You know same. Id totally be nervous ordering like that

No, no, just think about it like...like ordering chimpanzee at a human restaurant! That'd be completely normal and not get you any funny looks, wouldn't it?

Well no it wouldn't get you funny looks but still would feel nervous even embarrassed

Such is the way for carnivores coexisting with other species... If they're not afraid of you I take that as a win ngl

(Pan over to an incensed mealworm.)

Hmm... yup! The answer was taking it to go all along xD

Good thing she's one of the less social canids!

Only six? :3

Must be trying to cut back ;)

Considering how high the counter is, that looks like a human restaurant. I wonder what it'd be like, interacting with your former species like that

That's a good question, actually. I s'pect a lot of stuff in the Quarter is built to human scale (we haven't stated it outright, but beastfolk size works on the Narnia model, scaling up according to the size of their feral-animal equivalents, but with the extremes at either end moderated substantially,) but it's also likely that human restaurants near the Quarter get a lot of beastfolk customers.

And yes, you definitely have to wonder ;) There's the part where you're literally looking at the world from the perspective of a small child and even a short adult is close to twice your height, and then there's gotta be a whole 'nother layer of weirdness in looking at a creature that smells different from you, looks different, and has a different set of instincts and social cues and thinking cripes, did that really used to be ME!? =^_^=

Wait hang on. Why is it human-scale? That doesn't seem inclusive to the actual residents at all. I remember seeing smaller buildings built into the existing ones in the 'tfing on the way to work' comic, but... Wait, is the 'Quarter' a recent addition? Like District 9, but with a less alien premise (and a bit less shanty town).

Talk about a new perspective ;>
I'm so excited for the Quarter story sdfkjgfgdf I cant wait to see how you explore all this a a

Well, part of it as far as inclusivity is that there are plenty of human-scale (or larger) residents - IRL even a number of dog breeds are close to human-sized, to say nothing of horses/cows/etc., and the spectrum with beastfolk is compressed towards a midpoint compared to normal animals. (Checkers is just past the upper end of the red fox's range - I put her at 36-39" in my notes - but the rodents we've seen are easily 2-3 times as large as their natural counterparts.) It's a lot easier for small folk to fit into a space built for big ones than vice versa - and we've seen before that most of 'em do fine with it ;)

But yes! The Quarter (and its equivalents in other cities) are indeed a space on the fringes of "normal" society - not exactly a ghetto/shantytown, but also not a place humanfolk tend to live if they've got "better" options (and as we've seen, those that do gravitate there...don't tend to stay human.)

I'm still hashing out the particulars of how & when (I think in a lotta U.S. cities beastfolk presence probably paralleled the IRL waves of European immigrants in the latter half of the 19th century, coming to get away from pressing economic conditions and the fallout from centuries of continually-escalating warfare,) but the Quarter is probably in the remains of old-town neighborhoods once populated by the city's human residents - the kind of places you walk through and see whole streets of abandoned shops and wonder why doesn't anyone live here?

A big part of the inspiration here was thinking about places like that and getting the feeling that it'd be fun to take the husks of our inner cities and people them with the furry equivalent of the colorful melting-pot communities you see all over fiction from the first half of the 20th century (Harriet the Spy is a childhood touchstone for me, what can you say.) So that's what I did =^_^=

And hey, the rent's cheap ;)

Oh gosh ofc there's other creatures. I kinda forgot that they weren't all lil critters >///<

OOOOOHH and we have a name for the Emm Cee! Checkers! Cute <3

It helps that foxes like climbing on things.
Also, very good height.
Small.
:>

Hehehehe, excellent. Ngl, can't think of a better option but maybe that's just me. Heh, talk about animal magnetism XD

Oooh ok ok thats fucking fascinating! Like the urbanisation of wild animals, except these ones are quite civilised. Hey, it's not squatting if no-one else wants it!
I guess the question then is where did all the beastfolk come from before they repopulated the gizzards of humanity's concrete colonies. It's kinda like coral, now that I think about it. Thousands (probably more, im not an expert on coral XP) of organisms building these immense structures together, but when conditions get too inhospitable they move out, leaving behind the corpse of what was once society. Oooh, like an anti-whalefall! Instead of coming together to scour the abandoned flesh of resources, they build upon it, making a temporary oasis into a permanent one!

Anyway, tangent aside, I kinda rlly like it as a sort of pushback against contemporary capitalism. Everything must be NEW and 10% OFF ON WEEKENDS and there can't be a speck of dirt or grit or... well... humanity (for lack of a better term, now that I think about it it's pretty accurate and ironic) allowed, to make the Products maximally attractive to a ConsumerTM. So of course all the abandoned places get picked up and dusted off. All the empty space filled again with life and humor, and who cares that it's not human. If to be human is to mire yourself in neon and screens, where bodies are taboo and every hint that you're more than a corporate object, more than a robot smiling pleasantly, then to be inhuman is to embrace everything humans left behind.
The abandoned buildings, societies, technologies. Why not the abandoned people too.

Okay I rambled way too long, apologies.
Not seen Harriet the Spy, but I'm glad it inspired you <3

Of course the rent's cheap! It's for people to pay, regardless of their meat.

Heh, yep - I hadn't yet gotten around to naming her when 9 Headed Fox nicknamed her in a comment, and it just stuck XD

And yes, quite smol =^_^= On the bright side, that means she can hole up under the couch comfortably or dig a burrow without it turning into a major earth-moving project, when the world gets to be a li'l too much - just needs to get the hang of poinging onto the counter, now ;)

And absolutely, yeah - I'm having a lot of fun mulling over the idea as I develop this. I've always been sorry to see things get cast aside in favor of the latest and not-so-greatest (it's been a real encouragement over the last ~15 yrs. to see the DIY ethos gaining some meaningful traction,) and the idea of reclaiming the abandoned spaces and things and building something better out of them speaks to me on a deep level =^_^=

It's a good name <3

Gosh, it'd be wonderful to do that, just be small enough to curl up in the spaces humans can't go when their world gets a bit too much for u. My cat has taken up cuddling up to the boiler in our airing cupboard every day and it warms my heart to see him there, though I do worry that he does it for those same reasons, because its a place the humans dare not go.
Oh my gods that's a fucking fantastic image. Just the four-limbed pronk up onto the counter (like that cat meme XD) <3

DIY Species, coming soon to your local Beastfolk Quarter XD
I rlly hope I didn't ramble too long

Sometimes you need a little space to yourself, what can ya say ;)

emphasis on little <3

Little enough to sit at the kids' table, little enough to hide in a cupboard =^_^=

Little enough to... be picked up? (with consent ofc)

Naturally =^_^=

Yippee!

The chicken person is really cute actually

(He wears loud islander shirts to honor his proud Malaysian junglefowl heritage.)