''Furry'' Characters - What has changed?

[CrazyCrab]

Hi everyone,

Recently I was thinking about the different designs that my demons will have and given that most of them are strongly linked to an animal, I felt like giving them animal characteristics. At the same time I'm quite unsure about that, as it seems like ''furry'' characters (humanoids with dominant animal traits) are in a pretty bad spot right now and I've got to wonder: Why?

Let's go back and look at the old characters - surprisingly enough, so, so many characters were ''furries'' in the past and nobody seemed to care. Just have a look at the list that I've compiled off the top of my head:

- Sonic

- Ratchet (and Clank)

- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

- Sly Cooper

- Conker

- Thundercats

- Fox Mc Cloud (and the rest of the crew)

- Sam & Max

- Khajit & Argonians in the Elder Scrolls

... the list just goes on and on.

Yet strangely enough when a new game with furry characters comes out there is usually a barrage of questions and posts concerned with it and with tons of people saying that ''it looks fun but it's got furries in it so no thanks'' - an example of that would be ''Dust - An Elysian Tail''. That game got so much feedback on the furry theme that it completely outweighed all the useful feedback on the actual game.

Even on another forum when I looked at an old post just asking for games with furries in it for some project or something the OP got interesting comments such as ''if you are a fur fetishest, then i regrettably must inform you that the only universal truth that /b/ has ever spoken is OH GOD KILL IT WITH FIRE'' or ''As much as I hate furries...'' 

Please note that the person was only asking for a list. Nothing offensive or suggestive was posted in the original post.

Quite recently I've also bumped into the 2011 remake of the old Thundercats and from what I've watched it seemed really freaking awesome. Magic, sci-fi, cool characters and possibly one of the more exciting first episodes ever? (Honestly, if you have like 40 mins and haven't got anything fun to do I recommend checking it out, I really enjoyed it.) I thought that it was a big thing, yet I quickly found out that it was cancelled after one season, even though people actually liked it. I don't want to go all ''Illuminati controls everything and cancels shows with furries'', but was the fact that the show had an all furry cast a coincidence? Perhaps.

Additionally, looking at the new remake of TMNT, one quite easily bumps into this picture:

The new turtle it pretty much a weird green human, at least that's what he looks like to me. Definitely does not look like the TMNT that I know.

So, I guess that after all this, a couple of questions remains: do you think that furry characters still have a place in modern media?

Is having a large furry cast detrimental to the game or is it just like having a large alien cast? How do you think that the general's audience viewpoint has changed over the years and why has it changed?

I'm really curious what you think.

Thanks!

(Also, for the record: I'm talking about ''normal'' furry characters, like the ones in the past. I'm not talking about fetishes and other weird things like that, I think it's quite clear what the usual attitude is towards that stuff.)

 

[Paladin-Cleric of Awesome]

Personally I don't see a problem with it. I used to watch swat cats and samurai pizza cats and tmnt (2003 version, which is awesome). And lots of others.

As long as there's a believable reason for it don't ever let people make you change it.

People have just taken things like that and made themn to something else, which rally isn't fair.

 

[Sir Edward Dewey]

"(Also, for the record: I'm talking about ''normal'' furry characters, like the ones in the past. I'm not talking about fetishes and other weird things like that, I think it's quite clear what the usual attitude is towards that stuff.)"

Thats why people are not interested in furry characters anymore, ever since the Furry Yiff appeared on the internet they just see beast people or furrys as some sort of wierd fetish. honestly, I love furry characters, mostly because I like to see different creatures they make stories and games more interesting.

 

[Harmill]

I am fairly ignorant about this whole "furry" thing, but I do find that I gravitate more towards non-human characters in my fantasy games. One of the things I like the most about fantasy IS the fantastical elements of them, and so the less magic beasts and non-humans there are, the less interesting it seems to me. I almost always immediately choose the non-human playable character as my favourite in an RPG. Kimahri was my favourite in Final Fantasy X, Red XIII was my favourite in Final Fantasy VII, Fubar (gryphon), Bright (dragon), and Dupa (humanoid lizard) were my favourites in Suikoden III, Repede was my favourite in Tales of Vesperia, etc, etc.

When I see a fantasy RPG with a full human cast, I am less interested in the game. Sure, the game might have other aspects that will eventually win me over, but seeing a non-human immediately grabs my attention. I like fantasy. I like it so I can avoid features that are common to our world (ie: humans).

But I must say, I  HATE Tolkien elves with a fiery passion! I do not consider them a "non-human" race in the sense that they look almost exactly like humans. I don't care if they are technically their own race, they look too similar to humans for me to like them. I have a similar dislike for dwarves, but to a lesser extent.

 

[Onomotopoeia]

TMNT remake? And here I thought I'd seen everything.


I know; everyone will have a different reaction to the news. My default view on remakes is to state emphatically "NOOOOOOOOOO!!!" (Chris Pine is NOT Kirk; Cylons are NOT flesh and blood; Marvel should NOT be in the movie-making, television-show-making biz.)


I look at that turtle-suit picture again, and ... my sentiment still remains the same.


Edit:


Forgot to mention, my views on the classic furry is generally, take it or leave it. Furries in more recent decades have become far too hypersexualized, so I'll leave that aspect of it untouched; I've heard of people doing strange stuff when getting involved in LARP while dressing in animal suits.


I also laughed a bit at the "KILL IT WITH FIRE" comment... Yeah, I've seen that, maybe once or twice.....

 

[Bonkers]

Quite recently I've also bumped into the 2011 remake of the old Thundercats and from what I've watched it seemed really freaking awesome. Magic, sci-fi, cool characters and possibly one of the more exciting first episodes ever? (Honestly, if you have like 40 mins and haven't got anything fun to do I recommend checking it out, I really enjoyed it.) I thought that it was a big thing, yet I quickly found out that it was cancelled after one season, even though people actually liked it. I don't want to go all ''Illuminati controls everything and cancels shows with furries'', but was the fact that the show had an all furry cast a coincidence? Perhaps.

The Thundercats remake fell prey to "Jumping the Shark".  Although it had a lot of good elements in it, there were a number of reasons it didn't work.  Shoehorning in all that Japanese literature and folklore along with homages to the Lone Wolf samurai/Osagi Yojimbo was one thing, but the series itself suffered too much from having a focus on girlfriends.  Lion-o lamented his single status more than the fall of his entire civilization.  They in fact ended the season on just that, Lion-o loosing his girlfriend to Mum-Ra and there being no focus on the falling city for more than 20 minutes.

No it wasn't.  A lot of these shows and games were done on whims, like when Fred Wolf was drunk one night and created the Ninja turtles.  Many of these ideas weren't meant to see the light of day, purely because of making toys for kids or marketing.  Swat Kats was another very good example where the show itself was terrible, but enjoyable and ultimately canceled despite spawning a toy line.

Transformers were more genuinely anthropomorphic than any of these examples since that show reflected real conflict and consequences onto sentient robots.  

It's just another gimmick, and it can fail like any other platform if the actual substance of the show doesn't carry it.  Also those new turtles are hideous.  Good luck getting toys of that for sale made.

 

[Probotector 200X]

The hatred of "furry" characters baffles me. I grew up with things like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Sonic the Hedgehog, Ducktales, Rescue Rangers, Breath of Fire, and all kinds of shows and games with animal people.

It's part of the fun of fantasy, having totally different kinds of people and creatures.

As for the new Turtles thing, yes, that's real. It's a movie that comes out next month, and there's already a toyline, I've even seen 'em in stores, there's even LEGO sets based on the movie. Meanwhile, the new cartoon is still going, and it's...more normal.

 

[Clord]

I personally have nothing against this whole furry thing. In fact the furry art looks quite good and I have some characters that incorporate such features.


Maybe hate comes from the fact that some people might find it uncomfortable to admit that they find them hot?

 

[captainproton]

Something I've noticed? The word "furry" (aside from leaving out scales, feathers, shells, etc) seems to link, in people's minds, to the fetishist lifestyle, while the word "anthro" (short for "anthropomorphic"), has a different semantic undertone. It tends to make people think of creatures with humanoid features.

If, in describing the setting of your game or story are describing the creatures living therein, you call them "cat people" or "humanoid reptiles" people will be okay. I mean, people don't look at werewolves and say "ERMAGERD FURSEHKSNO!!!" Right?

 

[Wavelength]

My guess is that it stems from a combination of the uncanny valley and the fact that some fandoms have overtly sexualized the 'furry' archetype in the last decade.  I think characters close enough to either end of the spectrum (let's say Sonic on the "not human" end, and some renditions of TMNT on the "very human" end) can still work today, but I don't think most of the characters from Conker's games, for instance, would find as much love outside the furry fandom as they did back in the late 90s.

League of Legends comes to my mind as a game that's got characters all over the chart for this.  You've got hybrid charaters who are basically really intelligent beasts (Rengar, Kha'Zix, Nidalee in cat form), characters that are basically humans with a few animalistic accessories (Ahri, Nidalee in human form), and characters right in the middle (Cassiopeia, Soraka before her rework).  Three guesses which category tends to be the last popular.

 

[Espon]

I personally don't have an issue with animal-like characters and have created several in my games as I find it a more interesting way of defining different races of humanoids instead of just giving them pointy ears and calling it a day.

The problem with furries is the whole fandom that revolves around it with it's bizarre fetishes.  You don't have to search hard to find mountains of furry porn, and this is usually what immediately comes to mind when some people see the word "furry."

 

[Simon D. Aelsi]

Quite a few characters in my main projects will be anthropomorphic animals--it is what it is. A lot of people already have been turned off by that but again, it is what it is.  I'm sure that people will enjoy a well-made and thought-out game regardless of its characters' races!

 

[whitesphere]

I wouldn't say nobody's into anthromorphic animal characters.  After all, that's the entire cast of Animal Crossing, except the main character.

Maybe those have become associated with either the fetish or with children's cartoons.  In the case of the former, well, not many people share that fetish.  In the case of the latter, there might be a perception that the game will be aimed at children, so it won't have depth or an interesting storyline.

 

[Clord]

Furries classified my game as something recommended for those into furry fandom.


Sure Kitsune has a tail due lore reasons and Catz has cat ears but I just wonder how that is enough.


I feel that this is enough relevant for this thread as it raises an interesting question that where one draws the line?

 

[Onomotopoeia]

Well, not having played something where a furry is an 'overt' part of the game, I can only guess that one's opinion of a furry character is assessed, based upon the actual dialog. If you have a anthropomorphic character where the dialog adds random "wuf" or "nya" syllables to words or sentence-endings, that alone wouldn't turn me away from it. But if the dialog includes inuendo, expressed or implied sexuality through phraseology, I'd tend to think "this is that character's role in the game, for the titillation factor".

I've also said on other forae around the 'net, that "No one person is only one thing in their life -- and even that can change as well." I'd extend that to game characters, as well. I don't really like to see a lot of game characters locked into just one emotional, ethical, and morality role throughout a single game (except in the drastic case of it being required for the eternal plot); but neither do I like to see characters as made to be "all over the place" in those terms. I realize the problem is more difficult to deal with in the shorter-play-time games, but sometimes the longer-duration games can be just as difficult to broaden a character's repertoire....

So, in general, I would guess being a nekomimi or kemonomimi character is okay, so long as that's not the only descriptor that the player takes away from playing the game.

 

[BlackLiquidSorrow]

One of the characters in my game is a furry who speaks entirely in roleplay.