Crush...Yiff...Destroy!

Michael Hirtes · Coadjutor Joined: 04 Aug 2003 Posts: 519

NOOOOOOOO!!!

http://www.furbid.ws/cgi-bin/auction.pl?commission_adultfur&1084120256

Tailgunner · Coadjutor Joined: 28 Oct 2003 Posts: 161

$20 dollars minimum? He better offer blowjobs with that pile of crap. Oh wait, those kind of "artists" probably would.

Rankin · Coadjutor Joined: 03 Jan 2004 Posts: 488

*twitch* THE END IS NEIGH! THE HALL OF SOULS IS EMPTY. HE SHALL BE BORN UNDEAD AND THE END OF THE WORLD RESTS UPON THIS FLESH.

WILL YOU DIE FOR HIM!?

WILL YOU DIE FOR HIM?!

Zeis Montero · Apocrisiary Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 49

it's spelled 'nigh'

Shmorky · Coadjutor Joined: 22 Nov 2003 Posts: 182

symmetrical!

symmetrical!

symmetrical!

m_estrugo · Coadjutor Joined: 13 Nov 2003 Posts: 160

The more I look at the samples the folk uploaded, the more I understand furry fandom's current problems.

ZenZhu · Coadjutor Joined: 22 Mar 2004 Posts: 475

Part of the problem, IMO, is that furry has shifted from being a fandom based around professionally done works that include aspects the fans like, to a fan-driven genre.

In anime, Trek, Star Wars, sci-fi in general, fantasy, etc., you basically have a core generated by professional talents that set out to tell a story, create a work, etc. While the professionals pay attention to the fans, these works are not necessarily geared specifically toward the fans. They remain very much the work of the individual. Dune was not written with the intent of gaining accolades at conventions. Lucas just set out to tell a story about a farmboy realizing his destiny amidst the backdrop of a sci-fi setting. Roddenberry created a series based on exploration that used sci-fi as a vehicle. In all of these, the creators obviously enjoy the genre that they work in, but, the way I can best explain it is that their works are of the genre because the creators' interests were along those lines. Lucas could have just as easily made a samurai movie. Roddenberry could have just as easily done a western. (Trek actually was first titled "Wagon Train to the Stars."

With these areas, you have folks that created their works the way they saw fit..... and people liked their work enough to become fans. It just happens that their work includes aspects the fans like.

As an example, in my furrier days, I picked up a copy of one of the Kzin novels because the kitty kitty mew mew aliens on the cover appealed to me. But, when I tried to read the book, I couldn't. I'd have rather been given a book on advanced calculus or the history of the soybean to slog through. Lesson learned... I liked sci-fi. I liked morphs... but the presence of morphs alone wasn't enough to make the book appeal to me. A furry in the worse sense, however, may have found the story to likewise be similar to a literary root canal.... BUT... because of the way-cool kitty mew mew aliens, would have pressed on, simply eager to read anything that had a bipedal feline in it.

Hmm... it's kind of hard to pull what I'm getting at from the recesses of my mind. Lemme try it this way...... it seems like with a lot of other fandoms, the creators of works have more of a fan base based on the totality of their works. A person doesn't become a fan of Roddenberry's works because they have a fetish for green alien women... they like Roddenberry's works overall... and if they thought a green-skinned slave girl was hot, that's just icing on the cake.

But with furrydom, it's more centered on what is considered a vehicle in the other fandoms. With C. J. Cherryh's Chanur series.. the various alien races, including the feline race... uh.. the Hani, I think.... were tools. It could have as easily been different human races. But, the alien races allowed for a greater schizm of cultures, practices, and even biologies. The story was not uniquely driven by the fact that the Hani were cat people.

But, if the Chanur series had been a furry work, the story would have been incidental, and the focus would have been on the fact that they Hani were feline aliens.

I guess part of what I'm trying to say is that other fandoms, with a base focused more on the work of professionals... artists, writers, filmmakers, etc... there is a standard by which the fans judge themselves. Creators such as Lucas, Roddenberry, Harlan Ellison, Boris Vallejo, etc. have a level of proficiency that many of the fans who create fan works aspire to.

With furry being more fans of fan-works, you get a kind of breakdown in what folks aspire to. The bar is lowered to begin with. Now, there are undeniably some very talented folks in furrydom... Gallacci was skilled with more thoughtful stories. Vicky Wyman presented a good total package with Xanadu (some very solid page layouts). Kazleh had some great humor in Captain Jack, and a very beatnik style art style that really kind of predates its return to popularity with Old Navy ad design and such. But, those folks are really kind of footnotes to furrydom as it is today. What do we have now? Fans of NightKrawler, Winger, Kit & Kay Boodle, etc.... or not even works.. but simply characters.. fans of RoxiKat, Sabrina, ZigZag, Chester Ringtail......

<scratches head> Hopefully I'm making some shred of sense here. I can see the differences between furry and other fandoms in my mind.. but it's like a picture I can't quite get right on paper (so I'll only auction it for $50 instead of $1,000).

Let me put it this way... picture that George Lucas creates Star Wars. In the beginning, a fandom pops up centered around his movies. The fans enjoy the story, the characters, the designs, etc. Now picture that this fandom begins creating fan works.... art, fanzines, fanfics, and develops its own characters in these works, and develops SW-based MUCKs and such. In time, the fans begin to focus more on these fan-created works. People who have never even seen Star Wars are drawn into the fandom because of friends they have on the SW mucks, or because they really like Obi-Wan/Anakin slash fiction, or because one fan artist has a real eye for doing images of 6-breasted hermaphroditic Twi'leks (those are the aliens with the two tentacle-looking thingys off of their heads).

In time, Lucas' works are all but forgotten. They are credited with being the catalyist for SW fandom, but now the fandom is "about much more than simply a farmboy becoming a Jedi." Now you have this huge base of fan works that pander to all tastes... those that originally liked the movies are there, as well as folks that didn't care for the movies, but really like the idea of S&M lifestyle of the Tusken Raiders, or think the sexual liberation fans have attributed to the Kaminoans is a utopian view of how humans should live, or folks that really identify with Wookies enough to feel they are Wookies trapped in a human body (I've encountered one Babylon 5 fan that actually thinks she's a misplaced Vorlon spirit). So, now, you have a fandom that is "much broader in scope than Star Wars," but is likewise so much the weaker because it has become a fandom of fans pandering to fans without an eye for quality, production values, etc.

Perhaps one could almost say furry has become what it is because it lost its focus?

Let me put it another, more glib and, succinct way..... imagine if fandoms were car clubs. You've got fans of the PT Cruiser, the Hummer, the GTO, etc. All the folks in those clubs share the love of whatever particular car it is. Now, imagine furry as a club that simply likes anything that has tires.

m_estrugo · Coadjutor Joined: 13 Nov 2003 Posts: 160

<scratches head> Hopefully I'm making some shred of sense here.

You sure make sense to me.
I think you're trying to say that while you don't need to be a sci-fi fan to enjoy, say, Star Wars, furry works have little to no appeal to the mainstream.

I'd call it "furry endogamy", and in my opinion, this is a serious problem, and one of the causes of why anthropomorphic art is so misunderstood, or, to use a better term, misused. The fact that furry fans show so little respect or attention to professional works using anthropomorphic characters, like Usagi Yojimbo, doesn't help, neither.

I plan to type an essay about why the furry fandom lacks professional-level artists, as soon as I finish this week's Alice Otter. :)

Mitch · Coadjutor Joined: 01 Jun 2003 Posts: 290

Let me put it this way... picture that George Lucas creates Star Wars. In the beginning, a fandom pops up centered around his movies. The fans enjoy the story, the characters, the designs, etc. Now picture that this fandom begins creating fan works.... art, fanzines, fanfics, and develops its own characters in these works, and develops SW-based MUCKs and such. In time, the fans begin to focus more on these fan-created works. People who have never even seen Star Wars are drawn into the fandom because of friends they have on the SW mucks, or because they really like Obi-Wan/Anakin slash fiction, or because one fan artist has a real eye for doing images of 6-breasted hermaphroditic Twi'leks (those are the aliens with the two tentacle-looking thingys off of their heads).

In time, Lucas' works are all but forgotten. They are credited with being the catalyist for SW fandom, but now the fandom is "about much more than simply a farmboy becoming a Jedi." Now you have this huge base of fan works that pander to all tastes... those that originally liked the movies are there, as well as folks that didn't care for the movies, but really like the idea of S&M lifestyle of the Tusken Raiders, or think the sexual liberation fans have attributed to the Kaminoans is a utopian view of how humans should live, or folks that really identify with Wookies enough to feel they are Wookies trapped in a human body (I've encountered one Babylon 5 fan that actually thinks she's a misplaced Vorlon spirit). So, now, you have a fandom that is "much broader in scope than Star Wars," but is likewise so much the weaker because it has become a fandom of fans pandering to fans without an eye for quality, production values, etc.

That reminds me of this:

Here's an (inexact) analogy: imagine that the SF fandom had been taken over by people who fantasised about screwing aliens or becoming aliens, liked to dress up as aliens and screw, and who turned every SF con into a swapmeet for porny pix of aliens. In this creepy parallel world, anyone who declared a liking for SF would immediately be labelled an "alienf****r", and Mr Eric Schwartz of Ohio would be busily crafting a strip featuring two *not-lesbian* alien babes, while at the same time knocking out Space Ghost and Butt Ugly Martians porn under his funky secret alias of "Memorex".

ZenZhu · Coadjutor Joined: 22 Mar 2004 Posts: 475

You sure make sense to me.
I think you're trying to say that while you don't need to be a sci-fi fan to enjoy, say, Star Wars, furry works have little to no appeal to the mainstream.

That's part of the big picture, but not entirely what I was getting at. You do make a good point, though. Star Wars, Trek, SF and fantasy works in general.. they're done for their own sake. Not for keying in to a select demographic. As the SF or fantasy is merely the vehicle for the story, it has elements appeal to the SF or fantasy lovers, but also to people who don't like SF or fantasy, but are not turned off by it. Take my parents when they took me to see Star Wars.. they're not SF fans, but they really enjoyed the story.

For example, look at Watership Down. The author could have just as easily told the story with humans. It's very much like a tale of the Underground Railroad. The characters didn't have to be rabbits to get the point across. That was just a helpful tool. Wind in the Willows didn't have to have anthropomorphic characters.

Furry works, on the other hand, are less about the story and more about the vehicle. I guess, in a way, the link between furry and porn is pretty unsuprising. After all... stuff like plot, storyline, setting, and such in porn is simply there as life support to the sex scenes. Likewise, in many furry works, all of that stuff is there simply as life support for the sake of having animal characters doing something. If Watership Down had been truly furry, it wouldn't have mattered what the story was... the fact that you had talking rabbits would have been considered sufficient reason to create the work.

The whole animal-allegory thing may be a bit of a shell game when it comes to furry. It's a bit too easy to compare the various species to racial diversity in the real world, and pass off the animosity between a predator species and a prey species as a representation of racial tensions. In other words, it's easy for a furry work to masquerade as something deeper than it is.. just as it's easy to call any piece of drek that shows a pair of tits "erotica."

I think I may have come up with a better analogy for what I was originally getting at.

Think of fandoms of Star Wars, Trek, SF, fantasy, etc. as fandoms of musical bands. Let's say The Doors. What I'm getting at is those fandoms are like fandoms of The Doors themselves. The real deal.

Furry fandom is kind of like being fans of Doors cover bands, music students who just happen to play Doors songs, and anyone that can produce a few notes that sound vaguley Doors-like.

Mitch · Coadjutor Joined: 01 Jun 2003 Posts: 290

Furry works, on the other hand, are less about the story and more about the vehicle. I guess, in a way, the link between furry and porn is pretty unsuprising. After all... stuff like plot, storyline, setting, and such in porn is simply there as life support to the sex scenes. Likewise, in many furry works, all of that stuff is there simply as life support for the sake of having animal characters doing something. If Watership Down had been truly furry, it wouldn't have mattered what the story was... the fact that you had talking rabbits would have been considered sufficient reason to create the work.

I think you have hit the nail squarely on the head there.

Computolio · Coadjutor Joined: 01 Jun 2003 Posts: 349

I think you have hit the nail squarely on the head there.

seconded

Paul · Coadjutor Joined: 01 Feb 2004 Posts: 138

Thirded.

Though not a totally precise tool, it also works as a definition by which one can separate a lot of good anthropomorphic works - such as Watership Down - from the clutches of furry fandom.

Rusty · Coadjutor Joined: 01 Jun 2003 Posts: 82

Forthed

Johnny S. · Recusant Joined: 21 Apr 2004 Posts: 5

...Let me put it another, more glib and, succinct way..... imagine if fandoms were car clubs. You've got fans of the PT Cruiser, the Hummer, the GTO, etc. All the folks in those clubs share the love of whatever particular car it is. Now, imagine furry as a club that simply likes anything that has tires.

I think a better analogy is this: imagine furry as a club of people pretending to be cars.

21st Century Digital Boy · Qualificator Joined: 27 Dec 2003 Posts: 34

...Let me put it another, more glib and, succinct way..... imagine if fandoms were car clubs. You've got fans of the PT Cruiser, the Hummer, the GTO, etc. All the folks in those clubs share the love of whatever particular car it is. Now, imagine furry as a club that simply likes anything that has tires.

I think a better analogy is this: imagine furry as a club of people pretending to be cars.

On a somewhat related note, I don't think anyone's posted a link to this pure nugget of awsome yet.

Shmeckopolis · Coadjutor Joined: 31 Mar 2004 Posts: 103

Holy hell, is that real?! It seems too cartoonish or fake to be real. Stamps?!

Rankin · Coadjutor Joined: 03 Jan 2004 Posts: 488

Holy hell, is that real?! It seems too cartoonish or fake to be real. Stamps?!

ZenZhu · Coadjutor Joined: 22 Mar 2004 Posts: 475

FISHGILL!!!!!!!

Dogthing · Coadjutor Joined: 26 Oct 2003 Posts: 207

How do I vote gold :(

m_estrugo · Coadjutor Joined: 13 Nov 2003 Posts: 160

Oh, I was around AFF when this message was posted. It was a masterpiece by Stukafox from around the famous Vanity Fair article on furries.

Here's another of those sarcastic gems.

FOX, which had planned to air "When Furries Attack!" during March sweeps pulled the program and said they would replace it with "Furries Are Perfect In Every Way Imaginable And Anyone Who Says Different Is A Fag".

Kadius · Coadjutor Joined: 10 Feb 2004 Posts: 147

Oh, I was around AFF when this message was posted. It was a masterpiece by Stukafox from around the famous Vanity Fair article on furries.

Here's another of those sarcastic gems.

FOX, which had planned to air "When Furries Attack!" during March sweeps pulled the program and said they would replace it with "Furries Are Perfect In Every Way Imaginable And Anyone Who Says Different Is A Fag".

Please, please. Tell me this guy hasn't and isn't allowed to breed.