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Hello all!

I posted this a few weeks ago after handling some fursuiter friends at the Montreal Comiccon. It was originally posted in the comments, where I figured most people didn't see it, so I'm reposting it here. Enjoy!

Fursuiting and handling in a public, non-furry con is hard work. There are hundreds of people with no notion of Fursuit etiquette, it is badly ventilated and warm, there is no changing area and there is no rest area. There is no safe place to leave your clothes or belongings while you suit. Furry events facilitate fursuiting immensely - fursuiting outside of a Furry event is very challenging.

Getting anywhere is difficult. You will be stopped every two feet by people who want a picture, and you'll often get stuck in an infinite loop of "okay, now take a picture with me!". Lines and circles form where groups of Fursuiters stop.

On day one I carried a backpack containing two bottles of water, two bottles of gatorade, a long plastic straw, some almonds and a conbook which doubled as an improvised fan. I followed my Fursuiter doggedly, pestering him to drink, eat and take breaks regularly.

I lost sight of my Fursuiter for a few minutes as he wandered off to take pictures while I discussed with some old colleagues. They walked away in time for me to see him limp back towards me, eyes staring at the ground. I thought he was messing around, right up to the moment where he knelt down and collapsed in front of me.

I didn't have time to catch him. Instinctively I moved my right foot forward under him in order to break his fall - I doubt it helped much.

I'd like to say I heroically leapt into action, but I didn't. I immediately asked him if he was okay, and his brightly cheerful face gave no answer. I followed with "Do you want me to remove your head?" which elicited a weak nod.

Before that moment I had never had to forcibly remove a fursuiter's head under pressure. My feelings were torn between a strong desire to insure my friend's safety, a strong desire to avoid hurting him and a strong desire to avoid damaging his expensive costume.

Finding and undoing the zipper took me longer than I would've liked, and I had no idea how hard to pull or in which direction - I settled on some blend of "Up" and "Away from his body", and after a few good pulls I managed to take his head off. Holding the head in one hand I pulled out my makeshift fan and began fanning him to cool him off.

Security appeared quickly, offering to call an ambulance as I explained to them what happened while continuing to fan my friend. He was conscious enough to decline the ambulance, chug water and undo his suit.

I don't think I'll ever stop feeling guilty for not catching my friend as he collapsed. I feel like I failed him in his hour of need.

Needless to say, I kept a much closer watch on him after that, alternating between fanning him with the conbook, harassing him to drink more water/gatorade and asking him how he was feeling.

On day two I came with four bottles of ice water, two bottles of gatorade, a long plastic straw, more almonds and a portable air pump that I used to push air through his muzzle and into his eyes. Pumping air into his mouth, I could feel gusts of disturbingly hot air escaping from his facemask.

Handlers, remember this: a Fursuit is a potential deathtrap. A Fursuit's face does not allow any emotion to come through. The person behind the big happy smile may be in extreme distress. A dehydrated person (eg: every fursuiter ever) may not be able to vocalize. Before you handle ANYONE, agree on a hand signal that indicates an immediate emergency: tell your fursuiter "if you're in trouble, put both hands on your neck as if you're choking". Seeing someone choking should be enough to spur you into action, and let's face it: once the heat and dehydration makes them unable to vocalize, they are choking. Go help them.

Stay safe.

Handling a group of fursuiters is a logistics nightmare. In a large convention, arranging a meeting quickly is non-trivial. When the person you want to meet is unable to use a phone, it becomes borderline impossible. If possible, have the fursuiter's phone be held by their handler - this saved me more than once.

Time is of the essence when fursuiting. You simply cannot stay in the suit forever, so you must make every minute count. However, when managing a group of suiters, having to move together slows you down immensely. Your suiters may be in various states of unsuiting - if one of them is taking a headless break to cool off while the others want to run around, you may have a problem. If two of your suiters are fully dressed while your other two have yet to put on their bodysuits, you have a big problem, and people will get annoyed very quickly. No suiter wants to sit around doing nothing while dying of heat, but no one wants to be pushed when they're taking a break.

A backpack holding six full bottles and other gear is heavy. If you're like me, your backpack will start leaking water everywhere while you're responsible for the safety of four other people. You may feel a twinge of stress at this point. Stay calm. Hopefully you're not doing this alone - after today, I would never handle more than two suiters at the same time. Distribute the water bottles among the handlers - this also helps if you get separated. Don't be a single point of failure.

Your responsibilities as a handler are many. You carry water, gatorade, straws, emergency food, cooling equipment on top of whatever con stuff you're carrying. You may feel like this: http://img.4plebs.org/boards/tg/image/1373/52/1373523440432.jpg

You will carry whatever spare fursuit parts your suiters are not currently wearing (heads, handpaws, head accessories like bandanas). You will help your suiters put on and remove their costumes, several times a day. You will adjust your suiter's costume to make sure they look their best, hiding zippers and seams, brushing fur and adjusting gloves. You will have to pull out at a moment's notice whatever your suiter needs - water, gatorade, cooling. You will have to help your fursuiter stand up when they kneel or sit down for pictures (they kneel for kids all the time). You will have to coordinate with other handlers to organize meetings or split-ups. You will have to constantly monitor your group to make sure no one gets lost, falls behind or goes too far ahead. You will have to take pictures. You will have to refill water bottles. You will have to sit around holding a fursuit head while your suiter takes a bathroom break (this may take a while).

You will have to help your suiters through crowds. If someone attempts to cut off a Fursuiter by walking in front of them, chances are your suiter won't see them coming. If moving through a crowd, be very protective of your suiters, make a path for them, don't be shy about asking people to get out of the way and don't let anyone walk between you and your suiter. Making a conga line by having your suiter place their hands on your shoulders may help.

Some suiters are more independent than others - those who have been doing it for years require much less assistance and know when and what to ask for when they need help. The newer suiters need to be watched much more carefully, and they may not realize that they need water, air or a break. They may feel bad about asking for help. Offer them water regularly (even if unprompted), ask how they're feeling and offer them to take a break.

Take good care of your suiters. They're putting themselves through a lot to entertain you.

On visiting a Comic convention solo:

I saw roughly a dozen fursuiters over the course of the three days, and probably somewhere around 30 furries total. Attendance at the Montreal Comiccon is roughly 50,000 people, so you can extrapolate from there - I don't know how big your comic con is.

Please please please don't go without a handler. Find a dedicated handler and have them follow you around at all time - you are risking disaster/serious bodily harm if you don't. Find someone you trust who understands fursuiting and handling. Your handler should not be someone you suspect will bail on you without warning.

If you suit and walk around I'd wager furries will flock to you - I know that I can't resist interacting with a fursuiter when I meet one in the wild. You'll make some fast friends.

Taking breaks was a very ad hoc process - if you have to take a break, walk a few steps to get to an area with less traffic (eg: next to a wall or a dead-end) and take your head off there. If you're able to stay in your suit for long periods (and are able to re-hydrate while keeping your head) then you might be able to avoid breaking the magic for a while, but the circumstances are against you. The con will not be as air conditioned as a Furry con, there are no fans and the people around you know nothing of fursuit etiquette.

We didn't have a "home base" - no hotel room, and the car was always very far away, so we just took breaks wherever. There is no dedicated headless lounge, although there are usually a few unused rooms or dead-end corridors/secluded areas that no one visits - those can become impromptu headless lounges. In the end, when you need to take a break, take your head off, ruining the magic be damned. Don't risk your life - the people around you don't care that much.

Changing is equally awkward - we didn't have hotel rooms, so it was a matter of changing in a parking lot or in a public bathroom. Both can work. If you have a hotel room, great - you can leave your change of clothes and stuff behind - otherwise you will need someone to carry it for you.

Really, you'll have to figure things out as you go - the only thing you need to have is a good handler. Have them carry water at all times, have them follow you around (I kept one hand on my fursuiter's shoulder while behind him to let him know I'm there), have them be ready to intervene if someone gets too rowdy. It never happened on my end in three days of handling, but then again I'm a scary-looking 200-pound 6 foot tall man and I kept fairly close to my suiters. A solo suiter might look like an easier target.

While solo handling a single suiter I stayed behind him and let him lead the way. When handling a group of suiters I stayed in front and led, staying close to my front suiter and pushing crowds out of the way. If you have to cross traffic (eg: there's a constant stream of people coming perpendicular to where you're going) your handler should take charge and just block the traffic while you go through. Otherwise people will stream in from your blind spots and you will crash into them.

As long as you can change in your hotel room, have a good handler with water and you play it safe in taking frequent breaks, you should have no problem.

One last tip: whenever you pose for pictures, have your handler take a duplicate picture with his/your phone. That way you'll have pictures of your convention experience after you finish suiting.

Good luck!

submitted by Nitram_Hu
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• English Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8LB0q5-2vA
• Original Message: http://morenatsu.sakura.ne.jp/

Excuse me if I'm posting this wrong or whatever; this actually is my first time posting something on Reddit :P But I just wanted to put this out there

It's sad to see it go. Shin's Perfect Route was amazing and I got attached to the game thanks to that route.

Of course no hard feelings to the Morenatsu development team: They created this game without getting any money in return, and they have come really far. Thanks for posting the beta versions; I have had great fun with them.

And now let's hope someone will get the source code and finish the game anyway :P

What is Morenatsu?

Morenatsu (????? "Summer break") is an adult-oriented Furry Bara Genre H-Game. It was led by the Kemono artist Gamma, but after his contributions he has since left the project. Morenatsu is currently only in Japanese, with characters developed by many different aggregate sources on the 2ch Kemono image board.

The game is still incomplete (and has been for years now, development was discontinued in 2015.), so only a trial version of the game is available. A newer demo has been released, downloadable only by torrent. It contains the completed stories for Tatsuki, Kounosuke, Kouya, Shun, Juuichi and Shin along with the conclusions of their love stories.

The story: The game takes place during summer vacation in Japan. The main character, Hiroyuki Nishimura (one of the few humans in the game), gets a letter from a friend in the village where he spent his childhood, Minasato village (??? Minasato-mura). He moved away to the city five years ago. His grandparents currently live there, so he decides to return there.

• Source: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VisualNovel/Morenatsu

Why did they quit?

They simply do not seem to have the time to work on the game anymore. Not only time was a huge problem, but lately, they seem to have had problems with their game engine:

"It has been a long time since something had been written. Ruoh here. To be frank, I’m unclear where we are with the current progress of things. That is to say, since the software used to develop Morenatsu is apparently under maintenance (or is the program itself changing?), nobody on staff is able to access it either. The data has been backed up so things should be fine there, we are unable to share any information at this time."

• Source: http://letsplaymorenatsu.tumblr.com/post/96907976408/morenatsu-dev-blog-sep-7-2014

However, I should note that this is all speculation. The actual reason of stopping development has not been directly given to us by the Morenatsu team.

Quick Edit: No, the video at the top is not mine, to avoid any confusion- I merely placed it here as a reference, because most of us can't speak Japanese

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Dear Papa Bear,

I've written to you once before for advice, and you'll be glad to know it helped a great deal. I've found a small hobby in perler beads to help pass time and build my confidence while I slowly learn how to sew. I've also discovered that, even if I'm not the kind of successful the world wants me to be, I'll still be so if I'm just happy with what I'm doing and how I'm living.

I currently have a job at Wawa, which is close enough for me to walk or bike to, so I can get some exercise in my daily life. I also built a brand new PC, have some money to spare for having fun every so often, and good friends. There is even a very sweet man who loves me (and will never let me forget it). Overall, I'd say things are going well.

However, I find that following these pursuits is difficult. My usual routine involves what I know to be too much time on said PC and not enough on other interests. I believe part of the issue is me working second shift, which is often early afternoon to late night, often getting home around 11pm or midnight. When I visit my friends, it's often for the sake of playing games, largely because our D&D sessions have stalled. (They were a nice change of pace from video gaming.) I enjoy my time with the beads though, and don't worry about any of your 5 “les facteurs de merde” when making objects. It's just fun. Strangely, I specifically wanted to do these things, and never act upon that desire when I end up with the tools/materials necessary.

After buying a $70 sewing machine, it's been sitting and collecting dust and scraps of material.

I've largely attributed said failure to follow my words to my parents and their failure to instill the drive to succeed in me. But am I wrong, and looking for a scapegoat for my own laziness?

To boil it all down, how can I break this addiction and focus more on the other things I enjoy, as well as caring for myself?

Apologies for such a long-winded question, and thank you for taking the time to read through it all.

Vince

* * *

Hi, Vince,

I’m glad life is improving for you and that you’re having fun with beading. Perhaps you have moved beyond les facteurs de merde, but you have still been practicing avoidance techniques. One avoidance technique is to fill your time with other activities unrelated to what you believe you wish to do, and then, voilá, you conveniently have no time left to do that thing. This is the case with your playing games with friends and then not having time left for sewing (are you trying to make fursuits?). Another avoidance technique is to buy lots of stuff related to that goal without actually doing the activity itself. I see this with “writers” a lot. Buying books on how to write, buying a new laptop, etc. I’m guilty of it, too, to the point where I once flew to the Maui Writers’ Conference (really fun! but I didn’t write a damn thing while I was there!) as an elaborate way not to actually get the novel done.

In my previous letter to you I advised you to find a mentor or mentors to help encourage you. Have you tried that? It really helps to have people around you who urge you to pursue your creative activity (this is why I pay for piano lessons; if I didn’t have the routine of taking lessons and having an encouraging teacher, my keyboard would probably gather dust in a corner of my office.)

If you just need to break the gaming habit, I can refer you to this column about gaming addiction.

The other thing is to stop blaming others: don’t blame your parents for not instilling in you a drive to succeed, don’t blame friends for making you want to play games with them, don’t blame a bad work schedule, and don’t blame anyone else. This is on you. Only you can sit down and do the activity you supposedly wish to do.

But I can offer you a little trick that might help: create a reward system for yourself. My personal reward system actually depends on others: when I get a thank you letter (or a nice comment like yours at the beginning of your letter) it gives me a rush that makes me not only want to write more columns but increases my enjoyment of doing it. With crafty projects, such as beading, your reward system could be to give finish projects as impromptu gifts to friends and family and then see their eyes light up at the unexpected present. Or, on the somewhat more selfish side, when you finish a project or a milestone of a larger project, buy yourself a little treat, or, perhaps, take a photo of the item you made and post it on a social media site and read the comments from friends. These are called “positive reinforcement” techniques (I don’t recommend negative reinforcement here—ack).

Finally, try to adjust your attitude from negative to the positive (this relates to les facteurs de merde). Again with my piano, when I see myself making progress and getting better, I get more optimistic and this makes me enjoy practice a lot more. I’m guessing that with beading there are certain levels of the craft, too: some beading skills are more complicated and difficult to master, yes? Urge yourself to take your craft to the next level, and then, when you reach that new level of skill, your heart will fill with the pride of accomplishment and this will really drive you to do it more. It’s kind of like a runner’s high. When someone starts running for fitness, it can be very difficult, tedious, discouraging. But, after doing it for a while, you will push through a wall and suddenly it becomes a joy to run (for a lot of people—I, personally, hate running LOL)! You already enjoy beading, but you can increase this joy by challenging yourself to become a master of the craft. Remember, of course, to always do this for your own personal satisfaction.

Good Luck!

Papabear

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Does anyone have a suggestion of a maker that is open for commissions?

Basically what I am looking for is one that does a movable jaw not really a requirement but would be nice. My sona is fairly easy, just a black, white, gray wolf with a patch of blue hair on his head. It would be a toony plantigrade suit with follow me eyes. I don't want to go over $2000

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Tips: patch.ofurr@gmail.com.  Headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag.  Guest posts welcome. “Local correspondents” wanted to talk about your local networks.   This week’s Newsdump: Everything Anthrocon!  There was SO MUCH of this news, and it was such a busy month, that I will be playing catch-up for a while with it… I’m not able […]

Tips: patch.ofurr@gmail.com.  Headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag.  Guest posts welcome. “Local correspondents” wanted to talk about your local networks.   This week’s Newsdump: Everything Anthrocon!  There was SO MUCH of this news, and it was such a busy month, that I will be playing catch-up for a while with it… I’m not able […]

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Hello everyone!

If some of you follow /r/bestof, last week a /r/SquaredCircle user placed a bet if something would happen, he would go to /r/mylittlepony for three days and become an active member.

Last night, for the payperview WWE Battleground, i placed a bet where, if I was correct I would join a subreddit annd be an active member of a fellow member's choosing ( he picked /r/furry ) and if he was correct he would remove his reddit account.

Safe to say, I was right.

So for three days, you guys will be stuck with me, haha. I'm not too familiar with furries and all. I know what it is and all but i'm not too familiar with all furry related things so if some could help me, I would be glad to check everything out.

Thanks in advance and let's make this a fun three days! Cheers!

Here's to you, /u/sensiitivity

edit: So far, all of you have been welcoming me with open arms which I appreciate so thank you all! If I have questions, I can easily ask them which is nice so i'd like to return the favor. If any of you have questions about my interest for pro wrestling, feel free to ask me too! :)

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Below is my recounting of AC2015. I posted this elsewhere and it's tailored for a different community but I figured maybe it'd be welcome here too. Someone on twitter wanted me to post it here on reddit.

Also you better not upvote this cus if it goes over 50 I gotta eat Pink.

Anthrocon 2015 was a thing I attended. I had a lot of fun. I also had a lot of very jarring, strange to downright disgusting experiences. This is just me talking about what happened to try work out for myself where I belong in the furry community, if at all, and if the good of AC outweighed the negative. Input is appreciated.

AC2015 was always a litmus test for me. I've been on the outskirts of furry for about 8 years. My main interest has always been fursuiting. 3 years ago I made first contact with another furry. 1 year ago I attended a local meet up... Briefly before leaving and cutting ties. In the past few months I got my first fursuit to share with a few close friends and my boyfriend. At AC2015 I'd share it with the world. I was excited but also scared.

I'm going to make points about my experience in no particular order. Just as they come to me. Some positive, some neutral, some negative.

1: The community and quality of people at AC is far better than that of any local meet I've been to. Every single furry stereotype imaginable congregates at furmeets. From the obnoxiously loud underage kids to the unhygienic, possibly mentally handicapped man in animal ears playing his 3DS and refusing to socialize. The organizer lady of the event tried her best to rope things together but it was useless. I felt sorry for her. I offered my friend a ride home – 2 others overheard and demanded a ride. “Sorry, my car only has two seats. It's an S2000” I lied, walking outside and to the side of the cafe to get in my Subaru Forester.

Yet AC was a lot better. My theories to why follow;

One: Attending AC requires money. Money is acquired from jobs. If you're too unhygienic or generally socially awkward and unacceptable by societies most basic standards, you can't hold a job. If you can't hold a job, you can't go to AC. This cuts out MOST of the weirdos that attend local meets. Supporting this theory was a rather portly gentleman that sat next to me on the con shuttle. His smell pungent, fursuit scraggly and general aura unpleasant. “Where are you from?” I ask to change the subject from his attraction to Minerva Mink. “Right here in Pittsburgh baby!” he responds, attempting to put an arm around me which I promptly deny. Well then, no need to pay for a plane ticket or hotel for him.

Two: Uncle Kage runs a tight ship. If you can't follow simple rules, are an ultra negative image for furry or are simply batshit insane, you get banned. Case in point, [redacted1] and [redacted2]. While it's literally censoring the fandom, knowing characters like [redacted1] wouldn't be attending if Uncle Kage had a choice made me much more comfortable and safer. I hope uncle Kage learns about the antics of people like [redacted3] sooner rather than later.

Those two things limit how many, um... “Undesirables” get through. I imagine many will feel offended by what I just said. I know I'll get flak for it. But judging people by their impression on me and how they carry myself has kept me on a good track for over 20 years. It's a tried and true formula that shaves off crowds I want no part of.

2: On day one people looked at me and stared at me, a member of con security locking eyes with me for uncomfortably long. Later that day a man in an orange fox hoodie asked me if I was a furry. “Of course I am, why else would I be here?” I respond. “But you looks so posh! You sure you're not with NPR or something?” he laughs, trotting off. I thought about what he said when I got back to my hotel room, looking at myself in the mirror. Before me was an average-sized man wearing a short sleeve button up shirt, fitted jeans with no stains or holes, semi-formal slip on black shoes, a cleanly-shaven face and well kept haircut, with clean rectangular grey-metal glasses sitting on his nose. I considered what everyone else wore that day. In my usual dress I was odd, alien even. That night I purchased some brown sneakers and baggy jeans from downtown, wearing them and my con shirt to the next day. From then on I was invisible.

3: The convention is extremely two faced. “We're just a group of people that love cartoon animals!” Kage tells eager reporters, hours before running a panel where he tells furrys how to interact with the media. The next day I go around the dealers room – one of the few places I never saw a news team. The first thing I see directly ahead of me in the middle of the dealers room floor is a large stand for Furoticon – a furry Magic: The Gathering clone where everything is about sex. Nearby is a place to get fitted for a custom collar or bondage cuffs. Across the hall is a second collar store specializing in latex/rubber collars. There's also a place to get a full body harness. The majority of artists in the alley have 18+ binders – one has three 18+ binders on his table and nothing more apart from his artist name on a hastily made plaque.

Kage deflects all accusations that Anthrocon is a sex thing whenever asked he says in his aforementioned panel, but never denies. You should too, he says. Yet most dealer tables have something sex related for sale, whether it be books, collars or otherwise. Its clear that he knows about this stuff, and denying it for the sake of the con. Pittsburgh is shockingly Christian – numerous churches, preachers in the street, and on Sunday everything is closed. While I appreciate Kages efforts for the facade, I can clearly see why he does it, but it made the experience utterly jarring. I'd be more comfortable if he was more honest with the city about why furries attend, but we all know that would terminate ACs stay in Pittsburgh permanently.

4: The obsession with the famous was astounding. I briefly got to see 2 the Ranting Gryphon. We stayed in the same hotel, we did nothing more then glance at each other. I told someone about this and they pressured me on why I didn't ask for a autograph, or even say “hi”. “I don't really care for him. Never seen any of his material” I say, their jaw dropping. “But he's so big! I'm so jealous, you just wasted a huge opportunity!” I shrugged it off.

Every time I saw Kage he had an entourage of people, some obviously his friends, others orbiting the group, eager to become his friends. They sweat and breath heavily, waiting for the perfect moment to spring their rehearsed joke or comment that'll surely win his heart and their own seat in the world of furry fame. I interacted with Kage briefly once, threatening him with an umbrella.

My other instance with a famous furry was in the headless lounge. I sat on a chair, fursuit head on a fan to air it out. The lounge has around 6~ people total, casually talking about everything from their suits to the weather. Telephone walks in, removing her suit head and setting it down. Conversation stops, everyone looks, some look at me and each other as if assessing whether they should make a move. Seconds later conversation returns, quieter this time, the topic obvious.

5: People are there to fuck. And that's OK. My fursuit it cute, feminine and attracted a lot of unwanted attention of people that wanted to fuck it. That's not OK. On the day before As in the Westin Lobby someone placed their palm on the suits chest, I swat it away. “Whats wrong? I thought you'd like that sort of thing... Did I so something wrong?” the tall man says, getting quieter with each utterance before blushing deep red and going away. He avoids eye contact with me from then on.

On the final day I emerged from the headless lounge, and as I adjusted my head a man in his 40s puts an arm around me. “Hey there, lets get a picture!” I oblige. “Doing anything? Me and my buddies are going to my room for drinks, if you dig.” His inflection and hand slipping from my hip to my rear reveals his intentions go far beyond just drinks. “Want in?” I refuse, shaking my head as I jog away quickly. I wonder what he was going to do with my picture.

Other than those two instances, numerous referenced to my suit as “sexy”. Not cute, not pretty, but “sexy”. It made me wary of them. Their first instance upon seeing me was not “cute dog!” but “wow, they're sexy!” and they didn’t even try to hide it. It really made me feel gross and put me off suiting.

6: Some panels were good. Some were kinda bad. My least favourite was “whos lion is it anyway”. While the comedy was good the presenter spent a LOT of time promoting himself, the convention he runs and his friends. The first round was nearly exclusively his friends. It took at least half an hour to set up party quirks, and the actual time spent on it far less. The round after was a logistical nightmare, at least 50 people on stage in 3 rows. For someone that runs a con, he should consider how to streamline his panel a bit more to be more comedy, and less promotion and rules-explanation.

7: The best experiences were the out of panel ones. Playing Joust for 2 hours with friends and random folk. Posing for hundreds and hundreds of pictures with not only con attendees but the people of Pittsburgh. Picking up and carrying midget fursuiters (while in suit myself) for 20 minutes at a time because why not. Hugging fursuiters. Highfiving them. Causing mischief like a 10 yearold with his first water pistol. Meeting some great people in the headless lounge and exchanging fursuiting tips and care guides. Sampling local brews out and about or in peoples rooms. Meeting with a group of fellow misfits and becoming best friends. If you go to AC for the panels, you're doing it wrong.

8: People in murrsuits posing with children for photos. People in fursuits with dick holes in them that they have had sex in. Posing for photos. With children that are like, 8. Wearing con badges with their internet handles on, that Googling will result in fursuit porn. The kids and parents may find the shorts or y-fronts cute, but we the con attendees all know whats under there. And we're all silently judging you and gossiping about you. Seriously, its gross. Just say “no thanks” jeeze. If you're reading this know who you are.

9: Fursuiting is a great anonymity experience. I'm very shy about my face and identity around furries – becoming my fursuits character for a solid 4 days around strangers was intriguing. Great. Amazing even. People see you as an exciting, multi-dimensional bouncy character, and not the slouching human hiding behind the suit.

So that's that. All major things that happened to me at AC. Other things were comparatively inconsequential or unrelated. I'm still unsure what to make of AC. Did I enjoy it? What do I make of my experiences? If I go again, what will I do differently? I think about that a lot lately, slouched on my deck, thinking about my fursuit and what it means to me, what it means to furries and how those two ideologies differed. To me it's a disguise, a character I become to attend furry functions without anyone knowing who I am, but it's a character I love being. One that's outgoing, playful and sassy, yet at times shy. Shy like me, my own personality bleeding in to the fur and foam facade that I once differentiated from myself, but now compare myself to. I wonder if fursuiting affects my own character, and if so if its a positive or negative one. I wonder how the furry fandom molds my personality, and if that's a good thing at all.

EDIT: Removed names.

EDIT 2: I appreciate the thought behind gold but I'll never use it. If you really, -really- want to give me something for this post then paypal me.

submitted by Stupid_Pink_Dog
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Mark your calendars and set your alarms! Thanks to one of our members, we’re going to be having a special chat in our forums this Saturday, July 25, at 6 PM Eastern with Jennifer Tait, a senior production editor at one of the Big Five publishers.

As a senior production editor, Ms. Tait deals with the book after it’s been accepted, so she doesn’t have anything to do with reviewing submissions. That said, this is a great opportunity to get a bit of a behind-the-scenes look at the traditional publishing world and the aspects of the publishing process that she handles, and I’m very grateful that she’s agreed to come chat with us.

Many thanks to FWG member Bill “Greyflank” Kieffer for suggesting and arranging this. I’m hoping this will be the first of many guest chats we’ll have in future months and years.

Again, the chat will be Saturday, July 25 at 6 PM Eastern, in the forum shoutbox as usual. (If you’re not registered on the forums, you’ll need to register in order to see the shoutbox.) With Ms. Tait’s permission, I’ll also see about posting a transcript in the forums afterward, for the benefit of those who aren’t able to be on at the time. And if you can’t be there and want to leave a question for her, you can ask it here.

See you in the shoutbox on Saturday!

Hello and welcome to the 5th Art Prompt thread! I hope you're all having a good Summer so far - Anyone got any exciting things planned?

Thanks to the scorching weather recently, this week our theme will be a furry beach party!

Also, we'll be trying something new this week: Our friends over at /r/furryartschool are running a companion thread that offers lots of useful tips and feedback about the prompt. Check it out!

Week 4

submitted by CeresSergal
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submitted by CeresSergal
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