this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2023
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Furry Writing, Worldbuilding, and Storytime
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I know it's not the most elegant solution (it's practically the goofy/pluto dichotomy), but in my story, anthro animals and feral animals are a completely different species.
Every animals has two variants, anthros and ferals. Both are completely different species, and the anthros treat ferals like we treat animals. With that, it's not weird for anthros to hang feral heads, though anthro deer hanging a head of a feral deer would be a little jarring, like humans hanging the head of a monkey.
To be fair I usually take a more handwaved approach to worldbuilding. I focus my story more on its moral value as opposed to its worldbuilding. It doesn't help that the few stories I write right now are about either a single anthro in a world of humans, so anthro worldbuilding are nearly nonexistent, or a simple and straightforward aesop-like story with very few worldbuilding.
Honestly, I don't get why a lot of people have a problem with the "anthros and ferals are different species" method. It's honestly the most realistic, monkeys and apes still exist IRL even though humans are basically "anthro apes" in a sense.
Because it's the most handwaived approach, basically ignoring the entire question.
While yes, apes and humans exist, both are certainly more different from each other than a fox and yet another fox that walks on two legs. While can be summarized as such, humans aren't just monkeys that walk on two legs-- theres more differences to both which the "anthros and ferals are the same species" approach usually ignore.
Not to mention, it's kind of unrealistic to expect all animal to evolve so they look like anthro. Even if all species eventually gain sentience, realistically, not all their bodies would look like anthro, just like how not all caniform (canine-like animal) look the same.
It's also kind of iffy. Imagine how the anthros would feel about ferals of a similar species as them. Imagine how it'd feel to meet an unintelligent four-legged cat as a sapient two-legged cat. It seems weird, especially if the story backround is dark (maybe less so for less serious story, like children story or comedy).
This doesn't mean that the "anthros and ferals" approach is wrong-- I mean I used it. It also doesn't mean the author is lazy. There is more to worldbuilding than just species and it's not impossible the author wanted to focus on another areas of worldbuilding instead. It can also be used brilliantly as the base concept is kind of vague, so you can build on top of it.
Fully agree with you here. It's only anecdotal, but my own experiences with monkeys/humans was that for the longest time I hated monkeys because some of them were a little bit too similar for comfort. And the thing is, in hindsight, humans and monkeys aren't even that similar. We're certainly not more similar than a feral and an anthro foxes or wolves.
I think that including and handwaving it (or not mentioning it at all) is a perfectly viable solution, but if it's mentioned too much without proper handling, it will end up becoming weird, and possibly even an obstacle to proper reading (for example, if you keep referring to feral foxes and anthro foxes as just "fox", you either need to always be explicit ("the feral fox" and "the ??? fox"), or risk confusing readers).
Plus, and this is probably just be me, but I think it would be weird to include that detail, and even call attention to it, but never explore it.