# Things you DON'T like seeing in furry fiction



## Friday (Aug 9, 2013)

So, people were discussing "Do you like reading furry fiction?" and the resounding answer seemed to be, "No, because I haven't read any that's good."

Good furry fiction exists. But this thread isn't here to argue about that. I figured this could be an awesome thread to help people figure out what _not_ to do/write/say in their furry fiction, as well as get reasons for _why_ they shouldn't. All thoughts here would be, of course, opinion based, and therefore completely valid, but also open to decisions of universality by those who might integrate said opinions into their writing.

I just want to remind people of two things before they post. *First*, any criticisms you may offer may be things done by other authors reading your comments currently or at some point in the past. Keep that in mind, and don't be insulting or condescending when offering advice. *Second*, in a similar vein, everything that is read or offered here is an _opinion_. Don't assume anyone (including yourself) is completely correct. Moderate your intake of these opinions with that thought, as well as your offerings of them. Remember to talk about _why_ you dislike something, too, as that is much more helpful for people learning than just a statement of your opinion.

I'll start with one. Don't have the fact that your character is furry be the main focus of the story, unless you have a specific reason story-wise for doing so. Readers want story. Talking about how furries came to be, or how this character came to be furry, or how awesome being a furry is, isn't usually going to be relevant to the story you're telling, and will disengage the reader. It's like telling the story of a heated family argument where the mother and father really get into it, and their considerations for divorce come to a head, but then the story suddenly dove-tails off into a back-history of the family's house, and what kind of material it's made from and why the builder decided to make it out of that, and then returns to the parents realizing why they really do still love each other. Unless you're using the house as a parallel or metaphor for their relationship, and even then you would have to do it carefully, the inclusion of the description of it will probably bore the reader and broke the flow of the story.


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## ADF (Aug 9, 2013)

We all like to see anthro animals romanticised to an extent, but there is a line between appreciation for furries and disdain for humanity. I recall in one story years ago the writer portrayed a futuristic society as having more care for animal conditions than human conditions, that killing animals for meat was banned because it was regarded as cruel; but killing humans turned into animals for meat was somehow ok. Which makes no sense, but it says something about the writers attitude.

To be honest I don't read as many stories as I should, considering I play with writing from time to time. But the ones I do read they frequently suffer from a bias for the subject matter. 

I like transformation themes, but I recognise to none fans it would be regarded as a terrifying prospect. There is a reason that it is often horror films that contain transformation, it portrayed as grotesque and horrible. Yet most TF stories are guilty of having the subject too easily accept and adapt to their new physical condition, to just brush off their changes. It's the same problem with furry, the bias of interest leads to all sorts of clichés such as humans being bad but the animal people somehow intrinsically being good and/or better in some way than humanity.

I like exploring the experience of the furry/animal form, the good and bad, it's an indulgence in something exotic and interesting. Romanticising that experience as being something great and superior to our own loses the opportunity to provide a more vivid description of that experience; highlighting what that form actually means to the character and their role in the story. It's a different flavour of feelings and perceptions, not better.

The OP said don't have the fact that your character is furry become the story. But at the end of the day, if it's a furry story you're going to have to find some way of incorporating that physical state into the storyline, otherwise the furries are just a arbitrary and easily interchangeable element. Furry fans want to see furry themes, if your story doesn't utilise those themes then it is just a story; not a "furry" story.


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## dinosaurdammit (Aug 9, 2013)

dicks


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## Schwimmwagen (Aug 9, 2013)

vaginas


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## MochiElZorro (Aug 9, 2013)

think ADF already answered what I was going for. Fetishes like that DO tend to get ridiculous. Like the classic "Yay I'm being eaten" or "Hooray I'm changing into a ham and cheese sandwich"... Shuddup I'm hungry.

The only thing I can think of now is repetition of words like "said." Really frustrating. Also lack of good imagery, AKA telling, not showing. Instead of "He walked to Jim's house" you could use a whole three paragraphs or more on that scene alone, even if you want to speed things up you generally shouldn't say stuff like "we took a boat to Egypt."


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## miskey (Aug 10, 2013)

MochiElZorro said:


> Instead of "He walked to Jim's house" you could use a whole three paragraphs or more on that scene alone, even if you want to speed things up you generally shouldn't say stuff like "we took a boat to Egypt."


I kind of disagree. Sometimes "He walked to Jim'd house" or "the strole to Jim's house took only ten minutes" sometimes is all you need. If the character was just walking to the house, and nothing significant happened before or is goin to happen, I really don't think you need to be that descriptive to something that will be boring for the reader. I know I would much rather skip the few paragraphs of description of the color of the cars or the two story houses *(that have no connection to te story) and skip to what happens at Jim's house.

*The exception is that the descriptive paragraphs have something to do with Jim. If you want to express the fact that Jim is poor, for example, describing a run down neighborhood, shitty houses, etc. then that's perfectly acceptable

(But I've read where the author jut goes on...and on...and on with the surroundings that were so unnecessary. For me, I like to have a little freedom with the story. Like if the author doesn't describe everything to the smallest pebble, I like to fill in what I think would be there. And that's part of the reading process that I love.)

Now, if the character was thinking about something (thoughts that _progress _the story) that's fine. I think it's kind of boring to spend three paragraphs on simple descriptions of the surroundings that are not needed, when those paragraphs could be spent on the progression of the story. I was told by some author (don't ask cause I don't remember) that every word should be spent in progression of the story. There are exceptions to that, yes, but for the most part (95%) she was right.

Also, this is just my personal opinion. I hope you don't take offense to anything, cause I don't want to be offending =)


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## Friday (Aug 10, 2013)

miskey said:


> But I've read where the author jut goes on...and on...and on with the surroundings that were so unnecessary. For me, I like to have a little freedom with the story. Like if the author doesn't describe everything to the smallest pebble, I like to fill in what I think would be there. And that's part of the reading process that I love.



I totally agree. I don't describe much in my work, ever since I read Jane Austen's _Pride and Prejudice_. The most swoonable character in all of literary history, Mr. Darcy, is only ever described as 'handsome.' No complexion, hair color, hair style, build, or anything similar is described. And yet he's memorable as a great romantic character because it allows the female reader to fill in their dream man. Additionally, of course, he also has a likeable moral character. But it's successful because it lets the reader decide. Since then I've been very careful with my descriptions, because I know that most of the time the reader will fill in what they want to see. I only describe as much as I feel is relevant.


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## Taralack (Aug 10, 2013)

Most furry stories I've read have no sense of plot or urgency, I imagine the main reason they were written was to produce something that is "furry" instead of because of a desire to want to tell a story.


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## jorinda (Aug 10, 2013)

Toraneko said:


> Most furry stories I've read have no sense of plot or urgency, I imagine the main reason they were written was to produce something that is "furry" instead of because of a desire to want to tell a story.


  This.  I dislike stories that begin with a whole page that describes the main character, the shape of his ears, colour of pawpads, every single marking and colour of his fur... I get tired before anything has even happened.  Of course a character should be described, but... get to the point. I want to read a story, not a reference sheet in prose.


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## Troj (Aug 10, 2013)

A LOT of authors make the mistake of doing a description-dump of their character in the beginning of the story. Most readers find this tiresome and dull.

My pet peeve: when the character checks themselves out in the mirror, because the narrator needs to describe the character. Ugh.

My contribution:

When the author's fetish or kink utterly consumes or subsumes the story. I'd say this even applies to bonafide wank-material.

Your characters still need to make plausible decisions and have understandable reactions that are congruent with what we as readers know about them. They should not be forced against their nature or will to react the way YOU would react to the thing that gets you hot and bothered.

Your fictional universe, civilization, or culture needs to have good, plausible, internally-consistent reasons for being the way it is, and not being the way it isn't. 

And, the grand appearance of your kink in the story isn't the cue for all character and plot development to go take a cigarette break.

As the author, you need to be eternally vigilant against letting your lower head rope you into making weird, wacky, unworkable writing decisions that will alienate or skeeve the reader.


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## Taralack (Aug 10, 2013)

Oh, I also hate stories that try to justify why all the characters are anthros. Yes, I get you're a furry and you want to write a furry story. You don't have to remind me in every other paragraph that this is a story about anthros.


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## MochiElZorro (Aug 10, 2013)

Convenient Amnesia. Even I'm guilty of doing this, and under most circumstances it's utter bullshit meant to inform the readers of every little detail because hell, not like the MC remembers how many moons his planet has. Or his hair color. Or even his ENTIRE LIFE STORY. I really don't like amnesia unless done for laughs or done straight, with actual trauma causing partial blockage of memory. Perhaps the character saw some Eldritch Abomination kill all his friends and as a result can't recall the last few days? I mean come on, let the narrator give background info and maybe explain stuff to a new character to clarify something, but don't give the MC magical full-memory-blockage-via-head-bump amnesia.

Maybe that's just me though.


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## jorinda (Aug 11, 2013)

Troj said:


> When the author's fetish or kink utterly consumes or subsumes the story. I'd say this even applies to bonafide wank-material.
> 
> Your characters still need to make plausible decisions and have understandable reactions (...)



About NSFW stories: I hate stories about people getting raped and suddenly after two minutes they think "wait, this is the hottest thing that ever happened to me". 
I'm pretty sure that's not how a person feels and thinks when being raped. 
If it is part of a play with everyone's consent - that's fine. Whatever floats your boat. But real, actual rape isn't "murry".


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## Troj (Aug 11, 2013)

^^^Exactly. 

Likewise, when the character endures something under the umbrella of either BDSM or body horror, initially reacts with horror (like ya do), and then experiences a sudden, abrupt, unexplained change of heart, and decides that it's actually "so hawt."

Stockholm Syndrome's a thing, yes, but it doesn't happen in fifteen minutes.

For me, the creepy icing on the cake is when the narrator expresses their approval (whether tacitly or openly) of said rapery goodness. This is where you'll definitely lose your average reader, outside of the ones who share your kink. If the narrator seemed neutral or trustworthy up until that point, and then endorses something that the reader finds bizarre or distasteful, the reader will often end up feeling cheated and confused as a result.

So, I think you have to keep your readers in mind, and not project your own sensibilities onto them, or else you'll end up creating an alien, dissonant, unrealistic universe where everybody loves to be inflated with magical blueberry juice and sodomized with a screwdriver for some reason.


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## Friday (Aug 11, 2013)

To MochiElZorro: The 'amnesia' approach was popularized by video games (first by the remarkable game Planescape: Torment, which was a dialogue-based RPG that had a 800,000 word script, all of which was well written). It was a convenient way to make sure the player character and the player were on the same page in terms of world-knowledge, which is much more important for a video game than for any other medium, really. Since then, it's become a trope. In about twenty years, it went from being an original innovation to over-used. Personally, I don't mind it if it's done well (story of my opinions on most things).

To Jorinda: Yes. A million times that. It's frustrating when there's a major mis-characterization in a story. Whether it's being fine with being raped or being fine with the fact you just killed someone, I can't read stuff by writers who make breaking social mores a decidedly boring or non-traumatizing event for their characters. It instantly invalidates your world and your characters. They suddenly are not social beings and therefore cannot be related to by the reader.


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## Eggdodger (Aug 11, 2013)

I don't like it when an author uses "furry" lingo just for the hell of it. Seriously, you don't have to call the medical professionals "veterinarians". They're animals, we get it.


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## Furcade (Aug 12, 2013)

Personally, it really bugs me when people can't keep their grammar, layout and structure together. Which is about 95% of cases. Simply because it usually suggests that there's going to be something fundamentally wrong with the story itself or the way it's presented, and also that the author doesn't respect their story enough to pour a decent amount of time making it readable. That, and meaningless sexual exploitation really gets under my skin. If you're gonna include NSFW situations, fine, but you better make me feel _something_ about it. Not just, y'know, because it attracts interest or whatever.


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## Troj (Aug 12, 2013)

^^^Yes.  If you're not going to write something clear and cogent, don't bother--or at least, don't bother posting it for the rest of the world to see.


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## Aleu (Aug 12, 2013)

It bugs me in general when people write "sentences" instead of a paragraph. I mean, if it doesn't really flow, it just seems they're writing sentence after sentence. 
For example:
John Doe did this. He then did this. "He said this".
I can understand how people don't want a page of describing one thing but a little visual of the setting should be at least included. In my opinion, writing is painting the mind's canvas with words.


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## Jabberwocky (Aug 12, 2013)

i hate it when its all about sex.
sex in every chapter, sex in everything.
i am a plot person. i love it when things actually HAPPEN.
so a story all about sex is a no go for me.

Bottom line is:
LESS sex and MORE plot.


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## Harbinger (Aug 12, 2013)

Really useful thread, im currently writing my first furry story. I didnt want it to be one of those obnoxious types so this is helpful. I thought i described area's not enough but it looks like i was right not going overboard. My story is a sci-fi with multiple races, no humans, they never existed and instead my main furry race did in there place, i just think they are cooler and wanted to incorporate them in. I was worried you had to describe everything about the character first thing to get it out of the way, but luckily before this thread from advise i was given before i evened it out a littler and streamlined it. I suppose other than just being there for the sake of being cool being furry gives my race perks in certain environments, coping with snow for example and being stealthy which is needed in the given situations.

Kinda hard balancing the necessity to describe your characters and looks and coming across as "GUYS LOOK AT THESE FURRIES! LOOK HOW FURRY THEY ARE! LOOK AT DEM FURRY FURRIES!!!!"


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## Furcade (Aug 13, 2013)

Harbinger said:


> Kinda hard balancing the necessity to describe your characters and looks and coming across as "GUYS LOOK AT THESE FURRIES! LOOK HOW FURRY THEY ARE! LOOK AT DEM FURRY FURRIES!!!!"



I was gonna mention that. A lot of people are "complaining" that people spend too long (too immediately) describing their characters, but you kinda have to mention early on that your character isn't exactly human, and if you're doing that you may as well describe him/her in full. I suppose there are ways around that, I guess. Like uploading to a furry art site. That's probably a dead giveaway.


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## Machine (Aug 13, 2013)

Stories that involve gay furries getting beaten up by jocks. Bonus points if the main bully has the hots for the one being victimized. How romantic! And their relationship will be totally healthy and will require no psychiatric help for either party whatsoever. :V

Stories with a "furry > human" moral, society, whatever. Old, and how furries came about is hardly elaborated, or how they would overthrow humans (in some cases) is beyond me.

Fetish-fueled stories were already mentioned, but I guess this is a kind of sub-genre of it: fetish-fuel future/universe, some weird place and time where being into a fetish is morally acceptable and is pursued by the general public. Ugh.

FURRIES DOING DRUGS LOL. Especially pot. Do krokodil like a real man. :V

Anything that says "X species is the chosen one", and the main character is X species. Bonus points if all the main character does is bone other people, which happens in 99.9% in all stories anyway.

Any mention of Starfox, Sonic, or other "furry icon" type things.

Furryism > character development, plot, conservation of detail/lack of detail, genre specification, etc.


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## Hewge (Aug 13, 2013)

LOVE.


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## Troj (Aug 13, 2013)

I just naturally assume anything that name-drops Sonic the Hedgehog will be shit.


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## Harbinger (Aug 13, 2013)

Hewge said:


> LOVE.



The kind you clean up with mop and bucket...


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## Friday (Aug 13, 2013)

Furcade said:


> I was gonna mention that. A lot of people are "complaining" that people spend too long (too immediately) describing their characters, but you kinda have to mention early on that your character isn't exactly human, and if you're doing that you may as well describe him/her in full. I suppose there are ways around that, I guess. Like uploading to a furry art site. That's probably a dead giveaway.



I disagree that at that point you 'may as well describe them in full.' The beginning of a story is the crucial part for getting the reader hooked, and you want to therefore get the characterization and/or plot moving as soon and as smoothly as possible. Frequently, a detailed description of your character will interrupt this. I would recommend making it very clear somehow that the character is furry, like: "He yelled in pain as his tail got caught in the door, and cursed. He'd always hated since he was a kitten how long his tail was, even if it was shorter than other snow leopard's." This way, the reader knows he's a (presumably) anthro snow leopard. The characterization here isn't strong, but we do get the see that he's prone to anger and cursing, as well as dissatisfied with his body and probably has lower self-esteem. He's at least definitely dissatisfied with his body. And so I've revealed some details about this character's appearance and personality without giving a full description.

Just my two cents though.


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## Nikolinni (Aug 13, 2013)

In addition, here's something else. If the reader goes into the story knowing that it's an anthro story, then they should expect non-human, animal characters. You could skim over the fur colorings a little too. For example, just say that "Snowy had mainly snow white fur, with ice blue eartips, tail tips, and ice blue hands and paws". 

The thing is, you don't need to describe every.single.little.detail. about your characters. I'd try to use my own, but unfortunately most of them have one interesting feature or another. The afore mentioned Snowy is my own species called "Nekikian", which are essentially feline creatures that have a mix of various feline traits, though usually cats. Their trademark look is their long ears that grow from the back of their head and down. So like Terriormon or Klonoa, except going down the back instead of the sides. But I don't go into great detail describing exactly _what_ feline features they have. We can leave that up to the reader's imagination, or reveal it latter through dialouge. Maybe he meets a girl cat and she remarks that his little kitty face is adorable. 

Well, and even then their interesting features are just items or weapons they have...for example, Kain the bat has special gloves called the "Magician's Red" that each have 3 small quarter-sized colored gems on the back of them. The gems are magical, and Kain can draw from any of them to use magical attacks with his gloves. James the coyote has his "Hard Knuckles", basically they're black gloves that have a hard surface fitted right into the knuckle area to add extra damage to hand to hand attacks. And Durandal, a shepherd, has a unique looking handgun. 

Getting back to the ideas of describing characters, I think less is more in this case. But then again, you don't want to do too less...if a character sees another, and you describe them, if the person seeing the character knows what they are, you might as well just go ahead and mention that it's a snow leopard. 

I dunno, just to me, "Making it clear" that the characters are furry in a well, furry story just seems...superflous. Unless there's going to be other non-furry characters like humans and what not. But even then, have a character say something like "Anthro Fox", describe what that is short for (maybe via dialouge?) and then just reuse Anthro fox. 

I mean if someone is reading your story, not knowing it's going to be a furry story, than either they neglected to read the description, or you neglected to put it in the description.


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## Aleu (Aug 13, 2013)

All this talk of character description  reminds me of My Immortal.


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## Nikolinni (Aug 13, 2013)

Aleu said:


> All this talk of character description  reminds me of My Immortal.



The Evanescence song or some horrid story I'm unfamiliar with?


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## Eggdodger (Aug 13, 2013)

Would you all mind elaborating on how "bad hyoomans" is overdone? I've seen that trace throughout the conversation as groan-worthy, although I haven't read much fur-fiction, to be honest. While not a "story" in the literary sense, I do have an idea for a video game starring "chimaeras", sentient animals genetically engineered for labor to sustain a diminishing human workforce, who thanks to the player character stage an uprising. I should mention as well that this takes place in a "Crapsack World" and features "Grey vs. Grey Morality". The only reason humans are seen as bad is because, well, your perspective is from the enslaved.
 I will also mention that not all humans are bad, and this does not follow the "Puny Human" trope- your _father, _(i.e. lead scientist in the project) is shown in the childhood phase of the game/story to genuinely love you and your siblings, but because he's working for an iron-fisted government does not have much sway in what happens to you. I don't want to swamp this thread with my ideas, I just want some elaboration on how many overused furry-specific tropes I'm exhibiting. I have journals on this game on the mainsite, so please read those if you wish to help. Thank you.


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## Nikolinni (Aug 13, 2013)

Eggdodger said:


> Would you all mind elaborating on how "bad hyoomans" is overdone? I've seen that trace throughout the conversation as groan-worthy, although I haven't read much fur-fiction, to be honest. While not a "story" in the literary sense, I do have an idea for a video game starring "chimaeras", sentient animals genetically engineered for labor to sustain a diminishing human workforce, who thanks to the player character stage an uprising. I should mention as well that this takes place in a "Crapsack World" and features "Grey vs. Grey Morality". The only reason humans are seen as bad is because, well, your perspective is from the enslaved.
> I will also mention that not all humans are bad, and this does not follow the "Puny Human" trope- your _father, _(i.e. lead scientist in the project) is shown in the childhood phase of the game/story to genuinely love you and your siblings, but because he's working for an iron-fisted government does not have much sway in what happens to you. I don't want to swamp this thread with my ideas, I just want some elaboration on how many overused furry-specific tropes I'm exhibiting. I have journals on this game on the mainsite, so please read those if you wish to help. Thank you.



To me, it's the "Oh those humans are soooo primitive/puny/morally corrputable/etc" that I see almost anytime you see humans and aliens, with the aliens usually acting higher and mightier than humans, whether it's for technology or moral or physical purposes. 

The other one is "All humans are bad, or humanity as a collective is evil". Your story for the game seems to advert this somewhat, because we can see that a lot of the bad done is because of the iron-fisted government. And you can also see that your father seems to be good, it's just again the gov't forces him into it. So if you were to meet other humans along the way that shows that yes, we do have evil people, but we do have _good _people too that redeems humanity to some extent, then I wouldn't really have a problem with it. It's only those stories that just outright seem to look like they're trying to make you feel bad for being _human_ that I dislike. 

Gotta wonder what robots think about humanity being evil, especially those who seem to  dream about and desire to be human.


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## Eggdodger (Aug 13, 2013)

Nikolinni said:


> To me, it's the "Oh those humans are soooo primitive/puny/morally corrputable/etc" that I see almost anytime you see humans and aliens, with the aliens usually acting higher and mightier than humans, whether it's for technology or moral or physical purposes.
> 
> The other one is "All humans are bad, or humanity as a collective is evil". Your story for the game seems to advert this somewhat, because we can see that a lot of the bad done is because of the iron-fisted government. And you can also see that your father seems to be good, it's just again the gov't forces him into it. So if you were to meet other humans along the way that shows that yes, we do have evil people, but we do have _good _people too that redeems humanity to some extent, then I wouldn't really have a problem with it. It's only those stories that just outright seem to look like they're trying to make you feel bad for being _human_ that I dislike.
> 
> Gotta wonder what robots think about humanity being evil, especially those who seem to  dream about and desire to be human.



 Ah, thank you. I'm trying _not _to fall into any overdone tropes unless I can adequately deconstruct them. I feel even though I'm not strictly labeling it as a "furry" game, I still need to keep a pulse on what the fandom does and does not like.


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## Troj (Aug 13, 2013)

I think what irritates people about the Evil Hyooomans trope is that the humans can do no right, and the non-humans can do no wrong. It rings false and hollow--especially when you add to the fact that the evil hyoomans' reasons for being evil in the first place often won't make sense.

The best villains are typically the ones which make people go, "Yeah, I can see how someone might do that under those circumstances." (And the most effective villains of all will even make people question their own capacity for evil!)


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## Nikolinni (Aug 13, 2013)

Eggdodger said:


> Ah, thank you. I'm trying _not _to fall into any overdone tropes unless I can adequately deconstruct them. I feel even though I'm not strictly labeling it as a "furry" game, I still need to keep a pulse on what the fandom does and does not like.



Keep in mind my friend, Tropes Are Not Bad.


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## Aleu (Aug 13, 2013)

Nikolinni said:


> The Evanescence song or some horrid story I'm unfamiliar with?



It's a story that's some Harry Potter fanfiction or whatever. The author would describe every little thing about her character almost every single time. It's hilariously bad.


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## Sasya (Aug 13, 2013)

What's interesting to me is that I agree with all of the above, and my writing is a bit different...yet it barely gets any reads when compared to the poorly written teen-angst gay/jock overly-descriptive sex-in-the-third-line illiterate drivel that stands as the majority of the content on FA.

I've come to the conclusion that most furs just want a 1980s high-school angst movie, with gay furries instead of humans, despite what people talk about in writing fora. 

Or they want their specific fetish, or their particular interest, or their particular species ... and don't mind reading basically the same story over and over again.

But perhaps I'm just jaded.

~Fox


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## Nikolinni (Aug 13, 2013)

Sasya said:


> What's interesting to me is that I agree with all of the above, and my writing is a bit different...yet it barely gets any reads when compared to the poorly written teen-angst gay/jock overly-descriptive sex-in-the-third-line illiterate drivel that stands as the majority of the content on FA.
> 
> I've come to the conclusion that most furs just want a 1980s high-school angst movie, with gay furries instead of humans, despite what people talk about in writing fora.
> 
> ...



It's kinda like with artwork. Where the most propsperous ones are the most messiest, so to speak. 

Perhaps you shouldn't limit yourself to only the fur fandom? If you can find other people who would like your story, don't hesitate to introduce them to it. And if you're worried about linking them to something like fur affinity, create a deviant art account or a livejournal account, and just host the story on there.


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## Saga (Aug 13, 2013)

I hate when the author tries to make it cute by making the characters pussies
Like
I get that it's supposed to be fun and cute and all, but they don't need to turn into MLPonies.


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## Sasya (Aug 13, 2013)

Nikolinni said:


> Perhaps you shouldn't limit yourself to only the fur fandom? If you can find other people who would like your story, don't hesitate to introduce them to it. And if you're worried about linking them to something like fur affinity, create a deviant art account or a livejournal account, and just host the story on there.



I kinda did something like that: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0989441407/ 

^.^ 

I don't know if I've ever seen stories on Deviant Art... I may have to investigate.  Doubt it'll really fit though. 

~Foxy


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## MochiElZorro (Aug 13, 2013)

Sasya said:


> I kinda did something like that: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0989441407/
> 
> ^.^
> 
> ...



There is some good fur and nonfur stuff on DA. Notice how I said "good" and not "great".


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## Gnarl (Aug 13, 2013)

Yep if it aint cute and cuddly or filled with that other stuff (sex) a lot of people don't read it. my stories on FA have only gotten a dozen or so. Course I wonder if that is because it is sorta dark sci-fi? Maybe I should have started aat the begining of the Hybrid wars instead of at the end?


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## Furcade (Aug 14, 2013)

Friday said:


> I disagree... And so I've revealed some details about this character's appearance and personality without giving a full description.



Yeah, I guess that's the other way to do it. But it has to be smoothly integrated. Alternatively, you could just not mention that they're anthro characters until the last half-a-chapter and use it as a plot twist :V


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## Falaffel (Aug 14, 2013)

Aleu said:


> All this talk of character description  reminds me of My Immortal.


that 'STORY' gets my rating of 11 golden grananas out of 5 starites.
Dumblydore's "what the fuak are you doing" moment was hilariously bad


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## Aleu (Aug 14, 2013)

Falaffel said:


> that 'STORY' gets my rating of 11 golden grananas out of 5 starites.
> Dumblydore's "what the fuak are you doing" moment was hilariously bad


I don't suppose you've gotten to the part where Marty McFly appears have you?


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## Falaffel (Aug 14, 2013)

Aleu said:


> I don't suppose you've gotten to the part where Marty McFly appears have you?


I've read it all bby.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2554200/1/HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
New worst fanfic.


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## Eggdodger (Aug 14, 2013)

Falaffel said:


> I've read it all bby.
> 
> 
> http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2554200/1/HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
> New worst fanfic.




 I dunno, you can tell that the author has the capability to be intelligent, but their thoughts are too hyperactive and meandering to decipher. I don't think this was meant to be a story so much as a public psychoanalysis. My diagnosis: Hilarious.


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## Remba Hatari (Aug 16, 2013)

I regret clicking that fanfic.  my eyes.

That astronaut's eyes! D: 


To be on topic, I really dislike messy writing. Such as a story that starts off well enough and with an okay plot. Then somewhere in the middle the author gets randy, so they create this muddled mess of a sex scene. After dredging through that, they add on a quick and short conclusion to appease your curiosity about the aforementioned plot. I also get incredibly irritated when said sex scene is dotted with useless dialogue that neither describes the character's personality nor adds to the imagery. I also hate the overuse of onomatopoeias.

Unf unf babe!


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## Nikolinni (Aug 17, 2013)

Remba Hatari said:


> I regret clicking that fanfic.  my eyes.
> 
> That astronaut's eyes! D:
> 
> ...



I pretty much do this sometimes. Glance at the title, read a bit of the story, see two characters meet, check rating. Mature/Adult? If yes, draw conclusions that they'll end up shagging each other. Proceed to skim through story...and yeah. It's either implied by the comments (Because it hasn't happened yet) or actually does happen. 

Also guys, if you're going to write a sex scene, no, you don't need to employ all six senses. Seriously. I mean, just read "On Writing" by Stephen King where he straight up tells you the same thing (except instead of sex he's talking about describing scenes and how you don't need to describe every single detail). I also feel that scenes should focus less on the bits and more on the emotions, passions, and thoughts of the characters. Because seriously, how many words are you all going to come up with to describe male and female bits?


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## Friday (Aug 17, 2013)

On the same vein as "Overuse of onomatopeias," does anyone else find onomatopeias for laughter weird? For example: "Maria tittered, 'Heeheehee, I can't believe you fell off a tricycle.'" That just feels... wrong... to write. Am I the only one?


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## Remba Hatari (Aug 17, 2013)

Friday said:


> On the same vein as "Overuse of onomatopeias," does anyone else find onomatopeias for laughter weird? For example: "Maria tittered, 'Heeheehee, I can't believe you fell off a tricycle.'" That just feels... wrong... to write. Am I the only one?



No, although I went heeheehee reading that.


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## Aleu (Aug 18, 2013)

Friday said:


> On the same vein as "Overuse of onomatopeias," does anyone else find onomatopeias for laughter weird? For example: "Maria tittered, 'Heeheehee, I can't believe you fell off a tricycle.'" That just feels... wrong... to write. Am I the only one?


Depends on the writer's style and the character.
My friend uses those fairly well. I'm often jealous.


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## Friday (Aug 18, 2013)

Haha, ok. I never feel like I can pull it off though. Whenever I use it in dialogue it feels contrived; I need to work on that. Next writing prompt for the Thursday prompt, that's my practice!


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## VGmaster9 (Aug 18, 2013)

I don't like when there's people in "the middle" of a certain topic. Justin Bieber for example, there are either Justin fans or haters, but there's also people that don't like Justin, yet for some reason bitch at the haters for expressing their opinion. Same for the Westboro Baptist Church, it's either the church members themselves or the people who oppose them, but then there's the people who aren't part of the WBC, but still defend them.


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## Remba Hatari (Aug 18, 2013)

VGmaster9 said:


> I don't like when there's people in "the middle" of a certain topic. Justin Bieber for example, there are either Justin fans or haters, but there's also people that don't like Justin, yet for some reason bitch at the haters for expressing their opinion. Same for the Westboro Baptist Church, it's either the church members themselves or the people who oppose them, but then there's the people who aren't part of the WBC, but still defend them.



Is there a lot of that in furry fiction? o.o I haven't read too much, to be honest, so I didn't know! D:


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## VGmaster9 (Aug 18, 2013)

Remba Hatari said:


> Is there a lot of that in furry fiction? o.o I haven't read too much, to be honest, so I didn't know! D:



Actually, disregard what I just said. I thought I was posting in a topic with a similar title.


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## BennyBunnycorn (Aug 22, 2013)

Nikolinni said:


> To me, it's the "Oh those humans are soooo primitive/puny/morally corrputable/etc" that I see almost anytime you see humans and aliens, with the aliens usually acting higher and mightier than humans, whether it's for technology or moral or physical purposes.
> 
> The other one is "All humans are bad, or humanity as a collective is evil". Your story for the game seems to advert this somewhat, because we can see that a lot of the bad done is because of the iron-fisted government. And you can also see that your father seems to be good, it's just again the gov't forces him into it. So if you were to meet other humans along the way that shows that yes, we do have evil people, but we do have _good _people too that redeems humanity to some extent, then I wouldn't really have a problem with it. It's only those stories that just outright seem to look like they're trying to make you feel bad for being _human_ that I dislike.
> 
> Gotta wonder what robots think about humanity being evil, especially those who seem to  dream about and desire to be human.



Humans are not the evil scum of the Earth that some make us out to be, but we also aren't the misunderstood god-figures that others make us out to be, either. I don't mind misanthropic stories as much as most people do because I'm borderline myself, but usually when RPing with characters in an environment or writing a story that contains humans, I try to show this that while a good chunk of humans can be bad that by no means are they all bad. ...I also tend to make a lot of characters that actually like humans, especially in stories and RPs where humans are mainly evil or bad.


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## Manis Pan (Aug 22, 2013)

Anthos are basically people, so anything with the "EVILE HYOOMANS!" motif is illogical.

On topic: fiction not in .txt form.


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## Friday (Aug 22, 2013)

Wait, what? .txt is terrabnoxious unless you write in it, in which case it's only obnoxious.

I will say, I prefer a TNR-style font that is 12 pt.


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## Remba Hatari (Aug 23, 2013)

I like Candara or Verdana font pt 14. 

Oh wait.. things we don't like.. any story typed in Comic Sans, Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, or Arial. They seem too childish or stereotypical. I prefer to read something with a font that best suits the story and its characters. 

Calligraphy is an art form for a reason.


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## Friday (Aug 23, 2013)

I prefer sticking to TNR, 12 pt font because it's what publishers expect. Not that that matters for everyone and it's not like I've been published, but still.


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## Gnarl (Aug 23, 2013)

Friday said:


> I prefer sticking to TNR, 12 pt font because it's what publishers expect. Not that that matters for everyone and it's not like I've been published, but still.



Wait, What? What difference does being published make? Good is good! bad is bad! Most of the honest writers admit that they need a little improvement here and there.
God knows I could never have published anything self published or the other without a spellcheck. My punctuation is none too great either! 
I suppose it makes a difference if you are trying to live off of it, but if like me your just in it to tell the stories and entertain the reader in your own way then you do what you gotta do! What I don't get is why some people think that they have to write "furry stories for the sake of writing furry stories"? The anthropomorphic idea is that the creatures, aliens, animals have the same likes dislikes, attitudes, loves hates and everything else just like the dreaded Humans! Though there are only a very few humans in my books they usually end up being the underdog or the one who does not get it! Stories get reformatted and type sets changed, but the story and the plot and the characters remain. 
I don't use a lot of descriptions of the physical character but I try to give the reader an understanding of the personality. I may be off base to this thread so I'll stop there!


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## BennyBunnycorn (Aug 23, 2013)

Gnarl said:


> What I don't get is why some people think that they have to write "furry stories for the sake of writing furry stories"? The anthropomorphic idea is that the creatures, aliens, animals have the same likes dislikes, attitudes, loves hates and everything else just like the dreaded Humans!



To be honest, why does a person absolutely have to use humans if they don't want to use humans. I find that using characters that appeal to me tend to make writing more fun. And I generally find animals, anthros, monsters, aliens, etc. more interesting and cooler than using just plain ol' humans. It's not "Furry for the sake of Furry" or even "Humans are evil," it's just that I have more fun using non-humans. Some people do too.

I do agree with the first thing you said. I just wrote a short story about one of my characters. I showed it to someone asking for criticism, and now I'm currently working on the character's personality and beliefs. And that's how people get better at things is through practice.


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## Gnarl (Aug 23, 2013)

BennyBunnycorn said:


> To be honest, why does a person absolutely have to use humans if they don't want to use humans. I find that using characters that appeal to me tend to make writing more fun. And I generally find animals, anthros, monsters, aliens, etc. more interesting and cooler than using just plain ol' humans. It's not "Furry for the sake of Furry" or even "Humans are evil," it's just that I have more fun using non-humans. Some people do too.
> 
> I do agree with the first thing you said. I just wrote a short story about one of my characters. I showed it to someone asking for criticism, and now I'm currently working on the character's personality and beliefs. And that's how people get better at things is through practice.



AWE: please forgive me if you took that as me saying anyone ever had to use humans! you write about what makes you happy. Its your story! 
I agree most of the time the freedom that non-human characters gives to a writer like me is awesome! Also I will say that it is fun to write in the vain of the furry is the norm and the other is strange!


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## BennyBunnycorn (Aug 23, 2013)

Gnarl said:


> AWE: please forgive me if you took that as me saying anyone ever had to use humans! you write about what makes you happy. Its your story!
> I agree most of the time the freedom that non-human characters gives to a writer like me is awesome! Also I will say that it is fun to write in the vain of the furry is the norm and the other is strange!



I guess I shouldn't have said it the way I did.

Regardless, I do have a few human OCs. One human I have is an incredibly strong human child with a pet bear who is good friends an pen-pals with the main character of one of the original universes I have. Also, he's largely based off of Kintaro, a kid of Asian legend who was incredibly strong and fought giant monsters. Also, did not actually have a pet bear. That's just a stereotype associated with the character that I kind of went with.


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## Gnarl (Aug 24, 2013)

Sounds interesting!  Where I can read it?


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## Saga (Aug 24, 2013)

Cat in the hat style writing
Like "He went to foxy fox'es house, but his path was blocked by a clever mouse! 'No one goes by here!' said the critter; whos life and tone had seemed quite bitter."
#madethatupImsoclever


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## BennyBunnycorn (Aug 24, 2013)

Gnarl said:


> Sounds interesting!  Where I can read it?



...I haven't actually written any stories with him yet.


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## JethroLerrael (Aug 25, 2013)

Something i've noticed that disappoints me, I guess, is that furry stories take place in an alternate universe, and a lot of people don't utilize that fact very well. The alternate universe allows the writer to rename things, create new things or just make an oddity be an every day thing. The story that comes to mind for doing this well is Anathem by Neal Stephenson. It's ok to call a phone by a different name, but repeatedly calling it a communication device is just saddening. Letting the reader assume they know what you are talking about by giving enough context feels much more satisfying to the reader.

speaking of context, it's ok to not use words for some things. A story is just a painting in the mind and not describing one aspect but perfectly describing other aspects of the scene is like leaving a small blank spot on the canvas. I personally enjoy taking guesses at what's going on based on the dimentions of the blank portion. In a furry story sense, I think this could best be achieved by never actually stating what species a character is, but by slowly painting the picture over a period of time or by being as generic as possible when referring to a species and describing what matters about the character.

in the universe I am trying to write right now, I'm telling the story of a Fenrian Bard (my sona). But by the end of the prologue a bard is synonymous with fear and mass death and no species were mentioned but a few may be deduced with context. I rewrote the entire prologue after reading this thread, and I tried to take into account everything that was said. But I'm also starting to get the feeling that a short novel won't attract attention.


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## Nikolinni (Aug 25, 2013)

So wait, the idea is to never outrught say the species, but just describe it?

Also, not all furry stories take place in an AR. Maybe a universe they created, but not always an AR of ours


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## JethroLerrael (Aug 28, 2013)

Nikolinni said:


> So wait, the idea is to never outrught say the species, but just describe it?
> 
> Also, not all furry stories take place in an AR. Maybe a universe they created, but not always an AR of ours


Yeah, I expressed that poorly.what I mean is that the character's description is a portrait. You could draw a stick figure and call it done (which is totally ok, I'm not saying that's bad, just using it as a parallel) or you can paint the Mona Lisa. My opinion is that coming out and saying your character is a wolf doesn't grab a reader as well as giving the reader small hints that keep them reading for more, until they can paint the picture themselves. And grabbing the reader early is important.

and the second point I will concede as that is what I meant.


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## M. LeRenard (Aug 28, 2013)

Reading through this thread, it sounds like the consensus is 'I don't like to see bad writing in furry stories'.


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## Nikolinni (Aug 28, 2013)

JethroLerrael said:


> Yeah, I expressed that poorly.what I mean is that the character's description is a portrait. You could draw a stick figure and call it done (which is totally ok, I'm not saying that's bad, just using it as a parallel) or you can paint the Mona Lisa. My opinion is that coming out and saying your character is a wolf doesn't grab a reader as well as giving the reader small hints that keep them reading for more, until they can paint the picture themselves. And grabbing the reader early is important.
> 
> and the second point I will concede as that is what I meant.



Well, the thing is...with furry species you can easily tell what they are. 

Though perhaps...you shouldn't reveal _all_ the secrets of a character. For example, in my story when I describe Snowy (A feline like creature called a nekikian) it's when he's being observed by another creature. So the only things described are what you can see. No info is given about his markings on his fur because the parts that the ice blue markings are covered by clothing. You aren't told about his cold body temperature because when he's being observed, no one in his group remarks about it, and the observer doesn't touch him. So maybe perhaps things like that, where readers find out about characters as other characters do?


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## JethroLerrael (Aug 29, 2013)

Yeah, something like that. Maybe it's a little different for me since I'm writing about a hybrid and it takes my character commenting on his Phoenician blood that allows him to do certain things to give a defined species. But even the. It's only half. The wolf half is only inferred from clues. Aaaaanyways, do you have anything posted I could read of yours? I'm now intrigued by snowy.


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## Nikolinni (Aug 29, 2013)

JethroLerrael said:


> Yeah, something like that. Maybe it's a little different for me since I'm writing about a hybrid and it takes my character commenting on his Phoenician blood that allows him to do certain things to give a defined species. But even the. It's only half. The wolf half is only inferred from clues. Aaaaanyways, do you have anything posted I could read of yours? I'm now intrigued by snowy.



Oh the only thing I have thus far is just a short intro piece I posted to my fur affinity account tonight. It's just a basic rundown, but suffice to say, he will be making an appearance in the upcoming story (especially since he's a major character). 

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/11480102/

It's currently only on FA, though I'm working on getting it posted properly to live journal as well.

Edit: It is now on the Live Journal Page


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## JethroLerrael (Aug 29, 2013)

Checked your stuff Niko, read about halfway into season one, I liked it. Thanks for the link.


M. LeRenard said:


> Reading through this thread, it sounds like the consensus is 'I don't like to see bad writing in furry stories'.


More like 'I don't like bad literature.' Like _50 Shades of 'Smut for the sake of Smut'_ >.>


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## Nikolinni (Aug 29, 2013)

JethroLerrael said:


> Checked your stuff Niko, read about halfway into season one, I liked it. Thanks for the link.
> 
> More like 'I don't like bad literature.' Like _50 Shades of 'Smut for the sake of Smut'_ >.>



Wait...what do you mean? Oh, did you read any of the older episodes that were posted? 

Sorry, those are non-cannon offically ^_^; though when I get to working on Season 1, it'll follow a similar flow to what you read....but not quite the same. That is if you read what I think you read.


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## Drake Ukkonen (Aug 29, 2013)

Scat, vore, inflation, unbirth, and watersports.  So...pretty much half the fandom, right there.


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## Friday (Aug 29, 2013)

JethroLerrael said:


> More like 'I don't like bad literature.' Like _50 Shades of 'Smut for the sake of Smut'_ >.>



I need to read 50 Shades so I can actually defend it or not, but I will say... sex is an important part of people's lives. It defines a lot of people and the way they have sex illuminates their character. And some stories can't be told without sex. So, I don't mind sex in a story if it serves a purpose, no matter what visceral reaction I may or may not have to it (I'm asexual). If it doesn't have a purpose... then it's just bad writing to include scenes that do nothing for the story.


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## M. LeRenard (Aug 29, 2013)

Friday said:


> I need to read 50 Shades so I can actually defend it or not, but I will say... sex is an important part of people's lives. It defines a lot of people and the way they have sex illuminates their character. And some stories can't be told without sex. So, I don't mind sex in a story if it serves a purpose, no matter what visceral reaction I may or may not have to it (I'm asexual). If it doesn't have a purpose... then it's just bad writing to include scenes that do nothing for the story.



People mostly harp on books like this because they've heard the writing is awful, the plot is cliche, and everything about it is unbelievable.  All I know from looking at the sample on Amazon.com is that the writing is indeed pretty awful (stale sentences, lots and lots of cliched phrases [put the pedal to the metal?], way more telling than necessary [she was kind, funny, etc.]... and this is just from reading one page).  This one just happened to get more notoriety because the author went on television proclaiming her love of bondage or whatever.  I could give two shits about that, but you know America.

But anyway, seriously, 90% of the criticism I see here is absolutely not unique to furry writing.  The title maybe should have been 'things you don't like seeing in fan fiction/fiction in general', since we're mostly just talking about fetish-writing or immature characterization or plot development and the like.  Again, I think this just speaks to the fact that the grand majority of furry fiction people have read has been unpublished, rough-draft material posted to FA or some other art/writing website by horribly amateur writers.  The bulk of this is crap; that's unavoidable.
I would ask to change the direction a little and see what people don't like seeing in well-reviewed/published furry fiction, but nobody has read any of that stuff.


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## Nikolinni (Aug 29, 2013)

M. LeRenard said:


> People mostly harp on books like this because they've heard the writing is awful, the plot is cliche, and everything about it is unbelievable.  All I know from looking at the sample on Amazon.com is that the writing is indeed pretty awful (stale sentences, lots and lots of cliched phrases [put the pedal to the metal?], way more telling than necessary [she was kind, funny, etc.]... and this is just from reading one page).  This one just happened to get more notoriety because the author went on television proclaiming her love of bondage or whatever.  I could give two shits about that, but you know America.
> 
> But anyway, seriously, 90% of the criticism I see here is absolutely not unique to furry writing.  The title maybe should have been 'things you don't like seeing in fan fiction/fiction in general', since we're mostly just talking about fetish-writing or immature characterization or plot development and the like.  Again, I think this just speaks to the fact that the grand majority of furry fiction people have read has been unpublished, rough-draft material posted to FA or some other art/writing website by horribly amateur writers.  The bulk of this is crap; that's unavoidable.
> I would ask to change the direction a little and see what people don't like seeing in well-reviewed/published furry fiction, but nobody has read any of that stuff.



Yeah boss...about the only published furry series I've read a lot of was Redwall. Though I could read "Johnathan Livingston Seagull"...of course this is using the definition of furry that states: "Any media with anthro animals is 'furry'."


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## Friday (Aug 29, 2013)

M. LeRenard said:


> But anyway, seriously, 90% of the criticism I see here is absolutely not unique to furry writing.  The title maybe should have been 'things you don't like seeing in fan fiction/fiction in general', since we're mostly just talking about fetish-writing or immature characterization or plot development and the like.  Again, I think this just speaks to the fact that the grand majority of furry fiction people have read has been unpublished, rough-draft material posted to FA or some other art/writing website by horribly amateur writers.  The bulk of this is crap; that's unavoidable.
> I would ask to change the direction a little and see what people don't like seeing in well-reviewed/published furry fiction, but nobody has read any of that stuff.



Yeah. Honestly the point of the thread was exactly that, to show that most of the mistakes that people point out as reasons for disliking furry lit are really more applicable to not liking _amateur_ (or just plain bad) lit. That, and the fact that hopefully this thread will illuminate what mistakes we might be making as amateurs so that we can improve our writing.

What I will say I don't like seeing in published furry fiction: Most of all, sheathes. I don't mean this in the smut way. I mean this in the way that, if anthro characters had sheathes, their bathroom habits would be really awkward, and they wouldn't wear underwear. And yet, I routinely see authors include them on their characters (Kyell Gold for example) and disregard these issues. It's more of a 'pet peeve' than serious criticism, but I think if you're going to have them on your characters, you shouldn't act like the world would be the same as ours. It _would_ be different. The same is generally true of remarkable traits of animals, like cats being able to see in the dark, dogs having strong sense of smell, etc. If you're going to make a point of including them as part of your characters, take into account how it would affect their world.

I'm branching out from Redwall and Kyell Gold in terms of furry lit, but right now those are the only popular authors I can say I've read. _Summerhill_ is on my reading list, as is _Blacksad_, but I'm waiting for after an exam to indulge myself. I can report back on them after XD


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## Nikolinni (Aug 29, 2013)

Friday said:


> Yeah. Honestly the point of the thread was exactly that, to show that most of the mistakes that people point out as reasons for disliking furry lit are really more applicable to not liking _amateur_ (or just plain bad) lit. That, and the fact that hopefully this thread will illuminate what mistakes we might be making as amateurs so that we can improve our writing.
> 
> What I will say I don't like seeing in published furry fiction: Most of all, sheathes. I don't mean this in the smut way. I mean this in the way that, if anthro characters had sheathes, their bathroom habits would be really awkward, and they wouldn't wear underwear. And yet, I routinely see authors include them on their characters (Kyell Gold for example) and disregard these issues. It's more of a 'pet peeve' than serious criticism, but I think if you're going to have them on your characters, you shouldn't act like the world would be the same as ours. It _would_ be different. The same is generally true of remarkable traits of animals, like cats being able to see in the dark, dogs having strong sense of smell, etc. If you're going to make a point of including them as part of your characters, take into account how it would affect their world.
> 
> I'm branching out from Redwall and Kyell Gold in terms of furry lit, but right now those are the only popular authors I can say I've read. _Summerhill_ is on my reading list, as is _Blacksad_, but I'm waiting for after an exam to indulge myself. I can report back on them after XD



I actually try to get around the whole sheath thing by not making it completely anatomically correct. I mean yeah, like you said, it would create issues for characters and if this issue's never addressed, then you'd figure they'd evolve out of it or evolve their sheaths to where it wasn't an issue. Instead in my stories, at least for any character from the world Actica, their sheaths aren't as upright and rigid, instead being a little bit more limp and a lot easier to go to the restoom with. They get upright only when a character becomes aroused, though. 

Something like that. I'm still playing around with the exact mechanics of it.


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## Sasya (Aug 29, 2013)

I have a problem with the concept of "Anatomically correct", as furries use it.  The characters in my universe (from Theta, Dreams of Refugium, etc) are descended from human pairings intentionally genetically modified in vitro with the intent of widening a tiny genetic pool.  While it's possible that eventually the various species will re-evolve sheaths, knots, etc, it would be seriously abnormal for that to happen in the less-than-a-thousand years since the original "release" (so to speak). 

Thus 'Anatomically correct' is, in my universe, relatively humanoid reproductive organs. 

Perhaps 'Anatomically feral' would be more appropriate, 'cause I assure you that my characters are all 'correct'. ;>

Interestingly, the planets terraformed in my universe have been stocked with earth-type plant and animal species.  So it's entirely possible (and relatively frequent, in reality) for a character to meet her feral brethren.  ^.^

~Fox
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/10755856/
and
www.amazon.com/dp/0989441407/
... if curious.  ^.^


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## Charrio (Sep 6, 2013)

Writing that just puts Furries in the story as if they were humans, no thought as to how an animal may see or smell or even hear the world differently. 
Even with only partial feral senses makes the worlds view so much different. 

That and FanFiction gets painful to read at times when it's just an excuse for the writer's character to bang that famous toon


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## BennyBunnycorn (Sep 20, 2013)

To be honest, I really hate seeing "Ebil Hooman" type villains in stories. It's overused, and having a general dislike for humans doesn't make one evil. I see these type of villains a lot even in anthro stories.


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## Verok (Sep 24, 2013)

I always hated the fact that in most fur fiction, Humans are always portrayed as evil, destructive and speciest. I mean come on, in a "real" furry world, every species will likely harbor at least some speciest attitude towards other species.


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## BennyBunnycorn (Sep 30, 2013)

Verok said:


> I always hated the fact that in most fur fiction, Humans are always portrayed as evil, destructive and speciesist. I mean come on, in a "real" furry world, every species will likely harbor at least some speciesist attitude towards other species.



No offense, but a lot of hate the human race gets is pretty well deserved. Plus, a lot of people I've met ARE evil, destructive, and speciesist, especially among so-called "Smart Animal Lovers". ...Not everyone of coarse, but whatever. ...Still, I guess that is rather likely that certain species would hate each other.


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## Judge Spear (Oct 1, 2013)

BennyBunnycorn said:


> No offense, but a lot of hate the human race gets is pretty well deserved. Plus, a lot of people I've meant ARE evil, destructive, and speciesist, especially among so-called "Smart Animal Lovers". ...Not everyone of coarse, but whatever. ...Still, I guess that is rather likely that certain species would hate each other.



The point is that anthros wouldn't be perfect like people portray them in writing. There would definitely be evil anthros if they existed. Everything in life is flawed in some way no matter what and it's unrealistic to attempt the opposite in writing.


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## Dire Newt (Oct 1, 2013)

Yeah I really don't like stories where the characters are just black and white, do-no-wrong paragons or killing-puppies-because-it's-tons-of-fun evil. It's stupidly unrealistic.


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## BennyBunnycorn (Oct 1, 2013)

XoPachi said:


> The point is that anthros wouldn't be perfect like people portray them in writing. There would definitely be evil anthros if they existed. Everything in life is flawed in some way no matter what and it's unrealistic to attempt the opposite in writing.



Of coarse anthro characters would be flawed, I never said they wouldn't be.


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## Verok (Oct 1, 2013)

> No offense, but a lot of hate the human race gets is pretty well deserved. Plus, a lot of people I've met ARE evil, destructive, and speciesist, especially among so-called "Smart Animal Lovers". ...Not everyone of coarse, but whatever. ...Still, I guess that is rather likely that certain species would hate each other.



My advice, find better people!


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## Aggybyte (Oct 1, 2013)

Stupid and gross fetishes like watersports or diapers. I also don't like pervy long descriptions of sexual activity. While I don't mind M/M relationships in a story, any mention of anal or oral sex usually makes me stop reading. Reading fics where furry children are having sex with furry adults is downright nasty. I also hate Sonic the hedgehog and it bores me to death reading Sonic furry fics. Another thing that I hate in furry literature is when a character seems perfect and angelic and has no bad qualities and when a character is the complete spawn of satan evil.


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## Judge Spear (Oct 1, 2013)

BennyBunnycorn said:


> Of coarse anthro characters would be flawed, I never said they wouldn't be.



I wasn't saying you did. Which is why I said "people" and not "you" or "BennyBunnyCorn". I was speaking generally. There are a LOT of furries who can't fathom anthros being evil or flawed so the antagonists are always human. That gets on a lot peoples nerves.


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## BennyBunnycorn (Oct 1, 2013)

XoPachi said:


> I wasn't saying you did. Which is why I said "people" and not "you" or "BennyBunnyCorn". I was speaking generally. There are a LOT of furries who can't fathom anthros being evil or flawed so the antagonists are always human. That gets on a lot peoples nerves.



I think another part of it, though, is that the writers, being humans already and wanting to make a cool mystical hero, generally tend to connect less with human characters than they do with other things. For example, most people's favorite animals aren't humans, and they generally like to make characters based on their favorite animals who are generally goodguys, and quite often are also gary-stus, while generally making the villains an animal they don't find all that cool. ...Like humans.

As well, there's mindless misanthropy, and then there's also deeper, more well written misanthropy. The later generally shows that a large quantity of humans are bad, and they generally have greedy, anti-nature views that aren't all that rare in today's society, BUT acknowledges that not all humans are bad, and tries to show this by having one or several good human characters. That's why it kind of peeves me when people complain about a movie like Avatar or Fern Gully for being "misanthropic" without seeing a deeper point that it may have been trying to make. In fact, most books I've read and movies I've seen usually have at least one good human character to show that humans CAN be evil, but HUMANS aren't evil, if you know what I mean.

That being said, it's not difficult to bump into the "Humans are oh-so godly and superior and that gives us the right to slaughter them without remorse and destroy their habitat and blah blah blah," type person, which also kind of adds to the amount of misanthropic stories. As well, I notice a lot of stories where humans screw up majorly and then a big monster or spirit tries to punish them but humans destroy the monster and, basically don't learn from their past mistakes, though I can't think of anything recent that falls into this category. Frankly, though, those stories depress me more than misanthropic stories do.

I used to be annoyed by misanthropic stories myself, but I eventually got used to them, and can sometimes see where the story-teller is coming from depending on the quality of the story. Although I can't say I've met very many people who write borderline misanthropic stories without going too far, though.


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## Judge Spear (Oct 1, 2013)

Well yeah, if it has a point and is going somewhere to make a deeper message, sure go for it. I never heard the complaints toward Avatar and have actually never seen the full movie myself, but from what I did see, there was a message there. The "misanthropy" was to show what always happens in history when a group of people find an already settled land. It's forcefully, violently beseiged with no attempt to coexist. And being set in the future shows that the primitive nature still exists today (like gang territory wars being a modern example). So I can get behind that sort of story. 

But again, I'm talking STRICTLY about people who do it out of childish angst. Usually horomonal teenagers with misplaced anger. Flat pure benevolent anthros. Flat pure malevolent humans. Made through no reason but to spite humanity because they want to live in a world of anthros like it'd be gumdrops, rainbows, and acceptance of all cynical basement dwellers. THOSE are the motherfuckers that are annoying.


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## BennyBunnycorn (Oct 1, 2013)

That I can agree on. Misanthropy for the sake of misanthropy with no real message that labels ALL humans as evil can be pretty annoying, even for a borderline misanthrope.

Edit: I will say one thing. IMO, humans make the best villains. Not because they're "Ebil and destructive," but because they can often be the most powerful and threatening of all villains.


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## ACraZ (Oct 17, 2013)

Friday said:


> To MochiElZorro: The 'amnesia' approach was popularized by video games (first by the remarkable game Planescape: Torment, which was a dialogue-based RPG that had a 800,000 word script, all of which was well written). It was a convenient way to make sure the player character and the player were on the same page in terms of world-knowledge, which is much more important for a video game than for any other medium, really. Since then, it's become a trope. In about twenty years, it went from being an original innovation to over-used. Personally, I don't mind it if it's done well (story of my opinions on most things).


I completely agree, the use of amnesia in video games is used to almost casually introduce the story line (You are told after pressing start "YOUR NAME IS JENNY WILLHEMS AND THE WORLD IS BLAH BLAH BLAH, BLAH BLAH, BLAH BLAH) and can even make you feel in step with your character, which can then be used to truly shock you when you learn things about 'yourself' (Amnesia: The Dark Decent used this perfectly). But stories? Unless you are making a choose your own adventure (P.S, if you are making one please send it to me. I lerv choose your owns..) and the protagonist starts as a blank sheet for the reader to step into? Don't use amnesia, please. You are making your own character with her own personality and his own style, then entire amnesia plot tool is wasted. If you are just using it to handy dandily recollect everything the character already knows? Well... that's something most of us don't like seeing.


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## Nikolinni (Oct 18, 2013)

ACraZ said:


> I completely agree, the use of amnesia in video games is used to almost casually introduce the story line (You are told after pressing start "YOUR NAME IS JENNY WILLHEMS AND THE WORLD IS BLAH BLAH BLAH, BLAH BLAH, BLAH BLAH) and can even make you feel in step with your character, which can then be used to truly shock you when you learn things about 'yourself' (Amnesia: The Dark Decent used this perfectly). But stories? Unless you are making a choose your own adventure (P.S, if you are making one please send it to me. I lerv choose your owns..) and the protagonist starts as a blank sheet for the reader to step into? Don't use amnesia, please. You are making your own character with her own personality and his own style, then entire amnesia plot tool is wasted. If you are just using it to handy dandily recollect everything the character already knows? Well... that's something most of us don't like seeing.



I use amnesia in my story, but only here and there (THough I did rely on it too much; an earlier draft of Dream Parallax had 3 - 4 characters running around with memory issues).

Well, in the current draft so far all we have is Razzle Joestar, who used to be a tribal fennec named Raziya. But he was sold off to some research lab and before he could be delivered, he used his soul memories to lock away secrets of his tribe so that the lab wouldn't learn them (this included his soul powers). Though he left his first name intact, and some mental "bread crumbs" that, when the time was right and he'd learned enough, would start to slowly unlock and provide clues as to who he was and what his powers were, as well as leaving a clue on his back hand in the shape of a black star (hence why his "new" self gave himself the last name Joestar). 

Though in the mean time he builds up a normal life, and Raziya did leave things intact like personality, likes/dislikes, the love of music and dance, and other things. It's just where he's from, details about his family, and anything related to his soul powers that he can't remember (In fact at first he doesn't even remember he had them). 

Though another concept I find myself using now is "False Memories". I have a character named Snowy who, like Razzle, had amnesia, though this was machine-induced this time by an evil wyvern named Zerovn. He would capture vicitms to experiment on, and erase all of their memories so that they'd have no recollection of who or what they were, making them easier to break and manipulate. However, in the newer rewrite, one possible idea is that Zerovn and some other scientists created Snowy as an ice elemental, and released him to an opposing faction, leaving a psychic link intact so they could spy on their enemies. In the mean time, Snowy was given false memories about where he was from and his life up until that point, and may or may not have found out the truth at a later point.


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## Fibriel Solaer (Oct 18, 2013)

I'm not sure how to say this, it will come across a bit awkwardly and some of you may find it more offensive than I intend it:



If your fiction is best described as "furry fiction", you have not written it well enough.


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## Nikolinni (Oct 18, 2013)

Fibriel Solaer said:


> I'm not sure how to say this, it will come across a bit awkwardly and some of you may find it more offensive than I intend it:
> 
> 
> 
> If your fiction is best described as "furry fiction", you have not written it well enough.



Well, it depends on how one describes "Furry". Like to my friend Perri, she uses "Furry" as a genre, and so to her anything furry is anything with anthro animals (OF ANY KIND; so this includes animals that can talk ie Bambi, Lion King, Kimba, etc). 

So perhaps by "Furry Fiction" we can take it to mean any piece of fiction that can fit under the Furry Genre.


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## Fibriel Solaer (Oct 18, 2013)

Nikolinni said:


> Well, it depends on how one describes "Furry". Like to my friend Perri, she uses "Furry" as a genre, and so to her anything furry is anything with anthro animals (OF ANY KIND; so this includes animals that can talk ie Bambi, Lion King, Kimba, etc).
> 
> So perhaps by "Furry Fiction" we can take it to mean any piece of fiction that can fit under the Furry Genre.



I really should stop being mysterious and just explain what I mean immediately.

What I mean to say is that your work should have a qualifier that precludes the "furry" designation. If the best description is simply "furry fiction", there clearly isn't anything else notable about it, which means you haven't written it well enough.


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## Nikolinni (Oct 18, 2013)

Fibriel Solaer said:


> I really should stop being mysterious and just explain what I mean immediately.
> 
> What I mean to say is that your work should have a qualifier that precludes the "furry" designation. If the best description is simply "furry fiction", there clearly isn't anything else notable about it, which means you haven't written it well enough.



Ahh...okay. I see what you mean. 

It shouldn't just be "Oh some furry story", there should be something to it, like for example "A story about spirituality that's also furry"?


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## Dictator Lister (Nov 24, 2013)

I always find it irritating in stories when a sexuality is tacked on just for the hell of it. ESPECIALLY when it's just out of the blue. Like, all of a sudden Mr. Protagonist suddenly decides in the middle of the story that he likes men, with no rhyme, reason, or impact. And fics that do this are also the ones that break out into spontaneous unexplained sex scenes, too. Having an alternate sexuality should actually mean something to the character, even if it just affects the way the character acts around different genders.

And then of course we have the opposite end of the spectrum: the entire reason for this character's existence is that he/she's gay. The story bends around quickly pairing them off with another character and... doing gay things I guess? Again, I'm all for engaging, emotional stories that explore alternate lifestyles, but surely there has to be SOME other goal that the character has besides getting laid and existing.


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## Jasperi (Dec 16, 2013)

I dislike when someone's furry prose comes off as little more than a multi-page glorification/explanation as to why their fursona is the most intricate or fascinating thing that has ever existed. Couple this with a story that is completely centralized around sex, or the idea of sex, and you've got one big recipe for shitty storytelling. Don't get me wrong though, I have no problem with someone's fursona being a central or side character within their writing; just don't make it into your egomaniacal playground.


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## Antronach (Dec 16, 2013)

The total absence of asexuals. Sure, writing someone that doesn't do something is kinda lame, but it still undermines those that choose to abstain from relations and those that can't form them.


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## Auren (Dec 22, 2013)

MochiElZorro said:


> Hooray I'm changing into a ham and cheese sandwich



Sums it up for me


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## Ley (Dec 22, 2013)

I've noticed a trend that everything alive has knots. I dunno.


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## Delta (Dec 23, 2013)

Ley said:


> I've noticed a trend that everything alive has knots. I dunno.


Keeps the story tied together.
Murder me in my sleep, I deserve it.​


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## Nikolinni (Dec 23, 2013)

Ley said:


> I've noticed a trend that everything alive has knots. I dunno.



Either that, or foreskins. 

Well, at least in the artwork. Sometimes even Foreskins AND sheaths.


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## Auren (Dec 23, 2013)

It's understandable though, because removing the foreskin is kind of a religious Jewish tradition.


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## ACraZ (Dec 23, 2013)

Bad writing and bad labeling is all I dislike seeing. I have no problem with erotica as long as you tell me what the purpose of the writing is. Your characters can be literally anything, but the responsibility of having a good story with solid writing is on you. A story about a human can be interesting, a story about a fox can be interesting, a story about a flying stuffed animal with 4 heads can be interesting, as long as the writer is strong and makes me care about what I'm reading.


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## Ieatcrackersandjumpcliffs (Jan 4, 2014)

Oh here is one. Pleasurable rape.  You know, the 'hurt so good,' especially when they are a virgin. This isn't exclusive to furry stories, I know, but I find it funnier with furries.  The virgin getting raped and the hurting turning into pleasure is soooo hilarious, and disturbingly common.


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## Matt Conner (Jan 4, 2014)

Any writing that's clearly spank material, but under the guise of a real story. If you're gonna write erotica then by all means, but just call it what it is! Excessive use of furry terminology is also pretty nauseating in the context of any story.


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## ADF (Jan 4, 2014)

That anthro characters adopt traits that only make sense from a human perspective.

Why is your canine/feline character wearing a collar? Humans put collars on animals to indicate ownership, to a furry that's like wearing a slave collar as a fashion accessory.

Why did your character eat that? Because the animal eats that? Here human, have a nice tasty caterpillar. What? Cavemen ate grubs and such, why don't you want to eat the same thing as your primitive ancestors? You're a human aren't you?


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## Matt Conner (Jan 4, 2014)

ADF said:


> That anthro characters adopt traits that only make sense from a human perspective.
> 
> Why is your canine/feline character wearing a collar? Humans put collars on animals to indicate ownership, to a furry that's like wearing a slave collar as a fashion accessory.
> 
> Why did your character eat that? Because the animal eats that? Here human, have a nice tasty caterpillar. What? Cavemen ate grubs and such, why don't you want to eat the same thing as your primitive ancestors? You're a human aren't you?



This reminds me, the opposite is also quite annoying. That is: furs who act like normal humans and don't possess any quirks of their species, or only the cute/positive ones.


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## Antronach (Jan 4, 2014)

People bragging about how their story is 'furry fiction'. It's no indication as to what kind of genre the story is, other than what kind of characters to expect. It's not like you can guess anyways, since people will out anthros in any sort of setting with any sort of story structure. It's as if they couldn't think of a better genre to label their story. :/


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## Conker (Jan 4, 2014)

Antronach said:


> People bragging about how their story is 'furry fiction'. It's no indication as to what kind of genre the story is, other than what kind of characters to expect. It's not like you can guess anyways, since people will out anthros in any sort of setting with any sort of story structure. It's as if they couldn't think of a better genre to label their story. :/


Plus, like someone else said, if that's the only label you have for your story, it's probably garbage.


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