>I have tried to argue for a new definition of furry: as describing a character who is possessed of a combination of animal and human characteristics in such a way that the new character is significantly different from the character's real or canon form.<
The whole concept of "canon" is meaningless, it's just a handy way for companies to manage intellectual property and it has nothing to do with the way most artists invent characters. What's a canon form dragon? What's a canon form wolf? Or a canon form human for that matter.
In my opinion this definition is not new, it's again the same thing people have attempted for the last 30 years with no results: making up an abstract definition based on one's own tastes and then using it as a label to tell what's in and what's out.
Crossaffliction's article was about going the other way round, i.e. figuring out the rules (if any) by looking at *all* the art which people call "furry", trying to find the common elements, and crafting a definition which covered as much of them as possible. Proceeding by exclusion simply doesn't work. His conclusions were still sketchy but that's the method to follow if you want to find useful definitions.
>I have tried to argue for a new definition of furry: as describing a character who is possessed of a combination of animal and human characteristics in such a way that the new character is significantly different from the character's real or canon form.<
The whole concept of "canon" is meaningless, it's just a handy way for companies to manage intellectual property and it has nothing to do with the way most artists invent characters. What's a canon form dragon? What's a canon form wolf? Or a canon form human for that matter.
In my opinion this definition is not new, it's again the same thing people have attempted for the last 30 years with no results: making up an abstract definition based on one's own tastes and then using it as a label to tell what's in and what's out.
Crossaffliction's article was about going the other way round, i.e. figuring out the rules (if any) by looking at *all* the art which people call "furry", trying to find the common elements, and crafting a definition which covered as much of them as possible. Proceeding by exclusion simply doesn't work. His conclusions were still sketchy but that's the method to follow if you want to find useful definitions.