Penguins and Fuzzies! (Er, Furries -- #74042)

[wryness]

(Yes, I'm not sure if this thread title could sound any cuter than that. I realized afterward that I needed to write "furries" instead of "fuzzies," but the title was so darn cute I decided to leave the former word in.)

So, Mr. or Ms. Spheniscidae says that he/she/werf "identif[ies] as a penguin." This made my brain (after a couple of detours) snap over to the concept of "furries." I have known about the trope of humanoid animals for quite some time, thanks to the delightful time-sucking black hole that is TV Tropes, but I only recently knew/realized that there was a fandom for this sort of thing. (I teach school, and one of my students recommended Nordguard to me and confessed he is a "furry.")

I think the idea of "furry" fiction is kind of interesting, actually, as long as people don't go overboard with it. Do any of you know anyone who is a "furry?" Or, odder yet, do you know anyone who in a mostly-sane fashion truly identifies himself/herself as an animal?

[mic0]

I don't know anyone myself, but a friend and I were talking about "otherkin" yesterday which is a similar concept. I don't know what to think about it, really.

[Giovanni Schwartz]

I think a couple years back, there were a couple questions on the board about furries. And they were answered, and had a couple comments, and someone fessed up to being one, and I was kind of like "You're all weird."

[vorpal blade]

When I read that werf identified as a penguin I thought of the word "therian," short for "therianthrope." I talked about it in another thread http://www.theboardboard.org/viewtopic. ... &start=240

Apparently some people do believe they are animal spirits trapped in human bodies. You can read about them at http://therian-guide.com/

[Giovanni Schwartz]

This came up on Digg today (via not-Google Reader): http://www.psmag.com/culture/my-life-as ... ian-64032/