I tried to ask once before, but I can no longer find Chapter 1 of A Gift of Fire. I look forward to reading Indigo Rain though!!

That would depend on whether or not there was a history of prejudice attached to the word, and segregation based purely on having fur. I haven't read any of your stories yet, but if the vast majority of people in your world do not have fur, then it could have been used in such a way in the past. If, however, the population of humans is no higher than any other specific species of anthropomorphic animal, then prejudice would likely have been focused on species, rather than the relatively common trait of having fur. I can't imagine any raccoon would enjoy being called a bandit or robber.

If it's a rather recent development in her world, then just use the actual fandom as an example: Some people honestly don't care, some people are proud and rub their fur in others faces, and some people absolutely refuse to be lumped in with the rest of us 'freaks'.

I have a lot of different story worlds, but I've done a fair number of stories -- including the new one -- in Ranea, which is an empire comprised of eight countries, three major races and a fair number of minor ones. For the most part everyone gets along but there are different cultural norms and prejudices in different areas, and a lot of subtly prickly language nuance.

This particular question came about from thinking on what connotations "furry" might have there, and considering that in our world, slang words for different races based on appearance are, nearly without exception, at least problematic. There's no "right answer," of course, although I suspect in Ranea it'd probably be something a human wouldn't want to say unless he was damn sure he knew how his listeners would take it. :)

I suppose it depends. It could be used as a term to denigrate humans who have interest in non-humans. By purists on either side of the fence. As to just calling the sentient animals 'furries', it depends on how they identify themselves. If say, bats are extremely proud of being bats, lumping them with everything else with fur could be extremely insulting.

"Furry" could certainly be considered a derogatory term depending on the rest of the story world. That said, though, I tend to cringe when a writer uses the term "furry" as a noun in fiction, no matter what sort of being it refers to, because the word now has so many real-life connotations that override everything else for me, and that takes me out of the story. So for that reason, I think it's better to find something else, but others might not be bothered by it. *shrug*

That's an interesting take. I can't pretend that there isn't some bit of slightly catty meta-ness to the thought that the term exists in Ranea with derogatory connotations, but on the flip side, it strikes me as fairly likely given the analogy to the host of real-life derogatory terms humans invent for one another based on appearance (among other things). Basically, it'd be a word used by humans to describe non-humans, and in Ranea the clear majority of non-humans are fur-bearing races. So... hmm.

The story in question passed the writing group's muster with nobody telling me, "Hey, cut that out," so I'm cautiously positive. (The writing group in question includes Ryan Campbell, Kevin Frane, and Kyell Gold, so we're not talking about folks who blithely use the word "fur" as a synonym for "person." That seriously calls for someone developing facepunch-over-IP. But I digress.)