Petting Zoo People/Headscratchers

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• If you have a pet dog or cat (especially a cat), grab its tail and flatten the fur with your hand. A cat's tail is actually rather narrow, almost ratlike, and the fur makes it appear larger than it actually is. Such a tail could easily fit through a small hole in the seat, although getting it through might be a little uncomfortable.
  • Not to mention there could be specialty shops (depending on the world) that are built especially with petting zoo people in mind.
• On a totally different subject, can we all agree that some animals do not need to be anthropomorphized to the extreme? (Plenty of examples here. Nightmare Fuel warning.)
  • Nightmare Fuel for some, laughter inducing for others. Someone clearly hasn't been on the internet long enough; I laughed through the whole commercial! Your Mileage May Vary, of course.
    • Also, they didn't get it right. Only male peacocks have plumage.
    • Drag Queens often do so as well.
  • For this furry troper, it was something else entirely...
  • For me it was a mix of amusement and Fetish Fuel except for...the squid, that squiked me big time.
    • Cthulhu's daughter!
  • This is going to sound offensive probably, but I just have to say it-That really should be used as some kind of furry radar or something. As for me, I spent the whole commercial with a horrified look on my face, as the strange antics got worse and worse. Wait let me check something...yeah. Even the flowers have boobs.
• Is anyone else annoyed when fur and hair are completely different colors?
  • A little bit, but only for rather specific combos. It's not too unusual for a human to have red top-of-head-hair but brown-red eyebrows and body hair. On the other side, if we're talking blue hair, then it's (usually) dyed. It's the people with, say, brown fur and bright blond hair with a very clear dividing line that seem a little odd. Usually after a moment of Fridge Logic, you assume some sort of different biology akin to fur color patterns in calico cats, paint horses, and other Real Life mammals.
  • A lot of birds have feathers on their head which are differently colored than the rest of their body. Some have no feathers at all, but brightly colored skin.
• Ears, wings, fangs... a whole lot of annoyance would be saved if the creators of human hybrids did some anatomical research. (Am I the only one who wonders how vampires with human-positioned canines as their piercing teeth actually manage to bite throats? Has anyone tried to bite something that thick using their canines? It's quite awkward.)
  • The best explanation for the part about the fangs is that we, as primates, are actually wired to primarily use our incisor teeth. The reason that fangs are often so prominent and seen on vampires and such is because primates are also wired to be afraid of fangs. This is why primates have them at all (or an evolutionary leftover, I'm not a biologist). Yes they are impractical, at least for humans, but we see them because we are afraid. This is also a case of artistic license in that vampire bats dont have fangs like this either. After primates, bats are actually the closest related group of animals to us. They are also wired to use their incisors. We just usually see fangs because, as mentioned before, we as humans fear them for whatever reason.
    • Not to be mean, but this is Petting zoo People. Is it really possible to do research on something as fictional as this?
    • Turns out bats aren't our closest cousins anymore. Now our closest cousins are the colugos and tree shrews, and the closest relatives to bats are pangolins and horses. No, really. But anyway, what is really annoying is that in every vampire plot, the vampire bites the back of the victim's neck with its upper fangs, the more fragile pair that is said to suck the blood. However, there are barely any blood vessels back there. At the same time, the front of the throat is where there are tons of blood vessels, including the infamous jugular. Biting on the back of the neck makes no sense. And ironically, the saber-toothed cats and other saber-toothed carnivores bit on the front of the neck, because basically it allowed them to eviscerate the major blood vessels. For once I would like to see a fantasy writer who doesn't fail biology forever.
    • This fantasy writer doesn't. The more 'classical' idea of a vampire holding his (or her) victim from behind is more sensible for a killing bite, because the average human bite-size (as mentally estimated by looking at my brother's jaws, my fathers and my own, as well as he grandmother's false teeth) from behind, at approximately the same angle as the frontal bite more commonly seen in more modern media today - the 'feeding bite', to draw some blood but not all - does put the canines at the correct angle to piece the jugular. Of course, it puts the incisors there too, and in a carnivorous species they should be pointed anyway. The first vampire story I wrote I based their dental work-up off my cats. Yes, including the rough tongue.
    • Other teeth can be for chewing plants and so on. Fangs are for biting, and they look the part. (This troper, for her two cents, may give anthropomorphic characters Cute Little Fangs, but is more likely to give vampires no fangs at all, and so a necessity to rip their meals apart or get started first with a knife, or give them More Teeth Than the Osmond Family.) However, wings on petting zoo people really bugs me. Bad. Angels might get a free pass, because they're usually for imagery and a holdover from when most people's image of angels included them being made of fire. But... wings don't work that way!
      • Wings are special. Until recently, humility was pretty much unknown for fursonas. (nowadays, being something mundane like a squirrel or badger is almost daring)
• Where Petting Zoo People end and Funny Animals begin differs greatly from viewer to viewer. Why can't anyone agree on a bright line between the two?
  • Because Petting Zoo People are people that look like animals, and Funny Animals are animals that look like people?
    • Funny Animals often shift levels of anthro depending on the episode; just watch a few Looney Tunes cartoons (and see also Furry Confusion). Petting Zoo People tend to choose a level and stick with it.
    • Plus, the Funny Animal design keeps the natural body shape of the animal, even when walking on two legs and wearing clothes, whereas the Petting Zoo Person design juxtaposes an animal head and tail (if the character or species has one) onto a completely humanoid body.
• Seeing how they tend to wear pants/skirts/dresses(these characters are rarely Half-Dressed Cartoon Animals for obvious reasons), what do they do with the tail? Mostly, it seems to just... stick straight out of the clothes.
  • Pants and skirts cut to fit Petting Zoo People come with a tail-hole above the seat as a standard feature. For clothes designed to fit multiple species, this can be adjusted to fit different sizes of tails, and even closed for those animals that doesn't have tails. (That is, when "tail-hole" isn't used as a bad euphemism for the anus.)
  • Another option is sagging: just put the waistline of the pants lower.
  • That or some species have a habit of concealing the tail entirely under a skirt or tunic. Rationalizations in-universe include seeing the tail as an intimate part, akin to female-presenting nipples, or just to put the Tailless Ones (i.e. humankind) at ease.
• I can understand people enjoying media that include characters like this, because they are basically just Goofy from Disney, which isn't inherently bad or anything. But what I don't get is why do some people (furries) "adore" these characters. There is absolutely zero way for them to find personalilty traits similar between them to have the attraction to the characters from that (as they would be no different at all if they were human besides changing a few words in the script). I just don't get the obsession. It makes sense to the ones who sexualize it because some people have weird fetishes (bestiality, corophilia, stranger abduction fetishes are just a few). But i've seen some Furries who try and say that its all about Admiring the art. Considering that there are much better art work in movies that don't include animals at all even, then it can't simply be the art. So I guess it just bugs me that there seems to be no rational reason to be a furry at all unless it sexually arouses you (which is squick to most of us, but still understandable) as the personality is irrelevant, the characterization is irrelevant, the quality of art is irrelevant and so theres no real explanation for how one can claim to be a Furry with no sexual arousal from the art. Is there something i'm missing, or are all furries at least somewhat sexually aroused by "human animals"?
  • They just think anthro animals are cool, most likely. Plus, you say that "there's much better artwork in movies that doesn't include animals at all?" There are also movies without animals that has worse art, so this isn't really a valid point. And you claim that characterization, art quality ect. is irrelevant? Not really, this is just as important for most furries than anyone else. And well, it's possible to like something like this without it being a fetish.
  • By that logic, no one should enjoy or consider Star Wars art, because there are better pieces of art that took place in outer space. I am a furry- - not like that -- and I like furries because they can be cool or cute and lend themselves to all sorts of different types of art, but add a sense of fantasy and surrealism that humans don't. Plus they're fun to draw and I like experimenting with different levels of anthropomorphism.
  • Humans can be attracted to anything that has a good-looking humanoid body and a pretty face. The most popular species in the Furry Fandom being wolves, foxes and cats should be enough of a hint.