2710 Creativiteam.

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There’s always something vaguely menacing about how Thomas frames things…

I’ve been on the edges of the furry “community” since basically before the internet was a thing. Fursuits and fursonas don’t really appeal to me. I don’t have that type of need to roleplay in quite that way. But I’ve always enjoyed anthro art and I’ve been on Furafinity for as long as I can remember with one account or another. I mean I rolled Alexandria and her friends into this comic because I hated to leave them to languish in that space after making them, frankly, extremely fun characters to write. As with every aspect of my life I’m always on the edge of things as a sort of ignored observer. The reason I bring this up is that the owner of Furafinity died a day or so ago. Dragoneer is a bit of a controversial figure, to put it mildly, but he created a space for people who needed containment. He also kept FA from devolving into the kind of greed driven hellhole that most modern websites have become. I think he was around my age. If we can put everything else about him aside for a moment, the last few days of his social media are some of the most grim, bleak, heartbreaking, and human things I’ve seen posted in a long time. He was staring down the barrel of a death sentence and not getting much care from the health care system. If you look up his social media on twitter https://x.com/Dragoneer or bluesky @dragoneer.bsky.social first of all you’re gonna see a lot of horny posting right up to the end, but you’re also gonna see the absolute disaster that is America’s health care system. At the end of it all his ending wasn’t happy and, if you believe we have some control over when we die, came too soon. I wasn’t his friend. In fact I was in direct opposition to him on more than one occasion, but I still appreciate what he gave me in the form of his website.

“The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones”

I apologize for bringing this story into what is a haven from such things for many of you, but I feel like observing these small realities is important in some way. How long must one atone? When can they be praised for the good in spite of their flaws? I don’t know. I simply know that one day we will each face the void, so it might be worth looking down the path to that time, and at the journey of others.

For now we are still here together. If you would like to help me maintain my life and work the support links are up above as always. I hope to see you again on Monday. Until then, memento mori.

19 Comments

I’ve never understood furries. I’ve also never had the raging hate boner for them that much of the internet has, for some reason, but I don’t really get the entire subculture, and the ones who do take it to the extreme of basically being as degenerate as possible didn’t give it a good luck. I can at least understand alot of weird groups online, but that’s the biggest one I’ve always been baffled by. Almost seem like people being weird deliberately just…because. Like hippies.

***Warning! May Trigger***

FWIW, I don’t think I’ve mentioned it, but- within the last 4 months, I lost a college friend of mine.

He passed on from [a minor [?], heart operation…I think]. He didn’t survive that operation, I hate to say.. Sorry…I’m just writing from the top of my head-I don’t intend to be frightening or too harsh.

He wasn’t a [close] friend, but- he + I did hang out with 8-10 people in our dorm, so- while we didn’t tell each other…all of our deep-dreams + secrets, the people in our group…we likely knew, [a lot], about each other.

His passing is very mystifying + sad, to me.

It’s like seeing a friend: walking into a fog, + then you hear about his passing, the next day.

A lot of the time-he wasn’t a cheerful + kind person to me, + sometimes being around him was emotionally, unhealthy for us.

Regardless, I miss him a lot, anyway.

He could be insulting + shitty to people, but- I didn’t want to see harm or doom happen to him.
I wish that I could talk to ghosts, so I could say to him: “what [happened?]. Was it bad health? you’re STILL supposed to be with us, my man. This sucks.”

The poor guy. He should have lasted another 50 years, at least. I just don’t know.

Sorry, I don’t have a neat way to tie this story up. I’d write one here for you, if I had one.
Please take care of your health, everyone…+ please ask your friends and family to do the same.
I’m getting sappy…I know it, but- please be good to your family + friends…they do care about you, and likely they care about you more than they’re telling you, I believe.

Cheers, TRA

Condolences for the loss of your college friend. Even if you weren’t the closest of friends, he meant enough tot you that you obviously miss him (as you said yourself) a lot. I wish you strength and love in this difficult time.

Thank You.

I really appreciate your condolences, that you sent to me.
I apologize if I was, “a little, motormouth”, in my comment, above. I guess I was feeling extremely badly about his passing, + I wanted to tell some online people about my feelings.

Thank You.

You’re very welcome. No problem, trust me I know the feeling all to well unfortunately. …Four years ago a very good friend of mine past away (from Leukemia). During a full year of intense treatments (for months contiguous in the hospital) I was one of only a very few people who was able to cheer him up a bit by calling him on the phone (sometimes for hours at the time), so needless to say we grew quite close during his last year. (In the end the bone marrow transplantation wasn’t enough to safe his life.) It took me quite sometime afterwards to stop wanting to talk about him all the time (undoubtedly in an attempt to sort of keep him alive in my mind), it is a normal (and I bet even healthy) part of the grief process. So please don’t worry about wanting to ramble on a bit about your lost friend, I hope it will help you grieve and heal.

I feel like this conversation is stuck in a sort of loop: “You need to appeal to what they want.” “What do they want?” “Mostly just the money.” “But I can’t change that so what do I do instead?” “You need to get creative.” “How do I get creative?” “By appealing to what they want.” “What do they want?” “Mostly just the money.” “But I can’t change that so what do I do instead?” “You need to get creative.” “How do I get creative?” “By appealing to what they want…”

Well, yes, mostly money. But what about the rest of their desires? I’ve always said that a manager’s job is to create a space that maximizes each subordinates’ productivity. Which is a big-word way to say the same thing Thomas is.

Listen in on their conversations. You’ll learn their favorite sports and teams, hobbies and outside interests, feelings about their jobs and ways they think it could be improved (humbling and often pejorative, but very useful information), etc.

Yes, get creative.

You and Mick are missing my point. My point is that the conversation keeps repeating:
Thomas, page 2696: “The Key to getting anyone to do anything is to figure out what motivates them.”
Thomas, page 2707: “In order to motivate someone, all you need to know is what motivates them.”
Thomas, page 2710: “Well the short version is you try to help them achieve THEIR goals.”
That’s three separate times in the same conversation that he’s basically said the exact same thing.

You act as though you’ve never heard an actual conversation. Sometimes you keep circling around over and over trying to get to understanding. Every time he almost gets where he’s going something diverts him. That’s one of the basic difficulties of teaching.

Well, there’s your problem…
You’re hung up on money being the only thing people want. But people do want other things.
Praise, recognition of their efforts
Other perks – merchandise, a pizza party (despite the terrible cliche)
flexible hours,
time off.
opportunities for promotion,
personal development,
training/ education opportunities
That’s what Thomas means about being creative. Can Mike offer things other than just money (or that will cost him or the store money)

On the job, what I go for is a technical challenge that I can invent tools to solve and that teaches me something.
But it’s the challenge that motivates more than the tools.
I like projects that I’m not sure how to carry out when I start.

Getting paid is nice, too, as an enabler that helps me focus. But without the challenge, I tend to drift off to another job. Sometimes even quit without another paying job offer.

A couple possibilities emerge.

You’ve got dedicated filmmakers working there. Maybe offer the store after hours as a shooting location.

Depending on policy, you may be able to order some free merch and use it for “promotional giveaways.”

Trips to conventions might help. That becomes research material.

Dunno how far our boy can go, but there’s certainly at least some lines of logic to follow.

I like how the two methods Carol believes in are the same two methods specifically named by Rufus in Final Fantasy 7. I’m not saying she’s an anime villain, but…

To be fair, those are the most commonly known tactics to motivate people. Money is the most obvious carrot to dangle, and fear of losing their job or demotion or losing perks or whatever can be an effective stick. The issue is in low paying positions like theirs you can’t use money as the carrot because corporate won’t approve raises, and firing is the only stick you can really leverage since there isn’t really a lower position to be demoted to or perks to lose, and that’s fairly draconian and only effective at getting them to tow the line until they can find a new job, at which point they won’t care and might start intentionally causing trouble on their way out the door. Sticks only work to correct bad behavior, you need carrots to reinforce good ones.

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