It absolutely reeks of desperation, too. When you can't sell on hype, fear is the next thing you move towards.
Owls are adorable. They always look so stern and serious and then you see these videos of them on youtube taking a bath and realize they're just little goofs, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA2Iyw6V9gk
Ask a dozen people, get a dozen answers. I think the main tenet is just acceptance: if someone says they're X species, then it's true because they say it. And by that grace when I say I'm Y, so be it. I think most people realize it's a silly game, but in that respect it's a bit of a litmus test in that can you just play along or do you gotta be a dick about it?
Personally I used to take it a lot more seriously when I was younger. Staunchly a no-nonsense red fox with a back story etc. etc. I thought mythicals and hybrids were goofy, but it's tiring to be so uptight. Tried to identify heavily with one thing because I thought that's how you built a sense of self but eventually learned you can just do whatever you want, there are no rules. Cringe is dead, sparkledogs are unironically back in style.
Now I'm a sea slug. I don't know if I think that reflects who I am or maybe just more what I want to be: stoic, cute, utterly devoid of bones. It doesn't really matter so much as it's just a thing I like. A little character to pour some of my creativity into. Whenever I'm having a bad day I can just go online and look at pictures of sea slugs and cheer myself up because it's that simple. Sometimes I get a message from a friend with a picture of slug in it that says, "look it's you" and it makes me smile. It's a little bridge that keeps me anchored to the world when I got nothing else going on.
Posting from pawb.social, I don't want this to come off as too self-aggrandizing, but there are two communities people should start watching and learning from for the post-corporate internet: furries and speedrunners.
Furries: If you've ever wondered why there seem to be so many furries in tech and cyber security, there's a good reason. They were some of the first digital natives to colonize the early internet; use it to connect distant weirdos into an online community. The core pillar of the fandom is simple and non-commercial: be a silly animal. This is an important distinction to the Bronies and Juggalos (no shade, much respect, but I gotta call out what's true). The overt horniness and subversiveness of the culture makes it impossible for marketing and outside interests to take hold. We chased Tony the Tiger off Twitter (RIP). I'm not saying things have always been perfect, I think in the earlier days of the 90's and 00's the push towards extreme inclusiveness prevented pushing out a lot of the worse elements, but the community has been much better about calling these things out these days. Extremely queer, socialist, and anti-fascist - these are the elements that build that strong sense of support.
Speedrunners: While it does break a bit from the core pillar of not being centered around commercialized products, I do think there's still a great amount of leeway with how those products are used in the context and also good integration with the indie community. There is no one central product. And out of that has sprung an extremely organized, self-policing, self-motivated group. These people invest hours meticulously tearing code apart by the seams just because they can and if there's anyone I believe can save us from AI through the shear brute force terror of human cognition, it's the speedrunners. It's no coincidence that the largest organization and charitable event is also very queer and inclusive with significant furry overlap.
I know furries are weird and not for everyone (although I do think it's odd you don't know what animal you'd be ... come on, you don't have one in mind?) but I think it's very much worth taking a look at the community from a higher perspective and figuring out why it has succeeded and will continue to succeed and how you can bring those things to your communities, whatever they may be: climbing, cycling, coffee, crochet, DIY, etc.
Theoretically, I'm all onboard with the night shower arguments. I'd love to be a night shower person. But I don't think I'm physically capable of waking up in the morning without the shower routine.
I miss Pictures for Sad Children. I feel like it got Seinfelded but this shit hit like a 10 ton truck back in ~08 and it feels more relevant than ever. Hope she found peace?
I appreciate how angry this post seems to have made some people. Maybe I've just been in the furry fandom too long. I feel nothing anymore.
Can you believe it guys? AGI, just a week away! AGI is in a week! Woo-hoo! I am so happy about this information. AGI, just a week away. Oh, wow! Can you believe it? AGI, just in a week! It got here so fast! AGI, just a-
Halo.
Look, I'm not saying it's a bad game or you're a bad person for liking it, but man, I have never been able to see the appeal. As someone who has played a lot of shooters (mostly PC) and read a lot of sci-fi, I find it exceptionally mid. And I'm not really fan of the militaristic reverence vibe it's got going on like .. bleh. Does it actually criticize this more as the series goes on or is it really just all oorah? I also kind of blame it for the trends of vehicle segments and only holding two weapons that leaked into other FPSes at the time (looking at you Bioshock Infinite - WTF), although I do admit that's more of a petty, personal point. I respect that it pushed FPSes and online multiplayer forward on consoles, but when people tell me it's their favorite game with one of the best storylines ever I'm like, "But have you played any other games?"
I used to work in a game store back when Halo 3 released and I was a much more fervent hater back then, I decided I was gonna play the original Marathon games so I could be a hipster snob and hate on them, too. Actually ended up really loving them, though they're only loosely related, I think they had a lot more going on stylistically and story-wise even though the gameplay was more primitive.
I retry every few years, but never get very far. Maybe I should skip to 2 because one is so bland I get bored of it.
Yeah so Lennart Poettering is on the Executive team of Amutable (https://amutable.com/about), how do we feel about that? Remind me again how the open source community feels about trusted computing ... https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.html
People need to remember that slippery slope is a very specific fallacy where a hyperbolic chain of events is not backed up by supporting evidence.
If we allow gay marriage people will want to marry their dogs!
While none of us can possibly know where this ends, this is preemptive compliance with privacy invading measures that are practically indistinguishable from the kind of overreaching control desired by malicious parties. This is a much stronger case and even IF this is the last step, there's no reason to take it in the first place.
It's morally correct to loudly object at every step, that's how you fight this.
https://bsky.app/profile/mkt-draw.bsky.social/post/3mal2ugdmzc27
"Shall we go? ※FA"
Look at these vulpixes, they're so cute, I'm dying.
High Score: 1,324,627,321 on Area 5 with 0 continues - Bomb mode.
The Battle Was Just to Continue that Future
I made it past the midboss, but Area 5 is RIDICULOUS and I am never getting that 1 CC. That's fine, I'm still very proud of this. I never thought I would be into bullet hells, they seemed frustrating and out of my reach, but now I play them to relax. Once you crack them they're really not so intimidating and very conducive to flow state. Cave makes some of the absolute best and I adore the crunchy 2D pixel work. Also highly recommend Espgaluda and Mushihimasama Futari. I also have a soft spot for Deathsmiles, ESPRa.De., and Muchi Muchi Pork. For non-Cave stuff, Raizing's Armed Police Batrider and Sorcer Striker/Dimahoo are great as well as Psiykyo's Dragon Blaze.
Seriously, give them a try. Fire up MAME where you can pump infinite virtual quarters into them, pick one to focus on and see what you can do. You might be surprised.
Finally! As someone who has played the only(?) available English translation of "I am an Air Traffic Controller: Airport Hero" on the 3DS, my time has COME!
What's that? Drug test? .......... Nevermind.