What you see is as close to what you get as I know how to show you.

[rax]

As I recently mentioned, I'm going to be at Anthrocon this week. One of the things that people do at Anthrocon is commission badges of their fursonas --- it's a big enough social thing that the Anthrocon website has a primer on doing it, and most people you see wandering around are wearing badges that mostly cover their official badge, depicting their fursona [0] in some manner of splendor or adorability. It's a really cool tradition, and a great way for artists to pay their way to the convention, and an opportunity for people to support their favorite artists, whether they be old favorites ("Oh my god I recognize that style from printing out pictures on yerf in high school to piss off the computer lab supervisor") or new. There's only one problem: I don't actually have a fursona.

(If you've known me since, oh, say, 2000, and you're saying "Wait, what?" bear with me here for a while.)

For the non-furries in the room, a fursona is something between an aspect of self and a mask you wear while in furry spaces (cons, MUCKs, conversations, parties at my house, whatever). For some people it's "this is my identity! I am a sparkly blue cat with the following facial pattern! I have the following backstory and magical powers and I always wear a bowler hat!" while for others it's "this is my character, who I pretend to be in alternate spaces and have fun with." Some people have one, some people have more than one, and some people... like me, these days... really don't have any.

Oh, I used to have more than one! In high school [1] when I had this general sense of "this identity is clearly not right, but I don't know what is" this fascinating furry thing gave me an opportunity to try on different identities for size. I tried a bunch of things, a couple in person (inasmuch as you can pretend to be a fox in person, which is a surprising amount if the people around you are inclined to be nice about it), a few more online, a couple only in my head. (For a while in high school I imagined an aspect of myself as a six-inch blue catgirl named Random. That's your Useless Rax Fact for the day.) These were all useful for me in the process of becoming the person I wanted to be --- they let me try out different ways of acting, of perceiving, of thinking, of being perceived. And eventually I ended up ... just me.

I like to put on cat ears or wear a fox tail, sometimes, and enjoy the differences in all of those things I wrote about up there, but I don't think of myself as a different person, or even a different aspect of person. I'm just Rachel wearing cat ears, like I could be Rachel wearing a power suit or Rachel wearing jewelry. When I went to Anthrocon last year, I had a blast and a half, but one of the things that was uncomfortable was people asking me my name and "what I was." I would respond "Rachel!" and they would say, almost universally, "But what's your furry name?" [2] "Still Rachel." "OK, what do you look like?" I want to respond I look like this dammit, do you know how much work it took me to look like this. But they have no idea, so I usually just kind of shrug my shoulders. This makes commissioning badges difficult. :)

I've actually considered developing a fursona or two just so I can get in on this awesome art scene. Having the username "raxvulpine" a bunch of places makes furries (reasonably!) assume fox, which (unreasonably!) makes some of them assume that I will be willing to sleep with them. (The furry conception of foxes is frustratingly all yiff and no Reynard. [3]) I'm sort of tempted to pick some animal with aggressively non-sexual stereotypes, build a character around it, and work from there, except I have tons of fox and cat costume pieces already and I don't really want to put a lot of effort into being that woodchuck chick. ...Probably.

Someone I was hanging out with last year suggested I should just commission badges of random things, and it was more fun that way. I discovered myself to be too shy to actually do this, last year. I should do it anyway this year. Suggestions for random things I should ask for are greatly appreciated!

(Random aside: As I was writing this Cassandra handed me a piece of paper from a pile of stuff she was sorting where I had scrawled "Furries don't want to pass, but they can't help it" along with a bunch of Race for the Galaxy scores. Make of this what you will, I'm out of analysis for the evening.)

[0] Sometimes, plural. Fursonas? Fursonae? Just fursona again? I DON'T KNOW.

[1] When I wasn't taking advantage of there being time for Klax.

[2] I suppose I could say "Rax," but apparently there's another furry Rax, and after the first couple of times I was introduced as "Not that one!" I sorta backed off introducing myself that way. :)

[3] And no abnegation, and no Aesop, and no Stephen Dedalus, and... Seriously, where does this all foxes are in it only for the sex thing come from, and can I stop it? There are so many better bad assumptions to make about foxes!

Comments

[jld]

and I don't really want to put a lot of effort into being that woodchuck chick.

But if you do, we may finally discover the answer to that famous question: How much brick would a woodchuck chick chip if a woodchuck chick could chip brick?

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

[2] Yeah, seriously. Goodwin had tried to introduce me to you and Cassandra a while before we got to know y'all through Bill, and I assumed you were the other Rax and just completely blew off the suggestion.

[3] I am afraid I am not helping the 'foxes are only for sex' thing lately.

[rax.livejournal.com]

[2] That's... really unfortunate. I know basically nothing about this person! I'm glad we eventually met up despite the namespace collision. :)

[eredien]

Ask for a Klax badge. Or a Klax/Timecube badge.
Or a Joyce badge. Or a muted posthorn badge.

Re footnote 3: Legions of fox furs have been complaining about the yiffy fox stereotype for 10+ years. If anyone can stop it, it's you...but I won't bet on you. Good luck!

[rax.livejournal.com]

I could totally ask people to draw fox lines from various fictions I am fond of and refuse to provide any further context!!!

"On a heath beneath winking stars a fox, red reek of rapine in [her] fur, with merciless bright eyes"

"The red fox, the vixen / dancing in the half light among the junipers"

I'll have to flip through Sacred Book of the Werewolf and pick out a description or two that I like.

[kelkyag]

Pick some deliberate aspects of "I look like this", and give them as attributes to apply to a semi-randomly selected list of animals? Pink-streaked hair and pink almost-rectangular glasses, on an oyster, baraccuda, dragonfly, grasshopper, poison dart frog, iguana, terrier, llama, elephant?

[rax.livejournal.com]

OYSTER <3 This is one of the many reasons you are awesome.

[weirdquark]

The d8 Angel from Eva?

[weirdquark]

Although, seriously, why not treat "what are you" the same way as you did gender in your FAQ and when people ask what you are, say "awesome"?

[mmsword.livejournal.com]

Ramiel looks gorgeous in the Eva 2.0 release...

[oonh.livejournal.com]

"My fursona is a datacenter" works about as well as me saying "my spirit animal is a cough drop". (which I said in jest a few years back and seem to have stuck with")

[rax.livejournal.com]

Well, I know some programmable robot catgirls. They could presumably moonlight as data centers... although that's not quite the same thing. :)

[krinndnz.livejournal.com]

Before getting too far, I'm going to plead with you to stop encouraging people to use the hideous neologism "fursona," it's already damn bad enough and the word "avatar" covers the concept with better precision and better recognition and now I'm going to read the rest of this post before I start frothing at the mouth.

[rax.livejournal.com]

An avatar is something from Pocahontas 2; fursona's what I've been calling it since the 90s. :P

[plymouth.livejournal.com]

wait, what? But fursona and avatar mean very different things.

[postrodent.livejournal.com]

I hate "fursona" too but I feel that "avatar" isn't quite right either, largely because of other cultural documents that have used it. I just use "character" or "persona". And try to silence "purrsona" type comments with a frosty glare, although it doesn't always work when I'm already wearing cat ears. :)

[bookofjude.livejournal.com]

I don't honestly remember enough of what names and animals I went by during my teenage dalliances in furry fandom to actually stipulate any type of current applicable fursonality.

I wonder how popular elephants are?

[rax.livejournal.com]

I have not run into many, but I believe there are a few around.

[wormulus.livejournal.com]

For a while when I really resented having to have badges that say "Hello, my name is..." on them, I would just draw exclamation points in a very colorful way. Or, like, a star. Which is my graphic equivalent of just saying I am exciting and awesome. Hi, I am !!!

And, you know, not that I've ever really drawn furry art, but I would love to draw something of/for you if you ever wanted. All you have to do is ask!

[rax.livejournal.com]

That would make an awesome name badge! And I can see you rocking it very easily.

I will ponder this offer and think of something, because that is generous and awesome and I would not want to turn it down. :) Thank you!

[sovay]

Sometimes, plural. Fursonas? Fursonae? Just fursona again? I DON'T KNOW.

If it's being treated like persona, the plural would be fursonae. I know it's not actually Latin, it's portmanteau, but fursonas just looks even more wrong.

makes furries (reasonably!) assume fox, which (unreasonably!) makes some of them assume that I will be willing to sleep with them. (The furry conception of foxes is frustratingly all yiff and no Reynard. [3])

What, seriously? (I think of them first as tricksters; which are often highly sexual, but that's not their primary defining characteristic. Someone fails mythology forever.) You have sufficient powers of awesome; change the stereotype!

Suggestions for random things I should ask for are greatly appreciated!

A keyboard.

[rax.livejournal.com]

Seriously, just appearing on furry forums and such causes people to be like "Hey babe, what kinda vixen are you? WINK WINK NUDGE NUDGE I WANT TO TOUCH YOU."

I really like Pelevin's take on fox sexuality, the whole "Yes I will let you think you are getting what you want but actually I am over here filing my claws. You are gross."

Keyboard makes me think I should take one of my old Model M keyboards and borrow the keycaps to spell "RACHEL" and use that for something.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Asking for obscure mythological beings is a great way to a) meet cool people and b) sort out the annoying ones Really Quickly. (I have found that, without exception, the people in furry fandom who tell me It Is Not Okay To Be Not A Real Animal turn out to be assholes in other ways too.)

[rax.livejournal.com]

Hmmm! I am not actually up on my obscure mythological beings but I bet I could come up with something. (Maybe there is an appropriately ridiculous NetHack or Crawl monster I could use.)

[iankeith.livejournal.com]

One word.

Vuvuzela.

That is all.





Actually I lied. Pluralizing fursona does sound like it'd end up 'fursonae'. Also, you don't just have to get badges commissioned. You can get art done in general, too -- bringing a sketchbook and having it at the ready in the Alley is a great idea. They even sell them there, if you forget. But if you're looking for a badge -- well, me, I love to give artists some creative license. I love telling people "phoenix-fox" and seeing what they produce; I've gotten some REALLY neat works that way.

It's all down to what you're comfy with and what sounds fun. Don't hesitate to go to the out-of-the-ordinary...maybe most people are sick of drawing Generic Wolf Number Eight!

Anyway, hope to see you there. We might have to do lunch, or a drink, or something.

[rax.livejournal.com]

OH GOD VUVUZELA

The sketchbook thing has always seemed cool, I just... don't know what to ask for, and don't really have a good way of displaying sketchbooks in my house. Maybe I will shadow someone who does the sketchbook thing and watch what they do. Maybe it will even be you! "By imitating their behaviors, I can convince the humans that I am one of them." Well, maybe not humans.

I am totally cool with lunch, drink, what have you. Assuming your contact information hasn't changed, I still have it, and mine hasn't changed. We ... can do this thing. :)

[buggrit-1979.livejournal.com]

An animal that hasn't been overly sexualized? Badger. Not to mention that a cat suit can easily be adapted into a badger suit. I'm not sure your personality is grumpy enough to cover being a badger, but I'll keep brainstorming.

[xlerb.livejournal.com]

An animal that hasn't been overly sexualized? Badger.

Once upon a time, for reasons mostly outside the scope of this post, I gave the string “badger” to Google Images and got at least one item of furry porn. Possibly even on the first page.

[q10.livejournal.com]

could you just commission a relatively accurate/realistic portrait of you as you actually look? possibly as you actually look while wearing ears?

[sprrwhwk.livejournal.com]

Commissioning a self-portrait seems reasonable.

Though perhaps that's not so useful at forestalling the question as something clearly non-representational.

i,i "My fursona is James Joyce."

...i,i "My fursona is BRIAN BLESSED." (what? he's furry!)

I presume that question gets used as much as a conversation-starter as a tribal identity marker (cf. "Where did/do you live?" among MIT people) -- something you can ask of new people to pretty reliably start to get to know them. I don't know what you could say to have the intended conversation-starting effect. Possibly just turning the question around quickly gets you on to other topics. (A: "What's your fursona?" Rachel: "I don't really have one. What's yours, if you have one?")

[rax.livejournal.com]

It is sort of like the MIT "Where did you live?" in fact. Maybe I should just answer the question "What is your fursona?" with "East Campus, Senior Haus, and Fenway" and answer "Where did you live at MIT?" with "I don't know, some sort of foxish-cattish thing."

Except I don't think anyone not reading this journal will get it. :P

[lhexa.livejournal.com]

Regarding commissions: I have the same problem of lacking a fursona, and get around it by instead commissioning pictures of friends (and, on one occasion, random strangers). You could try that.

Regarding loaded questions: I thought of roughly the same thing when reading your response to a survey question "Are you taken?" a few posts back: yes, people frequently couch their questions in restrictive or misleading concepts, but when they ask such questions they are almost always well-meaning. It's not worthwhile to give a snide answer, or a lecture deconstructing the question (which I don't think you have, but you've probably felt the temptation). Instead I look at the illocutionary force of the question (or the performative aspect, if you're not up on your Austin), and try to directly address the curiosity or concern expressed by the question despite its bad form.

My response to the standard furry question is "Fox or fisher, depending on mood." I don't think I've ever been asked what I look like.

Regarding fox stereotypes: I deal with this by hitting or biting the people who invoke that stereotype, depending on how close I am to them. At the same time, I've come to view it as a devolution or degeneration of the trickster aspect (as some other commenters have theorized), which isn't as worrying as a complete fabrication would have been.