One thing to keep in mind regarding the trends you've observed in the productions to come out of the fandom, is that the fandom is such a small community, and an even smaller paying market, that commercial concerns are almost always overshadowed by personal ones.
I'll admit that Heathen City was probably more influenced by the rigors of marketability than ASB and especially Circles, the latter being a profoundly personal project, but even then, the story is ultimately written to satisfy *me* first
There are a lot of gays in the furry community, totally disproportionate to the distribution in the mainstream! It's only natural that a large number of the products that come out of this community are created by queers, and therefore also resonate with their interests and experiences.
Birds of a feather flock together, and anyone from any minority, provided that they're in a conducive environment, tend to cluster with other members of that minority. I know more homosexuals in my RL circles than the average person does. My Surinaman friends have substantially more blacks in their circle than I do.
So while there are certainly valid narrative criticisms to level at fiction where almost everyone is gay or gay-friendly, it certainly isn't unrealistic. In the first issue of HC, the protagonists' relationships all but require it, though it's certainly not my intention to keep such a narrow focus.
The topic of faith is an interesting one, and while I'm not aware of any well-populated or vibrant communities of religious furries, I've had the pleasure of conversing with a number of furs-with-faith.
At FC last year, a young man attended one of my writing workshops dressed impeccably in a sharp suit, whom I teased and bantered with a bit -- only afterward did I discover that he was a married man, father of two, and a Mormon. He was wearing that suit because he'd tried to find a church to go to that morning and, failing his mission, came back to enjoy the con.
I absolutely love that there are people like that in our funny little community. He said FC was quite the experience, and that he'd met more people of 'alternative lifestyles' in that weekend than he had in his entire life -- and he still stayed on till the end and had a grand old time.
My problem isn't really with the gayness of the characters, but I guess with the whole point that it's fallen into some of the traps things like (mainstream here) Marvel Max did in equating mature with sex, drugs and violence (especially the sex.) Circles from what I've read (issue #7) is mature, and more in line with the Vertigo and Sirius examples, stories that deal with themes that someone at 15 might understand. I have no real problem with sex either, as long as it goes with the story (for example certain themes in The Watchmen.) It could just be the fact that I've read just about anything I could since I was five as well.
Faith is a very interesting topic, but around here it seems that if you're a furry you're either agnostic or seem to have some weird mish mash of new age, white wolf, and just a little bit of real occultism (usually Ravenwolf-style Wicca.) I've met a couple of CHristian furs, but in general the group I seem to be in is either the above, or agnostic, both of which are fairly offensive to my sensibilities (I run more towards general monist mysticism.) I guess that comes with the fact that aside from the few fiction books I've read lately, most of my reading is along the lines of the Tao Te Ch'ing, The Dhammapadma, a book on (Hindu) tantra, and the Bardo Thadol (Tibetan Book of the Dead.)
and I wasn't trying to say quite so much about HC, it's in it's infancy, so I'm willing to give it a break. Trust me when I say it's not how gay a character is that I care about. Truth be told that's my least complaint, since I'm trying to get the story I was talking about started. I was originally going to include some of the larger furry webcomics in there, but I'm saving that for another day.
I guess the real problem isn't so much gay characters, but the amount of sex involved. As I've said before, no problem when it fits the story, but if it's not really a necessity, it's mainly just LCD grabbing in my not so humble opinion.
One thing to keep in mind regarding the trends you've observed in the productions to come out of the fandom, is that the fandom is such a small community, and an even smaller paying market, that commercial concerns are almost always overshadowed by personal ones.
I'll admit that Heathen City was probably more influenced by the rigors of marketability than ASB and especially Circles, the latter being a profoundly personal project, but even then, the story is ultimately written to satisfy *me* first
There are a lot of gays in the furry community, totally disproportionate to the distribution in the mainstream! It's only natural that a large number of the products that come out of this community are created by queers, and therefore also resonate with their interests and experiences.
Birds of a feather flock together, and anyone from any minority, provided that they're in a conducive environment, tend to cluster with other members of that minority. I know more homosexuals in my RL circles than the average person does. My Surinaman friends have substantially more blacks in their circle than I do.
So while there are certainly valid narrative criticisms to level at fiction where almost everyone is gay or gay-friendly, it certainly isn't unrealistic. In the first issue of HC, the protagonists' relationships all but require it, though it's certainly not my intention to keep such a narrow focus.
The topic of faith is an interesting one, and while I'm not aware of any well-populated or vibrant communities of religious furries, I've had the pleasure of conversing with a number of furs-with-faith.
At FC last year, a young man attended one of my writing workshops dressed impeccably in a sharp suit, whom I teased and bantered with a bit -- only afterward did I discover that he was a married man, father of two, and a Mormon. He was wearing that suit because he'd tried to find a church to go to that morning and, failing his mission, came back to enjoy the con.
I absolutely love that there are people like that in our funny little community. He said FC was quite the experience, and that he'd met more people of 'alternative lifestyles' in that weekend than he had in his entire life -- and he still stayed on till the end and had a grand old time.
End Of Line :)
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Faith is a very interesting topic, but around here it seems that if you're a furry you're either agnostic or seem to have some weird mish mash of new age, white wolf, and just a little bit of real occultism (usually Ravenwolf-style Wicca.) I've met a couple of CHristian furs, but in general the group I seem to be in is either the above, or agnostic, both of which are fairly offensive to my sensibilities (I run more towards general monist mysticism.) I guess that comes with the fact that aside from the few fiction books I've read lately, most of my reading is along the lines of the Tao Te Ch'ing, The Dhammapadma, a book on (Hindu) tantra, and the Bardo Thadol (Tibetan Book of the Dead.)
and I wasn't trying to say quite so much about HC, it's in it's infancy, so I'm willing to give it a break. Trust me when I say it's not how gay a character is that I care about. Truth be told that's my least complaint, since I'm trying to get the story I was talking about started. I was originally going to include some of the larger furry webcomics in there, but I'm saving that for another day.
I guess the real problem isn't so much gay characters, but the amount of sex involved. As I've said before, no problem when it fits the story, but if it's not really a necessity, it's mainly just LCD grabbing in my not so humble opinion.
hmmm I should probably update more...
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