Lark Space (#furry)

Where is furry?

2026-08-18T00:00:00Z

This post was written for the August 2026 Midway Menagerie, where the theme is "Where is furry?"

Recently, someone sent me this article by Dr. Devon Price, in which they define queerness not as something you are, but as something you do and the people you surround yourself with. It articulates something I've felt for a while--that "queer" is not just a synonym for "LGBT". "Queer" is counterculture, a rejection of normative ideals. I'm not queer because I was simply born that way, or because I inject the gender juice once a week; I'm queer because I reject normative ideas about gender and sexuality, and because I live in community with others who do the same.

I've been thinking about how this perspective applies to furry. What makes me a furry? Like I talked about last month, it's not necessarily that I innately identify as an animal person.

This month Ån asks the question "Where is furry?", and while I could say that my primary touchpoint with furry is the in-person events--conventions, meetups, Anville, etc.--I think it's worth introspecting about what brings me to these spaces in the first place.

Furry isn't just a fandom; it's a counterculture. It's disproportionately queer and neurodivergent. It's a haven for people too weird to fit in; cringe culture broadly shuns furries^[1] as so weird as to trigger secondhand embarrassment. As my friend Loaf puts it: "being a furry is being gay for gay people". By adopting the label, furries are choosing to own that identity.

I'm furry not because I'm an animal person, but because I choose to adopt the label and everything that comes with it. The way I present in public reflects this.

Folks who know me rarely see me without my collar--a leather collar with a nametag dangling from it. It says "Lark". I wear it pretty much everywhere, sometimes against my better judgement. Most people don't acknowledge it, sometimes I get compliments on it^[2], but wearing it in public has never been a problem^[3].

Folk in the kink community generally read it as fetishwear--that I've been "collared"^[4]. Goths and punks read it as alt fashion. Furries read it as furry attire. None of these explanations tell the full story.

My collar isn't just alt fashion. It's not just queer signaling. It doesn't symbolize my relationship with anyone else. It also predates me identifying as a furry.

My collar represents my relationship with normativity. My relationship with queerness. But most importantly, it represents a commitment to myself--a commitment to own my identity, live authentically, and not let internalized shame direct the course of my life.

When I started wearing my collar out, I was terrified. But I pushed through the discomfort, hoping I would come out the other side of it more resilient. Wearing my collar out started as an exercise in getting over what strangers think of me, but it went on to embody a stubborn refusal to compromise on my identity. I don't hide who I am, because I don't feel like I can be my full authentic self otherwise.

Where is furry? Furry is something I carry with me--symbolically on my body, but also as a promise to be the most Lark I can be. More than just the friends I've made and the events I attend, furry represents growth. Finding myself has been a journey, and I owe much of what I've uncovered so far to this community.

The Wikipedia article on cringe culture literally opens with a picture of fursuiters. ↩
Sometimes these compliments are a subtle "I see you; I know what you are", but just as often I get genuine compliments from seemingly clueless strangers, which is also kinda sweet. Often they'll call it my "necklace". ↩
Ironically the one time I've been asked to take it off was at a much (a casual social kink event), because the greeters were worried about attracting too much attention from strangers. ↩
If you're not familiar, "collaring" someone is a tradition in the kink community that symbolizes reaching a certain level of commitment in the relationship. Generally, one person presents the other with a collar for them to wear, not unlike how couples in many cultures exchange rings when they're married. Often a more subtle "day collar" is worn when in public, if the person does not want to attract too much attention. My collar is definitely not subtle. ↩

Midway Menagerie July 2026 Roundup: "Fandom and Community"

2026-08-04T00:00:00Z

These are the posts from the July 2026 Midway Menagerie, a monthly furry blogging carnival. This month's theme was "Fandom and Community".

Loaf wrote "furry community", where he talks about his introduction to furry, what joining the fandom has meant to him, his relationship with online vs in-person community, and what it means to adopt the label.

In my first year of being a furry, my life completely transformed. I left a depressive haze and suddenly was on a nonstop emotional rollercoaster of extremely heightened experiences. Life was bright and overwhelming. I was alive, as myself, properly, for maybe the first time in my life. I had no idea what I was doing; the rules by which I lived my life no longer applied. Anything was possible.

As someone who is also fairly new to furry, it was interesting comparing our experiences. Like Loaf, online community has never really clicked for me; my social groups are all people I know IRL. Unlike Loaf, I spent most of my first con hiding in the quiet room.

Riven wrote "Fandom and Community", where they reflect on how the intersection of the furry fandom and IRL meetups allowed them to engage in fandom in a way they had never been able to before.

It was only when I found out that these gay little animals in my computer actually meet up in real life and hang out that I realized what a joy it was to be part of the community. Being able to talk face to face made everything so much easier - these were no longer nebulous titans, but actual ~~people~~ animals with their own personality and quirks.

I think Riven neatly summarizes one of the main hangups I have engaging with online community: "feeling like part of the conversation". Online interactions aren't bookended the way in-person interactions are; there's no way to jump in without feeling like I'm crashing a party.

Rouka wrote "Individualism in Fandoms", where she discusses her journey stepping into various communities--everything from furry to kink to gacha--and the roadblocks she faced along the way. She describes the way special education isolates neurodivergent kids, the challenge of expressing your authentic self while living with conservative parents, and the difficulty of breaking into longstanding friend groups. She closes with a message of hope for herself.

Don’t forget to remind yourself why you are in the community you are in to begin with, and don’t forget who you are and ultimately have a clear idea of who you want to be, both yourself and the people you want to be around.

I definitely relate to how impossible breaking into longstanding friend groups can feel, as well as the perils of navigating unspoken social rules. Rouka makes a good point in that it takes a stable foundation--a good home life and people who accept you for who you are--to have a chance of being social and stepping out into community. For different reasons--mostly health-related in my case--I didn't have that stable foundation when I was younger, and that similarly hampered my ability to make friends and find community.

Enii wrote "Midway Menagerie: July 2026", where she recounts her introduction to furry, from childhood to the present day. She talks about early experiences encountering furries online, early-web furry communities, platforms that have come and gone, her first conventions, and the friends she made along the way.

It was the summer of 2012 when I first learned about furries. I was on summer vacation before entering 8th grade and bouncing around YouTube one afternoon. I don't remember what led me to it, but eventually I stumbled across a few videos of the dance competition at Anthrocon 2012. I was amazed at the dancers' skill and especially at the fact that they pulled it off in full costume!

While the timeline differed--I didn't develop an interest in furry until a few years ago--running across videos of fursuiters having fun at a convention was the spark for me as well. I was also personally touched to hear that Anville has become so important to her, as it has to me.

Ån submitted "Fandom and Community", an essay in the form of an interactive text-based RPG. This poignant autobiographical piece is a non-chronological account of their entrance into the furry community, from the fandom's earliest days to our local furry scene.

Now, in the early 21st century, "community," like "friend," becomes a treacherous word. It gets stretched to cover fandoms, support networks, weak ties, strong ties, products and sales pitches. It's nearly meaningless, and also, in ways I've never said out loud, something I don't think I could exist without.

Aside from being absolutely stunned by the effort that clearly went into this piece, I appreciated the vulnerable perspective into the life and history of a friend I consider a pillar of our local community. It's a reminder that we've all been small, scared, and unsure of our place in the world.

Goose wrote "Furries turned Family: Fandom of Being a Good Community Member", in which they distinguish between fandom as an interest group and fandom as a community. They never saw the interest in fandom until they accidentally dropped into the furry community and came to understand the ways in which furries uplift and support one another as family. They compare their experiences in the furry community with the kinds of community support families relied on to survive when they were growing up, and express gratitude for the furry family they've surrounded themself with.

And yea, maybe I found a good group, full of really cool people, who bring out the “italian grandmother” in me. Maybe I’ve found the most helpful and kind group of human beings in my city. But I’m damn grateful for them. They’re the difference between friends and community, fandom and family, and they welcome people with open arms. You just have to brave enough to ask to be apart of it all.

I grew up under a fairly traditional nuclear family structure, and I never had to wonder if my basic needs would be met. As a consequence of this privilege, I never really saw what this kind of community support looks like until I went out into the world on my own. I have friends who are going through it, and seeing how their communities turn out for them has been a beautiful thing.

anchovie wrote "on fandom and community", in which shi tries to pin down a definition of furry and hir relationship with the label. Shi talks about furry as a "gateway" to other communities, and why shi has historically been reluctant to identify as a furry.

so what is furry to me? is it some sort of weirdly-arranged fruit basket of hobbies i only participate in with other animal-people on the Internet? am i really a furry if my engagements with other furries are entirely dictated by mutual interest in non-furry things?

To this day, have a difficult time identifying as a furry without qualification. As I talk about in my piece, the interest in anthropomorphic characters that "traditionally" defines the community doesn't feel like it leaves a lot of space for me and my place in furry. Like anchovie's "gateway" analogy, I feel like it's mostly the connection that have come out of it which define what being a furry means to me.

I wrote "It's not really about the animals", where I describe how my relationship with the furry community is more centered on the community aspect than the furry part. I talk about the challenges I face integrating into new social contexts, and how rewarding it's been to come out on the other side of it.

My evolution from that timidity to organizing events of my own has been really good for me--a measure of self-confidence and proof that I can step into new social contexts and find success, even when it's hard.

Thank you to everyone who participated for the first month of this new carnival! It brings me joy to see folks engaging with this silly little project of mine, and I'm excited to see what folks write next month.

I encourage you to leave comments below with your thoughts on any of this month's submissions, or just the carnival as a whole. Also let me know if you would like to volunteer to host the carnival in September!

The theme for next month (August 2026) is "Where is furry?", hosted by Ån.

It's not really about the animals

2026-07-13T00:00:00Z

This post was written for the July 2026 Midway Menagerie, where the theme is "Fandom and Community".

I always love asking furries how they ended up in the community. Was there a particular piece of media that pulled them in? Did a friend drag them to a con? Did they find the fandom at a young age, or did it take time? How much do they engage in online vs IRL community? How long did it take to transition from engaging privately to engaging in community^[1]? To what extend do they even identify as a furry^[2]?

I like asking these questions because I'm fairly new to the community myself. It was only January 2025--about a year and a half ago as I'm writing this--that I adopted the label, after attending my first fur con. I didn't really consider myself a furry before then. I was curious, and probably would have accepted "furry-adjacent", but I never had a phase of being fully invested in furry without also engaging in furry community--unlike many of my friends, some of whom spent years as a closet fur. Online community and social media have never worked for me, so it took meeting someone at a party to find my entry point.

I also like asking folks this question because I think it reveals something about what furry identity and furry community mean to them. Because it wasn't the media or art that pulled me in; it was the people I met. For me, furry isn't really about the animals; it's about the people.

What do I mean by that? I have some art of myself in a cat shape, and I've always felt a certain affinity toward cats, but I don't identify strongly with my fursona in the way some friends do. I have friends whose relationship with their sense of self, body, and fursona remind me a lot of my experience of gender pre-transition. To them, their fursona is who they are--canonically. My relationship with my fursona--to the extent I even have one--isn't nearly that powerful.

To explain what I love about the furry community, I'll defer to what I wrote for the Anville website:

If you're part of the furry community, then you know: we look out for each other. We fund each other's healthcare. We house each other. We show up for one another.

Furries value artists; we have our own economy that respects the work of creatives and cares about compensating them, which is especially important right now.

Furries accept each other as we are, because the diversity of identities that intersect in this community mean that we know what it's like to be pushed to the margins.

The furries are shockingly well-connected. I'd like to think I had a fairly active social life before finding the furry community. But after? It absolutely exploded. The number of furry meetups, club nights, and events in my mid-sized city is dizzying, and friends who are new to the local community report the same experience. I've even dipped my toe into community organizing with Anville.

To expand on my experience with furry community, I'd like to talk about one event in particular.

There's a monthly furry meetup at a brewery in my city, which over the past year and a half has become the nexus of furry community for me; we generally see 20-40 folks each month, and at this point I know most of the regulars. I always look forward to seeing my friends, and they're excited to see me too! Making this meetup every month is a high priority for me; in the past 18 months I've only missed one.

For as much as I love this meetup, it wasn't always a good time. I really struggled to integrate myself into the group, which is unfortunately typical for a Lark entering new social contexts. Coming in, it felt like everyone already knew each other, and had for years. Folks knew what to talk about, caught up, shared inside jokes… they belonged there. I certainly didn't feel that way. I've never been great at driving conversations with people I don't know well, and inserting yourself into others' conversations runs the risk of being rude and disruptive.

There were several months I left early and walked home in tears. It feels embarrassing to admit that in a blog post I'm sharing with these same friends; it's not like anyone was being mean or deliberately excluding me. Having the kind of relationship with the group that I enjoy now simply felt unattainable, and that's a problem that it took me a full twelve months to crack. I started attending this meetup in January 2025, and I distinctly remember the December 2025 meetup being the first time I left that brewery feeling like I was in a space were I belonged, surrounded by friends. Since then, I've had a wonderful time each month.

I'm incredibly happy to be where I'm at with this group, but there's still grief about needing to work so hard to get there, especially when I see folks who joined much more recently than me build those relationships so much quicker. I don't like to think of relationship-building as a race, but it does feel like getting lapped. I sometimes even feel jealous watching it happen.

Still, I'm proud of myself. Part of what makes me so proud of the work I've done with Anville is the personal development it represents. It took months of encouragement for a friend to finally convince me to attend the brewery meetup; I was too timid. My evolution from that timidity to organizing events of my own has been really good for me--a measure of self-confidence and proof that I can step into new social contexts and find success, even when it's hard.

A few months ago, during Q&A after giving a talk, a friend in the audience raised their hand and asked me how I would define "community". Despite having spent the past 40 minutes talking about community, I didn't have a good answer for them, and I don't have one now. For a long time, "community" was something I felt I was lacking--even among a healthy friend group--but I could never put my finger on what exactly I was looking for.

Whatever "community" is, I think I've finally found it.

Not to presuppose that this is how it works for everyone, but if they've never engaged in furry community, I probably haven't met them to ask the question! ↩
I do have at least one friend who is not a furry, but still attends furry cons and meetups fairly regularly. ↩

Call for submissions: July 2026 Midway Menagerie - "Fandom and Community"

2026-06-16T00:00:00Z

Update: You can read the submissions from this month here.

This is a call for submissions for the July 2026 Midway Menagerie, a monthly furry blogging carnival.

A blogging carnival is an event that gets people blogging around a particular topic. Every month, there's a theme or discussion prompt for folks to respond to, and at the end of the month there's a roundup post linking to everyone's submissions. A rotating "host" decides that month's theme, collects responses, and posts the roundup. The idea is to encourage discussion and helps folks discover new blogs. Think of it like a book club, except instead of reading books you write essays and share them.

This month's theme is "Fandom and Community". Here are some specific prompts to get you started, but feel free to take the theme in a different direction!

We often call ourselves the "furry community" or the "furry fandom", but what does that mean? What makes something a community; where does "community" start and end, and what does it mean to be part of one?
What aspects of furry community have you found rewarding or challenging?
How have you seen the furry community evolve over time? What do you think about the direction it's headed?
What was your introduction to the furry community like?
What has your experience of online vs IRL community been like? To what extent do you engage with each, and what is different between the two for you?
Some folks use the terms "furry fandom" and "furry community" interchangeably. Others use them differently, or prefer one over the other. How do you feel?
What makes the furry community different from other affinity, interest, or identity groups you may be a part of?

Submissions are due by the end of July. I'm posting this first edition of the carnival mid-June, but giving folks until the end of July so the people who told me they're interested in setting up their own blog have a little extra time to do so.

You don't need a blog to participate! If you don't have anywhere to post your submission, feel free to send it to me anyways and I'll host it here as a guest post. I'm also happy to post your submission anonymously.

You can send me your submission by commenting on this post, via email or Signal, or messaging me on any other platform (Telegram, etc.) where you have my contact info.

Still not sure how this whole carnival thing works? Check out the home page for the carnival.

Happy writing!