Holy crap, meme that genuinely interests me. In fact, these questions sound almost exactly like the kind of questions I've often posed, especially on Yiffstar and Furtopia forums, in the past.

See also:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1335581/
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/569449/
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/569022/


1. Do humans exist in your furry world? If so, how do they treat/how are they treated by the furries?

AND

2. Do non-morphic animals exist in your furry world? If so, how do they treat/how are they treated by the furries?

Generally: No.

The reason many furry RPers reflexively adopt a "I hate hyoomans" attitude has zero to do with disliking humans, it's just a rationalization for the intuition that humans don't belong in the setting that avoids the argument wherein some idiot inevitably spouts: "But it's just a fantasy, so anything can happen," which if you understand what fantasy IS, is the dumbest stance EVAR.

(Also Furry RPers get irritated with people who have no interest in furry RP wanting to mix in thier human characters because they don't understand the rationale for wanting an all-furry setting.)

Good fiction creates the "fictional dream." That is, a believable setting and storyline that doesn't distract from itself by seeming incoherent, interjecting the author's voice inappropriately, and so on.

Anthropomorphic characters as such, are the core idea in furry works. Where there are non-anthropomorphic animals and/or humans, they distract from the anthropomorphic figures, pure and simple. SURE, they create interesting situations to explore, too, but then I think you're dealing more in science-fiction or other kinds of fantasy, rather than dealing directly with the furry genre itself. They're distractions. The Goofy/Pluto (old school Disney characters-- an anthro and a non-anthro dog that were seen in eachother's company) illustrate that such juxtapositions are implausible and best done for laughs.

In the end though, it's not about what's most realistic, it's about going with the (perhaps even UNrealistic) premise that's easiest to not be distracted by.

Put another way, the situation is this: you have three kinds of beings in mind-- humans, anthros, and non-anthro animals. Keeping all three creates unwanted, unpredictable conflicts that distract, because in real life, there aren't three seperate classes of beings, just humans and beasts. So what do you keep?

If you keep humans and anthros, get rid of animals: Anthro predators are either vegetarians (utterly silly) or or eat sentient beings (completely alienating). So whether silly or disturbing, you have a real distraction that has nothing to do with anthropomorphic figures in their native world, per se. Plus there's the question: do humans have some priviledged place as "first evolved" among anthropomorphic speices-- which is still distracting. You're still left contrasting humans-- which everyone finds believable, with anthros, which are much harder to fully visualize.

If you keep animals and anthros, get rid of humans: This isn't so bad, but it has a problem with another kind of distraction: nowhere in nature is there anything like a parallelism sentient/upright and nonsentient/nonupright in otherwise identical appearing species, much less in many or all species. The closest example isn't: chimps and humans are hugely much less like than sentient and nonsentient huskies, say. So either there's massively paralell species and they can intebreed (bestiality [aka 'zoophilia'-- animal rape]), or they can't, (which violates our sense of natural order-- things that look nearly identical are compatible). Either bestiality or an unnatural order-- both very distracting.

What if you get rid of both humans and nonanthro animals? You have a situation unlike real life, too! The questions about sentient predators' prey remains, although the special distraction of priviledged and familiar humans goes away.

My solution to this has generally been that there are two distinct lifestyles-- the civilized and the feral. Every higher species (besides humans, who don't exist) is anthropomorphic and only anthropomorphic, and lives as both feral and civilized-- but the two groups cannot speak each other's languages or recognize each other as sentient, for reasons that go deep into lifestyle, habits, and values.

Feral anthros all speak a common species language and think of any animal outside of their genus (e.g., horses, zebras, donkeys, or Lions, Tigers, Leopards, etc), as unintelligent animals. They regard civilized animals, even of their own species, as terrifying zombies. They live in the wilderness, have little tool use and no clothes, and their "speech" is extremely dependent of body language, scents, and so on.

Meanwhile, civilized furs all speak local common languages, live in cities and towns, regard those who speak a different civilized language as 'foreigners' and assume ferals are all unintelligent animals.

Feral predators hence hunt civilized and feral prey animals. Civilized predators hunt feral prey only. Most tasks done by the labor of domesticated animals, is done by that species of civilized anthropomorphic animal-- e.g., there are no horse-riding cavalry, but big, mobile horse infantries, as Equestrian divisions, are strategically similar.

3. Do non-mammalian “furries” exist in your furry world? If so, how do they treat/how are they treated by the mammal-furries?

All air-breathing vertebrates with 2+ distinct limbs are anthropomorphic in my worlds, generally. This excludes snakes, cetaceans (dolphins &c), and fish. I also exclude great apes. There are reptiles and birds; the former tend to become not-so-bright when they're not sufficiently warm. Birds are strictly four-limbed, and make do with beaks, and a thumb and forefinger on each wing, rather like bats.

Feral furs all treat any species much outside their own circle as animals. Civilized furs express a kind of racism toward any species that's neither native in the land, nor a member of a priviledged culture invasive to the area.

4. Do other mythological creatures (dragons etc.) exist in your furry world? If so, how do they treat/how are they treated by the furries?

I prefer no mythic species, though I've been known to smile on griffins from time to time.


5. Does Magic operate in your furry world? If so, rate its frequency and power on a scale of 1 to 10.

Depends on my mood. In my ideal setting it either doesn't exist; 1, or is significant but subtle, elitist, and doesn't play an overt role in world history; up to 5 or so.

6. Describe the technology level of your furry world?

I'm very fond of fin-de-siecle settings-- the Victorian age plus the Wild West, plus some other anachronistic features in a familiar 1890 earth-like setting, sometimes with steampunk added, are probably my ideal. I'm also comfortable in soft scifi/cyberpunk settings.

7. On a scale of 1 to 10 how animal-like are furries in your world?

As animals are humans and the scale is vague, I'll put myself down as a 7, and explain:

Features that aren't directly necessary for being an upright, tool-using, talking, intelligent, social animal with a humanlike lifespan, should conform to the animal species. This includes the elaborte facial expression normal for humans, bipedal stance-- but huge-footed digitgrade stance in digitgrade animals, bigger crania, thumbs, a fully pivoting shoulder joint, and a tendency to be take a keen interest in anything that seems sentient. (Probably also crypo-ovulation and some sort of semi- or non-estral cycle.)

8. How do the different furry "species" get along in your furry world?

They get along fine, though there are racial-like tensions between species that are vs aren't indigenous to a given area, and ethnic tensions between civilized "natives" and members of invading civilized cultures.

They certainly can't interbreed, except where species interbreeding is possible in real life. E.g., there are cat/lynx hybrids and zebra/horse hybrids and what have you, but there are no fox/raccoons, etc. Generally speaking yiffing outside your own species is looked on as roughly as deviant as homosexuality.

Civilized furs carry no noticeable trace of the predator/prey intimidation factor that would be the feral norm. Civilized sheep and wolves, lions and wildabeast, readily hang out together. Nobody jokes about preying on one another, the same way the British and French don't joke around about Wellington and Napoleon. There may be the potential for a sore spot, but 99% of civilized furs 99% of the time consider any such reaction silly or completely irrelevant. Individuals and groups may express disdain for traits of certain species, e.g., short vs tall, predator vs prey, etc, but as a rule, harping on that kind of difference among civilized furs is seen as irrational.

Feral furs treat anybody outside their species family like unintelligent beasts. Civilized furs treat all feral furs (even members of their own species) like unintelligent beasts, too.