User:Samhain-the-Dark

Furry fandom newbie as of Feb 6, 2009.

My Fur Affinity page: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/samhain/

My deviantART page: http://samhain-the-dark.deviantart.com/

My FurRag page: http://www.furrag.com/author/469

My FurSpace page: http://www.furspace.com/Zachary

How I Found the Fandom by Samhain the Dark

I saw somebody do this once. I can't remember who, but I thought it'd be a good idea to try. I encourage all who read this to tell how they happened upon the furry world! ^^

I found the fandom on my own. No one said to me, "Hey, have you heard of this yet? You should check it out!" Now, many would be think it was probably Disney or movies like All Dogs Go To Heaven or Balto that got me into this. Although those did help, it was actually Richard Adams. Many in the fandom know who he is. He wrote three books told from the point of view of animals. His most prominent work, which is my favorite book, was Watership Down! It's a classic! Even trolls have admitted to loving this book! I recommend it to everyone! Especially everyone who loves rabbits!

Anyway, in the case of Watership Down, I did the unforgivable. ... There was a movie made in the 70s and I watched it before reading the book. However, as much as I loved the movie and found it addicting, I loved the book much more! I later did the same unforgivable thing with another of Adams's books The Plague Dogs. Now, I really liked the movie, but when I tried to read the book, I got lost in waaay too much detail. My problem with reading is I must read the dialogue. I MUST READ IT NOW! lol The third book Adams wrote was Traveller. It was about Robert E. Lee's horse. There was no movie made based on it that I know of, and I haven't read it.

Shortly after reading Watership Down, (Reading it! Not watching it!) I found out on Wikipedia that there was a TV show based on it. I found it on YouTube. I was disappointed in it. There were many changes made in the story and names of the characters. They even added a character! Or rather, they made a seemingly unnecessary character in the book more prominent in its own way. One thing that irked me about it wasn't the show itself, but it was also how I once left a comment comparing the story's villain with Hitler. If you've ever read the book, you'd know how right I was. But it was obvious, however, that many people on YouTube have never read the book because I got THRASHED for that comment! And it threw me into a rant that may have forced the guy who posted the video to remove it from the site. I was infuriated.

After I finished watching all three seasons of the Watership Down TV show, (The third season was most disappointing, by the way. It had NOTHING to do with the original story, whatsoever.) I found another animal show based on a book series. This one was called The Animals of Farthing Wood. The book series, of which I've only read one, was written by Colin Dann. I instantly fell in love with the story. There were characters I loved, characters I hated, and characters I loved to hate. I didn't even mind the author's prosaic naming pattern. (A fox named Fox. A badger named Badger. An adder named Adder. etc)

The third TV series I found on YouTube was based on a book series everyone has heard of that I sadly have never read: Redwall. (That's right. I've never read any of the Redwall books.) The first season followed the story of the first Redwall book, with Cluny the Scourge as the season's primary villain. I watched it and said, "I must have more!" lol So, I found the second season, which followed the story of the book Mattimeo. I was surprised in the producers' casting. They got Tim Curry to voice this season's big bad Slagar the Slaver! Impressed? I was! My only qualm with that story was the ending. We go from "We were all kids," to "Now we all have kids." Too quick! What happened in between? The third, and final, season of the show followed the book Martin the Warrior. It did answer some unanswered questions. Questions like "What the hell did Martin do for him to be honored by warriors and war-haters alike?" But I didn't like how some characters kept getting killed off. Like Martin's love interest! What the frigg?! How'd that happen? One minute it's, "I know you'll succeed, Martin! *smooches*" And the next it's, "Martin, help me! *stab*" I was watching it like, "W-w-what? ... I was watching that!"

Around this time, I started writing my novel The Black Mountain Wolves. At first, I wasn't too sure about it. But I knew I had a good idea when my mother read it, while Law & Order was on TV, and she paid more attention to the story than to the television! She only ever did that when the TV wasn't on! I wa so excited! I thought to myself, "Wow! This is gonna be a great book!" And my mother told my aunt and my grandparents about the book and they wanted to read what I had finished! And then I told my ex-girlfriend, who is OBSESSED with wolves, by the way, about it and she wanted to read it, too! Now, I've got my own team of proofreaders! Unfortunately, for the last two months I've been going through a writer's block and I haven't written more than half a page in that time! *cry*

Since the Redwall show, I've watched many furry movies on YouTube. Such as the sequels to Balto, and All Dogs Go To Heaven 2. (I liked the Dogs sequel, but will someone please tell me how non-anthro dogs can kiss of the lips?) And eventually, through search engines, I came across a webcomic called Fur-Piled. It was a gay love drama that had the story format of a soap opera. Every now and then we'd switch to another character. (Now, we're all wondering what's happening with Andy. ... Or at least I am.) After that, I found another webcomic called The Cyantian Chronicles! I was hooked after the first several updates. But updates come so frequently and at the time I wasn't on as much as I was now! After that, it was another comic called Lacunae, which sadly has been discontinued by the artist. After this and that, I eventually found the existence of Fur Affinity. And the rest, as they say, is history.

See the article about Samhain the Dark.