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submitted by TakeMyKnot
[link] [27 comments]

submitted by Hurryena
[link] [53 comments]

submitted by RGBrazberry
[link] [2 comments]

submitted by Wahots
[link] [3 comments]

submitted by GadasGerogin
[link] [25 comments]

submitted by Kansyr
[link] [2 comments]

submitted by SaltyMeth
[link] [16 comments]

submitted by IndigoTheFennec
[link] [7 comments]

It seems like a lot of "furries" were drawn to anthropomorphic characters from a young age--I often see references to innocent crushes on characters from The Lion King or Robin Hood.

I always thought "haha that's cute, I never had any," until one day I realized that I HAD A GIANT CRUSH ON THIS GUY WHEN I WAS LIKE 10 AND HAD TOTALLY BLOCKED IT OUT OF MY MIND, PROBABLY BECAUSE HE WAS A MOTHERFUCKING NEOPET. I though he was so dashing.

so…any amusing prepubescent cartoon crushes?

submitted by EmbarrassingShit
[link] [12 comments]

Hi Papa Bear, hope you are doing well and thank you for reading this question. I have been in a bit of a funk recently and have been clinging to Skype and FurAffinity to help get me through the day these past few weeks. 

I have been trying to write and find inspiration these past few weeks. However, each time I see or try to write a new story I get a pang of doubt or jealousy for some reason and spend the afternoon languishing about being grumpy/sad. 

Do you have any suggestions for clearing my head and find inspiration? 

Trentonfoxbear

* * *

Dear Trentonfoxbear,

All writers go through what you’re feeling right now, mostly due to self doubt (thinking everything you write isn’t good enough), and sometimes due to writer’s block (simply no ideas come to mind). The first thing you need to do is explore your motivation: why do you want to write. Which of the following describes you?

1. I want to write because I want to have to see my name on a book or in a magazine or other publication.
2. I want to write so I can sell my stories and earn an income.
3. I want to write to inspire and bring joy to others.
4. I want to write to be famous and get recognized.
5. I want to write because I enjoy the writing process and creating things out of my imagination (i.e., I like to write for my own gratification).

If you answered 1, 2, or 4, put away your computer right now and abandon all hope ye who enter here, because you are writing for the wrong reasons. Go pursue some other interest. If, however, you chose 3 or 5, then we may continue.

Papabear’s main reason for writing these days is #3. It is for that reason that I write a column 4-7 times a week, and I would do more except my workaday job often wears me out (and sometimes I just run out of letters, or have a lot of people wanting me not to publish their letters). If your answer is 3, as well, then jump-start your creative process by imagining people reading your stuff and the smiles it will produce on their faces. You can do this through the process of meditation. Reconnect to your original reason for writing by contemplating your pure motivation. You want to make others happy and inspire them. Therefore, it really doesn’t matter if, sometimes, your writing might be a bit clunky; the important thing is to get your message across, what you want to convey. What is your message? What are you trying to say? Reconnect to that, and it will get you going again.

Note! And this is very important! You are not writing for approval of your readers; this implies you want some positive feedback and recognition (#4). No, you are writing for them in an unselfish process of giving to your audience without expecting anything in return, including any acknowledgment.

If you chose #5, then it seems you have gotten a bit off track because you’re not enjoying writing at the moment. To get back to writing, do the following:

• Set aside one hour a day to write. Find a place where you have no distractions—turn off all electronic devices! And I mean all of them.
• During this time, write. If you are temporarily stumped about your current project, practice free-flow writing. Free-flow writing is simply putting pen to paper (or typing) and writing anything that comes to mind. Just write it down, without editing, and keep writing whatever thoughts are in your head. Continue for one hour, then stop for the day. That evening, or the next morning, read what you have written. It’s very possible there will be some inspiration there.
• Declutter your head. Writers (and other artists) often become befuddled not because they have no ideas but because they have too many. They start working on multiple projects and never finish any of them because their thoughts and imagination are too scattered. Focus on one piece to work on and concentrate only on that. If—as often happens—a cool idea for something else pops up, scribble down that idea, but put it aside for later and return to your main project.
• Break down large projects into several smaller, bite-size projects, and set milestones for yourself. For instance, if you are working on a novel, make your first project to write down character descriptions; when that is accomplished, make the next an outline of your story; when that is done, your next milestone might be to complete the first chapter (break it down further by promising to write at least 1-2 pages a day). Don’t think of the full book, just focus on writing that first chapter. It’s less intimidating if you break things up.
• Know where you’re going. This one is what helped me complete my novel. A lot of writers begin writing a story with no idea how it is going to end, they lose their way, and get bogged down and frustrated. Writing like this rarely works (the greatest example of it working would be the movie Casablanca, my favorite film), so what I did is I figured out the conclusion of my book first, then, once I knew where I was going, it was much easier to go back to the beginning and write.
• Don't fret, rewrite. Another thing I learned was not to worry about problems with the manuscript because I could always go back and rewrite them. That’s the cool thing about writing—and something that the computer age has made ridiculously easy compared to typing on paper—is you can go back and easily make changes. For example, say you’re writing along and you decide in chapter 20 that it makes more sense to the story if the heroine once had a son who died in a tragic accident, but the earlier chapters have no hint of this. You can go back and make changes to the earlier parts of the book and suddenly it looks like you planned it all along because, heck, readers have no idea what you originally wrote. Rewrites like this can make you look brilliant ;-)
• Join a writers group. Writers groups are a great way to share your work and get feedback, and good writers group help to motivate you to keep writing (e.g., “Hey, we liked what you did in this chapter and can’t wait for the next one. When can we see it?”)
• Experience life. The best source of inspiration for a writer is real life. Go out and meet people and do stuff and you will get ideas for plots and for characters, too. If you read interviews with famous fiction writers, they will often tell you that many of their characters are based upon people they met in real life.
• If you get really really stuck, set aside your writing for 1—but no more than 3—days. Then go back and read what you have written. This can help you get a fresh eye on what you are putting down on paper.
• This might seem unrelated, but it isn’t: get plenty of sleep and exercise, and eat healthy foods. Being tired and sick will always work against you in your writing.

Hope this helps! Good luck! And keep writing!

Papabear

submitted by Thecoltonfactor
[link] [9 comments]

submitted by CeresSergal
[link] [10 comments]

I've heard of a couple of friends who don't have partners in the fandom, and I was wondering how many of you would prefer your partner be involved? Is it really a huge deal, or would it just be the icing on the cake? I've never had a partner, and I'm still young, but I personally feel like I would like my SO to be in the fandom as well, probably because its a huge part of my job. What do you feel?

submitted by KaynoDragon
[link] [12 comments]

Kudos if you get the reference. I would be a cylinder- I'm not straight, I'm well-rounded, and kids swing me around in mock lightsaber wars.
Furs! What would you be?

submitted by ananagramofintrigue
[link] [52 comments]

Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer. The Stray Lamb, by Thorne Smith. NYC, Cosmopolitan Book Corporation, November 1929, hardcover $2.00 (vi + 303 pages). Yarst! I referred in a recent comment here (June 15) to “Thorne Smith-ian comedy magical mayhem”, and I was asked, “Who’s Thorne Smith?” (“You don’t know how old […]

submitted by Fireflufferz
[link] [48 comments]

submitted by Foxes-in-space
[link] [16 comments]

One of my favorite things about the furry fandom, is the imagination of its people and the characters they create to represent themselves online, in art, or in suit and so forth. All that variety means just about any detail you can imagine can or will be used in someone's character from both a visual and narrative (backstory,etc) aspect. Naturally there are details about characters that you will eventually come to love to see, and in some cases come to dislike so much it instantly spoils a character in your eyes. I'm here to ask you /r/furry just what it is that you love and hate to see character wise. Do to wiggly meaty bits that may be part of some people's opinions, I'm marking this post NSFW.

For the sake of avoiding drama and general good tact, do NOT use other people's specific characters. This is about traits, not individual characters.

Due to the potentially controversial nature of this topic (arsehurt is always inevitable) I've posted this with a throw away account. Make of that what you will.

For me, what instantly makes me like someone's character.

Visually there's a few things that will pretty much please me right away, but the number one is serpentine tails. Not just like, long tails, but LONG tails. The sort you can coils a friend up in from head to toe and squeeze and hug on them with. Or keep them from running off. :v The closest second for visual stuff is simply being plantigrade. I don't particularly dislike digigrade, but plantigrade just seems to satisfy the "this looks believable" quality in my mind much better.

What do I like narrative wise? First I like characters who have a fairly "mundane" job or hobby that they go into great detail about and the passion of the person who owns that character shines through, like the character who has alot of automotive detail in their backstory, or blacksmithing, or painting, or playing an instrument. It's fairly mundane, but when it's presented as a core part of the character and how much it means to the player shows through, I like seeing that. Anybody can say their character is an interstellar bounty hunter and make it presentable fiction, but it's something special when the details of how that bounty hunter say plays guitar or drums, or violin in their free time and it's presented with the kind of passion that moves past straight faced fiction that I like.

The second big narrative thing is that I love cohesive world building. Most people simply put their character into our current world, or one from popular fiction, and I've nothing against that, hell I myself have three versions of my own character spread across White Wolf's settings, Star Trek, and Star Wars. But what I love seeing is people who build their own fictional universe from the ground up and define its rules, its peoples, its history and so forth. This is something that I hardly ever see simply because it's such a laborious task, but when it's done I adore it, even if it's only so-so in presentation.

And now for the dislikes, and the potential drama. Keep the fire extinguisher handy folks!

Visually, let's see. First and foremost, the number one thing that will instantly ruin any appeal a character could have had to me is tattoos on fur, particularly detailed ones. I've actually tried getting over this one, but I can't, it just violates my ability to suspend disbelief too much. Hair moves, constantly, it's shed it grows, it's impossible to draw details things on, so seeing a "tattooed" fur instantly makes me perceive them and just having human skin with a fur pattern and whatever their tattoo is on it. Dyed simple designs or warpaint or so forth that's fairly simple I can believe and accept, but intricate tattoos, no.

Second big visual thing is a two for one, rainbows and tramp stamp butt patterns. Seriously, rainbow hair or fur. Rainbow tails, rainbow eyes. Just please, stop it, seriously, it NEVER looks good(Jewelry doesn't bother me, my own character had rainbow earnings for a while till I grew out of the look). And that paw bring, heart, or ? (mars symbol single or double) on your asscheek, under your tail or above your crotch just instantly irritates me. Same thing when there's an arrow pointing toward a character's ass or boy/girl bits.

And now for the narrative ones, these are fairly simple. I don't like character clones. If someone is furry Sephiroth #6972? "but I never fought Cloud and went on to take over the world instead" I will instantly write that character off. The second big thing, and this is something I've noticed is very common with teenage furs is the ones that go full on 2edgy4U with "my mother was and angel and my father was a demon and I killed my first god when I was five, now my power is so great I can barely control it sometimes but I'm so random I don't know things might just happen" type of characters. Or the the "I look 16 but I'm really 5000 years old and ancient demon/god/angel/spirit/tree stump" stuff. It's hackneyed, it impresses no one. Stop it please.

And, well there it all is! So, now, I ask you. What do you love and hate to see in in your fellow fur's characters.

edit: Some odd formatting going on here, not sure why some parts are bolded.

submitted by SolThrow
[link] [88 comments]

submitted by Verok_the_Dragon
[link] [10 comments]

submitted by Foxes281
[link] [7 comments]