Clover Arizona

Back in the early-00s, some pre-Ebaum's unsourced funny images website had a photo of a misspelled road sign for Phoenix, AZ. I used “Phenoix” as the name for my first fursona, a brown dragon. “Phenokage” came from a portmanteau of “Phenoix” and “Hitokage,” the Japanese name for Charmander. I still have that IRC mentality where one’s handle and one’s name are two different things, so “phenokage” has stuck with me, even through all the iterations my online identity has taken on since.

“Clover” was a name I picked out of a hat for a red panda character when I needed a non-mythological self-insert for a slice-of-life comic @aviyinglet was doing, back in the late-00s when we’d just started dating. “Arizona” came from “Benson, AZ,” the opening theme from John Carpenter’s Dark Star. And through a combination of figuring out I was trans and a werewolf and therian (in that order), Clover (now a werewolf) is just me and “Clover” is just my name now.

Back in 2003 I was a member of an internet community that at the time sought to round up all the furries and quarantine them to their own little subforum; naturally, the furries did what furries do and turned this into a safe and welcoming space to network with each other. My fursona was a dragon at the time, and there was an artist on that subforum who was doing a slice-of-life comic where her self-insert was also a dragon. So I slid into her DMs asking if she'd like to draw my fursona sometime, and we got to talking, and here we are. :3

the 15th anniversary picture was a callback. :>

My first fursona was a brown dragon, originally conceived by @tabbiewolf around 2002, apropos of nothing and based on a photo of myself from the website for a TFC/CS team I used to be a member of. The character was named “Phenoix,” after a photo of a misspelled Phoenix road-sign that’d circulated on some early unattributed-viral-images website. I went through a couple of other OCs before switching fully to Clover in 2014, but Phen was the most “this is just a Furry Me” representation throughout that whole period. This drawing was done by @lobst in mid-2007, about a year before we’d started dating.

Nothing about Phen’s design has carried through to my present-day OCs, aside from the broader notion of a character having one style of outfit that they’re always drawn wearing. The Katamari Damacy shirt pictured here is still in my active wardrobe; I don’t think I could throw it out.

My first fursona was a brown dragon, originally conceived by @tabbiewolf around 2002, apropos of nothing and based on a photo of myself from the website for a TFC/CS team I used to be a member of. The character was named “Phenoix,” after a photo of a misspelled Phoenix road-sign that’d circulated on some early unattributed-viral-images website. I went through a couple of other OCs before switching fully to Clover in 2014, but Phen was the most “this is just a Furry Me” representation throughout that whole period. This drawing was done by @lobst in mid-2007, about a year before we’d started dating.

Nothing about Phen’s design has carried through to my present-day OCs, aside from the broader notion of a character having one style of outfit that they’re always drawn wearing. The Katamari Damacy shirt pictured here is still in my active wardrobe; I don’t think I could throw it out.