Hello everyone, I’m Ajax Baback Coriander.

I’m a friendly Saint Bernard, a published writer, editor, and a commissioner of furry art.

Commission info: I am not open for commissions at this time.

Contact email: ajaxwrites@gmail.com

Anthologies I’ve worked on:
“Holidays”: http://furplanet.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=554

"Altered States": https://furplanet.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=878

Anthologies I’m in:
“Plowed”: http://furplanet.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=762

7 Months on Mastodon + Deactivated Twitter accounts

So when rich space asshole McGee bought twitter, I decided to try and step away from it and use Mastodon.

It took a little while to get used to the vibes, but I quickly began to love it. I don’t think I realized how much twitter had come to distort my reality until I stopped using it.

Twitter’s algorithms are designed to push down on your anger buttons. They want to flood you with rage, make you hurt, and want to scream into the void that is it.

I was only tempted to get back on it once, when FA decided to do their stupid 2.7 policy update, so I could try and convince the mods to roll it back. Why? Because I was angry. Twitter was the first place I thought I should go to when I was angry, because I’d been so conditioned to think of it as the place to vent my rage.

Mastodon isn’t like that. Its culture is designed to put a damper on things that will make you angry or upset. The content warnings might seem a little dumb and excessive at first, but you start to think of them as “keywords” and your brain can learn to skim them, decide if the content is worth interacting with, and then pass over it.

I also don’t experience as much fear as I did on twitter. With its call-out post culture, I was always afraid I was one step away from my entire life being ruined. It wouldn’t matter if the thing was true or not, or so long in the past it didn’t matter, the mob would come for you and tear you asunder without an ounce of remorse.

It was always: “Destroy someone’s life, ask questions later.”

Hell, I logged into twitter to deactivate my accounts, and the very first post I saw was a callout for someone. Like… that place just thrives on hate and terror.

It doesn’t help that Space Asshole is also super transphobic:
https://cohost.org/Saintajax33/post/1612768-cw-transphobia-twi

So I deactivated my accounts permanently, if you ever see anyone on their with my names, it’s not me.

After the 7 months I’ve been on mastodon, I’ve watched the furry communities there steadily grow, and I can really see the potential the fed-verse has. There’s already servers being spun up to replace reddit, and there are wonderful gallery services like PixelFed:

Examples:
https://pixelfed.social/pongrebio
https://pixelfed.au/haruki_zaemon

You can follow those accounts from your main Mastodon account, so there is no new login or site required. And when they update, you’ll just get an in-timeline notification.

There is a bit of a learning curve, and there are some things that can seem scary and complicated. Like, even as a tech person, it took me a bit to figure out how to migrate from one furry server to another.

But, that is the advantage of having something server based and decentralized rather than one giant company that can pull the rug out from under you. If the server you’re on does something you don’t like, you can pick up shop and move your followers, and who you’re following, to another server with rules more inline with your values. It’s not like say, FA, where they can decide wanting to fuck Eevee makes you sus, and you have to follow those rules. You can just pick up and move next door where those rules don’t apply. You never have to lose your following.

It’s not like twitter where the fear of migrating off of it keeps so many people using a site that’s just bad for them and the world.

Now might be the time to give it a chance, before twitter goes the way of myspace before it. If you have any questions, I’d be willing to help~

Helpful guide:
https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-get-started-use-mastodon/

Furry instances:
https://furryfediverse.org/