Gillian Brent

Community: Devilbunnies. Known on the Newsgroups as alt.devilbunnies, a newsgroup.

Imagine, if you would, that cute fluffy bunnies are taking over the world. Think about it. All the Christmas and Valentine’s cards with bunny rabbits on them. The music, that’s been getting cuter and sickeningly-sweeter. What was the world’s biggest computer company? Micro (small) soft (fluffy). The bunnies were there to assure us that everything was sweetness and light, joy and happiness and tree-hugging love. But it’s all a front. In reality, the bunnies are going to lull us all into a sense of false security, then turn us into Spam and eat our toes as delicacies. The humans who have realised this evil threat against humanity are the Fudds, followers of the great El M’Har. Then there’s the squirrels (on both sides) and the Fouriers (nuke them all from orbit and let Frith sort them out). And then there’s the humans who have fallen for the propaganda, and who are known as Sympathisers to the Fluffy Cause, or “Symps” for short. I am not a symp. Honest-Fluff.

There are still stories on the Google News archive, and some of us still exchange Christmas^W Frithmas cards, and when my husband (whom I met on the group) and I went to the US and UK 2 years ago, we met a lot of these lovely people.
My own nicks were Reynardo (the not-so-tough Fudd), Anna Bunny and the warren of DoeHaven, and Sue Snell (a genuinely tough Fudd). I’m married in Real Life to Art Black, who also played Brother Cadfluff and a couple of other bunnies. We are still sorry that newsgroups are no longer available, and a lot of the archives are missing. But the main page is still up. Our community is still close-knit – I’ve just organised this year’s Frithmas List, and when two of our people found out they were trans*, all they got from the rest of us is love and acceptance.

The screenshot is from http://www.devilbunnies.org – still there, still maintained by Jerilyn Franz, after 25 years.

As to what I’d like to recover? I have a lovely husband, glorious friends in the UK, US and here in Aus, and a private language. Because my husband still calls me a Symp. And he’s a worse one than me.