Feed aggregator

Guest post by Gamepopper, an indie game maker and animation fan in the UK.

As a British furry who was interested in the history of the furry fandom, I couldn’t help but notice most of the subject was centred around the United States. This was the case in all the articles and convention panels I could find, and most blatantly in the book Furry Nation: The True Story of America’s Most Misunderstood Subculture by Joe Strike. This United States focus continues to this day with videos and documentaries such as The Fandom by Ash Coyote discussing the history of the fandom from the beginnings at science fiction and comic book conventions in California.

As a result, I took it upon myself in 2017 to look into my own country’s perspective of the fandom. This part-time hobby of mine culminated into a lecture at ConFuzzled 2019, The History of the Furry Fandom in the United Kingdom, which focused on the growth of the fandom from the earliest known gathering of twenty fans in 1987 to the present day conventions of over two thousand furries. I spoke about the housecons and fanzines in the nineties, furmeets and mailing lists in the noughties, and the British furry conventions and the difficulties getting them off the ground. I also allowed audience members to make comments and ask questions throughout, which you can listen to in the recorded version uploaded to YouTube.

Watching it in retrospect, I’m still proud of the amount of content in the work, in spite of a few factual errors and omissions that a few people have noted. On the day itself, it went over better than I ever anticipated, with a full room of attendees giving a huge round of applause at the end and many furries coming up to me to appraise my work. One of those people thought that the full history should be written down, and, given the amount of work I had already done, I felt up to the task.

Ever since the convention ended, I have been working on Furry Kingdom, a book about the history of the British furry fandom, discussing the earliest influences in art and storytelling, the numerous events and activities throughout the decades, and the many challenges the British fandom has faced. At the moment, I’ve finished what I want to write for the manuscript and I’m currently searching for a means to get it published.

This book allowed me to write what I wouldn’t have been able to say in the 2019 lecture due to time constraints and limited information at the time. During that period, my research had only scratched the surface, and I had few sources available. Fred Patten’s Chronology and Furry Fandom Conventions were great resources for establishing the base structure, which I then expanded upon using alt.fan.furry, UKFur Forums, various LiveJournals and contacting about a dozen furries from the early days.

Working on the book also meant refining my research methods to uncover every event and piece of noteworthy media in great detail, finding original fanzines and magazines, newspaper articles, documentaries, and contacting even more people to get the fullest picture that I can.

THE PROBLEM OF FINDING SOURCES

So how does one go about researching the history of the furry fandom? The short answer is that it involves a lot of reading and listening. Not just panels, documentaries, and wikis, but the written and spoken word from the events the days they were happening, to find out where the secondary sources got their information from as well as to find information that had previously not been recorded.

How do you go about finding these primary sources for the furry fandom? Well, there are a wide variety of avenues to finding them, but for the sake of brevity, I distinguish them into one of three categories:

1. What is currently online: Almost every website pertaining to the furry fandom is a potential source when looking for documents. Any website used to inform and promote a furry convention or furmeet, or a post on a blog, forum, or board, reporting on such events are great sources of information, particularly as the internet has been pivotal for the fandom’s growth from the late-90s to the present.
2. From people in the fandom: For my book as an example, I’ve contacted individuals who were involved in running conventions as well as furmeets in the past in order to find out what happened from their recollections and to compare with what was being discussed at the time.
3. In archives: This could be from digital archives like archive.org and the Wayback Machine to physical archives like museums and libraries.

Sounds all straightforward, right? I wish it was. The hard truth is that even in the furry fandom, which has been organized heavily online for decades, whose passion in its own legacy is self-evident by the success of books and documentaries, not everything is as readily available as one might assume.

Physical materials (e.g., conbooks, fanzines, newsletters) are incredibly difficult to obtain due to the furry fandom’s limited and often independent publishing runs, and very few of them are preserved and digitised. The best method of ever getting a chance to read most of these is to contact private collectors, but even this is a challenge.

The History of Furry Publishing, Part One: Beginnings – by Fred Patten.

I’m fortunate enough that the plenty of people who I got in touch with for the project I’ve been working on have been approachable and willing to provide any help and information they can. That doesn’t mean everyone I wanted to talk to was either available to contact or willing to respond to a random furry with an interest in past furmeets, conventions, and artworks.

It’s also not just an issue finding sources within the fandom: for instance, I’ve made several visits to the British Library in order to look for newspaper and magazine articles. Imagine my surprise when, despite its extensive collection of manuscripts, microfilms, books, journals, and even issues of science fiction fandom magazines such as Starburst, I discover that not every issue is within their archives.

Even Fred Patten had difficulties researching for his book on Furry Fandom Conventions:

“…about half the 116 conventions never replied to my e-mails, or sent a brief reply that their purpose was to have fun, not to engage in bookkeeping, and they didn’t keep any records of their previous years.… You can tell in my book which conventions sent me information, and which didn’t.”

Yet the worst challenge, however, is filling the gaps in events where information is lost forever. Anything made of paper can get burned, torn, or damaged beyond repair, or even intentionally thrown away or shredded. Digital media can also be lost, despite the phrase “Once it’s on the internet, it’s there forever”. Forums go offline, websites end up going to Error 404, servers shut down and get dismantled, and although archival services like the Wayback machine exist, not every website has a snapshot to go back to.

For example, mailing lists were one of the ways furries communicated online, sending emails to entire groups through a central email server. Although predominantly text-based, some hosts made it possible to send photos and videos through mailing lists. As usenet was used less and less in the late nineties and before web forums became commonplace in the mid-noughties, mailing lists was an efficient method of communicating with fellow furries amongst particular groups, especially for British furries. Before 2006, there was not only a mailing list for UK furries as a whole, hosted by Critter.net, but also mailing lists for each region of the UK, where they discussed their fandom interests and arranged local gatherings that led to the traditional furmeets of today.

However, mailing lists have all but vanished from the internet. Most of the original mailing lists weren’t removed due to ill-intentions, but due to lack of interest from the time. Many such as the HantsFurs Mailing List were deleted by their owners simply because places like the UK Fur Forums had become more popular by the late-naughties.

There were some that were hosted entirely by the furry fandom itself that fell victim to a more dire fate: hardware failure. This was the case for Critter.net, which hosted several mailing lists, websites, and news servers, but which suffered a catastrophic failure in 2014. The act of two drives failing and data being inaccessible, as well as backups being impossible to decrypt, leads to a bleak result. “Everything. Every database, document, photo, website, email. Gone.” as Frysco, the owner of Critter.net, described the outcome.

Yet the greatest cause of loss came not from within the fandom, but from the companies that hosted it. Although there was eGroups before it, most furries used Yahoo Groups to set up mailing lists, since it was considered the largest host of discussion boards that provided the resources to set up a mailing list for free. Unfortunately, Yahoo’s parent company Verizon Media officially announced that they were discontinuing Yahoo Groups in October 2019.

What was worse, they weren’t going to preserve all the messages, images, and videos, shared on the service forever. In fact, users had until December to archive mailing lists by themselves before the data would be deleted (they would later extend it to January 2020). After that, the only evidence of a mailing list’s existence was an empty page, until early in 2021 when the Yahoo Groups pages were removed entirely.

It’s currently unknown how many furry mailing lists have been preserved or archived. In my efforts to rescue some, I only managed to collect four. Although there was an extensive grassroots effort to archive as much as possible from Yahoo Groups, it will take more than a lifetime for one person to find out if any furry mailing lists are amongst its collection.

WHY IT MATTERS

I know what some of you are thinking: so what?

It’s no lie that I’ve had these kinds of comments from friends when I complained about the loss of mailing lists.

“I don’t want messages I posted when I was a teenager to be online forever!”
“Some things are best left forgotten.”
“Who cares about an old mailing list?”

As someone who has been on the internet for nearly twenty years, I can empathise with the embarrassment at the thought of something I’ve written on the internet when I was a kid being available to be read decades later. That doesn’t change the fact that all posts and comments, even the irrelevant and cringeworthy, are worth preserving to reflect what the culture was like at that moment in time.

To analogise, historians all over the world generally accepts newspapers as a vital primary or secondary source of information for historical research. They generally accept so much that many libraries archive national and local newspapers, either as physical copies, digitized scans, or microfilm, for people to look through.

Chronicling America, part of the United States Library of Congress, is one of the largest archives of American Newspapers, with digitized collections dating back to the mid-eighteenth century. Not only can you read the headline news, but all the columns, small articles, adverts and comic strips too. And yes, it’s definitely possible to find stories that descendants would find embarrassing.

Yet every page is preserved and archived not only for the completion factor, but also because even these little stories can tell us about the culture of the country, state, county, town, and city.

Message boards and social media tell the same thing for the furry fandom: what jokes were being thrown around, what the big issues were, whether they be local or within the fandom as a whole. Even the few I managed to archive were incredibly resourceful for my research, helping me figure out the story of how the Northern Furs and MidFurs, two of the three largest furry regional groups in the past, formed and set the standard for furmeets for the rest of the United Kingdom.

1996-2015

WHAT SHOULD BE DONE AND HOW?

The one thing I want to advocate for is that we the furries have the responsibility to preserve the furry fandom’s work, whether it be its art, advertisements, even our discussions. That’s all well and good, but that’s why we need to discuss how we should go about doing that.

One way is to talk more about our history, either through writing articles, running panels, or producing documentaries: any way to tell interesting stories about what our fandom has gone through. They don’t need to be broad; stories could be told of individual conventions, activities, or even musicals.

Another way is to support archives and archivists, to motivate them to preserve more content so that people can read through and understand more about the furry fandom’s long legacy.

Lastly, for the online sort of thing, support the non-profit archive.org and try to make extensive use of saving web pages to the Wayback Machine. That way if a website ever goes down, when an article or a wiki page has a deadlink, there should be a chance that there is a cached or saved version on the archive.

There are many more possible avenues to archiving work, although for bigger places such as DropBox and Google Drive, use caution. No matter how big the company that runs the website is, it has no guarantee of keeping data on its servers forever.

WHO IS DOING IT?

Authors and Journalists

Of course, I’m writing Furry Kingdom, which focuses on the History of the furry fandom in the United Kingdom, and I’m certainly not the only one writing about furry history:

• Joe Strike, who wrote Furry Nation, is currently working on a sequel titled Furry Planet, which aims to cover the furry fandom throughout the world.
• Grubbs Grizzly, a columnist for Ask Papabear and organiser of the Good Furry Award is also working on his own book, titled The Furry Book.
• Thurston Howl has been the publisher of several non-fiction anthologies called Furries Among Us.
• Choco Pony is slowly working on a book on convention history, which not only include furry conventions, but science fiction, anime, and brony conventions as well.
• As previously mentioned, Fred Patten did extensive chronicling of the furry fandom over the years, once in Retrospective: An Illustrated Chronology of Furry Fandom that was originally published in Yarf magazine back in 1996, as well as a book on Furry Fandom Conventions from 1989 to 2015.

Channels

• It doesn’t have to be books, as Ash Coyote demonstrated with the feature-length documentary, The Fandom.
• Culturally F’d have done numerous videos on the subject of the furry fandom, from conventions to fursuits.
• Dox, a History BA graduate from the University of Nebraska – Lincoln, wrote a thesis on the furry fandom’s history and culture and has done panels on his own YouTube channel for the online convention RAMCon.
• It’s not just YouTube: users on Twitter can follow accounts that have been regularly posting classic furry art, such as the Ancient Furries and Vintage Funny Animals.

Collectors and Curators

• Some conventions have archived content from past events, such as EuroFurence, ConFuzzled, and NordicFuzzcon.
• Sylys Sable and Changa Husky have extensively uploaded several pieces of paperwork surrounding the early furry fandom, ConFurence, and Califur to the ConFurence Archive.
• Summercat is the owner of the Furry Library, which has an extensive collection of furry literature, from comics to fanzines. This one also has a Patreon in need of more donations.
• Plenty of video footage and photos, primarily of fursuiters, are viewable on the Fursuit Archive.
• Before he passed away in 2018, Fred Patten had donated his personal collection of books and fanzines to the University of California, Riverside Library, and made regular visits to organize them. Since his passing, the collection has remained in storage with no staff to carry on his work.

Academics and Researchers

Believe it or not, there is a field of study for fandoms and fan culture (as Dox pointed out in one of his panels): Fandom Studies.

Although there isn’t an academic specialist in studying the furry fandom’s history apart from Dox, Christopher Polt, PhD has been teaching anthropomorphic art and animation history at Boston College.

The companion website for my Beast Literature course is now live and public! If anyone would like to see what we're doing and follow along, feel free to browse. I'll publish the individual components one week at a time, so check back regularly! https://t.co/6uN1TTERWw pic.twitter.com/J3BLcNTVJm

— Tofte | Christopher Polt (@CBPolt) January 31, 2021

Conclusion

We live in a fortunate time where many of the pioneers of the furry fandom are still part of it, appearing and speaking at furry conventions. We are also fortunate to have the mountains of information that fandom historians have at their disposal. That doesn’t mean that it’s safe forever, or that there is no more to be found. Information will disappear if we don’t make an active effort to preserve it and share it. We should support our archives and any and all researchers creating content sharing our history.

This doesn’t just go to the fandom in the United States, I wouldn’t have been able to do a panel at ConFuzzled, let alone write a book if dedicated historians like Fred Patten didn’t lay the groundwork for me to look further. If I started later than I did, I wouldn’t have been able to save even a few mailing lists that proved valuable to my research. Not to mention that most of what I’m looking for was written in English, so there is potentially more valuable information in other languages to record the history of the furry fandom around the world. All of it needs preserving, even if some of it makes us cringe.

– Gamepopper

Like the article? These take hard work. For more free furry news, follow on Twitter or support not-for-profit Dogpatch Press on Patreon. Want to get involved? Try these subreddits: r/furrydiscuss for news or r/waginheaven for the best of the community. Or send guest writing here. (Content Policy.)

For those of us of previous generations, this might be a bit hard to follow. But we’ll let Animation World Network explain it: “What’s the kitty been smoking? Fan favorite actress Mila Kunis (That 70’s Show, Family Guy, Bad Moms) has released the new animated series Stoner Cats, by far the highlight of this past month. Kunis teamed with Chris Cartagena (The Grinch), Sarah Cole (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse), and Ash Brannon (Toy Story 2) under the Orchard Farm Productions banner to create the show, which features (surprise, surprise) a bunch of weed smokin’ felines.” Here’s the fur-rub though: “Interestingly, the first episode of the series was released as 10,420 NFTs on July 28th, which sold out within 30 minutes. Each episode was sold for .35 ETH, or approximately $8 million in cold hard American dollars. While NFTs are still new, strange, and misunderstood by many, there is a huge market for those wanting to own a piece of entertainment history.” Got all that? Here’s hoping they eventually release the series through other avenues as well.

image c. 2021 Orchard Farm Productions

DISCLAIMER: The content from paragraph two to four and in the subsequent photograph may be uncomfortable for some readers. Discretion is advised. US-based convention Rocky Mountain Fur Con (RMFC) should have been held August 11-13, 2017, themed “Carnival Nocturne”. But, it was cancelled 4 months early on 10 April. This is due to a controversy […]

TigerTails Radio Season 13 Episode 24 Join the Discord Chat: https://discord.gg/SQ5QuRf For a full preview of events and for previous episodes, please visit http://www.tigertailsradio.co.uk. See website for full breakdown of song credits, which is usually updated shortly after the show.

All right… We’re just going to let this new graphic novel from Random House Studio for young readers speak for itself: “It’s Wednesday! Which means it’s time for Jim Panzee’s weekly Wednesday walk. He wakes up, stretches a little, grabs his stress orange, and sets off. Jim’s favorite part of the walk is the blissful silence. When he’s alone, he can hear all the jungle sounds. Until . . . his best buddy, Norman, decides to join him. And before he knows it, Jim is followed by every animal in the jungle. It’s all just too much. Now Jim and his not-so-helpful friends are on a quest across the jungle to find another stress orange before it is too late!” Got all that? Turns out there’s a whole series of Grumpy Monkey books written by Suzanne Lang and illustrated by Max Lang. Grumpy Monkey: Freshly Squeezed is available now in hardcover.

image c. 2021 Random House Studio

 

Everything happens so much.

LINKS
FDA approval comin' soon- https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/fda-aiming-give-final-approval-pfizer-vaccine-by-early-next-month-ny-times-2021-08-03/
Tenacious Unicorn Ranch is cool as hell - http://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/te%E2%80%A6
Telegram Fan Chat- https://t.me/joinchat/P2iJg8tyj-KNGaci
Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/Southpawscast 

Episode 496 - Too Many Streams -   Everything happens so much. LINKSFDA approval comin' soon- https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/fda-aiming-give-final-approval-pfizer-vaccine-by-early-next-month-ny-times-2021-08-03/Tena

MOOBARKFLUFF! Click here to send us a comment or message about the show!

Pooka (goat) joins us from Columbus Ohio, Theo the Beagle calls in from England on Five Minute Furs, we chat about toast (again) read a poem from Edward Gorey, listen to furs trying to say their names backwards, and what's all this about socks? Why won't Instacart advertise on our show? So Tune In and Bark along! Moobarkfluff!

Want BFFT Merch? Go to https://www.bonfire.com/store/bearly-furcasting/

Support the show

Thanks to all our listeners and to our staff: Bearly Normal, Rayne Raccoon, Taebyn, Cheetaro, TickTock, and Ziggy the Meme Weasel.

You can send us a message on Telegram at BFFT Chat, or via email at: bearlyfurcasting@gmail.com

Bearly Furcasting S2E15 - Pooka (goat), Story, Jokes, Five Minute Furs, Challenge Submissions, This or That

Fox and Burger Podcast #13: Thaitails Behind the Scenes, Being a Furry in Thailand + More Feat Pukan ---- In this episode of the Fox and Burger podcast, we’re going to “stay” in Taiwan because that’s where our guest currently lives! Meet Pukan, the cotton candy doggo from Thailand. Pukan has been a furry since 2010 and has joined Thaitails staff in 2018. Currently, he is studying for his master’s in Taiwan. In this week’s episode, we’ll be talking more about Thaitails behind the scenes as well as Thai public perception of furries. So without further ado, let’s give him a big awoo! ---- Time Stamps: 00:00 Section 1: Introduction 00:00 Podcast intro 01:41 Guest introduction 04:05 Section 2: Guest Spotlight: Thaitails Staff 04:13 What was your role at Thaitails? 05:24 How is Thaitails run? 07:14 How many staff members and volunteers do you guys have? 09:08 What do you think accounts for the massive growth for Thaitails? 10:09 How hard would you say you guys advertised Thaitails? 11:49 What do you think makes Thaitails stand out? 15:56 What was your favorite moment at Thaitails? 19:00 Section 3: Comparing and Contrasting Fandoms: How are furries perceived in Thailand? 19:14 How does the Thai general public view furries? 22:33 How is fursuiting in public in Thailand viewed? 26:01 How does Thailand view LGBT and how does that affect their view of furries? 29:44 What is the intersection between Thai culture and the furry fandom? 36:50 Where do you see yourself after your studies in Taiwan? 39:33 Social media shoutout 40:54 Podcast outro ---- Social Media: Our official Twitter: https://twitter.com/foxandburger Fox: https://twitter.com/foxnakh https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK9xoFQrxFTNPMjmXfUg2cg Burger: https://twitter.com/L1ghtningRunner http://www.youtube.com/c/LightningRunner Pu-Kan: https://twitter.com/PukaPukann https://www.twitch.tv/pukapukann https://www.facebook.com/pukanch/ ---- Footage Credits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSL4Ow9rgME https://www.facebook.com/Lowcostcosplay/photos/a.1382107312037994/2916413051940738/ https://bcisphuket.com/ https://twitter.com/RatonTheRaccoon/status/1391332034103058445 https://twitter.com/PukaPukann/status/1370687896009674754 https://twitter.com/PukaPukann/status/1410813676232216578 https://www.facebook.com/LegendaryWargame/photos/pcb.2742927592432324/2742926862432397/ https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=5917735134965817&set=pcb.5917740308298633 http://drewf.com/places.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JraSg2its7w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beAzqxd9FUs https://sgfurs.com/2016/02/20/thai-tails-2016-at-bangkok/ https://twitter.com/KiyochiiThefox/status/1360208773348904963?s=20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XD_9KKVibKU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA8MKygVYVk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0eXKvExTT0 Other pictures and video provided by Pukan, Giphy, Pixabay, and hosts' personal footage. Intro/Outro Music: Aioli by Andrew Langdon.

The furriest baseball team around is back with two new illustrated graphic novels by John Steven Gurney. In Fuzzy Baseball Volume 3: R.B.I. Robots, “The Fernwood Valley Fuzzies have a baseball game set with the undefeated and impeccable Geartown Clankees. The Clankees perform like well-oiled machines…mainly because they are robots in disguise just wanting to fit in and feel the love of good sportsmanship deep inside their gears.” Mean while in Volume 4: Di-No Hitters, “The Ferntown Fuzzies are about to face a team of Dinosaurs, the Triassic Park Titans, in a match for the ages. The blast-from-the-past team is sure to deliver a few curve balls for the Fuzzies with their vintage style, gigantic gear, and ‘un-evolved’ practices.” Both volumes are available now from Papercutz.

image c. 2021 Papercutz

Hello Papabear,

My name is Kreed and I'm writing today to get some advice on a problem that I've been having. Well it's not really a personal problem, but it does concern me.

A little back story. I got a job at Sonic back in September. A few months later this goofy looking guy comes in for a job. Well we hit it off and we become pretty close. In December his roomies kicked him out with only a few days notice, I come to the rescue and let him stay with me until he found a place. During that time we get closer, and I'm totally not complaining.

We haven't even known each other for over half a year and we're as close, as close can be. I wouldn't have it any other way. I missed the great friends I had in the Army, only to find a civi that became better than any of my Army buddies. I know he has my back, and I sure as hell have his. We talk computers, music, anything. I could have no idea what he says, but I listen, captivated to everything he has to say, because this man is a wealth of information. It's so fascinating.

Now comes the problem. This man watched his mom's boyfriend slowly die due to Covid. Watching his mom be completely torn apart by that. Now he got the bad news that his mom has late stage Lung cancer. When he told me a few months back, I knew it was taking all he had not to cry at work as he told me. Through my check ups on him I found out his mom is trying to prepare him for what seems like a very possible outcome with how advanced the cancer is. Problem is, he is not ready. I doubt he will be ready.

I know for certain he will be calling on, and needing his bestie by his side. Only problem is I have no clue how to handle this. I'm 32 years old. The only death I've experienced was when I was very young, or as an impartial party as an EMT. I don't know what to do.

Papabear, what do I do? I know this is devastating for him, especially since he's a self proclaimed mama's boy. How do I prepare myself for this eventuality, can I even prepare myself for it?

Thanks,
Kreed

* * *

Dear Kreed,

It's so nice to see a letter from a furry who is being a true and thoughtful friend, so thank you very much for your letter.

The first thing you need to know about comforting a friend who is grieving (or in anticipation of losing a loved one) is that you should not try to offer them advice or make them "get over it." And if you say, "Your mother is in a better place now," your friend has Papabear's permission to thump you on the head with a rubber mallet.

Some things to know about people who are grieving: 1) grieving people are not worried about their loved ones (especially if they believe in a heaven or other afterlife world, but even if they don't they know that the deceased is not suffering); they are sad for one thing only, and that is because they miss that person and know they will never see them again in this lifetime; they are sad for themselves; 2) grief has no deadline, no time limit. My late husband died 6 years ago, and even though I am getting along and have remarried, I still miss him and grieve for him in my heart. 

There ARE things you can do, however! First of all, when someone has recently lost a loved one it can often be difficult for them to function in day-to-day life. All you want to do--especially in the early weeks, months, and sometimes years--is sleep, cry, maybe eat, or, sometimes, try to numb your pain with alcohol or drugs. You can help by just assisting with routine things. Perhaps help with laundry, cooking meals, doing a bit of house cleaning, etc. And, of course, if you see them descending into dangerous habits like alcoholism, you need to get them some professional help (perhaps his church offers counseling, or you can go to a site like BetterHelp.com or call the government helpline at 800-622-HELP (https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline).

Now, since your buddy's mother is not dead (and hopefully won't be for a while), you can still offer similar support, even maybe accompanying him for visits (if that is possible). Let him know that you are there to listen to him talk about his mother and his feelings. You have no idea how much of a relief and de-stressor it can be to know that you have someone you can open up to about your grief without fear of judgment and without fear of getting cliché advice ("Buck Up!," "Hope you feel better soon!", "We all die sometime!" and other horrible phrases). Thing is, you don't have to say one word to be helpful. You have already shown what a good friend you are, and that is priceless. Just continue being there for them.

You should recognize, too, that being a comforter to a grieving person can be stressful for you, too! You can only help others when you yourself are doing okay emotionally and physically. So, do remember to take care of yourself as you help out your friend, and don't feel guilty about doing so. Along those same lines, one of the good pieces of advice I got from a couple of friends was that you should try and do something a little nice for yourself once a day, even if it is a small thing. You can kill two birds with one stone by doing something together. You could go out for an ice cream cone, play a favorite video game, go on a nature walk. Or whatever the two of you enjoy. Such distractions can help a person who is weighed down by grief, which is very exhausting mentally, physically, and emotionally. It is important to try to continue to eat well, get restful sleep, and to get some exercise.

I hope this is helpful. If you have other questions, please feel free to write again.

Bear Hugs,
Papabear
​

Sheesh — The Epic! imprint from Andrews McMeel definitely manages to keep coming up with interesting Furry material for young readers. Unicorn Island is an illustrated novel written by Donna Galanti, with art by Bethany Stancliffe. “When Sam arrives in Foggy Harbor, population 3,230, all she can see is a small, boring town that’s way too far from home. And knowing that she’s stuck there all summer with her grumpy Uncle Mitch only makes things worse. But when Sam discovers a hidden trapdoor leading to a room full of strange artifacts, she realizes Foggy Harbor isn’t as sleepy as it seems. With the help of a new friend, Sam discovers an extraordinary secret beyond the fog: An island of unicorns whose fates are intertwined with hers.” It’s available now in hardcover.

image c. 2021 Andrews McMeel Publishing

TigerTails Radio Season 13 Episode 23 Join the Discord Chat: https://discord.gg/SQ5QuRf For a full preview of events and for previous episodes, please visit http://www.tigertailsradio.co.uk. See website for full breakdown of song credits, which is usually updated shortly after the show.

Look, folks, we can’t make this stuff up. (If we could we’d be writing it instead of reporting on it!) Check out the first Adventures of Team Pom graphic novel, called Squid Happens. “When oddballs Agnes, Roberta and Ruby discover a shared passion for synchronized swimming, the trio become Team Pom. But between snack time, their favorite TV show, and raising pigeons, it can be hard to find time to practice. This crew of self-proclaimed weirdos are tired of their loser status in the pool. But on their way to gain the respect and free snacks they deserve, they stumble upon a lonely giant squid. Will he be the secret weapon they need for synchronized swimming stardom? Will they be able to outwit the sinister strangers in bowler hats, or will they end up with ink on their faces?” Anthropomorphics includes all kinds of animals… Squid Happens is written and illustrated by Isabel Roxas, and it’s available now from Flying Eye Books.

image c. 2021 Flying Eye Books

Hi, Papa Bear,

I'm having a little bit of a, I guess you could call it a "furry crisis?" I've started reading Beastars (and I've been a furry way before that, so that's not the problem), and I've noticed I'm attracted to anthropomorphic characters. Yes, I've played furry dating sims before out of boredom or curiosity and grew fond of characters or even attracted to them.

I feel like I'm rambling. Sorry for my bad wording -- I'll just cut to the chase. I'm attracted to anthros on occasion, and I'm wondering if that's the same as bestiality or zoophilia. I don't look at real animals and feel sexually attracted to them, just for reference, and I find people who are pretty disgusting.

I'm just kind of all confused about this and it's causing me some pretty bad stress, even though it isn't a bad idea. What've been your experiences with this sorta situation?

Thanks

Margo the Skunk

* * *
Dear Margo,

*Ahem* I think you will find that a majority of furries (not all) are attracted to anthros and that is a big reason we are furries. Like you, it does not mean we are into zoophilia and it is not bestiality. What it means is that we find the combination of human and animal characteristics attractive. Biologically speaking, the human attributes (such as human penises, women's breasts, the buttocks, etc.) still send a signal to our brains that this is something sexually stimulating, but, at the same time, we find physical characteristics such as fur, a fuzzy tail, a snout, claws and fangs, also very attractive. 

In my humble opinion, though, it is not just these physical characteristics that we like but also the symbolism of animalistic sex and unrestrained gratification. You see, in Anglo society, anyway (not as much in the more liberated European society) and perhaps in Asian and Hispanic cultures, there is a lot of pressure to be sexually restrained and suppressed. This is especially true if you are not cis or straight, but it also applies to regular ol' hetero libidos in action. Anthro imagery represents sexual freedom in a lot of ways. For example, anthros often don't wear clothing (heck, even in cartoons for kids, they often go without pants), which is very liberating. They can also represent animalistic craving, the urge to mate and to do so with wild abandon. It's about breaking the chains that society places on sexual behavior.

Many people--mundanes especially--confuse furry attraction with zoophilia because they don't understand furries and leap to the wrong conclusions, as you have done here, I'm afraid. To be clear, I am only addressing the sexual aspect of furry here, since that was your question, but that is not the core of being furry. It is just one aspect of it.

I hope that answers your question. Don't get psyched out about your attractions. They don't make you a bad person and they certainly don't make you a zoophile.

Hugs,
Papabear

We’re starting to move quickly through the year now. In just two months time, we will see the return of Furry Book Month – a celebration for the furry genre that will go through the entire month of October.
This year will see the return of the Furry Writers’ Guild’s most ambitious project to date – Oxfurred Comma. We will be back for the sequel, and this newsletter will go into some of the details about what the second edition will look like.

What?
Oxfurred Comma is an online furry writing convention, run by writers for writers.

When?
October 16-17th 2021! Exact times are not yet certain, but it will probably run to a similar format to last year, where each day ran from mid-morning to late (US time).

Where?
Online! Specifically, the FWG’s Twitch channel. There will also be plenty of discussions happening on our Telegram and Discord groups, so be sure to join those as well.

Who?
Everyone! Everyone is welcome to attend the online panels, readings, and other events. All writers – guild members or otherwise – are invited to contribute to the events as well. If you have something interesting to share, whether that’s a book reading, a panel about writing, or something else entirely, you are welcome to propose an event. Details below.

Why?
Oxfurred Comma was specifically set up last year to provide furry writers with the opportunity to network, sell, and otherwise share knowledge in a safe, online space with the cancellation of all in-person conventions because of COVID19. While some conventions are starting to return this year, we made the decision to continue Oxfurred Comma because it gives writers a much bigger platform than most conventions manage.
More than that: everyone thoroughly enjoyed last year – of course we’d bring it back for some more!

Panels and Events
A convention is made by the quality of the panels and other content.
The Oxfurred Comma staff will be providing some of that content, but we can’t do it all ourselves! We will be asking anyone who feels like they have something interesting or important to offer to the community to contribute.
If you have a good idea for a panel about any aspect of writing – let us know!
If you have a new book coming out soon and would like to do a short reading – let us know!
If you have a writing podcast and would like to do a live show during the convention – let us know!

If the response is anything like last year, then we may not be able to fit in everyone’s panels, but we shall do our best! So that we have enough time to work out a proper schedule, please send in your panel ideas by August 31st.

Please send any panel requests through to the FWG email, or directly to myself (J.F.R. Coates) on Twitter, Telegram, or Discord.

Dealer’s Den
We have not yet finalised just how we will be going about the Dealer’s Den this year. We feel that this was possibly the weakest aspect of the convention last year, and we will be working out how to improve it for this year – or a potential replacement. We absolutely want to provide people and publishers with the opportunities to promote and sell their work.
More details will come here!

More?
We are, of course, always happy to hear more thoughts and suggestions on how to make Oxfurred Comma a great success. If you have any ideas on things that can be done – be it specific events you’d like to see or whatever – then please get in contact with us. We are always happy to hear what the community thinks – after all, this convention is for you!

Of course, this isn’t all about Oxfurred Comma. We’re also bringing you the deadlines for all the anthologies we think would suit our members. Some of these deadlines are pretty close, so better get writing!

• Xenocultivars: Stories of Queer Growth – Deadline August 7th
• Arthropoda – Deadline August 7th
• SFWG’s Nightmare Fuel – Deadline September 15th
• The Nightmurr Before Yiffmas – Deadline October 1st
• Pirating Pups – Deadline November 30th
• FURWARD SLASH: A Furry Adult Techno-Horror Anthology – Deadline November 30th
• Isekai Me! – Deadline When Full
• #ohmurr! – Deadline: Ongoing
• Zooscape – Reoccurring submission period.

The Furry Writers’ Guild is also looking for books to promote.
If you are a guild member who has a book release coming up, then please get in contact with us so that we can help share this news through our social media outlets. We will be keeping an eye out for new books ourselves, but if you don’t want us to miss it, send us an email or message and we can make a note of it.

For now, we will only promote self-published books if they are from a guild member. All books through a publisher will be considered (in most circumstances, a book published through a publisher will qualify for FWG membership). This scope may well change in the future, so keep checking back to our social media feeds and blog posts for more information.

That is all for this month’s newsletter. We’re all excited for Oxfurred Comma, so please start sending in those thoughts and offers for panels and other content. We can’t wait to see what this wonderful community is able to do.

Keep safe. Keep writing!
J.F.R. Coates

It's what podcasting should be about.

This week - Savrin bonked themselves, Activision Blizzard is being sued by California, fake scrolls, and soda DRM. 

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Southpawscast 

LINKS
Telegram fan chat: https://t.me/joinchat/P2iJg8tyj-KNGaci

Episode 495 - Fun With Your Friends - It's what podcasting should be about. This week - Savrin bonked themselves, Activision Blizzard is being sued by California, fake scrolls, and soda DRM.  Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Southpawscast  LINKSTelegram f

Comic artist Yehudi Mercado is back with another graphic novel for young folks. (We talked about him recently!) This time he’s illustrating for writer Matthew Cody as they bring us the first book of Cat Ninja. “Beware, villains! Cat Ninja may appear to be nothing more than a silly internet meme. But he is evil’s greatest enemy, and the silent master of Kat Fu and carpet scratching! Raised from a kitten by a kindly old ninja master, Claude now spends his days as the pampered house cat of an eleven-year-old boy. But when trouble arises, Claude dons his mask and springs into action as Cat Ninja — Metro City’s secret protector! In Book 1 of the series, follow our feline hero’s early exploits as he tries to keep his secret identity under wraps while thwarting the evil plans of slimy thugs, rampaging robots, and a certain rodent nemesis who lives under the same roof!” Simon & Schuster have a preview on paw.

image c. 2021 Andrews McMeel Publishing

MOOBARKFLUFF! Click here to send us a comment or message about the show!

We pay another visit to Lux's Transfurmation Station to turn Taebyn into something very useful. Did any Fur go to the Beach this week? Can puns be leveled? Is the Australian Mint something to eat? What are the probabilities that Taebyn will choose a queen?  All these questions, and more, will be answered on this weeks episode!  So Tune In and Bark along! Moobarkfluff!

Want BFFT Merch? Go to: https://www.bonfire.com/store/bearly-furcasting/

Support the show

Thanks to all our listeners and to our staff: Bearly Normal, Rayne Raccoon, Taebyn, Cheetaro, TickTock, and Ziggy the Meme Weasel.

You can send us a message on Telegram at BFFT Chat, or via email at: bearlyfurcasting@gmail.com

Bearly Furcasting S2E14 - TransFURmation Station, Japanese Maples, News, Math, and Fun

Source link: 极兽聚的动态-哔哩哔哩 (bilibili.com) China’s largest furry convention, Super Furry Fusion has just announced the cancellation of this year’s event slated on Aug 1, following consultation with local authorities since the presence of the COVID-19 Delta variant in the neighbouring province of Jiangsu. Dear attendees, we are very sorry to inform you that after consultation […]

… or at least you’ve heard of it by now. Love is a series of hardcover graphic novels written by Frederic Brremaud and Federico Bertolucci. Each one is a wordless story of death and survival in the wilderness, following a particular animal. The latest is called Love: The Mastiff. “A loyal Australian hunting dog finds himself alone in the outback when his master is bitten by a poisonous snake. He must venture across the dangerous outback to find his way home alone.” The Magnetic Press web site has several preview pages and even a trailer.

image c. 2021 Magnetic Press