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Review: Travels _**Travels**_ Erin Lee Transcendent Fiction April 2026 Print Edition A$20.00 Ebook Edition A$5.99 It’s common—especially in macrophile circles, furry or otherwise—for sci-fi stories to postulate meeting aliens of wildly different sizes. _Travels_ is unusual in making the Terrans the universe’s giants: the other major races in known space range from about house pet-sized down to insect-sized. In this alternate universe, Terrans are all furries (there are no humans), and first contact with aliens happened in the early twenty-first century. Several generations have passed, and Terrans are still adjusting to being thrust all at once into a post-scarcity, multi-sophont universe. (_Sophont_ is a term for all intelligent interstellar species.) Less novel than fictional travelogue, the book chronicles a months-long grand trip through known space started on a whim by Terran fox woman Erin Lee. (Yes, the author of the book.) In her foreword, she writes, > I was bored, so I decided that if all I was going to do with my life was smoking weed and playing video games, I’d at least do it in some of the most incredible places beyond my imagining. Erin becomes our amiable, chatty and self-deprecating guide to the universe, each chapter taking her to a new planet and new set of sophonts. She starts, of all places, on Earth: while she was born there, she grew up on a different planet, All Hallows, and has no real memories of her birth planet. She visits Rio, then Dadaab in Kenya (or “former Kenya,” as apparently Earth has no countries anymore), which has a large population of Odst, the second most common sophonts in the universe and the second largest. They’re described as “about as tall as most of the formerly domestic dogs of Earth on four long spindly legs, [with] four long arms underneath their torsos.” This is another striking aspect of _Travels._ Unlike settings where the aliens are basically all furries, Lee’s aliens are genuinely alien, if still comprehensible and often cute. This section also clues you in to how woefully unprepared Erin is for the adventure she’s embarking on. She’s not in danger from exotic alien threats as much as from poor sleep, forgetting to eat, and heat stroke. She’ll do multiple things throughout her tale that will make you facepalm, even as she remains painfully relatable. Her post-Earth adventures take her to the cosmopolitan multi-sophont Wolfram, where she meets up with her dog girlfriend Jay and maned wolf friend (boyfriend?) Phox; back through Terran settlements All Hallows, Socotra’s Child, and New Danube; then into more alien space. Aanteg is the homeworld of the Pael, the oldest and far and away most populous species in the universe. They’re centimeter-high insectoids, functionally immortal, and the effective rulers of known space, although their “rule” is, most of the time, a light touch. Erin’s entry into Pael territory is an introduction to just how advanced the Pael are past Terrans. (Other sophonts are as well, but the Pael operate at another technology-indistinguishable-from-magic level.) Past Aanteg, Erin visits Rrqash, the home of the Dyelmen (“six-legged mouse-sized ferret-shaped obligate omnivores with many eyes and many truths”), and finally to Odst space and a planet known as The Oldest Place, with its capital city, Undefeated Forever. A narrative constructed like a travel memoir lives or dies on its descriptions—the ability to paint vivid images with words—and the personality of its narrator. _Travels_ delivers on both counts. Erin is a tourist with a knack for going off the beaten path, finding both typical sightseeing spots and local hangouts, and her successes and, perhaps even more, her failures along the way give her journey a realistic grounding. The story marries the scope and imagination of golden age science fiction worldbuilding with a modern, queer sensibility. _Travels_ is a trip worth going out of your way for. https://giants-club.net/articles/review-travels/

17 days ago

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Planning stories A lot of writers—especially aspiring ones, but also well-established ones—don’t like talking about planning and especially don’t like talking about story structure. I get that, but let’s talk about why it’s important, using myself as a bad example (hi!): it will, almost without exception, make your story better. In general, I start stories, no matter how short or long, with three touchstones borrowed from the late editor/publisher Algis Budrys: * a character * in a specific context (milieu and/or situation) * with a problem The character, in this case, is the story’s protagonist. In all but the rarest cases, I want another character for the first to bounce off of. This is _not_ the antagonist, but a “catalyst,” someone who challenges the protagonist’s thinking in some way. (Most stories have antagonists, too, but not all: there’s no antagonist in “Drinking Game” or “Regulars”, but there’s a catalyst character in both.) By the time you get to novella length like _Goddess_ or _Big Trouble,_ though, you need more structure: a plot with rising tension/action, an arc for major characters. You don’t need a capital-O Outline, but it helps to at least have major “turning points” in mind. This is what I learned as the “Plot W”: While the two lower points usually get labeled “Act I Turn” and “Act II Turn” as they are here, I think the W describes a _four_ -act structure. But that’s kvetching about semantics. If you’re a writing nerd, you might recognize this as a cousin of Dan Wells’s Seven-Point Story Structure. An inciting incident kicks your protagonist out of their status quo. You have major turning points, try/fail cycles, stakes that matter to the characters (and the reader), and a new status quo at the end. So here’s why some writers don’t like talking about this sort of stuff: they see it as a prescriptive “formula” that locks them into some kind of paint-by-numbers framework. By gum, _they’re_ not going to fall into the trap of writing anything like an action thriller that (checks notes) made a billion dollars at the box office. That would sure suck! Seriously, there _is_ overly prescriptive advice out there, like Blake Snyder’s (in)famous Save the Cat! formula. Although understanding why _Save the Cat!_ works—and it does—will still make you a better writer. But tools like the Plot W or the Seven-Point Structure are _descriptive,_ tools that help you build a solid story. Understanding story structure doesn’t force you into a paint-by-numbers framework any more than understanding sentence structure does. Okay. Do you know the terms “plotters” and “pantsers”? Plotters are obsessive outliners, and pantsers hate outlining and write “by the seat of their pants”. At least, that’s the stereotype. In practice, nearly all pantsers plan whether or not they recognize it, nearly all plotters write without a net occasionally whether or not they recognize it, and most writers—like me—fall between the two extremes. Some pantsers intuitively lock in on a structure. A couple of times I managed that with novellas, but for _years_ I couldn’t write something novel-length to save my life. What got me over the hump was a residential writing workshop, the Ad Astra Novel Architects. What that taught me I needed was, in a real sense, more structure. A sense not just of the turning points and the big set pieces I had in my head, but of arcs for _all_ the major characters. Even if it wasn’t a conventional outline, the plan needed to show me where I was missing crucial scenes. How did it do that? If you’re using the Plot W—which I learned about at that workshop—you fill in scenes along each leg like bullet points. (In _The Turning_, the first few scenes along the first leg read “Moira & Diana”, “Moira & Hazel,” “Celestial starts tracking”, “Moira & Stetson”, “Celestial’s first failed intervention”.) These don’t have to be complete, they may change as you start writing, yadda yadda yadda—but you want a roughly equal number of scenes along each leg, say nine or ten. What you usually find when you start plotting is that you have a _lot_ on the first leg, a little on the second, and maybe one or two set pieces on the third and fourth. It’s a great visual aid to show you the parts of your story you haven’t thought enough about yet. _Saida & Autumn_, the serial that opened my Patreon, was roughly plotted ahead of time. I left room for lots of “discovery writing” along the way, but I knew I was doing a kind of story I’d never done before: a romance with dual protagonists, where Autumn is Saida’s catalyst character and vice versa. _Moira_ was rather infamously under-plotted at first, but I got much more rigorous when I realized I was actually writing a novel rather than a few vignettes. But by the time I started doing novellas like Big Trouble and Gates here, I got confident about less planning—I’d started to internalize it. _Big Trouble_ needed the mystery worked out ahead of time, of course, but a lot of the details were ad hoc. And _Hurricane_ (currently only on Fur Affinity and Patreon) was…well, as I was finishing it I thought it was half-baked. But I’d developed enough of a sense for plot structure that I managed a decent job without ever finishing a Plot W for it. (I’ve reread it since and think it holds together better than I’d thought.) Okay, so now we get to my 2025/2026 Patreon serial, _Mus Numena._ I thought it would be more novella than novel: a word count of 20–30K, not the 100K it ended at. So, hey, I just pantsed it, and even when it was quickly clear it was a bigger story than I’d thought, I kept doing it. I thought it’d be fine! I had an ending in mind from fairly early on, even if I didn’t know how I’d get there. But, well, _was_ it fine? Let’s go back to those three touchstones: * a character * in a context * with a problem I have my protagonist, Ted Bishop, and I have a context—a situation and milieu—for him at the start: our world, Silicon Valley, middle-aged IT dude, well-off but not rich, and recently having ended a long-term relationship. But what’s Ted’s _problem?_ He had a breakup, but it didn’t really play into the story much as written. He works for a tech company that’s shit, but that’s not a problem for him at the story’s start, at least. So that’s probably not it, either. Hmm. Aurora, a genetically-engineered mouse woman, asks him for help! That kicks off the real plot! So that’s his problem, right? Well, no: that’s the story’s inciting incident. Russell’s problem in _Goddess_ is his rigid life outlook. Saida’s problem in _Saida & Autumn_ is that she has PTSD from the experience that gave her a reincarnation ability, turning it from something amazing to something she hates. Autumn’s problems involve her family’s reactions to her being transgender (and giant), and the looming uncertainty most college students face as graduation approaches. These all give the characters their own arcs—their problems are resolved by the events in the story’s overall plot. This, then, points at the heart of the muddle: Ted doesn’t have much of an arc. Actually, with the possible exception of Aurora, _nobody_ has that much of one. So while I had a destination in mind for the overall plot, the journey ended up a meandering ramble. You know what would have helped me a lot here? ∗cue _Jaws_ music, with a Plot W diagram slowly rising to the surface∗ In fact, I should have had a character arc defined for several major characters, figured out how to get the real villains involved earlier, had more satisfying ends for a few of them, given a few side characters more do to, and probably come up with a scene or two that would make readers cry. _I should have planned._ To be clear, I genuinely like a lot of _Mus Numena._ I like the characters. A theoretical future rewrite would keep many of the same set pieces and plot turns. But a lot of the problems I had writing this one came from getting too far on the pantser side of the divide for my own good this time around. Okay, so: if you, imagined reader of this, want to apply this lesson to your stories, how can you? First and foremost, _don’t be afraid of structure._ When you learn about story theory, it gives you a lens to examine your ideas with, fill them out, make them stronger. The idea of main character vs. catalyst character as a dynamic pair separate from antagonist vs. protagonist comes from Dramatica Story Theory, which models stories as arguments over how to solve a central thematic problem. Dramatica used to be available in great (if eclectic) brainstorming software, but is now stuck in a very expensive subscription-based AI web app pitched at TV and film studios. * Where’s your protagonist at the story’s _start_ and where is she at the _end?_ If you nail this, you’ve started both the overall plot arc and her character arc. * What’s the antagonist’s goal, and how is it in conflict with the protagonist’s goal? The central tension in your story’s overall plot arc comes from these two goals being mutually exclusive. * Who’s the catalyst character, and how does her interaction with the main character play out? The central tension in your story’s theme comes from this relationship. * What’s the consequence if the protagonist doesn’t achieve their goal? What are the stakes—for both the overall plot and the protagonist personally? What’s the cost of achieving that goal? If you’re used to pantsing everything, answering these questions before you start writing—let alone working out a Plot W or a Seven-Point Structure—almost certainly sounds horrible and/or terrifying. And, you may be positive that _you,_ specifically, just don’t need it: you’ve done great before without it. You may not be wrong! Like I said, sometimes people naturally hit on a solid structure. I’ve done it myself! Sometimes. But when I started thinking about structure, I undeniably started doing _better._ Novellas stopped being hit-or-miss; novels started being possible. Even my shortest stories improved. And, yes, I started internalizing a lot of this, and stopped having to do quite as much planning. But, as I just painfully relearned, _Mus Numena_ would have been better if it had been constructed more thoughtfully. Even as long as I’ve been doing this—since the invention of the electric light bulb, more or less—I can’t _consistently_ naturally fall into a great structure spread over a hundred thousand words. Maybe you can, but if you’re struggling, try learning a bit more about structure. And if you’re sure you don’t need it, learn enough to evaluate one of your older works through a structural lens. You might be surprised at what you see. https://giants-club.net/articles/planning-stories/

about 2 months ago

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Review: The Eternal Party _**The Eternal Party**_ H. ”Dark End” Townsend FurPlanet Productions July 2024 Print Edition $19.95 Ebook Edition $9.95 (DRM-free) _The Eternal Party_ is a story about a cat woman who (seemingly?) accidentally stumbles into a magical house where a never-ending sex party has been running for decades. The house’s “enchantments enforce two ironclad rules: ‘canines command and felines obey,’ and ‘you can only enter if you want to be here’” (quoting the blurb). Except Mila _doesn’t_ want to be there, and the house won’t let her leave. Sounds like an excuse to just write a whole bunch of kink scenes, right? There are indeed a whole bunch. Here’s what _The Eternal Party_ also is: a story about navigating grief. The story opens with the most classic of haunted house clichés: taking shelter in a spooky, seemingly deserted manor house whose door locks behind you. As Mila finds herself in the midst of a soirée that’s both elegant and startlingly kinky, she’s discovered by Alonso, a fox who’s even more startled by her presence than she is at being there. He quickly outlines the rules above, adding, “I can protect you, but you have to say that you are mine,” but she has to say it and _mean_ it: it must be her choice. Now, you might imagine where the story’s going to go from there, but Alonso means what he says about protecting her—and about trying to help her find out how to leave. He and his friend Aisha the jackal explain that Mila came in through the _side_ door, something that shouldn’t be possible: except that, once in a while, it is, and people who have no interest in the Eternal Party become trapped there. The story _is_ about Mila and Alonso exploring one another’s kinks, but it’s not a dark story, at least not in the ways its blurb, and a superficial description of the premise, suggests it might be. All the sex is consensual, safety tacitly enforced by the enchantments embedded in the house. There is no antagonist in _The Eternal Party_ in any conventional sense, either, only mysteries both magical and mundane: both Mila and Alonso have personal tragedies in their past, trauma they haven’t resolved. I was surprised at how emotionally invested I became in the stories of all three main characters, and even the story of the house itself (which is, in its own way, a fourth main character). Hot take here: making sex scenes necessary to a story’s plot or character arcs is actually pretty damn hard. Erotica stories, particularly shorter ones, often have just barely enough plot to maneuver the characters into the sex scenes; the ones with well-developed throughlines and character development often could have their explicit scenes deleted without materially changing the work. _The Eternal Party_ pulls off making the sex integral to the larger plot. And in an odd way, that makes it a little frustrating: this is one of the best furry novels I’ve read recently, with rich, complex characters, believable dialogue, intriguing worldbuilding, and polished writing, but I know I can’t recommend it without hesitation to everyone. However, as long as you _are_ cool with a lot of kinky sex—no, probably more than you’re imagining right now— _The Eternal Party_ is a terrific read. https://giants-club.net/articles/review-eternal-party/

about 2 months ago

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Review: Symphony of Shifting Tides _**Symphony of Shifting Tides**_ _Elancia Chronicles_ Leilani Wilson & Emma Carruthers Transcendent Fiction Publishing June 2025 Print Edition A$40.00 Ebook Edition $3.99 Despite being nominated for a Cóyotl Award, _Symphony of Shifting Tides_ slid under my radar when its first edition, published by now-defunct Goal Publications, came out in 2019. It was re-released in an extensively revised version last year by Australia’s Transcendent Fiction Publishing, now credited to two authors—the original was credited only to Wilson. Goal apparently demanded changes to make the book more appropriate for YA audiences; this iteration definitely seems aimed at adults, even if many of the characters are relatively young. There are many characters, places, and ideas in _Shifting Tides,_ but the nominal protagonist is a “fox-kin” named Verse, an apathetic, amoral and extremely prickly ne’er-do-well making a living as a pirate at the story’s opening. Verse and their partner in crime, rabbit-kin Xan, live in the world of Elancia, which is largely at war with itself. Different political and religious factions fight over gods—gods who are real, and occasionally walk the earth—and dwindling resources as the oceans slowly die a strange, magical death. Xan and Verse find themselves caught up in a war between two countries, Dascillia and Celestion, with assassins inexplicably targeting _them._ As they flee, they accumulate traveling companions who come and go at various points: Cecelia the magic-using and extremely eccentric young bat-kin, Karina the giant dog-kin soldier, and more, from generals to more assassins to a troupe of traveling performers. (Note that giant in Karina’s case is around seven feet tall—not giant to Arilin’s IC standards, but pretty tall by most people’s.) Layered on top of all this intrigue is, well, more intrigue. The only place Verse feels safe is in dreams—and in those dreams, Verse is definitively female, comforted by her dreamworld sister Lyrikos. In the waking world, Verse is male but rather androgynous, and some of the few times “he” seems happy involves finding beautiful dresses. Observant readers will guess that Verse is trans _very_ early on, but Verse hasn’t figured that out by the story’s end. As the novel progresses, we learn Verse isn’t the only one who has secrets, or isn’t what they seem. Xan has his secrets, as does Cecelia, as does Karina, as does Basil the bat-kin night—as does Lyrikos, who, it becomes increasingly clear, is _not_ a figment of Verse’s imagination. Verse has holes in her memory, and Lyrikos may be responsible for them—but even that is more complicated than it might appear at first glance. If I had to sum up this novel in one sentence it would be: _this is a lot, y’all._ This is the first volume of a projected four-volume series, and it’s over 200,000 words on its own. We’re not even getting into how _Elancia Chronicles_ is a series of concept albums in addition to novels, drawing inspiration from JRPGs. (I presume the cover design is meant to evoke that look.) There’s a lot to admire here, from the extensive and imaginative world-building to the themes of queer self-discovery and neurodivergence to the literary style. The milieu has the texture and trappings of fantasy, but there are glimmers of not just technology but futuristic technology here and there; both humans and non-anthropomorphic animals exist in the world. Is this actually far in Earth’s future, on this planet or a distant one? That may not be a question that’s ever answered, but this is the kind of story that makes you ask the question, and I love that. The adventure aspects are thrilling, and nearly all the characters, even relatively minor ones, feel complex and well-developed. I have a few nitpicks, to be sure, some of which fall into the “things editors should probably tell you not to do” bucket. Many characters, including Verse, have strong accents, and I wished the text had followed the oft-repeated advice to establish that early with a few examples and then _stop_ rendering it phonetically in a heavy-handed fashion. If you do it right, readers are hearing the voice in their heads without having to decipher the text. And, while this might be a choice unique to the ebook edition, a quirky monospaced typeface gets used for extensive stretches of text. (Please don’t.) Also, as crazy as it is to say about a novel this long, the last act feels rushed: another editing pass which shortened the first half—even at the cost of some darling-killing—could have opened up space. The most striking thing about _Shifting Tides,_ though, is that it was gripping enough to keep me reading despite Verse being such a difficult character to like. She actively resists being likable; she’s emotionally detached and all too frequently openly hostile to those trying to offer help. Yet despite that, I still rooted for her—while at the same time rooting for someone to successfully navigate her defenses and get through to her. I’ve never had the experience before of identifying with someone I so much wanted to slap the shit out of. This is an intriguing story with an exquisitely flawed, compelling lead. Of note: if you’re an ebook buyer, this is a particular bargain at only $4. (I don’t know what the paperback price will be from North American and European distributors; as of this writing, $40 AUD is about $28 USD.) https://giants-club.net/articles/review-shifting-tides/

3 months ago

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Review: Crystallization _**Crystallization**_ _To Crack a Geode: Book 2_ Runa Fjord FurPlanet Productions December 2025 Print Edition $19.95 Ebook Edition $9.95 (DRM-free) FurPlanet has been on a tear with the Korps Universe novels, furry’s first shared universe franchise in many years (the only other one that comes to mind is MU Press’s _The Furkindred_ from 1991). Now, the first “second issue” of a Korps novel has arrived: _Crystallization_ is the direct sequel to _Dissolution_, the story of Korps villain Starshade’s encounter with a major TPA hero and the fallout from it. **The rest of this review contains spoilers for _Dissolution._** While _Dissolution_ kept a tight focus on its two protagonists, _Crystallization_ begins with them separated. Starshade the rabbit was nearly killed at the end of the first book, and her body is being rebuilt by the Korps’ advanced medical systems (personified by the synthetic vixen Nurse O, who has a bigger—and more unusual—part in this story than she has in others). Meanwhile, the Percheron is trying to adjust to her new life, guided by people who were, a short time ago, her mortal enemies. But, the book starts by adding a _third_ major character to the mix: Jennifer Delver, who’s not part of the Korps or any Hero group. She’s a health inspector. In the opening sequence, a mysterious curse is passed from a dying elephant shrew to her, a mark that impels Heroes to hunt her and foretells of a “Master” who will bind her. This sets the nutria on a quest to figure out what the hell she’s been cursed with—and protect herself from those with superpowers on the way. While I found her introduction a little rushed, her story overall is terrific, and a perspective on the world—neither hero nor villain—that we haven’t had before. Jennifer is not a meek bureaucrat type by any stretch; she’s a hell of a tough, determined woman, and you can’t help but wonder where her story’s going to lead. Starshade and the rechristened Geode, meanwhile, are at the underground Korps base in Texas. Most of Geode’s story in _Crystallizatiion_ is about having her entire worldview upended. Does she fully trust the Korps? Even if she does, can she adjust to her life there? She meets not just Volta and Ellen but Maddy the sheep-bear and Mabel the cougar (protagonists of _Change of Heart_ and _The Magician,_ respectively), as well as a few characters who are at least entirely new to me, like Dawn the dik-dik, a cheerful, five foot tall menace. The biggest, most terrifying adjustment Geode has to make is to the idea that she’s surrounded by people who genuinely care about her well-being. As ROSE the AI puts it to her, “We’re villains. That means we take care of each other,” to which Geode wryly notes, “That sounds so backwards.” Starshade’s story begins as one of recovering from her near-death experience, then moves into her tentatively exploring a relationship with an unexpected villain—the base commander, Celia, a giant lamia. As that progresses, the story definitely earns its adults-only rating. Even the kinkiest bits with Starshade keep the rabbit’s charming humor, as well her knack for getting in over her head. Jennifer’s story overall is tense and propulsive, with a lot of action and building mystery. If _Crystallization_ has a flaw, it’s that Geode and Starshade’s sections don’t have the same level of propulsiveness. As with _Realignment_, moving the action onto the Korps base shifts the dramatic gears from “superpowered action” to “hangin’ with the villains.” They’re good (and spicy) hangs, and both horse and bunny face serious stakes in their own way, but Jennifer’s stakes are literally life and death. We reach the novel’s end with the nutria’s tale still lacking obvious connection to the other two stories; I would have liked, if not an _aha_ moment, at least a _hmm_ moment. So am I looking forward to the next issue, as the novel cheekily dubs it? Without a doubt. The Korps’ secret weapon is that its “villains” are, by and large, extremely likable. You want good things to happen to them—and you want to keep reading to see what happens next. https://giants-club.net/articles/review-crystallization/

4 months ago

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Review: The Analog Cat and Other Animals _**The Analog Cat and Other Animals**_ Alice Dryden Argyll Productions December 2025 Print Edition $19.95 Ebook Edition $9.95 (DRM-free) It already seems hard to believe, but there was a period from around 2000 to the late 2010s when furry publishing veritably overflowed with paid short story markets, mostly in the form of anthologies. FurPlanet led the pack, with three or four (or more) titles coming out every year. Now, they’re as rare as hen’s teeth. What happened? There’s a lot of factors, from the passing of editor Fred Patten to Covid ending con sales—and publishing new titles—for a few years. But the real problem was that the biggest audience for these “semi-pro” short story markets was…other furry writers who were interested in getting into them. With few exceptions, they just didn’t sell much. The general audience perception seemed to be, more or less, “Why should we pay for short stories when there’s all this free stuff online?” I get that; some of the free stuff online is absolutely top-notch, and some of the stories I’ve read in furry anthologies have been real clunkers. But on average, the writing in the anthologies was better. And that (finally) brings me to Alice Dryden’s collection _The Analog Cat and Other Animals._ Most of these stories were published in those past anthologies, from the title story’s appearance in breakout anthology _The Furry Future_ to more obscure—at least, obscure to me!—markets. (I had forgotten about _Werewolves Versus Space,_ and never got a copy of the ambitious but short-lived furry literary magazine _Allasso._) And the stories are, to a one, terrific. The title story (dropping the “ue” from “Analogue” for this edition) is the opening story in the collection. It’s been one of my favorite furry stories since I first read it, and upon a reread, it still is. It’s short; it deservedly won the Cóyotl Award; it’s hard sci-fi with a dystopian edge, yet resolutely hopeful; it’s written in second person, for reasons that become clear by the end; that ending will probably make you cry in the best way. It’s not the only story here that might, although some of the others might make you laugh out loud. There’s an underlying sweetness running through nearly all these tales, which might be a sorely needed balm for many of us right now. Unlike a lot of furry stories (including mine), the majority of these stories have humans in them, and there’s a wide variety of anthropomorphism in the way the animal characters are portrayed, from the alien cats in “Case Study” to the normal-except-for-talking animals in the whimsically magical realist “Wolf’s Holiday” to the entirely non-anthropomorphic cat in “For I Shall Consider My Cat J/FRY”. What’s marvelous about the collection is the breadth not only in genres and literary playfulness, but in ways to approach capital-F Furry. These furries are robots and cyborgs, spirits, even gods, and always delightful. The problem with selling anthologies, I’m told, is often that readers don’t feel like they know what they’re getting—maybe they’re only going to like half the stories, and so it feels like they’ve somehow wasted time and money. I’ve never been sure that’s the right way of looking at things, but it is what it is. Single-author collections _can_ sell better, but they’re few and far between in furry, and rarely seem to attract the attention that novels do. _The Analog Cat and Other Animals_ deserves attention. https://giants-club.net/articles/review-analog-cat/

5 months ago

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On Throwing Rocks Hi. My name is Arilin, and I have writer’s block. I don’t have it all the time. I’m not sure I have it _most_ of the time, although as I write this at the start of 2026, I’ve had it for weeks and I still can’t break it. Now, if you look around my website you might think, “Oh, come on, you write that much and you think you’ve ever had writer’s block?” Well, all things are relative, I guess. I’ve written five novels (_Saida & Autumn, The Turning, Hurricane,_ the in-progress _Mus Numena,_ and under a different name, _Kismet_), five novellas (_Goddess, Big Trouble, Gates,_ and under a different name, _Indigo Rain_ and _Going Concerns_), and several dozen short stories—but I’ve also been writing for longer than some of you have been alive. (Pause while I crumble to dust. Okay, back now.) There are far more prolific writers within furry, and many who crank out two thousand or more words a day. I consider it a win if I get five hundred a day, and I haven’t been hitting that fairly low-bar mark for about a month. There’s a lot of advice out in the world about how to get through writer’s block: try writing something from a writing prompt, which could be anything from a sentence to a single word. Change your routine, anything from varying the music you play when you write to varying where you write. Go for a walk. Doodle. Do chores. Schedule your writing. _Stop_ scheduling your writing. All of these tricks work some of the time for some people; some tricks might work for you nine times out of ten, others might never work. For me, the most likely tricks are taking my laptop to a coffee shop or brewery—something I do just about weekly—or, if I’m writing at home, forcing myself to do 25-minute pomodoro sprints, and/or making sure that I have music playing. (Usually instrumental music, lo-fi or smooth jazz—if I’m sitting in front of the keyboard and things are too silent, my brain tends to start looping music inside my head that breaks my concentration. Just me?) But they don’t always work. Sometimes, _nothing_ seems to work. I just caught myself staring listlessly at my computer screen for the past five minutes. (I’ve put on Apple’s lo-fi station. Let’s see if that helps.) I wish I had a surefire secret trick to reveal here, but I don’t. Sometimes what causes writer’s block isn’t something you can address with tricks, because it’s not something internal, not a failure on your part, not just the way your weird neurodivergent brain works. It’s ambient. It’s living in the middle of nowhere, or in the middle of somewhere that feels actively hostile to your existence. It’s being mired in a hateful family situation that’s untenable, yet near impossible to escape. It’s feeling the weight of becoming a caretaker to siblings or children or, as you get older, parents. And, yeah, it’s the fascism, watching a lot of what you “knew” about your country disintegrate as half your countrymen hand over power to people who are _so obviously fucking villains_ did any of them take a junior high history class or _just watch a single goddamn movie made since World War II—_ Ahem. Anyway. Something I’m learning about myself is that as much as I like being solitary, I need some sense of community, and I haven’t been giving myself enough of that since I had to move back to Florida (a state that feels actively hostile to many of my friends’ existences, even if I personally “pass”) (to live in the middle of nowhere) (to become a caretaker for a parent). The times I’ve been most recharged have been times I’ve _left_ Florida. Going back to the San Francisco Bay Area for Further Confusion, to Pittsburgh for Anthrocon, to Dallas to Texas Furry Fiesta, to Lawrence, Kansas for a two-week residential writing workshop (not furry). I don’t think it’s getting away from the Florida-ness of it at all as much as it is being around people who feel like “my people.” Being in another part of Florida—a blue dot like Orlando or St. Petersburg, just like Lawrence and Dallas are blue dots in their respective red seas—helps, to be sure. I’ve noticed that when I lived in Florida a quarter-century ago, I loved exploring rural areas, but now I want to be in funky walkable neighborhoods where homes and businesses fly Pride flags. I don’t need to touch grass, I need to hang around queer anarchists. Okay, but what does this mean for _you,_ person who’s struggling with writer’s block but doesn’t share the particulars of my situation? Well: it means that first, you try the easy tricks, the lo-fi station or the pomodoros or writing at your favorite Italian restaurant. But then, you might need to think about the ambient things, the things that weigh on you and pull you away from your joy and your wonder and your _you_ that you can’t change. And figure out how to change them anyway. Just a little. Bit by bit. Piece by piece. Talk to friends more—don’t wait for them to talk to you. (I’m really bad at that last one.) Find your community, or for all too many of us, stop neglecting the community you’ve already found. Travel more, if you can, and if it helps, but don’t neglect the local, the physical. Find your blue dot. A coffee shop, a brewery, a book club. A little sci-fi or comic con. A furry meetup. An Indivisible group, or some other way to throw rocks at fascists that resonates with you. Getting your words out into the world is a good way to throw rocks at fascists. And no, none of what I said there is _easy._ The things that aren’t expensive are, in their own way, even more difficult. But here’s the thing: self-care isn’t selfish. You don’t have to do something that makes you worthy of it. It’s survival. And we need you to survive. We need you out there throwing rocks with us. In less than two weeks from when I’m writing this, I’m going to be back in the SF Bay Area for five days, and I’m hoping that will recharge me, at least for a while. I hope to travel more this year, although that will depend on both my parent’s condition and my finances. But I think even just staycations in blue dot areas—taking out more time than just my Saturday day trips—might hit my reset button. I don’t _know_ if it will, and if it does, I don’t know how long it’ll last. But I’m pretty sure it’s something I need. https://giants-club.net/articles/writers-block/

5 months ago

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Review: Dragon’s Soul _**Dragon’s Soul**_ J.F.R. Coates Transcendent Fiction Publishing June 2025 Print Edition A$18.00 Ebook Edition $3.99 If you had nothing but the first chapter to judge, you might consider describing _Dragon’s Soul_ as a “cozy fantasy” a category error. As we’re introduced to Teku, our protagonist (put an asterisk there), nothing about his situation screams cozy. In a town whose parents always, without exception, give birth to two pairs of twins, he’s an unexpected and unwanted fifth child, seen as having literally no purpose: “Because there had never been a fifth child in the history of their village, no one knew what he should do. Ever since his first days on the farm as a boy, there was nothing to occupy his time. Every task was specifically crafted and allocated for one person to do in conjunction with their twin. If he helped, he got in the way. If he tried to do anything by himself, he got stuck. Instead, he just cleaned tools when they weren’t being used and tried to look busy, lest his father snap at him for not contributing to the farm.” Teku has but one self-assigned task: moving a lever at the edge of their field from the position it resets itself to every morning to its opposite position. At the end of the first chapter, after completing that task one final time, Teku makes an impetuous decision to run away, guided only by moonlight—and promptly tumbles into a ravine. Now, the asterisk: when Teku awakens, he’s in a different body: that of a dragon. How? Why? This is the core of the story. A curious gryphon who introduces herself as Firebrand meets the panicked, sobbing new dragon and befriends them, also suggesting the possibility of a new name, something more draconic rather than a name that might belong to their past. If you read that and think _this sounds like it could possibly be an allegory for being transgender,_ I don’t think I’m spoiling the story by confirming your suspicion. Firebrand and the newly-renamed Ember soon meet another dragon, who recognizes Ember’s newly appropriate she/her pronouns before Ember does. The trio of Ember, Firebrand, and Caly make their way to the Sacred Mountain, home of the dragons. While both Caly and Firebrand know Ember used to be a human, Ember is terrified of other dragons finding out, that she’ll be revealed as a fraud, not a _real_ dragon. Meanwhile, her relationship with Caly and Firebrand deepens, as do mysteries entwined around Ember’s transformation. Once it truly kicks off, _Dragon’s Soul_ lives up to its billing as cozy, queer romantasy; there aren’t any real antagonists other than Ember’s own self-doubt—which is, to be sure, formidable (and, even if you are neither transgender nor transdraconic, relatable). The mystery fan in me might wish the mysteries weren’t quite as easily guessable, but that’s a quibble, not a flaw. The writing is solid and the major characters are all lovely. The world-building around the dragon’s culture is absolutely marvelous, textured and complex without ever tipping into stereotype. (The same can’t be said about Ember’s human village at the story’s start. I appreciate that we want a dramatic contrast with the new life she’s struggling to accept, but it’s hard to see how _anyone_ in that miserable village is ever anything but miserable for their entire miserable lives.) _Dragon’s Soul_ is widely available as an ebook, and in print direct from the publisher in Australia. If you’re a dragon fan, a transformation story fan—or a cozy, poly lesbian romance fan—it’s more than worth the price. https://giants-club.net/articles/review-dragons-soul/

6 months ago

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Review: Realignment _**Realignment**_ _A Korpsigin Story: Book 1_ Bibi Heartsglow FurPlanet Productions July 2025 Print Edition $19.95 Ebook Edition $9.95 _Realignment_ is the newest Korps Universe novel published as of this writing (I think), and as with the others, comes with a subtitle indicating it’s the first in a series. Volta and Carmen from _Induction_ are major characters in Ellen and Vixie Foxpaw’s story, and Ellen—also known as B-tier hero Lawful Neutral—has been mentioned in stories before this. The Foxpaws are demimorphs, genetic throwbacks to the humans who haven’t existed for ages. They’re still recognizably fox women, but their features are more human than furry. Ellen works for the “Everyone’s Hero Association,” a superhero group run by a glory-seeking CEO trying to build a business—and a name—using heroes with offbeat powers. As it turns out, Lawful Neutral, with a malleable power that lets her temporarily have any ability she can weave into a groan-inducing pun, is the EHA’s ticket to fame. But she’s living a decidedly unglamorous life despite that: the pay’s mediocre, the risks are high, and she struggles to provide for both herself and her sweet autistic sister Vixie. They both have employment problems—Vixie dealing with working retail at a hardware store, Ellen dealing with her recurring nemesis Redline beating the snot out of her, and both of them dealing with homophobic bosses. This reaches a perilous point when a persistent coworker keeps asking Vixie out on a date, making her worry that she’s could be revealed as a lesbian—which could end not just her job but Ellen’s as well. Lawful Neutral’s fight with another Korps supervillain, a tough but comically cheerful and chatty shark woman, proves to be a distraction, keeping Ellen occupied while the Korps carries out their real plan: kidnapping Vixie. Ellen reasonably assumes this is a shockingly evil way to go after her—but unlike Ellen, we know the Korps aren’t actually that kind of villain. Ellen’s boss, however, might be: he’s not only not interested in saving Vixie, he’s openly contemptuous of it. Ellen ends up facing her “enemies” on her own, and learns they aren’t at all what she’d assumed. The second half of _Realignment_ refocuses on Ellen’s uneasy acclimation to life with the Korps. She resists thinking of herself as a Korps member, even to the point of refusing to wear the signature Rose-Colored Glasses she’s still not convinced won’t brainwash her. Vixie embraces her new friends (and friends-with-benefits) in the Korps wholeheartedly, which makes it even more awkward for Ellen. On top of all that, she’s developing a crush on Carmen, the feline villain who helped rescue her. This crush ends up becoming a progressively bigger focus of the novel as it moves on; once Ellen is living with the Korps, there’s little superhero action and a lot of disaster lesbian rom-com. This is the most visible sign of _Realignment_ ’s origin as separate stories about the characters rather than one long narrative. This technically makes it a fix-up, and like many fix-ups, it feels somewhat less like a novel than a short story cycle. This isn’t a knock; the stories are, after all, good. It just doesn’t have the strong throughline that _Induction_ and _Dissolution_ do. But Ellen and Vixie are both lovely, we get new takes on both Volta and Carmen, and it’s fun to see slice-of-life and light comedy within this world. (Also, it comes to an end that, despite literally ending on a question mark, doesn’t feel like a cliffhanger.) https://giants-club.net/articles/review-realignment/

7 months ago

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Review: Far Flung _**Far Flung**_ Utunu Mapaku Village August 2024 Print Edition $19.95 Ebook Edition $9.95 I’ve had “read something by Utunu” on my list for a while now. When his ebooks became available on Bad Dog Books recently, I picked up his most recent novel, _Far Flung._ This YA-slanted science fiction novel—also a gay romance—won the Cóyotl Award for best novel in 2024. It’s not hard to see how _Far Flung_ won that award: the world-building is absolutely extraordinary. It takes place in Oasis, the solitary settlement of an otherwise barren, desert-like world in a system that has multiple planets that can support life. Fennecs and hyenas stranded long ago when a generation ship crashed now make a modest living, trading when they can with Verdant, another, more readily habitable planet in the system that other survivors migrated to via a salvaged shuttlecraft. Some fennecs have psionic talent—in some cases, the ability to teleport short distances, bringing others with them, and in rare cases the ability to “Fling” fantastically long distances. This talent enabled their space travel and, indeed, much of the technology they’re slowly losing. The story focuses on two fennecs, the young psionic Bori and his supposedly non-psionic friend Tuther, along with their hyena friend Samna. We quickly learn that Bori has _extremely_ powerful Flinging ability, and Tuther is a quite powerful psionic in his own right. He can’t teleport—but he can Hide his own ability, as well as masking just how powerful Bori is. Bori doesn’t want his ability fully recognized; if it , he’ll almost certainly be chosen by the settlers on Verdant to be taken back with them and separated from his partners. The characterization is as vivid as the milieu. Not just the main trio but all the side characters feel alive, distinct, and well-drawn. This is a great slice-of-life story about lives in a setting unlike anything else—the worlds of Sands and Verdant certainly evoke other science fiction worlds, but they stand alone. The mind-to-mind dialog is also represented in a way unlike anything I’ve seen before, enough to make me forgive the use of an exotic secondary typeface. (If you’re reading the ebook, you’ll want to present it in the original font, not override it with a theme.) For all of that, the story’s pitch promises more than slice of life: there’s so much _dread_ around Bori being taken to Verdant. Are the settlers on Verdant despots who abduct their poorer relations for nefarious purposes? Will Bori be in mortal danger? Will the three be separated, with Samna and Tuther having to orchestrate a daring interplanetary rescue? This is, unfortunately, where _Far Flung_ doesn’t fling quite far enough. Problems are quickly resolved, fears are allayed, everyone is cooperative and accepting. Every possible point of tension along the way is effectively met with a _that went quite well, didn’t it._ But then, there’s those last four chapters. A character takes a heel turn, _dramatic_ action happens, and yes, everyone’s lives are changed forever. While it’s not that this ending doesn’t work, until this pivot, _Far Flung_ seemed destined for the kind of cozy ending that _Fairy Tales_ had. Here, I should note that “not a cozy ending” is not a coy way of saying “sad ending”; taken as a young romance, the story is more than fulfilling. Even though there’s little to propel you along through much of the book beyond wanting to spend time with the characters, there’s a very good chance you _will_ want to spend time with them, and that might be more than enough. Also, that sharp left turn of an ending promises not only a sequel but one that, I suspect, brings bigger stakes and greater tension with it. https://giants-club.net/articles/review-far-flung/

8 months ago

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Look, just fucking use Mastodon already Oh, Bluesky is getting a little shitty, you say? Oh no! Who could have predicted Bluesky could ever have run that risk? I mean, apart from everyone warning us that it was launched by weirdo alt-right blockchain-shilling AI-loving shitbird Jack Dorsey, and that their current CEO came from a weirdo alt-right blockchain-shilling AI-loving shitbird background. You know. Besides them. Now _quelle surprise,_ Bluesky CEO Jay Graber’s out there mocking people asking why they didn’t ban Jesse Singal, everyone’s favorite Just Asking Questions™ Transphobe, for violating their terms of service. They say he _didn’t_ violate the terms of service. They’re right, because they keep _changing_ the fucking terms of service. You’re probably in violation right now, fucko. No? Surprise! Permaban! And we’re not even getting into them desperately suppressing people saying bad things about Charlie Kirk—you know, awful, horrid things like quoting Kirk’s actual words—and cooperating with increasingly censorious governments. And now, inevitably, half of my Bluesky timeline is like: _oh, we need a service that’s resistant to this sort of shit, something that’s not beholden to capitalist pressure, something that’s queer-friendly and furry-friendly,_ quickly followed by _but don’t say Mastodon!_ Sorry, I’m saying it. **Mastodon.** We want fucking Mastodon. It’s run by an actual non-profit foundation, none of this “public benefit corporation” bullshit. It’s not subject to corporate enshittification. It’s not subject to creeping network-wide puritanism. Mastodon. Goddammit. Mastodon Mastodon Mastodon. “No. Choosing an instance is too hard!” Have you chosen an email provider, fuckers? Yes? Congratulations! You can pick an instance. “But how do I know that instance won’t implode in a giant cloud of drama?” You don’t. It happens, and it sucks when it happens, but it doesn’t happen all that often. Go find another instance. “But what if the instance I’m on doesn’t federate with the ones my friends are on, or they change their policies to be more puritanical, or—” _Go find another fucking instance._ This is not rocket surgery. “But if I move instances, I’ll lose my posts!” Yeah, you’ll lose your posts. You know what you won’t lose? _Your entire group of followers._ You know, the way you lost them when you moved from fucking Twitter to fucking Bluesky. With fucking Mastodon, you don’t have that problem. “Having to use content warnings is annoying.” I used to feel that way, too, but you know what? I fucking got over it. Yeah, if you get it wrong, people are going to yell at you. And you learn. That’s the way life fucking works. But listen: it turns out that content warnings are fucking _great._ I see a bunch of posts that say “us pol” or “transphobia” or whatever, I get to decide if I have enough spoons for that right then, and take a pass if I don’t. I fucking _wish_ Bluesky had that. You know what else I fucking wish Bluesky had that Mastodon did? Polls. And longer posts. And the ability to edit your posts. And awesome third-party mobile clients like Tusky and Ivory. “But Mastodon doesn’t have quote posts.” It fucking does now. Next. Is Mastodon perfect? Fuck, no! Mastodon has a history of blindness to anti-black harassment, and you can find instances—whoops, pun not fucking intended—of every other kind of harassment on it. Mastodon is made of humans, and some humans are assholes. Sometimes the assholes are running Mastodon instances. Sometimes they’re running _your_ instance and you don’t know they’re assholes, or they started out fine then became assholes. Sometimes they’re running blocklists and trying to convince you that people who aren’t assholes are the _real_ assholes. Mastodon will piss you off. But breaking news: Bluesky will _also_ piss you off. It’s pissing you off right now! There’s a key difference, though, and get ready for fucking buzzwords like “federated” and “decentralized” because, like it or not, they fucking matter. See, what makes Mastodon less worse than something like Twitter or Bluesky or, god forbid, fucking Threads, is that it has escape hatches. You may not _like_ being told “go find another instance,” but you _can_ go find another instance, _and that is fucking spectacular._ Twitter started going into the shitter even before Elon Seig Heil Musk painted a big “X” on it with his dick, but did you all just say “sucks, man,” and fuck off to another Twitter instance? No! Why not? Because there _were_ no other fucking Twitter instances! Yes, smartypants: technically, Bluesky’s “ATProto” supports federation, too. But it supports federation the way a rope supports a hanged man. I’m hoping the few attempts I’ve seen to pull it off work, I really am—Blacksky is promising, I’m watching Northsky closely. But getting rid of all reliance on servers run by Bluesky, the company, is brutally difficult. While defenders say that’s not by design, it’s a consequence of the way ATProto works, which means it is, definitionally, by fucking design. So, look. I’m not saying leave Bluesky right now, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. What I’m saying is, start _playing_ with Mastodon, whether it’s for the first time or again. Find an instance you can tolerate. (If you’re reading this, you’re probably a furry, and we have our own fucking directory.) Find a client that doesn’t suck. Figure out which of your friends are on Mastodon and follow them. Because let’s be fucking honest: we need to stop pretending we’re not seeing fucking big red flashing warning signs on Bluesky. We can tell ourselves that it’s not going to enshittify, but we can also tell ourselves that we’re going to shit rainbows. There is only one single solitary social network whose design, in all its fucking fiddly, nerdy-ass glory, offers any protection from corporate enshittification. Sorry. One. It’s fucking Mastodon. Just fucking join fucking Mastodon. Jesus. Join Mastodon. Fuck. https://giants-club.net/articles/just-use-mastodon/

8 months ago

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Review: Shadow Cast _**Shadow Cast**_ _Zyearth Chronicles (Book 1)_ R. A. Meenan Starcrest Fox Press 2021 Ebook Edition $1.99 If you visit the Zyearth website, the first thing you might think is: _wow, there’s a whole damn lot of worldbuilding here._ And you wouldn’t be wrong. _Shadow Cast,_ the first volume in the _Zyearth Chronicles,_ blends science fiction, fantasy, and furry into an ambitious, galaxy-spanning mix that still manages to stay focused on character. You won’t have to learn all of this worldbuilding here; you learn a lot in the first volume. Isabelle “Izzy” Gildspine and Matt Azure are young (by local standards) quilar, a hedgehog-ish race, both aspiring to become Golden Guardians—high-ranking magicians in the Defender Army. As we meet them, they’ve both applied for the fourth time. Matt in particular has come to suspect that the Master Guardian, the one with final approval over their application, is rejecting them for reasons that have less to do with their qualifications than his own personal demons. During an award ceremony—not for Matt and Izzy, as they’ve been rejected yet again—the Defenders are attacked, first by magical birds with specific elemental powers, then by a strange quilar with control over _all_ elemental magics, not just one, an almost unheard of talent. To compound the strangeness, there are definite signs that this quilar, Ouranos, is controlled by something else that’s driving him to attack—and driven specifically to attack Matt, who holds some kind of special power that the controlling attacker wants. As the Defenders regroup, the plot becomes ever more complicated: Ouranos has crash-landed a spaceship on their planet, and that ship may be a long-lost colony ship from the Defenders themselves. His sister Natassa has stowed away on the ship, trying to help Ouranos break free from the force controlling him, but when Ouranos learns _how_ she wants to help, he rejects it. Another fierce fight leaves Matt apparently dead, Natassa under arrest, and Roscoe—one of the Defenders, and Izzy’s husband—transformed into a strange, nearly invincible black goo monster. This may sound like a lot, and we haven’t gotten into just _who_ is controlling Ouranos, the mysterious “Black Cloak” (a person, not a piece of clothing), just what Matt’s role in both freeing Ouranos and dooming everyone else might be, how gem magic works… Okay, that _is_ a lot, but once the plot’s in motion, Meenan keeps it all steadily moving forward and expanding without letting it all get either overwhelming or sloggy. I will note that _once the plot’s in motion_ is doing some work in that sentence. Characters in the first act spend a lot of time reflecting not just on past events in their life but on large swaths of how their society works, clearly for the reader’s benefit. A lot of this could probably have come out more naturally over the course of the novel, even if it left readers in the dark for a while. That quibble aside, this is a solid adventure story, with a lot of tense moments as well as a few moving ones. Matt, Izzy, Ouranos, and Natassa are well-drawn characters, and there’s more than enough here to keep you engaged. You can argue we’ve seen a lot of these tropes before, but they’re put together here in an original way, and—well, the word I keep coming back to in my head is, simply, “fun.” _Shadow Cast_ is young adult appropriate, although it’s got definite moments of darkness. (It’s not a real spoiler to let you know that not all named characters make it through the story alive, let alone unharmed.) While the story isn’t explicitly queer (or romantic at all, for that matter), the setting is established early as explicitly queer-friendly. _Note: While the ebook version of_ Shadow Cast _is normally $1.99, during September 2025 all the Zyearth books are free from theZyearth website._ https://giants-club.net/articles/review-shadow-cast/

9 months ago

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Review: Fairy Tales _**Fairy Tales**_ Robin FurPlanet Productions July 2025 Print Edition $19.95 Ebook Edition $9.95 (DRM-free) Two broad trends in mainstream fantasy lately have been _cozy fantasy,_ stories firmly set in fantasy worlds with all the expected trappings, but the stakes are deliberately low and the vibe is warm and comforting; and _romantasy,_ which delivers exactly what it says on the tin: a blending of fantasy and romance tropes. While these subgenres aren’t the same—not all cozy fantasy involves romance, and romances aren’t always cozy—there’s a definite overlap in the Venn diagram: they both heavily focus on relationships and characters. Robin’s debut novel, _Fairy Tales,_ might be furry’s first “cozy romantasy,” and it’s a lesbian romance to boot. That combination helped it make a big splash at Anthrocon last month. The tale brings us a world that’s basically a furry version of our own—but a version where some women are practicing witches. Tamara the coyote is a wildlife control officer in her mundane life, as well as the relatively new caretaker of her grandmother’s “holding,” a magical demesne, as a witch. As the story opens, she meets Madeline, a stunningly beautiful British tabby cat who’s trespassed onto Tamara’s land in order to take a photograph of herself on a bridge under the full moon. Through a misunderstanding followed by a mishap, Madeline accidentally breaks one of Tamara’s wards, releasing a stream of pixies—creatures Tamara regards as magical pests—into the real world, leaving the coyote with a huge mess to clean up. Tamara follows standard witchy protocol, giving Madeline a potion to erase her memory of seeing real fairies and meeting a real witch. When Tamara runs into her again in town the next morning at a coffee shop, though, she gets an even bigger shock: Maddie remembers the fairies, and remembers her. And, when one of the escaped pixies makes mischief at the café, Maddie recognizes it for what it is, something a woman who isn’t a witch—and Maddie assuredly is not—shouldn’t be able to do. Reluctantly, Tamara takes Maddie on as a temporary helper in tracking down the pixies. As they work together, the fairy-obsessed tabby proves to be smarter and more resourceful than she initially appears, and the momentary crush Tamara felt for her when they met only deepens. There’s no sign, though, that Maddie swings that way. Will they end up together by the end of the novel, or remain just friends? Will they catch all the pixies? Will other witches interfere? Why _can_ Maddie see fairies? Okay: this is a novel with the lowest of stakes—it makes _Legends& Lattes,_ an archetypal recent cozy fantasy, claw-bitingly tense by comparison.Yet if you let yourself be charmed by it all, that simply won’t matter, and it’s damn easy to be charmed. Tamara and Maddie are immensely likeable, strongly drawn characters, as are all the side characters we meet. There’s a lot of thought given to how both witch and fairy magic works, and it makes this world feel surprisingly real and lived-in. While _Fairy Tales_ has ample room for a sequel—and the last few paragraphs offer a definite suggestion one’s in the works—the novel’s complete as it is. Also worth noting: the delightful interior illustrations throughout by cover artist Slate. https://giants-club.net/articles/review-fairy-tales/

10 months ago

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A short note about Tugrik As I write this, news is going around that Tugrik, one of the “old guard” of furry fandom, passed away. I haven’t been able to confirm this independently, but the source seems trustworthy. Tugrik had chronic health problems in his last few years, but I never ascertained just what was going on; he and I had fallen out of touch, which is at least half my fault. Sometimes his infrequent social media posts sounded like things were getting worse; sometimes, including most recently, they sounded hopeful. I was hoping to get in touch with him again, finally, the next time I was in Portland, whenever that ended up being. (At this point, it’s high on my list of places to retire to.) It’s hard to overstate how important Tugrik was to early furry fandom. He was one of the original FurryMUCK wizards, and provided hosting services for FurryMUCK—and other early furry websites, for that matter–for many years. Long before it became common, he did fursuit photoshoots at Further Confusion with professional equipment (and results). He loved being the infrastructure guy, somebody who might be behind the scenes but helped make things happen. While he wasn’t loud about it, he was extremely creative, too, from the projects he built for early Burning Man celebrations—one of which may well have been the first mobile hotspot—to the elaborate world-building for his monoceros species. More than anything else, though, he was _generous,_ with his time and his resources. The twenty years I spent in Silicon Valley very likely wouldn’t have happened without him; he not only offered a spare room at his house, he didn’t charge me rent until I landed a job. That literally changed the course of my life—so many things about who I am now, from becoming a tiki aficianado to understanding myself as nonbinary, sprung from my time out there. Most of my deepest RL friendships formed or deepened in the Valley. And he remained one of those good friends, even after I moved out. So some night soon, I’ll raise a tiki drink in his honor—I’m not _positive_ I’m the one he caught the tiki bug from, but I’m pretty sure I was a strong influence. You should join me—non-alcoholic is fine (and, let’s be honest, probably wiser). He was one of the quiet, too often unsung greats. He’ll be missed. https://giants-club.net/articles/tugrik-rip/

10 months ago

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Review: Dissolution _**Dissolution**_ _To Crack a Geode: Book 1_ Runa Fjord FurPlanet Productions November 2024 Print Edition $19.95 Ebook Edition $9.95 (DRM-free) Earlier this year I reviewed _Induction_, the first Korps Universe novel released by FurPlanet; with five books out now, each one the opening volume of six planned series, the story universe is becoming as ambitious as the queer villains-with-an-asterisk that it chronicles. _Dissolution_ begins with a scene that overlaps with the “Surface Rupture” graphic novel, with neophyte villain Starshade in the middle of robbing a bank vault. The rabbit isn’t as interested in the haul as she is in simply screwing things up for the bank’s richest clientele. In short order members of the Texas Protectorate Assembly, the state-run superhero team, show up to stop her—but unexpectedly, her link to ROSE, the Korps’s AI assistant, breaks, leaving her unable to call for backup. It quickly becomes clear the TPA is throwing everything they have at her. Even as resourceful as Starshade proves to be, the relentless pursuit wears her down. Injured and exhausted, she’s cornered by Slate, a massive Percheron who is, by all accounts, the perfect law-abiding, white hat TPA ranger. So why, then, does the hero _not_ take her in, instead acquiescing to her protest that doing so would be a death sentence for her and letting her escape? Unbeknownst to the rabbit, Slate’s confrontation with her is the straw that broke the horse’s back. While the hero has long believed in the professed mission of the TPA, he’s had to excuse or write off a _lot_ of corruption and cruelty over the years, and he realizes that Starshade’s fear of the ostensible good guys is legitimate. Returning to base, Slate looks in the mirror—literally—and realizes he doesn’t at all like what he sees. When the TPA has a second chance at capturing Starshade, Slate has to decide which side to be on, and that’s a choice there will be no going back from. Let me get Crazy Literature Professor on you for a moment: there’s a theory of story called “Dramatica” that shares its name with a now-defunct piece of software. Dramatica is, frankly, wildly overthought, but it has a few ideas that stuck with me for years, and the best one is this: a great way to structure a story is with a _plot_ arc of protagonist versus antagonist, and a _thematic_ arc of main character versus catalyst character. The catalyst may be helping or hindering the protagonist in the main plot (they might be the actual antagonist, in fact), but their real role is to force the main character to face the crucial issue the story’s theme revolves around. I don’t think the Dramatica theory has anything intrinsically queer to it—earlier iterations were, if anything, weirdly essentialist about gender—but one of its co-creators is a trans woman, which is, if nothing else, interesting trivia. I’ve rarely seen books, in or out of furry, that so clearly illustrate that protagonist/antagonist, main/catalyst dichotomy than the two Korps novels I’ve read so far, and that’s very much because of the focus on queer and trans identity. In _Induction,_ Volta is both main character and protagonist—which is usually, but not always, the case—with Carmen the catalyst. In _Dissolution,_ though, Starshade has already embraced her inner villain—while she’s (arguably) the story’s protagonist, she’s not the one with the thematic journey ahead. She’s the catalyst character to Slate, the one who, as the horse laments to her in a terrific, anguished monologue, stole his blinders. As for the antagonists—well, getting into that beyond “the TPA” could get spoilery, but suffice it to say that there’s a personal angle to the conflict. Okay, let’s back out of the weeds now. There’s certainly introspection and wrenching emotion in _Dissolution,_ but there’s a _lot_ of well-crafted action in it, with plot twists, tense family dynamics, and shifting alliances. Slate’s journey isn’t unpredictable, but it’s well-executed, and we learn more intriguing bits about the Korps here and there. Runa Fjord has a good ear for dialogue, and a knack for small funny asides that add to the characterization. (Starshade’s penchant for distracting herself by noticing how hot someone she’s talking, or even fighting, with looks comes up more than once.) There are typographic flourishes when Starshade uses her superpower, and while I’m on record as being skeptical of such, these mostly won me over. The novel ends on a cliffhanger, but it’s still a satisfying and thrilling read. You’ll want to catch up with Starshade and Slate again as soon as possible—and might be tempted to pick up more Korps novels while you wait. https://giants-club.net/articles/review-dissolution/

11 months ago

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New Novel: The Turning Illustration by Ken Cougr So, a few years ago I started one of my little vignette series, which I’d dubbed “Grumpy Bunny,” which was just what it said on the tin—an over-powered, irascible bunny woman who tended to react to annoyances in wildly extreme ways. Eating rude people at bars, stomping cars that parked in handicapped spaces without a permit, that sort of thing. But the strangest thing happened: see, in the first vignette, someone asked the bunny, “What _are_ you?” after she terrorized a couple idiots, and she answered, “I’m a retired goddess.” It was meant as a throwaway line, but it stuck with me. And a couple vignettes in, it was as if she’d basically sat me down and said, “Okay, look. I have a real story to tell.” That real story became a Patreon serial named after the main character, Moira. Then, after a rewrite that involved beta readers, a residential writing workshop, and even some input from a Nebula-winning author unaware of what ill use her advice is being put to, we have a novel. This is my third published novel after _Saida & Autumn_ and _Goddess._ (Okay, technically _Goddess_ is a novella, shut up.) Like the others, it’s being released by FurPlanet Productions, and it’s going to premiere in print at Anthrocon 2025. > _“I’m not a rabbit. I’m a hare. Hares are bigger.”_ > > Moira, the goddess of love and war, has lived as a drifter in mortal lands for a thousand years, exiled for a failed rebellion, then abandoned by her own kind. The hare’s power remains, but her purpose is lost…until she accidentally creates a new goddess. And then another. > > The ensuing chaos is the most fun she’s had in centuries—until she attracts the attention of the secretive Celestial Capital, corporate gods working to impose an ever more restrictive “natural order” on global society. The more Moira’s new queer pantheon learns about Celestial’s true goals and the lengths the corporation will go to, the more their purpose becomes clear. Taking down Celestial, though, might just bring about the end of the world. > > But maybe the world could use a little apocalypse. A reader in my writing group said that they “appreciated a lot of the anger [they] felt in it,” a comment that I admit tickled me, but I also think there’s a lot of action, romance, and even humor here. And, yes, me being me, there are elements of giants and predators/prey woven throughout—but this isn’t a story just for macrophiles. If you like modern fantasy with queer antifascist politics, you’re probably going to like this. I can’t wait for you to meet (or revisit) the characters—not just the short-tempered hare, Moira, but Diana the sheep, Hazel the pika and her roommate Rhiannon the squirrel, the coyote Stetson, and more. (I love a couple of the villains, too!) And, there’s a **free preview of the first five chapters** available for downloading! * _The Turning_ preview (PDF, 1.4M) * _The Turning_ preview (ePub, 249KB) You can pre-order the print version of _The Turning_ now at FurPlanet! When the ebook’s available for purchase, I’ll include links here (and, of course, on the books page). https://giants-club.net/articles/turning-preview/

12 months ago

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Review: Target of Interest _**Target of Interest**_ _Legend of Ahya Book 1_ Matthew Colvath Darkflamewolf Media April 2021 Print Edition $19.98 (Amazon) Ebook Edition $9.99 (Amazon) “Tailmaws” are one of the quirkier things I’ve come across in my years in furry. They’re exactly what they sound like: maws at the ends of tails, usually big fluffy tails, generally capable of swallowing human-sized critters whole. Unsurprisingly, they’ve got strong associations with vore. I’m hardly against stories that treat vore as a kink, whether in sublimated or flagrant fashion, but it can be fascinating to step back and say, in effect, “But what if we treat this seriously, and see what kind of stories we get out of it?” That brings us to _Target of Interest,_ the first book in the _Legend of Ahya_ series. (There are six books planned in the series, and they’re not short books!) Taylor Wolford is a teenaged wolf girl, on the run when we meet her at the story’s start, being chased by unknown pursuers—not for the first time: > Taylor chanced a look back, and could see the two wolves pushing and shoving people aside, their dogged sights set firmly on her. She was on the run again—from who or what, it didn’t matter; they were all the same. They just wanted to use her for experiments or harm her in some other ungodly way. She remembered the one time she got caught, and the pain she experienced then was unbearable. She would not allow it to happen again. Why she is being chased? Because of the titular Ahya: her tailmaw. The mute Ahya is effectively a character unto herself, sometimes cooperating with Taylor, other times demonstrating stubbornness and, possibly, even her own agenda. Taylor was, as far as she knows, born with Ahya, and while she can control Ahya most of the time—under most circumstances, Taylor just looks like a wolf with an unusually large tail—sometimes Ahya takes matters into her own, er, gullet. While Taylor/Ahya is wanted for multiple murders, none of the people chasing her are law enforcement. The first group chasing her wants to bring her to a mysterious person known as “The Arbiter,” a renegade member of the land’s ruling High Council. The Arbiter is (apparently) a technomagical Dr. Moreau, experimenting on others including his own family, and there are suggestions he’s created other beings with tailmaws—but Taylor is unique in having been born with Ahya. _Another_ group is in pursuit of both Taylor and the first group, dispatched on order of the Council themselves. And, the Arbiter’s daughter, a hybrid reptilian, is also in pursuit of Taylor, ostensibly also at the behest of her father. Why? Perhaps he doesn’t trust the first group; perhaps Ari, his daughter, has her own agenda. Colvath’s biggest strengths are in the world-building of the story. While I couldn’t help but pick up a D&D-ish “questing adventurers” vibe—early scenes of open markets, meetings in taverns, and walled cities just add to that—the technology level is comparable to our world’s. There’s a widespread religion whose central tenet is the idea that everyone has a capital-S Script which foretells the time, place and manner of your death, but not everyone wants to _know_ their script, and the infallibility of the Script is called into question as _Target of Interest_ progresses. And we haven’t even gotten to the behemoths, giant metal steampunk creations that flatten and incinerate cities. Are the behemoths the creation of the Arbiter? Of the High Council? Of a separate group? There are _lot_ of moving parts to this story: a lot of characters, a lot of places, a lot of competing interests. All the major characters are well-developed, and none of them are either pure evil or unalloyed good. The story’s clearly building to an epic confrontation that Taylor will, presumably, not only be caught up in but very likely key to. Yet, I found myself somewhat less engaged with the novel as it went on. I think in part it’s because it gets progressively more exposition-heavy; we tend to learn about characters when they tell each other their backstories, or sometimes when they’re reviewing their own backstories in their heads. At some points this is less revelatory than underline-y, as if they’re turning to the camera and saying _you understand, right?_ I’d have liked a bit more of this to be left for us to read between the lines. But the larger issue is the climax: there kind of…isn’t one. Yes, I know it’s the first book in a series and was planned as such from the start. But that doesn’t get individual books off the hook for their own three-act structure—their own inciting incidents, rising and falling tension, and especially their own climax and denouement, which crucially _has_ to be driven by the protagonist’s actions. Taylor is by no means passive, but she rarely gets to take control of her own direction beyond reluctantly allying with one or the other of the groups trying to abduct her. I can’t help but think of _Induction,_ also the first book in a series whose main character is a super-powered young wolf woman whose life starts out largely under the control of others: _Induction_ is clearly just the start of Volta’s story, but it’s also a fully-formed tale in and of itself. As much happens in Taylor’s story—and make no mistake, a lot does—this first novel feels like the first act, and maybe not the entire first act at that. Even so, there’s much about _Target of Interest_ to like, and it ends on a note intriguing enough it might have sold me on picking up the second book in the series. If Taylor and Ahya sound interesting, get a free sample from the ebook distributor of your choice and see what you think. _While I linked to the Amazon storefront, the_ Legend of Ahya _books are available from most major online retailers, in both print and ebook. I purchased mine fromKobo._ https://giants-club.net/articles/review-target-of-interest/

about 1 year ago

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Review: Coyote Run _**Coyote Run**_ Lilith Saintcrow Horned Lark Press February 2025 Print Edition $12.99 Ebook Edition $5.99 On social media, I joked that the pitch for _Coyote Run_ is: “In a dystopian near-future America, a tough coyote woman punches a lot of Nazis.” While that was a bit tongue-in-cheek, it’s not wrong. (I didn’t give the title, but that was enough for someone to correctly guess.) A civil war has fractured the United States, with part of the country now under control of the fascist dictator Lindbergh, who’s come to power on the back of mad science experiments—including both creating Aryan-esque clone soldiers and a genetically engineered variant of Covid-19 that was supposed to “clear the globe” of the impure but may have actually led to the rise of shifters. Other parts of the former US seem to have joined with Mexico or Canada. In the midst of all this, the eponymous Coyote makes a living by taking dangerous jobs on the border of Lindyland—including crossing that border to rescue those imprisoned by the fascists. As the story opens, Marge, another shifter, comes to Coyote out of desperation: “They say you take jobs nobody else will.” And it’s a hell of a job: Marge’s sister is being held in a concentration camp, and Marge has been told she can “bring a shifter to trade for her.” It’s clear that Marge is a shifter herself, although a “civvie,” as Coyote would have it—no direct experience with the still-raging war. Her pitch immediately sets up a terrific tension: she wants Coyote to rescue her sister, and she’s told Coyote up front that the villains claim they want a prisoner exchange. So, does she want to _pretend_ to give Coyote to the fascists in exchange for her sister and help Coyote break her out, or does she plan to double-cross Coyote and really give her to the villains? Either way, Coyote’s in for a brutally rough time—but she can give as good as she gets. Coyote might well kick the shit out of anyone who accused her of being heroic, but circumstances still put her on the side of the angels. And she’s tremendously fun to read about. Marge turns out to be a great character, too, not just the catalyst for the adventure. (Her relationship with Coyote plays off a meta joke that, if you catch it, comes into focus in the very last scene.) The shifters of _Coyote Run_ aren’t “furry” in the way the characters from previous books I’ve reviewed are. The story blurs the way they shift—how much of it is truly physical, how much is mental, how damage to the human form affects the animal form and vice-versa. This isn’t a criticism; the choice gives the milieu’s therians a distinctive specificity. Their non-human aspects remain centered in a way that a lot of furry stories don’t pull off. And, frankly, right now couldn’t we all use a story about a tough coyote woman punching a lot of Nazis? https://giants-club.net/articles/review-coyote-run/

about 1 year ago

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Transgender Law Center fundraising drive March 31st was Transgender Day of Visiblity, and the kickoff of the Transgender Law Center’s spring crowd funding drive. As a nonbinary person with a _lot_ of trans friends and acquaintances, this is a topic dear to my heart. I’ve been donating to the Transgender Law Center for years; I don’t remember I started when I was annoyed about something anti-trans. (I don’t remember what, but look, I’m a sci-fi/fantasy writer who’s terminally online, so there’s a 99.99% chance it had something to do with J. K. Rowling.) And given what’s happening in our country right now—a slide toward autocratic kakistocracy—we’re in an increasingly dark place for anyone queer. And to the dime store Nazis now in charge of public life, furry _is_ queer. Anyway: I’ve set up my own fundraising page for the TLC. Furries have a track record of being pretty generous givers, and I hope you’ll help me continue that tradition! **Arilin’s TLC Fundraising Page** https://giants-club.net/articles/tdov-2025/

about 1 year ago

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Review: The Sharpened Fangs of Lupine Spirit _**The Sharpened Fangs of Lupine Spirit**_ _Vos Draemar Book 1_ H.G. Sansostri Next Chapter June 2021 Print Edition $19.49 Ebook Edition Free When I came up with the idea of reviewing one furry book a month, I said I’d only review books that I liked. It only took three books to throw a wrench into the project: what about books that I find to be a mixed bag? _The Sharpened Fangs of Lupine Spirit_ isn’t a book I’d heard of before. I’m told author H. G. Sonsostri is a furry, but it’s not distributed through our channels and—as a small press novel—hasn’t made a big mainstream splash that would draw our attention. It’s the first of a series which may be seven (!) books, although only three have been published so far. The story follows two brothers, Corsair and Ragnar Sedrid, wolves living among their own kind in the snowy north reaches of their world. They’re the sons of the Winter Baron, a leader of their clan and an unrelenting asshole to his adult children—especially to our protagonist Corsair, the less studious and flightier younger brother. As the story begins, the two brothers and their ictharr steeds are sent off for training with the Krosguard, an elite squad of soldiers. (Minor nitpick: we never get a good physical description of ictharrs.) Neither has an interest in going, but Dad insists—and war with the rabbit clan is coming. The lieutenant in charge of training turns out to be a psychopath. And, as the novel nears its climax, the Sedrids are plunged into political intrigue and betrayal. No one ends the novel at the same place they started. _Lupine Spirit_ is more low fantasy than high—more _Game of Thrones_ than _Lord of the Rings,_ albeit with no sex. The violence, once the fighting gets going, isn’t incredibly graphic, but it’s brutal. Corsair is, for the most part, a protagonist you root for, despite his tendency toward whininess and hotheadedness. Nearly all the side characters are interesting, too, and drawn distinctively. And, while you _could_ tell essentially the same story with humans instead of anthropomorphic animals, Sonsostri never forgets that they _are_ wolves. The late Fred Patten, who incessantly banged the “make the animal nature matter” drum, would have been pleased. So why is this a mixed bag? Pacing. The Krosguard training is the novel’s inciting incident, and the battle is the novel’s first plot turn. Think Luke Skywalker discovering his family farm has been burned to the ground, or Judy Hopps getting 48 hours to solve Mr. Otterman’s disappearance. But those turns happened about a quarter of the way into their stories—about where they should be, at the end of the first act in a three- or four-act structure. _Lupine Spirit_ pushes it all the way past the novel’s literal midpoint, which makes the first half feel positively glacial at times. After the battle, the pace becomes almost frantic. Okay. So. Do I recommend _The Sharpened Fangs of Lupine Spirit_ despite that reservation? I think so. The ebook is a free download, and as gauche as it is to suggest that makes up for some writing flaws, it certainly doesn’t hurt. There’s enough here to make me want to pick up the next book (which isn’t free, but the ebook is still reasonably priced), although I may not rush to do it. https://giants-club.net/articles/review-lupine-spirit/

over 1 year ago

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Review: Induction _**Induction**_ _Redline 's Downfall: Book 1_ Syntax Takes FurPlanet Productions August 2024 Print Edition $19.95 Ebook Edition $9.95 (DRM-free) An increasing number of folks I’m connected to have been making characters (often adaptations of their existing fursonas), art, and stories connected to “the Korps.” While the aesthetic was clear—tinted pink visors, mad science, costumes on a spectrum between spandexed supervillain and BDSM gear—the context remained opaque to me until I bought the Korps graphic novel “Surface Rupture” at Texas Furry Fiesta in 2024. The Korps setting is a furry, superpowered version of our world, with background explanations for both the “furry” and the “superpowered” aspects, and the Korps itself is a supervillain group. But is it? While the Korps embraces the term “villain,” they aren’t trying to take over the world as much as dismantle the existing power structure. They perceive the state—and the institutional superhero groups it backs—as the true evil, enforcers of a repressive monoculture that solely serves those at the top of the capitalist hierarchy. They’re “villains” because they aggressively challenge the status quo. In 2024, FurPlanet announced a series of Korps Universe novels featuring different characters and storylines. _Induction_ is the first novel published from that line. Set at a Texas superhero training academy, _Induction_ is the story of Volta, a young red wolf from a wealthy family with electricity-based superpowers so strong she’s forced to wear a “Dampener” constantly to limit their effects—and a closeted trans woman. To describe her relationship with her parents as strained is profound understatement; they have crushingly high expectations for their “son,” and the academy they’ve sent Volta to has all the rigid conservatism of a fanatical paramilitary militia. The special ire they show for the Korps isn’t merely because they’re “terrorists, militant criminals and gangsters,” as Volta’s mother puts it, but because they’re _deviants._ After an excruciating—and inevitably dysphoria-triggering—test of her powers, Volta meets a new lab researcher at the academy: Carmen, a tall, curvaceous tabby cat. The perceptive, sympathetic tabby instantly zeroes in on Volta’s issues with her parents, her gender dysphoria, and her conflicted feelings about service to the state as a superhero. Volta latches onto Carmen desperately, unaware Carmen has an agenda of her own. The villainous organization having a mole amongst the heroes is a well-worn trope, but in the world of the Korps, the trope becomes inverted: the heroes of the Texas Protectorate Assembly are the bad guys the villains need to help Volta escape. But Volta’s been steeping from childhood in pro-hero and anti-queer propaganda. Even if Carmen has Volta’s best interests at heart, will the red wolf believe her? While there’s certainly both action and brutal tension in _Induction,_ this is far from an MCU-style punchfest; it’s a deeply heartfelt story about Volta’s struggles with the terror of coming out versus the terror of _not_ doing so. Syntax Takes paints Volta and Carmen vividly, and the antagonists mostly avoid being one-note. If there’s any quibble, it’s how much you become aware of the “Book 1” in the subtitle: the story comes to a satisfying end, yet still feels the first act of a larger work. This is Volta/Redline’s origin story, setting up her friends, potential teammates, and future adversaries—after you finish, you’ll really want to know what comes next. https://giants-club.net/articles/review-induction/

over 1 year ago

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The Services You Use Matter Today on Mastodon and Bluesky, I linked to an article from Marisa Kabas, “Substack is at it again,” about newsletter platform Substack’s recent choice to launch a new “enterprise offering” for bigger publications, with Bari Weiss’s Free Press as their inaugural partnership. As Kabas writes, > If you’re not familiar, Weiss gained notoriety as an opinion editor who quit the New York Times in 2020 but acted like she was fired. Since then, she’s built a lucrative career on grievance. To give you a sense of her publication’s schtick, recent post titles include, “Things Worth Remembering: The Empathy of J.K. Rowling” and “Daniel Penny’s Innocence—and the Shame of Alvin Bragg.” […] There are plenty of writers who remain on the platform with actual integrity and journalism chops, so the decision to singularly salute Weiss and co. reads like an intentional statement of values by Substack. Then again, their values were made crystal clear last year. That last line is a tip toward an article in _The Atlantic_ from December 2023 about how Substack allows Nazis—by which I do not mean merely people on the far right, I mean actual full-stop Nazis—to not only publish on their platform but to make money on it (of which Substack receives a cut, of course). Now, I’m personally doubtful that boycotts usually have an effect on companies being boycotted. There are exceptions—unfortunately, the most concrete recent example of an effective boycott was the one conservative culture warriors led against Anheuser-Busch for partnering with a trans influencer to promote Bud Light—but that’s more an exception to the rule. Even so, I think where you spend your money—and, in the case of free services that monetize through ads, your time—matters. For instance, Chick-Fil-A, at a corporate level, championed anti-queer causes; the backlash against them has had at best a modest effect, and their PR responses have been calculated at best. (It’s unclear whether their corporate foundation continued donating to openly anti-LGBTQ groups like the Salvation Army after 2019, but the family that owns them has continued to spend millions campaigning against the Equality Act.) So if not buying your fried chicken sandwiches at Chick-Fil-A doesn’t hurt them, why not do it? So what? Other alternatives might not _really_ be any better, right? You don’t _know_ that your local Popeyes franchise owner isn’t a white supremacist, and you can’t be expected to research every single company you make a purchase from. Okay. Sure. That’s all true. But when I choose not to buy from Chick-Fil-A, it’s not about their bottom lines—it’s about my ethical lines. I _do_ know that they support groups that actively hurt my community, people I care about, and that they do so knowingly. And that’s a line I haven’t been willing to cross for years now. This is true for most of our community now with respect to social media: there aren’t that many furries left on X. I used to obstinately keep referring to it as “Twitter,” but it’s no longer the Twitter I had a love-hate relationship with for years. It seemed like it took Musk’s embrace of Trump to finally push most furries off the service, which I frankly find baffling—the writing was on the wall by the end of 2022: > New Twitter will be hostile to anyone queer, or non-white, or slightly to the left of Ronald Reagan. You may be a creator who wants to stay on Twitter to reach your audience, but the audience there will inevitably tilt toward the anti-woke, All Lives Matter, gender critical, Just Asking Questions crowd. If they’re your audience, congratulations, I guess. If they’re not, you have a problem. But, it was easy to rationalize staying on Twitter, and so a lot of people did. Some people still do. There is no ethical consumption under capitalism something something something delicious sandwiches. I’m not going to go after anyone for staying on Substack, or even staying on Twitter. Hell, I won’t come at you for eating at Chick-Fil-A. But when you bite into that sandwich or post on that service, you’re saying something about how much you’re willing to inconvenience yourself for your principles. You’re saying something about the lines you’re willing to draw. Lastly, a note about Bluesky. A lot of my readers are probably familiar with Bluesky’s recent moderation travails, when, after facing mounting pressure to ban anti-trans “journalist” Jesse Singal, their Trust & Safety team’s response basically punted despite him violating Bluesky’s terms of service—certainly in spirit, and arguably in the letter, too. I don’t think Bluesky is secretly anti-trans. I think they’re aware of politics. Trump’s incoming FCC chair intends to go after social media companies conservatives believe suppress them. And as much as I genuinely like Bluesky, they’re funded by venture capital (in some cases, by firms that seem questionable even by VC standards), and VCs want a return on their investment. Bluesky’s older but smaller “competitor,” Mastodon, is a European non-profit that takes no VC money at all, and is meaningfully decentralized—communities can run their own servers with their own rules. If you asked a bunch of queer furry anarchist programmers to design their ideal replacement for Twitter, what they came up with might look an awful lot like Mastodon. But compared to Bluesky, it’s relatively fussy and fiddly. Bluesky, by contrast, feels like old Twitter. It’s more, how might I put it, convenient. To be clear, I’m on Bluesky! I like it! I’m not planning to leave it! But I’m also not planning to leave Mastodon—and I _am_ planning on continuing to treat Mastodon as my primary social media. While there’s no guarantee that Bluesky _will_ enshittify, it will be under increasing pressure to do so in the coming years, and the Singal episode doesn’t bode well for their ability to withstand it. Right now, Bluesky users are only being asked to ignore the tiniest whiff of shit along with their delicious chicken sandwich. But it’s reasonable to start thinking about what lines you’re willing to draw now. https://giants-club.net/articles/services-you-use/

over 1 year ago

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Regulars https://giants-club.net/stories/regulars/

over 1 year ago

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Date Night https://giants-club.net/stories/date-night/

over 1 year ago

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A short note about politics I don’t think I’ll surprise anyone by noting that I’ve already voted in the US elections, and voted for Harris. I’m spurred to write, though, by encountering someone on the Furry Writers Guild Discord a couple of days ago arguing vociferously for the virtues of not voting. Their arguments are ones that I’ve seen before on the left: both parties are terrible, why should we always have to choose the lesser of two evils, etc., etc. I know those arguments because I was making them about a quarter-century ago, when the two major party candidates were George W. Bush and Al Gore. It was the argument that third-party candidate Ralph Nader very explicitly made, and explicitly made it to folks on the political left who thought the Democrats might as well be Republicans. Did Nader cost Gore the election? I’ve gone back and forth on it myself over the years, and suspect the answer is “probably, but not definitively.” But I think the real question is: was Nader _right_ about there being no material difference between the parties? If Gore had been elected instead of Bush, would we be in the same place we are now? Well, if you know anything about Al Gore at all besides dumb jokes about inventing the internet, it’s that he was deeply concerned with climate change _long_ before most other politicians around the world. If the United States had had a president who took climate policy seriously in 2000, that might have made a huge difference. (I could also make the case that with Gore in office, our Middle East policy would have been far less catastrophic, but I won’t get too far off track.) You know full well the Republicans would never have legalized gay marriage. But the differences on the margins also matter. From health care to infrastructure to economics to climate, Democrats are closer to my beliefs than Republicans, full stop. I’m not unsympathetic to the “lesser of two evils” argument—again, Nader voter in 2000 here—but that all too frequently collapses into an “all or nothing” argument: _if we settle for a compromise position, we’ll never get where we actually need to be, so we can’t have anyone in office who makes compromises._ This just doesn’t match the reality I see on the ground. What I see, in practice, is that compromises that get you closer to what you want now make the _next_ compromise just a little easier to get. And you keep inching closer. But don’t take my word for that. See, this argument about whether little differences between candidates matter has been going on since before that Bush-Gore matchup. For as long as I’ve been voting, I’ve watched voters on the far left look at two candidates, neither one of whom really matches their preferences, and say, “There’s almost no difference between these two, so why bother.” They make a protest vote, or don’t vote at all. When voters on the far _right_ look at two candidates, neither one of whom really matches their preferences, they say, “There’s almost no difference between these two, but almost is not none.” So the candidate they want gets in. A compromise _they_ want gets made. Repeat that over and over, election after election, for thirty or forty years, and you get to where we are now. The Republican Party has, over the past fifteen years, essentially turned against small-d democracy: they don’t think they can reliably win elections fairly anymore. They wouldn’t be trying so fucking hard to keep you from voting—whether by making it literally difficult, or by convincing you that it’s pointless to bother—if voting didn’t matter. Voting has _always_ mattered. It still matters. But if a party that no longer believes in democracy gets enough power to change the rules, to keep voting from mattering in the future, that’s what they’ll do. If they get their way, this will be the _last_ election in which voting matters for a long, long while. There’s only so much any single one of us can do to fight against that—but let’s do all we can. https://giants-club.net/articles/short-note-politics/

over 1 year ago

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Burned Furs, Puriteens, and Furry’s Real Golden Age _This article was originally a Twitter thread from 2021. With X/Twitter setting itself on fire, it occurred to me that it’d be useful to pull it into an actual blog post. I’ve updated a few bits and “dethreaded” it for publication here._ * * * So the Burned Furs come up every so often in The Discourse.™ And I’d like to talk about how they’re both exactly what you think and way more than you think. Gamergate, the Sad Puppies, Bronies for Trump—we had it all ahead of schedule, writ small and stupid. In some ways, the BFs came out of arguments furry is still having now. Should we be more circumspect about sexy-stuff in general and fetishes in particular? Should the Shame Nun angrily chant and ring bells at us for our contemptible tolerance of disgusting things? If this sounds like an earlier take on the “puriteens” of the present moment, well, bingo. Charla “Squee Rat” Trotman would probably have objected even then to being described that way, but if the foo shits, right? When I first wrote this, I thought Squee Rat was 15 or 16 when she wrote this, but Wikipedia claims she was born in 1978. In fact, Squee Rat was only 19 or 20 when she wrote her “Sordid Little Business” broadside that effectively kicked off the Burned Furs. She didn’t start the BFs, but she defined their ranting, angry tone. Here’s the thing: “Sordid” isn’t just a profane rant, it’s a _weird_ profane rant. There’s a paragraph or two complaining about zoophiles, another about “plushophiles,” but the vast bulk of the article is about what she saw as the _real_ evil: Furry Lifestylers. Furry what? We don’t use that term much now, but it rolls up a lot. I mean, a _lot._ Back in the relatively early days of science fiction fandom (say, the 1950s and 60s) there were two somewhat tongue-in-cheek camps, “FIAWOL” (Fandom is a way of life) and “FIJAGH” (Fandom is just a goddamn hobby). Arguably, “furry lifestyler” was our version of FIAWOL. Even in the early days of furry, some people deeply identified with their fursonas. There were “furry houses” like the Prancing Skiltaire. So “lifestyler” encompasses anything that involves seeing furry as deeper than “cartoon animals are cool.” Otherkin, definitely. But to the Burned Furs and Squee Rat, it encompassed just wishing you were an animal. Deeply personal fursonas. And, uh, being vegan. Seriously, she wrote more words railing about vegans than about zoophiles. `#priorities` So on the one hand, “Sordid” is deeply immature, and on the other, kind of bonkers. Sure, furry _was_ (and remains) full of adult and fetish material. But it argues the true scourge, the evil whose inclusion would surely doom furry to the trash heap of pop culture history, was: plushophile vegans. Anyway, “Coyote Nate” Patrin wrote the actual Burned Fur Mission Statement, which also calls out bestiality, plushophilia, and fursuit sex. I don’t know if I’d call that manifesto and its supplemental FAQ either excessively puritanical or overtly homophobic, but let’s put a pin in that for a moment. I _would,_ however, call them whiny, in the “I don’t care if this stuff is here but why do I have to see it and if other people see it they’ll think all furry is like this so actually I do care” way we see in current puriteen crusaders. Also, the FAQ caps on vegans again, because while furry has nothing to do with your self-identity it apparently has everything to do with your diet. Interestingly, they’re also focused on commercial prospects: there was a perception at the time that furry was getting a bad rap in the animation and comics industries. Once you’re branded with the Scarlet F, kid, you’ll Never Work In This Town Again! So, back to that pin. The mission statement began by bemoaning “‘alternative lifestyle’ groups associated with [furry], many of whom have little interest in…anthropomorphic art, stories, costumes, etc.” And acts the Burned Furs “strongly discourage the support of” included not just bestiality, plushophilia, and fursuit sex, but “other things seen as ‘wrong’ by non-fandom individuals.” I can’t _prove_ this was meant as a homophobic dog whistle, but let’s be blunt: it’s sure easy to hear it as one. And this is where things get even more complicated. See, while you know the name “Burned Furs,” what you might not know is that they had an antecedent, the “Take Back Our Fandom Brigade” fomented by _Gallery_ editor Rich Chandler: > Well, frankly, I think it’s time we collectively said “Enough is Enough!” Things are not going to get better by themselves. Tolerance and political correctness and even manners be damned, we have to reclaim our fandom. This raises immediate questions: reclaim it _from_ who and _for_ who? It rested on the dubious idea that there had been a “golden age of furry” which had _already passed by the mid-1990s_ due to all the pr0nz. Oh, you mean all the naked vixens? _Oh, no, those are fine._ Then I guess you mean the weird Nazi-adjacent imagery, with the obvious uniform and heavy weaponry fetishes— _No, no, we don’t mean that._ (Angry goose meme) WHAT KIND DO YOU MEAN, THEN, FUCKER? Uh-huh. The folks in Southern California—the late Mark Merlino and his partner Rod O’Riley, founders of the Prancing Skiltaire—who organized the first furry parties and the first furry con were self-described lifestylers, and openly gay/bi/poly. Furry started out entwined with queer communities, and started out being pretty frankly sexual. (The first furry-as-we-know-it comic was arguably Reed Waller’s _Omaha the Cat Dancer,_ whose first appearance was in the funny animal APA _Vootie_ in 1978.) And some people hated that furries were so damn open about sexing up their cartoon animals, were so brazenly queer-friendly, were so _visibly weird._ They hated that being tied to those dirty dirty furries might affect their prospects in the animation industry. At least in theory, they weren’t anti-queer prudes (Chandler would repeatedly point out he identified as bisexual, so he couldn’t _possibly_ be queerphobic); in practice, though, they _really hated_ that furry was, yes, so damn queer. That it wasn’t, for an increasing number of people, just a goddamn hobby. And _these_ were the guys—all (cis white) guys, as far as I know—with the reactionary, Gamergate-foreshadowing vibe. They didn’t do a lot before this except grumble, but the Burned Furs gave a vindication of their views! And had attention! And wanted members! Despite their protests to the contrary, the BFs obviously _did_ want gatekeepers in furrydom. Furry needed people who would force all the undesirables back into the closet and/or out of the subculture entirely, and _obviously_ only the people who saw the problem were qualified to be those gatekeepers. So while the Burned Furs didn’t start as a conservative power play to Make Furry Great Again, that’s what they became. Some people still genuinely believe it was about “improving furry,” but, well. Some people still genuinely believe Gamergate was about ethics in game journalism. The most charitable reading of their premise is that furry shouldn’t be about your identity, but just about the art. I actually get it; long ago, I bristled at the idea that it was about anything more myself, and I was concerned about how easy it was to find adult art. (I didn’t want to suppress it, but I didn’t want it to be people’s first experience with furry.) But I realized, thankfully quickly, that furry was _always_ about both art _and_ identity. Telling people how they can and can’t identify is a mean-spirited, ugly proposition. And ultimately, a losing one. So it isn’t surprising that the Burned Furs, er, burned out. Nate Patrin became a professional music journalist, writing for _Pitchfork, Stereogum,_ and _Spin,_ among others. (The article I linked, “It’s Hard to Tell Who Is Real in Here: On being tired of fighting over taste,” takes on a decided ironic cast now, doesn’t it.) In a truly glorious example of Bet You Didn’t See This Coming, C. Spike “Squee Rat” Trotman became an award-winning publisher of erotic comics. Neither of them want to discuss furry anymore, which, you know, fair. Trotman’s company nonetheless produced and distributed Tracy Butler’s “Lackadaisy” short film; I’m not sure if that means she’s forgiven furry, or if she would strenuously argue that “Lackadaisy” isn’t furry, it just has, you know, anthropomorphic animals in adult situations. (I guess it’s okay because they’re not vegan.) One of the founders of the Burned Furs known for his love of German military imagery in his art, Eric Blumrich, was always on the political far left. I don’t know what that means, but it seems amiss not to note the absurdity. Some other Burned Furs, TBOFs, and BF-adjacent types like Chandler joined Gamergate and/or the Sad Puppies, because of fucking course they did. Each movement rested on near-identical paranoid conservative fantasies of restoring an imagined Golden Age now under existential threat. Our modern fannish purity culture isn’t quite the same—as Vox notes, it’s often spearheaded by people who’d otherwise describe themselves as liberal, and stems from an inability (or unwillingness) to distinguish between real-world harm and fictional harm—but the similarities are clear. It’s ironic that an anti-diversity group started with a young black woman’s rant—but furry’s full of cis white males, and the reactionaries saw a chance to say “follow us or you’re doomed.” We didn’t. And it turns out we’re still here—bigger and better than ever. We’re more diverse, more creative, and frankly, more popular and accepted. Sure, we’re still a work in progress. But at least in the eyes of this giant cat who was really there all that time ago, the closest we’ve ever had to a Golden Age in Furry is now. https://giants-club.net/articles/burned-furs/

over 1 year ago

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Hazing Ritual https://giants-club.net/stories/hazing-ritual/

over 1 year ago

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Whither Fur Affinity? With the recent far-too-early passing of Dragoneer, Fur Affinity’s owner, I’ve seen two understandable if conflicting impulses: * Shit, what’s going to happen to FA now? * How dare you even ask that question! And, okay. I get the “don’t speak ill of the dead unless they’re Henry Kissinger” thing, but _what happens now?_ is not speaking ill of the dead. It’s a legitimate question. When Dragoneer bought FA back from IMVU, their blog post announcement described it as moving “under sole ownership of Dragoneer”; Frost Dragon Art LLC may be just one person. After his death, Dragoneer’s partner started a GoFundMe to support FA; the fund originally requested $75,000, and generous furries blew past that. On August 15th, they changed the goal to be $221,800, with several question marks indicating more to be added later; this could easily break a quarter million. Furry lawyer Buddy Goodboy argues this raises questions about the expenses, particularly around the business itself: > [Fur Affinity’s debts include] a working capital loan ($32,000), the balance owed to IMVU for Fur Affinity’s buyback ($17,000), and past contract services owed ($38,400). Are there are any other outstanding debts? Who owns this debt? What was the plan to pay it back? What were the terms? As uncomfortable as it is to be asking, these are valid questions, as are questions about FA’s relatively high operating expenses. FA has immense storage requirements, but they purchased their own hardware in 2020; their September 6th update put their colocation costs at $5K/mo, which seems startlingly high based on my research. _To be clear, I am not accusing anyone of running a grift._ Questions notwithstanding, most of the cited costs are sadly plausible. The concern is what this means for FA’s future. To quote Buddy’s list of questions again, > What happens at the end of two months? What is the plan to pay Fur Affinity’s operating expenses moving forward? Why is Fur Affinity’s current income not supporting its operating costs? Unlike Buddy, I am not a lawyer, nor am I an accountant; I’m just a grumpy cat with an occasional eye for details. What jumps out at me is the sheer amount of debt: the working capital loan and the amount owed to IMVU and “past contract services” total $87,400. The GoFundMe is more than enough to discharge those outstanding debts, but what then? You take out a working capital loan to cover everyday operations—in other words, it sounds like FA had to borrow $32K _just to keep running._ Dragoneer always described the site as kind of a money pit, and apparently he wasn’t kidding. I’m not going to make dire predictions of FA being doomed; the site’s escaped the jaws of death multiple times at this point, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see it do it one more time. But it’s the time _after_ this that I have my doubts about. When FA’s operating income is still outpaced by its expenses, Dragoneer is no longer there to give his literal everything to the site, and the burst of energy and enthusiasm around honoring his legacy can’t be counted on to turn this into a semi-annual donation drive. At the very least, I’d suggest downloading favorites that you might really want to keep—and for God’s sake, make sure you have all of your own uploaded content saved on your own computer. Fur Affinity is not and never has been a place for you to store your only copies of your work. (And if you’re thinking “I don’t care if I lose that old stuff I can’t even bear to look at now,” download it anyway. Future you may not have the same opinion about looking back that you do.) I’ve said before that I think furries—and the web at large, but maybe _especially_ creative types—need to embrace the idea of digital homesteading, of making their own places on the web. Yes, FA is a by-furries-for-furries place, as is SoFurry and insert name of your favorite FA challenger that has like fifteen people using it], which means it doesn’t have the issues of corporate social media sites like Xitter and Tumblr. (Bluesky gets partial credit here for being a public benefit corporation.) Unfortunately, they’ve traded the risks of being for-profit entities with the risks of having a much higher [bus factor. I get that agitating for every creator to set up their own website, and every fan to just go around to multiple websites, is quixotic. What they should do, of course, is use RSS readers to monitor all those multiple websites. There have been so many free, easy alternatives since the mid-2000s that it stopped being something “normal people” do. The problem, though, is that those free, easy alternatives always have strings. Always. You get the features those sites have, and no more. You get the moderation those sites have, whether you think it’s fair or not. And even more to the point, _somebody_ gets those bills, and sooner or later somebody has to start paying them. The service enshittifies, or stops accepting free users, or sells itself, or shuts down. Or, I guess, it keeps juggling debt until its successors have to run a GoFundMe to dig themselves out of the hole. But how long can they stay out? https://giants-club.net/articles/whither-fa/

almost 2 years ago

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Saida and the Dragon https://giants-club.net/serials/c/saida-gets-eaten/saida-and-the-dragon/

almost 2 years ago

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Cadillac https://giants-club.net/stories/cadillac/

over 2 years ago

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I have a new website Okay, it’s the same domain as my old website and mostly the same content, _but!_ There are some new things! ## The TL;DR * There’s now finally a gallery section with a few dozen images (including NSFW ones, so don’t click “Show NSFW” unless you mean it). * Newer stories including “Summons,” “Disruption,” and “Return to Office” are included. * Serials are on their own page now, including three new-to-the-site ones: _Big Trouble, Goddess,_ and the “Saida Gets Eaten” vignettes. * And, yes: _Goddess_ is available online for the very first time anywhere! * The article section has been expanded, bringing together stuff that was previously in a mishmash of “essays” and blog posts (across two blogs!). This is basically now just Arilin’s Blog (tm). * Story tagging and indexing is a lot better. * And, while the domain remains `giants-club.net`, the name of the website is just “Arilin Thorferra” now. ## The nerdy stuff Years ago, I chose a static site generator called Lektor for my site. The new site uses a system called Zola. They’re both relatively unusual in that they _don’t_ assume your static site is basically a blog; a lot of the “big names” in this space will really fight you if what you’re trying to do isn’t very blog-like. Lektor is, in some ways, still better for what I want to do than Zola is. But Lektor is _slow._ Maybe my design makes it work too hard generating tables of contents or previous/next navigation, but I’ve grown loath to add more serials to it. It’s also kind of wonky: it expects you to add new pages through a locally run web interface. That’s nice for people who aren’t comfortable with a web editor, but the interface for adding those pages gets exponentially slower the bigger the site gets. Worse, Lektor’s installation is _fragile._ Nearly every time I wanted to update the site, I’d discover a routine system upgrade had somehow broken the Python “virtual environment” Lektor was installed in, and I would spend an hour or two debugging it. (That it took Lektor’s developers literal years to correct outdated installation documentation didn’t help.) Zola, by comparison, is one self-contained binary written in Rust. I don’t need to put any real effort into maintaining it. And the new site—which has over two dozen more HTML pages, including the gallery page—builds literally thirty times faster. It’s almost instantaneous. ## So are you going to update faster? Well…yes, with an asterisk. Here’s the thing: I’m still not completely sure how to handle in-progress serials on the site. As it’s written now, you can’t easily tell when a serial is being updated, well, serially. I’m going to look into ways to address that, but it’s complicated. The site may end up just being for _finished_ works: once a serial is finished being serialized, it’ll show up here as a whole piece. If you really want to see all my work the fastest, posted closest to as-written, though, there’s an easy way: subscribe to my Patreon! I have one novel, _Saida & Autumn,_ that’s only available through Patreon or buying it from FurPlanet or Bad Dog Books; while my subsequent work has all shown up on FA, it’s always on a delay. And some future work might remain Patreon-exclusive for longer. https://giants-club.net/articles/new-website/

over 2 years ago

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Return to Office https://giants-club.net/stories/return-to-office/

over 2 years ago

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Big Trouble https://giants-club.net/serials/big-trouble/

over 3 years ago

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The Furry Social Media Diaspora So, Twitter is kind of a trash fire now. Sure. Twitter has _always_ been kind of a trash fire. But new owner Elon Musk, Super Genius, appears to have decided the new business model is “drive users away and make it up in volume.” In the last few weeks as of this writing, he’s fired literally half the company just because he thought there were too many employees; hired some of them back because there was no forethought put into who to keep; kept them so in the dark about company plans that they’ve had to follow his fucking tweets to make guesses; made criticisms of Twitter’s tech stack that engineers who actually work on said stack pushed back on, because it was clear he didn’t understand what he was talking about; fired the engineers who criticized him, even internally; made verification open to everyone who paid eight bucks; pulled back on that when it was immediately the disaster everyone told him it was going to be; and, oh yes, declared “comedy is legal on Twitter again” shortly before deleting accounts that made fun of him. Look. I didn’t expect Musk to be a particularly good owner for Twitter. But I didn’t expect that he would charge out of the gate flinging monkey poop and stepping on land mines while insisting that anyone who asks if maybe they should go _around_  the monkey poop minefield instead of _through_ it be fired for insubordination. I still don’t think Twitter will go under, but I think there’s a high chance it’s turbocharged its inevitable journey toward LiveJournal-style irrelevancy. Like LiveJournal itself, it’ll still be around, but it’ll be around as a shadow of its former self after being sold to someone vaguely shady. (To clarify, I don’t mean the vaguely shady Elon, I mean whoever he sells it to for pennies on the dollar.) We’re already seeing people either migrating completely off Twitter or, in more cases, setting up accounts in other places “just in case”. The popular choices seem to be: At the time I wrote this in late 2022, Bluesky hadn’t taken off yet. Now it’s picking up a lot of momentum with furries, which is both good and bad. * Mastodon, a “decentralized” microblogging service which has some great ideas but desperately needs fans who can describe it in ways that don’t make it sound like it’s only for people who recompile their Linux kernel for fun * Cohost, a new centralized blogging platform optimized for people who’d like to see the same posts reshared in their entirety dozens of times, wrapped up in an unchangeable theme straight from LiveJournal circa 2006 * Pillowfort, _another_ new(ish) centralized blogging platform whose thematic premise seems to be Tumblr but with better filtering, NSFW content with fewer asterisks, and new major security vulnerabilities on a roughly annual schedule Personally, I have a Mastodon and a Cohost (and, obviously, a Tumblr). But they’re all, well, different. They’re smaller. Dispersed. None of them have the center of gravity that Twitter does yet, and I doubt any of them ever will. Yet: maybe this diaspora is a good thing. I don’t say that just because it’s bad to put all your eggs in one basket (although it is), or just as a critique of internet capitalism (although it sure deserves critique), but also as a critique of Twitter specifically. As Brent Simmons, a pioneer of the early RSS-driven web, wrote on his website recently, > The internet’s town square should never have been one specific website with its own specific rules and incentives. It should have been, and should be, the web itself. > > Having one entity own and police that square could only deform the worldwide conversation, to disastrous ends, even with the smartest and most humane people at work. > > Twitter’s new owner is certainly not one of those people. But it doesn’t matter: he unintentionally brought the change that needed to happen, the break in the consensus. Simmons writes that the “fall of the Twitter consensus” energizes him, remembering the “liveliness and sparkle” of the mid-2000s on the web. And he’s not wrong. > I don’t suggest dialing the clock back to old tech, but I hope we use the good parts from those days to help us build new and amazing things. There is so much to do, and so many grand problems to solve. > > The web is wide open again, for the first time in what feels like forever. “Decentralization” feels like an of-the-moment buzzword, but it arguably describes the internet as originally designed: servers all over the world that link to one another and that anyone online can access from anywhere. Mastodon, for all its problems (and I’ll write about them in a future post), has a better handle on this than any other “after Twitter” technology. Well, any other technology except one: owning your own domain and choosing your own “engines,” whether that’s your own blogging engine or just pointing that domain at Tumblr like I’m doing on this blog. That’s always been a big ask, though, in ways that people who find it easy (like me) too often fail to appreciate. And I don’t have any perfect solutions to that. I have no guarantee that Tumblr won’t go the way of the dodo; owning a domain name means I can point it somewhere else if I want, but that’s just half of the problem. Setting up my own “microblogging” system would be a capital-P Project, no matter the technology. And not everyone with the ability and will to put in that work has $5 a month to spare on a web host. For the record, I did actually set up my own personal Mastodon server. (I have both the $5/month and the ability, but whether I have the will is debatable.) I can’t end this post with any advice but the most tentative. If you want something the most like Twitter, you should probably find a Mastodon instance to join—which one you pick is _mostly_ not a big deal, although if you’re a furry, look for a furry-friendly one. Ask people you trust who are already on Mastodon, perhaps. As for the other services, well, it remains to be seen. I’m not a big fan of Cohost’s UX design, but the site’s getting popular, so I’m reluctantly keeping my eye on it. I have no experience with Pillowfort. On a tech level, Tumblr is head and shoulders over most other free blogging services, but their mercurial policies/enforcement around NSFW artwork make them a non-starter for some. (They don’t seem to care at all what you put in text, though. Mwahaha.) What I’d _really_ like is to see these services make more effort to be interoperable with one another. If Cohost and Pillowfort supported ActivityPub, for instance, you could follow people who used those services with your Mastodon account, and if Mastodon supported RSS, you could follow anybody using a service—like Tumblr here—that uses that. In any case, we’re in for an interesting next year. Wave goodbye to Elon and hang on to your tails. https://giants-club.net/articles/furry-social-media-diaspora/

over 3 years ago

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Disruption https://giants-club.net/stories/disruption/

over 3 years ago

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you reached the end!!