I love otakukin. I can’t remember when I first heard of them. Just when ya think the human mind can’t get any stranger . . .
I’m willing to believe there are furries who don’t go to conventions and pretend to have animal spirits, but I have a hard time believing there’s a dude who bangs his girlfriend in a wolf costume who is normal.
Uh, what? He was first furry WAY before that. AND, he was furry in the only movie in which he was front and center with lines.
As for the topic, I think of course you’re gonna look down on furries if you think that it’s mostly, or even half, about sex or spirituality. But from what I can tell, at least from my friends in the fandom, it’s not, at least not for a majority (though that’s a total WAG, pun not intended).
It should have been obvious from the context that I was referring to “furry” as in “furry fandom” and not as in “possessing fur-like hair”.
Your clarification has confused me.
Nightcrawler possesses fur-like hair, but otherwise has no resemblance to an animal - next to his swashbuckling personality, teleportation and demonic appearance, his fur is practically an afterthought. He’s the second type of “furry” but not the first.
An anthromorphic lizard does not possess fur but might be heavily defined by the traits of the base animal. He would be the first type of “furry” but not the second.
Understand now?
I see your point with Nightcrawler (I’m not even sure if he’s really “furry” - in either sense of the word - in canon. In the movie, he had blue skin, not fur), but the guy you were responding to was talking about Beast. I’m hard pressed to see an argument that this guy is some how “less furry,” even in a fandom sense, than she is.
It also seems to me that the definition of whether a particular character is “furry” or not is something decided by people within that fandom, and not imposed by some external taxonomy. Do furries consider Nightcrawler “one of theirs?”
waves paw in the air
I’m an anthromorphic in Second Life. Think catwoman with tiger fur. Second Life is a big chatroom and most people want to cyber as soon as they meet someone. I’m there because I have friends to chat with and I make money. (only about 300 a month, but I don’t work as hard as I could)
The reason I’m an anthro is because I’m too furry for humans and too human for furries. On those times that I go out dancing with my partner of over 4 years, I go human.
I couldn’t get it to load, but if it’s the chart I think it is…I occupy every single level of it!
Very true; I’ve been a furry since fur was new (I came within an ace of naming it! Alas, I was calling it “Fuzzy Fandom” in that dim, dim time, and so the palm, according to furry historian Fred Patten, goes to Australian fan Craig Hilton. I missed fame by that much!) I don’t do furry costuming. (I do some other costuming, so I’m still definitely a nerd!)
To me, it’s an art style. It’s like Art Deco, or Picasso-derived cubism, or WWII Bomber Nose-Art. It’s a kind of art that some people like, and other people don’t. It seems as absurd to go out of one’s way to hate furries as to hate Picasso fans. What a waste of time!
Disney’s Robin Hood was a big early influence on a lot of us! I was also given a huge nudge by Cordwainer Smith’s C’Mell. Also, the Egyptian Gods – Bast and Horus and all – were an inspiration to many. And, of course, the comics field got into it in a big way in the great Black and White Explosion of the 1980’s. (And Usagi Yojimbo is still going strong!)
Very true; I’ve never seen anyone turned away from a Furry Party at a convention for being too “into it.”
“Furry” is a vast, broad, diverse, intriguing sub-genre of the arts. If someone doesn’t like it, well, no big deal. I don’t like heavy metal rock and roll, but I don’t go around hating people who do like it!
Or, what could have been said just a few years ago:
I disagree. They aren’t unfairly misunderstood, because there’s not much to ‘misunderstand’ about goofballs who get off by looking at people of the same sex.
And they aren’t unfairly maligned, because… there’s nothing unfair about it.
Either what people get off on is none of your business, or it’s okay to be a homophobe. Take your pick. You can’t have both.
I’m not a furry in any way, but I love furries. I find them highly amusing and fun to be around. I have met the “normal” types and the uber-fetishy, full lifestyle types, and everything in between. They all get my seal of approval.
I have friends who are furries, one has her furry persona based on some cartoon mouse that dresses like I Dream of Jeannie, can’t remember the name of the original toon offhand. She already has her fur suit, I just make costuming for a roughly 5’6" female mouse 
I don’t claim to understand it, nor do I understand my fellow historical re-enactors who seem to feel like they are their personas, or people who want to be any sort of fictional character. I don’t wear fangs, or my renaissance gowns other than at events unless it is Halloween …
To quote the wiki about Tigra…
In other words Tigra isn’t just an anthromorphic cat in the same way Disney’s Robin Hood is an anthromorphic fox, the character is practically a member of the furry fandom herself.
Beast, OTOH, is a biophysicist who accidentally made himself look like a monster - not a catman or a wolfman or any other animalman, but a hunched, blue-furred man with teeth and claws.
I’m still not seeing the hate.
“Thinks something is funny” =/= hate.
I’ve seen plenty of people express hatred for furries, often quite extreme. Some I think are joking, but some I think aren’t. I think you’ll probably see the level of hatred openly expressed die down when one of the people who aren’t joking shows up at a furry convention and kills a half dozen or so people.
I dispute this. It was all the rage to openly call black people subhuman in 1930s Germany, but they really went to town on the Jews. Choose any era prior to the last 30/40-or-so years and you’ll find that open hatred of certain groups did nothing to diminish the vicious unpleasantness towards others. And vice versa.
I think the hate for furries stems from the fact that some of them have a huge persecution complex about it, and they can be really vocal about it.
Realistically, nobody cares about furries one way or another. But they often make themselves a huge target about it. Often, people get teased not for what they like, but how open they are about things in socially inapprpriate settings.
oooookay. If you say so.
OK, hey now. I mean, sure we all have unkempt beards and popping chest hair that would make a Greek salesman weep with envy. But to equate Jews with furries? Well that’s just going too far.