[the homestuck man himself]

I'm always going to be an advocate for monstrous characters whenever they come up, making a funny critter or a horrifying, mind boggling creature has always struck me as one of the best parts of a fantasy world. I've never quite liked the way that 90-95% of the races currently ingame are just defaulted to being humans with X or Y extra details on them, but I do see where Dev was coming from when creating them that way.

At the end of the day, applications are the way to go: They work for immortal races and such, so they could work just fine for more monstrous creatures, giving the opportunity for two or more people to work and revise your character concepts to reach a nigh-perfect one that fits right into the current world and its rules. Though, I gotta express that we are in dire need of a sprite expansion when it comes to our poster boy for monsters: Chimera.

Poor characters can't even have more than one spatial eye on them, it is a tragedy. Even worse, if your character has blue skin for example, you are forced to stich up a buttload of cosmetics(praying that there's a grayscale version of it, which is another can of worms in itself) and walk around looking like a mummy.

[Balor]

The insinuation that anthro characters would lead to degeneracy upsets me. As that has never stopped the community at large when it came to treading across the lines of good taste or enforcing discomfort upon others. And again various form of humanoid animals have existed often in various forms of media without the rampant sexualization people here are so uncomfortable with.

And I need not remind you that I already walk past an ocean of HIMBOS, MUSCLE WOMEN, AND VARIOUS OTHER FETISHES ON FULL DISPLAY in game, every day, and I don't judge them because. It ain't my place, nor am I here for that. Not on this game.

A game that has a strict "NO ERP" on server rule anyway so this shouldn't be a concern at all because it's NOT what the format is for. Whilst I can respect Dev as a developer not wanting to have it in his setting. I think denying it solely for fear of fetishization is a weak and lazy excuse by anyone. Or to deride anyone from wanting to play something alien or demean them by claiming it's MERELY to fetishize is also a closeminded and offensive notion when sometimes you just want to play something different or unorthodox.

I am all for monster characters, and various flavors of 'weird' and inhuman. I don't play them, but there is something compelling when you see one done well. Or a monster given more character than a simple "It's so cute, and violent. We must protect it." that is commonly used within the community as it stands now. Which enforces a very particular energy and expectation that should you ever treat a monster or villain poorly. 'You're so cruel'.

I get we won't have like anthro races, or even WEREWOLVES which are a common fantasy trope. But I'd very much like it if people stopped using "Fetishization" as an excuse to deny it when the server is already loaded with them.

[CuteRedCrab]

I think calling someone wanting to make monstrous characters a type of fetishization a little silly, and denying it because of said fetishization is even sillier. Daily, you see people in game with playbys with back-breaking tits or maybe straight up almost nudity. And by the argument of "Oh, this is fetishization and it'll lead to ERP and that's bad!" falls apart the moment any of those kinds of playbys are around. I saw an example of it last night.

You're going to tell me that someone can't make a cool monstrous homunculi, but someone else can make a character with tits so large that it's half their bodyweight, over the fear of "fetishization"? It's silly.

[Sawrock]

If we get monster races, I want to play as a bangaa.

[FaeLenx]

Where there's RP, people will be trying to make a fetish out of it. Thankfully, that's against the rules in client, and the admins are quick to knock on peoples' doors when they try to bring it there.

Allowing outright furry characters won't make ERP suddenly legal. That's a non-issue and a weird fantasy in the heads of the people who have some serious internal problems they need to work through. The only people who will say that it's ruining RP will probably have been saying that things have been ruining RP for quite a while.

The problem a lot of people are having is that they want these things to be very specifically ruled into existence to fit their own ideas of what is and isn't proper. I hate to be the person that once more states that subjective rulings that require admins to give the thumbs up or down on everything will just lead to the admins getting blamed for doing their job and an endless debate about what is or isn't furry.

It either has to be all yes or all no. Quite frankly, I'd rather RP with the people who have positive or no strong feelings on this than the people who have very negative strong feelings against this. So that's my opinion.

[Anhita]

Ignoring the more off-topic and inflammatory response to this thread, I figure I'd throw my hat in again after some thought on it (And be alittle more detailed in general)

I am pretty much fine with Monstrous Homunculi (And monstrous races in general), but I do wish more people treated my current Chimera as the odd one in the room. Though that might simply be because I barely have time to even play them these days

Overall my biggest line with monstrous homunculi falls into the same line I'd throw with every other character, though it may be somewhat subjective

• Is the character intelligient/sentient? Can it talk?
  

• Can I have a meaningful interaction with the character?
  
• What sets this character apart from others in the same vein? How is it that they handle their lot in life? Do they thrust blame upon others, or take it with a grain of salt?
  

and that is pretty much it. I imagine theres more to it, but for the most part, that's usually where my mindset goes with monstrous characters mostly. though this can fall under certain other characters aswell.

[Shujin]

I also like to clarify, that I under no circumstances was intending to Kink-shame or look down on anyone who might or might not have this "Fetish", it really doesn't matter to me. Do what you like, when you like, how often you like. All the power to you!

My main Focus and point is that such races must be treated with respect and fitting lore, so that the immersion and worldbuilding won't become overly questionable. Well more than that already is. The ERP comment is more of a running gag at this point, and with no fiber of my soul is there any malice when I say something against the ERP community or whatever. Its just not my personal cup of tea or focus.

Awkward times when I have to feel like I need to clarify that.

#DegenerateSquadLoveYouSillyGoofs

[Poruku]

I don't really care about the fetish aspect of it.

I think monstrous races are really cool as long as they're well made. The main problem is the normalization of monsters as common people. It's a problem with the community, they want all monsters to be friends, which makes them not monsters. If everyone is cute and friendly, then it's meaningless. If literally nobody is racist, or even shows racial differences, then it renders everything meaningless. I believe whitelisting can fix that to an extent.

Often, people want to play very unique characters at any cost because it feels special, without realizing that the more we do this, the less special everything becomes. At this point, pretty much nothing is special. We can see a literal monster walking around a city and you're supposed to just accept it. If you don't, you are the monster. Hell, you're an antagonist, and people can disregard anything you say because you're the evil guy.

The obvious solution is to introduce actual monsters that are actually monstrous and actually give people a reason to not like them or significant differences in psyche or society. We enforce this through applications and whitelisting so it doesn't become yet another human with a different coat of paint. Once we establish that sort of dynamic I think we can slowly improve on that as a community

[Snake]

So like, you all should probably change that reply from Blues because Dyst's attempt doesn't really erase the ordeal-

And yeah, at best make those sorts of things app-only. Though honestly, a lot of things in SL2 could use a bit of direct GM intervention.

[FaeLenx]

If you app for a character to be Grug Grug the leech bodied, tentacle faced Warmonculus beast of bloody burden, eventually it'll probably go through some character arc of learning, adaptation, and growth that has it doing literally anything other than its original intention. And then someone will look at Grug Grug the New and Proud Accountant and wonder why we allow furries in the community because he has anime and chibi art that honestly fits SL2 better rather than the D&D monster art he started with.

Making it an app only process is just gatekeeping for the sake of gatekeeping. Right now, the limitations seem to be 'is it very reasonably still human just with extra or less parts.' The question is 'should anthropomorphic art also be allowed.' If you answer "Yes, but..." then you should just answer no because none of your limitations in mind will be held or protected beyond the initial application process, test, or moment of implementation that you might suggest. There won't be any careful implementation because there can't be. Nobody is going to police every moment of RP to ensure they're living up to some hidden line that is nebulous and hard to enforce or write out. Unless we take this a step further and make a specific monster group and monster faction and enforce no possible peaceful interactions between monsters and people. That'd be neat, but it's not the original discussion.

With that said, I answer yes altogether. Let homunculi just be the catch all race for anthro and furries. As I said before, I'd rather RP with that group than the group that hates that group.