treehouse/content/furry.dj

title = "furry! —w—"
id = "b?01K05F3E3DN1PY9ZWN98ZE5HVV"
tags = ["all", "shower"]

+++

I love fur!
Did you know it's really pleasant to the touch?

If I could, I would actually hug out all the cats in the world.
Too bad there's so many it's kind of impossible, and also allergic complications.

But, fur.
It's nice.
I like it a lot.


## This dance

Realising my love of fur has been a huge source of internal conflicts for a long time.
When I first learned about the idea of _furries_, I was scared.

I was going through my middle school days at the time, and I wanted to fit in as much as I could.
To not lose friends.
To not stand out too much.

_You know what happens to people who stand out, don't you?
So keep your mouth shut, and fit in..._
is what I thought.

I was avidly scared of anime at the time.
It felt like a weird special interest thing, and from all I've heard of it, there was a _lot_ of lewd stuff.
I didn't want anything to do with that, so I started hating on anime and otaku culture.
Even though I found anime girls kinda cute.

Just to fit in.

The same thing happened with furries.
I got exposed to some lewd material while playing Geometry Dash levels, and it was enough to disgust me for good.
So that's how I also started hating on furries.

Even though a few days later I changed my mind, and found the concept really cute.

---

Months passed, and the beliefs that anime and furries were bad became engraved into my personality.

How could I change now?
My friends would hate me.
They'd feel betrayed.
So I kept my hate shields up.

But those fears started creeping up on me.
First, when I changed my friends group to one which had an otaku in it.
The guy was really nice.
He became my best friend by the end of middle school.

Leaving behind that old group of friends meant I had a chance to redeem myself and start watching anime.
Our school trip was coming up, and my friend proposed that we watch [「君の名は。」]{.nowrap} (_Your Name_).

I agreed, and a few weeks later I found myself in a room with a couple otakus, watching my first anime.
I was toes deep.
The water was warm.
I had friends by my side.
The ice around my heart melted a bit.

But not so much for furries.

---

Middle school ended, I parted ways with my friends group.
They went to a different high school than I did.
The time we had spent was some of the best time in my life, but it was time to say goodbye.

Say hi to high school, where largely nothing had changed, and I remained a furry in disguise.
It came and went, and soon enough I was 18 years old; old enough to look for a job.

Before I got hired though, I discovered A Hat in Time.
A game that taught me that it's okay to be childish and have a little fun, melting the ice around my heart a bit more in the process.

Fast forward a bit, about a year into the job---I decided to play that DELTARUNE game everyone's been so hyped up about.
And there, a cute lil' character was waiting for me patiently.

His name was Ralsei.

I fuckin'... I dunno, man.
This guy.
This fuckin' guy.
This cute lil' floofer.
What can I say?

A shy lil' goat boy.\
Scared of the world.\
With an iceberg of loneliness surrounding his heart.

Ralsei's character resonated with mine.
He was scared of being himself, and never had any friends.
I was scared of being myself, and never had True friends.

Then, by complete accident, I hammered the final nail into the coffin.
On the day the idea for this website sprouted into my mind, I found myself reading [a blog post from soatok](https://soatok.blog/2020/04/23/never-underestimate-the-furry-fandom/) about the furry fandom, and I was like... _of course._\
_Of course._\
_What the hell was I thinking._

Of course furries are fun.\
Of course you should come out of your little hiding spot, tell everyone you're a furry, own it, and be proud of it.\
What the hell have you been running away from?\
Have some fun in your life for once, you cowardly little boy.

My heart started screaming out for help.
And the power of fluffy boys shined within it.

---

I don't remember what my coming out as a furry looked like exactly.

All I remember is that I had an idea in my mind, for how to do it as subtly and gently as possible, to not scare myself away.
I drew an upside down pixel art hatted Ralsei.
He kinda didn't even resemble the real thing.
You had to look close, turn your head upside down...
but it was undeniably him.

I then started doing pixel art more regularly, to level up my drawing skills.
{-Because of course I was, and in fact, still _am_, too socially inept to ask an artist for a commission-}

I drew a couple more Ralseis, [including this fucking image LMAO](https://liquidev.net/syf/art/20230712_ralsei_sleeping.webp), and then finally, a *proper* hatless Ralsei face, right side up.
I set it as my profile picture, and it was out.

_I'm a furry, y'all!_ OwO


## is like a weapon

It would take me quite some time since then to come up with a fursona I could call my own, but at some point I settled for a [ragdoll](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragdoll).
I love cats, I love fur, what's more to want than to be one of the floofiest cats in the world?

Curious little observation, but it's actually kind of uncommon to see cat furries in the western world.
Makes my sona all the more unique!

Other than my love of cats, this choice _may_ have been influenced by my liking of Japanese-style furries (ケモノ---_kemono_)---where cat OCs are a lot more common.
I just find their more human-like faces a lot cuter, so naturally I'd want my fursona to have one.

---

You could also be wondering why the heck is my sona so... woman-like.
If I'm a _he/him_-type, why does it look like a such a _she/her_?

Thing is, I really don't like gender stereotypes.
Why is a guy that looks a bit womanly perceived as a weirdo?
He's doing no harm, so why are you giving him weird stares on the street?

Why can't I wear clothes that show off all the nice curves on my body, too?
Like overknee (aka programming) socks.
They're pretty cute if you match them up well with the rest of your outfit.

So riki is a pink, fluffy femboy.
Because fuck those stereotypes.


## of self-defence

There's actually another reason I like to wear a fursona online.

I've never really liked my body much.
As a child, my face looked... weirdly square, and Mom always had my hair cut real short, and that was enough to really dislike how I look.

I was also born with atopic dermatisis, which gave me horrible rashes and skin inflammations for the better part of my life.
Thankfully with some of the experimental meds I've been taking that's largely gone, but my skin still tends to be quite delicate.
And itchy.

Also, remember how I said I really like cats?\
But what if I told you... my allergies don't let me pet them much?

Cats that wander outside (like those at my parents' house) like to roll in dirt, and you can imagine how well that meshes with my itchy and delicate skin.
So I hardly ever get the chance to pet a cat (once in a blue moon when visiting my parents), and when I _do_, I have to be really careful not to get an allergic reaction.
Not fun.

So my fursona acts as a form of escape from that harsh reality.
On the internet, there is no atopic dermatisis or allergies to worry about, after all.

---

Also can I just say, human customisation options are so lame???

The hell do you mean I only get to pick my skin colour, hair colour, and eye colour, and that's it?
Where's the "fur" option with a full 3D coat colour painting tool?
And where do I switch those lame-ass human ears to big cute spiky ears, and also where's the tail option.

Please let me have cat features.
I look cuter that way.


## against the present, present tense

So that pretty much sums it up.

If you only skimmed this post, here's an AI summary for you:

> Something something cute, something something pink fluffy ragdoll femboy, something something please give many pets and hug very much.

_\*purrs smugly\*_

Have a very fluffy day! OwO