Furry Writers' Guild Forum

My Introduction

Introductions
#1

Hello all, I joined about a month ago, but have only just now gotten around to doing anything. I confess before going to college ten years ago I was a prolific writer, now I am a sporadic writer. Primarily I only write when I have some story to tell. Even then, I have to split my time, both reading and writing, between fiction and academic. For example, the last book I finished was Laurie Penny’s Unspeakable Things: Sex, Lies and Revolution, but I am now half way through Patrick Rothfuss’ The Name of the Wind and Spies in Their Midst by Alflor Aalto. Needless to say, I do not necessarily have the time anymore to write for pleasure.

Currently, I have four fandom based pieces I am working on. One is a short story in final edits, another is currently at novella length and rough as I am expanding it, and the other two have to wait. I would say I primarily write fantasy, but that has sort of changed. My two most completed pieces are historical fiction, and the others are contemporary and a speculative fiction piece. Typically, though, my writing tends to be heavily influenced by my academic work, which sometimes make my literary intentions occasionally unclear. All my fandom based projects right now are not safe for work.

Academically, I write and read in Gender Studies and Cultural Studies. I studied in three countries, undergraduate in NY and term abroad in Japan, and graduate school in London. I have presented research on both Japanese yaoi and performance theory based popular music studies. I am currently researching queer theory, affect studies, and internet and gaming culture, and preparing a piece on queer revolt in No. 6.

Hobby wise, outside of writing, I am an avid video gamer and a very big “Souls” fan. I deal in the whole anime and manga scene. Also, I watch a lot of movies. My partner and I took up homebrewing last May and right now we are preparing to keg our imperialist English IPA. We also regularly go to concerts. Recently we saw The Mountain Goats, the Decemberists, Little Annie, Sleater Kinney, St. Vincent, and of Montreal.

It has been a long time since I last introduced myself on a forum (or was social online in general) so hopefully that gave you all an idea of who I am without being too explicit.

#2

Greets!

#3

Greetings and welcome. I hope you’ll enjoy your time here. Feel free to ask if you have any questions.

#4

Welcome to the forum.

Don’t you dare go hollow on us.

[T]/

#5

Welcome!

I dig the Decemberists.

#6

Hi and welcome!

#7

Lots of people joining as of late!
Welcome to the forum!

#8

Hello and welcome!

Nice! That’s a pretty popular field - we just had a conference on it at my university. I wish you luck in researching internet and gaming culture… its a minefield!

#9

Hello and welcome! My goodness, it seems your life has been quite busy!

I’m a bit of an anime nerd as well >.> Curious, what type are you into? Any favorites?

Please feel free to drop a line or ten in the shoutbox sometime. We love chatting up new faces there!

#10

Thank you for the welcome all.

Aye Siwmae.

Certainly has been getting popular, unfortunately funding has not followed. So it pays to walk on a minefield.

Of the last few year my top three favorite series are No. 6, Your Lie in April, and Fractale. Going back more: Scrapped Princess, Le Chevalier d’Eon, Last Exile, and .hack//SIGN. That would be my shortlist. So I quite enjoy the fantasy. Never got on board with the hyper-violence train that just seems to be more and more prevalent.

#11

o.o The only one I heard of from that list is .hack//SIGN. I think I have some research to do!

I like a variety, though it can be difficult to find the non-violent ones when your main source is Netflix x.x Recently finished up Magi and planning to touch base back to Spice and Wolf. Also recently saw Wolf Children, which was phenominal, in my humble opinion.

#12

My partner and I have seasonal anime nights with our friends we go to Otakon with to see the new shows. So for the most part I have seen the first episode of most of the interesting series in the last five years. With the exception for the hardcore moe/generic/otaku fan service shows that none of my group enjoy.

Magi is good, but I have not watched Spice and Wolf. Yona of the Dawn is another recent show that I enjoy, but it hasn’t finished yet.

I saw Wolf Children at Otakon and it was funny how everyone cheered for that one early scene. Though I think I still prefer Summer Wars…

#13

That sounds like a wonderful opportunity! Such things occur at Sakuracon here, but it’s been so long since I last attended v.v

I highly recommend Spice and Wolf if you enjoy intellegent topics taught in a fun and interesting way that doesn’t at all feel condescending, specifically economy. The characters are fun, the mythos interesting, and the story arcs intriguing. My dad happened into the room when my husband and I were watching, and he completely fell in love with the show. To this day it’s the only anime my dad enjoys X3

I admit, I got about a third of the way into Summer Wars before it struck on a deeply personal subject that forced me to stop watching it. Perhaps with more time I can revisit it, for I highly enjoyed what I did manage to see.

#14

Yeah, I read an article a little while ago about how academics pulling funding for video game archiving and other academic areas researching games following the big GG thing. Hopefully social scientists looking to study social groups are less afraid of that. Gender was one of my fav topics in Social psych.

Also welcome to the madhouse.

#15

That’s interesting, I had not heard of any academic responses to GG aside conferences that received bomb threats. I am mainly interested in intersections with fandom and queer and feminist activism, and questions of entertainment, enjoyment, and happiness. Unfortunately, it’s hard to find funding in gender studies as it’s dominated by more politically based research.

#16

Here’s the bit if you’re interested.

I am mainly interested in intersections with fandom and queer and feminist activism, and questions of entertainment, enjoyment, and happiness.
This may not be workable for you, but you could look for Positive Psychology grants. They look into say, what makes people happy, what traits result in healthy mindsets, etc etc. Since you're interested in enjoyment/happiness, even though you're dealing with a smaller subset of people (fandom/queer/feminists) it's worth looking at. At the very least, looking at the intersection of entertainment and enjoyment/happiness could work.

I know that there’s info out there that shows when kids do not see characters in media who are like them, they feel marginalized, and when they do find those who are like them, they feel energaized.

#17

Thank you, had not heard any of that. In my mind GG should’ve increased interest in studying, but the US higher education field doesn’t like controversial topics because so much funding of both private and public schools come from corporations.

I am kind of looking at the potentially contradictory state of, for example, feminists and Disney princess movies like Little Mermaid. Can we still like a film that is criticized for supporting what our identities are inherently against. Is it wrong to enjoy it. Can we enjoy something we hate, because the act of hating is enjoyable.

#18

Just wanted to say welcome to the forums! Hope you enjoy your stay! :3