What is... What's The Fuzz?!

When I started the "Rhyner Writes" blog, I only had the intention of making a space to post a guide on E-RPing. Mainly because it annoyed me that furries were so bad at it.

Then, upon seeing how much people liked the guide – knowing it helped reignited my passion for writing in general. Blog posts didn't make me exhausted and seemed to give more reward overall.

The interviews started out as just another blog post. Most of my friend group, just randomly really, is mainly compromised of LGBT+ black furries and I thought it was a novel idea to Interview a few to celebrate pride month.

Then George Floyd happened.

They weren't just interviews anymore and I knew it couldn't be. I wanted to get into the nitty gritty of what my guests' experiences were.

The turn out was phenomenal. I reached out to 15 furries and 11? Or so responded. I never imagined that it would come this far.

After all in the beginning. *There was no show.*

So what is now? What is it really? I think... Based on what you guys are voting that this is the deal:

I'll interview a furry that creates something cool that has a background relating, in some way, to what's going on in the world at large. I want to have genuine, heart wrenching discussions that reach people and make them feel like they're part of the conversation. As well as moments of levity and goofiness, of course.

Occasionally I'll pop a popufur into the room, but I don't want the superficial stuff. I want to know what makes them hurt, and how they learned to enrich the world with their paws. What the fandom means to them.

When I think of "What's The Fuzz?!" I see what I want to do with it. Actions speak louder than words, but if you're curious here's what I want.

Professional grade production on all fronts. It doesn't just sound great, it's got the composition of a well made show. A professional intro and outro, with custom music and sound effects for "What's The Fuzz?!" No gross noises like clicking, squeaking, burping etc. Crisp audio quality that you'd feel comfortable with listening to through your headphones and/or car.

(Right now my best friend Sean aka Vio does the sound engineering for the show, which typically takes hours to edit after we've finished recording and episode.)

A competent host. I'll be honest I've never done something in this realm, and I think my voice is cringe inducing because of dysphoria reasons, but that's besides the point. I know I need to improve and I will. Right now I'm taking into account my over reliance on filler words and the other issues I have with having a successful dialogue. That being said, I want to slam these problems with steady, but rest assured progress developing the skills to be the kind of host you'd see on the Late Night show petting puppies or something.

(Thank you Nathanael for helping me with that one!)

Custom artwork for every episode. Right now there's one episode released on a weekly basis, and ideally we'd have one locked and loaded for supporters of the show to watch early. But yeah I mean exactly what I say here. Rhyner + guest doing something relating to the episode's topic. Top notch quality stuff you'd want printed on a post card or something. Including supporters in cool ways in like the background etc would also be neat.

Video??? This one is a long LONG ways away since you know video editing, but could be worth it in the future. H3H3 style highlight videos etc.

Live streaming. This one might be tough to do as is and we want to wait until we have more listeners first, but it could be fun! Talking to chat etc mid episode and being able to show visual aids for the guests' talents could be very useful.

Patreon well... Duh! All this junk costs buttloads of labor and man power and time and stuff. Not to mention the physical costs of, like, a website subscription. For now we're sticking to ko-fi though because we don't have a ton of rewards to give. The main one we're after is bonus content, outtakes, and guest appearances in art.

Transcription is also a big one. I wanna hire someone to do it because doing it myself SUCKS.

So there's some insight into the show, and I want to thank all of you for sticking around. Seriously, you're awesome. I never thought that this many people would... Care, frankly.

For now it's just me and Sean on team Rhyner, but you guys really do give us something to keep going and improving.

If you'd like to help out please consider donating or sharing the content. We need growth right now to continue and it would mean the world to me to keep going. This podcast stole my heart and I want to put everything I can into it.

If you'd like to help out more tell me what you like and dislike about the show, what you want to see improved or... Hell tell me why you're even here! It could be for something else entirely like my art or something lmao.

If you voted "small creator" may I ask why? I'm a small creator myself, dontchaknow? Haha!

I'm rambling now but seriously, from the bottom of my heart thank you.

Thank you.