...or should I just go f*** myself?

[jcollie719]

Thursday marks 22 days until Rocky Mountain Fur Con! While watching a YouTube video of last year's fursuit parade (in which I participated,) a negative comment involving me and other suiters made me wonder about something.

For those who haven't met me in person or seen me at conventions, I don't have an actual fursuit yet, just a panda kigurumi. I've attended five conventions so far and marched in all of their fursuit parades wearing my kigurumi. As far as I know, the convention organizers and other attendees were cool with it, or some of them weren't but didn't want to bring it up. So far, I've only read two criticisms about my kigurumi in parades, both of them from people who didn't even attend the conventions.

Even if conventions allow it, is it still considered improper to wear something other than a fursuit in a fursuit parade? I've marched with people who wore ears, a tail and face make-up, as well as one person who merely had a paper cat mask taped to a balaclava. I know I shouldn't let two critiques out of dozens of positive comments affect whether I participate or not, but I was wondering what others honestly thought of this subject.

Keep in mind that I'm only talking about the fursuit parades, not the fursuit games or other competitions where a full/mostly-full field of vision presents an unfair advantage. I don't participate in those for that reason.

Comments

[sabotlours.livejournal.com]

I posted a rant about this very subject in my LJ after FC this year. I saw a guy in the parade wearing a fox mask that covered his eyes and a "tail" that consisted of a red piece of fabric. In previous parades there was Jack Sparrow, The Evil Queen, and Beetleguise. I have also seen a person wearing a cardboard box on his head which had whiskers drawn on it. My question was "What part of FURSUIT parade don't you understand?!?" Of course I'm biased on the subject because I AM a fursuiter. To me that means a full suit or a partial that included everything except the body suit. I'm also cool with something like full body paint and/or spandex simply because of the work involved.

I argued that it would be like if I went to an artist panel (like an artist jam) where people were expecting to see good art being drawn and I went up and drew a stick figure. Why would I do something like that?

[lunchiesdogangl.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I appreciate your feedback.