Furry subculture

[bill]

 

Furry seems to be a liability for a security clearance...

I would loooove to hear the reasoning behind that one.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

I would loooove to hear the reasoning behind that one.

I'm afraid your security clearance isn't high enough.

[bill]

Boxes, meanwhile, can go anywhere. 

[Imperial fox]

Boxes, meanwhile, can go anywhere.

as long as they have something in them...like mee.
*jumps out of box only to realize that he was fedexed to his archenemy*

back on subject...kinda
did any one see or hear about that one guy that whent as far as surgery to look cat like? i kinda remember it but details are sketchy i remember him getting surgery done on his ears, upper lip, and nose i believe.
so xze is going...leaving party
joking joking

[Xuzaf D]

Yeah...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fJG5kFNf-w

I've seen this person on Ripley's before, but this is all you tube seems to have.

Ripley's also had one guy who tattooed leopard spots on his body and lived alone and naked on some rock.

[Alondro]

It's odd... people like Lizardman may actually turn out to be the biggest benefit to furry, even though they don't consider themselves furry.  Lizardman has been on the Preston and Steve show several time, which is the biggest morning radio show in Philly.  They think he's cool!  And the guy's on tour with Amstead and everyone loves him!

Now, if the 'cool' crowd suddenly decide that though he's weird, he's cool... and their impression of him is that he's 'furry'... sudddenly the everyday furs who sport ears and a tail every now and then don't seem odd at all!

It only takes one well-placed celebrity to popularize something. 

[LionHeart]

...Ripley's also had one guy who tattooed leopard spots on his body and lived alone and naked on some rock.

His name is Tom Leppard. He lives alone on the Isle of Skye, and according to the Guinness Book of Records, he is the world's most tattooed man.

Pics, for those interested.

[Aridas]

What about that guy with the blue-puzzle-piece-looking tattoos everywhere? wasn't he the most tattooed man?

[Imperial fox]

It only takes one well-placed celebrity to popularize something. 

or alot of people that just do it every day, and it'll slowly catch on.
but the celebrity would boost it
*looks at piccies of guy with leopard patterned tattos*
*hide in terror*

[Stygian]

Boxes, meanwhile, can go anywhere. 

*Does the MGS box crawl*

I am not the box you're looking for!

*craaaawl...*

On another note, doing things like that to yourself instead of going all Dr.Moreau and for the full genetic reconfiguration is PERVERSE!

*craaaawl...*

[Alan Garou]

...Ripley's also had one guy who tattooed leopard spots on his body and lived alone and naked on some rock.

His name is Tom Leppard. He lives alone on the Isle of Skye, and according to the Guinness Book of Records, he is the world's most tattooed man.

Pics, for those interested.

Wouldn't getting those sting like all get out? And did you know that there are some people who have surgery to give themselves tails and fur? It doesn't work that well, though.

[Alondro]

The problem with artificially giving yourself tails and fur is biocompatibility and rejection.  These are different from small implants under the skin made of silicone or titanium, which generally don't move much if placed correctly and thus don't create much inflammation.  Fur and tails stick through and are always moving.  They act in the same manner as a splinter of wood or a tiny sliver of glass in your finger.  Eventually the tissue around them becomes chronically inflamed and they must be removed.  Also, the sites of entry are perfect for bacteria to get inside, especially when there's inflammation.

Genetics is useless too in an adult.  Intriducing and activating the proper genes in billions of cells is simply impossible with current technology and there's nothing in the works that will make it any easier for decades to come.

No, the best way to get fur and a tail is through tissue engineering of some of the subjects' farmed cells and then grafting the products.  So, for those who have the tens of millions of dollars it would cost to perform a complex project like that, have fun! 

[Imperial fox]

well yeah the grafting a tail to your @#$ would be imposible.
but i remember some weird documentary about geneticaly altering the egg and change the appearance of a person. thus to acheve a more...i can't exactly remember what he said. but it caught my atention.
any one else know what i'm talking about.

[RJ]

The only thing really possible to be able to get would be either pointed ears through plastic surgery, or horns grown through calcium injection/deposit thingies.

I imagine a tail would be really bothersome anyway.

[Tapewolf]

I imagine a tail would be really bothersome anyway.

Indeed.  I was trying to imagine how Jakob would sit in a sofa the other day.  It would suck - I can't think of any way he'd avoid squashing his tail unless all his chairs had a hole in the back like those tacky plastic ones you get at school.
A sofa would have a subtly different design to our (or indeed to the one the rats sit on in DMFA) to take it into account.

Then again I was wondering how much control a fur would have over their tail anyway - my dog certainly didn't seem to have much conscious control over hers, so it might simply wag or droop with their mood anyway.
I haven't read an enormous amount of furry writing, but most of the authors I've read on this form seem to be ignoring the tail completely.  I realised I was doing this too, hence my thought experiments with Jakob

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

it depends on how flexible the root of the tail is. Generally speaking, there's some space at the bottom of the spine, since people tend to slouch on couches, rather than sit upright.

In that case, the tail isn't going to cause problems. It's only if you put the base of your spine flat against the cushions, and even then, there's a small gap in the corner...

[Jigsaw Forte]

I imagine a tail would be really bothersome anyway.

Indeed.  I was trying to imagine how Jakob would sit in a sofa the other day.  It would suck - I can't think of any way he'd avoid squashing his tail unless all his chairs had a hole in the back like those tacky plastic ones you get at school.
A sofa would have a subtly different design to our (or indeed to the one the rats sit on in DMFA) to take it into account.

In encountering a similar scenario with a Crocodile tail (for all intents and purposes) I had myself designing the seat like a motorcycle saddle, except with a U-groove in the back for the tail to go.

At some point, you just come across too many species to design for all of them....

[Alondro]

Well, in addition to all the problems with tails, can you imagine bathing with all that fur?  It'd take a looong time to get dry!  And then there's another little problem with the reptile morphs.  They would require quite an extensive re-design of their physiology to work properly.  Plus, how would they handle the higher metabolism required to generate enough energy to power a human-level brain?  A large brain uses quite a large percentage of the total metabolic energy of the body, I believe in humans it's around 20%.  Consider that the brain's mass is only about 1% of the total body mass for an average young adult, and it's quite a greedy organ!  Bad brain!  Learn to share or no more ATP for you!   

[Destina Faroda]

That's why it's better to be human.

The biggest downside is reproduction, but other than that, we've got most of the stuff right.

[Elader Arkon]

I'm quite happy being who and what I am right now thank you very much. That kind of extensive (and expensive) surgery and stuff just isn't worth it. Like, what if you lose interest in being a furry? What then?

Now if one could magically morph between forms, that would own all.

[Zorro]

There are occasionally Babies born with tails or horns.  The genes are there in the DNA, they are just turned off for most everyone.

http://www.dimaggio.org/Archive/tails_in_humans.htm

[Alondro]

One woman grew a horn.  A model of her head is in the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia.  They still don't have a clue what triggered that.

[Netami]

FLCL

[LionHeart]

Well, in addition to all the problems with tails, can you imagine bathing with all that fur?  It'd take a looong time to get dry! 

Well, that would be more of an engineering problem than anything... Something like a big hairdryer, that could do the entire body, perhaps?

I'm quite happy being who and what I am right now thank you very much. That kind of extensive (and expensive) surgery and stuff just isn't worth it. Like, what if you lose interest in being a furry? What then?

Now if one could magically morph between forms, that would own all.

Agreed. Same here.
While it might be fun to experiment with, I don't think I would want it to be permanent.

[Tapewolf]

Well, in addition to all the problems with tails, can you imagine bathing with all that fur?  It'd take a looong time to get dry!

The flipside is that canids and felines etc don't sweat so they wouldn't need to shower daily.  I don't think bears sweat either so presumably it does scale up.
You would need to bathe or shower periodically though, with some kind of anti-flea shampoo - just not as regularly as a human would.

(Has another idea but won't say what it is so he can use it in his writing)

[Alondro]

Heh, I was kinda joking about the bathing thing.  I mean, nobody bathed at all during the Middle Ages!      And during the winter, they pretty much wore the same clothes for the entire season.      AND they often had farm animals in the hovels with them since the peasants often only had a single fireplace or fire pit so all the livestock needed to be protected from the cold... imagine the squalour... 

In reality, the tails would pose the most problems.  Getting them trapped in machinery, for instance.  But even then, you could always tie them up or something to prevent that.  For a simple mammal-type furry, there aren't really any major physiological concerns once you have a stable, healthy genome.  The problems that would pop up in a modern setting would be mainly nuciances that could be dealt with by technology and behavior changes. 

For the metabolic problems, I mainly meant any reptilian forms.  That's require some very tricky re-writing of their genome, and in the mitochondrial DNA too to upregulate metabolism at all levels.

[Stygian]

Well, that could easily be done by through natural adaptation. If they were ever to start taking part of civilization, the reptiles would have had to adapt gradually from the very start...

As for the tails, I believe that we'd have designed workplaces and clothing after that. Either that, or all furries working in mines would have theirs amputated...

[TheDXM]

I personally wouldn't ever want to see the 'in-crowd' take to the furry culture. The fact that the fandom isn't part of popular culture, yet is still a force to be reckoned with is somehow appealing to me.

I'd rather see a furry president, not a furry celebrity. We need acceptance, not an embracement. Why? Because once half the world does the furry thing, it will be approached more as a cliche than it EVER has been before.

[Jim Halisstrad]

I think that the furry public should vote for Me as there terrible dark lord and master president.

[Azlan]

I'd rather see a furry president, not a furry celebrity. We need acceptance, not an embracement. Why? Because once half the world does the furry thing, it will be approached more as a cliche than it EVER has been before.

Never happen lad... if it does, I'll buy you a pony.