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There are two main types of furry character: “human with animal characteristics” or “animal with human characteristics.” Each of these can be subdivided into three main stages based on how significant their species non-conforming characteristics are. Typically, the animal side of the scale will primarily incorporate the behavioural characteristics of humankind, where the human side focuses more on physical traits.

At the first stage, whether the character is humanoid or animal, the traits from the other side will be mostly superficial. In the case of a feral character, their human traits are almost invariably limited to human intelligence and often human speech. Notable examples include Joe Grey, Shelby, and every Warrior Cat.

Conversely, a catgirl’s personality will usually be superficially affected by their animal traits, if it’s affected at all – the extent of their animalness will usually be limited to key animal features such as ears and tail. A lot of anime characters fall under this category.

At the second stage, the character has significant visual and behavioural traits from both human and animal, but one or the other is still front and centre.

A toon character will generally be akin to a human in most ways, but still recognisably behave like an animal. They may wear clothing or walk upright to distinguish them from regular animals. Notable examples include the Aristocats, Garfield, or Fluttershy.

A kemonomimi will generally be the reverse – they’re still fundamentally human, but will generally show animal traits such as hunting or physical affection. Kemonos are often the result of human characters being partially transformed into animals or animals shapeshifting into human form. Examples include Ariel and the Minotaur.

The third and final stage is closest to the line where human and animal are one – the character is both. Generally, media featuring them will exclusively use them as a stand-in for humans. The line between beastfolk and anthro is usually subjective, but whether or not they wear clothing is a good indicator of which side they fall on. Zootopia and Geronimo Stilton are key examples of beastfolk, where Bugs Bunny or Puss in Boots fall on the anthro side.

Cartoon characters such as Mickey Mouse are a sort of "stage zero" on this scale, with absolutely no animal behaviours but a completely nonhuman appearance - the extreme example of this thesis. Tom Nook or Pinky and the Brain also arguably fall under this category.

According to the Babylonian epic of creation, the universe was at first just an endless sea. The sea naturally coalesced into distinct forms of saltwater and freshwater, as embodied by myself and my husband Apsû. Where our waters met, we ended up with a bunch of gods, said to be our children – because humans love projecting how their family dynamics work onto the forces of nature.

It’s hard to get any peace or quiet when you’ve got a bunch of noisy gods lying around and you and your husband are the entire universe, so Apsû suggested we just kill them so we could get some damn sleep. Can you blame him? Well, they certainly did. I tried to keep them in line without resorting to all-out war, but no, they had to pre-emptively murder Apsû and his advisor, and make a throne room out of his corpse…

The Enuma Elish would have you believe that this is where Apsû’s greatest son created Marduk, the golden boy of the gods, who heroically slayed me and my eleven monstrous champions in return for being crowned god above all the others – do you really think that's a deal they wouldn't betray at the earliest chance? At least it has the decency to point out they tricked me into all this, causing more noise than ever and preying on my guilt over letting them kill Apsû.

We’ll skip over the part where Qingu and I wage war against my other bastard children and get to the important part – Marduk supposedly steals the Tablets of Destiny from Qingu, cuts me in half and then makes the sky and earth you know today out of the two halves of my corpse. As if the embodiment of primordial chaos could be killed in a way that matters! There’s a bunch of oral tradition in this part, written as the decree of god-king Marduk (tch. There's a reason people equate chaos with anarchy.), and – are you seeing this shit? I guess we’ve reached the part where the bards just say what they think the laws of man should be and call it the will of god… humans.

Anyway, I’ve been talking about the Elish for four paragraphs and not once mentioned the things this essay is actually about. We’re not sure how to transition into that, so we won’t.

Humans can’t stand the idea that their world is just the result of literal billions of years of evolution – look at any creation myth! They’re obsessed with the idea of some god imposing their idea of order onto me. Fine, I guess you have to look pretty deep into the sky – and know what you’re looking at – to figure out that you’re not the only thing in the world, but the idea that you are just runs so deep into western culture!

Look around you – does this world look like anyone did a particularly good job of imposing order onto it? To us, it looks more like the mechanisms of chaos have had even-I-don’t-know how long to run wild and they just so happened to produce, from the practically-infinite expanse of the cosmos, at least one planet on which the primordial soup of life eventually resulted in birds and humans and all the other interesting things you might take for granted.

Just think the words “order” and “chaos.” Think about them. Let me guess, they’re at war with each other and chaos is the “bad guy?” I – sorry, “chaos” – might represent the destruction of everything you hold dear, and the forces of “order” are the only thing keeping me at bay? Oh, please. This isn’t just “the universe is inconceivably complex and unfathomably old,” this is humans being afraid of change. I don’t blame you. Change takes away loved ones, it tears you away from your ideas of who you are, and if you’re a king or something, it might make you stop being a king – and we can’t have that, can we? No, best to cling like a baby koala to the idea that the way things are is the way things will always be.

“The light in the night sky is Nanaar’s crown and its shape traces out the months of the year?” “These six stars in particular move across the night sky in a way that only makes sense if they’re orbiting around something that isn’t our own planet?” “When the emu-shaped pattern in the starscape seems to be nesting, the time is right to collect the eggs of the grounded birds that it resembles?” I shouldn’t be so harsh on the idea of “order” – how else are you supposed to understand an existence so utterly incomprehensible? It’s beautiful, actually, the way people read the patterns of the universe and ascribe meaning to them.

The problems come when you mistake your ideas for being truths in themselves, rather than ways of describing truths more complicated. But that’s a whole other essay that we’ve already written, and I highly doubt we’ll ever publish that one. So in lieu of that, go read this, and understand why we think what we do about the underlying structures of the universe and of human culture.

Goodnight.