Pt. 4: How has your “fursona” evolved over time?

Last part, I hope!

Well, as mentioned way back in part one, I’ve always found an attraction to squirrels. But I didn’t create my own squirrel character until junior high school through Dungeons & Dragons (both basic and First Edition Advanced). At one point, as a 13-year-old, I drew-up a dungeon campaign to introduce younger scouts to AD&D on an upcoming winter cabin camping trip as something to do in the cabin in the evening between supper and bed time.

Aldin was a “minor” non-player character meant to provide the players someone to interact with for one night (campaign time) of their adventure. Aldin was a druid cursed with lycanthropy. Yes, a were-squirrel. And it was a night of the full moon. But he didn’t attack the party. He did rouse them from their sleep, tossed silver weapons at them and informed them, “we’re about to be attacked” just as a group of were-rats bust into Aldin’s home and Aldin turns and leaps at the intruders, giving as good as he gets. If not for the party of players, he’d have been doomed.

As an aside, Aldin wasn’t the only furry NPC in that campaign. The players would later encounter Garfield-the-Hun (remember, 13 years old here at the time), an anthro-version of Garfield on steroids, near ten-foot tall, wielding a two-handed sword in a single paw. The whole idea of that encounter was to see if the players would try and negotiate rather than take on a “monster” much too powerful for them. Suffice it to say, the party got slaughtered on the first try. I’m sure it didn’t help that the party’s magic user cast a 20ft radius sleep spell 10 ft in front of the party and Garfield saved, of course. I throw this in here, for it would mark my first and nearly last attempt at furry art as I had produced a “Wanted Poster” of Garfield-the-Hun to share with the players that they found posted on the tavern wall back in the town the campaign had started in. No, even if I could find it, I won’t torment you by posting it. It’s pretty close in artistic level to Aldin’s Self-Portrait. Several groups of scouts over the years would be introduced to AD&D with this campaign. Go ahead, feel sorry for them, though many became hooked.

In my undergrad days, I participated in the local role-playing club/group. I’d usually get “stuck” playing the cleric when we played AD&D. But we also used GURPS (Generic Role-playing system) and adapted a game of Gamma World to the GURPS system. Yup, got to play a 6 ft tall mutant squirrel named Aldin. One of his quirks was he was afraid of heights (luck of a die roll). Very entertaining game.

Fast forward to my discovery of alt.devilbunnies in 1994. I just happened to join the group as they were trying to narrow what characters/species could participate. At the time, in addition to bunnies, humans, and squirrels (bunny slaves and rebel escaped slaves) there were giant ferrets (“ferrotti”--last to go, many years later), a raccoon, and if I recall, even a dragon. The reason those who participated wanted to narrow the list was to try and reel things in to make the “sandbox” as close to our own world as possible. Yes, chuckle, at the idea of a writing group about killer, sentient rabbits being just like our own world. But it worked to a point. There were the occasional posts from people who asked, “Is this real?” which was great fodder for in-character reply posts to the group.

After lurking for what I thought was sufficient time (2 weeks), I jumped in. Why? I can write about squirrels! No, REALLY!?!? Of course, I quickly pounced on that. That is where Aldin Busheytail comes in. In his background, he started as Aldin, the bushy tail, due to having an extra fluffy tail. Eventually merged this descriptive and it became his last name, Busheytail. Yes, added the extra e in the last name on purpose. I created a complicated background for Aldin Busheytail, sentient eastern gray squirrel. I could probably write a whole separate journal (probably several) trying to cover Aldin’s complete tale and how it evolved over the fifteen years I wrote on alt.devilbunnies. Everything I’ve written is posted on my old website and takes-up just under 7 megs of text. You’re welcome to go explore it if you really want to see everything about Aldin and all the dozens of other characters I created over the years. It’s over on my website.

In summary, he was born in the wild in 1979, orphaned thanks to human hunters, and made sentient by devilbunny science. He wound-up becoming a genetics expert, who first worked for the devilbunnies, but then switched sides. Not everyone on the anti-devilbunnies side of the war trusted him. His research would eventually lead to a way to regrow minor lost limbs such as tail and ears by tricking the DNA into replacing the severed member. (Hey, the blueprint says it’s supposed to be there, so put one there!) Don’t ask for too much detail into the process…call it Star Trek-like fake science explanation. It worked for the stories. He did not achieve his goal of regenerating severed toes. If you read into the alt.devilbunnies universe, you’ll understand why he had that goal while working on BOTH sides of the war.

Per the research I had done on squirrels, I realized I might have a “reality” problem with Aldin as squirrels only live to about 12 years in captivity (like a sentient genetics expert squirrel wasn’t enough of a reality problem?). Rabbits don’t live that long either. But on alt.devilbunnies, no one had set a definite life span for a devilbunny (though Army of Fudd members would state, “As short as possible”). There was at least one bunny character written who lived past 40. Part of Aldin’s background as revealed little by little over time in those stories is that he had been adopted by a devilbunny as an orphan, wild squirrel (as mentioned above). Said devilbunny had enhanced his intelligence/made him sentient through experimentation in his lab using some of his bunny DNA. By having some devilbunny DNA in him, he wouldn’t age as fast as a normal squirrel. So, there was my excuse/solution to the age problem. So, technically, he’s a “buirrel” (“squabbit?”) by DNA, but for all practical purposes, I consider him a squirrel, period. Aldin thinks likewise. (affirmativeflick).

He would eventually retire and let his son and former “Hench Bunny” (transformed by an accident into a squirrel) take over the research lab. Meanwhile, his age was starting to catch-up with him. Just because he might live to be forty or so doesn’t mean his body would stay young all that time, right? In my last tale Aldin’s son would develop a sort of fountain-of-youth serum and give Aldin a second wind. He remains retired as of that tale posted in 2009 on Aldin’s 30th birthday in the alt.devilbunnies timeline partially because by then, the group had died off due to real life among the authors and partially because the basic death of a good chunk of Usenet in general thanks to how the Internet has evolved in the past 2 decades. Google’s buy-out of Dejanews, the early Usenet archives and renaming it “Google Groups” probably didn’t help any either. Ironically, my ISP dropped access to Usenet within about a month of me posting that last tale. In the alt.devilbunnies universe, Aldin will turn 35 in 11 days (3/15)

The whole (tailflick) thing in chat on various Livestreams and gigglechittering and other descriptive emotes came about through alt.devilbunnies. I’ve provided a journal entry last fall over on FA that explains some of those tail-emotes. Aldin would get roleplayed on the alt.devilbunnies Saturday night IRC chats and posting in-character posts while “hijacking” Evil Author’s(tm) Livejournal account, which still happens on occasion, though most I use to follow there aren’t active there anymore. For a while, he even posed as the spoke squirrel for General Mills’ Honey Nut Clusters Cereal on alt.humor.bluesman.

And that’s where he stands. He remains a “feral” sentient eastern gray squirrel, living in a tree by the shore of a lake deep in the Maine wilderness, enjoying his retirement. It would be kind of hard to change him after what will be 20 years in his current incarnation this coming summer. I’d basically have to start from scratch with some other fursona, but Aldin’s been too much a part of me for close to half my life. Considering how long it took me to just get a “real” account on FA and Weasyl, I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

This also makes it hard to even think of creating some sort of reference sheet for him. You want to draw him and need a reference? Simply do a search for photos of eastern gray squirrels.