I am a Therian.

A what?

Just a gathering of people that like anthro characters to me. I like some of the people I've met through the fandom, and enjoy seeing different cool characters.

That really puts it in simple terms, and I see what your saying. And i know what you mean by the different characters, I wish i had the talent to make some of these or even think some of them up.

I didn't even come up with my design originally. It was sketched out by an artist that seems to have disappeared off FA. It all comes down to what you want out of the fandom. Its a nice break or escape to don a Fursona and try to be your own character. It feels like an extension of table top roleplaying to me. Everyone has a different degree of how far they want to go with it though.

Could not agree with you more.

To me, that is the ideal of what a furry is; but in my rl experience, they are selfish, greedy, assholes who think they know everything about everything and arl of unwarranted self-impirtance that they think they know everything and their opinion on things is the best thing to ever happen. They think furries are a culture and wont hesitate to spout "Fursecution" and crap like that the minute you disagree or correct them. And the smell, good God the smell! You'd think that the sight of their greasy hair would tell them they need a shower. Nope. They are being "natural" like the thousand year old wolfoxdragon they were "reborn" from.

As for online stuff, its fair to say most of the community is deep seeded with drama. We take things way too seriously, like I made a joke image macro of a picture someone drew with a funny face and the person blew up. Offensive? No. Mean? Nope. The person made a bunch of threats like banning and shit and proceeded to get preachy after I excplained the joke. Bastard was even throwing about suicide over such a meaningless manner. We're all walking on egg shells with eachother to the point where artists who put I love critique" in their profiles, they explode on any minor criticism they get.

Moreover on the online crap, we are heavily divided compared to other fanbases. Where you'd have furries like the ones here and go over to, lets say, Gaia Online and they'd be two completely different things. And I don't even want to start on the MLP and Sonic recolors.

The fandom has drifted far away from just being fans of anthropology characters to the drama and hate infused mess it is now.

Sorry for the typos, spelling sucks on a cell phone.

Also, laughing at how my phone auto corrected anthros to anthropology

Unfortuanatly I know exactly what your talking about. To be quite honest its the reason i've always kind of stayed inactive on FA. I mean I absolutly love getting commissions and seeing all types of art, but I've always kind of stayed quite and just stick in my own little area i guess. Although I feel at least on FA it is quite a bit more tame then other furry sights I've seen. Not to say there isn't some instances of stupid drama over something trivial, that lasts for days.

As for real life furries, i've only kind of met one. and in my own definition he wasn't even a furry, so to be honest i don't know how the "regular furry" is. I've always had a bit of desire to go to one of the cons. or whatever they are called but, because of how people usually portray them as you did here I'm more then a little nervous. That and usually none of them are anywhere close to me, and I would have no one to go with. So spending a few hundred dollars to go somewhere alone and not even know if i'll like it is not the idea of fun for me. And yes MLP especially i hate to be judging, but I see MLP stuff as the biggest downside to the furry fandom.

Hrm. I think my personal definition of "a furry" is a person that identifies with a character so strongly that they act through it most of the time, even in private chats, buy furry clothing items or in extreme cases run around with one of those silly tails sticking out of their pants. The climax of that is them owning or dreaming of owning a fursuit of any kind.
Also they tend to yiff around at cons :P Which makes me never want to visit any @N@

I made my Todex-shark for practical reasons; when I started out on FA, I didn't have any avatar besides some abstract swirly stuff for a few months. I figured I needed something so people can relate to a proxy, since I won't run around and violate my privacy by spewing out selfies all over my gallery, for obvious reasons.
And then I kept changing the looks of the character (in fact still want to do another overhaul xD) because of various reasons and also because my techniques just improved over time.

I act through his personality on FA to some degree, and it tends to amplify things that are already present in my behavior, just less extreme. So basically he isn't that different from me ;B I'd grope creatures all the time, too, if I had the chance. *COUGH!*
But I don't consider myself a furry. :P HELL NAW @N@ I'm a guy in private chats, not some shitty shark, and some people don't get that!

S-so your saying you don't have glowy bits?!?

Haha i actually get confused sometimes when talking to people on furry sights. Not sure if they are talking threw their sona, as their sona, or actual real life. To be honest i think completely acting as your fursonna is a bit to far. I will admit that I sometimes like to speak as Soveliss here and there. But altogether i refer to him as him.

Many people sadly hide behind their sonas, even when you try to pry them away. Though I usually drop contact to those people.. No point in talking to fiction when you're looking for facts.
It is a bit more complicated in my case since I like to call myself Todex... but that doesn't mean I see myself as glowy shark, no :P

Sounds like shark Todex is an avatar more then a fursona then. Well depending on what one might think of a fursona... Bit that would be a question for another journal or something

I say a furry is someone who labels themselves one [and follows anything related to the fandom]

Short and simple. Sounds like you are not one to try to label people. I like it. Do you consider yourself a furry?

Indeed.

Very nice sounds like more of what type of passion, that you get to grow with others. Sounds different the most of the people that i talk to about furries i like it though.