Author Topic: How do you discover the furry fandom?  (Read 57523 times)

Regandor

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Re: How do you discover the furry fandom?
« Reply #30 on: December 02, 2007, 16:10:06 »
I was downloading pron on limewire a few years ago when i found out about furry stuff.
But it took me a year before i found out about furries, and i was like OMGZ! Thats like me!
Aaand then i started searching on the net until i found norwegian furries.
After a little while i found an English furry on youtube, we became friends and he told me about confuzzled. So, here I am. ^^

SerFox

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Re: How do you discover the furry fandom?
« Reply #31 on: December 02, 2007, 17:48:17 »
Felt like a fox, loved acting like a fox. Looked on the internet, found Furcadia, got bored, found yiffy.net, found my sexuality, left yiffy.net, ound local furs. Stayed.

If you want a less summarized version, cuddle me and give me juice and I'll tell you sometime.

Broken Splinter

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Re: How do you discover the furry fandom?
« Reply #32 on: December 03, 2007, 11:37:24 »
Like everyone dose poking around online then.....woops wasnt looking for that

Offline Wolfie Fox

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Re: How do you discover the furry fandom?
« Reply #33 on: December 03, 2007, 15:50:02 »
I found the furry community just over 5 years ago when I was searching Google for something to do with Dune, that oooold Command & Conquer style game. I found a picture of a fursona called "Dune" :P It all started from there hehe. =^.^=

Broken Splinter

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Re: How do you discover the furry fandom?
« Reply #34 on: December 03, 2007, 23:33:32 »
Viva Pinata......don't ask...
But thats what got me set off

Tori Belliachi

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Re: How do you discover the furry fandom?
« Reply #35 on: December 12, 2007, 20:33:00 »
I found the furry community just over 5 years ago when I was searching Google for something to do with Dune, that oooold Command & Conquer style game. I found a picture of a fursona called "Dune" :P It all started from there hehe. =^.^=

Not Dume then? :P

Offline Akinokaze

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Re: How do you discover the furry fandom?
« Reply #36 on: January 22, 2009, 21:52:29 »
This is taken from a journal on my old FA page.

Quote
Ok, :iconLouiefurrywolfy: posted a journal about fursona body image [go read it,] which got me to writing a quick comment about where my fursona came from..... which turned into a 1204 word essay about my life..... read at your own peril.

=============================================


I started out with an on-line MUD called Achaea back in 97 when I was 12, I played this game till late 2001/early 2002 as a gamut of characters with very similar names (rogue, highlander and desease [yes I know that was spelt wrong] were some of them.)

I started out with these names because I was very isolated in highschool [12 is around the start of UK highschool] and I was used to it, so my RP naturally followed that. When I quit playing it was because is I burned out and bored (I'd been playing all these throwaway characters and just got sick of keeping up with all of the lies used to keep them in RP.)

Come march 2003, I return to the game [not sure what drove this] and picked a name based on my old pattern, that of Lonewolf (a member of the tiger-like humanoid race the Rajamala. [The name was never intended as meaning that I was a “Lone Wolf.”]) This time I decided to simply play as myself, no RP except for what fits the world itself. I would only play it how I felt I'd react, rather than to whatever RP-related stereotypes existed in relation to my class, race or city.

And I enjoyed myself, I started to open up [the shit I went through in highschool had emotionally destroyed me, before returning to the game I was basically only able to express anger and sadness.]

Working through the scenarios presented to my character the way that I would respond to them allowed me to rediscover things about myself and to understand myself better [for instance, during a test I was given in a martial-arts guild I was in I was asked what my feelings were about the importance of respect. Now I could have just stated what I thought they wanted to hear, but instead I thought about it. It resulted in a rather long explanation of why I believe that no-one deserves respect, they can only earn it through their actions as many who would be considered as deserving of your respect through their position, have never actively done a thing to earn that respect, and may even do things to lose the respect forever.] Over time this really helped me and was further helped by the friendship of Zen and Icelyon (without whom, I seriously doubt I'd be here today.)

I'm not sure when I entered the furry fandom as a noticeable person (faving, commenting, etc) but it was after I'd started Lonewolf [though I'd actually discovered furry by accident in 2001 when I was 16, while looking for art of werewolves using a word taken from sonic books and Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, that of "anthropomorphic." Which led me to the, now long vanished, heterosexual site “The Temple of Lunar” and the works of Gregg Panovich, K9 and Frank Gembeck.]

It was also after I'd become bisexual, though before I was gay. Yes, you read that right, I actually was each of these, there was no denial involved these are actually accurate. I was 100% straight till I was 16/17 (absolutely no interest in men at all.) After finding furry, and its over abundance of adult works, I started becoming interested in men. When I first found furry I'd only look at the clean works, then being a horny teen, I started looking at the adult works, but only the lesbian stuff (the straight stuff was a turn-off [why do straight guys like to see another guys dick when having sex with a woman?]) Then, over time, I started throwing in some straight stuff (cause I no-longer found it weird.)

Over time I started to become interested in guys as well, by 18 I came out as being Bi with a female preference (roughly 1:4,) by 19 I was Bi with a male preference (roughly 3:2,) and by 20 I was 100% gay. (So anyone who says your sexuality doesn't change, they're wrong.)

Anyway, when I decided to enter the fandom I needed a name. Well, I'd already gotten an email address, I was already known in a game, so I thought, “Screw it, I'll just call myself Lonewolf Achaea.”

That's how my name came about, the fursona however is separate and came a while later after I first started playing Furcadia. I actually started Lonewolf off as the feline species there, matching from Achaea. Later I decided it would be more fitting to actually choose an animal that I felt shared similar attributes to me through its personality.

I'm a fighter, but only when I have to be. I'm fiercely loyal to my friends and will protect them any way I can. I can be perfectly content to be alone, but I'm happier when in a group. To my mind this left only two immediate options, a Lion [for their Prides,] or a Wolf [for their Packs,] and I've always had an affinity for Canines. That, is how my anthro-wolf self came about, not because of my name or the prevalence of wolves in the fandom, but from careful thinking. The scars are just more prominent versions of scars I actually have [for instance, the eye scar, is merely an eye-brow scar on me,] the hair is the same as mine and the main colouring is based on the European wolf to reflect where I come from.

As for my other forms, the eastern-dragon came next. I decided to get Icelyon and Zen a gift as a thankyou for their friendship and I knew how much they liked “Spirited Away”. So I came up with an idea of the two of them riding dragon-Haku over a river, I tried to draw it myself and sucked royally.... so I commissioned Greenmonkey ^_^. During the sketching phase I thought about how similar his face was to that of a wolf and came up with the idea of Lonewolf being able to become an eastern dragon. Then all that remained was to add the facial scar and colour him using European wolf based colours.

Third and fourth came at the same time. My human and non-anthro-wolf solves are a result of watching Wolf's Rain and loving the very idea of the series, besides, simply put, why shouldn't you use yourself as well? Humans are animals too. [A recent change I've made to fourth form is to give him forward-pointing 7-shaped horns. This is based on the wolf-like creatures in “Monster Rancher.” He has now become “for the most part” just a differently coloured version of the character “Tiger of the Wind.”]

Fifth [and last,] we have my anthro-dragon-wolf self. This came as a result of my imagining a looping animation of my fursona shifting between his various forms and a fluid movement sequence and it simply clicked. I won't describe the animation in detail, as I have yet to find someone to make it, but I will say the order. Human > anthro-wolf > non-anthro-wolf > eastern dragon > anthro-dragon-wolf > human.

And that's it, that's where my name, personality, sexuality and fursona's come from ^_^;

 
=============================================

Additional: My new name comes from being tired of the instant stereotyping that happens when people read a name like lonewolf, they just assume things about your personality [which were true before (see above) but not anymore :P]

As such I decided to pick a new name, this came from my love of the Japanese language and Autumn being my favourite season. Akinokaze means Wind of Autumn [or can be shortened to Autumn Wind, though the correct word for that would be Akikaze.]

Though a friend came up with the nickname of Kino [key-no] from that which I quite like too ^_^




More than was asked for but meh XD
« Last Edit: January 22, 2009, 21:54:21 by Akinokaze »
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Offline Lilsi

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Re: How do you discover the furry fandom?
« Reply #37 on: February 17, 2009, 08:27:03 »
I was doing course work on differnt sub-cultures. Found a journal on a freak who fell in love with his dog which had a link to sites containing information about what a furry is and one had a link to ukfur.  After a good few weeks of research and figuring out not all furs wanted to hump their pets i joined up.

Offline kungfufox

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Re: How do you discover the furry fandom?
« Reply #38 on: March 04, 2009, 20:15:01 »
well i discovered furry fandom after looking for idears for some of my art work
i have been drawing furry art for about 8 years

Offline FireFox

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Re: How do you discover the furry fandom?
« Reply #39 on: March 18, 2009, 22:52:15 »
furcadia :D i found it by accident on wiki and ever since been a furry =^_^=

about 2 - 3 years ago :D

Offline James The Dog

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Re: How do you discover the furry fandom?
« Reply #40 on: July 06, 2009, 18:02:03 »
Quite a long story for me- as I'd spent years looking at furry sites without even knowing what a furry was, then after I did find out what it is, all I was told about was the bad stuff.

Though, like what is most likely like most people reading this- it is something that's been with me most of my life. I've always preferred cartoons and things with animals in rather than people- I've always identified with them better for some reason- I still do. I know I was big on both Sonic the Hedgehog and Farthing Wood during my childhood, amongst others- but they were certainly my favourites. Imagining myself as an animal cartoon character has also been there since I was a kid. And it's something that never went away as I grew up- even in my early teens I was still discovering new "animal" cartoons- CatDog, The Angry Beavers, Cow & Chicken and The Foxbusters would have been my favourites at the time. I first came up with what is now my fursona when I was 14- nearly 9 years ago now! I'm still not sure why I'm a dog, as I've never been a massive fan of them, and even if I did know at the time, I've long since forgotten about it now. But it felt right then, it feels right now- and no other animal does. Though I spent years keeping it to myself- anyone I know would just laugh at me, and I'd never have thought for a second that there was a whole community of people out there who feel like I do!

I believe the first time I came accross a "furry" site would have been around 2001/2002- I've already mentioned the Foxbusters. I was (and still am) a big fan of that cartoon, and I came across a fan site for the show. One day I looked beyond the fansite and onto bits of the owners personal site. While there I discovered that he had his own cartoon animal character- a Fox called Jaff- and also had drawn pictures of him (something I'd never be able to do, as my art skills are hopeless!), though I never looked into it enough to discover the fandom, it was the first time I realised that I wasn't the only one who thought of myself that way. A couple of years later, the Foxbusters fan site was sadly shut down, and when he did, he put a link up to his DA gallery, and I looked at both his gallery (and have, on and off, been following his art ever since) and discovered several other galleries- and discovered even more people who drew cartoon animal versions of themselves. Yet again though, I never looked into it enough to discover the fandom. I don't really know why to be honest- and looking back, it seems quite bizarre how I could have missed it all! But I think I had other things going off in my life at the time to really think too much about such things.

The first time, I think, that I heard the word "furry" and became sort-of aware of the fandom would have been in late 2005/early 2006 when on a forum I used there was a discussion about these "furries" who, according to them, were basically a bunch of pervs who have sex with animals while dressed in costumes. And a few months later when someone on there posted a link to a quite vile comic (even worse than your average "yiff" stuff) and basically made out that stuff is what the fandom was all about. Seeing this sort of stuff certainly didn't make me want to find out any more about it. It was over the following couple of years I heard more and more about the fandom which made me think that maybe this stuff I'd heard was exaggerated, and it was last June when I started to properly read up on it all and realised that, maybe, I was actually a furry after all.

Still though, although I'd told some people on the internet I was a furry (sadly many of which have a very stereotypical view of the fandom, and hardly made me feel much better about it), I felt quite nervous and edgy about how to get involved. So I spent months reading various furry websites and thinking maybe I'll sign up to one- but never actually did anything about it because I was very nervous, and also worried about being rejected.

Then, in February, on one site I came across a name- one which was used by a person whose website I'd used to help out on years earlier, by contributing material and moderating on the forums there. I did a quick google search to find out if it was the same person- and it was! The website itself had nothing to do with cartoon animals, but I've since found out the person in question had been in the fandom since 2003 (so had been another case of me being completely ignorant of the fandom, despite looking right at it!), not that he ever mentioned it, but it was around that time he started using that name to sign himself, and though I wondered about the name, I didn't think enough of it to ask. The forums on the site closed down in 2005, and we lost contact after that, but I decided to give him an email, then we started chatting on MSN and after a couple of months I picked up enough courage to sign up to the UKFur forums, then to go to my first meet in Sheffield a couple of weeks ago. If it wasn't for that I'd probably still be sitting there thinking about joining a site, and would definatly have been far too nervous to even think about a meet. But the meet was brilliant and I have no worries about going to any others, or to Confuzzled.

So that's my story! A bit long winded I know, but still!
« Last Edit: July 06, 2009, 18:05:43 by James The Dog »

Offline Akinokaze

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Re: How do you discover the furry fandom?
« Reply #41 on: July 06, 2009, 22:38:26 »
Good post, interesting to hear how it all came about for you [I miss angry beavers.]

I'd recommend joining furaffinity if you haven't already, though perhaps keep the mature filter turned on for a while till you get used to things ^_^
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Offline James The Dog

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Re: How do you discover the furry fandom?
« Reply #42 on: July 06, 2009, 23:39:24 »
[I miss angry beavers.]

I have every episode on tape- painstakingly taped them all (along with Rocko's Modern Life) back in 2004! Don't think I've ever watched through it all though!

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I'd recommend joining furaffinity if you haven't already, though perhaps keep the mature filter turned on for a while till you get used to things ^_^

I've thought about it. I've been put off for various reasons though.
« Last Edit: July 07, 2009, 00:14:07 by James The Dog »

Offline LevLion

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Re: How do you discover the furry fandom?
« Reply #43 on: July 07, 2009, 09:50:11 »
He he he cool, Jaff is a very close friend of mine Im sure he will be pleased people remember his site. That fan site got him a personal tour of the studios ;) he got original art from teh show all over his walls.
I for one welcome our Muppet overloards.

Offline James The Dog

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Re: How do you discover the furry fandom?
« Reply #44 on: July 07, 2009, 14:55:02 »
You shouldn't have told me that- I'm quite envious now! :P Actually, I considered making a fansite dedicated to the fox characters myself, but the fact I know hardly anything about web design, and anything I try always turns out awful means I never bothered. There was a flash animation on that site, involving Voracious and BBF that I've been wanting to see again for years too!