Interesting Furry question...

Ok, so I spend alot of time wandering around SL and checking out what other people do in their spare time. Of course, in doing this, I have ran into alot of Furs. Probably hundreds of them by now.

I noticed something fairly quickly: There are some similarities in the body types of Furs. Meaning, I see alot of the same species of animals.

Such as:

-Foxes

-Avians (birds)

-Rats

-Rats with wings

-etc.

So, my question being thus: While I have no intention of becoming a Fur, I am really intreigued by the numbers of certain av species. So, is there some significance to what species a Fur chooses to be, or is it just an appearance thing?

Choosing ones natural sl furry is same as choosing ones sl avatar.

My main avatar is race god because i have same traits as any god out there.

Yet my furry is a wolf. Why? Because i like socializing and meeting people but basically i need alone time even in sl. I have traits of the wolf therefore when my main avatar decides to done the furry it is the wolf.

Like anything else about furrydom, it can be a lot of things.

Some people change avatar as easily as I change clothes, which is pretty damned easy. They aren't tied to a specific avatar, they just like the general concept.

Some people like to choose "powerful" animals... kitsune, dragons, etc.

Others like "mystic" animals... dragons, kitsune, gryphons, phoenix, etc.

Others have a specific preferences, but it may be narrow or exact... It could be all felines, or only siamese, for example.

Some people choose because they feel a connection to the animal... Sometimes this is spiritual, other times its just that an animal exemplified a trait they admire... pride, vanity, grace, cunning, whatever.

Other times its just a personal preference... Maybe a person just likes dogs, or dragons, or whatever.

In short, like everything in furrydom, there's no easy answer

There are also a lot more free or cheap wolf or fox avatars out there. If you want something more exotic, like an anthro bluejay, or a white tiger, you need to buy an expensive avatar, or learn to make it.

Among furrs I know who can be whatever they wish, it's usually a sense of personal identification with some percieved traits of that species.

For me, I like canids in general, and foxes and wolves in particular. It's just what 'feels right' for me.

I'm not furry per se, but I can be found in a furry-ish av as often as not, and as mentioned - the whole "shapeshifting" aspect is something that attracted me to SL. I have avatars that are very definitely "me" and those that are more or less a costume, but I certainly have a lot of them.

I'm definitely on the "clothes" end of the spectrum. I don't change so much, but I do like the mutability of form.

Well I think that clears up alot of my question. I was figuring the whole thing to be some mystical Zodiac thing, guess I think too much. =)

I was actually a bit surprised when I joined an SL group named Furry Vermin (which has an awesome clubhouse in Murinata that I'm definitely not advertising for right now ) and found that I was just about the only member who actually owned any rats.
In fact, from most AVs I've seen, a lot of SL Furries' choice of a rat avatar deals more with identifying with the archetype of "Rat."

Knowing my sweet little playful girls I've actually re-skinned the eyes on my rat avatar because the original calculating gaze didn't feel at all like a rat to me. I can identify with my ratties as slightly lazy, playful, cautious, and even curious, but I don't identify with the rat stereotypes (Templeton in Charlotte's Web) of calculating, grumpy, devious, or disease bearing.

I would say the Furry interest in a particular animal is often (Not always, I certainly cannot speak for anything but my own observations, which do not include actually talking to people. Shy like a rat, remember? ) rather a feeling of kinship or a wish to be like the archetype of an animal, not the animal itself.
Animal archetypes seem to be able to be both factual or anthropomorphous. To say a wolf is a loyal animal would place human guidelines on it's behavior which I do not think we can do scientifically. That certainly doesn't keep us from thinking “that guy is brave as a lion!” as though the lion was consciously acting in a brave fashion.
This isn't to say that if a person has a spiritual connection to an animal I feel that a connection to an archetype is any less valid than to actual characteristics of an animal.

Also, as has been mentioned a spiritual connection isn't necessary to enjoy being a Furry in SL. If putting on the form of a lion can help a player feel imbued with the bravery of a lion, or the form of a fox the sexuality it is archetyped, then the transition to explore outside your normal boundaries is that much easier. Everyone knows, cat girls (Or at least girls in catsuits?) are much sexier than real girls. Dur.

The simplification in what kinds of breeds we have in SL can stem from the kind of archetypes these animals possess. Cats and foxes are considered sensual by a good deal of people, though this doesn't mean someone can't find attributes of camels sexy. It can mean that it's less likely to find a person dressed as a camel for this reason. ( As I type this there is a camel out there getting ready to flame me. )

We also tend to select animals we like. I would imagine a great deal of us do not have exotic pets, like the people in my rat group that were like “Uh, rats... no but I've got a cat.”

Could you bring my cat back to life please?

I play a unicorn in SL...took a horse avatar and modified it. There are actually people who sell specialized horns with scripted sparklies and such like (though I got rid of those, myself...I have my limits).

Why a unicorn? They look cool. Why an anthropomorphic unicorn and not a four-legged type? Well, beyond the obvious scripting and animation problems, I like having fingers and opposable thumbs, even if those aren't technically necessary in SL.

In my rummaging around SL, I have found that having several avatars allows better interaction with various people.

In my primary avatars, I have:
- Foolish Frost human
(basic business avatar made not to scare off the more down-to-earth SL users.)
- Foolish Frost Satyr
(My personal avatar to play around in. Used most often around my home sim.)
- Foolish Celestial Lion Furry
(My modded Lion avatar. Allows me to run about the more furry areas without breaking local taboos.)

I have a few others, but those are my favorites.


And why a lion? Well, they may be powerful, untamed beasts, but as my wife Botany says, "Fits you. Lazy and pushy. Perfect!"

Heh, my chinese zodiac is the Rooster. Woooo! What an exciting Avatar that is! "Hi everybody! I'm a Cock!"

Haven't seen a Pig avatar yet?

Personally, I chose an odd hybrid. Mine is a Pumeleon; a puma/chameleon hybrid. Pumas nor chameleons have any special signifigance to me, other than I freaking love pumas. The chameleon was because I wanted a bit of flavor added to my tawny brown. As long as I can remember, I've loved the clashing, yet blending effect that goldish-brown and bright green have offered.

I've had this ever since I became a furry, I don't intend on changing it. It's my online identity now. Google "Pumeleon" and you get a large amount of results. I don't think I could afford to change it. Especially since I'm semifamous in the techno world as DM Ashura's webmaster.

For me, I chose the rat simply because it seems the most relatable avitar I seen. Plus it is very well done, allows for human hair to poke through, moddable, and not very common. I occasionaly go as a dragon as well (The smaller luskwood one, not the huge WereHouse ones) when I want to be something a bit more "confident". Now, the question is, does a unshaven human avi count as a furry?

I am what I am. And that is who I am. A cybernetic velociraptor, and I usually traipse about in something of my own creation.

I guess I'm an oddity even among the furs, very few 'techfurs' out there. Save for a few I know running around in one of my mecha avs, or running around with one of the MechMinds avatars.

At least with my mecha stuff, it kina has a unifying factor. If you're not into furry, but into mecha, hey it's cool. So yeah, I run around as my Iron Raptor self, or one of the many mecha / transformer avs I've tracked down. Though lately I've been running around in my Bio CyberRaptor avatar.

hmm I'm not the type to think of my Zebra striped gun toting, vampire hunting Bunny self as much more than something I thought looked neat after I accidentally stuck the worng skin on it one day. The overall persona and memes behind the character are also just things I thought I'd like to try out. And like any good idea They're spreading.


As for why others look a certain way it depends on svereal factor like how easily available a certain species is, how it's often seen by the public at large(for example my sister in game plays does of the deer and lapine variety since she tends to be shy, nervous, and quiet and those types of animals suit her better than a tigress or other predator would), or just because they find the darn things cute.

Personally I have most of my clothing sets set for my most infamous shape, especially if they're copiable, but maintain several folders for variant fur shapes, mechs, clothes and one or two 'normal' AVs, and one for my dragon forms. This let's me swap out fron naked to armored for combat in seconds and makes RPing a sometimes insane shapeshifter easier.

OT: I really want a chipmunk avatar do any of you know where to get one?

I've got a chipmunk in the works. Not sure if anyone else has one. I have squirrels available now.

As far as the topic goes, I've noticed a lot of furries don't really know much about the animals they're pretending to be. It's seems like it's all skin deep. They just like an animal and go with it. Kinda like some people would like to be big and buff, so they have big muscled avatars, or others really like vampires so they have vampire avs.

I'm pretty sure one of the regulars at Luskwood is, or was, putting together a squirrel avatar. That's as close as it gets to chipmunks I believe at the moment.

It's good to hear about another cougar in SL, I haven't actually seen any in my travels.

During my brief stint with the furry subculture, they were almost all foxes. No, seriously, I’m not kidding, like 80%-90% foxes… Of course, it was all text based, ect… I was a color-changing chameleon-fox, because I wasn’t cool and entrepreneurial enough to not be a fox, but wanted to be something different. Yiff.

You mean pidgeons?

yeah. we're working on squirrels. I've been involved in furry for about 12 years and I still can't tell you why people choose what they do.

And foxes are actually not the most popular in SL.

Cats are! ^.^


Actually while I state it in inflammatory jest, it's probably quite true. I've seen a recent upsurge in the bat population, but I see feline avatars all over the place in SL. Foxes are, of course, a close second if they aren't first.

I want a numbat avatar! And a fanaloka! And a tayra! Anything that people have to google for before they can figure if it's accurate or not.

Lions are my spirit guide. I have a lion av and a tiger one (my sl fiances nickname for me is her tiger)..both basic, a skin, tail and head, leaving me able to use any clothes or such I want, minus prim hair

I have a ed 209 on the nonfurry angle, thinking of getting shockblast or devestator...(definately a pennywise)

It's the "cartoon animals" versus "real animals" thing.

It's not that they don't know, it's that they don't care. My avs tend to have a build that's appropriate for the species, and I find people who do things like buffing up an otter avatar really disconcerting.