So, fandom-historical context to stuff I mostly heard about and only barely caught the tail end of when I was lurking on usenet in high school: Back when certain folks in furry were doing their utmost to get it recognized as a significant and distinct SF subgenre, the major hobby-horse of Serious Furry Writers was "furries need to be more than just be humans in animal suits". Like, that phrase _verbatim_.
This has basically been Fred Patten's song and dance ever since then; I am not joking, his name is the first one that comes up in my head of 'who from 80's fandom is still active today?'
And yeah, the whole objection is ill-defined and reeks of the "soft SF is any SF I don't like" tendencies that were just... everywhere in that fandom.
I'm sure @literorrery has plenty of Fred Patten stories she can share; not sure how much alcohol will be required. ;)
@Ferrovore Yeah, come to think of it, more to the point this reads like the "but is it SCIENCE FICTION?!?!?!" hand-wringing that still comes up like every time a fiction podcast posts something the least bit not-starships-or-cyborgs. Y'know, the same smokescreen that certain folks use when they try and stuff award ballot boxes away from diverse writers. 9.9
(Also, loving how Patten there is using 'funny-animal' as a descriptive term in fiction tropes as if that had any currency since like 1994)
@Ferrovore @indi One thing that actually shocked me is that furry has actually built a pejorative for furries in stories that could be replaced with non-furries and not change the story: "zipperback."
Just... ponder the discourse around that for a moment. Don't _have_ the discourse. Just consider what could be said if we permitted ourselves.
@literorrery @Ferrovore Woooow wow wow. I totally missed that one.
Wow.
@indi @Ferrovore @literorrery (I mean if that wasn't a perjorative it'd be a kinda hot term)
@CoronaCoreanici If I ever become an old crusty furry, please hit me over the head with the biggest Bad Dragon toy you can find, until I stop, one way or another. XD
@CoronaCoreanici @Ferrovore @indi The most "fun" part of discovering this term is that I was on a writers' podcast when I learned it, and I tried to explain why this was such a problematic concept, but I think pretty much everybody misunderstood me and the topic of conversation moved on without resolution.
@literorrery @Ferrovore YUUUUUP that's the main story I was thinking of. Yup yup yup.
@indi @Ferrovore My personal favorite Fred Patten story is actually personal. Fred reviewed one of my books, and it's proudly erotic in a lot of places. His review was, almost to a fault, "I skipped all the sex scenes because they don't interest me, but the plot doesn't make sense. Making the sex part of the plot is a bad plan because then I can't skip it and still understand what's going on."
And now you know why I don't trust Fred Patten as an editor.