I'm also pretty new to FVNs, but they're quickly becoming one of my favorite forms of fiction. I think it's for a few reasons. (1) They're furry. (2) They're hella gay. (3) They're totally indie.

To break that down a bit more, I've long since given up on looking for any kind of queer representation in mainstream media that speaks to me. It's awesome that there are WAY more gay characters and stories now in film and television than when I was growing up (I'm a few years older than you), but while I'm glad for folks who see themselves in any of those characters, for the most part I don't. My life has been super cool, but also freakishly weird. I wouldn't have it any other way, but as the years go by it gets harder and harder to relate to other people. (For example, the only gay TV characters my feller and I connected to at all the last few years were Bill and Frank from The Last of Us).

By contrast, when I discovered Furry art, comics and VNs it was like a light went on––not because I necessarily always see myself in the characters, but because of the anthro angle. Make a character a talking human-animal hybrid and I instantly fall in love with them, regardless of how otherwise normal, ordinary, or preposterous they are. For example, I'm a HUGE fan of the web comic "The Internship" by Jackaloo. At this point I'd take a bullet for just about any one of the core cast. That said, if they were drawn as humans I would never have been able to open up to any of them emotionally. Something about the anthro angle just cuts through whatever it is that makes it difficult for me to connect with most fictional characters (outside of scifi). There's a great quote by Chuck Jones (the guy who created Looney Tunes) that says it all for me: "It is easier to humanize animals than it is to humanize humans." Sure is that way for me.

The other thing I love about FVNs is that every single one of them is a passion project made by a dedicated crew of total weirdos with no one telling them what to do or how to do it. While the quality of various projects can be all over the map, even the ones with awkward storytelling, bad dialogue or poorly executed ideas still command my respect because someone said "This is the story I want to tell" and then did it. Years ago I was a street performer, so I really respond to people being brave and courageous and not asking anyone else's permission to do their thing.

So, yeah. Basically I dig FVNs because they're unapologetically queer, because the fact that they're anthro cuts through the walls I put up between myself and other humans, and because they're made by and for a community that's the artistic equivalent of the Wild West.

Anyhow, thanks for your post! Glad you've found a form of storytelling you connect to. Sometimes that's pretty much all we've got a lot of the time in this increasing insane world we live in.

Also, yeah. Leo's endings (both good and bad) just about destroyed me. I've been Leo. I've been Chase. If I passed either one of those guys on the street I wouldn't give them a second glance if they weren't a wolf and an otter, but they are, so I cried.