It really fucked me up when Dumbledore announced that house Slytherin would get one point for “every Irish papist who did not deserve to be killed by British muggle soldiers”, and continued “naturally, the score has not changed”. No idea how J.K. got away with that one.

Fun fact from director Jerry Rees:

Okay, the flower. Here’s the way it went.

There’s the night in the thicket. Poor Blanky gets full of stickers and everyone is just cranky. Arguments all around, and the Radio drawing his own “zone” of privacy in the dirt that no one shall cross! And Blanky is feeling like the insecurity blanket even more than usual. He crawls to Lampy seeking snuggles. But Lampy calls him a fuzzball and tells him to get his own place to sleep. Blanky finally tries to snuggle with Toaster. But even the long-suffering, warm Toster is in no mood to cuddle with Blanky and pushes him away. Blanky is left all alone. Vulnerable and unprotected.

Next day in the meadow, there is mayhem. But amidst the mayhem is the flower. The flower is painted exactly the same yellow as Blanky, by the way. Like Blanky, it tries to snuggle with Toaster - the difference being that it sees its own reflection and falls in love with the “other” flower. There is no way Toaster can possibly help the flower. After trying to reason with it, then pushing it away, Toaster retreats, then peers back to see the vulnerable lonely flower wilt. Toaster is at a loss, there was no way to help…

The very next moment, Toaster sees Blanky being pulled down a hole by a bunch of mice. Immediately Toaster jumps to protect the vulnerable Blanky. Last night, Toaster had pushed him away. But now Toaster comes to the rescue - protecting it.

When Lampy teases Blanky, Toaster step up to protect him again.

Blanky returns the kindness by making himself into a tent for the group to use as shelter.

Later, Lampy has noticed that Toaster is being nice to Blanky and asks why.

Toaster does her best to explain. But underneath it all, seeing the vulnerable little yellow flower wilt when she shoved it away has made her feel like never shoving vulnerable little yellow Blanky away again. To keep Blanky safe. To keep Blanky from “wilting”. In the case of the flower, there was no way to help. In the case of the blanket, there is.

This use of two vulnerable characters - both painted the identical color - both seeking cuddles - both being pushed away - one wilting emotionally - one wilting literally - was an emotional path of change for the Toaster.

Also this meme format is trash

What’s that got to do with the weirdos who gave them a bad reputation 25+ years ago? This is what happens when you skim instead of reading.

Also known as the most widely-used sites on the WWW during years that I strongly suspect predate your birth. Also note that I mentioned various other forums. The right interpretation for that I write is the one I’m giving you in the writing, you just need eyes to see. Try to keep in mind that feeling upset doesn’t mean you’re being lied to, it just means reality sucks.

Votes are meaningless, people vote emotionally and my instance doesn’t show me post or comment scores unless I use a specific app that I no longer have installed. I’m sorry you don’t have your finger on the pulse of normal socks-and-sandals slobs but for various reasons I do

Ask me how I know you got bad grades in textual criticism

By my recollection: appreciably felt on 4Chan, SomethingAwful, several Zelda forums, a Lucasarts games forum, at least one Star Wars forum and approximately 50% of all human contact I experienced on IRC and ventrilo. People said the same about IGN and NeoGAF but I wasn’t eligible to post on the former because my head isn’t all the way up my own ass and latter didn’t come online till 2006, a little after I lost interest in forums. I did get TF2 at launch and my impression of the first couple years was that the only way to not see Nazi furry guro shit was to uninstall the game.

“This is what I any many others observed” ≠ “These are the values I hold”

Be attentive to what you read instead of selectively interpreting it to match your emotional reaction to the general idea.

Sure, so they aren’t the lunatics shitposting all day. I made another comment expanding on it but in brief, whether it’s fair or not (and it’s not), the kind of furries most people came across during the reputation-forming years were the extremely strident ones who actively enjoyed making people hate them, and it stuck.

“What is truth?” The only thing that matters in terms of establishing a group’s (very much permanent) reputation is what percolates to the general cultural zeitgeist of people who don’t know what the word hypertext means. When the insular furry communities of the Y2K era kicked out the weird freaks who were actively hostile to the ideas of kink consent, consent in general, and non-white people continuing to draw breath, they descended on 4chan and SomethingAwful and various other forums and pretty much instantly solidified the unsuspecting public’s idea of furries as being creepy Nazis. It’s not fair, but you only get one shot at establishing an eternal reputation and it’s more or less completely out of your control.

To be fair, the overlap is substantial.

All subjects intending to handle high-energy gamma-leaking portal technology must be informed that they may be informed of applicable regulatory compliance issues. No further compliance information is required or will be provided—and you are an excellent test subject.

It’s historical consensus. Your quality of life is still better because you have civil rights and access to medical care that actually works.