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16 years ago
General
Ganked from 
EenyuWolf, because she's cool. Seriously, I've met her. And no, not even the mighty white gryphon can resist the sweeping sensation that is The Furry Meme.
*Are you a furry?
Yes.
*If you have a Spouse/SO - Is he/she a furry too?
I haven't got either one. I will say this, though: she would have to be nuts enough to be a furry to be up for serious consideration!
*How long have you been in the community?
Uh...wow, little over ten years now.
*How did you find furry?
I ran across it on a mostly unrelated random internet search, and then got stuck surfing all this cool art. What cemented it was also finding Watts Martin's excellent short novels about the same time, which I then devoured during every available spare moment I had for a few weeks.
*What's your reason for furry (what interested you to get into the community)?
The people, and the vast amounts of creativity. I have never seen another group of people anywhere in the world that was this creative.
*What's Furry to you?
This is really hard to answer. I think it's probably safest to say it's the culture surrounding the art.
*If someone found out you're a furry and asked you about it how would you respond?
That would depend on who it was! If it were somebody I didn't think was part of the fandom, by tradition, I'd lock up like a deer in the headlights. This is mostly because the only time it's happened recently it was a couple of /b/tard coworkers who hit it on a shot in the dark. I really have no interest in becoming an item of derision in my workplace, particularly since it's currently not one I can leave if I want.
Outside of that scenario, the response would be something more like "Yeah, actually, I am. And depending on where you heard of furries, no, I'm not like that. Neither are most of the people I know."
If it were another furry, the response would be way, way more enthusiastically yes.
*What are your favorite aspects of our community?
The way it IS a community, and the fact that there's peer pressure within it to do something creative.
*Do you use any furry terms? (i.e. yiff, paws, murr?)
Every once in a great while. If I'm speaking in a quasi-IC setting, yes, sometimes.
*What do you wish furry was NOT associated with?
Publicly? Sex. It's not that I don't like sex in the fandom - quite the opposite, in fact - just that publicly, it seems to be about ALL we're associated with. This whole thing is just far too cool to be relegated exclusively to the closet.
*How strongly do you feel about someone bashing the community as a whole?
Most answers I've seen are along the lines of "we bring it on ourselves." I think that about sums it up for me, too.
*How strongly do you feel about anyone bashing you yourself for your interest based on the media's aspect of what furry is?
It won't surprise most people to know that this can get me pretty aggravated - more aggravated the more closed-minded the basher is. People can get a little crazy and a little deaf that way.
*We all know furries have a lot of sexual aspects in this fandom, What's your opinion on it?
We're a subculture born of the internet, and it's a well-known fact that The Internet is For Porn. It shouldn't be awfully surprising, but I do wish people wouldn't keep dragging their fetishes out with them when they represent the fandom.
PERSONAL
*What is/are your fursona(s)?
Big white shapeshifter gryphon (who doesn't shapeshift much). Quadrupedal, answers to Archai or Arc (but not Arch! It's pronounced with a hard C!).
*Do you have any fetishes that pertain to the fandom?
It is my strongly held opinion that there are no fetishes that pertain to the fandom with the exception of fursuit sex, so no. Everything else we collectively are into has analogs in purely human porn. Oh, wait, I guess there's anthro/human pairings. That would make it yes, then.
*If you could magically morph into your fursona would you?
Yes.
*Do you believe you have a spirit animal?
If I do, it likes to dress up like a human.
*What other fanbases/groups are you a part of?
I'm a car geek and a part-time plane nut and an armchair engineer.
*Anthro/Feral, Therian or Kemonomimi (Not a furry, just a human with animal ears and a tail)?
A group of nouns with a question mark does not a question make. Geez, this one's retarded. Uh, therians can be super weird, but some of them are neat.
*Are you a fursuiter? If yes, how many do you own? If No, do you ever plan on being a suiter?
No, none, and yes, respectively.
*How many of your friends are furry?
Most of them.
*How many pets do you own, if any?
None. Being military and single makes it hard to own a pet.
*Aside from furry what other interests do you have?
I think we covered this one already.
*Are you confident enough in yourself to say that you're a fur, no matter what the media says?
Yes and no. I've "come out" to friends of mine that I was reasonably sure wouldn't freak out, and that has yet to go badly. Generally I'll self-ID to just about anyone inside the fandom because there's a much lower chance they're going to have a drastically different idea of what the fandom's about than mine; outside the fandom I'm a little more careful, because saying "hey I'm a furry" has a much higher chance of making someone think I boink animals and/or want to have sex with mascots.
MEETUPS
*Do you attend any cons? If no, would you attend any cons? If yes, which cons have you been to?
Yes, yes, and MFF and AC. Actually, this'll be the first year since '05 that I'll miss an MFF, but I've only been to AC one year. I intend to be at FC this year for the first time. I have yet to have a con be OTHER than massively fun and awesome, and I think cons alone would almost be enough reason to stay in the fandom if all other motivations left.
*Do you go to local meetups(bowling, public outings...etc)?
It's been my experience that local meetups, unless you happen to live in a really cool area, are FAR more hit-or-miss than online or long-distance meetups. You tend to end up more with a raw ratio of cool folks to weirdos, where drive-to-meets are more selective about who and not so much about where. Local meets are good for finding cool people near you to hang out with, but not so good in my experience for hanging out in general.
*Have you ever attended a furry party? If no, would you attend one?
Yes, and yes. It was okay; it was a somewhat more selective gathering of locals, and there were some pretty neat people there, but I wasn't very familiar with more than one or two of them. That made it a bit awkward.
ONLINE
*Have you ever met up with a fur you talked to online?
I've met up with MOST of them!
*What furry websites do you attend?
FA's the big one. I think you can almost count LiveJournal these days.
*What non furry websites do you frequent?
LiveJournal, and my family keeps pestering me to get a FaceBook, so I'll probably be there too in a bit. I also periodically haunt DailyKos.
*Has the fandom done anything for you that you're thankful for? Has it taught you anything or brought you anything you treasure greatly?
It's introduced me to some wonderfully cool people, and more than anything else I've been a part of in my life has kept me moving and motivated. It's brought me out of my shell in a lot of ways, and taught me that it's okay to do the little crazy things that make you happy but are not otherwise considered sane.
EenyuWolf, because she's cool. Seriously, I've met her. And no, not even the mighty white gryphon can resist the sweeping sensation that is The Furry Meme.*Are you a furry?
Yes.
*If you have a Spouse/SO - Is he/she a furry too?
I haven't got either one. I will say this, though: she would have to be nuts enough to be a furry to be up for serious consideration!
*How long have you been in the community?
Uh...wow, little over ten years now.
*How did you find furry?
I ran across it on a mostly unrelated random internet search, and then got stuck surfing all this cool art. What cemented it was also finding Watts Martin's excellent short novels about the same time, which I then devoured during every available spare moment I had for a few weeks.
*What's your reason for furry (what interested you to get into the community)?
The people, and the vast amounts of creativity. I have never seen another group of people anywhere in the world that was this creative.
*What's Furry to you?
This is really hard to answer. I think it's probably safest to say it's the culture surrounding the art.
*If someone found out you're a furry and asked you about it how would you respond?
That would depend on who it was! If it were somebody I didn't think was part of the fandom, by tradition, I'd lock up like a deer in the headlights. This is mostly because the only time it's happened recently it was a couple of /b/tard coworkers who hit it on a shot in the dark. I really have no interest in becoming an item of derision in my workplace, particularly since it's currently not one I can leave if I want.
Outside of that scenario, the response would be something more like "Yeah, actually, I am. And depending on where you heard of furries, no, I'm not like that. Neither are most of the people I know."
If it were another furry, the response would be way, way more enthusiastically yes.
*What are your favorite aspects of our community?
The way it IS a community, and the fact that there's peer pressure within it to do something creative.
*Do you use any furry terms? (i.e. yiff, paws, murr?)
Every once in a great while. If I'm speaking in a quasi-IC setting, yes, sometimes.
*What do you wish furry was NOT associated with?
Publicly? Sex. It's not that I don't like sex in the fandom - quite the opposite, in fact - just that publicly, it seems to be about ALL we're associated with. This whole thing is just far too cool to be relegated exclusively to the closet.
*How strongly do you feel about someone bashing the community as a whole?
Most answers I've seen are along the lines of "we bring it on ourselves." I think that about sums it up for me, too.
*How strongly do you feel about anyone bashing you yourself for your interest based on the media's aspect of what furry is?
It won't surprise most people to know that this can get me pretty aggravated - more aggravated the more closed-minded the basher is. People can get a little crazy and a little deaf that way.
*We all know furries have a lot of sexual aspects in this fandom, What's your opinion on it?
We're a subculture born of the internet, and it's a well-known fact that The Internet is For Porn. It shouldn't be awfully surprising, but I do wish people wouldn't keep dragging their fetishes out with them when they represent the fandom.
PERSONAL
*What is/are your fursona(s)?
Big white shapeshifter gryphon (who doesn't shapeshift much). Quadrupedal, answers to Archai or Arc (but not Arch! It's pronounced with a hard C!).
*Do you have any fetishes that pertain to the fandom?
It is my strongly held opinion that there are no fetishes that pertain to the fandom with the exception of fursuit sex, so no. Everything else we collectively are into has analogs in purely human porn. Oh, wait, I guess there's anthro/human pairings. That would make it yes, then.
*If you could magically morph into your fursona would you?
Yes.
*Do you believe you have a spirit animal?
If I do, it likes to dress up like a human.
*What other fanbases/groups are you a part of?
I'm a car geek and a part-time plane nut and an armchair engineer.
*Anthro/Feral, Therian or Kemonomimi (Not a furry, just a human with animal ears and a tail)?
A group of nouns with a question mark does not a question make. Geez, this one's retarded. Uh, therians can be super weird, but some of them are neat.
*Are you a fursuiter? If yes, how many do you own? If No, do you ever plan on being a suiter?
No, none, and yes, respectively.
*How many of your friends are furry?
Most of them.
*How many pets do you own, if any?
None. Being military and single makes it hard to own a pet.
*Aside from furry what other interests do you have?
I think we covered this one already.
*Are you confident enough in yourself to say that you're a fur, no matter what the media says?
Yes and no. I've "come out" to friends of mine that I was reasonably sure wouldn't freak out, and that has yet to go badly. Generally I'll self-ID to just about anyone inside the fandom because there's a much lower chance they're going to have a drastically different idea of what the fandom's about than mine; outside the fandom I'm a little more careful, because saying "hey I'm a furry" has a much higher chance of making someone think I boink animals and/or want to have sex with mascots.
MEETUPS
*Do you attend any cons? If no, would you attend any cons? If yes, which cons have you been to?
Yes, yes, and MFF and AC. Actually, this'll be the first year since '05 that I'll miss an MFF, but I've only been to AC one year. I intend to be at FC this year for the first time. I have yet to have a con be OTHER than massively fun and awesome, and I think cons alone would almost be enough reason to stay in the fandom if all other motivations left.
*Do you go to local meetups(bowling, public outings...etc)?
It's been my experience that local meetups, unless you happen to live in a really cool area, are FAR more hit-or-miss than online or long-distance meetups. You tend to end up more with a raw ratio of cool folks to weirdos, where drive-to-meets are more selective about who and not so much about where. Local meets are good for finding cool people near you to hang out with, but not so good in my experience for hanging out in general.
*Have you ever attended a furry party? If no, would you attend one?
Yes, and yes. It was okay; it was a somewhat more selective gathering of locals, and there were some pretty neat people there, but I wasn't very familiar with more than one or two of them. That made it a bit awkward.
ONLINE
*Have you ever met up with a fur you talked to online?
I've met up with MOST of them!
*What furry websites do you attend?
FA's the big one. I think you can almost count LiveJournal these days.
*What non furry websites do you frequent?
LiveJournal, and my family keeps pestering me to get a FaceBook, so I'll probably be there too in a bit. I also periodically haunt DailyKos.
*Has the fandom done anything for you that you're thankful for? Has it taught you anything or brought you anything you treasure greatly?
It's introduced me to some wonderfully cool people, and more than anything else I've been a part of in my life has kept me moving and motivated. It's brought me out of my shell in a lot of ways, and taught me that it's okay to do the little crazy things that make you happy but are not otherwise considered sane.
