🦊 Furry Closed Species - Pay $500 to draw a bedazzled fox

[Leonard Helplessness]

Imagine if this closed species shit went mainstream and Nintendo started charging people for making Pokémon OCs.

A ton of pokemon are registered trademarks of Nintendo, in addition to all of them having a shitload of copyright protection that Nintendo has most likely researched and fought for extensively. I don’t know if all Pokemon are trademarked, but all the famous ones absolutely are and can be looked up in the USPTO Trademark Electronic Search System. Just searching for Pikachu turns up 17 hits.

Trademarks work differently from copyrights; in particular, trademark holders must actively defend their trademarks against infringement or else their trademarks bite the dust. They’re also subject to different and more extensive restrictions than copyrights. In effect, this leads to shit like when Nintendo contacted Patreon and threatened them into knocking over kuroodod’s sandcastle (and nothing of value was lost).

 

[King Autism the 53rd]

Been lurking forever but this thread got me to make an account. This closed species shit is hilarious, especially the MLP ones since they already break copyright lmfao.

Spoiler: Some MLP Closed Species

 

[XYZpdq]

After reading more I get the idea that it's paying for its position within the "community" it is a part of instead of so much "here's a jpg eat shit nerd kthxbye"?
that makes at least a bit more sense than I thought before

 

[Pukebucket]

After reading more I get the idea that it's paying for its position within the "community" it is a part of instead of so much "here's a jpg eat shit nerd kthxbye"?
that makes at least a bit more sense than I thought before

It's a bit of both. Closed species are a great way for certain artists to market their niche species/concepts to a group of dedicated fans who theoretically share similar aesthetic or worldbuilding tastes in an insular, cohesive narrative; or, at least, that's the idea. A lot of the people buying these species are hoping to befriend fellow artists (specifically those they admire) in the hopes of interaction, whether through roleplay or storyworld discussion or what have you. Throwing money in to buy a specific design (or multiple designs) is, to some people, a much more plausible way to catch the attention of someone you admire as opposed to just throwing money at them on Patreon in hopes of getting their name listed under Thank You credits.

The messy part is where money gets involved and the bigger/more popular a group gets the more hands-off an artist is going to become, instead relying on staff to run things and essentially becoming a mini-business. This is the point where closed species fans tend to get toxic; they form their own friendships and that's fine, but they'll also start seeing anyone who isn't participating or seeming to 'rip off" their species with an "us vs. them" attitude, especially if they've sunk a lot of money into these groups for the prestige of having the artist actually remember who you are. At this point even if the original artist's intent is still good, they need to step in at some point to tell their fans to calm down otherwise things will escalate beyond their control; they might not be the only person running the group, sure, but the responsibility for group rules still lies on the leadership in my opinion.

For people who created their closed species specifically for the prestige rather than out of genuine enthusiasm for their story concept or to have something small to share with a handful of close friends, this can breed a kind of narcissism in which the creators of these closed species groups will actively use their fanbase to harass other people. As mentioned above, the responsibility for the group's behavior lies largely on the creator(s); if individual or a group of members are behaving badly then by all means kick them out, but it needs to be done on an ethical basis rather than a personal one.

 

[harbleglarb]

man i've always found the whole closed species thing (even open species to a much lesser extent) so unappealing. as an artist myself i always look at the designs, even ones i like, and think "i could draw something like that (or something better) for free why would i bother paying?" plus all the drama, ridiculous prices and other bullshit as showcased in this thread.

I've been lurking around an artist's twitter that decided to branch off for the hustle of adoptable closed species. The person's named is MTO and they have these things called weedbois (yes the name sounds fucking stupid). All they are are anthropomorphized plants mixed with animals (so original) and they all share a fact that they produce a specific plant's flowers or fruit and they have colored genitals. They've been doing these for a minute now and aside from the shitty name and the lackluster designs, they're all they essentially post now aside from the occasional commission.

(EDIT: I'll be using thumbnails from now on since just using links doesn't really work out anymore.)

Spoiler: DUDE WEED LMAO

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Notice how the poses are essentially the same goddamn thing. That's just an autistic personally pet peeve but it shows laziness to me.

honestly... i kinda dig these designs. though could just be that the art's quite good (and that i'm a sucker for plant-people/creatures).

for someone wanting to make money off selling these sorts of designs, while lazy, i can understand copying the poses in order to make output faster/more efficient. boring, but sorta justifiable. i do hate when a skilled artist posts nothing but adopts/species stuff though.

This one confuses me. So it has chest scars (perfect chest scars btw) and a dick? Trans nsfw artists are garbage holy shit.

god i hate shit like this. every FtM trans oc i see feels exactly the same. perfect chest scars (always the same type/style, too, even though there's more than one method for the surgery), almost always the same body type (usually "twink"), and rare IRL or not you never see a single trans guy oc who's had bottom surgery. it just screams "this oc exists to chase a fad or so i can draw porn that i find hot" instead of actually caring about making a character.

also... why would plant-people have even close to the same concepts of gender as humans? they're fucking plants.

i have a similar issue with the Sylvari in Guild Wars 2. plant-people don't need to have recognizable male and female variants. don't be a coward, make them asexual (not in the sense of the orientation).

Anyone want a Goodra?

ngl those are fuckin' cute.

 

[Local Coyote]

One thing I have never understood with FtM OCs with chest scars; isn't the point of top surgery to NOT leave any scars so it's not obvious the person is trans? It defeats the whole purpose of passing as a man if they have titty scars. It makes no sense.

 

[harbleglarb]

One thing I have never understood with FtM OCs with chest scars; isn't the point of top surgery to NOT leave any scars so it's not obvious the person is trans? It defeats the whole purpose of passing as a man if they have titty scars. It makes no sense.

it's the ideal, but whether or not you can avoid scars is down to body type. bigger boobs require the kind of surgery that leave those larger scars and it takes a while for them to fade. they may never go away completely.

that said, they do fade, which is something artists creating these characters never seem to take into account. they'll just draw the big obvious scars no matter how old they're supposed to be.

 

[Marche]

One thing I have never understood with FtM OCs with chest scars; isn't the point of top surgery to NOT leave any scars so it's not obvious the person is trans? It defeats the whole purpose of passing as a man if they have titty scars. It makes no sense.

oh such biggoted attitude to have.
its a fetish

 

[JethroTullamore]

Call me retarded, but I never knew that all this "closed species" stuff was a thing in the furry community.
I mean, I'd seen dutch angel dragons around, but I had no idea people actually paid real money just for the "privilege" of having that character, let alone that they had to follow specific guidelines for its design.
Isn't the whole point to use your imagination and create whatever the hell you want?
Can you imagine if everyone did this, and every random species was basically pay to play? Hell, the first guy to make a fox fursona would have been a millionaire by now.

 

[Thistle]

Call me exceptional, but I never knew that all this "closed species" stuff was a thing in the furry community.
I mean, I'd seen dutch angel dragons around, but I had no idea people actually paid real money just for the "privilege" of having that character, let alone that they had to follow specific guidelines for its design.
Isn't the whole point to use your imagination and create whatever the hell you want?
Can you imagine if everyone did this, and every random species was basically pay to play? Hell, the first guy to make a fox fursona would have been a millionaire by now.

Its basically.... "Muh intellectual property r i g h t s, waaaaaaah" paired with a sheer lack of understanding as how copyright, IP, and trademarks work. And of course, the limitations of the law.

In addition, the 'closed species' or 'semi-closed species' in most cases seems to be only actionable with moral and social consequence, as those terms have no legal definition as it stands.

 

[Royalty Free Fish Food]

Holy shit, this is golden. As much as I was already aware of species shenanigans, that (and the Bagbeans) are eye-openers for how ridiculous these get not just price-wise but lore-wise. Why do re-incarnated animal-flower-people need lore so extensive it covers a postal system (A) and interspecies slavery (A)?

Because no publisher will accept their shitty manuscripts. Like if JK Rowling made Wizarding World without a billion dollar book series behind it.

 

[Thistle]

Because no publisher will accept their shitty manuscripts. Like if JK Rowling made Wizarding World without a billion dollar book series behind it.

And they likely don't have the skill or talent to do it themselves, be it a movie or an indie game...

 

[Fidget]

Apologies if this has already been brought up, but there is a whole branch of these closed species that is dedicated to the game pony.town. The game itself is fine, but the game is supportive of these closed species. I've investigated one of these, the sense of self-entitlement is just constantly melting my brain by the second. Plus, you built these ''species'' off of a pony base, so it's not really original, isn't it?

 

[Finrod Felagund]

Apologies if this has already been brought up, but there is a whole branch of these closed species that is dedicated to the game pony.town. The game itself is fine, but the game is supportive of these closed species. I've investigated one of these, the sense of self-entitlement is just constantly melting my brain by the second. Plus, you built these ''species'' off of a pony base, so it's not really original, isn't it?

The idea for pony base species isn't against the law. The expression of the species is transformed from My Little Pony ponies so it's in itself unoriginal but the parodying nature of these species allows it to fall under fair use. An ideal condition to call transformative works fair use is typically expressing the work as such that it parodies the original work e.g you make closed species in the style of My Little Pony.

However, because the Pony Town species is being profited off of that they are no longer bound to fair use.

 

[RinguPingu745]

Apologies if this has already been brought up, but there is a whole branch of these closed species that is dedicated to the game pony.town. The game itself is fine, but the game is supportive of these closed species. I've investigated one of these, the sense of self-entitlement is just constantly melting my brain by the second. Plus, you built these ''species'' off of a pony base, so it's not really original, isn't it?

This reminded me of the Lumens species on that site. Their leader was some nut called Pink. They were/are a whiny control freak who surrounded themselves with kids that would make one of these weird star dogs, but only if you joined their discord (which was even more of a cesspool) and made sure you didn't take a color someone was already using. There were legitimate fights and dog piling on kids who accidentally made a dog with the same color or theme, and the group would constantly get into fights with other species.

 

[Fidget]

This reminded me of the Lumens species on that site. Their leader was some nut called Pink. They were/are a whiny control freak who surrounded themselves with kids that would make one of these weird star dogs, but only if you joined their discord (which was even more of a cesspool) and made sure you didn't take a color someone was already using. There were legitimate fights and dog piling on kids who accidentally made a dog with the same color or theme, and the group would constantly get into fights with other species.

God damn, how overprotective do you have to be that you get mad at someone over using the same color as your character?
But there are a LOT of these tiny communities, Lumens probably being the biggest. I do know one is run by someone who drew porn of an underage trans individual without their consent, so you can really see the maturity of this community represented through their leaders.

 

[Kuchipatchi]

This reminded me of the Lumens species on that site. Their leader was some nut called Pink. They were/are a whiny control freak who surrounded themselves with kids that would make one of these weird star dogs, but only if you joined their discord (which was even more of a cesspool) and made sure you didn't take a color someone was already using. There were legitimate fights and dog piling on kids who accidentally made a dog with the same color or theme, and the group would constantly get into fights with other species.

Do you have any pics or achieves of people arguing? That would be an interesting thing to see.

And by "surrounded by kids" are we talking actual kids or fully grown adults fighting over mere colours?

 

[A wasted lifeform]

I do know one is run by someone who drew porn of an underage trans individual without their consent, so you can really see the maturity of this community represented through their leaders.

Which species was this? Just curious.

 

[bonitoflakeprincess]

It's a bit of both. Closed species are a great way for certain artists to market their niche species/concepts to a group of dedicated fans who theoretically share similar aesthetic or worldbuilding tastes in an insular, cohesive narrative; or, at least, that's the idea. A lot of the people buying these species are hoping to befriend fellow artists (specifically those they admire) in the hopes of interaction, whether through roleplay or storyworld discussion or what have you. Throwing money in to buy a specific design (or multiple designs) is, to some people, a much more plausible way to catch the attention of someone you admire as opposed to just throwing money at them on Patreon in hopes of getting their name listed under Thank You credits.

The messy part is where money gets involved and the bigger/more popular a group gets the more hands-off an artist is going to become, instead relying on staff to run things and essentially becoming a mini-business. This is the point where closed species fans tend to get toxic; they form their own friendships and that's fine, but they'll also start seeing anyone who isn't participating or seeming to 'rip off" their species with an "us vs. them" attitude, especially if they've sunk a lot of money into these groups for the prestige of having the artist actually remember who you are. At this point even if the original artist's intent is still good, they need to step in at some point to tell their fans to calm down otherwise things will escalate beyond their control; they might not be the only person running the group, sure, but the responsibility for group rules still lies on the leadership in my opinion.

For people who created their closed species specifically for the prestige rather than out of genuine enthusiasm for their story concept or to have something small to share with a handful of close friends, this can breed a kind of narcissism in which the creators of these closed species groups will actively use their fanbase to harass other people. As mentioned above, the responsibility for the group's behavior lies largely on the creator(s); if individual or a group of members are behaving badly then by all means kick them out, but it needs to be done on an ethical basis rather than a personal one.

they do it too because it's easier to get a trademark on this, profit on "make your own, pay me $50 more and it can have a horn" because it's easier and cheaper than making a new toy and with more freedom. they can't make their own turtle-ferret dolls, so they just sell the adoptable.

 

[RinguPingu745]

Do you have any pics or achieves of people arguing? That would be an interesting thing to see.

And by "surrounded by kids" are we talking actual kids or fully grown adults fighting over mere colours?

I was dumb back then and didn't think to archive anything. This was a couple years ago, and checking back it seems like the species itself is pretty much dead, so I don't have any proof of the good stuff other than the few images I could find on google that probably aren't worth sharing. They aren't around in Pony Town and their personal server is empty.. Most I could find were images of them holding some kind of wedding (which I did see and the whole thing was autistic because they were screeching about people messing up the grass around them) and a bunch of people running around them screaming about rabies. I guess some kid got shadow banned by Pink and it started a campaign of people harassing them by making joke Lumens like the rabies one, and others who copied Pink's OC and mocking them for getting mad over similar colors. Very run of the mill furry donut steel oc shit.

There were adults mixed into their group, but a lot of them were kids playing on the 18+ server on pony town. You see a lot of kids on there blatantly say their age and no one bats an eye, especially when it comes to the species groups. I kind of wish I stuck around longer to take screens now, but you live and learn.