#furry worldbuilding

[soapflavouredsoup]

i refuse to write a planet of hats, er, cats. okay no its not a planet but it is filled with cats yes. also also, many cats live in centralrealm instead of purradise and many dogs choose to move over too. its realms with internal culture and separate countries. and i wanna just. set that in place :]

[baronboar]

So a big important piece in modern industrialization is standardization. How would furry societies with greatly different body types tackle that? What size Bolts are common on machinery? How is public transportation designed to accommodate the most people? In a militant scenario how would they outfit and equip their soldiers? How does discrimination affect all of that?

Hi hello! Thank you for your question, it's a good one! I'm not very well versed in what we'll call more 'contemporary' worldbuilding (if the industrial revolution can be called contemporary.) So I'll answer what I feel like I can help with! So there's a lot of factors to consider. But we'll take this under the assumption that the society we're speculating about is a place where lots of very differently sized people live in an integrated space. Therefore, no (light) segregation like we see in Zootopia.

To start out, in a truly integrated settlement where we may want to think about standardisation for merged public services we want to avoid this ^ Want to take a bus? It's not going to fit down that street if you also want a rhino getting onboard. While the idea behind having a street for the smallest people makes sense, it also means that you now (ideally) need tiny walk-able city services. If you're going to have a tiny gated community, where is your exclusive DMV? What sane government would put a tiny exclusive public service when they could simply make a unified location accessible? We also have the social issue here, the moment you start separating different people they'll stop knowing how to act around each other. You'll be in the central train terminal watching as mice scroll tik-croc and not looking at who's feet they're stepping under.

So, how do we realistically fix that? Well... Part of my mind is telling me that it's just not possible. Or at least not in the way that our current society is set up. Media like Zootopia and Beastars for example take the human experience as a base and add anthro-friendly features to it. But what we need to do is start with a fresh clear base and build from the ground up. Public transit isn't going to look like it does in a human city because these people didn't necessarily develop personal vehicles or even capitalism. Perhaps only the smallest folk have need for a shuttle-system or tram since the local services are in walking distance for larger folk? If that's the case, why think about buses when you can think about trains for those who travel afar. A train is easy, elevate some walkways for the smaller folk so they can be above (or ideally eye level with) those who are larger. People like to socialise, if you're a rat with a wolf friend you'll want to be able to have a conversation on the train without having to crane your neck or physically hold onto the other person just to hear them. Multi-level environments have so many up-sides, but those who fall between size categories may slip between the cracks, so people need to still be aware of their surroundings as to not sit on a fox in the medium sized area.

Clothing has a surprisingly easy solution. Before the industrial revolution people simply had the infrastructure locally to get clothing made that was made to fit them. In an anthro setting I don't think this practice would shrivel as it has in much of the modern world. We may instead see more difficult to recreate items made in factory settings. Tough gloves, work shoes, protective gear and the like. But your shirts and such would be made by neighbour, and while these things would be more expensive (if money was a factor) it would last you longer and be easier to maintain. As for discrimination, it's tough to say for sure. In all cases there will be misunderstandings, frustration, and general bigotry. It really depends on the history of the setting and how such occurrences are treated I think. I hope my rambling helped some!

(Also, don't take anything I said as law, I'm just a guy who thinks about this kinda stuff a lot.)

[callirhoe-starr]

grahhh!!! waiter, waiter, MORE CALLIEVERSE!!!!

place names!!!!!!

questions and comments are welcome <3

[chocodile]

How would Hyden react to meeting a human or any non-furry individual (if it could even happen)? Curious since I’ve always wanted to draw an interaction with the dastardly bunny but I don’t have furry characters _(;; 」∠)_

I figure that it's pretty common for furries to encounter people whose species they're unfamiliar with... your hometown might only have bears, foxes, deer, a few birds, and a family of weirdly reclusive pillbugs who kinda seem like they might be part of a cult, but then you move to the big city and see fish and lizards and bug-people all over the place and just think "huh, I have NO IDEA what that person is but I guess people can look like that!" over and over again. Even less common mammals might regularly have to explain what they are to strangers as they get mistaken for more "common" species. And that's to say nothing of hybrids! A well-traveled furry no longer experiences the "what even IS that guy and what are those THINGS sticking off of his butt, wait, shit, I really hope those aren't mating parts" reaction, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're familiar with every kind of animal in existence.

ANYWAY all that to say, Hyden wouldn't be anywhere close to as shocked by encountering a human as someone from the real world might be encountering a furry... he'd assume that a human is just some species of ape he's not familiar with. Maybe some sort of ape-naked mole rat hybrid, or a hybrid ape suffering from hybrid-sickliness-related hair loss? How curious! That is to say, he'd be tactful and polite and would try not to stare excessively at their weird naked skin, but curiosity would eventually get the better of him and he'd find a way to casually ask what they are. They could have entire conversations about other stuff before he popped the question, though!

[crowsyart]

More furry worldbuilding of sort of benign stuff, I think spice challenges would be popular with birds because they can’t taste it, but it’s controversial for that exact reason. This guy has no likes because he’s annoying and a poser (towards not tasting spice), he’s a semiplumbeous hawk cause I just generated a random bird LOL, and I think I’m gonna call it ewetube because it’s the only pun I can think of. Female sheep run I suppose…

[nonexistentnull]

ive been thinking about animal people (anthros, catboys, etc) worldbuilding today, and the idea of hybrids always confuses me. because in those worlds , most people are just one species, and then theres a few people who are hybrids of a couple species. but unless theres some reason for people to only have kids with people of the same species 99% of the time, wouldn’t hybrids become super common until everyone is a mix of tons of different animals?

[a-flaming-idiot]

Do you ever think about what extinction must be like in an anthro/furry world? And I mean extinction not of anthro species, but of the feral/non-sapient/literal-animal species.

Like anthros must feel some connection to their feral equivalents. Like imagine being a sapient mountain lion person, but you can go to the zoo and see what looks like you but also not. It's like a funhouse mirror but that lives its own life. There has to be a feeling unique to that experience. And you can watch documentaries and see the Not-You-Exactly-Creatures living their lives in the wild. I do not think there is a way to not feel something when you see that.

And then it's gone. It's over.

You read it in an article and they're all gone. Those creatures you saw at the zoo, your own eyes looking back at you, a world with as much depth as your own but impossible for you to understand reflected in their eyes. They are gone. Extinct they say. But you know what it means. They are all dead. They are not coming back.

You will never see those eyes ever again. You will never be able to learn what that secret world behind them held.

What can you feel besides a part of you dying. The part of you that couldn't help but imagine being on the other side of the glass. Running alongside them in the grass, unaware of the camera watching you.

Now any documentary you watch is merely a time capsule. A peak into the past of something that can no longer exist.

You mourn. You mourn the part of you that went extinct.

Imagine being a anthro thylacine and being told the last feral thylacine died. And you are still alive. Your thylacine mother, father, siblings, and friends are still alive. You can date another thylacine and have thylacine children. But the other you is gone. The other thylacine. You are the last of a kind in a way.

People must mourn. Many probably call out of work that day, to just sit with that feeling. Are their memorials held for the part of so many that died? Surely conservation must be stronger, if only to limit the number of funerals. Because every day, a part of some people dies as their other half goes extinct.