Ray and Tina, being shamelessly dorky.
Tina's Story
is a mature Slice of Life Furry comic by the team of writer Graymuzzle and artist Zenia.
The title character is Petina "Tina" Russel, a poodle Hybrid (a race of half-animal/half-humans) and among the first generation of her kind who grew up with full civil rights. The comic opens with her starting her first day in her new job at the DMV. There she strikes up a relationship with Ray Goldstein, a data processor with the Department.
The story follows Tina and Ray's relationship, along with their extended families and circle of friends - human and hybrid alike. Depending on the arc, the tone can be light and fluffy to dark and violent. Sex and sexuality are portrayed openly. Starting in 2017 when the comic's creators started a Patreon, any explicit content was pixel censored.
The comic is available exclusively on Patreon. It was voluntarily pulled from Zenia's FurAffinity account due to controversy over depictions of underage sexualitynote It was pulled completely from The Duck for undisclosed, but presumably similar, reasons. However, it’s been partially re-uploaded as of 2023.
A snarky, but fairly accurate summary of the plot (up until 2020) can be found at the Bad Webcomics Wiki.
Not to be confused with the novel Tina's Story: Urban Fiction Gone Viral or the "Tina's Story" episode of Accused
Tina's Story contains examples of:
- A-Cup Angst: The girls discussing a "Do you like the way you look" article in a women's magazine is enough to give Tina a minor breakdown. She eventually gets a modest boob job.
- Back for the Dead: Sean, who returns just long enough to hang himself onscreen.
- Believing Their Own Lies: Georgette's hatred of humans stemmed from taking her story of Tina's conception to heart.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: It's mentioned in passing that incest isn't taboo among some Hybrids, who consider it (and younger Hybrids having sex) part of their natural instincts.
- Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit": In the world of the comic, "Furries" are humans who are attracted to hybrids, similar in connotation to "Chubby Chaser" or "Jungle Fever".
- Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Georgette, Tina, Lydia and Nina all showed that if a Hybrid female has unprotected sex while in heat, pregnancy will ensue.
- Child by Rape: Tina was the daughter of an unknown human who raped her mother. Or so she was told...
- Converting for Love: Tina decides to convert from Catholicism to Judeism, so Ray and their children -to-be would have a common bond
- Costume-Test Montage: Colleen and the other girls from the DMV take Tina shopping when they find out her date with Ray is her first date of any kind.
- Eternal Sexual Freedom: Hybrids seem to be far more casual about sex and sexuality than humans.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Hybrids are explicitly this.
- Inconsistent Spelling: Tina's maiden name was alternately spelled "Russell" and "Russel".
- Give the Baby a Father: See "Luke I Am Your Father"
- Guilt Complex: Tina confesses to Ray that she caught the boyfriend of two of her co-workers cheating on them at an office party. And that the thought of this illicit act made her horny.
- Let's Wait a While: Kendo tells Felicia that he wants to wait for marriage before sex. Felicia went along, though she worries about being "worthy", given her past.
- Lions and Tigers and Humans... Oh, My!: Humans and Hybrids live in (relative) harmony.
- Luke, I Am Your Father: Stan, Tina's stepfather, confessed to her that he was her biological father, and the story of her mother's rape was a cover for the fact that Stan impregnated then-underage Georgette. He told her the truth because he didn't want a lie casting a shadow over the lives of Tina and her new family.
- Mate or Die: Going into heat and not having sex will cause a Hybrid mental and physical pain. Tina needed medical intervention when her heat came before she'd fully recovered from giving birth.
- Mood Whiplash: Most of 2022 and 2023 were full of life-affirming and/or sexy moments. (the triple wedding, the honeymoons of Koji and Violet and Kendo and Felicia, the birth of Tina's little brother) followed suddenly by Sean's suicide.
- My Own Private "I Do": Tina and Ray decide to get married while away on vacation.
- New Old Flame: How Sean is introduced, as a former lover of Colleen's.
- No Biochemical Barriers: Hybrids and humans are biologically compatible. According to Tina, there's a non-zero chance a human/Hybrid child could be physically 100% human or 100% animal. But generally, they'll be a hybrid of the same breed of the hybrid parent. Different species of hybrids are compatible with each other, as fennec Gray had a son with husky Nina. (Greg, the son in question, is a male husky with outsized ears).
- No Ending: Often the only way you can tell if a chapter was over is an "End" caption in the corner of the last panel.
- No Pregger Sex: Averted - Tina got even randier when pregnant and Ray is happy to oblige her.
- Non-Idle Rich: We find out Ray's family is loaded. And we find out later Ray has his own money via investments and software consulting.
- The Oldest Profession: According to several characters, after they were emancipated, prostitution was the only line of work available to most female Hybrids. We find out fairly early on that Colleen still sees clients on the side
- One-Night-Stand Pregnancy: When Gray returns to the story, it's because he got an anonymous call telling him Nina bore his child and needed his help now.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Tina's full name (Petina) is only used once in the comic. Ray gets called "Raymond" once or twice.
- Polyamory: Colleen, Lydia and Sean decide to become a threesome. It became a couple when Colleen and Lydia kicked Sean out for cheating on them and giving them both Chlamydia.
- Practically Different Generations: Tina’s baby brother Timothy is born a couple years after her own pups. Explained by Georgette still being under forty when Stan retired and they suddenly had a lot of new free time.
- Uncanny Family Resemblance: It's stated in comic that all poodle Hybrids look alike (all females are white-furred/blue-eyed like Tina and Georgette. All males are black-furred/brown-eyed like Stan) and are at least distantly related.
- Unpredictable Results: Which parts of Hybrids are human-standard and which one are animal-standard (like having fingers instead of paws, human-shaped legs instead of animal-shaped, etc) tends to be random.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Some of the older characters had literal owners and when Hybrids were legally considered livestock.
- Where the Hell Is Springfield?: It took the comic six years to reveal where it took place (Trenton, New Jersey)
