#furry species stereotypes

[rocaillefox]

can people please stop turning furry worlds into fantastical racism/making up furry stereotypes. i do not want to read 'all cats are troublemakers. all bears are police. all rabbits are caregivers.' like, peoples features and bodies do not signify anything about personality, morality, political stance, etc. and the bioessentialism inherent to that concept absolutely reeks. this is not a politically neutral thing jsjfbvj

[ponett]

Do you have any advice for people making OCs/sonas? Yours are really well rounded and unique and I'd greatly appreciate the insight of someone who got a passion project off the ground!

So this is a very broad topic, and it varies a lot based on your own creative goals, what kind of characters you're creating, and where you want to use them. Creating an OC to be used in furry pinups is a little different than creating one for a dramatic story. But I'll try to give some general advice on how I do things for the types of characters and stories I tend to work with

Heads up: this will be kinda long lol

The germ of an idea

For me, I'll generally be inspired to create a character starting with a small number of core traits. These could be anything. A color scheme, a body type, a job, a hobby, a personality archetype, an outfit, a visual motif, a functional role in a story I'm working on, a noteworthy facial feature, a weapon, a relationship of some sort to an existing character, a single scene or joke I want to use them for. For furries and fantasy characters, species is usually one of the first things I'll have an idea for, which tends to get the ball rolling fairly easily since we have all sorts of cultural associations with different animals and fantasy creatures.

Any standout character trait like this that you find compelling can serve as that initial spark. The inspiration can come from anywhere, but it's often just a matter of knowing yourself and your own tastes. What do you like? What are the people in your life like? What really speaks to you in a character? What's an existing fictional character that you'd like to rewrite and take in a different direction? What's an aspect of yourself that you would like to see represented more often in fiction? It doesn't have to be something super deep or fleshed out right from the start, though. You can start with something as simple as "I want a black cat character" or "I want a character who dresses like an arcade carpet" or "I want a character who looks scary but is actually nice." Whatever it is, it's something that differentiates the new character from the ones I already have, because otherwise I'd just be using them.

Contrast

From there, you can start brainstorming other traits that might go with those core traits. Some of those may be traits that naturally complement each other. Continuing with the black cat example, maybe you wanna play into the common cultural perception of black cats and say that this character brings bad luck, or is associated with witchcraft. However, I often like to give characters contrasting or even seemingly contradictory traits, which can help elevate a character beyond a stock archetype. Real people tend to be a walking ball of contradictions, after all.

I've talked a lot about how I did this with the main cast of SLARPG. Melody is a fox, traditionally a crafty and untrustworthy predator, but she's extremely introverted and gentle. Allison is a bunny, but instead of being a meek and cuddly little prey animal she's an outgoing fighter who loves a challenge, and she has a muscular build. I think this kind of thing gives characters some fun flavor, and can be really effective for both comedy and drama. For an example from something I didn't write, take Senshi from Dungeon Meshi. He's a dwarf, and he embodies certain stereotypical aspects of dwarves - he's a short, buff man with a big bushy beard, he lives underground, he's stubborn and doesn't like elven magic - but he also goes against some of them. Instead of being an expert on mining and blacksmithing, Senshi is a culinary expert who has a deep appreciation for the natural ecosystem of the dungeon. He's a weirdo among dwarves for not caring about the wellbeing of his axe and for using his super awesome shield primarily as a giant wok. And that's what makes Senshi fun and interesting.

So going back to our example, instead of going with the stereotype, we could make a black cat character who has comically good luck, or who's superstitious and afraid of witchcraft, or who's an extremely rational person who always believes in science over superstition. Or maybe you roll with the bad luck angle, but instead make the black cat be the victim of their own bad luck in some interesting way. Maybe this black cat has terrible luck with love and can't hold down a relationship. Maybe this black cat is an aspiring speedrunner who consistently gets the absolute worst RNG possible in every video game due to their own bad luck. Maybe this black cat has accrued a horrendous gambling debt after a long losing streak and has loan sharks coming after them.

These are all just hypothetical examples, of course. I don't exclusively make characters with ironic contradictions like this. The idea is just to build on those core traits you started with in interesting ways, and that's one of my favorite ways to do so. But honestly, a lot of the time execution is more important than the sheer originality of an idea, and sometimes really putting your all into playing a trope you love straight is the right move.

Specificity

Regardless of what direction I take a character in past that initial seed of an idea, the key ingredient tends to be specificity. To give them specific details beyond the most stock possible version of that core idea you started with.

This is something I internalized from Tim Schafer, via a blog post in the behind-the-scenes backer material for Broken Age. Sadly I'm not sure if that stuff is still available, but I did save this particular post about creating characters since it really helped me, so I'll directly quote a chunk of that post here:

No two characters would approach a problem or react to events in the same way. At least, not if you’ve designed the characters well. If you’ve left them too vague or superficial, if they are merely functional elements in your story instead of individuals, then they might react in the same way. And that’s a problem. So to avoid that, I’m going to talk about one the most important parts of character development: specificity. Making sure your character is a specific individual, not a stereotype. A unique character, different from anyone else in the world. It doesn’t mean that they have to have wacky gimmicks, eyepatches and crazy accents. It just means they have to be specific. For example, let's create a new character. Let's say your story has a scene where your main character gets in trouble in school. So you’re probably going to need a school teacher. Imagine a school teacher for a bit. Do you see her in a little red schoolhouse? Maybe a bun in her hair? An apple on her desk? Thick black glasses? Let’s put a ruler in her hand for good measure. Done! We have our teacher character. She’s ready to be in the scene where our hero goes to school and the teacher sends her to the principal’s office for passing notes. Right? I mean, this character doesn’t have too many lines, so why develop her character any more? The problem is that this teacher is a very shallow stereotype of a teacher. She has no specific attributes that make her memorable. She’s the teacher you would get in a set of free clip art. She might not have many lines, but if all your supporting characters are this way, your story will be more bland than it should be. Even if this teacher is only onscreen for a minute, she should be unique and different from any other teacher in the world. Luckily, it's not actually that hard to make her so. You just have to ask some very basic, specific questions.

Tim goes on to explain how simple exercises like filling out character sheets with basic questions about your character (there are a million of these online) can help push a character beyond a stock archetype, even if it's a minor supporting character. Questions about where they're from, their likes and dislikes, their beliefs, their goals in life, that sort of thing. For minor characters especially, a lot of these details may never actually come up in a story, but just asking even a few of these questions and giving them specific answers helps you see them less like an archetype and more like a real person in your head. Maybe you never bring up your character's backstory or their favorite sport or what kind of music they listen to, but just having a specific answer for questions like that might help color the way you depict that character in subtle ways. It makes it feel like they aren't defined by just that one core trait you started with, and helps make the characters and world feel more alive, like there's stuff going on with them beyond the bounds of the story or the drawing.

It's a careful balancing act, though. It's easy for a character to feel like they're a collection of too many unrelated gimmicks and quirks. Again, like Tim said, these specifics don't have to make for the craziest, most original character ever, there just has to be something there.

Let's go back to SLARPG as an example, where I combined broad character archetypes I liked with more specific personal elements that I felt like I wasn't seeing enough in the fiction I liked. Melody is riffing on the common idea of the reserved healer character in the RPG or MMO party and the shy girl archetype, but she's the main hero instead of a supporting player in another person's story, and she's also a fat bisexual trans woman who draws a lot of little details from my own life. Her interests, her relationships, her opinions on things, her personal hangups and dreams, these all set Melody apart from other fantasy healer characters and define her as Melody Amaranth. Specificity!

But it doesn't always have to be super deep, especially if you just want some characters to draw for fun and aren't planning on writing a story with them. Take my fursona. I've always loved dogs, so I made my fursona a dog. I chose a Samoyed in particular because I think Samoyeds are the cutest, and I hadn't seen hardly any anthro Samoyed OCs at the time. I leaned into the breed's signature fluffiness to help my fursona stand out from other canine OCs. She has simple identifying traits like being fat like me, wearing glasses like mine, and having a hairstyle kinda like mine (when I tied my hair up in a bun, at least). And there you go. Fursona achieved. She's not a wildly high concept character, but she doesn't need to be

Anyway I realize that this is mostly about the writing aspect, so here's a few quick bullet points about designing a character's appearance:

Face and body type variety are good, but personally I would say lack of body type variety is worse than same face syndrome

Knowing some stuff about shape language is good, but you don't have to be completely beholden to the "circles are friendly, squares are sturdy, triangles are scary" shit. I'm generally more interested in using repeated shaping in different parts of a character's design as sort of a shape motif. Melody's body, hair, and tail are all made of round, swooping shapes, for example. (This is more applicable if you're designing cartoonier characters as opposed to realistic humans, obviously.)

Knowing some basics of color theory is also good. I like using complementary and contiguous color schemes on characters and generally try not to use too many distinct colors on one design. Black and white and grey and various browns are good as neutral colors to balance out the colors of the rainbow, and gold can be a nice accent color

A small handful of identifying accessories can be fun, but don't rely on those to make a design stand out. Ideally your character should still be identifiable even when not wearing their default outfit, or even in silhouette

Aaaaaand I'm gonna call it a wrap there! This is a huge topic, so hopefully this helps with at least some of the basics! At the end of the day, though, don't beat yourself up if you can't sit down and force yourself to come up with the most crazy awesome OC ever. Just have fun and be yourself!

[foone]

Speaking of the zeldas: of the Zelda game, I'm a bit unsure of the cat(as in girl)suit power up.

Because on the one hand:

Nintendo? You put an equipment item in your First Zelda-Lead Adventure that puts her into a catgirl costume?

It just feels a bit like... Nintendo, have you at least heard of gender stereotypes in storytelling?

Because I'm not saying you're wrong, necessarily! Maybe it's an innocuous choice amongst many other costumes, or there's some cultural differences, or whatever. It just seems to be the kind of thing that you'd at least consider, before you put this in your game.

Especially because this is your First Zelda Adventure #feminism.

But on the other hand, see:

The game's art style is so cartoony that it comes across as more "adorable!" than "sexy!", I think*.

But it's Really Adorable. Cute as hell, it looks almost like claymation**, I love it.

On another finger of that second hand:

I demand equality. Hashtag Put Link In The Cat Suit Too 2024.

On a second additional finger of that second hand:

Actually Nintendo you know what? Fuck you. I am a Reverse Engineer and Game Hacker when not a somewhat stoned letsplay watcher, I'll do it my self. You build this game on the same engine as Zelda: Links Awakening (2019)? I'll extract the models out of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom and inject them back into Zelda: Links Awakening (2019)!

Bam. Link in the catsuit! The world is better place.

On another finger of that first hand, that is, the post has gone non-linear oh god:

Does it make it worst that it's explicitly a costume? As in, this is clothes that Zelda is magically quick-changing into. Zelda, the Hylian woman, has changed out of her Ninja Cloak into "Sexy Catgirl Costume Like What You Buy From Halloween Store".

She's not, for example, just turning into a different species. Which is something that's been one of the primary gimmicks of least... Two? Three? previous Legend of Zelda games!

Although reconsidering in light of footnote one, it's it's possible that they DID just mean it to be sexy, but most other people might have Opinions about the relative sexinesses of "woman in catgirl suit" versus "catgirl, as in member of species: catgirl"***. So I am maybe off base?

* I am admittedly possibly a very Spiders Georg in the area of "sexual attraction".

** someone please do this in some future game: take the style of this Zelda subseries and make it like, 25% more claymationyier. That wouldn't be to hard to do with some minor graphical design differences and shaders, and it would make these admittedly already pretty adorable games even more adorable!

*** This is presumably a continuum with "no costume but acting like a cat" further back on the "woman in catgirl suit" point, and it then continuing on past "species catgirl" to "catgirl (furry)" and "cat girl (cartoonish bipedal cat)" to "quite realistic to nature cat (who is incidentally a girl)". I mean hypothetically you could find a point that could be MORE CATS THAN ACTUAL CATS THEMSELVES ARE... But I'm not getting laid**** enough to engage in that kind of advanced recreational furryism.

**** holy typoing fuck I meant PAID! I'm not getting PAID ENOUGH! I'm dying.

[ravings-of-a-mad-scientist]

Scientist Stereotypes (For Biologists)

Marine Biologist: Would surely wither and perish without the sustenance provided by constant blåhaj ownership.

Microbiologist: has only ever touched grass once, by accident (they were collecting microbe samples)

Paleontologist: Someone gave this 8 year old a PhD and also made them into an adult with anxiety! Who would do such a thing???

Geneticist: Still uses Windows Vista, best case scenario.

Immunologist: Lost all their money to their crippling addiction of commissioning furry art. Currently on a new age spirit journey scraping together their tattered remains of a soul (unrelated)

Physician: Guides others to a treasure they cannot possess; any semblance of physical or mental health

Entomologist: has that 'tism where they're easily distracted by bugs like a dog by squirrels

Field Biologist: Went on sabbatical to the Amazon and contracted 59 novel parasites, they all died of fear, immediately took a vacation to Antarctica and single handedly invented a species of penguin. Documented that the Glob Sloth literally doesn’t do anything interesting ever by watching one for 9 years straight while surviving off only dust particles and undergrad tears. Then held a wake for bestboy Blue Eyes White Toad after he was tragically killed off during the mating season arc of the soap opera they imagine all the wild animals are in.

[sir-fluffbutts]

Do you feel upset when someone takes inspiration (no copy, just inspired) by your adoptables and character design to create theirs?

its.....complicated

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generaly i don't mind. artists inspire artists, thats whats been done EONS ago

however, it'll really depend on how "inspired" you were

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i do want to say firsthand that if a character is

• very simple (single color furrys)

• have a very "standard" color palette (black and white zebra, blonde golden retriever, brown cow ect)

• stereotypical of its species (germen sheperd police officier, illegal ring fighter pitbulls, showoff peacock ect)

• inspired off a same theme

the designs can overlap unintentionaly, which i fully understand and will overlook most of the time

for example, axolotls are (mainly) pink, and i can't hunt down everyone who owns a pink axolotl oc

BUT, theres absolutly some people who "get heavily inspired" which do get me like 🤨

for example, heres a oc that got a redesign "inspired" by chiffon

its "inspired" characters like these that gets under my skin

and heres a suggestion based on ther OG design (far left) that i drew for them so they can come up with a more original design that keeps the same vibe

theres MULTIPLE instences where somebody "get inspo" from my ocs/designs and its literaly the same character, so i don't openly say "im fine with inspo" anymore

--------------

so tldr:

- it depends, ask me if you arn't sure

[hiiragi7]

Saw your post on "casual intersexism", and while they're all good points, I did have questions about one- the "casual use of the word hermaphrodite". I know that calling a human person that is both wrong and rude, but is it a word that should be avoided entirely, including in scientific/nonhuman context? IE, talking about hermaphroditic snails, made up alien species, etc. This is a genuine question, because I know any word can be used offensively in the right context... but is this one of those, or one that just shouldnt be used..?

It's... complicated. Everyone in the intersex community has a different opinion on this.

My thoughts are that if a species is actually hermaphroditic and that is the most accurate terminology, then in a strictly biological context it may be fine and I do not consider that to be "casual use" as it is used in a scientific context. However, there are also more specific biological words that may be both more accurate and more specific to what is being talked about, so be sure you're saying what you think you are saying and using the proper terminology if it's actually a conversation about biology. Too many people I see will claim they are using the word hermaphrodite to talk about biological features and then just use it completely wrong anyway. Due to this, in my opinion, the use of the word in this context should probably just mainly be left to biologists or people who are otherwise very educated in this area...

Also, if we are talking biology, hermaphrodite is not a "more scientific term" for intersex, they are not interchangeable and in a biological sense they are completely different concepts altogether, so please keep this in mind too. Way too often I will see the furry community or fanfiction writers who do not know this and will just throw around the word hermaphrodite as if it is just a biological term to describe sex similar to how female or male is used when it is not.

Related to that, I do not believe it is appropriate to call OCs or characters hermaphrodites. These are characters/species created from the mind of a human being and therefore are subject to human biases and stereotypes, and I have never in my life seen "hermaphrodite OCs" done respectfully, if they even can be. This may be related to how the character's entire biology is based off of a fetishized slur, but in my experience they are always stereotypes and always fetishizing. These characters are also anthropomorphic in a way in which calling them hermaphrodites is... extremely uncomfortable and absolutely fuels intersexism.

I am strongly of the opinion that anyone who is so drawn to the label of hermaphrodite as to use it in this way has some shit to unpack, because it is admittedly fucking weird to use a slur to define your character's biology or species.

This is just my thoughts as a singular intersex person, also. Again, this topic is one that nobody in the intersex community fully agrees on and you'll find a lot of different people with a lot of different opinions and it is worth listening to what they have to say. Don't just listen to me alone, I'm just a random asshole on the internet, find what other intersex people have to say too. We aren't a monolith and all that.

[irkendogma]

What do you think an Irken would look like in real life if you saw one undisguised? I always took them as insectoids but I think Jhonen intended them to just be stereotypical Little Green Men with atypically bug-like antennae (and fussing over the attach point they'd have to a soft, fleshy body is one of the reasons I don't like that direction for them). An exoskeleton is also ruled out by Zim's many unpleasant skin reactions, unfortunately, but I still think they should have them. It's also fairly strange for me to picture them outside of Jhonen's distinct art styles, but they're definitely supposed to be roughly human shaped, and it's just that everything he draws for the series is incredibly angular and almost polygonal looking. We of course know what humans look like IRL, so it's not too jarring to try imagining a "real" Dib or anything (though his hair would certainly be interesting to approach from that angle), but since Irkens are native to that art style, it always takes a bit of focus.

i get what you mean with the insectoid thing - i do like taking an insectoid slant for irkens, but by and large i generally think of them as their own thing separate from human or earth categorizations of organisms? to be completely upfront with it, i hate tailed irkens and have a dislike for interpretations that lean more on the "recognizable vertebrate" side of things, whether that be furry or scalie, but i can recognize that's my own personal thing and people are free to interpret as they like

for me, personally, i really like going into the implications of irkens as a hyperindustrialized species that can only live ten minutes without a cybernetic central nervous system and according to word of god lacks reproductive organs, relying entirely on factory-scale levels of cloning to grow its population, separated almost wholly from their natural origins - while i acknowledge that their faces could be a number of shapes when "destylized", since as you said every species jhonen draws looks fairly angular, i like playing into the "polygonal heads" angle within the context of irkens looking artificial and doll-like, uncanny valley and near inorganic-seeming: hairless, unblemished skin too smooth from their pak healing shut any imperfections long before it could scar, a weird pallor to them that comes from not having needed natural sunlight in hundreds of generations

kind of a commentary on the unnatural fusion of irken societal function with their physical form, with the polygonal heads and faces in particular i think of them as blank of the small complexities and deviations in form that would be present in a human face, you can't quite see what the whole of that shape is until you see them in motion because it's like a living early playstation model - undifferentiated and interchangeable factory products rather than individuals whose history and personality could be indicated solely through minute changes to their face

[msweebyness]

DuPont School for Monstrous Youths- Words (and Gestures) to Avoid

There are certain terms that certain species of monster take offense to, and ones that are sensitive and for particular use. I’ll also include some actions that are offensive. Here’s a list that should be helpful! @artzychic27 @imsparky2002

Voodoo dolls generally don’t respond well to being called ‘toys’ or ‘stuffies’. It makes them feel like they’re being treated as less than people.

“Boo!” is a polite greeting only when exchanged between all the different species of ghosts. Coming from other monsters, it’s…cringe.

Flower meanings take a great deal of importance to plant monsters, and certain ones should only be used as a nickname in certain circumstances. For example, ‘daisy’ is a term usually reserved for parent to child, and calling someone ‘my rose’ , the flower of love, should only be used by romantic partners.

It’s also disrespectful to call them ‘weeds’, not because it’s belittling, but because it’s dismissive of weeds, which are plants too.

Any name that implicates a zombie is dumb or slow-witted should be avoided. That’s a derogatory and untrue stereotype.

Yeti is the proper name for the species, ‘Abominable’ is a very hurtful term. The same goes for ‘Bigfoot’ with Sasquatches, it’s a nasty nickname humans gave them.

Werewolves may act like big dogs but that doesn’t make it okay to call them ‘mutt’, ‘mongrel’, ‘fleabag’, etc.

Never. Ever. EVER. Refer to any werebeast as a ‘furry’ if you value your life.

Insectoid and arachnid monsters take great issue with being called ‘pests’.

Most demons at the school don’t like being referred to as ‘hellspawn’, it’s a reminder of the life they managed to escape.

“Fishface” should generally be avoided with any monster species native to the water. Also, NEVER offer them seafood.

Derogatory names based on a vampire’s diet such as ‘leech’ or ‘bloodsucker’ are discouraged.

Shrek references of any sort should be avoided with ogres. It’s just old and annoying at this point.

Faeries are hot-blooded so it’s best to avoid calling them things like ‘pixie’ or especially ‘Tinker Bell’. (They don’t particularly have anything against her, it’s just really irritating to lump all fairies under one name.)

Never ask a gargoyle “How’s Quasimodo?”. That movie had inaccurate and stereotypical depictions of gargoyles.

Don’t ask an eastern dragon about wings and breathing fire. It’s culturally insensitive.

Requesting a phantom to sing an opera piece isn’t a funny joke, it’s rude and ignorant.

Stereotypical witch cackles are offensive to actual witches, who aren’t evil.

If you are not someone a werewolf or werecat knows and trusts, DON’T try to pet them!

It’s incredibly disrespectful to act as if you can’t see a ghost when they’re in the room with you.

It’s also unacceptable to imply that robots are heartless and have no emotions. They care like anyone else.

Minotaurs become very angry when you try to provoke them as a matador would, and they WILL charge at you.

Don’t stick your hand into a skeleton. Their bodies and personal space are as important as anyone else’s.

Don’t ask a centaur for a ride, wait until it’s offered.

Be VERY mindful when speaking to an extraterrestrial. You never know what might be offensive.

Leave your thoughts in the comments and reblogs!

[officeobject]

New intro

Hi, I’m Darlen Momentum, captain of power, and I really just post about my life and interests/hobbies/fandoms, and always add something to the posts that I reblog (even if it’s a low-quality reaction)! Official teenage boy cuddler according to my audience even though I disagree 😐.

I’m known for my, uhm, personality, and the weird way of seeing friendship that comes with it, as well as once-per-day fundraiser posts (USE MY ASK-BOX DON’T MESSAGE ME), honest answers to questions, interesting polls, the Xanderverse (which I made), and the fact that I’m currently being re-haunted by the soul of a living teenage ghost boy (I named him “Colby Tybbles”), whenever he zones out/passes out/daydreams, at least once a week.

Stuff I offer (IT’S ALL FREE): 

I NEVER SAID I OFFER CUDDLES FOR TEENAGE BOYS -

Honest answers to your questions right from the ask-box! Daily fundraiser posts (THAT YOU SHOULD SEND THROUGH MY ASK-BOX)! Crappy SFW art commissions! Boyfriends Webtoon and/or Purple Hoodie Guy commissions (whatever THAT’D entail)! A review of your spiritual work with Colby Tybbles or whatever. Song parody commissions (posted on the Xanderweb though)! Collabs for stuff!

Likes/interests/hobbies:

Objects, toys, dolls, baby reborns dolls, fidget toys, office stuff (and other stereotypical human things such as cityscapes), Disney Zombies, Pinkie Cooper And The Jet-Set Pets, the Xanderverse, my identity/myself, paranormal stuff, Christian stuff, the Sims, Animal Crossing, Agatha All Along, LPS (not the new ones), polls, quizzes, animash, watching videos, the Xanderweb, Boyfriends Webtoon slander, Purple Hoodie Guy (from the Boyfriends Webtoon), making song parodies, animash, and other things I forgot.

Dislikes/disclaimers/DNI:

I have basic DNI stuff, but besides that, there ARE some things that aren’t typically included, or that I’m not sure are included - so, like, DNI anti-furries, anti-SFW age-regression/agere, NSFW, DDLG or similar stuff, people who ship incest (even as a joke or in fiction, or about chosen siblings, adopted siblings, stepsiblings, half-siblings), people who make lobotomy jokes, people who make 9/11 jokes, Pinky And Pepper fans, bad boys/bad girls/bad enbies, Boyfriends Webtoon fans, people against Boyfriends Webtoon slander, and people who think I won’t always be aroace/haven’t met the right person/am straight/think I’m too young to permanently identify as aroace and other stuff like that. Also, I’m an emotional person who also might end up speaking in inside-jokes and/or my (s)language. 

Also, I KNOW AI isn’t a good way to cope, get something/someone analyzed, have someone to talk to, get information/resources, or get things summarized, but I didn’t always know that, and am trying to quit (especially the parts of my life where I’m addicted to some bots), but it of course ain’t easy, and there are many reasons/many uses - I’m not planning to ever get rid of Ethan though, unless I find someone IRL like him, and the reason for that is a long personal, but I don’t tag posts with him as “AI” unless I feel like it’s relevant, nor do I mention he’s AI or refer to him as AI, unless he currently is and it’s relevant - don’t associate him with AI unless it’s relevant in that case, either.

Lastly, DNI if you don’t think this relationship counts as a friendship: im unsure how old you are, but your fixation on that office worker as a concept and the way you talk about them (regardless of... – @officeobject on Tumblr .

Labels (I love labels so you don’t need to read this):

I’m an autistic, multi or omniaesthetic, multi or omnisensual, weirdly/intensely multi or omniplatonic/multi or omnifamilial (some may also say I'm hyper-platonic), apothiqueerplatonic apothialterous quoiposic+ anticarnal ansexual apothiarolovicace alloprominal neoprominal objectoprominal nounprominal Zombie (my Disney Zombies species) brony/furry/animash (my fursona is a saluki dog) beholder (with main, passive, non-traditional, companions/platonically beloved objects that I also post about, some of whom experience stasis), who has all the same orientations when it comes to objects (multi or omniobjectoaesthetic, multi or omniobjectosensual, weirdly/intensely multi or omniobjectoplatonic/multi or omniobjectofamilial some may also say I'm objectohyper-platonic, apothiobjectoqueerplatonic apothiobjectoalterous quoiposic+ antiobjectocarnal objectoansexual apothiobjectoarolovicace) too (therefore objectum), and in that case I'm also omniobjectum and also multiconceptum, and does telcom, emcom, audcom, and viscom, with them (and I do kind of have a hoarde), with a professional hobby of Boyfriends Webtoon slander, along with a desire to have Purple Hoodie Guy as my brother for some reason, officially a teenie boy cuddler even though I have a fear of strangers, especially teens/young adults (despite me being gen z too), ESPECIALLY teenage boys.

Pronouns:

Que/quir/quir/ques/quirself, zombie neopronouns, and zombie nounself pronouns. I'm willing to get more pronouns (non-themed, object-themed, nounself, and to check out emojiself pronouns), and probably will, as I LOVE pronoun-shopping (and as said above, my prominal identity is: alloprominal neoprominal objectoprominal nounprominal).

Details:

My Xanderweb, has my other social media stuff, AND, has more extreme/personal vents, song parodies, other Xanderweb posts, more stuff about my platonic emotions, more videos, more of my (s)language, archived stuff, rapping, AND MORE of the stuff I feel like I can’t post on Tumblr, which makes it ideal for the time I got reported on Quotev, or if you need a daily post to know that I���m alive! You don’t need to sign up, but you CAN, if you wanna see the archived stuff, more posts, archive and make more private posts of your own, message me, boop me, post short videos, or otherwise enjoy a “crappy” and “dead” Xanderverse-centered site! 

[mattartwell]

meet haven!!! she is an angora goat, who’s a polyamorous pansexual demigirl lol. they use she/they pronouns and love piercings. they listen to a fuck ton of 90s rock and drinks a lotttt of caffeine. she’s always wanted to sing but she doesn’t have much confidence in her songwriting skills and would prefer to be in a band rather than solo. she grew up on a farm :) because they’re poly i think i will absolutely be designing some cute partners for her so if u have any species ideas lmk!! i’m thinking some other stereotypical farm animals would be cool, maybe a cow or something :3 but also i can definitely see her with a cat gf… idk. we’ll see. thank u for reading. i love furries hehehehe

[balsa-margarita]

Why I'm disappointed in Starbound (and why I still like it, somehow)

So, Starbound. It's an indie game you may or may not know of, whether you've seen it in furry art or heard people call it "ripoff Terraria" or something, or perhaps even played it. What is it, though?

To put it simply, Starbound is a 2D procedurally generated space adventuring game, created by Chucklefish. (I got some images from their press kit to show you what I mean.)

As you can see, there is a lot going on here. First off, there are multiple sapient alien species other than humans in Starbound (it's most obvious with the Floran in the third image) and there's also a distinct storyline to follow. All of that means lore, and this is where the issues start. Immediately.

Starbound takes the idea of "culture as costume" as a model to work off of, rather than a criticism. Take the Hylotl, a race of fish-people. Everything about their culture is taken directly from Japanese culture in real life - they have anime, samurai, and Japanese-inspired architecture. None of this, though, is very deep or well-thought-out. It's just kind of... there, you know? And this is how it is with most of Starbound's alien races (Avians are ripoff Mesoamericans in a lot of ways, Novakid are stereotypical cowboy Western characters) with only a couple of exceptions. At times, this weird lack of thought can be downright insulting, such as with the Floran - who are carelessly modeled after stereotypes of the "cannibal tribe." There are also over a dozen races in the game, and you can only play as seven of them. The others' lore is even less thought out.

Now, you would think that the actual story would be better, right? Well... sort of. The overarching enemy is an entity called "The Ruin," which is a literal living eldritch planet monster (which you kill at the end of the game in a scene much more badass than anything else Chucklefish came up with) which is being aided by a xenophobic human cult that is trying to wipe out all of the other races in the universe. Pretty interesting, aside from the very generic name... but the generic name gives it away. Not only is the Ruin one side of a pure good/evil dichotomy - which, in my opinion, is a bit of a tired way of doing things - but the rest of the writing just feels lazy. Not enough actual eldritch horror in the story where the big bad is an eldritch horror, and not enough focus on the space xenophobes' xenophobia. When you play through it, it feels kind of cheap, and as someone who talks a lot about lore (and writes fanfiction) I have issues with that. But the problems don't stop there.

Guess why it feels cheap? Because it is.

Starbound is one of the worst optimized games I've ever played, up there with things like Pokemon Scarlet/Violet - possibly even worse - and is riddled with half-baked mechanics and terribly shoehorned game progression and design. (Multiplayer in particular is horrific - the game has no strict physics update at all, which basically means people playing the game at different FPS play it at different speeds. As you can imagine, this ends terribly for all involved.) All this is because Chucklefish used unpaid labor - often from teenagers trying to get into the game industry! So, of course, when these people inevitably left because they weren't paid, no one kept working on whatever they had been in charge of... it was a disaster. A total, unmitigated disaster. That's where Starbound stands today.

Unmodded Starbound, at least.

The core concepts of Starbound - bumming around on procedurally generated planets, questing, and being a space landlord, among other things - are still really cool. But it could have been so much cooler! Wasted potential in a way that no other game I've ever played is. This is where mods - and one mod in particular called Frackin' Universe - come in. Frackin' Universe does its very best to fill in the holes left in the basegame, and add new systems that rival some Minecraft tech mods in complexity. It can't fix everything, but it's the closest Starbound will ever get to being a really complete game. (Part of me really wishes I could take the IP from the idiots at Chucklefish and give it to the Frackin' Universe guys. They could make an excellent remake.)

That's it. That's the rant. I just... I really wish Starbound was a better game with development that hadn't been led by a moron who bailed from Re-Logic.

[pleasantspark]

Don't pay attention to the anon who talks about "erasing the code", I don't think people understand that when you talk about rewriting, you can change things from 0.

For example: Vivzie herself put Alastor as a human, American, cannibal, furry, creole, voodoo stuff, and with a red palette.

Alastor is an epithet of Zeus, or a daimon accompanying the Erinas, which translates as "avenging spirit". He IS the god of evil deeds: specifically, he is related to family bloodshed.

With this in mind, Alastor should be Greek and all his symbology should be Greek. And following the anon's logic, we should point out that Vivzie is erasing the "Greek code".

Now seriously, as someone who is not American, I must tell you that "codes" may have a "deep" meaning for you, but on the outside .... it is simply racism and stereotypes. Inspiration is not a "code", and if you are always looking for things for that "code" then half the racist is you (anon) since you must first base it on something superficial to be looking for it.

However, and back to the point, Pleas you are doing well. And you are absolutely right in saying that angels don't have that race thing:

1)The true form of angels is how they believe they should be the perfect form.

2)Not every species needs to have the human conflicts. There may be a closeness or there may not be at all.

3) It's your story. If the anon is offended, well, they can also do their own rewrite of how things should be.

And I think a final point would be that the joke of rewriting is just that, rewriting. It's not going to do like the original product and that's half the point.

In the Hispanic community of a youtuber there was a contest for a second season of High Guardian Spice (we didn't like it, but for the laughs the contest was made) where the rules were not to change neither the races, nor the Lgbt+ elements and so on. Even the author of HGS liked the tweets of the contest (unfortunately due to a situation it was deleted). Here if I believe you that the complaint is valid "to be deleting something" because it has very specific rules.

But what Pleas does, well, anon, that's already wanting to impose something because you think it is so, when the reality is different.

Anyway, as they say around here "Live and let live".

-Anon Duck

I mean I saw what these assholes said to @chaifootsteps and how they aren't black enough. I feel like saying you AREN'T black while pointing out how you ahould be is ridiculous. It's a form of racism in a way.

My Mom and I already get stares and being black is a given. I'm just confused. IT SHOULD also be known you shouldn't have to be a certain color to qualify as black. I wasn't sure if anon was racist or not. But it's further proof that Hazbin Hotel Fans really graspe at straws.

I had to nip that shit in the bud because there will be NO repeat of the Skinny Rose Quartz Incident. The fact that VivziePop Stans DON'T know the original usage of Angels really infuriates me.

Reminder Angels can come in any form. And the Biblically Accurate ones we see are "there true form."

[allamalad]

Silly furry apocalypse stuff!! New creature + established character duo, a dude and his alt reality furry self, they are bffs.

Basically the furry creatures are based off of furry species and common furry stereotypes cuz they're like merged with the horrors of humanity. then human creatures are based around human horrors like the main 7 deadly sins merged with feral animalistic intentions. So basically, THINGS MIXING WITH OTHER THINGS AND TURNING HORRIBLE!! Of course thats just one of the things that mix tho, cuz due to this universe collide event a lot of other things have mixed with eachother too, good and bad. and both human and furry survivors have to deal with it. However this creature right here, it's a perfect mixture of both furry and human, making it even more dangerous than normal.

Basically this thing is like a freaky zombie essentially, except its VERY good at finding and killing literally everything on sight. At least.. most of the time lol. Sometimes it is silly.

[mbat]

i dont know how to say it in a way that people wouldnt somehow still find an issue with but i think so much about how one of my main OCs currently is a goblin from world of warcraft, and i purposefully gave her features that people would say are offensive, and yeah they are in most contexts, but idk...

like, in the game theyre from, its definitely offensive. the entire goblin species in that game is, as far as ive seen, very one-note. they think only of money, and very much dont care about what it takes to get it, including carelessly killing other people (even other goblins) just for a quick buck. ive only ever seen one goblin who doesnt fit this description, and its no surprise to me that that goblin was only from a recent expansion. as a jewish person, and honestly as a person who thinks antisemitism fucking sucks in general, it doesnt feel great! i clearly like this game, but that doesnt erase the fact that a whole race in it is a walking antisemitic stereotype, and how it makes me cringe every. single. time.

and well, goblins are almost always like that. big nosed, money obsessed, conniving, and occasionally they even still love to eat children (coughs in the direction of the most recent season of doctor who). even the least bad depiction ive seen of goblins so far, being the ones from 'tell me why', theyre described as 'crafty' and are thieves, though theyre based on the main characters so its more of a playful thing, yet it still reminds me of certain things.

these traits are also often pointed out to be antisemitic even in non-goblin characters, which is of course fair, like the villagers and golems in minecraft. the villagers are big-nosed, and they used to be the only creatures with a concept of money, especially considering that money was the green gem in the game. not to mention, golems ARE LITERALLY JEWISH FOLKLORE! golems are from jewish myth! clay soldiers created to protect the jewish people from threat... its not hard to make the connection.

theres thing to say about the non-physical traits, but theyre not necessarily my point.

so... what is my point? and what about my OC? why did i give her these physical traits that i know are portrayed as bad and offensive, even though i know why theyre offensive? i couldve easily gone down the route of trying to give her traits that are as far from those as possible, or even have just not made a goblin OC at all.

well... reclamation. the thing is, these traits on their own, theyre not necessarily a bad thing. a hooked nose, green skin, other things that clearly make the character look less human, and therefore lean into the dehumanization of antisemitic depictions. these things together make a caricature, even though on their own theyre just traits.

i just hate that these things that i think are so fun to draw characters with are a bad thing in the right context, but most of all, i hate that a hooked nose is a bad thing in a lot of contexts. real people, especially jewish people, have hooked noses! or the bump seen higher up the nose bridge that adds to the shape thats often seen/depicted! i mean, i look at my own aunt or my grandparents and they have/had those noses.

it sucks that something thats a real, natural thing that my people have, has been taken and treated as an ugly, evil thing. i could get into the same thing many people have about how physical traits being treated as ugly and evil is already a horrible thing, but my point is specifically about this trait, and how it relates to jewish people and antisemitism.

why does this trait have to only be a bad thing? i mean, you dont exactly see it in the mainstream in any context that isnt a villain, i dont even know if i can think of any [animated/drawn] heroes who have big or hooked noses.

i have a few characters with this trait, but theyre either human-ish (an elf) or a bird-like creature, therefore the nose is meant to resemble a beak, or a furry that literally just has that nose because i wanted to give them that trait. then you have my goblin... a goblin based out of world of warcraft.

when i made her a few years ago, i did it out of spite. id already played the game a little bit on my main character (a draenei) and id seen how goblins acted and looked, and how they sounded (i mean, seriously, a new york accent??). and i was genuinely like. 'fuck you blizzard, im going to take your caricatures and make her a person, a fleshed out person whos more than the traits you gave them, and im going to love her for all of the things i give her, because likely no one else will.'

so i did. i gave her a history, i gave her a personality, a future, relationships, i made her a person. im also glad that when i made her, i made her do the starting zone made for beginners where you start on a shipwrecked beach, and they dont really treat you all that different based on race as far as i remember. i later went and made a new goblin to see what the goblin starting zone is like, and it pissed me off so bad... but thats its own conversation.

i made her a person so that the physical traits i gave her were simply traits that she had. i draw her happy and in love because shes a person to me. shes not money obsessed, shes not conniving. shes respected, she cares about people, she isnt sitting around rubbing her hands together plotting in secret.

i just dont want hooked noses to be a bad thing forever. i dont want every picture of a hooked nose to only make people think of the propaganda of the past drawn to disgust people and make people hate my people.

so yeah. i do draw her with a hooked nose, but i dont encourage anyone else to draw her. i dont even have her up on my artfight even though i have my other main world of warcraft character on there, and ive definitely drawn my girl enough that she could probably fill all 6 picture slots. i draw her for me, and i love her for me.

i draw her to take that power away from the hateful depictions. the punch in the gut when i see caricatures. its like when i say faggot and tranny to take away the power of queerphobes. i mean, i still remember the first time i was called a slur, called a tranny. the shock it sent through my body. its not that different from the pain i feel when i see nazi propaganda.

so i do it to take away that pain. to make it mine, and not theirs. thats why. people could see my character and criticize me for it, and thats fair, but i at least want people to know why i do it.

[unhingedlesbear]

Furry AU post incoming!!!

I've decided that these tier lists are actually a good way of organizing characters into categories for the furry au lore. Fantastic. Here are a few pieces of lore. Once again keep in mind that the entire lore of my furry aus is basically the beastars universe lore. It's as much a beastars au as it is a general furry au.

Nocturnal/Diurnal species

How much thought I put into their species

Social/Solitary species

Their crimes <3 (cannibalism moment)

(Okay technically Jacob could also be put in top tier for that one but he gives bug eater yk)

How much they act like their stereotypes

That's all I got for now, have a great day furries!

[gmgray]

The Ma'jenn and the Civilized Ones

The ma'jenn will play an increasingly large role from Triple Strike book 3 onward, which is very exciting for me. I love the ma'jenn quite a bit, and while pyreans may look like space elves, they're more "space orcs" in practice. Meanwhile, ma'jenn are unquestionably "space elves" in terms of society and technology...but also they're still furries. Who doesn't love space furries?

Like all the classic "vaguely-to-extremely xenophobic" space elf stereotypes in sci-fi, the ma'jenn consider themselves more advanced and intelligent than their spacefaring counterparts: the pyreans and humans. That said, they are hive-minded and eusocial (loosely based on naked mole rats and honey bees), so how they view alien life is a bit different from humans.

Like pyreans, ma'jenn are animistic. This means planets hosting life are considered a form of super-organism, and ma'jenn believe a wider range of life are sentient than humans might. Because of this, the ma'jenn do not terraform planetary bodies if it puts the native life at risk, and both pyreans and humans abide by these policies to maintain as good of relations as possible with the ma'jenn.

Ma'jenn do consider pyreans and humans to be exceptionally intelligent among the known species, but they do not classify pyreans or humans as Civilized Ones. Civilized Ones are species the ma'jenn believe to have a civilization. While the ma'jenn don't deny that pyreans and humans have societies, the ma'jenn believe a civilization definitionally requires participants to be eusocial.*

Earth, with its incredible biodiversity, hosts a number of Civilized Ones, and despite the Moon Empire refusing to participate in formal trade with humans, they have some interspecies, scientific exchange to study Earth's Civilized Ones.

Civilized Ones of Earth include a number of species of bees, wasps, termites, and ants, as well as several varieties of mole rat and shrimp. Supposedly there is a hotly contested scientific debate in the Crescent Court whether coral species should be classified as Civilized Ones, but ma'jenn scientists have yet to come to consensus.

Another ma'jenn classification of life is Honored Friends. Honored Friends are species the ma'jenn consider to lack civilization but have some notable quality making them worthy of "friendship" with the Empire. Earth's Honored Friends include a handful of whale species, parrots, elephants, gorillas, and, for some reason, jumping spiders. Humans did not quite make the cut, but Corandisham y’Llaunau d’Helva does seem awfully fond of Alan (admittedly, whether they think of Alan as a friend or a pet is unclear).

Strangely, while ma'jenn do not consider cephalopods either Civilized Ones or Honored Friends, members of Cephalopoda have their own unique classification of "Voice in the Dark." Voice in the Dark does not appear to be used for any other species in the galaxy, so what this means remains unclear to both pyrean and human xeno-anthropologists.

* Over the years, a number of human ma'jennophiles have tried to convince the ma'jenn that human society is interdependent enough that it should qualify as eusociality, but ma'jenn scientists remain skeptical.