I don't have an exact date, as that's not how such things work, but right now is a pretty good estimate for twenty years since I became a furry, and accordingly how long Fzzr has been my fursona. The story isn't quite straightforward. I was in high school at the time, and in Biology we had received an assignment to create a hypothetical species and describe its habitat, evolution and so on. I forget if it was required or extra credit, but for whatever reason I spent the time to create an image in Microsoft Paint.

I started with a few ovals for body parts, filled in pixels so it was joined up, and then realized I hadn't left myself enough space for detail. so I doubled the size of the canvas in both axes, turning each one pixel into four, smoothed out the edges, realized I still didn't like how little detail I was able to apply, so I blew up up that much again and added more smoothing and small details. The result? A humanoid being with features of a tiger and black stripes on green fur. During the course of the pattern adding I decided not to make the stripes symmetrical, I think because being made in MS Paint with very basic techniques already made it look stiff so the bit of texture helped. I was very proud of putting two large stripes on the left cheek and one on the right.

When it came time to name this individual, I tried to come up with how a feline mouth adapted for more complex speech would sound, and decided it would depend less on vocal cords and thus not need vowels all the time. So I combined three sounds I figured would be available: A breath through teeth and lips, a buzz of teeth, and a growl from the throat. Fzzr.

Around this time I learned about furry culture and found myself relating to it very much, and it was very natural for me to snap into relating to Fzzr as myself. I soon started using it in many different contexts, most commonly screen names but also video game character names and so on. I got into (E)RP and met my first girlfriend and though she trilled the 'r' instead of growling it (something I refer to as the catgirl accent, because that happens so often) it was very special to be addressed like that.

Earlier this year on tumblr I ran across   kolae 's auction for the design I would later name "Vala" (a name previously from my character from a long running tabletop campaign). Scrolling past it hit me like a brick because though the color and gender were wrong, the stripes were so close to Fzzr that it was uncanny. So I bought that, and commissioned the Fzzr counterpart sheet. Lots of the details of the Fzzr you all know, particularly the calico pattern and the multicolored hair, come from the coincidence of the Vala design catching my eye, but I don't find that to be a problem. Fzzr has one stripe on his right cheek, and two on his left. And I'm pretty proud of that.