1351 Nicky Greenstone.

I put off naming Victoria’s fursona till the last possible moment. Naming things in general I take too long to do, but nailing it down is always hard. I didn’t want her to be full weaboo and go with Aki shimapima, or whatever, but also not go completely the other way and get all American cute on it. I fell between D&D name and valley girl. A suitable mishmash of things for a mish mash of a character. In a lot of ways the terrible things about fursuits is what makes them fun. Hodgepodge designs cobbled together from a million sources, attempting to be everything all at once. They are glorious in their terribleness.

Alex and her friends are, in my experience, an uncommon example of how fursonas start, but not unheard of. They are more avatars of their actual selves than beings created for the scene out of Zeal. That’s not common because for the most part furries hate themselves. The ones who are deep in at any rate. They are dissatisfied with reality in a way that many people are, but are uniquely equipped to try and do something about it.

As far as me goes, I’ve been aware of furries since the 90s. I don’t know when it became a lifestyle, or hobby, as such, but my awareness of the culture goes as far back at least as ’94. As with most things in life I took part only as an observer until much later. The creation of Alex was an outlet for things and ideas I couldn’t present in the comic, except the comic consumes everything. There is still rarely time for anything else, but I felt like the ideas forming around Alex and her friends were entertaining enough to merge into my world. So I dipped in a little deeper and made comic Alex the creator of furry Alex. It also gave me a place to go with John, who has been a blank slate for most of the comic. When you work with a cast as large as this people necessarily have to fade in and out. When you’re a group of people creating contend at a good clip that’s not to big a deal. When you’re one guy, working at single guy pace, it becomes an issue. Some characters can go for months without getting any screen time. Of course when you go back and read things all in a go that stuff isn’t noticeable. It’s only a problem in reality time. That said I don’t regret adding another handful of people to the cast. In a comic like this a large cast is a series of options that you can always go back to when one group gets tapped out.

Having other groups to play around with helps give the other stories time to come together. As I’ve said before, the original stories that I based the comic on had been cooking in my head for a decade before I ever used them for anything. In a lot of ways that’s the kind of time it takes to create a decent story when you work without an editor of any sort. Day to day it’s hard to step back and look over the entire work when you need that new page all the time. It’s something that not a lot of people can handle. The piles of dead webcomics are proof enough of that.

Back when I started there was a gaming comic that ran for a little while. I forget the name, but the character design had giant ears. Ears that put my ear sizes to shame. I’d like to know what happened to it, but as far as I know it’s not online in any form anymore. I thought it had good characters. Makes me wonder what happened to the artist, you know?

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Well, this somehow is more and less awkward than I’m imagining it.

I’m sort of hoping Reggie leaves, Victoria takes off the head, Reggie comes back (To return the ears or something) and we get some shenanigans.

…Bit sitcomish, sure, but there’s nothing wrong with that.

He could just recognize her voice. :)

The piping that she “almost has right” should muffle/disguise her voice somewhat, but I think he’s beginning to do just that.

That second to last panel might have been a “Vicky? That you?”

But he might be distracted a bit too much by the full bodysuit. And we do already know that her voice gets muffled quite a lot by the suit.

And wait… he doesn’t recognize his sister’s voice? Is it *that* muffled?

Yeah, I mean there’s no way she’d have sense enough to Batman, right?

If she Batmans, she risks Maddison or one of the others commenting on her voice sounding strange. And if she Batmans inexpertly, Reggie himself may notice that her voice doesn’t sound natural. It’s lose-lose.

Actually, aside from some…. appliance issues… Reggie’s a pretty sharp guy.

Given his facial expressions he may have put 2 and 2 together. Maybe he’s just not going to press it until she does. If she doesn’t want to confront him with this he may be willing to simply ignore it.

Or he has no idea it’s her and it’s awkward for some other reason. Can’t imagine one.

I like her approach to problem solving: When you’re already this deep in s***, the only solution is to dive in, keep digging, and hope you find a way out before you have to take a breath.

That’s also how I play Minecraft.

Does Alex not know Victoria’s last name, or does Victoria have a different last name? If she did I’d imagine she’d have already brought up the Boothe gravestones.

Victoria has never told any of them her surname. Right now only she, Bridgette, Neil, John, and Maddison know her last name. Maddison is probably the most dangerous person who knows because she may not fully grasp why Victoria would want to keep her identity a secret.

Because nostalgia is fun…

I’m pretty sure I know which gaming webcomic you’re thinking of, though I can’t remember the name either. If it was in a sort of trying-to-draw-anime style? Costume designs like a very low-detail Final Fantasy?

Nope it was about the workers in a Gamestop and it was in an American style. I have a vague memory of it being almost like paper cut outs but done in photoshop.

While I do realize that my previous comment about Victoria needing a hug has (in some way) brandished me as a fan of furry, my modesty of such things must drop for a brief moment…

Nicky Greenstone is all the cute.

…there, my quota of shame has been fulfilled. From this point forward I shall resume my usual of spontaneous responses bred from typical nonsense. Thank you.

Is Victoria taller than Reggie outside of the suit? If she is, then he probably does suspect. A lot.

I’m not a fan of the name, but eh, lots of furries have stupid names. Including myself.

By looking at her shoulders we can tell she’s a bit taller

That might actually depend on how the feet are constructed. I’m too lazy right now to go back and check but I suspect we haven’t seen the fursuit’s feet; they might function like high platform shoes for the sake of being able to have catlike toes with less regard for how the human feet would fit within.

I see Reggie thoughtlessly saying something that ticks the whole room off, Victoria rips off her head to yell at him, and he runs off in terror. Reversal always has a satisfying feel.

Oh yeah! that webcomic was nice, In the past two years i cut back on my webcomic viewing.. to many ya know but i do remember that one. the main character was a young woman right? and she kinda had to keep the place working and such maybe not the manager but like a supervisor i think?

Victoria is not a real common name

Luckily she’s razzling and dazzling him with so much magic furry dust he’ll be miles away before he comes back to that unless one of those present spills the beans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx6aRCa8lrE

Still I was kind of hoping she went with Kate Sith (Cat Sith) just because the difference between the lethally dangerous name and her sweet and sunshwiney appearance would have cracked me up.

Wow, I just read through the whole archive. Was not expecting to get to furries. *shrug* Cool comic. It reminds me of one I tried to doodle about 6 years ago about working in a thrift store. I think I’ll keep reading… (You’re only 2 out of about 28 webcomics I tried out to make the Bookmark list. Good job!)

I am rather confused by his awkwardness. Knowing someone with your sibling’s name – not weird at all. Being aware your sister is a furry in a fursuit at this very moment – apparently disgustingly weird, for some people.
What is in between these two that is making Reggie nervous?

Eh, think of it like talking to a clown. While you may not necessarily be afraid of clowns, the mere fact that they’re covered in paint and may at any point present you with a balloon animal would be enough to throw most anyone off balance.

Reggie was thrown into this expecting cat ears and got a fursuit. I don’t think his reaction is too unreasonable.

Can’t help with the mystery webcomic, I read a metric crapload of comics, but that one doesn’t sound familiar. You have me curious enough to try and find it. If I have any luck I will let you know.

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