This is a follow-up of my previous post.
I’ve also had a few more question about tail furgonomics. Where would the tail go when sleeping or sitting?
I suppose chairs could be built with holes in them for tails to go through, but that would bring a problem especially for animals with larger and thicker tail. When sitting on a bus, for example, animals with larger tail might have their tail be in the way of someone behind them. Or if a chair were located close to a wall, there might not be enough space for larger tails to go through.
And when sleeping, would animals with thicker tail struggle to lay in their bed? Since their tail would get in their way, would they be forced to lay on their side? Would sleeping in a position where your tail is crushed under your body painful?
And what other problems would having a tail bring? It seemed like having a tail as an anthro animal could be a hassle.
But let’s be honest, we view everything about anthro worldbuilding within the lens of a human, because obviously. But an actual anthro society would probably have figured out how to deal and manage with their tail problems the same way we did with our human problems. Their society might not even look like ours, so many problems they would’ve faced in our human society, whether caused by their tail or not, wouldn’t apply. They would probably design their society around the fact that they have tails.
Though a bit of a struggle, we can find products for humans of all shapes and sizes. Shirts, pants, clothings are available of all sizes, even if some sizes are harder to find; left handed scissors exist; and more. So it would be possible for anthros to deal with the hassle of tails. But, it would still be a struggle, just like how much it is a struggle for us to buy shirts with unusual sizing.
But the last two paragraph might not always apply. I am interested in writing a story about a child who suddenly turned into an anthro while others still remain human, so they didn’t have the luxury of anthro-animal-centric societies catering them. Since they were the only anthro, they would have trouble fitting in many ways due to their different, furry body. They had to figure out how to deal with their tail, fur, etc in a society not built for anthro.
With that I wondered, what other struggles would they have? What could potentially be a source of struggle or conflict for an anthro in a society of humans-- aside from discrimination, which would be the main focus of my story. And for more fun, what other adaptations or differences would a society of anthros have over human ones?
A number of interesting questions here.
For sitting in chairs, I guess the easy solution is that the only chairs in the anthro world would be stools or some variant thereof. There’d be no back and perhaps a small grove on the rear of the seat to accomodate thicker tails.
Chairs like this https://www.trampsuk.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/unnamed-51.jpg , with a very open back, could also be useful and maybe even adapted to a mastermind/gamer style chair (although I wonder about structural integrity).
I do wonder if richer anthros would buy or commission custom designed chairs to match their species. Or poorer marginalised species would have real trouble because everything is designed for other species.
For sleeping, I don’t think sleeping on their back would be a big issue, honestly. I’m not a biologist, but as far as I know the tail is an extension of the spine? So it’d just lay out flat on the bed between their legs. I imagine if they did twist and turn and end up sleeping on top of it, it’d probably be like how humans can sometimes sleep weird and get pins and needles in their arms as they wake up.
For transport, such as buses, trains and even cars I wonder if the tail can go below the seat? Wouldn’t work for all species, but in theory the seat could have a hole for them to fit their tail through, and curl it up in a small pocket under the cushion.
There is a lot of stuff that can happen to a tail, it can get trapped in doors, bumped by passers by, stood on and so on. I expect in an anthro world, in crowded areas they would anticipate and prepare for an amount of jostling. In a non-anthro world though… Getting my tail stuck in a closing train door does not sound like a fun time.
I expect a human-turned-anthro (and maybe anthros with anxiety) would end up either clutching their tail tight to their side or leg (depending on the type of tail), just so it can’t get caught in things.
For another conflict unrelated to tails, what about keeping fur clean? I imagine in the anthro world this is a huge industry with lots of research into how to dry fur as quickly as possible, how to avoid getting drains clogged, perhaps species specific shampoos. I remember seeing a concept of a large “gateway” with many heated fans connected to it for the anthro to stand inside and get dried, like a giant hairdryer.
Wheras for the human-turned-anthro, you have a hairdryer, some dog shampoo and prayer that you don’t end up smelling like wet dog.
In the world I’ve built, there aren’t showers and bathtubs, only saunas. Partially because Plumbing Is Hard in this time period but also because a sauna is essentially a room-sized shower that can accommodate any size, and there’s no drainage to worry about, just sweep fur out the door with a broom. The techniques IRL animals use to keep themselves dry still apply in this world, too – for instance, a dog person shaking themselves dry is still effective, it gets you halfway there.
Damn, you pretty much beat me to everything haha
Yeah, I think being able to tuck your tail underneath a seat with some special hole would work great!
I also think of that, too. But one concern would be how large the hole should be. Too small, and anthros with larger tails wouldn’t be able to fit their tail in. As you say, marginalized species would likely struggle with this.
But this problem is even worse for an anthro in a non-anthro/human society like the one in my story. In a human society, most chairs wasn’t designed with tails in mind. Finding a seat with back holes to sit on would be difficult, so in most cases, the anthro would have to sit with their tail crushed by their back. Even sitting in a car would be difficult as there would be nowhere for the tail to go.
I suppose they could sit a bit forward so there would be some gap for their tail. This might not work for anthros with heavier tails or ones that couldn’t bend upwards, in which case they might be able to bend their tail sideways or sit facing sideways. Unfortunately, they won’t lean their back to the chair since there needed to be a gap between their body and the chair for the tail. And for the heavier tails, sitting sideways wouldn’t work with chairs that had armrests and even then it would take more spot on a bench, which could be annoying.
I’ve looked at images of animals sleeping on their back and yup, their tail just lay out between their legs just like in this image.
That could work, but there could probably be some bias or discrimination arising. As some species’ tail were better hidden or tucked away than others, species whose tail were hard to fit or took up more space might be considered “worse”. Like how some people don’t like to sit next to fat people since they take up more space, some anthros might not like to sit behind species whose tail took up more room in the back.
Some anthros might also be more hyperactive than others, which could be a problem when they were on a train and they wagged their tail in front of the people on their back. Imagine how annoying it’d be if the anthro dog sitting in front of you wagged their tail and their furry tail hit your face multiple times.
There would probably be etiquettes surrounding tails, kind of like our etiquettes around when to use our left or right hands. I might delve deeper into it on another Lemmy thread. I have quite a lot to say for a message reply.
There would indeed be a lot of moments where tail, fur, snout, etc became a liability in a world not built around them.
Having you said that in 1st person, though, made me wish I actually had a tail in real life… As much as it’d be a hassle, I’d still love to have one…
This would be difficult for anthros with thicker and less flexible tail, in which case they might just have to deal with their tail.
That seemed interesting. And there would certainly be more weird adaptation present in an anthro society. Species specific teeth cleaning product, for example, as different animals have different teeth structure. A carnivore’s teeth would be different from a herbivore’s. Horns would also have to be managed, so hygiene or care products related to that would be developed.
So far we had been talking about furry species, which was fair, but how about scaly anthros like lizards or amphibians like frogs. Their hygiene needs would be different to animals with fur. Some anthro species might also have other very specific adaptation or hygiene routine, maybe involving extra body parts or body shapes, such as the question of how an anthro hedgehog would clean its spiky body.
Again, there are more things I wanted to talk about, maybe on a separate post in the future.
That wouldn’t seem very fun, would it? Seemed like a hassle given the amount of fur they’d have to clean everyday, all while praying that they didn’t end up smelling worse like a wet dog.
Also, this reply is much longer than I thought. If I continue writing about anthro worldbuilding here, I could’ve ended up writing Lord of the Rings worth of anthro worldbuilding.