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otherkinnews · 1 year

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Twitter promotes hatred against transgender people, furries, therians

Summary: Since buying Twitter, Elon Musk has been pushing the platform into fascist politics by either manually or algorithmically suppressing LGBTQ content, welcoming back neo-nazis who’d been banned, and boosting hate speech. This Pride month, he used the platform to promote a stream of an anti-transgender movie, What Is A Woman? (2022). The movie attempts to ridicule transgender people by comparing them to other groups, so it contains misinformation about furries: the litter box urban legend again. It also had an interview about therianthropy with Naia Okami, who rejected therianthropy again a few months afterward. The free stream gathered more than 62 million views that day, so it will be how many people first heard of furries or therians. Twitter keeps getting worse for marginalized groups, and now for furries and therians too. If you and your friends haven’t already migrated away from the nazis-and-transphobes site, we have advice on how to move to safer alternatives: Mastodon, Tumblr, Discord, Dreamwidth, and forums. We also have advice on media literacy skills, how to recognize nazis and transphobes on social media, how to guard against this happening in the future, how to support transgender rights, and some options for what to do with your Twitter when you leave. At the end of this article, we have a timeline of events that happened in this story.

Musk promoted an anti-transgender movie

Since last October, billionaire Elon Musk has owned Twitter, a social media site with 450 million users. He started June by pinning his quote retweet of an anti-transgender movie. He remarked, "Every parent should watch this." The movie is What Is A Woman?, by Daily Wire columnist Matt Walsh. The Daily Wire invited everyone to stream the 95 minute movie for free. It is a propaganda piece that uses misinformation to oppose the existence of transgender people. Until then, the movie had been behind a paywall. Media Bias Fact Check describes the Daily Wire as a right-wing news and opinion site that has medium credibility. The civil rights nonprofit Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hate Watch has called Walsh and his boss “peddlers of fear and disinformation about LGBTQ people” (Wilson, Nov 22, 2022). Musk has been known for his transphobia since before he bought Twitter (Garofoli, San Francisco Chronicle, Dec 13 2022). NBC reported that the Daily Wire’s CEO and other anti-transgender influencers such as Robby Starbuck had demanded for Musk to make the site stop suppressing the movie for its hate speech. Musk complied. Walsh, who had released the movie in June last year, said “What a great way to ring in Pride Month.” (Tolentino and Ingram, NBC, June 2, 2023).

What is that movie, and why is it so harmful?

The movie’s title refers to how they spend the movie interviewing various people about what a woman is, with the goal to discredit the validity of transgender people. Matt Walsh and Justin Folk had a bad enough reputation that no transgender people or allies would willingly appear in their movie, so they tricked people into showing up. They founded a front group called the Gender Unity Project LLC, and used a registered agent to mask their connection to it. Their producer used a fake name when reaching out to people to interview. They advertised the movie and LLC to potential interviewees as being “about transgender and LGBTQIA+ communities, and the challenges they face in today’s culture” and that it would “[explore] the real lives of people in the LGBTQIA+ communities, and to shed some light on the topics of gender identity, and gender fluidity, in a way that will capture the attention of all Americans and be educational.” Transgender rights activist Eli Erlick discovered they were not who they seemed, and exposed them immediately.

The movie intentionally misrepresented and disparaged a variety of professionals and transgender individuals who Walsh misled into interviewing with him. He used deceptive editing and ambush interview tactics to make it look like the interviewees were either in complete agreement with his hateful perspective, or were contradicting themselves and didn’t make sense. He used the movie to push false claims about transgender people, including trying to connect transgender identity to sexual predation and implying that transgender individuals will regret transitioning or that transitioning is dangerous.

Far-right director Robby Starbuck plans to release a similar movie this summer, titled “It Takes a Village.” This will also be a hateful propaganda movie opposing the existence of transgender people. Starbuck, like Walsh, lied about the movie goals to potential interviewees. Erlick caught and exposed this trick even earlier than the last one. Starbuck’s team members misrepresented the project as “highlighting gender affirming care and the issues facing trans youth.” Erlick believes that Starbuck may have planned to arrest her should she have agreed to fly to Tennessee for the offered interview.

How did this movie misrepresent furries and therians?

A common illogical argument that bigots use to criticize LGBTQ people sounds something like this: “If we let women marry one another, then wouldn’t it be just as absurd if we let people marry animals? If someone can identify as a woman, wouldn’t it be just as absurd if someone identifies as an animal?” Walsh used that tactic in his picture book Johnny the Walrus. Walsh’s movie has segments about furries and therians, in an effort to say that saying you are a woman is as absurd as saying you are an animal.

In one segment in the movie, Walsh interviews Sara Stockton, a family therapist. She incorrectly tells him that furries have demanded litter boxes in schools. Reuters Fact Check has an article that debunks that part of the movie. It’s well-known to be an urban legend that has never happened in any school. Conservatives have circulated it for the past few years to satirize transgender students asking to use the restroom of their choice. An alterhuman community historian did a presentation about how the legend has developed (House of Chimeras, 2022). The legend is why a few of this year’s hundreds of anti-transgender bills in the US say they also oppose people who identify as animals. Those are Montana Senate Bill 544, North Dakota House Bill 1522, Oklahoma Senate Bill 943, and Indiana Statehouse Bill 380.

In the next segment, Walsh interviewed Naia Okami. Okami has frequently sought and accepted media publicity for the past decade, even with producers her peers advised her to avoid (Okami, Oct 18, 2022). Around the same time as when she interviewed with Walsh, she accepted interviews with two other far-right media known for their hostility toward openly transgender people such as herself: The Sun (Jan 23 2022) and Fox News (Feb 7 2022). In these three interviews, she described herself as a wolf otherkin and therian. When Walsh tried to get her to describe herself as transspecies, she “vehemently rejected” that, so Walsh didn’t use those parts of the interview in the movie (Okami, June 5, 2022). (Okami has never called herself transspecies, and had spoken against the word for years.) Instead, against her wishes, he referred to her as a “trans wolf,” a label that she never used and which makes her “want to vomit” (Okami, June 8, 2022). A few months after the movie came out, she announced that she no longer calls herself a therian. She said, “I will always be a wolf girl; but I am not nor do I want to be … a member of the alterhuman, therianthropy, or otherkin communities” (Okami, Oct 18, 2022).

Like many of the other interviewees, Okami has explained how she was interviewed under false pretenses by a producer who used an alias. She shared records of her correspondences with the producer. She was not aware that Walsh would be the one interviewing her. He asked “intentionally provocative and leading questions.” She was looking into taking legal action, because the movie used the appearances of herself and others without informed consent (Okami, May 21, 2022).

By the end of the day, Musk’s promotion of the free movie on Twitter had caused it to have more than 62 million views (Tolentino and Ingram, NBC, June 2, 2023). This may be how most people in the world first hear of anything like otherkin, therians, furries, or transspecies identity. This may contribute to more widespread attitudes that are misinformed about and hostile toward these groups.

Musk’s Twitter welcomes fascists while suppressing LGBT speech

Musk has a history of supporting antisemitic and fascist ideology and espousing anti-LGBT rhetoric. One of Musk’s first actions when he bought Twitter was to share an anti-gay conspiracy theory published by a right-wing news source about the October 2022 attack on Paul Delosi. Twitter under Musk rolled back content policy protections for the site’s transgender users. He has also been known to quote Nazis, has reinstated the Twitters accounts of multiple neo-Nazis who were previously banned for hate speech, and has transferred his Twitter CEO title to a former Trump appointee. On Transgender Day of Visibility, users noticed that Twitter’s algorithm flags tweets for sensitive content if they contain the words LGBT, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, trans, queer, gender identity, pronouns, or TERF. Meanwhile, it doesn’t flag the words gender critical (which is what many transphobes prefer to call themselves), Nazi, fascist, or fascism. The algorithm’s source code shows that it’s designed to suppress and hide tweets that contain external links, misspelled words (as happens when users to try to get around suppressed words), and all mention of Ukraine. If you wanted to stand your ground and use Twitter to speak up for good causes, that’s exactly what it makes sure nobody will hear.

Musk vows to criminalize transgender healthcare

Musk pushes his anti-transgender attitudes in more places than just in this platform he owns. He vowed that he will be “actively lobbying to criminalize” gender affirming care in individuals under the age of 18. He supports long-term imprisonment without parole for anyone who supports or assists in such care, including therapists (Thakker, New Republic, June 2, 2023). He can wield unmatched influence over politics because he is the world’s wealthiest person at more than $100 billion dollars (Toh, CNN, May 31, 2023).

What you can do

Leave Twitter and bring your friends. Musk, and the platform he has through Twitter, is a threat to our civil rights and our lives. Twitter is not a safe place to be, because it is increasingly being turned into a fascist platform. As long as you’re there, you’re handing money to fascists, even if you’re not paying a subscription (Solarbird, April 23, 2023). You can’t fight the normalization of fascism by continuing to contribute to a fascist space (Solarbird, Dec 7, 2022). If you work for free to be a content provider for Twitter, then you are supporting fascism. Remember a German proverb: “If one nazi sits at a table, and ten other people sit there talking with him, that’s a table with eleven nazis.” It will become harder to avoid sitting and talking with Nazis on Twitter, because Musk says he will get rid of the option to block users (Ngo, Washington Times, June 8, 2023). Many users have been migrating away from Twitter. We strongly advise that you do so as well, and help your friends migrate, too. You must, to protect your friends, and to quit supporting the normalization of fascism.

Follow relevant news, and sharpen your media literacy skills. Whenever a friend shares a news article with you, see what Media Bias Fact Check says about that news source, and see what Reuters Fact Check and Snopes have to say about its content. Avoid boosting or interacting with transphobes and nazis on social media by learning how to recognize their characteristic jargon and the “dog whistles” that they use to signal themselves to one another. See the Anti-Defamation League’s encyclopedia of hate group symbols. Here’s a list of dog whistles racists and nazis use, ones transphobes use, and more that transphobes use. We recommend following Solarbird’s Fascism Watch blog post series, where she has been keeping track of news about the rise of transphobia and fascism, with an eye on its rise on Twitter. If someone contacts you for interviews or media projects, your job is to research them and their previous work before you agree to anything. Document everything. If they turn out to be exploitative, spread the warning fast. Take some notes from how Erlick does it.

Donate to good causes and support marginalized peoples. Some reputable organizations that support LGBTQ people and their rights are The Trevor Project, GLAAD, Mermaids, Human Rights Campaign, and National Center for Transgender Equality, or other civil rights organizations, such as The American Civil Liberties Union. Be cautious about sound-alikes that impersonate good organizations, and use Charity Navigator to check their backgrounds. Boost and donate to your friends’ personal fundraisers for their health, legal expenses, and moving expenses. Donate to the social media platforms that you prefer, so they can afford to keep going. Support and mutual aid means more than just sending money to the right places. Listen to your friends who are LGBTQ or members of other marginalized groups. Educate yourself.

Mastodon is a better Twitter

What is Mastodon? From the perspective of a user, Mastodon looks and behaves very similarly to Twitter. If you’ve used TweetDeck or other front-ends for Twitter, then Mastodon’s layout will look familiar. Users can create short posts, use hashtags, boost other people’s posts, and follow one another… even if those other people are on different Mastodon servers. Each Mastodon server is independently run, and has its own rules and moderators. These servers communicate with one another via the Fediverse, an interconnected network of servers. This is similar to how you can use a Gmail account to send an email to someone on a Yahoo account: they’re on different servers, with their own rules and owners, but they can communicate with one another. This decentralization protects against the owners or users of a particular server being able to ruin the whole thing for everyone.

How do you sign up on Mastodon? Click on a server in the below list of ones that we recommend, and then click “create account.” If it says an invitation is required to create an account, ask a friend for one from that server, or try another server. Don’t get overwhelmed trying to choose the perfect server before you begin. After all, you can use it to talk to people on any other servers, if its moderators haven’t chosen to block those particular servers. If you join a server, and then you don’t like its rules or moderators after all, or if the culture there goes bad, then you can move to another server, automatically bringing your follow list with you. You can carry on your Mastodon experience without a pause and without getting stuck with moderators you distrust. We recommend these servers to our readers because they’re LGBTQ friendly, welcome various sorts of alterhumans, are opposed to hate speech, and are open to new users, though some require an invitation. They’re owned and maintained by ordinary hobbyists and volunteers who care, not corporations or evil billionaires. Later, consider chipping in a little money to support your favorite server, if they offer that option.

https://awoo.space - This server “isn’t aimed at any specific audience, though there are a lot of queer furries here for some reason.”

https://bark.lgbt - This server *is* aimed at queer furries.

https://beach.city - Lightly themed around the cartoon Steven Universe.

https://chitter.xyz - For furries.

https://dragonscave.space - This dragon-themed server is especially for users who are visually impaired.

https://equestria.social - For fans of My Little Pony. The moderators speak French as well as English. (By the way, you can find servers in whatever languages you want, which is great for immersion language learning.)

https://meow.social - For furries.

https://plural.cafe - For plural systems.

https://plush.city

https://tech.lgbt

https://weirder.earth - Moderator team includes people who are POC, LGBTQ, and plural. Good track record at standing up to racism.

How do you make friends and find interesting blogs to follow on there? No algorithm plays matchmaker for you. We use hashtags, which is the only part of a post that shows up in a search. Usually people put hashtags that describe themselves and their interests in their #introduction post to help find others who share those interests.

How do you stay safe on there? Anyone with technical proficiency can create a Mastodon server and use it for good or bad. However, the Fediverse’s very design makes it easy for you to avoid the bad. Some Fediverse servers say they prohibit hate speech, but have been disappointing at enforcing that. Their moderators are overwhelmed, and unfamiliar with the needs of BIPOC, so racism goes unchecked. Those are widely-recognized problems with the servers mastodon.social and mastodon.online, so we don’t recommend joining those ones. Some Fediverse servers choose to allow hate speech, such as BlueSky. If you join a server that blocks problematic servers such as these, then those entire servers won’t be able to communicate with your server at all, period. Think of the story of the nazi bar: if a bartender lets in just one customer who wears nazi insignia but is polite, then that customer will come back with his nazi friends, everyone else will leave, and it will have become a nazi bar. A bartender who doesn’t want to accidentally find himself running a nazi bar has to prevent that from happening by kicking out even that one polite nazi. The Fediverse uses the nazi bar phenomenon against the nazis. Bigots and those who welcome them get isolated into their own space, and out of yours. By blocking entire servers because they have nazis there, your own server becomes something like Twitter without the nazis (Solarbird, Nov 6, 2022).

Mastodon has another safety feature: built-in content warnings. There is a widespread requirement to CW for content that is sexual, disturbing, or a spoiler. Followers will only see what’s beyond the CW if they click to open it. That’s good consent culture, and it makes Mastodon less stressful to scroll through than Twitter. In your settings, you can also filter out posts that use words that you don’t want to see at all.

Tumblr is great if you liked retweeting

What is Tumblr? Tumblr is a social media site that hosts 572 million blogs. It’s less similar to Twitter, but it does have a feature like retweeting, called reblogging. Even better, you can add tags to what you reblog, so you can categorize and later find things you’ve reblogged. That makes Tumblr an ideal platform for circulating fandom content, art, and memes.

How do you sign up on Tumblr? You can sign up on Twitter with just an email address, without sharing other personal information. Tumblr allows for users to have one primary blog, and as many side blogs as they want. You can customize the appearance of your blog using HTML and CSS. On desktop, install the browser extension xKit Rewritten and play with its settings to improve your experience of Tumblr.

How do you stay safe on Tumblr? You can curate your experience with blocking and filtering. Use tags to give content warnings, which others can use to filter your posts, and view them only if they consent to see that content. For that to work, don’t censor words. You can hide posts that use certain words, which helps you filter out posts from users who hate LGBTQ. Here’s a guide for how to do that. And another guide with screenshots for how to do that in the settings, and another guide. On desktop, install the third-party browser extension, Shinigami Eyes, which often helps warn you that a Tumblr account is known to express anti-transgender views.

How do you make friends and find interesting blogs on Tumblr? Tumblr tags are great for that. Use this web address, and replace the word “food” with some other key word for any topic that interests you: https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/food?sort=recent It will show you the most recent posts that people have tagged with that word. The accounts you follow will often reblog from other users, and you can use those as leads to find other interesting blogs.

Discord has many ways to communicate

What is Discord? Discord is a combination of many forms of communication in one. It supports group chat rooms, private messaging, voice calls, video calls, and streams for both one-on-one direct messages and for groups. It isn’t similar to Twitter at all, but it’s fantastic for talking with friends and meeting new people. All Discord servers are all required to follow Discord’s Community Guidelines, which bans hate speech, harassment, and violent extremism. Many plural systems enjoy using a bot on Discord, PluralKit, which lets you create something like separate accounts for each of your system members, without having to sign in and out.

What servers might you join? Discord allows for the creation of servers based around specific interests and groups of people. Servers can be tight-knit private groups, or huge public groups, or anything in-between. Most servers have a specific theme or focus that they adhere to. There are some excellent servers about being alterhuman. Ask your friends for recommendations and invitations to these and other servers.

Dreamwidth.org is the best social blog site

What is Dreamwidth? Dreamwidth is a social blogging platform based off of code from Livejournal. If you used Livejournal long ago, Dreamwidth will feel like home. If you’ve only used Twitter or Tumblr, you can adapt to the differences soon enough, because it has an especially well made FAQ. (Here is a collection of more info about how to use Dreamwidth, written for people who are more accustomed to Tumblr.) Dreamwidth focuses on creating your own original content and interacting with other folks’ original content in personal blogs and in “communities,” which are group forum blogs. Dreamwidth’s design is ideal for long pieces of writing, serialized works, and conversation threads. Because of this, many blogs that are especially active on Dreamwidth today are those that focus on fan fiction, role play, personal diaries, and essays, but you can put nearly any kind of subject matter there.

How do you join Dreamwidth? On the front page of Dreamwidth.org, click “create free account.” (Paying a subscription to help support the site will give you a few perks, but a free account is just as functional as a paid one.) Make up a username. Tell your email address and birthdate, which you can keep private in your profile settings. You can customize the appearance of your blog. We strongly recommend you use Solarbird’s theme that makes your blog mobile-friendly.

How do you find friends and interesting blogs on Dreamwidth? You can discover more blogs that focus on things you like by adding a list of interests to your profile, searching for others who put those interests in their profiles too. You can look at the Latest Things (the newest posts and tags by all users). You can also use Dreamwidth to follow the news! Dreamwidth has a built-in RSS feed reader, so you can use it to subscribe to content from other sites. Many sites offer RSS feeds: major news sources, comics, subreddits, Tumblr blogs, AO3 tags, and more. YsabetWordsmith regularly features interesting active communities in her FollowFriday tag. For the alterhuman readers of our blog, we recommend joining these communities:

Dreamwidth_therians: A members-only group for therians and otherkin.

Fictionkind: A members-only group for fictionfolk to discuss their experiences based on prompts.

Otherkin: A public group for otherkin.

Otherkin_haven: A members-only group for otherkin.

OtherkinNews (that’s us!): A volunteer-run blog for sharing news for otherkin, therianthropes, fictionfolk, plural systems, and all sorts of alterhumans.

PluralArchives: Citations of plural and pluralish phenomena collected in one place.

PluralStories: A searchable catalog of plural and pluralish stories.

TheriThere: A comic about therianthropes and otherkin.

Forums make great community spaces

If you simply want a place to talk with friends about shared interests, consider web-based forums. Each forum has its own rules, moderation teams, and features. Search for forums that are built around your fandoms or other interests. We recommend these for alterhumans:

Alt+H Forums: A quiet forum hosted by Alt+h, a nonhuman advocacy group. It is about alterhuman experiences as a whole.

Draconity: A forum focused on dragons specifically. It had a site-wide update in 2022.

Draconic: This forum for dragon otherkin has been running continuously since 1998.

Nonhuman National Park: A forum focused on inclusion and intersectionality of nonhuman, alterhuman, and plural identities.

What do you do with your Twitter after you leave?

Some people choose to delete their Twitter account completely. This erases all their tweets and connections to other users. Any conversation threads with this user will have pieces missing. That can interfere with other users’ archival efforts. Erasing your tracks that thoroughly can also make it difficult for your friends and followers to discover where you disappeared to and why.

If you don’t want to delete the account altogether, then sign into it once every 30 days, to prevent it from getting automatically deleted for inactivity. You don’t need to post anything: just sign in (Twitter, inactive account policy). Some people use a third-party tool to automatically delete all or most tweets. Removing content from the site is a good way to withdraw support from it. However, some users report that their deleted tweets come back later.

Should you leave your account public, or set it to “protected”? That status makes it so all your tweets, followers, and followed users can only be seen by users who you manually accept as your followers. Pros: this mostly prevents unwanted interactions or follows from random users, while leaving behind a signpost to let your friends know where you disappeared to and why. Cons: privating can interfere with others’ efforts to archive conversation threads just like if the account had been deleted. Archival tools can only pick up your tweets if they’re public. -- Appendix: A timeline of events related to this article

2022 January. The Gender Unity Project, LLC, invites transgender people and allies to interview in a movie. Meanwhile, Okami has interviews in The Sun, and UK breakfast TV show This Morning.

2022 February 7. Okami’s interview on Fox News. On the same day, Erlick publicly exposes that the Gender Unity Project is deceiving transgender people into interviewing with Walsh.

2022 March. Walsh publishes Johnny the Walrus, a picture book about a child being pressured to become a walrus, in parody of transgender children.

2022 May. Okami blogs a public statement about her involvement in What Is A Woman? with documentation of how they deceived her into showing up to it.

2022 June. Walsh releases What Is A Woman? Okami writes a detailed criticism of that movie.

2022 October. Okami announces that she no longer calls herself therian or otherkin. Musk buys Twitter and immediately posts an anti-gay conspiracy theory. He lays off thousands of employees, many crucial to the maintenance of the site software. He invites many users back to Twitter who had previously been banned for being nazis and white supremacists (Washington Post, Nov 11, 2022). Anticipating that Twitter will soon crash and/or become effectively a far-right site only, thousands of users leave or prepare to leave Twitter, filling their profiles and pinned tweets with links to where to find them on other social media sites.

2022 December. To discourage this, Twitter introduces an algorithm that prevents users from putting links to other social media sites in their profiles, and threatens to ban users for doing so.

2023 March and April. Users notice that Twitter’s algorithm suppresses tweets that contain external links, misspelled words, or mention of Ukraine. It suppresses LGBT related words, but not fascism related words. Twitter’s policy stops protecting transgender users against harassment. Even news agencies are quitting Twitter, such as NPR and PBS.

2023 May. To discourage this, Twitter starts banning accounts that have been inactive for a short amount of time.

2023 June. Musk quote-retweets and pins the Daily Wire’s free stream of What Is A Woman? The same day, he vows to lobby for the imprisonment of therapists who support transgender youth.

About the writers: Alterhuman community historians and archivists House of Chimeras, Page Shepard, N. Noel Sol, and Orion Scribner collaborated on this article. Thanks to Solarbird for her Fascism Watch blog series, which helped us find news sources for much of what has been happening with Twitter.

This article is also on the Otherkin News Dreamwidth.

#long post #very long post

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deusexlachina · 6 months

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Cheeseaged Exocolonist Age 15: Use my transcendence of time to cheat at cards

In which I befriend a furry by financially ruining him, in order to reach my full potential and ascend as an autistic god.

Year 15 starts with your home in ruins. There's no special dialogues, and only two ways to pass the first three months: help rebuild or mourn. I choose to mourn, because this is Sol's first time experiencing death (in this lifetime), and because, having maxed out Organizing, rebuilding is highly suboptimal, whereas mourning lets me avoid stress and trim my deck of useless non-blue filth.

Because I chose the sportsball, I find it when sifting through the rubble of my room and get this rather sad dialogue.

Mourning gives you many opportunities to level your Empathy. However, because I have the In Mourning status, all my stat increases are reduced by 1, rendering every single one of these +1 boosts completely worthless.

This always happens, because Kom always dies. I'm not sure if this was an attempt to really underscore how hurt Sol is, an oversight, or a straight-up troll.

After three months of developing my Empathy in nonexistent amounts, the Heliopause arrives, and Sol's home is gradually taken over by fascists who enthusiastically spread disease, worship the military and hate transgender people. I enjoy visual novels because it's a fun escape from the problems of the real world.

Fortunately, there are exactly two nice Helio kids, Nomi and Rex. Nomi is an nonbinary AuDHD techie and Rex is a furry engineer. Rex often reminds you that he is part dog, in case you had missed the ears. His dog traits include a reduced lifespan. This is not, to be clear, a setting where people just have mutations. This was a deliberate genetic augmentation. Someone purposefully made their kid part-dog. Incidentally, Nomi likes anime, so here's a panel from one of my old favourites, Fullmetal Alchemist. They've never seen that one, so really this picture wasn't relevant. Sorry.

I improve my friendship level with Rex by giving him sticks, his favourite item because he is part dog. Rex is easier than most to befriend because he enjoys physical affection, because he is part dog. I love Exocolonist, so rather than saying anything bad about the game here, I will reiterate that my favourite character is Tangent, because she's a complex person with a well-integrated character arc in dialogue with the central themes. The writers really took their time to make a fleshed-out character with deep relationships with the others and multiple character traits.

Once I have high enough friendship with Rex, he wants to play cards with me. I wait to play cards with him until after Vertumnalia, where I beat both Tangent and Nomi at the trivia game. The card you get from doing Trivia is worth 8, making it as powerful as the card you get for defeating a giant in a fight to the death. Better yet, it's blue. Why do I keep picking blue cards? You're about to see.

After Vertumnalia, I am Popular because of my detailed knowledge of pop culture trivia. I would fit right in on Vertumna, except it is currently ruled by fascists. We'll take care of that, but first we need to arm ourselves. Popularity doubles the amount of kudos you get for three months. From all sources. Now's the time to take Rex up on his offer to play cards. Rex is good at cards, but he has one critical weakness: he's playing against someone who has played this particular game countless times. I use my past-life knowledge to win the game, betting 100 kudos that I have a better card.

Sorry, make that 200. Sucker.

I now have a vast wealth of kudos, most of which I gained from cheating at cards by consulting my past lives. With this ill-gotten fortune, I buy the ultimate weapon in the game, which is surprisingly not the Drone Rifle, an actual gun. It is a "vintage focus device," a fidget spinner. Because Sol is very autistic indeed, a fidget spinner allows her to reach her full potential by letting her stim. Accessibility tools being a luxury you have to buy - in fact, the most expensive luxury in the game - paints a very bleak picture of the colony's ability to handle disability.

That would be just a joke, but Nougat's learning disability, Tangent's drug abuse and burnout, Dys' (potentially literal) alienation and Tammy's phobia of nearly everything all go pretty much neglected unless you step in. It's interesting how much Vertumna recreates the same oppressive structures that it is an attempt to flee from.

Fortunately, we can get rid of ableism through autistic world domination, to which we are one step closer.

#cheeseaged exocolonist #iwatex #excolonist spoilers

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earlgraytay · 1 year

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so @dagny-hashtaggart made a really interesting post about how Japanese Pop Culture Stories About War are often about Japan's position vis a vis the world during the Cold War more than about WWII.

They're heavily informed by WWII, don't get me wrong. But let's be honest- it's easier to get your audience to identify with a plucky underdog than the agent of a fascist regime. Post-WWII Japan is much easier to spin into an underdog than WWII Imperial Japan.

And that got me thinking about the Fire Emblem Tellius games- y'know, the ones with Ike- because holy shit, looking at it with that interpretation in mind opens up a whole new avenue for analysis.

Spoilers for the whole subseries under the cut.

Fire Emblem games are not, as a rule, subtle. They might be nuanced. They might be willing to look at the humanity of awful people, acknowledge that everyone is the protagonist of their own story, and so on. But they're not subtle, and you can generally get the point that the writers are trying to make on a casual first playthrough.

....so the Tellius games are about the small nation of Crimea being attacked by an evil empire called Daein. The heroes have to beg for help from the surrounding nations- primarily a large theocratic empire called Beignon. They also have to convince the nations of laguz- shapeshifting furries that most Crimeans are horribly racist against- that if Daein comes for Crimea they'll come for the laguz next. A wrinkle in all of this is that Beignon has traditionally kept laguz as slaves (though the current empress is trying to change that) and so getting all of these nations to coordinate a defense is difficult, to say the least.

Our plucky heroes manage to get help and save the day, but the story doesn't end there.

It turns out that Beignon, as an occupying force, is tyrannical and cruel. Beignon occupies Daein after the war, and a group of freedom fighters rise up to kick out the occupiers and take back their home. These freedom fighters wind up taking over the government of Daein, and - thanks to some Plot we won't go into - are forced to go to war with Beignon, despite that being a terrible idea.

The people behind this war are the senators who rule Beignon. Some of them are trying to enrich themselves and bring back slavery, while others are, essentially, trying to bring about the end of the world on their Goddess' behalf. (Long story.)

It takes a literal deus ex machina to get this war to stop, and Our Heroes- both the group from the original game and the freedom fighters from Daein- band together to take on the goddess that Beignon worships and save the world from being eternally frozen in time. (Again, long story.)

The stated theme of the game is "the human urge to fight isn't a bad one- it's the urge to protect what you love and stand up for what's right, and without it, you might as well be a statue. But war is stupid, pointless, and started by people with power to forward their own agendas. If ordinary people use that urge to fight for what's right to get past their racism and other differences, the world is a much better place than if they put it into fighting wars that don't matter."

And like, the connection I didn't make until seeing that post... reading this game with the Cold War in mind makes some very interesting (and honestly, sardonic) political points about the real world!

I know I sound a bit Vriska (Vriska) here, but consider that storyline in this light:

Crimea is postwar Japan, complete with a tiny military that's spread too thin and Horrible Retrograde Politicians who want to bring the country back to its Glory Days.

Beignon is the First World, and more specifically, the United States. A large, seemingly-benevolent country with a slavery-filled past, a borderline theocratic democratic oligarchy, and a willingness to help smaller nations? Yeah. Also, the Beignon senators have some of the more Stereotypical Westerner features that you see in the game.

Daein is the Second World. Calling the Plucky Tiny Player Country Crimea is probably meant to call the USSR to mind. They're a bit Generically Evil and honestly this is the weakest part of the analysis.

The various Laguz nations are the Third World. They're politically divided, often isolationist, and have historically been the victims of racism from the other nations on the map. They've also often got... unfortunate tribal aesthetics and many are noticeably darker-skinned than the main cast. (Is this problematic? Oh yeah. But in the analysis? I think it's worth bringing up.)

The political subtext of the game thus becomes "Japan needs to shake off its racism and its dependence on the American military. We need to make allegiances with other small, struggling nations, while trying to avoid going to war because see above."

You can see why I'm going feral over this, because it is a much more blatantly political statement than I recognized as a kid- while simultaneously being a nuanced, interesting take that you don't often see out of Japanese media. (At least, not the stuff that gets localized for the benefit of the USA.)

#fire emblem #tellius #fe: tellius #fire emblem path of radiance #fire emblem radiant dawn #politics #japanese politics

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sagehaubitze · 4 months

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I write a lot to deal with my emotions and to process (right now I am processing a lot of anger, still). I don't share a lot of it, but I did write something to post on fetlife yesterday having to do with my friend, Remy's, death. The circles of people I have over there have no real context or frame of reference for any of it though. Since I'm still vaguely furry-adjacent, I figured maybe people (all like.. five of you) would get more mileage out of it here, so I'm crossposting it.

This is a small tidbit of furry history. Before you fly off the handle and send me anon hate, please take a minute to read all of this through. Plus think about what type of person would absolutely fucking loathe both queer people involved in WWII reenacting, and queer people dressing in uniform to do weird kink shit. (it's supposed to be fascists that idealize the era, they would have an aneurysm, but this is a trick question because apparently everybody loathes it)

Anyway. Pushing the Feldpost Envelope (furries and nazis and death in here.)

"History lesson.

I'm at the third year of my home furcon in 2005, attending opening ceremonies, wearing my officer's cap. All day, I've been nervously eyeing someone also in an officer's cap, albeit a different branch, worried that they're either going to be confrontational, or that they're a bad actor and a bigot. We'd unknowingly run in the same circles for a couple years now, but had yet to cross paths in any significant way until today.

"I like your hat" he smiled and piped up after the ceremonies were over. I, a very anxious sixteen year old girl at the time, had a flood of relief wash over me now that the ice had been broken and he didn't seem like a total asshole (joke's on me, Remy was still an asshole, just usually the good kind). "I like yours too..!" I chimed back. And the rest was history. "Living history", actually.

A couple months prior, Remy had created the Nazi Furs community, which I wound up co-running and co-moderating. The goal was to create a space for people with a genuine interest in history and reenacting (which despite the name wasn't limited to the German side of things) and/or for those who get their rocks off in uniform, a little more tucked away from early 2000s internet shock value, and most importantly protected from actual racists, bigots, and all around pieces of shit (which took a hell of a lot of work). Furries tend to cover the whole gamut of kink, and while Remy and I both leaned further towards the leather subculture, we tried to make space for all of the spectrum as long as it was related to that specific time period in some way.

We were not a popular or well liked group. But we were a necessary group. This is the south, if you weren't a cishet good ol boy, it was frankly just not safe to venture into any reenacting groups around here at the time. So, we made our own space for it, to be gay and weird and ourselves while we ran around in the woods. Even in kink, we tried to push the envelope for what was "acceptable" in the eyes of larger communities and carve out a little trench for ourselves, because often in the most accepting places, people would still take issue (and still do). We did our best to push back against people feeling closeted or ashamed for what they were interested in, kink or not. Don't be a shitty person is all we asked. We were young and we stumbled a lot, but we tried our best.

Ultimately, with the shifting perspectives in the fandom, in kink, and in general with online spaces being cleansed to be more palatable and marketable, we lost the fight. Part of it came from the evolving political environment in the US, it did become impossibly hard to weed out bad actors, and not be seen/assumed as a bad actor yourself. But part of it is from lingering social norms on what is "okay" and "acceptable" (even in alternative subcultures), instead of remembering that some interests can be solely academic and not a reflection of your own personal world views. Bleeding over to kink, it's exactly the same, and some people have forgotten that kink should be weird and ugly and not acceptable, it should challenge your emotions and perspective sometimes. It is the opposite of social norms, it's not meant to be sanitized and diluted down for the masses to consume. It's meant for you, and your self expression, self exploration, and your kameraden who share that with you.

Remy died on January 26th. He was one of my very best friends, and there are not many people left on this planet who know me like he did. I rushed to clean his house of things his mother did not want, or need, to see, because I was the only one left to do so. He is survived by communities that did not want him and refuse to see the work he put in for people to have a place they felt accepted.

I have no place in community anymore. But if anyone reading this feels ostracized for their interests or kinks, I feel the same so deeply inside me that it hurts my soul. You shouldn't have to feel that way. I do not have it in me anymore to try and create a space like Remy and I worked on in the past, but do know that you're not alone. I'll be here. I'm still here somehow."

-----

I would also like to add this summarized post that Remy made to the original group, the last post in the group, in 2017.

"In the wake of recent social unrest, we would like to take a moment to make a statement regarding this community.

Nazi_Furs was created by a bunch of nerds. Yes, you read correctly. A bunch of big old nerdy nerds started nazi_furs to post stories, art, historical articles, images from WWII museums, reenacting and living history events, and sometimes little animated gifs of dancing hitlers that we thought were funny.

Most of our members were card carrying homosexuals. Almost all of our moderators were gay, trans, or some other color of "unacceptable" to ACTUAL NEO-NAZIS.

Many of us have well researched and thought out fursonas that inhabit a world set during WWII era Germany. The setting used in many movies like Bed-knobs and Broomsticks, Indiana Jones, Iron Sky, and Dead Snow lends itself well to fantasy. Setting talking animal people into this backdrop did not seem like such a huge clusterfuck at the time.

Nazis are a cliche', relegated to "the bad guys" in popular culture. The sharp uniforms, advanced military weapons and tactics, crackpot schemes, and paranormal ties are used all the time in modern media. They are a caricature of what they were 70+ years ago, much like ninjas (paid assassins) and pirates (murderers and thieves) are today. Once you have been relegated to a children's Halloween costume you no longer have the influence to command respect or fear.

Let us allow nazis to be just that, a cliche condemned to be the "bumbling bad guys". Let us laugh at them and rob them of any authority they feel they may have. There haven't been any "REAL" nazis since the downfall of the NSDAP in 1945, and any members of that movement would be pushing 90 by now.

The "alt-right" are not nazi_furs. They are hateful individuals putting on costumes pretending to be like people they do not understand who have been dead for years. These people WANT you to associate them with nazis, and calling them that only feeds their egos. Lets try not to do that.

If you take anything away from our group, let it be a reminder of our origins as nerdy nerds pouring over history books, saturating ourselves in history to better understand what happened in the 1930s and 40s. Take a look at our current situation we find ourselves in and ask yourselves if we are all doomed to repeat our past mistakes. Then focus your rage and disapproval in a productive manner. Get out there and vote the real racist out of office. Mobilize in peaceful protest, advocate for the oppressed and downtrodden. Make the world a better place than you found it."

I stepped away from the fandom when my home convention, RCFM, ended after a decade. I had been run into the ground, my wallet taken advantage of entirely too much, and I was burnt out beyond belief. Remy stayed more up to date on fandom things, I know there were issues with other "nazi" groups popping up that were inundated with the alt-right. There was no avoiding getting lumped in with them, so we eventually just enjoyed our interests in silence, away from everyone else.

To be completely honest, the majority of our time was spent in museums and hunting down weirdly specific esoteric research topics, which we'd then attempt to discuss while drunk around a fire (this is the academic way). It wasn't to idolize these people or politics, it was to understand an extremely complicated time period and what was born out of it. There are SO MANY absolutely fascinating aspects to study, not just "woo big scary gun death ubermench". What people saw most though, convention-wise at least, were the room parties where we could let our hair down and be WEIRD. Furcon room parties are fucking weird just as a baseline, throw some uniforms and sadomasochism in, sometimes some LSD, and... I mean yeah. And of course that's all that stuck in anybody's mind. Though, tbh, a lot of the time for the majority of the night, it was just a small circle of friends watching war movies and drinking. We came up with this (not) great idea to take a shot every time there was a depth charge in Das Boot, yeah I can't recommend that lmao.

Even from the reenacting standpoint, Remy was putting together a US medic impression (not even German! *clutches pearls*) over the past few years, because he was an EMT by trade. I've always reenacted a very inept Wehrmacht artillery officer who is a touch cowardly, not great at their job, and is usually relegated to office/paperwork. It's far from the edgy internet shock value people associated us with.

Nowadays I am usually running around in the woods alone, or getting the shit kicked out of me in uniform (consensually). I'm just less visible about it. I wish I didn't have to be. It feels very lonely, extremely so now that I've lost Remy. I think there was a good opportunity somewhere in there to push back against the alt-right by being very VERY gay and trans and queer and weird in uniform, destroy the image they were trying to create for themselves, but the current culture of the internet wouldn't have allowed that. I'm still going to keep doing that, just.. y'know, in my own space, on my own time.

I hope other people are out there being weird too. I'll be weird with you in spirit.

#text #I'm not going to be entertaining bad faith arguments on any of this fwiw #I'm happy to talk and reminisce on those years in the fandom and all the stuff we got up to #but I don't have the time or energy for people being shitty #I really just want to get shit out of my head to help me mourn #that's what a lot of this is #I'm mourning both the loss of one of my best friends and the loss of the space we tried to make for 'undesirable' kink #it really feels like all the work and struggle and effort put in by so many people over the past twenty years not just for that kink aspect #but for kink and queer spaces in general is just fucking GONE. like it was for nothing.#I don't really know where to go from here #I'm definitely struggling with that #anyway that's enough rambling for right now I think

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oldguardleatherdog · 2 years

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CW: Looooooong post

https://werewolfbarista.tumblr.com/post/697188935986708480/now-that-tumblr-user-hypnokinkdoggo-seems-2-have

This is about me. My termed blog @hypnokinkdoggo is being used to heap abuse and hate speech on me based on my age, disability, 9/11 injury, HIV status, and perceived mental state.

People are actually encouraging others to search for my posts and artifacts and continue harassing and abusing me. Check out some of the more toxic comments that have been slung my way:

This began with @commonpigeon in August 2022 and has caused me to be ridiculed by more than 9,000 people.

Repeated reports have been ignored.

I'm finding more of these all the time.

Cyberbullying is against the law. So is online hate speech.

I have hundreds of screenshots of what's been posted and I'm gathering more each day. Anti-harassment resources are out there, and I'm using them.

As I muck through this cesspool of violence and hate targeting me, I've been posting excerpts here with context and commentary. Some will be springboards for monographs I'll post here where I will explicate a hate comment and find the connection to our fight against the storm of RW laws etc. coming our way.

I'm not "calling people out" or encouraging others to make trouble for these posters: they're overwhelmingly Gen Z, with all the purity culture, casual cruelty, and lack of self-awareness and basic human decency that years of 4chan and bad parenting and moral numbness and MAGA have wrought on these kids.

But if you look at their blogs, they're trans, furries, queers, kinksters, pup players, artists, fandom experts, writers, students and more who fill their spaces with beauty and musings and song and art of their own creation and self-healing and introspection that's remarkably perceptive, sometimes moving, even profound.

They're capable of compassion and caring about strangers who just might be queer, furry, kinky, GNC, pups, seekers, writers, and fighting for trans rights - *their* rights - in ways not so different from their own.

But they refuse to show that care and compassion to me, and I don't have the slightest idea as to why I've been singled out and targeted for the most horrific and vile abuse I've ever seen in 60 years of hard living.

And it's not because of my identity, or anything I did that was controversial, or any political or cultural stance of mine, or that I behaved in an antisocial way or slurred anyone with hate or threats -

Its because a 20-year-old girl in Scotland found a stoned 3 AM post I made on a religion thread that was, well, a stoned 3 AM post about religion (I was a Lutheran seminarian and LGBTQ+ equality activist in the 90's) Stream-of-consciousness, rambled a bit, but nothing at all remarkable.

She copied my post from the blog where I'd replied, and she reblogged that *stolen* post for the express purpose of "dissecting" it for ridicule by her followers, and they obliged. Hard. Gleefully. Death wishes toward me included. Done just for laughs, for entertainment, for the lulz.

When I posted some of this a while ago, a follower of mine said, "I feel like the worst part is that they're not even like, 'I'm x-phobic and I hate you', this is just like, a Thursday night for them, it seems".

I've spent my life fighting - effectively - for our community from the minute I came out. Queer Nation, ACT/UP, med cannabis, marriage equality, trans rights, I've been there and I'm still here.

I'm not about to give up. There are too many younger than me who have been asking me to share my experiences with them, and I'm eager to do just that. I know how to fight the fascists with tactics you won't find online; they're in my activist heart, and they're yours for the asking.

For a useless cringe pervo insane grandpa on death's door whose ancient presence here is scandalous, I've got a good supply of wisdom and understanding. But with this, I am at a loss, and no one I know can figure it out.

I'm fighting for my own justice here. Thanks for reading. Peace.

#what is wrong with people #show me what's right with people #please

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basilthefolf · 1 year

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Furries seem to forget the #1 thing that defines the furry fandom... We enjoy anthropomorphic animals... be it bipedal or quadruped..... They're all "anthro"

If you're against NSFW of "ferals" you're allowed to have it be a squick!! However, don't fool yourself. "It's an animal!" so is your bipedal sona getting fucked by a bipedal horse... "It's weird to find animal traits hot" you have a paw/maw fetish...

"Feral" or "anthro", if you like either you're 100% weird to people outside the fandom tysm

Anyway, remember: Antis have an inherently fascist mindset! They fearmonger with moral panic and demand censorship of creativity and art.

And this dog bites fascists 💕

#furry #furries #anthro #feral #art #furry fandom #furry artwork #furrycommunity #fur #anthro furry #fursona

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macrotiis · 2 years

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Meowdy!

I'm Blitz!

28 years old aries (23rd march)

Neutrois Transmasc TME

xe/xem/xyrs, he/him, she/her

@rainbowmancer-gwen is my fox gf 💙

Aus/NZ Pākehā (white)

I don't do DNI's, I just block. I usually block proshippers, ppl who are heavily into discourse, bigots & rude ppl. I'm here to have a chill time, I dont go looking for things to be mad at & dont appriciate ppl trying to start shit (letting me know if I'm rbing from a bigot in PMs tho is appriciated 💖).

That said 18+ only please! This blog is not NSFW orientated, but may sometimes post NSFW things coz I'm a big boy.

There will be NSFW in my likes, I'm sorry Tumblr decided that's what ppl want on their dash now, not much I can do about it boss.

I'm not a huge fandom person, but I rly love Crash Bandicoot (bold coz this is my primary special interest lol), Spyro the Dragon, Digimon, The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, Invader Zim, Star Trek (currently watching TNG), Furries & Table Top Roleplaying (Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder and Gaslands).

I have a deep love for science fiction, fantasy & horror themes.

I like a pretty wide range of music; metal, punk, ska, new wave, drum n bass & some other EDM.

My favourite colour is blue, I love hairless cats & Australian wildlife.

I like to draw a lot, my art blog is @staticblitz :) I also have a Crash Bandicoot side-blog @n-trance which is strictly sfw.

I'm very politically active with strong Anarchist leanings, I heavily criticize capitalism, liberalism, nationalism & imperialism. I align myself with marginalized people & workers above all. Anti-fascist.

I'm sexpositive & an on-n-off sexworker, sexworker liberation is very important to me.

I'm also a cult survivor, I was raised as a Jehovah's Witness & have a lotta weird trauma surrounding that lol

Part of a system of some kind. I tend to keep it to myself coz I'm still figuring it out, but I can't rly pretend it's not a thing for me anymore lol. You probably won't see the others on here much, we're pretty anxious about it all still.

I tag image & video posts with #no id for those who rely on alt text & image descriptions. Posts with descriptions won't be tagged with this & I regularly trawl through notes to find image descriptions. This is not a judgement against you, I just want to make my blog friendly to visually impaired folks :)

I also tag potentially triggering content with just what the trigger is, you may ask me to tag things for you if you need me to. (I will not tag reclaimed slurs tho, those are important to ppls identity & should be treated as such)

NOTE; I will not respond to messages asking me to reblog crowd-funds.

#pinned

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rondesantishaters · 1 year

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🔴 Ron Desantis is at it again 🔴

Here's what he's getting up to in 2023:

Open firearm carry in FL.

Passing legislation to take Trans kids away from their families.

Massive tax breaks for the rich.

Running for President. He's about to be everyone's problem.

Tumblr- help us get rid of this fascist. Join our fight. Click HERE:

#fuck desantis #politics #us politics #florida #antifascism #furries #furries against fascists #news #vote #voting #gay rights

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thatboxylady · 2 years

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How are your headcanons misanthropic?????? All your stuff seems pretty fine nowadays. I think the ""worst"" thing I've seen from you was during your Beast Wars years treating the Maximals like they were all racist against Predacons, but that might be the closest thing and even THEN it was not a major recurring theme or even a real deterrent.

OH DEAR GOD you followed me over from my Beast Wars stuff? How are you still here?

I think the criticism mostly (?) stemmed from me having "evil" aligned human OCs who I have no compulsion to redeem, some of who are included in another author's fanfic as part of an overarching collab. There are certain people IRL who I think need to be dunked into a dumpster and never retrieved in the same way. We know that these kinds of people exist, so it's not that farfetched.

More under the cut because this ran long haha. Jeez though, thanks for being brave and sticking around this long!

Not only am I mean to these characters, but I largely imply that they have very few redeeming qualities because of their inability to understand why they're such terrible people in the first place. Coupled with their unwillingness to change, the same idea applies to someone who is openly homophonic and can't grasp how that's bad. Someone like that is someone I don't want to pull out of the fire. I want to push them in. They either have to save themselves or feel what it's like to be vaporized.

Molly Thatcher, Alexander Reichold, and Dr. Walker (who is not necessarily an extremist but very clueless in his gross opinions about autonomous robots) are examples of those OCs.

I think the fact that I don't view Neotopia as a true paradise rubs some people the wrong way. Paradise is what we make it, and there will always be people who think that groups of minorities should not exist in the same space as them. It keeps happening over and over throughout history. The best you can do to stomp those awful people out and fight the injustices where you see them. It's why we encourage people to punch fascists in the face and be unapologetic about it.

ALSO omg. I am SO sorry if my Very Bad Writing from high school came across like that. Adshadskjhkjsa. That was never the intention but I'm glad you weren't turned off from it! I think I was very bad at expressing my thoughts in writing back then.

I want to say that while there is a great deal of anti-Predacon sentiment because of what the Decepticons did (and how the Predacons themselves have even stated that they're treated like second-class citizens in the run of Beast Wars), in no way is every Maximal racist about it. The bad opinions are just from the very small but loud minority that find themselves influenced by Maximal Elder propaganda and the fact that the Tripredicus Council doesn't actually have Predacon welfare in mind. Cybertron is a mess. If those people stopped being loud then there wouldn't be a problem. Megatron might not have been so driven to steal the Golden Disk....

Then again, maybe he still would have? I think his actions in Beast Machines are much more largely influenced by whatever happened between the end of BW, ripping himself off the hull of the Autobot shuttle in transwarp, and ending up on Cybertron somewhere further in the past than when the Maximals finally arrive home. No one becomes so unhinged that quickly between a show and its sequel. I might write about it.

Megatron made the planet worse during BM but it's fine now because everyone was saved and turned into furries. Nature healed. Optimus Primal died for your sins and now no one can tell who the hell is what faction descendant because being transorganic made everyone look like this.

#sorry for making fun of cheetor's face haha #they're my ocs and I'll drop them out of a moving aircraft to make them go SPLAT if I want to #boxy answers asks #WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE come off anon be my friend and talk to me more about robots

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demoisverysexy · 1 year

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please tell me more about the furry communist revolution novel

It takes place on a world called Labizh, which is inhabited by a race called baynians, which are essentially anthropomorphic wolves/canids. The tech level is around the same as our gilded age, and the country where the novel takes place, Reni, is reminiscent of a western European country in the late 1800s. The novel details the conflict between a growing leftist movement in the lower class comprised of union workers, communists and anarchists, who are clashing against the government, which is comprised both of liberals and fascists. All three groups (liberal, fascist, and communist) are represented by three members of a family of nobles trying to navigate the conflict: House Artak. il-Artak Rashad, Highlord of House Artak, is a capitalist, an imperialist, and a fascist, who is scheming to get more control of the government, and to quell the rising leftist movement. Artak Mila, his daughter, is a philologist who is grudgingly living with her father, but her alliance is with her brother, who is a rising politician in the Liberal faction of parliament, and she feeds him information about Rashad's doings. And Artak Radrio is the bastard son of il-Artak Rashad. He ran away from his father a year ago, and now works at his fathers Steel Mills, and recently became a communist. He hates the nobility, and hopes to hasten a communist revolution, all while trying desperately to escape his father's influence.

#demo speaks #shouting into the void #asks #demo answers

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nerdy-sessions · 2 years

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Far Cry 6 Review: The Tale of "Not Cuba" Under the Rule of "Not Castro"

Alright, let's get this party started with a game review. What better game to start with than one fresh on my mind because I just finished it last week on the PlayStation5.

I will keep it spoiler free. If any of you want my thoughts on the story later and are curious enough, I'll post a more spoiler-y review later.

For those unfamiliar with the Far Cry franchise, each game's plot surrounds taking down some kind of crazy tyrannical bad guy keeping a fictional area under an iron fist. For example, the previous installment, Far Cry 5 (and my personal favorite in the series) saw us in fictional Hope County, Montana, USA, going after a crazy religious cult leader forcing the populace to join with his group or suffer and die.

The latest installment in Ubisoft's FPS franchise takes us to the fictional Caribbean island nation of Yara (aka: basically Cuba). In true Far Cry fashion, "Not Cuba" and her people are suffering from the tyrannical rule of a megalomaniacal dictator, Anton Castillo.

"Not Castro" Castillo is played quite brilliantly by Breaking Bad and The Mandalorian actor Giancarlo Esposito. As far as I know, this is the first time the Far Cry franchise has employed a famous television actor to play their main villain, and my encounters with him in the game were some of my favorite parts.

You play as ex-Yaran army soldier Dani Rojas. Dani can be either male or female, and you pick Dani's gender, and therefore voice and appearance, at the beginning of the game (also a first for the franchise).

Through a series of unfortunate events Dani is lucky enough to survive, Dani ends up fighting for the revolutionary force bent on taking down "Not Castro" called Libertad.

Now some of you may be wondering: What did good ol' Giancarlo do THIS time (he sure plays villains a lot, doesn't he? He's pretty dang good at it...)

Well, "Not Castro" has evidently been enslaving the populace of Yara to produce a supposedly cancer-curing drug called Viviro. Viviro is grown using a poison that the plants love, but sickens and kills humans if exposed to it for too long. Combine this along with other classic fascist tropes like mass killings for speaking out against the government, and you've got yourself quite a messed up government.

You will be tasked with acting as Libertad's muscle and unite the various rebellious factions in Yara against "Not Castro".

You will be using an ungodly amount of customizable weapons, unbelievable furry and scaly animal companions called "amigos" (including a soccer-jersey wearing gator named GUAPO with a golden tooth and a ghost panther that EATS SOULS), a vast array of "Mad Max"-esque and military vehicles (you for real unlock a tank used in a previous revolution in 1967 named "Karlito" that shoots flames), and cobbled together super weapons called "supremos" to achieve victory and overthrow "Not Castro's" fascist regime.

That's the basic premise of the game. If you were looking for a realistic FPS experience, this game isn't for you. None of the Far Cry games are for you, really. BUT. If you wanna feel like an epic, unstoppable freedom fighter with many much guns and explosives, then this game is definitely for you.

Let's start with what I really liked about this game...

PROS:

The size of the map, the island of "Not Cuba" Yara, is incredible. It's definitely the biggest Far Cry game to date. The map is filled with all sorts of missions, outposts and bases to capture (in true Far Cry fashion), treasure hunts, caches to loot for weapons and clothing, and interesting side-characters to meet. I very much enjoyed exploring the island whilst taking down the FND ("Not Castro's" military forces) at every turn.

The map also features the sprawling metropolis of Esperanza, the capital city of "Not Cuba". In another first for the franchise, we get to sneak around and fight in a metropolitan setting. Previous Far Cry games have always been super remote with no big cities. The urban combat in Esperanza was really fun. If you venture to the city though, be warned: the toughest enemies lurk there.

The vast availability of weapons at your disposal was very refreshing. A massive armory of pistols, rifles, shotguns, rocket launchers, bow and arrows, and the aforementioned "supremos" are available for use once unlocked or found, most of them completely customizable (if you have the crafting components).

The "supremos" I mentioned are a unique component to the game and new to the franchise. They are essentially super backpacks you can craft (using depleted Uranium you can loot from the FND...lol such Cold War references) that have different attacks or effects. The game's starting "supremo", the Exterminador, is one I couldn't bring myself to part with. Why? It shoots missiles from your back. MISSILES! That lock onto enemies and blow them to smithereens.

Other "supremos" can do things like release EMP charges that disable vehicles, improve stealth, heal yourself and allies, and so on. I stuck with the missiles, though. For reasons.

Boom.

Now some of you may be thinking that's too OP. Well good news. "Supremos" need to recharge after you use them. So don't go thinking you can use the Exterminador over and over for easy victory. It ain't that simple.

The PS5 ran the game beautifully. The graphics were incredible, and I often found myself just looking around at the tropical landscape of "Not Cuba" as I traveled from place to place. There are small loading times when you fast travel or when you first load up, but they are insanely short and it never bothered me.

Also a first for the franchise, the cutscenes were mostly 3rd-person instead of 1st-person like before. I found that unique and fun to watch. I will admit it did ruin the immersion of it for me at times, but again, not really a big issue for me.

Once you complete the game, you can continue exploring the map and complete any missions you haven't completed in a way that doesn't retcon the story and everything you did. In addition, every real-life week, the FND will recapture a region of the map and all the bases and outposts in that region that you have previously captured. The enemies guarding these retaken regions are strong, and present unique challenges, rewards, and replayability after the game has been completed.

The vehicle selection, as I mentioned before, is really fun. In addition to the Libertad and military vehicles you can unlock, there are 4 special vehicles you can unlock throughout the game that you can customize with weapons, armored plating, and colors (again, provided you have the crafting components).

As you can see, the selection of vehicles is hilariously 1950's and 60's, which "Not Cuba" does well to reflect actual Cuba.

Actor Danny Trejo is in the game for seemingly no reason. He has his own side-mission you do for him and everything (defending him from the FND while he cooks tacos). It's delightfully entertaining.

A FREE STRANGER THINGS DLC MISSION. 'nuff said.

A fighting game-style mini game where you literally use roosters you find around "Not Cuba" in a COCKFIGHTING RING. It's frankly hilarious.

CONS:

My main gripe about Far Cry 6 is the story. In the most non-spoilery way possible, I will try to explain why.

Most of the characters that are a part of the main story are...forgettable. They have you running around doing everything for them; the most you interact with them is via phone when they are telling you what to do. Later, when some of these characters die, it's clear that the game wants you to feel bad, but I didn't. It's hard to feel sympathy for character you barely interact or have chemistry with. There are some side-characters I really enjoyed, though. Like Juan Cortez (the guy that makes your "supremos" for you) who tells you ridiculous stories about toppling countries with the CIA and the KGB...which can't be true...right?

The ending is lame. I expected some kind of big payoff after the main story end; a dramatic conclusion against "Not Castro"...but nope. Just...ends abruptly. Made me feeling unsatisfied with all the work I did.

Your character, Dani, doesn't have an interesting backstory besides the ex-Yaran military thing combined with an orphan trope. As the game goes on, I expected to learn more about Dani, but...he/she is just kinda there in the middle of the revolution. Which, I guess could be interesting? But it really wasn't.

Sometimes, the story has you make decisions that seem pretty important. But they really aren't, and don't have an impact on the story in the long-run.

Moving on from my story gripes, here are a few others:

Ubisoft's games have been pretty buggy lately, haven't they? Assassin's Creed: Valhalla has come under fire for bugs and glitches, and Far Cry 6 is no different, sadly. In addition to standard bugs like clipping and lag, there are potentially story-breaking bugs that can happen. There was a story mission where you have to blow up some rocks over a canyon to stop an FND convoy to steal some supplies. Once all the enemies were taken out, the mission objective was to wait for a certain character to show up and confirm the mission success. I waited for probably about 5 minutes before wandering around the mission area, trying to find the NPC in question. She was trapped behind some of the boulders that came crashing down the canyon as part of the ambush, and I had to reboot the game. Mission-breaking glitches happened like this a couple of times.

I really had no interest in the multiplayer. Usually games like this have fun or interesting co-op or multiplayer scenarios, but Far Cry 6 is lacking. The game tries to get you to do these side-missions (which you can do solo if you want, but it's kinda boring) where you have to steal chemical weapons from the military that overheat and explode if they are in sunlight for too long.

(Try stealing the dang things at night, guys...come on...)

The rewards for doing these optional side missions are lacking, so I didn't have any inspiration to do any more than 1 of them by myself.

There is a co-op feature as well for when you are on the main map doing missions and exploring, but I didn't see the appeal of playing with strangers. At time of writing, none of my friends or family had the game on PS4 or PS5.

There is a real-time, passive mission system that can net you extra rewards in the game called "Benito's Banditos". Essentially, you send Libertad members on missions (that you don't see happen or get to be a part of) and rely on arbitrary percentages to hope the mission doesn't fail catastrophically and get your resistance soldiers killed. Later in the game, I just started ignoring it because my weapons were fully upgraded and I didn't need or want anything else the system could offer. Just ended up taking time for nothing.

There is DLC for this game, by the way.

In addition to the thievery of wanting you to spend real money in their Ubisoft game store for cosmetic items and epic weapons, they also have 3 DLCs out (which can be obtained if you purchase the season pass). Evidently, you get to play as 3 of the previous games' villains (the ones from Far Cry 3, 4, and 5). So...yeah. Haven't played the DLC and don't plan on it right now. If I ever do, I'll add another review for them later. I doubt it, though. I don't have the season pass, and alone, each of the 3 cost about 20 bucks.

I'll have to look into them further...see if they are worth it. Maybe you guys have played them and have comments. I'd love to hear from you.

Overall, Far Cry 6 is a decent addition to the franchise. It definitely isn't as engaging or gripping as the previous 3 entries in the series, but it was a a good deal of fun anyway (if you aren't a stickler for good stories like I am, maybe you would rank it as bit higher).

My final score is:

3.8/5

Let me know your thoughts on Far Cry 6!

And remember,

~Viva Libertad!

#far cry 6 #review #gaming #ps5 console #funny content #giancarlo esposito #danny trejo #revolution #viva libertad #far cry #ubisoft #nerd #nerd talks

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