Forums » RP Discussion » Furre Characters?

Hi everyone!
So, for my entry to the journalism contest, I'm going to look into the aspect of playing furre (furry?) characters. I tend to stay away from it myself, but I'm really curious to look into it.
If you play furre characters, can you please PM me so we can talk (or talk right here)?
Thank you!

Some starter questions to consider:
What draws you to that character type/RP style?
Do you have trouble aligning the 'animal' with the 'human'?
What do you love most about this RP style/character?

Furry* Characters

For the time being, I haven't used any furry characters myself apart from Ilya, but I'm nevertheless interested in the subject. Note that while "furry" means an anthropomorphic animal or beast of some sort, the term applies to reptilian creatures as well; Gators, geckos, snakes, dragons, etc. Some people use the term 'scalie' for those, but it completely misses the point of the 'furry'.

Calling furries (Correct plural) anthros makes no sense, since it means 'man' in greek. So whenever you call a furry character as anthro, you're literally calling it "Hey, man." :v
Anyhow, it's understandable that you might not like this sort of character. Furries are generally - if not always - correlated to the 'darker sides' of the fandom and its only natural that people develop a sort of aversion to it. No regrets taken, though.

Anyway, to the questions:
What draws you to that character type/RP style?
I'm not into RPs exclusive for furries. However, if the setting deems appropriate and the character doesn't result into a game-breaking powerhouse (usually happens with dragons and other furry versions of mythical beings), I'm usually up to it. It's even better if said characters breaks the norm and actually goes beyond human not only in appearance but also in behavior. If not, you're just putting a new fancy appearance to a character that would make no difference if it was human. :^)

Do you have trouble aligning the 'animal' with the 'human'?
I didn't understand this quite well, but I assume that is between the relationship between man and beast into the character. As I said in the other question, a furry character being 'too human' in personality is bad for me. With some rare exceptions. But regarding the overall appearance of the character? I don't have many issues. The character in question can be as barely furry as completely feral or in-between. The content/writing is what matters the most.

I have some aversions, though. "Macros" and "taurs" or whatever they call it belong in their own RPs. That goes for the characters with overly "large" features as well.

What do you love most about this RP style/character?
The freedom you have with it. A human character is limited to simple gradient of skin and hair color and we're done. You can do everything you want with a furry, since you're not constrained by the rules of biology anymore (specially because furries don't make a damn sense, biologically speaking :v) but it can always be justified for their species being an alien or some other stuff. Plus, you don't even need to base a furry character on an existing character at all, like the case of Trancy Mick's Sergals, an alien race that visually resembles a cross between raptors and canines. Creativity's the limit.

All in all, I just think that the roleplaying community could be a little more accepting - or at least open for experimenting - roleplays with furry characters. If their players known what they are doing, it can give your RP a whole new point of view on how the stories might unfold. Or not, assuming if you find certain creeps out there. :V

The game Furcadia calls them furres, which is what I assume Celestina is referring to

What draws you to that character type/RP style? I like playing non humans, it's an extra level of escapism. And as I draw all my characters, i've always enjoyed the challenge of creating anthropormorphic creatures that are more than just neko anime girls (you know, human with animal ears, boring). I like playing with the whole, animal and humanoid features mixed into one strange being, you get some cool looking aliens that way, plus they're just a bit more interesting to design than human faces when you've kinda, drawn a billion human faces of late lol. In terms of actual rp style, I don't find that playing such characters changes things much, but then, I don't TEND to play actual "furry rps" but rather have anthropomorphic animal characters in fantasy or sci fi settings. For me, I like playing non humans because I enjoy the world building and I like playing around with culture and biology. Thinking about say, how a cat-like race would view the world vs dog people, or how a spider person's culture and society might be built, what their world might look like and so on.

Do you have trouble aligning the 'animal' with the 'human'? I don't know quite what you mean. I like to incorporate elements of the animal species into personality or culture traits (eg: cat people having a lot of siestas during the day and not having much concept of ownership because everything is 'mine') but generally speaking, most people tend to play furry characters as well, just humans with animal features tbh. I don't mind much.


What do you love most about this RP style/character? Well it's a challenge. Both artistically and in terms of writing. I know what it is to be human after all, i've been human all my life, but thinking from the rather alien perspective of another species I find quite appealing. But I don't think i'm really a proper "furry" rper, I just like taking animal traits and incorporating them into character designs.
But yeah, you can go crazy with the whole thing and that's really fun. Smooshing different species together to create some really alien looking race, making sparkle wolves if you want to (hey, why not? lol), you can really go to town and it's all totally fine because that's part of the culture of the furry fandom.

There's a lot of judgement TOWARD the furry fandom, but not so much within it. The community itself seems to be pretty dang welcoming and supportive, which is also nice.

That's correct, that's where my confusion was coming into play. Thanks for helping me clarify what the correct general term was, Churchtuary!

Thanks so much for your comments so far, everyone; this is really helpful!!

Churchtuary, what first got you interested in furry characters?

Furry is the more common term~ Furre is only used to describe Furcadia characters I think, maybe for copyright reasons

- I've always liked animals over humans, whether it be for being bullied, the fact that I like soft fluffy furry things or just the cartoons I watched. I draw animals better than human faces and am more comfortable and confident with them, so it's easier to create and express through them. And speaking of expression, furry characters have different ways to be even More expressive than humans. Sure both have body language and facial expression, but you can't look at a human's ears and see from that what the person is feeling xD Also tails & other ways/means to express feelings. I like that, makes it just nicer to me.
And I can't leave out the nice thing that is diversity: you can have so many different kinds of characters. Different types of ears, tail, markings, breed, species.... With humans you pretty much have hair, eyes, complexion & some shapes - while you can have a purple sheep with cotton candy colored wool that is shaped like a dog

I think that that's the basics of it to me, answers most the questions
More often than not, my character are just humans with dog heads & a tail. They behave like humans would and act and do similar things in similar manners, wear clothes etc. they're just more expressive like their tail can wag and their ears move

Oh, I could also mention that my characters some 10 years ago were just normal talking dogs (as normal as a kid's creations can be, bright colors and all) but after discovering the lovely world of anime (oh my god. Kid me and Bleach) I Really started to like swords, and while it had been fine that the dogs used their mouths like hands, some eventually started actually using their hands & slowly stood up on their back legs. And thus started the 'evolution' of my characters. Backs straightened, they got clothes in parts, body shifts and shapes itself a little & now we basically have a human body with tail and dog head

And hey, you can't lie, you'd rather hug a fluffy cat/dog/ferret/animal you like instead of a person x2 Or well, sure we'd all hug friends and relatives, but... Fluffy. FLUFFY. Soft.

You're adorable X3

But really, thank you so much! Your information is really helpful! I hadn't even considered how much more expressive a furry character can be!

(Furre is oldschool; like 80's oldschool, that's why folks are confused by it.)

Furries are just everyday folks. There's really nothing else to report on.

No, seriously.

But a lot of folks just see what they want to see, and that's often bad (especially when you look at what these same people are doing with anime characters or children's shows or just about any other thing they can get their hands on; nobody's fandom is without its 'dark side').

Being furry is merely an aesthetic identity. Occasionally you meet otherkin, who would disagree, but they are their own community and they need not be furry to be otherkin.

We like dogs (and owls, and geckos, and moths, and sharks, and, and, and--). Some of us like space, so we make our characters spacey. Some of us want to be goopy because it's fun, some of us want to be an actual dog because we just love dogs. So much (Who doesn't?).

We don't hold onto a lot of the same traditional ideas about identity that a lot of other folks do. It kind of comes with the whole fursona thing. That's why we are disproportionately gay and trans. It's also how post-furry happened, but even most of our own don't know what that means yet.

Most of us are perfectly happy to make human characters too. Some don't because that's boring. Some of us have characters who exist both as humans and as furries in different settings. That happens a lot, because many folks think we are some kind of sexual deviants; when we mention having fur (You couldn't tell we were furry without that physical description), we are frequently told "humans only" and we are forced to mutate our characters. Furries don't usually say "furries only". That would be boring.

Making a furry character is no different from making an elf character. Or a halfling-gnome. Or an alien. Or a transcendental machine intelligence. Or a werewolf. They're all just characters. We just happen to be popular because cute critters are cute. How many wolf/horse girls did you meet in middle school? They're furry now.

For the record I was a wolf girl.

You have some great points, thank you Samster!

Added a tiny bit on the 'evolution' my chars went through over time~
Let me grab bad pictures as references xD

I love it!!!

Friends, I put my entry up on the journalism topic. Please feel free to take a look at it. Thank you for all your help and insight, I learned so much!!

What draws you to that character type/RP style?
Eh I've always been a furre, whether or not I knew what it was xD Plus its how I communicate even rl by being a cat. It feels a lot more comfortable and natural to me than say speaking or other ways of commuication. but thats me.

Do you have trouble aligning the 'animal' with the 'human'?
Nah. Like Dorax has canine habits which cling around. Islington has cat habits.

What do you love most about this RP style/character?
I GET TO BE FLUFFY <--- most important

What I've always strived to be.

On topic, I recall reading this. To summarize, folks tend to define a group of people based on the most shocking or unstable subgroup. This results in unfair generalizations and stereotypes. Suddenly, an innocent hobby becomes something you have to hide if you care about your reputation among some people. Fortunately, there are plenty of communities around the world who you can be yourself around.

Personally, I don't care about the species, race, gender, sexual orientation or any other categorical element of a character. What matters to me is how well they're written. Do they have a thought-out background? Are they more than plot devices? Is the character believable in motivation? In behavior? The aspect that's most important to me isn't what they are. It's who they are.

But I have a soft spot for robots striving to be more than the sum of their parts.