I'm a creative writing master's student. Since joining the furry fandom, I've drawn art, commissioned even more, and created a bunch of backstories for my characters. I've written one short story for myself that you can find on my Toyhouse. I decided that I wanted to give writing another furry story a shot, this time for my short stories collection class. I still have to edit it since class ended, but when I do, I'll update this journal with a link to it if you want to read it.

Anyway! I wrote the first story in a collection I want to write that centers around science, experimentation, and evolution/creation debates within the furry universe. There are anthropomorphic animals and feral animals, and people are constantly in conversation surrounding why some animals are born with sapience and why others aren't. The crazy thing is, while anthros can walk and talk among other human activities, they aren't necessarily the "superior" species. That's because what anthros have in human traits, they lack in animal-specific abilities. For example, bird anthros can't fly while feral birds can, and fish anthros can't breathe underwater like feral fish can. So there are certain scientists in the field that want to change that...

The story I wrote in particular features my toucan character, Lupe, and my fish character, Segundo. They enter conversation about the complexities and realities of biology while coming up with solutions to the problems. I don't want to give too much more away in case anyone is interested in reading it.

The responses in class were mixed. I was hoping that I'd be able to make furry stories more accessible to general audiences. That backfired on me! Here's why:

1) My professor was confused and concerned about the mention of furries in my author's note and asked if it was a fetish. She said this in front of my other classmates!
2) The classmate next to me told me that he found the story "absurd" and found it hard to take seriously when the characters are animal people. He also mentioned the tone of the story, which he also found just as unserious.
3) Another classmate said that if my characters were humans, the story wouldn't change. "So why are they animals?"
4) Someone asked: "Why is the toucan character dating a dog? How does that work?"

My answers to the above questions are simple: 1) this story does not have any sexual content in it; 2) it features hard topics like crime and murder and the ethical dilemma of animals keeping other animals in zoos, so I prefer that this story be taken seriously; 3) the plot's entire basis centers around the people being part animal, so I don't even know what to say to that; 4) you can have significant others even if they aren't the same race. That should be a given!

I know I don't have my story posted yet, but I still wanted to get this off my chest. I'm also wondering: have you guys faced similar backlash to the concept of anthro characters and the furry fandom in general? Feel free to let me know in the comments and thank you for coming to my TED Talk!