# Let's talk about food



## Conker (Aug 29, 2013)

So this is probably an old topic of some sort, but it's been on my mind so hell, let's dance and sing to this song again.

I've been thinking of a furry story (I blame all of you for that) and I'm looking at how the world might be set up. It seems to me that if the people are anthropomorphic animals, then what are the actual animals in the world?

Following that, what do carnivores eat? 

Cats eat mice, but if I have a cat character and a mouse character, shouldn't they be interacting in a predator/prey setting? 

But how do you go about setting that up since everyone is sapient. It might not be cannibalism since they are separate species, but they are still all talking creatures that are more than your average cow.

I'm trying to think back to how Brian Jacques did it, since his Redwall books are all I really have to go off of, but all of his "good" characters ate fruits and the like, and all of his bad characters--the carnivores--I'm not sure were ever shown to eat anything.

Do you just make up a new food chain (I've ideas for that that I think are cool, but they also seem a little...jumping the shark kind of thing. Perhaps too silly), or do you just not athroize all of the animals. There be bearman and regular bear, and maybe bearman eats regular bear because why the hell not? 

Likewise, if I want to do a fantasy setting, in most books men ride horses. But if horse people can be a thing, then horse people riding horses is just a stupid image. Do you create something else, use giant bugs since they are one step below in most foodchains, or just handwave it and go with the silly image?


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## Friday (Aug 29, 2013)

Fish, egg, and birds were what were shown in Brian Jaque's books. Additionally, reptiles. Basically, any non-anthro animal would do. I mean, humans are animals but we eat many other animals that aren't sentient, and even some that are close (monkeys in Africa, for example, and perhaps dolphins in some places I'm sure).

Additionally, synthetic meats are viable. We've got lab-grown hamburgers, we've got meat substitutes. You have options, is what I'm saying.


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## Conker (Aug 29, 2013)

Friday said:


> Fish, egg, and birds were what were shown in Brian Jaque's books. Additionally, reptiles. Basically, any non-anthro animal would do. I mean, humans are animals but we eat many other animals that aren't sentient, and even some that are close (monkeys in Africa, for example, and perhaps dolphins in some places I'm sure).
> 
> Additionally, synthetic meats are viable. We've got lab-grown hamburgers, we've got meat substitutes. You have options, is what I'm saying.


It's funny that fish are always an option when it comes to talking animals. It's as if fish just don't get such treatment because they aren't cute. 

The birds thing is kind of odd for Brian Jacques since there were talking birds in some of his books, but I'm not sure those kinds of details were ever that important in his novels. I honestly can't remember though; it's been too many years since I've read any of them.

But yes, I suppose I have options. I might have to think outside the box a bit, but that's never a bad thing. It just feels odd to have talking cat people or dog people and then regular dogs walking around. Same with any other kind of creature we might presume to eat.


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## M. LeRenard (Aug 29, 2013)

It's one of those 'do whatever you want' kind of scenarios, I think.  In my novel, there are regular animals flitting about, and carnivores and omnivores eat them, but there's a general agreement that sentient species don't eat each other no matter what predator/prey relationship their less brainy counterparts might have.  Basically because intelligent species are mostly civilized, and it's not civil to kill and eat your next-door neighbor.  I came at it from the Legend of Mana sense where animal-people are culturally more or less considered another race of human rather than a separate species altogether.
I do include horses later on, when the MC travels to another part of the world where humans dominate, and I figured that since the MC is a human-sized fox, his smell probably terrifies the shit out of horses and so he can't exactly ride them until they get used to him.  But I never thought about horse-people riding horses.  I don't know... think about the setting as a whole and find out something that would make it work.  I remember this old game called Exile where the main domesticated food animal was giant lizards because the whole thing takes place in a huge subterranean cavern, so maybe there just aren't horses in your setting at all?  But then you'd have to explain horse-people, so I don't know.


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## Conker (Aug 29, 2013)

M. LeRenard said:


> It's one of those 'do whatever you want' kind of scenarios, I think.  In my novel, there are regular animals flitting about, and carnivores and omnivores eat them, but there's a general agreement that sentient species don't eat each other no matter what predator/prey relationship their less brainy counterparts might have.  Basically because intelligent species are mostly civilized, and it's not civil to kill and eat your next-door neighbor.  I came at it from the Legend of Mana sense where animal-people are culturally more or less considered another race of human rather than a separate species altogether.
> I do include horses later on, when the MC travels to another part of the world where humans dominate, and I figured that since the MC is a human-sized fox, his smell probably terrifies the shit out of horses and so he can't exactly ride them until they get used to him.  But I never thought about horse-people riding horses.  I don't know... think about the setting as a whole and find out something that would make it work.  I remember this old game called Exile where the main domesticated food animal was giant lizards because the whole thing takes place in a huge subterranean cavern, so maybe there just aren't horses in your setting at all?  But then you'd have to explain horse-people, so I don't know.


True enough. Reminds me of the Forgotten Realms books (or whatever that series is called) where it's dark elves ride on lizards because they are underground and don't have horses. 

Forgot something of that sort was an option! 

I suppose I'll keep thinking. I've got parts of this world figured out, but only on a mostly superficial level. I'm kind of tempted to just start the fucker and see where it goes and bother with continuity errors later, but if the story gets too big, and it seems like it could, then I should really figure this out first before I start.

But I don't read furry fiction so I guess I don't know my ways around certain tropes and rules.


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## Poetigress (Aug 30, 2013)

In my case, for _By Sword and Star_, which has both predator and prey species represented in the anthro characters, I wound up creating two domestic animal species, grenners (described as porcine) and kurn (something of a sheep/goat cross). Between those two, they provided sources for meat, wool, hide, etc. I didn't have any pig or goat characters, so that wasn't forcing the issue, but I felt like even if I went ahead and used real-world domestic animals like pigs and goats, I'd risk the reader getting stuck on "wait, why aren't there any pig people or goat people, when all these other people are various animals?" So that solution just felt right for the worldbuilding.

In the Spellsinger books, which had humans and anthro characters, I remember them eating snake meat in a tavern at least once, and if I remember correctly, this was treated as a commonplace meat offering.

How your world wound up with anthro characters can make a difference. If, for example, they were scientifically created using regular animals, then there's no real believability problem in also having those regular, nonsapient animals still around. If you're dealing with fantasy or alien races that presumably evolved alongside humans, then the "animal" versions of those races might no longer exist in that world. But yeah, a horse-person riding a horse does make for a potentially silly image, so at that point I think either the anthro horses or real horses would have to go, and you'd have to either make the horse-person something else or create a new creature to fill the role of a beast of burden.


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## Conker (Aug 30, 2013)

Poetigress said:


> In my case, for _By Sword and Star_, which has both predator and prey species represented in the anthro characters, I wound up creating two domestic animal species, grenners (described as porcine) and kurn (something of a sheep/goat cross). Between those two, they provided sources for meat, wool, hide, etc. I didn't have any pig or goat characters, so that wasn't forcing the issue, but I felt like even if I went ahead and used real-world domestic animals like pigs and goats, I'd risk the reader getting stuck on "wait, why aren't there any pig people or goat people, when all these other people are various animals?" So that solution just felt right for the worldbuilding.
> 
> Or create anew creature to fill the role of a beast of burden.


And these were the routes I've been thinking of taking. It just seems the wiser of the choices. 

Thanks for the responses guys.


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## Manis Pan (Sep 1, 2013)

In my story, the carnivores consider other beings inhuman, and cannibalism abounds.


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## Conker (Sep 1, 2013)

Manis Pan said:


> In my story, the carnivores consider other beings inhuman, and cannibalism abounds.


I like that a lot, though I'm not sure I could handle it properly.


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## Zenia (Sep 1, 2013)

I'd go with... there are also animal-animals and they are not the same species as anthros (despite sharing characteristics) so anthro-animals would eat the animal-animals if they were so inclined.


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## Nikolinni (Sep 2, 2013)

In Spectral Shadows' Serial 11, the half animal-half human Cygnusians commonly eat vegetarian dishes, including things like garden/veggie burgers and the like. 

However, some other towns, like Webberton, do actually eat the other species, especially since Webberton believes in feline superiority and thus, they'll eat Cygnusian rabbits, bunnies, squirrels, rats, mice and the like (which yes, make them cannibals).


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## Conker (Sep 2, 2013)

Nikolinni said:


> In Spectral Shadows' Serial 11, the half animal-half human Cygnusians commonly eat vegetarian dishes, including things like garden/veggie burgers and the like.
> 
> However, some other towns, like Webberton, do actually eat the other species, especially since Webberton believes in feline superiority and thus, they'll eat Cygnusian rabbits, bunnies, squirrels, rats, mice and the like (which yes, make them cannibals).


I'm not sure that's really cannibalism if they aren't the same species. 

It's just morally wrong because everyone is sapient.


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## Nikolinni (Sep 2, 2013)

Conker said:


> I'm not sure that's really cannibalism if they aren't the same species.
> 
> It's just morally wrong because everyone is sapient.



Well, they all are human to some degree, seeing as each Cygnusian has some form of human within them. They're literally half human/half animals.


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## Conker (Sep 2, 2013)

Nikolinni said:


> Well, they all are human to some degree, seeing as each Cygnusian has some form of human within them. They're literally half human/half animals.


Half cannibalism then :V

I figure my characters will wind up in different areas, perhaps I'll try the Annibalism (!) in one area.


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## Kitsune Cross (Sep 3, 2013)

As humans are somewhat an anthro monkey, I don't think is wrong to have anthros and animals, but I think it's better if you only use carnivorous anthros like felines, canines, ect. And no cows, birds...


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## Conker (Sep 3, 2013)

Kitsune Cross said:


> As humans are somewhat an anthro monkey, I don't think is wrong to have anthros and animals, but I think it's better if you only use carnivorous anthros like felines, canines, ect. And no cows, birds...


Now why would I want to limit myself to only carnivores? It seems to me that if you're going to go ahead and use animal head people, you might as well say "fuck it" and just use them all or whatever fits the character. 

Picture a brothel filled with nothing of birds of paradise anthros. It fits and is also really fucking creepy. STOP PICTURING THAT RIGHT NOW


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