Furries.

[Viral]

Furries:

Is it okay, just a fun outlet on ideas you can have for a character?

Or is it not okay, something that is disturbing and leads to yiffing?

What do you think?

[sky665]

Furries for chars? Heack yeah- I know a lot of my friends that have 'furry' chars

[Sar]

You mean furries as in...?

I read the posts and it didn't make sense.

[ShaoShao]

Furry is a term originating from the late 80's that's original use was a name for fans of anthropomorphic animals (Bugs Bunny is a common example, but it also includes ANY Disney talking animal). Now it's used to describe a variety of things including the 'furry fandom' which loves to change the meanings of words.

In a way, think of it as the anime fandom only people who obsess over anything with animals instead of Japanese animation, and dress up in costumes as animal characters instead of characters from Japanese animation. Oh, and they're far more vocal about the ruder side of things and because of their open minded policy allow their fandom to be diluted with any sexual fetish in existance. Then they get defensive and thus there is drama. The spiritual side of things mixes in with it and you get people who tell you they will kill you over the internet for disliking their character because they are a dragon in real life. For real.

A strange truth about most 'furry characters' is that they're not even anthropomorphic animals any more, they're zoomorphic humans. Humans with animal appearances, the human body used as a base. Anthropomorphic would ideally be an animal base with human characteristics on top.


For those who don't mind painful curiousity, here's examples of: a 'fursuit' or furry costume (http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/1201/sokitwopawpi0.jpg) (yes, it's a guy in there), and a furry art commission (http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/6756/1186434966blazehuskywolfq5.jpg) (there's a whole lot worse, be glad I picked this and not... well, anything with multiple genitals or a diaper).

[Sar]

Ah, I'm more accustomed to hearing it 'Furry Anthro,' since I used to role play it on Neopets.

I don't depict anthropomorphic as an anime, just picturing my Neopets looking vaguely like humans in structure. If that's coming across correctly.

[electric_blue_kirby]

Voice 1:

The vast, vocal majority of furries are a delusional and irrational group. The following terms are all their own invention:

Pawing Off (Masturbation)
Yiffing
Fursecution
Babyfur (Google it if you must)

Furries made fchan. Furries meet at Anthrocon to have orgies whilst still in their fursuits. Furries generate vast amounts of drama over anything that even seems like a slight towards them (Bernal suing and shutting down websites, for example). They praise terrible art as great because it has five penises or some "famous" artist drew it. And if you mention very real, obvious errors in their work? Zen alone has been harassing one gentleman through e-mail for years just for pointing out a simple anatomical error. They pollute every site where it is possible for them to boast that they're a furry, and band together to cause more drama.

And I could go on. I know all this not from obsessively following their "culture", but because they're such a loud, whiny bunch that it all just comes by in passing. They take themselves too seriously, the Internet too seriously, and seem to have shunned logic and reasoning.

"Think of it as the anime fandom"? No. Not even the most delirious cosplayer can make that comparable to even just the average furry. Additionally, people like anime for a wide variety of reasons, whereas the furries are almost exclusively sex and drama.

[Sar]

Now that I read these posts, my normal mindset is like "Gross."

[Tama]

Pawing Off (Masturbation)
Yiffing
Fursecution
Babyfur (Google it if you must)

You forgot diaperfur! :P

[Trilobite]

I personally know next to nothing about furries, but I have spoken to a few who claim to be one online and no, not all are as obsessed as that. You're very right that many furries do over dramatise, and perhaps have a few... unhealthy interests but I guess, to each his own. I won't really judge too much even the most outrageous furry, because I know too little. However, I do know that some furries are not obsessed and just draw and RP their fursonas as a hobby, that much I do know, particularly the younger ones. And perhaps I have the wrong idea, maybe that means they're not furry but just like making human-like animal characters?

Think of it this way. There are probably different dialects and levels. One 'furry' might have a different idea of what it means to be 'furry' than another, on different levels of commitment from passive hobby to total lifestyle hijack?

[ShaoShao]

"Think of it as the anime fandom"? No. Not even the most delirious cosplayer can make that comparable to even just the average furry. Additionally, people like anime for a wide variety of reasons, whereas the furries are almost exclusively sex and drama.

Was simplifying it for those uninformed without sounding too biased, though I'm sure I failed at this. Having wandered both fandoms from time to time I know very well that even the anime fandom has its freaks, just far fewer than the furry fandom spews up.

Think of it this way. There are probably different dialects and levels. One 'furry' might have a different idea of what it means to be 'furry' than another, on different levels of commitment from passive hobby to total lifestyle hijack?

Exactly, that's where it's alike the anime fandom. You have weeaboo, casual viewers, serious cosplayers, and a bunch more which need paragraph long explainations. (oh, and on the lifestyle bit, look up furry history and you'll see where the whole lifestyle/sexuality thing got dragged in... by one of the founders)

I watch a series and try to admire character's traits, build an attachment to and understanding of the characters, try to figure out the plot before it happens, and well, do it without expressing myself with 'KAWAII DESU NE NEKONEKOWAIWAI DESU SQUEEEEE MIHASHI-CHANNN'. I'll fangirl over a series or character but I'll do it in paragraphs to my close friends and other fans while trying to figure out what is so great about it. Sometimes looking at other fans I think 'oh God, I better not be on their level', wherever my brain plucked that term from I don't know, but it's stuck. I feel that I engage differently, so, any furry can feel they engage to their fandom differently as well.


However-!

... I do know that some furries are not obsessed and just draw and RP their fursonas as a hobby, that much I do know, particularly the younger ones. And perhaps I have the wrong idea, maybe that means they're not furry but just like making human-like animal characters?

Alot of the younger 'furries' don't know the word furry. Thanks to oekaki culture they are accused of being furries though. Children like drawing Disney characters, they go online and decide humans are too hard to draw; their friends say 'hey you can just draw yourself as a dog'; they do that. So they're a pink, spotty dog. They have no idea what this is about, just follow the crowd. Trust me, they do.

I followed the crowd, and for a long time I didn't know the term 'furry' existed. I still do draw animal characters, design animal characters, and use some animal characters to represent me, friends, family and even my teachers; without calling myself a furry. I know the furry fandom and it's not what I like. I can make a choice about this because 'furry isn't a race', you're not automatically a furry if you draw a dog.

If 'furry' stayed as what it started as and could be recognised as that today, then may be I'd feel comfortable with calling myself by that label. I admit to liking anthropomorphic animals and some zoomorphs, in fact, I have a fetish for zoomorphs. But I know I don't mean the same as the vast majority of furries when I say that. The furries I've asked want full-body fur, not just cat ears, a tail and cutesy mewing (yes, just like a smiling dog is anthropomorphic, human-like in appearance/attributes, a mewing catgirl is zoomorphic for looking animal-like in some way and acting a bit like a cat).


Hm, on the drama issue, furries persecute anyone who dislikes them. They're the friendliest people on the internet until you say 'I don't like dog costumes', then you're racist and a direct relative of Hitler so they must hate you. If you say rude things about furries they'll say just about as much back - with added death threats and FYIAD. They even do it amongst themselves and when two drama queens go at it you get a whole lot of drama.

[Sar]

You forgot %$@#&!&^%! :P

Note: My Wocky has this thing about filtering. o.o

I would think baby would fall into that category as well, I looked it up.

As for the other comments, I can see what you meant by furry, and I think most people on these pet sites don't do furry like that at all. They just imagine (as people stated earlier) that they make a dog look like a human and so forth without thinking/knowing of the ideology that is behind it. Plus they don't imagine 'themselves' as animals, but merely their pets and so forth.

I might be wrong here though, just what I feel about it.

[Tama]

I would think baby would fall into that category as well, I looked it up.

Nope. Not all diaperfurs are babyfurs. :P

Would "vore" count as a furry-oriented fetish?

[Sar]

Nope.

But some do, according to the WikiFur, in fact it's a subcategory.

Yes I know the topic does get confusing.

[Tama]

Oh, I apologize. I suppose I've misread.

I guess baby would be a subcategory of diaper, but not all diaperfurs are necessarily babyfurs. Some assume a more adult fursona, but simply have some kind of fascination with diapers.

[Sar]

Oh, I apologize. I suppose I've misread.



I think you got it reversed as well.

[Tama]

Lol. Did I? Diaperfur being the subcategory or... is it babyfur?

You didn't really specify which was the sub so I simply assumed babyfur.

[Sar]

The first being the subcategory.

Makes more sense that way, does it not?

[Tama]

Diaperfur falls under babyfur... Hmm...

I guess the adult diaperfurs are some kind of anomaly then. :P

[Sar]

I think that is it.

Well did you look it up on that site I posted earlier? Because I don't think it's an anomaly because simply it isn't normal in today's society (well with a few exceptions like NASA).

[electric_blue_kirby]

Voice 1:

Was simplifying it for those uninformed without sounding too biased, though I'm sure I failed at this. Having wandered both fandoms from time to time I know very well that even the anime fandom has its freaks, just far fewer than the furry fandom spews up.

But they don't compare. Not casual watchers, not weeaboos, not even that cosplayer who seems to think they're really Sailor Moon is comparable. The only you could even attempt to draw a comparison is with Otaku-kin, but I'm not even too sure they're fans of anime so much as just deluded.

A more apt comparison would have been Trekkies, only with more sex and drama.

And perhaps I have the wrong idea, maybe that means they're not furry but just like making human-like animal characters?

Yes.

Just because they draw anthromorphic art does not make them a furry. It requires quite a bit more "zeal" (although that's not really a proper description) for that art to make one a furry. Fchan, Yiffstar, and all those countless furry oekakis are strong examples of this. In fact, just find some furry's livejournal (this should be easy) and you'll get a good idea.

You're right that you don't know what furries are. Kids drawing things on the Internet is not it. It's a whole "lifestyle".

vore

I'd suppose so. It wouldn't have to be furries, but they seem to be the only ones I've ever seen drawn to it.

[ShaoShao]

A more apt comparison would have been Trekkies, only with more sex and drama.
Sorry, my ignorance then, and I'll take your word on that. I know very little about the Star Trek fandom but have found furries referring to it in diagrams about how nerdy people are (the nerdiest level always being a pornographic fanfiction writer who turns all the Star Trek characters into furries and includes a self-insert furry character who Spock/Kirk loves with a firey passion).

I'd suppose so. It wouldn't have to be furries, but they seem to be the only ones I've ever seen drawn to it.
Recently I was shocked to find some idiot posting vore on an image board. Anime vore, as in, Inuyasha or someone eating their friends with an x-ray vision view of their insides. Still, it was deleted and everyone but the poster agreed that it was disgusting.

Furries are the main audience though - even Youtube's got an active vore community full of names like 'DaveRaccoon' (one decided to leave angry messages on my videos, his favourites were all 3D vore animations). Whether it's animals eating humans or animals on animals they seem to get a kick out of it. May be animals make it more acceptable in their heads, but then again 'y'know, furries'.

[Viral]

Hmmm.

Back when I was younger, I designed furry characters all the time (full out furries) and even had a fursona, because that's what people at my oekaki did. They didn't know what the furry culture was like, they just thought having a fursona would be fun.

The thing that really turns me off to furries is the fact that they think they're animals. I was reading a livejournal entry from a furry once (ironic you should mention it, EBK) and there were little animal throw-ins all over. Like, for a horse:

"I brayed at..."
"I'm going to be a very angry pinto."
"It's difficult for me to write this since I have hooves, but..."

[Sar]

Well I never really understood the culture, so I'm new to all of this.