Discussion: What started your furry awakening?

Nerii, 1 year ago

Honestly, no idea. I’ve felt connected to animals longer than I could remember, and have been developing characters since longer than I could remember. I remember writing a story about an animal character when I was 8.

I think in the end, it’s always been part of me. I likely found animals to be a safe space, felt drawn toward them, and it went from there.

BOLOID, 1 year ago

My anthro awakening was Blacksad, but i circled around the furry fandom for years and years before joining last year.

Circa 2010 i was feverishly googling “tiger girl” looking for pictures of elvish girl in the forest with her pet tiger, you know, that kind of fantasy art; and i found some obscure forum where someone posted a furry drawing of a tiger girl, and someone commented ‘can someone please draw a furry that isn’t trying to be sexy’, and i’m like ‘what’s a furry’

But even just that anecdote already hints at why i didn’t join the fandom: there was less SFW furry content back then, and i was a lot more prudish. Both have changed since.

So, you know, on the list of things i could/should have done ten years ago, there’s that.

Syudagye, 1 year ago

Geometry Dash

Foxfire, 1 year ago

This has me curious, as I don’t know the game too well. Are their maps with furry content on them? Maybe a content creator with a fursona, or perhaps fan art of the game?

Syudagye, 1 year ago

Surprisingly, I’ve played a gigantic amount of time at this game and i only remember one level where there was kinda furry content in it, but can’t remember the name.

I actually found the furry fandom through someone i met on this game. I was young and cringe and i noticed another player’s level that i thought was cool and asked him for a collab. We did a level together and we continued to talk via discord, where he sent me some of his artworks sometimes. I was amazed by this, i really love those drawings. And so after searching for similar pieces i found what are furries and since then I can pass a day without thinking about fluff xD. Unfortunatly we lost contact, but it was a really sweet person and i enjoyed chatting with him a lot.

If you want here is the level we made.

yote_zip, 1 year ago

Being a furry never felt like a conversion or choice to me, it’s just something I’ve always been. It probably showed its first signs around when I was like ~8, being interested in reading about dragons and werewolves. Eventually figured out I was more interested in werewolves than other people were, and being terminally online I stumbled upon the VCL imageboard and a lot of stuff clicked into place. Figuring out I was gay was also hand in hand with learning about furries, so props to the furry community for helping with that.

I know a lot of people consciously choose to be a furry at some point but I wonder how many people are just locked into it from the start, like how I feel.

Foxfire, 1 year ago

Even here there have been a few comments (including my own) of some specific media making them realize they like anthros a lot, which I’d say is on par with any other fiction like folklore dragons or werewolves piquing your interest. I was furry before I knew a single other person on earth that felt this way, it just took a while to find a word for it and be involved with the fandom at all.

BluefoxLongtail, 1 year ago

I’m 99% sure everything for me can be traced back to Blinx: The Time Sweeper, an old Xbox exclusive with anthro cats and pigs. Really awesome game, and to this day, I think it was a gem of mechanics and dynamics that it’s a pity never became something more. That would’ve started in around '06. I was 3-4.

I didn’t know the concept of furry until '16 or so, when I would’ve been 13-14. I had a fascination with fur and animal stuff, and a younger friend (he was like 12) said something like “Oh, so you’re a furry?” A few googles later…I was like GOD NO. Came back by early-2017, with a more careful Google and an open mind, and yeah, I was. Joined a furry forum in mid-2017, and the rest is history. Seen a lot of stuff in my time here, but unfortunately, I arrived too late to see a lot of the furry community that used to exist in my local area. Just a few years too young to have caught RCFM.

dressupgeekout, 1 year ago

For me, there were several separate threads that all came together at one point.

In middle school, I was envious of my friends’ artistic abilities and I resolved to get better at drawing. This was during the heyday of DeviantArt and so I made an account and followed my friends. Traversing through people’s profiles and what they liked, just randomly surfing, I discovered the work of Melissa O’Brien (“Frisket17”) and I fell in love with their entire oeuvre.

Then I realized why I was so in love with her work specifically: for the first time, I saw depictions that closely resembled the world that I had built in my head – a sort of sunny, tropical spinoff of Redwall. And then I was like, oh my god, it’s not just me! I’m not the only one who wants to see this sort of thing. I wanted The Lion King but in a city. I wanted the beach episode of Redwall. I finally had a word for it: I wanted furry. And it turns out I could draw these characters, too – I could flesh out my own world AND get better at art. Win!

I didn’t realize it at the time, but the reason I had created my own world in the first place is because I desperately wanted an escape from my real life woes about gender identity and my sexuality. I learned through anthro art the relationship between the furry fan and their fursona, and I was like, “I want one, too.” I REALLY liked the idea of being a person, but WITHOUT the BS human limitations that were contributing to my gender dysphoria.

So, I guess I stumbled upon the fandom initially because I wanted to get better at art, but the reason I stuck around is because it offered a safe space for me to explore identity. That was the real awakening.