FA+
Shop
20231217R1300
2 years ago
Final Weeks of 2023
The final two weeks of the year, has furry Xmas and New Year meets going on and ANE jumps off early next month. I'm in the running for a small furry New Year's Party – there is a Xmas one also, but I have Xmas day with family already planned.
Time is running out to choose, whether I go to the Xmas party or not, so I am carefully weighing driving 100 miles twice over the holiday weekend after 10 pm. I might get a room, but I haven't confirmed one yet, so TBD if there will be room at the Motor Inn.
Premeditatio Malorum
This is my balance for what I do; cost benefit analysis and What is the worst that could happen and what then?
One can't hide if they want to live, but sometimes the old wartime question, Is This Trip Really Necessary comes to mind. Little wants, big wants, needs. How often do we roll the dice and at what stakes. Driving highways and country roads after dark in the winter – with black ice conditions – are some odds to weigh carefully. I am, after all, a dog on a budget, so hotel and motel stays are a luxury I don't splurge on too often.
Meanwhile, I mostly chat on Telegram, watch some Twitch Streams (not during work – too busy, and not after 10pm on work nights).
I have also been playing single player games and have been watching a “new” Police drama on Prime, Cuffs – Brighton England in the 2000s (probably current day when first aired). Reading continues to be my quiet time activity after 9pm. Drawing is also being done, when the muse inspires me (or if it is slow at my job), as well as creative writing.
I have been trying to come up with Charlie material; specifically, for an arc where he is a sailor in a time around our mid to late 19th century when steam and sail were the powers that drove us. This dovetails into Scanectity's valley (as written and presented by Vixyy Fox). And, drawing from my own insolent youth, I added a dash of salt and rum to his character. Not sure if it will stay, but a swabby on shore leave without partaking in a few cups of the hair of the dog is a rare thing indeed.
Writing, despite my love of books and an English Literature major (incomplete) is a task in which I'm challenged. I'm trying not to reinvent the wheel, but shifting voices from character to narrator to observer is a bit of a juggling act – like plate spinning and other wonders that Metassus wolf and the Dancing Monkey troupe best perform (Just reread that chapter the other night – Hup! Hup!)
I also like speaking directly to the audience.
The Fourth Wall
An Amazon production I watched yesterday, “Asteroid City” showed a playwright in his creative process of bringing to life a piece about a small dessert town with an anomaly.
The viewer of the video watches the shift from the writer's space (a typing desk, which is center stage, on the boards) to the playhouse where the actors discuss the upcoming performance to the teledrama itself – filmed with that 1950's palette of bright pastel optimism. These transitions occur with the viewer looking in from the fourth wall, which is the mirror of the camera lens.
A Furry Fourth Wall
We furs also do this phasing in and out of “'the magic” (our time in character) as easily as breathing; sometimes the lines blur so much, it is hard to tell where we begin and our fursonas end – at least when we aren't deliberately staying in character.
To me, it's like our fursona is the center most splash of paint on our canvas and it is then moved this way and that with a pallet knife, then other colors and shades are blended in and added to it: Gaming, Cars and other modes of transportation (trains, planes) that are often part of our non-furry passions are often discussed (queue I Like Trains Meme).
There are first responder furs, furs in the military, medical furs and then work-a-day furs in retail and such. I fall into the “and such” category.
When we chat, the conversational lines are often inked with normal things, home repair, our jobs, non fur travel and activities. but tinted with a fur brush and from our fursona's eyes. How Otters, Tigers and Sneps (oh my) do things differently. Dogs seem not to be a vocal district in most of chats I participate in (Wolfs are a canid of another degree, as are foxes – and who are quite vocal).
Stickers (at least on Telegram) allow us to punctuate our thoughts as our fursonas instead of with just emoji.
It is a fun, cheap way to get more mileage out of our hobby, and and a way to keep in touch year round, instead of only during the handful of conventions and events we attend.
So, either by social media, or in real life, we continue to fur. It takes us away from “being Human” and maybe puts us in a better place. One at least it offers us a respite from our worries for a little while.
To take a stanza from Forfeiting My Mystique , written by a poet I was just introduced to, Kaveh Akbar:
To the extent I am
necessary at all, I am
necessary like a roadside deer —
a thing to drive past, to catch
the white of, something
to make a person pause,
say, look, a deer.
Thus, if you see a flash of color, you, too may say look, a furry.
Happy Holidays and remember to give and be excellent to one another.
Now I have to write my letter to Santa Paws about that Quest2 (maybe a 3 if I was a good boy), that I would like.
The final two weeks of the year, has furry Xmas and New Year meets going on and ANE jumps off early next month. I'm in the running for a small furry New Year's Party – there is a Xmas one also, but I have Xmas day with family already planned.
Time is running out to choose, whether I go to the Xmas party or not, so I am carefully weighing driving 100 miles twice over the holiday weekend after 10 pm. I might get a room, but I haven't confirmed one yet, so TBD if there will be room at the Motor Inn.
Premeditatio Malorum
This is my balance for what I do; cost benefit analysis and What is the worst that could happen and what then?
One can't hide if they want to live, but sometimes the old wartime question, Is This Trip Really Necessary comes to mind. Little wants, big wants, needs. How often do we roll the dice and at what stakes. Driving highways and country roads after dark in the winter – with black ice conditions – are some odds to weigh carefully. I am, after all, a dog on a budget, so hotel and motel stays are a luxury I don't splurge on too often.
Meanwhile, I mostly chat on Telegram, watch some Twitch Streams (not during work – too busy, and not after 10pm on work nights).
I have also been playing single player games and have been watching a “new” Police drama on Prime, Cuffs – Brighton England in the 2000s (probably current day when first aired). Reading continues to be my quiet time activity after 9pm. Drawing is also being done, when the muse inspires me (or if it is slow at my job), as well as creative writing.
I have been trying to come up with Charlie material; specifically, for an arc where he is a sailor in a time around our mid to late 19th century when steam and sail were the powers that drove us. This dovetails into Scanectity's valley (as written and presented by Vixyy Fox). And, drawing from my own insolent youth, I added a dash of salt and rum to his character. Not sure if it will stay, but a swabby on shore leave without partaking in a few cups of the hair of the dog is a rare thing indeed.
Writing, despite my love of books and an English Literature major (incomplete) is a task in which I'm challenged. I'm trying not to reinvent the wheel, but shifting voices from character to narrator to observer is a bit of a juggling act – like plate spinning and other wonders that Metassus wolf and the Dancing Monkey troupe best perform (Just reread that chapter the other night – Hup! Hup!)
I also like speaking directly to the audience.
The Fourth Wall
An Amazon production I watched yesterday, “Asteroid City” showed a playwright in his creative process of bringing to life a piece about a small dessert town with an anomaly.
The viewer of the video watches the shift from the writer's space (a typing desk, which is center stage, on the boards) to the playhouse where the actors discuss the upcoming performance to the teledrama itself – filmed with that 1950's palette of bright pastel optimism. These transitions occur with the viewer looking in from the fourth wall, which is the mirror of the camera lens.
A Furry Fourth Wall
We furs also do this phasing in and out of “'the magic” (our time in character) as easily as breathing; sometimes the lines blur so much, it is hard to tell where we begin and our fursonas end – at least when we aren't deliberately staying in character.
To me, it's like our fursona is the center most splash of paint on our canvas and it is then moved this way and that with a pallet knife, then other colors and shades are blended in and added to it: Gaming, Cars and other modes of transportation (trains, planes) that are often part of our non-furry passions are often discussed (queue I Like Trains Meme).
There are first responder furs, furs in the military, medical furs and then work-a-day furs in retail and such. I fall into the “and such” category.
When we chat, the conversational lines are often inked with normal things, home repair, our jobs, non fur travel and activities. but tinted with a fur brush and from our fursona's eyes. How Otters, Tigers and Sneps (oh my) do things differently. Dogs seem not to be a vocal district in most of chats I participate in (Wolfs are a canid of another degree, as are foxes – and who are quite vocal).
Stickers (at least on Telegram) allow us to punctuate our thoughts as our fursonas instead of with just emoji.
It is a fun, cheap way to get more mileage out of our hobby, and and a way to keep in touch year round, instead of only during the handful of conventions and events we attend.
So, either by social media, or in real life, we continue to fur. It takes us away from “being Human” and maybe puts us in a better place. One at least it offers us a respite from our worries for a little while.
To take a stanza from Forfeiting My Mystique , written by a poet I was just introduced to, Kaveh Akbar:
To the extent I am
necessary at all, I am
necessary like a roadside deer —
a thing to drive past, to catch
the white of, something
to make a person pause,
say, look, a deer.
Thus, if you see a flash of color, you, too may say look, a furry.
Happy Holidays and remember to give and be excellent to one another.
Now I have to write my letter to Santa Paws about that Quest2 (maybe a 3 if I was a good boy), that I would like.
