@kianga Thanks for your perspective! I don't think you need to be hesitant to boost things like this in the future because it's impossible to handle this in a way that makes everyone happy. Like I said many times in the past, it's just the nature of microblogging to be incredibly bad at being a social platform, yet somehow be addictive as heck. Personally, I'd rather people be authentic.
And it doesn't help that between this text there's a smug looking fox with human clothes. Why is there always this smugness in these kind of images? Why do people like this?
Over the last 2 days, a piece of art has gotten boosted to my timeline on a certain blue platform, and it's of the "You feel like an animal? Just be one" variety. I hate it so much. Yes, just let me slip out of this human shell to become an animal, it's easy, what could be holding me back except fucking reality??? Bah.
It doesn't help that microblogging is a horrible platform type that doesn't allow me to filter this stuff. I could mute the people I follow who boosted it and miss their overwhelmingly fine posts. I could mute the artist and miss their overwhelmingly fine art. This is bullshit.
@rawenwolf It isn't necessarily that severe. I don't think we're a cult here, but some people have very strong reactions if you point out the ways fedi sucks and they will try to invalidate your points by branding you "the enemy". It's not uncommon.
Another example: There's a lot about the process of commissioning furry artists that's not great. Sometimes you wait endlessly, other times you can't even ask for a commission because some people have nothing better to do than wait for their favorite artists to open slots and immediately snatch them. I can also see how AI image generators can help. But if I ever explained this, I would expect to receive significant backlash from artists. It wouldn't matter that I'm an artist myself, or that I don't use image generators; if I pointed out anything positive about AI compared to artists, I would become the enemy.
Writing this post about Bluesky/ATProto reminded me again just how widespread the idea is that criticism of "your own team" is seen as traitorous. It's such a wild clash with my personal belief that I need to be critical especially of "my team" because I want it to improve. Acting like it's flawless isn't an act of loyalty, it's irresponsible and closes the doors to better outcomes.
I wanted to have something containing "three" because I got three characters now. I also believe that number won't increase anytime soon (though if it does, then I'll be fine with it, too).
So I tried different arrangements until I had one I liked. And there's one more reading for this one that's surprisingly fitting and relevant: it resembles the pattern you get with the double-slit experiment which demonstrates that light and matter behave like both waves and particles. A happy coincidence.
What's interesting about all the characters I've been making for myself is that they're basically a revisiting of my past. As a child, I wanted to be a bird. As a teen, a dragon. There was also a short wolf phase. Then fox.
Then I came up with my wyvern, recently Areon (wolf-ish), and now it's going to be a bird of some kind. The nice thing is that I don't feel I need to decide between them anymore. I can just embrace all of them because why the fuck not?
"average fedi user has 5 accounts" factoid actually just statistical error. average fedi user has 1.2 acounts. Volpeon, who has 1520 accounts, is an outlier adn should not have been counted"
@RunawayDanish Heh, I can imagine people getting weird about this. When I used to be more active in furry spaces, I got random RP out of nowhere at times that made me feel pretty uncomfortable. I'm generally not the type who likes to go nuzzles and stuff. I do think that Bluesky user is doing a good job threading the needle to make it work, though. Their posts are written as if a sapient non-human used social media and lived in a human society, and they only reply to people who are receptive to this.
Volpeon Extra
@areon@icy.wyvern.rip