Blog blog blog thread

[minacia]

Social engineering, social engineering~

What does it take to build a community?

I actually watched minecraft for the first time in my life (...lol I'm 26 and never watched a single minecraft video on youtube before today, isn't that something?), and in minecraft you build stuff!

Build build build build!

How do you build a community though?

Is there a recipe book?

It's something I've thought about a lot since I've been in a number of different communities throughout the years... at different levels of the staff hierarchy (or non-hierarchy) throughout the years. Also, I've always been a senpai, actually. Like IRL, I'm almost always end up as the oldest one... and I've been the captain/president figure in a number of different situations...

I end up thinking about community/team dynamics a lot.

Or more critically, what are things that can be done to modify it?

Why do people choose to stay in a community and why do they leave?

Ka-cha ka-cha!

It's weird how sometimes being loud is important too.

 

[minacia]

If I'm writing more than one blog-like post a day, is that a problem?

Anyway, a bit of this is NSFW so it gets stuffed into a spoiler:

Spoiler: NSFW

So as you may know from the previous posts, I've been rolling around the hololive rabbithole for the past week.

I recently discovered that gawr gura (the famous aaaaa shark)'s prior online identity was senzawa, who was most famous for the rawr x3 copypasta video. If you're unfamiliar with it... I dare you to click it for the NSFW-ness!

It was my first time seeing it, so I was curious about the background behind that copypasta, so there are these two entries on Knowyourmeme:

• Rawr x3 / You So Warm
• Notices Bulge / OwO What's This?

As you might notice, the copypasta makes fun of furries (not necessarily in an negative way), which IMO got me thinking about things... again...!

So I've mentioned before (if not here, somewhere else), that I was effectively a furry in middle/high school without being really aware of it.

Like I was part of animal roleplaying sites (think neopets, warriors cats) and we roleplayed as wolves and cats and stuff, and I had multiple fursonas over the years. I mainly only liked stories with animals (or shapeshifters), and I liked roleplaying as animals.

I laughed watching the video (shown in the spoiler above) and also the copypasta because we really did talk that way. Like all the *glomps* nuzzles rawr and OwO and that hyper-affectionate chat style. I never really associated it with anything lewd/bad because the forums that I were on were all PG-13, and I was legit like a 14-year-old teenager and just having fun with my online friends.

It's strange because I definitely "grew up" in those communities...

That was just sort of normal for me.

Like it was the first Internet communities I was part of, and really the only places on the Internet I was active on for like 6 years (age 12-18).

It always confused me why furries had such a bad reputation on the Internet.

Like, seriously what was wrong with having a fursona? My middle/high school friends were all super nice! We're all super positive and loving and affectionate with nice vibes! I mean, I grew up in those communities, so it makes sense that my current personality is heavily influenced by that kind of stuff even though I "outgrew" it in my mid-20's.

I mean... imo the art is really creative and amazing. I think it's really awesome when people come up with really cool animals/dragons/fantasy creatures and use it as their persona (or fursona), whether for roleplay or other purposes.

Even right now, I'm still really fond of shapeshifters and stuff. My favorite novel in high school was all about shapeshifters, and I was addicted to werewolves because they could shapeshift.

I think over time, the only kind of quasi-furry that's currently acceptable is the "nekomimi" but...

Seriously, you can't deny that cat ears are the best.

And a tail. You can't forget the tail.

Is it bad?

I still never understood why people hated furries... @.@

Not all furries are lewd! Especially the younger ones! I was like 13 at the time, and basically nobody on the animal roleplaying sites I was part of were lewd.... I mean, obviously I got more lewd when I grew up and fell into the anime rabbit hole (I think the anime fandom is genuinely lewd), but back then I was only a teenager!!! It was really wholesome!

We just wanted to spend time with our horses and cats and wolves and stuff.......

 

[minacia]

One of my favorite anime of all time is Gatchaman Crowds, which coincidentally contains one of my favorite characters: Hajime Ichinose

She's one of the anime characters that I admire most, and for a long while I really wished I could be more like her.

Gatchaman Crowds is a superhero anime, but it's actually a deconstruction of the genre in the sense that it's not an ordinary superhero anime. Hajime, the protagonist, eschews many values typical for a superhero.

Rather than be a hero of justice who destroys evil, she's... more true neutral?

Her character acts far more as a mediator than a brute-force hero. Her social stuffs is super high, and she's quite empathetic (in a weird way), particularly for the villains in the series. You might say this sounds like typical magical girl idealism, but Hajime isn't idealistic either. Like she'll still fight the bad guys, but she's just always conscious of the fact they have their own motivations.

Frankly, she's rather more pragmatic, and she'll seek a way to avoid a fight (by working together with anyone present) rather than flying in with guns blazing.

I really admired so many different things here...

Has anyone else ever had a character/person they really admired and wished they could be more like?

I've actually never played undertale, but I'm stupidly fond of that theme of pacifist vs. killing run.

Anyways, here's a video about how cool Gatchaman Crowds is for being insightful about things (it's actually very political).

 

[minacia]

I’m writing too many blogs! Somebody stop me!

But on the good side, at least this way I’m not spamming threads.

I wonder why I don’t really like toxic things. It’s my main complaint (despair?) about the Internet.

I feel like I have some existentialist-nihilistic acceptance of the fact that the Internet is somewhat toxic by nature, and therefore by extension human nature is somewhat toxic by default.

What does toxicity even mean, anyways?

I’m not even totally sure.

I was checking urban dictionary are they refer to toxicity especially with reference to online gaming.

Maybe gaming culture is toxic?

Huh.

I dunno. I don’t really play games so I can’t really comment that much about it.

Again, I tend to raise superheroes that are untoxic onto a pedestal, so perhaps it’s strange that the same things keep arising again and again in my stream of throught writing.

Maybe I should write a hippie superhero...

Huh... maybe I should start another story...

Like I want to do hippie without being cute. People tend to make their “love and justice” heroines really cute, but I want to avoid the cute element and really develop something less superficial as a theme.

I guess a protagonist that I can admire, maybe.

 

[NotYourTypicalMan]

Ill accept anything as a waifu except furries and reptile.


COME AT ME HOMIEEE!!!

 

[minacia]

More hololive ...but I keep getting inspired about certain topics thanks to it.

So today I was watching videos of various vtubers talking about something emotional and crying (lol).

There was this one clip by Ina about creative burnout:

There was one section of the clip when she says: "There was a few years of my life where I felt like I wasted... a lot of time... (nervous laugh) ...mhm... I talked about how I raided a lot in a game called Final Fantasy XIV (laughs)... mhm... I raided a lot because... I didn't have that much to look forward to every week (laughs)... but every Tuesday reset, I was like 'Wow, I can finally go into the raids again'. That was one of the one things I could enjoy at that time (laughs) but... as much as I played the game a lot... I also felt like I wasted a few years of my life... just playing video games all day and not focusing on real-life stuff..."

I dunno! It was really profound to sort of hear that, I guess.

It caught my attention because I feel like there are probably a lot of people who can relate to that kind of... depressing phase...

I really actually want to make a poll on this topic! Except I feel like it's too embarrassing to make a hololive-inspired poll, so instead I ended up sticking it in a blog just wondering about how often it is for people to stall in their lives... not going anywhere.

You know... that kind of heavy stuff.

I'm always really curious about anyone who's experienced it.

 

[SternenklarenRitter]

The other night I dreamed I was a psychic fungus that lived inside the brains of all humans across the world. I shared in the tears and laughter of the whole world, granted them courage for their trials and comforted them on lonely nights, all at the same time.

 

[minacia]

Dropping inspiration videos for the new novel I'm working on.

Generally speaking I've ben looking for high-pitched male singers and low-pitched female singers.

Obviously jimin and aimer comes to mind, but I've been searching as much as I can!

 

[minacia]

Boop! Placing a bookmark.