A couple months back I went to my first ever rave!! It was an awesome event called Animal Jamz. It will henceforth be titled as "The Furry Rave".
When I first got the invite from a friend to go to this rave, just looking at the cover art (shown below) the first question I asked was "... is this like a furry thing?". They had told me that some of the DJs were furries, but it wasn't actually a furry thing. He was very wrong by the way.
For the rave I decided to paint a therian mask after I saw one at Michael's while shopping (RIP Micahels). For those that don't know a therian is a type of subculture of furries where a person feels like they have a deep connection with and identify as a certain animal. This usually results in people wearing a mask, paws, and tails. I honestly relate more to kemonomimis (another subculture of furries), which from what I've seen is people that like how it looks without some deeper conenction. I linked an example to some therians that I found off of pinterest. :3
The outfit was inspired by a raccoon (or trash panda, or fur bandits), which I think is simply an adorable animal. The idea was to be close to the human versions of rigby I see on the internet. So the idea was to have a white undershirt, with a black band-T over it, loose jorts, black nails, black eyeshadow, the therian mask, and a racoon tail change on my waistband. I don't have any eye shadow so I actually just rubbed a ton of eyeliner around my eyes and hoped that would work well enough.
I went thrifting with my friend and we got lots of different clothes, but most importantly I got some black slacks I could cut into shorts and a band-T that I wanted to use. The mask took only about an hour or two to fully paint, and I was very happy with how it had come out! I definitely should have taken more photos before the rave of the full fit but I had forgot :3, so I can only show this photo that shows off most of it!
The rave itself was so fun! I had honestly thought that I was overdressed for the event, and I was absolutely blown away with how wrong I was after entering the venue. There were so many furries with full furheads, leaving the bodies at home as they probably would've died from heat-exhaustion dancing.
The songs were absolute BOPS and I enjoyed headbanging to my hearts' content and dancing with all my friends, there were 9 of us together fyi. The people on stage were absolutely into it and dancing across the stage in amazing outfits, and everytime I got even a little bit bored I can just look around and see all the love and passion that went into everyone's outfits that night! Also I found this amazing furry that had glowing paws that I just had to talk to them and get a photo.
Not posting many photos with this one because I'm still trying to find the ethical line of who's photos I can post and how to do it while still respecting their privacy and such. Hopeully I'll be better at taking photos and showing off everything for the future events :3.
Shoutout to Brendi, Morgan, Lee, Cameron, Matt, and Zookie (all the people I had got to meet at the rave)! You all were so amazing and made my freaking night! Stay awesome, loved, and safe y'all <33
I'm honestly glad that this was the first rave that I had gone to and I'm so thankful to my friend for taking me, and introducing me into the scene and all of their friends <333 You know who you are!