 This account © Syrras |
characters |
video |
collaborators |
facebook
Tim writes: I asked Syrras to write me an account of the furry experience - how it feels to be a furry. Here's what he wrote for me, reproduced unabridged, with permission... Once, a little while back, someone asked me what it was like to be a furry. I don’t think I was able to answer that to my best abilities, as I had nothing with which I could compare it. Fortunately for me, I’ve had an experience that has struck me greatly. I have become part of a cast of Cats - pardon the unintentional pun - who sing in that musical. I feel that being a furry is much akin to being on theatre. At least, from my limited experience, it is quite similar. When I am on stage, singing, acting, dancing, cajoling, and playing, I feel as though I am someone entirely new; I feel like Mister Mistoffelees. Hearing the crowd clap and cheer tinges me with excitement. Knowing that I am to sing for these people- to draw them into a new world while leaving their old one behind- makes me nervous. Seeing my fellow peers jump, dance, or just simply be excited makes me smile a real smile, not one that I am accustomed to showing. All of these feelings are things I rarely feel with any intensity, yet I find myself backstage with a bundle of emotion and new energy. It is nearly an impossible feat to describe the feeling of the theatre in words, but to find words for being a furry is even harder, so bear with my convoluted explanation and epiphanies. There are at least four different types of energy within the show: The cast’s, the audience’s, the stage’s, and the back stage’s. The cast has maintained a generally smooth energy flow, and the stage just gets a bit more anticipated for the next movement. The audience though is an entirely different feel from just practicing, but is irrelevant to this topic. The cast backstage is the important one. For how many times can one see the teachers one respects most as well as the highest of one’s peers teem with excitement and the afterglow of something well done? That afterglow feeling, that feeling of excitement, joy, relief, and a bit of excitement and nervousness are the feelings of being a furry. On an even more personal note of being a furry, it feels like that single mask, that of one’s choice - mine being a wolf - is lighter and made more of one’s own soul, than when compared to the plastic mask of everyday life. Much like when acting it feels as though the entire world is the character and the play, musical, or what-have-you; the real world ceases to exist. The fact that you failed your last calculus test or have people who you wouldn’t want to see you sing present in the audience, doesn’t matter. All that matters is that magic created on stage, and you are taken to that world when you take your audience there. The real world no longer exists when you are on stage, or even behind it with your troupe. Being a furry, I suppose, is like that, except that the magic that you create is not in a theatre house, nor does it take months to prepare for only a few hours relief from the world. The magic is intertwined with what some may consider the “real life” harsh reality of living in the world. Furries create some of that magic of stage and back stage whenever they think of their fursona and their furry friends. In short, furries are magical people that can transport themselves and others to far distant lands, which allow them to escape from whatever they wish to leave (Of course, escapism is not the only reason one is a furry). It is a beautiful thing. |