Furre Vs. Furry Options

[Mandaliet]

For some reason Wikipedia's article on Furcadia was nominated for deletion. In the deletion discussion page, a lot of people referred to Furcadia as a "furry" game. (If you don't know what furries are, you can read Wikipedia's page on them here. Actually, you might want to read that anyway because a lot of people who think they know about furries are misinformed.)

Do you think this is accurate? I don't. There are a lot of furries on Furcadia, but most of the people I know on here aren't part of the furry fandom. Just dealing with fur and anthropomorphic animals doesn't automatically make it part of the fandom, although I think Furc was inspired by it. Still, people often see the name and content of Furcadia and assume that using Furcadia makes you a furry (not just on Wikipedia; I've noticed it many times), and I think that's just incorrect.

[Anania]

The way I see it: To be a furry you need a fur suit.

You can play a furry or "furre" all you want but YOU as the individual playing the character you are -not- a furry.

[hugin]

I thought the difference rested with "furry" and "furrie", with the latter being the fursuit toking kind.

Maybe I'm wrong.

Reading through the deletion-discussion page, I find myself agreeing with the fact that furcadia isn't really notable per se. And there are way too many furrie related articles on wikipedia regardless.

Edit: To rephrase completely. Furcadia might neccesarily not be best of deleted, since it's pretty significant in the furry/furrie/whatever community. But there are loads of other furrie related articles that should never have existed in the first place.

[Anania]

It really depends on who you talk to.

Some use furrie as a term to describe a "fur suiter." The rest don't.
There is no real definition for the term furrie so it's left to whatever one believes.

But there are several for the term Furry:
1. consisting of or resembling fur
2. covered with fur; wearing fur
3. obstructed or coated as if with fur
4. Slang. terrifying; hair-raising.

Definition 2 could be someone wearing a fur suit.

So like I said, it depends on who you talk to.

[Mandaliet]

I thought the difference rested with "furry" and "furrie", with the latter being the fursuit toking kind.

Maybe I'm wrong.

I haven't heard of a "furrie" before.

Maybe I should clarify that by "furre" I mean a Furcadia user (or a Furcadia user's avatar) and by "furry" I mean someone belonging to the furry fandom.

Edit: To rephrase completely. Furcadia might neccesarily not be best of deleted, since it's pretty significant in the furry/furrie/whatever community.

Is it? I don't know everything about the furry fandom but I didn't think Furcadia was a big part of it.

[hugin]

I think you'd be hard pressed to find a furry MUCK with as many players as furcadia.

[Simseth]

If I touch the screen, I am not feeling fur or anything soft.

I'll stick with "Things" rather then Furry/Furrie/Furre

[VuxZanpire]

What happened to the old fashion word "Anthro" (: ?
Yes, I think Anthropomorphic is the most accurate. Furry/Furre/Furie was a made up term that some people came up because they obviously didn't know the proper term. Don't quote me on this though.

[Angst Dalharil]

However, there is no Anthropomorphic category on Wikipedia, at least as far as I've known.

However, I don't see how the article says "This is a furry game" or "Most people here are furries". Infact, the only mention of furries is in the Character section: "The character avatar on Furcadia is generally called a "furre", which is usually pronounced "fur", but occasionally "furry"." . Most of the people who voted for deletion only offered "furcruft". This alludes to them never having played Furcadia, or anything of the like.

I argued on the talkpage, that Furcadia -does- deal with furres/furries. Unless you roleplay a human (which is a very big minority, and Furre! does not include humans), you play an animal walking on two legs walking and talking like a human. Unless you're feral. But yeah, it deals alot with furry culture. I think it would be rude to ignore that aspect.

I'm just going to see if I can find an anthropomorphic category..

EDIT: I added the anthro category.

[Mandaliet]

I'm often misunderstood, and people often misunderstand each other on the Furcadia forums, so when you combine me with the Furcadia forums you get one big wad of misunderstandingness. Let's see if I can explain my points better, although I'll probably just end up confusing everyone in ways I cannot currently dream of.

First I should explain what I mean by a furry, which I didn't think would require much explanation here. I will once again link to Wikipedia's article and even quote it:

Furry fandom is an artistic and literary genre that celebrates the hybridization of humans and (other) animals traits and characteristics, specifically in cartoons and comics.
...
Members of the furry fandom, known as furry fans, furries, or furs, particularly enjoy media that includes fictional anthropomorphic animal characters with human personalities and characteristics.
...
A furry community has grown rapidly with the advent of the Internet. Content created by furry fans on the World Wide Web covers a wide range of interests, including fantasy, philosophy, sex, politics, religion and lifestyle.

Perhaps this doesn't explain exactly what I mean, though. When I say "furry" I mean someone who's part of the furry community, taking part in furry-specific activities such as conventions (although most furries don't have fursuits, since they are rather expensive). One thing that makes this difficult to explain is that "furry" can have two meanings: either an anthropomorphic animal, or the definition I used above, someone who's part of the fandom that involves said anthropomorphic animals. Just being an anthropomorphic animal (for example, Bugs Bunny) does not make something part of the furry community, but it could be called a furry by members of the furry community.

What I'm trying to say, I think, is that I don't think that just because Furcadia involves anthropomorphic animals, it is therefore automatically part of the furry community. However, people who have a limited view of what the furry fandom is (i.e., most of the Internet) often look at Furcadia and assume that anyone who uses it must be part of the furry fandom, and that's not accurate.

I hope I'm making sense here. If not, perhaps there are some actual furries (by which I mean, of course, members of the furry fandom) here who can explain this better, or maybe they will demonstrate that I'm horribly, horribly wrong.

Finally, I should also point out that "furre" is a Furcadia-specific term, which I also didn't think needed an explanation. That's why it says "Sorry, that furre is not in this dream!" and stuff like that.

[Mandaliet]

However, I don't see how the article says "This is a furry game" or "Most people here are furries"

I know, I was talking about the deletion page, not the article itself. If the article had said that, then it would certainly be appropriate for it to be in the "furry" category.

I'm just going to see if I can find an anthropomorphic category..

EDIT: I added the anthro category.

That's a much more appropriate category.

[Carrie O'Kaye]

Why post here? It is like preaching to the converted. Talk to people who do not know about Furcadia... i.e., post at Wikipedia!

[Shinichi Kudo]

It's not nominated for deletion o-o .... but yeah.


Article about furries:

From games RuneQuest, Lugaru, EverQuest, the Star Fox series, Sly Cooper, Sonic the Hedgehog series, Jazz Jackrabbit series, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Furcadia

xP

[Swift Fox]

this is an interesting topic.

i think a "furre" is just the term for an anthromorphic player on furcadia. i mean like someone who roleplays their character as a half human half kitsune neko ookami wtfever. personally i wouldnt consider people who chat OOCly in AI or Furn or wherever 'furres'. just the people who say stuff like *waves paw* Hello, Fellow furres! *i wag my tail*

and furry is the correct spelling of someone who believes they are an animal or goes to furcons in their hot sweaty fursuits waving to all their friends like Mikey the Raccoon and Diego the Husky and Shadow the Black Cat all dressed in their $1600 fursuits. makes me sick. or just a character who is half animal half human who does not play furcadia.

[Mandaliet]

Why post here? It is like preaching to the converted. Talk to people who do not know about Furcadia... i.e., post at Wikipedia!

I don't think I'm preaching to the converted because apparently no one knows what I'm talking about. I just wanted to see what other Furcadia users thought. It doesn't really have anything to do with Wikipedia; that was just one example that happened to inspire the post.

[Anania]

Don't worry about it to much... -.-

I found the topic really interesting as did others and it's not causing any harm. Besides, there are bound to be topics that cause a difference in oppinion among the masses. Hell we all have a right to our oppinions and having them makes us human.

Sometimes people just need to relax and either contribute something to the topic or just avoid it completely.

Variety is the spice of life.

*WARNING: The above is my oppinion. GOOD GOD NO!*

Getting back on track though, the term "Furre" has been around far longer then Furcadia.

PS: Who the hell spends $1600 on a fur suit?

[Felorin]

Apparently someone got on Wikipedia and nominated a whole lot of different furry related Wikipedia articles for deletion. Some Wikipedia users pointed out Furcadia's historical significance as one of the first MMORPGs, and provided some links to other references to Furcadia (including our mention in Richard Bartle's book, and our reaching the finals in the Independent Games Festival). We'll probably be getting some new references and links added to our Wikipedia article as a result of this.

And somebody did point out in the discussion there, the question of whether Furcadia is "furry" or "not furry" is not really relevant to whether it belongs on Wikipedia. They did decide the article is going to be kept, so that's all settled anyway.

It is of some interest to some of our players, though. So I'll say that our expectations and intentions from the start would be that the game would primarily be for "the general public", just like Disney cartoons, greeting cards from Sandra Boynton or House Mouse Designs, Bugs Bunny, sports team mascots in animal suits, Aesop's Fables, Calvin & Hobbes or Peanuts comic strips, Pokemon, Neopets, etc. These are all things that appeal to thousands or tens of thousands of people in furry fandom. But they appeal to millions of people outside furry fandom as well. (Disney's movie The Lion King was, at the time, their biggest moneymaking animated movie ever. Now I think it's Finding Nemo.)

We started Furcadia as a business venture, as well as wanting to make something good for people to enjoy. We knew that the furry fandom was too small a market to make a living from. All our previous games were aimed at a larger audience, so this one was too. We also knew that a significant percentage of our players would come from the furry fandom, and that's fine too - we enjoy furry conventions, furry websites etc. ourselves. But we don't want people to think it's only for that fandom, or that furry fandom's what it's all about. It's mainly about making *anything* you want, whether it's a sci-fi setting to hang out with your friends in, or anime, fantasy, pirates, vampires, werewolves, modern day "normal" settings, (just saw a Kentucky Fried Chicken dream under construction). Whether it's to roleplay, socialize, make stuff, look at other people's stuff, keep in touch with friends, or just wander.

We do worry sometimes that people who'd enjoy the kinds of things we have choose to avoid Furcadia because they don't want to be a talking animal, and they want to be human. (Or maybe a robot, or an alien - but most people want to be a human.) But Furcadia is what it is.

One more quick note - the word "furre" is the word Talzhemir made up to describe the specific types of animal characters we have in our imaginary land of Kasuria, the world that Furcadia takes place in. It's also the title of her Furre roleplaying rule system. So "furres" are a subset of "furries" - and in particular they're our subset, which we could us for a trademark if we're ever big enough to be selling plastic action figures in toystores or something. To my knowledge, the word "furre" to describe a talking animal character wasn't used anywhere else prior to 1996. If I'm mistaken and somebody can provide a reference to such usage, please let me know. Thanks!

-- Felorin

[Talzhemir]

If you go to www.bga.com/~pixel, and peek at the 'Source', you'll see this:

The words/names Furre and Furre! and Furcadia
were created by Talzhemir and are © Dragon's
Eye Productions 1996

Before then, so far as I know, the word didn't exist. If anyone can find written documentation of prior use of it (other than as a personal name), I'd be interested in hearing about it. It's meant to be pronounced the same as "fur" (just as the name Barre is typically pronounced Bar). Saying "FUR-reh" or "FOOR-uh" isn't wrong, it's just a more European pronunciation (rhyming with Ama Lurre). However, "furre" is not meant to be pronounced "furry" or "furray".



Furre can mean the characters of the Furcadia fiction, but we've also come to use it to mean the players behind the alts. For example, I might say, "Furcadia's sole source of income has always been Digos that were bought by furres."



I coined the word 'furre' early on, because the word 'furry' has a "cutesy" overtone. In English, the suffix -y can mean, "having plenty of" but -y/-ie are the letters we tack on to make the diminutive. Mousey, doggie, puppy, kitty, birdie, etc. etc. In literature, anthropomorphics aren't always depicted with the intent of appealing to children, and the stories are often quite mature. I wanted to shake the impression that this was only for little kids.



For a long time, the word "furry" also had very negative connotations.



Way-back-when, in 1985, before the World Wide Web, the word 'furry' was in common usage in comic-book fandom. It was a pejorative, a disparaging insult. The Chicago Comic Con something of a think-tank which Bill Willingham, Matt Wagner, Matt Feazell, Larry Marder, Scott McCloud, and many other great artists regularly attended. The word was used by a number of professional artists to describe a particular group of people who were rather irritating. Bill put it this way:

"There's a gang of about ten of them... They make the rounds of the artist area commissioning sketches. They really want pictures of Bugs Bunny having sex but this is mostly a comic book thing, not animated cartoons. ...They always ask me for pictures of celebrities as animals. Last time, this one guy asked me to draw Farrah Fawcett with giant breasts, as a deer. He offered good money but I said no. ...We call 'em the fuzzy tit crowd."

In October of 1986, "Omaha the Cat Dancer" came out. It was definitely not-for-kiddies; it had nudity and adult sexual situations. The writing, by Kate Worley, was refreshingly feminist. The title character was an "exotic dancer". The artist, Reed Waller, told me that "Omaha" is "definitely not a 'furry' comic:

"It's not 'anthropomorphic' and it's not 'furry'. What I do is 'funny animals'."

"We make them animals because the animal stereotypes communicate right away what kind of a personality this is. Omaha is a cat because we think cats are slinky and graceful and we want you to think Omaha is slinky and graceful.

Reed's characters are very similar to the humanoid animal-people that genius Carl Barks drew (such as the Beagle Brothers). "Omaha" made national news when the Toronto police department, in one of many raids on comic book stores, charged that it depicted bestiality.



In 1988, Vicky Wyman would create another amazing comic set in a world of animal-people: "Xanadu". Although it was about dragons and unicorns in a medieval world of magic and fantasy, it was still not really intended for little kids. Much of the plot is about politics, violence, and intrigue in a world with a caste system.



As time went on, more and more people were willing to abandon preconceptions and enjoy "furry" as a genre on its own. Some fans wanted to reserve the word "furry" for non-quadrupeds, the physically "unevolved" that I refer to, on Furcadia, as "Ferals". Right from the start, though, the line has been blurry.



One of my earliest influences was C.S. Lewis. As a child, he wrote (and illustrated!) the land of "Boxen". To amuse his brothers, he filled it with what he called "Dressed Animals." In his Narnia books, Mr. and Mrs. Beaver are proper upright critters but they also run on all fours. Although Aslan doesn't go prancing about on his hindquarters, he is also one of the talking animals. (C.S. Lewis's inspiration was the Bible, in which a donkey says, "What have I done to make you beat me three times?")



To me, personally, the word "furry" refers to anthropomorphic characters but I also think of a particular subculture. This subculture was nurtured online, on the MUCKs (FurryMUCK, FurTOONia, SocioPolitical Ramifications, Tapestries, and others), and spread via the conventions that labelled themselves furry.



There's a general ethos (a general philosophy) of promoting environmentally responsible and sexually ethical behavior. Part of the "furry" attitude is to try to be less judgmental, and more understanding. In furry culture, "weird" is not just to be tolerated, it is to be celebrated.



So, to me, the word "furry" means alot of things that I think are very positive, worthy and wonderful.

[hugin]

In furry culture, "weird" is not just to be tolerated, it is to be celebrated.

A less judgemental and more understanding attitude, which would probably have been applauded if it hadn't led to the development of furry sub groups where vore, and other horrible fetishes are nurtured.

This wouldn't be a problem for the average furre, (with the exception of wanting to burn your eyes out with battery acid) if it wern't for the fact that these individuals have become what the average person sees as the spokespeople of furrydom.

While I doubt that I would in any scenario identify myself as a furre regardless, I can understand why there's such a general revulsion of the fandom at large, when the major exports are neither worksafe nor mindsafe.

[Mandaliet]

It's meant to be pronounced the same as "fur" (just as the name Barre is typically pronounced Bar). Saying "FUR-reh" or "FOOR-uh" isn't wrong, it's just a more European pronunciation (rhyming with Ama Lurre). However, "furre" is not meant to be pronounced "furry" or "furray".

Interesting. At first I thought it was pronounced "fur" but then for some reason I thought it was "furry", so that's what comes into my mind when I see it. There's a city in Pennsylvania called Wilkes-Barre and when I saw that name I always thought it was pronounced "Wilks Bar". Then there was something on the news about it and the reporter pronounced it "Wilks Barry", kind of like "Wilksbury".

Thanks for the long explanations; they were enlightening.