"Popular With Furries" Clean-up Thread

Thread created per this Ask The Tropers:

As mentioned elsewhere, a superficial glance at uses of Popular with Furries across TV Tropes brought to attention the justification of its use via paraphilias/fetishes alongside gushing. After asking to be sure, it was confirmed that doing so goes against the site's policies.

Moreso, a more detailed look at the use of the trope revealed it to be misued and abused in more ways:

• Justified via paraphilias/fetishes, for example:
  • American Dragon: Jake Long: A show about humans turning into dragons? That's gonna appeal to a lot of reptile fans of the furry community. Specifically, Jake's dragon form from Season 1 is highly popular in Furaffinity and other places. Transformation fetish, potholes to Rule 34. Also, Long's a minor...
  • Heart of Darkness: Furries really like Mefudoka being a fat frog-esque monster who has Andy Swallowed Whole. Voraephilia.
  • The Sword in the Stone: The famous Wizard's Duel sequence is also quite popular with the furry fandom as well, particularly among transformation enthusiasts. Transformation fetish again, this tends to unexpectedly pop up a lot across the site.
• Gushy, for example:
  • Dread X Collection: While not widespread or overtly popular, there's a decent amount of Funny Animal fans for Ln'eta from Sucker For Love, due to being a surprisingly beautiful, curvy and adorable Cthulhumanoid. Gushing as is currently written.
• Zero Context Examples
• Incorrect potholing
• Use of a YMMV trope on works' pages when not invoked In-Universe

These are but a few examples I managed to recall and put together for the thread. I'm pretty sure I'm missing quite a few of them.

This thread's goal will be to attempt to fix these issues and, if deemed necessary, discuss the trope.

The links/potholes/allusions to porn absolutely have to go, but that aside? Something being popular because of the transformation aspect is not necessarily because it's a paraphilia. Transformation Fiction exist, people enjoy it, and it doesn't have to be sexual.

The policy for the wiki is No Lewdness, No Prudishness after all.

That aside, the trope is named "Popular With Furries" - it's going to attract gushing with a title like that, and that's a problem. It's probably worth considering whether it should be renamed something like "Unintentional Furry Audience", and the description redone to make it clear that it's about the unintended aspect of it, not the hows or whys

This thread exists not exclusively to see the clean-up through, as mentioned, but to eventually discuss any issues with the trope .

The issue with the uses of Popular with Furries that I've personally seen, a few used as examples, is that they tend to be written with an undertone of "popular because fetish", stronger or weaker it might be. There are some that lack the undertone, let's be perfectly clear, and those can stay (or, alternatively, those that have it can be rewritten to get rid of the undertone if evidence is there of true fandom relevance and not just a singular troper's projections — those have been nuked in other cases) but for those that do, that is against the site's rules as troping (even potentially) the audience's paraphilias.

A rename, as I've been told, has some requirements. It would need a wick check to document the misuse of the trope, a conclusion as to what leads the misuse, and then a trip to the TRS as I understand it. On my behalf, I kind of find the trope overly specific? There probably is a supertrope to it under which examples could be filed, I believe. I also believe myself to be well in the minority about that, I'm just bringing it up for discussion's sake.

I agree that there can be cases of people enjoying Transformation Fiction without it necessarily being sexual in nature - and just because it's related to the Furry Fandom doesn't always mean it's sexual, either. There are plenty of furries/furry-adjacent people who just like Funny Animals.

I also agree that there are some violations of the Content Policy in certain entries, though, including people appearing to be sharing their own personal opinions on what they find attractive. Simply acknowledging that adult content exists is generally fine on TV Tropes, as long as it's not overly-detailed or otherwise creepy, which is why No Lewdness, No Prudishness has that title - there was a quote about this topic which was something along the lines of "We can mention sexual content, we just can't be the sexual content."

The supertrope that you're saying examples can be put under is Periphery Demographic, but I do feel like Popular with Furries has some decent reasoning for standing out on its own - the description points out that people who are especially fond of certain animals will likely be drawn to characters of that species of animal, and anthropomorphic animals are common enough in fiction that many works are considered a Gateway Series to the furry fandom.

I feel Popular with Furries is a valid trope, and that mentions of furries liking something that involves being turned into an animal aren't inherently sexual.

I'd like to clarify — no one ever mentioned that Transformation Fiction was inherently paraphiliac. If it came across that way, then I'd like to apologize because that was not the intention, at all.

I understand that drawing a line is necessary for Clean-Up purposes. However, I propose that whilst we continue to discuss and eventually reach a popular consensus, we do pursue Clean-Up on open-and-shut cases. Let's just do the usual — someone locates a violation, throws it on here to be sure, and we vote on whether to keep, rewrite or cut.

EDIT: "we come to continue to discuss" — what? What was I doing when I wrote that...? Fixed.

Edited by GearFriedTheKnight on Jan 2nd 2024 at 9:14:24 PM

That sounds valid.

The trouble with paraphilias is that if I'm reading examples to scan for them, I have a hard time determining if that's what something is, since by definition it involves something that isn't usually sexual, so I don't know whether they're enjoying it for sexual or nonsexual reasons.

Eh, I can understand that actually... hmm. Maybe, if you come across any such examples, throw them on here too? Someone should be able to give a second opinion or read between lines to notice if it's troping paraphilia, like in the case of Heart of Darkness.

Troping paraphilia is not the only issue that requires Clean-Up, as the OP mentions. We also have gushing, ZC Es, incorrect potholing, incorrect use(s)...

2 related examples from Geronimo Stilton:

• Popular with Furries: Do we even have to explain for a series about Funny Animal mice? Yes, you probably should.
• Self-Fanservice: Thanks to most of its fans being a part of the Anthro Demographic. Many of the female mice (specifically Thea Stilton, Petunia Pretty Paws, Creepella von Cacklefur, and the Thea Sisters.) especially in more adult fanart, are usually depicted as being more drop-dead gorgeous, curvier and more buxom. Not technically Popular with Furries, but is also very gushy about sexy fanart.

The first needs a rewwrite, the second might be cutable?

First indeed needs more context, but second should be fine as long as the lewdness is lowered:

• Self-Fanservice: Thanks to most of its fans being a part of the Anthro Demographic. Many of the female mice (specifically Thea Stilton, Petunia Pretty Paws, Creepella von Cacklefur, and the Thea Sisters) are often depicted as being curvier and with more buxom.

Hi everyone, new troper here and this my first post on this discussion.

On Animated Films The Great Wolf Pack: A Call to Adventure entry needs explaining as to why it's popular with furries.

Do you guys think that Captain Celaeno and her crew are popular with bird fans, since the movie's entry only mentions Capper? Also, I'm bumping my previous comments, since no one yet responded to it.