all these furries so many times, I decided enough was enough. Packed my suitcase and turned tail, walked right out of that door. 

Now that I reflect back on things, though, was leaving this group the right thing to do? I wasn't unhappy in their company, completely the opposite, but the mere fact I made others unhappy with my presence is enough to leave. Was me leaving just a cowardly way of avoiding fixing myself, or was I truly doing it with the best of intentions? 
Now, two weeks after I left, the head of the chat's trying to convince me to come back, and I'm unsure of whether to return to this chat, be in the company of furs I like and make that lead fur happy, but have the guilt of knowing I hurt them and probably making them think I'm the over dramatic one, or should I stay out, know I won't hurt anyone, but loose them as friends and risk being considered a coward? 

To make a long story short, I repeatedly get in scuffles with the furries in that chat because I'm slightly mean (and bad at communication) and they're slightly sensitive, and I couldn't risk hurting them more, so I upped and left. Now I have the offer to come back... I do miss them, but should I really return? I may just hurt them more. 

Thanks for reading this train wreck of a letter, I hope it's at least legible. 

Your weary deer,

Anon. 

* * *

Dear Furiend,

Papabear agrees with you that it doesn’t always solve a problem to just offer sympathy when someone is troubled. Sometimes it does help (when people already know what is wrong and just need a bit of comforting), but sometimes you do need to point out where the problem is so they can identify it and fix it. This is the very thing I try to do with this column. I may have hurt some people’s feelings, too, but it seems I never hear from anyone if I have. Perhaps they just don’t respond.

I also believe that people have become overly sensitive, especially in American culture. A large part of the problem is a school and social system that is so concerned about self-esteem that it goes too far in the other direction: rewarding people for mediocrity and letting them get away with not being responsible for their own lives and their own decisions. The result is, well, frankly, we have a lot of weak-spined people in our country now. I mean, these are people who never fail a grade (we can’t fail people and make them repeat a grade! OMG!), who get awards simply for participating in an activity instead of excelling at it, and who are protected from any kind of criticism that might “hurt their feelings.” It’s gotten so bad that some colleges have been sued for teaching subjects such as the problems of racism in society for fear of offending students. When you protect people too much, shelter them too much, then you do not prepare them adequately for life: you are setting them up for failure. And that is not doing them any favors.

We learn more and grow more from the failures in our lives than from the successes. If you succeed all the time and life is easy, you stagnate as a human being, and then when suddenly your fortunes reverse, you implode. A great example of this is child stars. Many celebrities in music, acting, and sports get so famous and so rich so fast that they can’t handle it. They lose their money because they don’t know how to invest, they become drunks or drug addicts because they don’t know self-control, they lack humility because they are constantly told how great they are by a wall of fans and body guards and yes men.

But I digress.... In your case, you sound like you are trying to say things in a kind way while still pointing out where a problem is. Reading between the lines of your letter, it might be that some take offense because you come off as a know-it-all by trying to tell them they are wrong. The way I approach this in my column is to use examples in my own life and, often, show where I went wrong, too. Then you can say something such as, “You know, I had a similar experience and really goofed up, and this is what I learned from it.” If you haven’t gone through what they have, you might try to find something similar or use an example from somewhere else in life. If it is a really serious problem, you might simply just recommend an organization that can help them (as I do in cases of suicidal furries, for example.)

I’m not exactly sure how you are “slightly mean,” but will say to you that you should never use language that insults or disparages another person. Choice of words is very important, and you can say the same thing to someone in a way that is not hurtful by not saying things like “Boy, that was so stupid of you to do.” Instead, use “Well, you made a mistake, and we all make mistakes. Here’s what you might try to do to fix it....”

And here I go back to my favorite site, Tiny Buddha, which has an excellent page on how to give advice to someone the right way: http://tinybuddha.com/blog/10-tips-advise-wisely-how-to-give-advice-that-actually-helps/. (Honest, folks, I don’t work for Tiny Buddha or get kickbacks from them LOL).

You should not feel bad about trying to help others and hurting their feelings when you were just doing the best you could. You say you like these furries, and the group leader has invited you back, so that says a lot. It is possible, too, that you think you did more harm than you actually did.

Learning from the above, I would recommend you return to the group.

Hugs,

Papabear

submitted by Stealthtyper
[link] [7 comments]

submitted by NoahGoldFox
[link] [1 comment]

Hi there,

I'm not in the fandom, but I do want to commission a piece of artwork for someone close to me. What would be the best way to find artists who would be willing to make a specific piece of artwork for a price?

submitted by selfproclaimed
[link] [2 comments]

Hey, I just got a drawing tablet and although my art is NOT very good yet, I am trying to practice with different characters. So leave your ref and I might completely butcher drawing your character!

submitted by FERRET_TESTICLES
[link] [9 comments]

submitted by bjorn0411582
[link] [20 comments]

submitted by BlindCoyote
[link] [3 comments]

submitted by Raptros
[link] [6 comments]

submitted by Yiffing_Time
[link] [21 comments]

There are so many options in my mind right now, I'm almost too overwhelmed with the options in my brain, so it's difficult for me to make a decision!

I'm fed up with waiting for inspiration, so I'd like to know what kind of fursuit species, style, and other things would be most popular, and what people would be interested in purchasing.

Would you be so kind as to take the super-quick survey? I'd really appreciate it!

Aside from the survey, please comment in this post on things you would like to see!

The survey is here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/928B9X3

And, just as an FYI, there is already a Shark fursuit in my plans for a personal suit, so that's why it's not in the options. ;)

submitted by TwerkOnThatShark
[link] [1 comment]

submitted by Saamstraat
[link] [8 comments]

submitted by Lol33ta
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submitted by Yiffing_Time
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submitted by 10art1
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submitted by squirrelflight01
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submitted by VentKazemaru
[link] [12 comments]

A trio of virtual narratives funded using the Patreon platform…

After a reader tipped me off to three virtual novels with sci-fi themes and strong furry interest being funded through Patreon,  I thought “Well, that’s a story right there!” But it looks like the bigger story is HTBH Games, the company producing (in the Hollywood sense of “producer”) the three titles. I hope to learn more about HTBH over the next few days. But in the meantime, projects!

Blackgate

(funding on Patreon)

It’s hard not to project onto Blackgate. The “small town gone dark and strange” trope is one of my favorites. It’s the Bad Place of the haunted house film, but spread all over a wedge of Americana. The driving energy behind Wicker Man, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and the darkly surreal podcast Welcome to Night Vale. Also, the Labrador police officer’s pretty cute and the virtual novel’s got an 18+ rating, just saying.

Guess which one’s playing “Good Cop.”

Blackgate begins with the setup, “It’s a dark night and you’re driving through the woods, when…” and the plot starts branching almost immediately. In the few minutes I spent clicking around, the game quickly took me to the town of Blackgate, a city of strange creatures, and a town where the officials seem to be covering up something of serious occult significance. It’s a claustrophobic story, but in horror escaping from the Bad Place is usually half the challenge.

In a very surface skim, the soundtrack is pretty good, with lots of different moods that change with the scene. The artwork is of two types–small town photography with well-handled impressionistic painterly effects, and the various sprites that represent the characters, like above. As of this moment, the characters are static, but the Patreon milestone of “Animations!” is only $25 in pledges away. Here’s hoping. There are a few different artists handling the characters, and they’re consistently strong. Complaints? Not a lot of female characters to interact with, at least not yet. Depending on the dominant tone of the narrative (Small Town Horror, vs. Small Town Horror with Guys Taking It Off) this may not change or be a misread.

(No complaints, like I said, but most of the guys in this title have a “Heeeeeey, come here often?” expression on their faces, so I’m thinking it’s in part that kind of story, and thus the lack of a feminine presence.)

(Still no complaints, but some of these WIP updates suggest that we are dealing with that kind of story. NSFW BTW.)

Ultimately, Blackgate is the evolved version of the Choose Your Own Adventure series from the 70’s and 80s, but with illustration, soundtrack, furries, possibly animation, and way, way more forks in the road to choose from. The attention to detail on artwork is high, and the mood-building is strong. You can learn more about it on the creator Bane’s FA, which is largely Blackgate information. The Story So Far is up on Patreon as a free download, With Mac, Linux, and Android versions. Updates and new demos are released every two weeks.

Laika Dosha

(funding on Patreon)

Laika, if you don’t know the sad story, is one of the first animals in space, a stray dog launched by Russia into earth orbit in 1957 to test how living creatures endure the conditions of weightlessness and space (spoiler: Sometimes they run out of oxygen.) Notes from Laika’s story inform Laika Dosha heavily, so a little recap seemed in order.

Unlike most virtual novels, the “You” of Laika Dosha is not one voice. Instead, the player takes the part of a hive-mind, distributed across six individuals–a team from four species created to rescue survivors lost in space. When a creeping darkness infiltrates the solar system and humanity (what have they ever done for you?) has to evacuate their home planet (planetary fungal infestation, don’t ask, but if you’ve read about zombie ants, it’s…that thing.), the team has to act. Or rather, might choose to act, since ultimately it’s the reader’s choice.

Without experiencing the novel, it seems like one of its themes is “Echoes of the past, haunting the distant future.” Laika herself has become something of either a saint of spacefarers or a dark god, a Charon of the spaceways (body bags are jettisoned into the endless night with dog biscuits…) Uplifted animals face the labs that created them. Survivors (?) of space wrecks ressurected  (??) by Padua Station’s medical technology. Can what is lost–innocence, bodies, past glories, a single stray dog–ever be recovered?

Figuratively and literally, Laika Dosha looks like a haunting product.

A few words about the creative team. From an executive perspective, all roads go back to HTBH and their very 21st Century fiction. The two main creative voices on the project: Patrick Rochefort of Rochefort Writes…Ah, THERE’S the fellow who initially tweeted me about this! I knew all this was interconnected…is the writer, and I love this quote about his influences:

He finds tremendous inspiration drawn from modern “bleeding edge” science-fiction authors, like Peter Watts, Paolo Bacigalupi, and Cory Doctorow, fearlessly bleak writers willing to make characters suffer for the sake of a good story.

“Fearlessly Bleak” is my new favorite adjectival phrase. If you like, you can stalk him on FA, where he’s active as “Bahumat,” and has a number of furry writing creds under his belt, particularly from FurPlanet and Sofawolf; “From Winter’s Ashes” is his web-published serial. The artist of the project is Oouna, whose art makes striking use of grays and blacks—you might wish to check out her Tumblr in particular.

Music is by Jon Fini. All roads in this post lead back to Bane, maybe he’ll correct me if Bane isn’t Fini’s cheetah alter-ego, but I suspect it is.

There’s several places you can learn more about Laika Dosha. Rochefort Writes is very active on this mini-forum, with lots of content updates and screenshots. Of course, the LD Home Page has a fair bit of information, including character bios, backstory about the game and its conflicts, merchandise (yes, coffee mugs. Yes, tee shirts. No to the Molly dakimakura.) And if you’re so inclined, you can get announcements on the official Laika Dosha FA.

Echo

(funding on Patreon)

Hmm. I’m tearing through the “Echo” project page on FurAffinity and I cannot, so-so research skillz notwithstanding, find information on the project creator, Howly. This is just a bit vexing, I spent character points on that skill. You can’t hide from me forever, Howly :)

Echo is a “small town with buried secrets” romance/horror visual novel, which uses the small-town-as-sandbox-setting to explore a young otter’s return home. The protagonist, Chase, is working on a school project, and returns to find that his childhood and adolescent memories are rose-tinted, more idealized than the truth might actually be, and that there are some dark memories under the surface that are primed to dig their way upward. It’s is a story of a return home, of the muddled emotions of old, faded friendships simmering again, of a town that’s losing the battle against an inevitable demise.

So…here’s my confession. I have absolutely no attention span, and found Echo a little bit challenging, didn’t make it through the prelude, after 10 minutes or so of clicking and skimming the sentences with only one pause to pick a direction, and that just the main character filling in a conversational lull. The characters’ dialog feels very natural, and the art is appealing, if a bit toony, not a bad thing, just a thing. But the sprites are rather static, at present; overall, at least in the prelude, the Echo reads more like a traditional novel with illustrations, rather than playing like a game. But it’s not fair to judge a game by the first few screens, and the comments on FA have been overwhelmingly positive.

The art of Echo is principally by Stardustpup, with music by KJNightwolf. The game’s first demo was released in mid-August, not a bad time to get in on ground level of the project.

Follow @furstarter on twitter for the latest fur-friendly crowdfunding projects!

 

 

 

 

submitted by qtalll
[link] [4 comments]