For me it was sort of a linear path, which also introduced me to my 'interests' that have sense dominated my life xD.

Started off with Sonic the Hedgehog, the Sonic X series specifically. The concept of speed as a super power was awesome to me, and the designs where just really cool. Got into all his games for a while, Spyro the dragon coming up as well during such sessions.

The real clincher though was when a particular episode had the what I considered at the time lovely Rouge the bat get grabbed and captured by a large robotic hand, and then subsequently squeezed. That one moment, got me very interested in finding more images like that, and with my new found internet powers that my parents had gifted me at the time, I searched 'Rouge Bound' on the internet. Found a DA post, that led me to various different places, tell one place linked me here.

And the passion desires and lusts just kinda grew from there ever sense x3

I've heard a lot about Sonic, and especially about Rouge! I never watched it myself as a kid, but I think I saw it on Netflix or Prime recently, so I'll def check it out!

It's alright I think, I know my young mind enjoyed the heck out of it but like now I think id cringe at it heavily, specially all the stupid scenes with the self insert character xD 'Chris' shudders But its got some decent arc's specially toward the end.

Lol well now my morbid curiosity DEMANDS I check it out!

MLP Cosplay was where I discovered Furries.

Ahhh MLP. I binge watched the whole FIM series a few years ago, though I never admitted it to anyone in my life at the time. I honestly just loved how cute the characters were, and remembered the older MLP series from when I was a kid. Did you ever see the original one that was out in the 90's?

Yes,I took a look at all the past MLP generations.And cringed.🤣

Awwww was it really that bad? Like, really. Cuz I honestly don't remember much about the old one other than the theme song haha

Pony Tales was cringie

lol!

80s and 90s cartoons like Biker Mice, Digimon, etc. Wasnt until the late 00s when i discovered what furries were when i found FA.

Holy Shit! I just learned about Biker Mice last year. The alien mice, right? I've seen a couple episodes, but it was showing on TV a little before my time. Digimon is a classic though. Who could forget Renamon!

Groundwork was laid by books:
- Japanese fairytales collection: Chapter on the daughters of Inari ( Kitsune ) - 1982
- Ancient egyptian fairytales - 1988
- Ancient Deities - Zeus exploits and other amorous adventures - 1988
- Ancient Cultures and things society doesnt talk about - 1993
- Little Green Men from Mars - whole series of comic books - 1986

Later on, then furry specific:
Fresh Fish CD Archive, part of the Amiga A570 CD Package, with art from Leslie Dietz ( Rachel Raccoon ), Eric W. Schwartz ( His whole troupe ) and Josef Wollersberger ( Dominique Dormouse ) - 1992
Inherit the Earth - Computer game from Dreamers Guild, part of the Amiga A1200 CD-Rom Kit - 1996

Furry Fandom:
dal.net irc chat #furry - 1998
velar.ctrl-c.liu.se - 1998

This is an awesomely comprehensive list! The first ones you list about the deities/fairy-tales/cultures; are you referring to the mythologies in a general sense, or are they specific books/comics/cartoons about those subjects which you encountered?

The groundwork was books. some were specific titles, others just random texts out of other books.
One thing I remember for example from the egyptian stories was that the goddess Sekhmet, initially sent out to kill all humans, got drunk on wine believing it to be human blood.
A young priest found a lioness in the desert that attacked him, but instead of killing him she went for the bag of wine he carried.
When she had nearly emptied it all she spoke to him to bring her more of this blood, and so he went and brought more.
The priest took her to his temple as he could not leave the drunk lioness out in the deserts were others might attack her.
For the next month the lioness each day drunk her fill of wine at the priests small temple.
One day, however, he was out of wine, and the lioness was angry, threatening him if he would not produce more blood.
So he went and fetched grapes and, in front of the lioness, squeezed them to make more of the "grapes blood".
The lioness watched him and watched him still when he prepared the gourds of wine for her.
She was sober since days when he finally finished the new batch of wine and presented it to her.
She tasted it and was satisfied. But she drank not more, but spoke:
"I was on the hunt for human blood."
The young priest was scared, but offered his arm to her, for she was of Sekhmets house and thus a being of the goddess of war.
She bit him but lightly, tasted his blood, licking his wound until it closed again.
"I shall stay here and make sure you make more of the blood of grapes to make sure my mother will be satisfied.
And you, will satisfy me."
And so she stayed at the temple, and taught the priest how to improve the wine he made. Their children expanded the temple, and taught others the art of making rich and heavy as well as light wines.


Well, THEIR children. It was years later that I realized what that implied, especially as the photos of ancient wallpaintings showed a priest offering his arm to a feral lioness, and then later on showed the same mocca colored priest and a lion headed, bare breasted sand colored woman at his side collecting grapes.


Some books my older siblings owned or lended from the library, others , like the "little green men from Mars" we only recently discarded to make room for other books, and several of them are in the families possession still today, like the "Ancient Cultures and things society doesnt talk about".
That one is a 4 books series consisting of "Liebe im Alten Rom" , "Liebe im Antiken Griechenland", "Liebe im Mittelalter" and "Liebe bei den Urvölkern".
( Love in Ancient Rome, Love in Ancient Greece, Love in the Medieval times, Love and the ancient / native people )

The Ancient Deities books were, if I remember correctly, three: One on Greek gods, one on Egyptian gods and one on Hindu deities, from where I know that there is an elephant god riding a mouse.

The fairytales books were just that:
Books on fairytales of other cultures.
We had an unassorted pile of those.
The norse / wiking ones were rather bloodthirsty, the slavic ones were mostly sad, the nativa americans were preeeetty spaced out, the mesoamerican were bloodthirsty and hilarious, the south american ones were bloodthirsty and sad, the african ones were mostly light hearted and fun, the southeast asian were... Make a 100 parts SF TV series from it and its okay.
Well, the persian ones were mythical and often so that you wanted to slap the hero silly for being a jackass, the egyptians were one third bloody, one third spacey and mythical and one third good humored to plain pornographic. Similarly the tone of all the mediterranean fairytales was.
The australian ones were...
Well..
Spacey.
When one leaves as a human to marry his bride the wind and then ends up a tree...
I did not get any of them, as I think their storylines were nonlinear and thus not intended for evening reads or telling.

The Polynesian were also nice, sometimes a bit rough, often good humored and several ones which made me squeal that I hoped I'd meet the sharkgoddess , too, and get a goodnight kiss from her.

Sounds like you are very well read!

I totally forgot until just now that you're German and therefore most of these books would also be published in German :/

So unless I go and learn GermanI guess I'm SOL on reading these specific books.

It's funny; I thought I was rather well versed on mythology, but I'd never heard that story about Sekhmet before. I'm sure there are some English language books on the subject that I can scope during quarantine!

the main story of sekhmet is, very compact, on her wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sekhmet

Take note that she is also a goddess of healing, and most deities focused on healing in Egypt also were friendly towards children.
Practically it's a job description.

And the story with one of sekhmets daughters to fall for wine comes from the old wine tradition in egypt, which most likely was run by the priests
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_wine

Awesome! Thank you! I will check these out.

In case you know of a ladyfur bound for Germany and in need of a slightly sarcastic gentlehuman, or just in need of a caring home with a working healthcare system and some social system worth the name, tell her of me, good dragoness.

Will do ;)