Nancy Francis is thirty, fairly quiet, works an unremarkable weekday job, and has the sort of personality where coworkers can know her for three years without discovering that she occasionally spends Saturday afternoon as a six-foot cartoon dog.

Blue Dog started as a character Nancy doodled years ago. There isn't elaborate lore. She's a blue dog. She's friendly. She likes people. That's pretty much the canon.

Eventually Nancy commissioned the suit after several years of lurking around the furry community and attending conventions in normal clothes while insisting she was "just there with friends." The commission cost considerably more than Nancy originally intended to spend. Nancy does not discuss this number.

The suit is a little old-fashioned now. Blue Dog isn't covered in elaborate markings, LEDs, interchangeable eyelids, or twelve magnetic accessories. She's just an enormous, cheerful, slightly dopey blue dog with floppy ears and a permanently delighted expression. Nancy adores her.

And Blue Dog is much more outgoing than Nancy is.

Nancy won't approach a stranger at a party. Blue Dog will enthusiastically wave at someone from fifty metres away, dispense hugs, pose for seventeen photographs, dance badly, and investigate anything interesting with enormous padded paws. Nancy discovered fairly quickly that hiding inside a giant dog somehow removes most of the social anxiety associated with being Nancy.

Of course, the glamorous reality of fursuiting is approximately 15% adorable photographs and 85% heat management and logistics.

After twenty minutes, Nancy is roasting. After forty, her hair is plastered to her forehead. She owns more fans than any household reasonably requires. Hotel rooms become temporary workshops filled with brushes, disinfectant spray, drying equipment, costume pieces and one enormous disembodied dog head staring cheerfully at whoever wakes up first.

She has accidentally frightened hotel staff.

She has attempted to eat while wearing paws.

She has learned that elevators become very small when occupied by three fursuiters.

She has repeatedly said, "I can see fine," shortly before walking directly into something.

Her convention photographs therefore divide neatly into two genres: Blue Dog having the greatest day of her life, and Nancy sitting somewhere backstage with the head off, red-faced and clutching a litre of water while reconsidering every decision that led her there.

But five minutes later someone passes the doorway and says, "BLUE DOG!"

Nancy smiles.

The head goes back on.

Blue Dog lives again. 🐶

And that's probably the heart of her character. Nancy isn't secretly Blue Dog in some metaphysical sense, and Blue Dog isn't an imaginary creature who becomes real. It's performance. Nancy knows she's wearing several kilograms of synthetic fur and foam.

But when a little cluster of convention-goers sees Blue Dog coming down the hallway and starts waving?

For the next twenty minutes, being a giant blue dog seems like an entirely sensible thing for an adult woman to be doing.