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 @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.
@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.
