1235 Furries.

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My allergies make me really sleepy. Allergy medication increases the desire to sleep even more. Because of this I’ve been trying not to fall asleep all day. I eventually gave up a little after dinner. Except I hadn’t set up the post yet, so I had to set an alarm to make sure I did. So I was, of course, woken from right in the middle of a dream.

In this dream I kept having to go outside and mess with water hoses for the lawn. It was an old, fictional, house that looked like a combination of my childhood home and a nightmare barn. This wouldn’t normally be a problem, but there was this colony of spiders that lived on that side of the house and they’d drop on you if you walked under them. They clearly weren’t poisonous, but they were hairy and scary. They also made me break out in a really bad rash.

So clearly I was getting quality sleep. I woke up all itchy and feeling like shit was crawling on me. I don’t know if it had anything to do with anything, but the other day some spiders crawled on me in the Teen’s closet. I have to sit in the closet to watch TV with her because her room is small. Which isn’t a problem because I used to sleep in that closet when it was my comic area. There were never spiders before. Not abnormal ones anyway. Ones that want to crawl on a guy. Like total poopybuttfaces.

Anyway… this little thing is the start of something I’ve been dreading and looking forward to for a while. Looking forward to because I like making new characters and dreading because it’s hard to draw and everything is new and I’m ehskeered of all the things.

Also, here’s a possibly interesting Tumblr post where I answer a reader question. LINK

54 Comments

Are you opposed to nasal spray allergy medications? I started taking Nasacort this year to avoid having to get a prescription for Flonase again. It takes about a week to start working but it’s a 24 hour med and hasn’t seemed to make me too sleepy. If you’ve already tried it and it doesn’t work, I don’t really have any other info for you, sorry.

Because people are chiming in on the furry thing and I completely skipped it, here’s my 1 and a half cents. Pretty much like anything to do with behaviors of others, as long as you’re happy, not hurting anyone, and not judging me or others for not being that way, go right on ahead.

From her reaction, I think she knows a bit too much about that last one… and knowing her origins….. 9_9;

The cat-eared earphones she was wearing the first time she appeared in comic should have given it away to John long, long ago. Maybe he just let it fly right over his head, what with having to talk (and handsome) her into letting Jo use her pc. But really, those phones…

You dun goof’d, Alex. Ya dun goof’d…

Or we reveal that he himself is one. That would be one hell of a twist.

Crave! You have to do that!

(actually, just ignore me, your comic is awesome either way)

Yuppers. I think @Renadt may have nailed it.

Is John a closet Furry?
Are there spiders in his closet?
And, what about Naomi?

Did you just reference… the electric company? many +1s to you.

Love of Chair was hilarious.

Actually, the “What about Naomi?” quote long predates The Electric Company. It’s from some long-forgotten English poem or novel. When I worked at a Hospital back in the mid-1970s (yeah, I’m ancient) I added the line to a list I was repeating for one of the nurses, and he recognized it, although I know he didn’t own a TV. When I inquired about it, he said it was from Xxxxx by Yyyyy, and I recall it was late 19th Century.

Queue the furry hate… Oh, wait, too late. :P

Not actually one myself, but know lots and lots, and man, even being trans I don’t get half the hate they do. :(

Furries are the last group left that are okay to hate.

It’s still okay to hate bronies.

Bronies are sub furries.

Does this mean they are a kind of furry that branched off of proper furry-dom, or are they in a tier of their own that rests beneath furries on the hate-archy?

I think they are a fringe group, like the tea party. Didn’t necessarily start at the normal place, but ended up mingling and being irritating.

That hose thing sounds like you some of the advise the others gave you about making a pool and filling it the other day. Though they don’t creep me out, arachnids (ticks) are currently causing my forest going self to have to get a shot every time I get an infected tick bite (I failed to get my armor ready for the season and failed the intelligence check to STAY OUT OF THE WOODS!!!!!!!!!!!!) cause it might be DA LYME DISEASE! but is probably justs a reaction to numbing saliva and or dirty tick jaws…. My armor is prepared and so that should be the end of that crap (though now I will be darn hot on my “pleasant woodland strolls” :( )

I don’t think you have to be a furrie to like those kitty earphones. I have no furrie associations and I thought those Neko Mimi earphones that react to your brainwaves or whatever were fun and educational.

I don’t feel I hate furries but some of the more extreme members of the breed are the cause of some of the more bizarre stuff on the interwebs (and that is still OK, I was running willy nilly bout the internet and deserved what I got. XD Its not like they are hacking the airwaves to force that stuff into our homes or anything… ) But the strong emotions this subject evokes from net denizens should make this arc lots of fun! :D

You might hear this a lot, but ALEX IS FREAKING AMAZING. She is totes my fave character.

She actually got really popular unusually fast considering how few pages she’s appeared in so far.

Oh. Oh dear. I was expecting the F-bomb to be dropped, but not deployed in such a manner that Alex’s interests in John may or may not be compromised with the use of that single word.

The simultaneous blush and subsequent cringe and the “Oh shi-” expression on her face is verily reminiscent of my reaction to a fellow workmate of mine who found out I was one of “those damned furries”…and announced it in front of the managerial staff. I’m hoping Alex will not have a similar debacle akin to my own with John there…but I am, of course, partly expecting it and partly hoping the man she has a crush on doesn’t do what I think he might.

But, in knowing you and having been a fan of your comic for a long time as a lurker, this is anything but a straightforward mentioning of the subculture nor is it Alex’s swansong when it comes to her crushing so hardcore on John. Well played, good sir!

Wow. I’m so sorry. :(

Coworkers outing another coworker to management is … wow. So very not ok. :(

Eeeyeah. His education mainly consisted of “that CSI episode” and very little else.

It was a very ugly situation that caused me, amongst other issues, to transfer out of that particular store. When I started in my now-current store, I was avoided at all costs and I found out it was because -someone- from the previous store had put “Avoid talking to at all costs about her sexuality: may have “dangerous” connotations” on my file. Apparently, despite my stellar track record, that one incident had marred me completely as a ‘human being’ to others.

It took this past year and a half for my new manageress and coworkers to realise there’s nothing “dangerous” about me, and I’ve made new friends since. Some of them are fellow furs/bronies/cosplayers and I broke the ice between us by being in all those categories :)

But, at the time of the whole previous incident…oye. All that stress, anxiety and walking on eggshells around others…I never want to go through THAT again. So I feel for Alex and the beartrap she just set off inadvertently, I really do. It can go either way from here, heh.

Forgive my ignorance, but what exactly makes one a “furry”? Enjoying anthropomorphic characters in webcomics, or actually having a fur suit? Would feel kind of silly to have an opinion one way or another without knowing if I personally fit the criteria.

@skelepunk
It was harrassment and it was unethical, but my previous manageress was filled with both of those. Also one of the many reasons I bailed on that particular store. That woman wasn’t human, she didn’t possess anything along the lines of compassion or empathy for anyone whilst I worked for her >_>;

@me
It’s everything already mentioned – you can have an interest in the character design, in animated films and characters, in fursuiting, in webcomics, in exploring the psychology behind the fandom, and you can be that CSI viewer too (not recommended, but it’s how a lot of people were introduced to the furry fandom, however negative the impact of that episode was).

For me it started from the Looney Tunes, Disney and varying animations of my childhood that involved anthropomorphic characters. Disney was the main culprit though: Darkwing Duck, Duck Tales, The Gummi Bears, Tale Spin, all the films, most notably The Black Cauldron, Bambi and The Rescuers/The Rescuers Down Under…they kickstarted a lifelong love affair with 2D animation and art. I devoured anything to do with animation, from the obscure to the mainstream. I was drawing furry characters and had a furry personage long before the term meant anything to me.

Forward to my teenage years and the early days of the internet and, yeah, the whole fandom became doors to worlds and worlds and worlds. There’s always a light side and a dark side: you’re either happy-go-lucky, bouncing around and enjoying life and whatever jobs/hobbies that make up who you are…or you’re going around picking fights, being a racist dick, Rule 34’ing and ruining childhoods, or claiming to be the next Kurt Cobain with how much of an emo both you and your fursona are. There’s the good extreme and the bad extreme – every fandom’s got that. Furries just seem to attract the spectacular levels of both extremities.

Yes, I also fursuit, have done so for the past three, almost four years now; I think of it as cosplay on hard mode and I enjoy it immensely. It’s an anti-stresser to my retail job, and it helps my sanity to step into a fantasy character and forget all the life troubles exist for a bit. It’s like taking on the personage of your favourite anime or film character at a convention, it’s harmless fun.

And yes…there’s also the dark side to the fandom who have sex in their fursuits. I cringe at those people, but sadly it’s part of the furry fandom I have to learn to accept. People who don’t understand the appeal of furry make the mistake of saying all furs who own fursuits have sex in them. What you don’t realise is that you’re pushing 110ºF/43ºC+ wearing a fursuit, and that’s with the anti-sweat gear on underneath. Some people have the physical capability to do the deed wearing them. The other 99% of the fandom doesn’t. In any case, you’re talking about screwing in a piece of 3D wearable artwork that costs anywhere between $500 – $4500. I personally don’t see the appeal of ruining a character cosplay in that manner, but hey, each to their own and all that.

Crave is correct, though – if you’ve heard rumours about the fandom, be they positive or negative, they’re ALL true. The sad fact of being part of the furry fandom is you’re always going to find yourself getting shit on by someone >_>;

I will say though that I am one of those squeaky-clean furries you make mention of, Crave; I’ve never set foot into the pornographic side of the fandom (and let’s face it, I have enough issues with drawing toony anatomy as is, despite my 15+ years of art school education XD!), my fursona is not one of those characters who is completely and overly-sexualised, and she’s married, like I myself am. The big difference I have with the rest of the fandom is that my married/personal life stays off the internet, and so does my fursona’s. As for ‘repressed perversion’, that’s discussed with my husband, and only my husband, behind a closed bedroom door. It’s not something I feel particularly comfortable sharing with the world. Perhaps it’s a remnant of how I was raised, but someone’s private life is none of your business, and as such, I don’t go prying into someone else’s and would hope folks wouldn’t go prying into mine.

Rambled a fair bit there, sorry ^^;

“… anime and cosplay, furries” with those words my mind took a long twisted world to a road where Between Failures was a comic about anthropomorphic critters. And suddenly those words were no longer “… anime and cosplay, furries” but “… anime and cosplay, humanplay” and my mind rebound back to this reality.

Reading the above comments I can’t help but laugh at how the internet has given preconceived notions about certain groups. Alot of minds going to the gutter at the mention of furries. Not all furry fan clubs are necessarily explicit or even sexual. Some (like myself) just like the designs of anthropomorphic animals.

Y’know what? I don’t think that’s disgust or rage or pity on John’ face. I think Alex may have inadvertently hit the button she was looking for.

Nine months out of the year I live on Claritin. It doesn’t work for everybody, and it’s freakin’ expensive, and the generics might as well be so much plaster. But at least I can function. I do have to take a week off from it to detox every couple of months (7 weeks on, one off when I remember) or I build up a resistance. But, POLLEN BLOWS.

And I hate nasty, sneaking, biting spiders. I got a bite on my shin a few years back that took months to heal.

When I was a small child (6 or thereabouts), I decided to catch one of those jumping spiders. It was a tiny little one, too.

I still haven’t suffered a more painful bite in my life. I’ve been bit by cats, dogs, stung by ants, yellow jackets, and even dirt daubers.

Thankfully, it wasn’t one of those kinds of spiders that rot your skin off. It did really hurt, though.

Speaking of which, I used to have frightening dreams with all kinds of insects in them. They were usually about the size of a tennis ball, and covered spider’s webs that were about the size of tarps.

My attitude has changed over the years, and so have my dreams. I don’t remember all of the details, but I had a similar dream within the past year, and I was actually playing with said insects that used to horrify me.

Of course, I have come to learn a little about wasp’s mannerisms. If you can catch them while they are hunting, and not guarding their nests, they can be surprisingly docile and curious. I’ve even let them land and crawl on me. If they aren’t agitated, they won’t sting!

My family assures me that, when I was barely a toddler, I was plagued by nightmares about The Spider and the Nut. I have no recollection of the dreams, but the memory of my older brothers live on.

I honestly don’t get the hate furries get. It’s just cosplaying as your OC that also happens to be an anthropomorphic animal. It’s nowhere near the weirdest shit out there, and if I’m being honest, the same people who shame furries for liking something different then them are just the most conceited blowhards you could probably find. Just my two cents, though.

John’s reactions are so same-but-opposite to mine sometimes, it’s weird. I would have been all casual, “I used to get on with furries best. Never quite was one, but felt more comfortable around them than other people.” TBH, now I think about it, “Never quite was one” is only true in the most literal and specific of senses anyway.

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