This post is Pissing me off…
I’m the original Starwalker
i really hate that cyberpunk as a genre has become popular among people that basically have the media literacy of a middle schooler and think that the robot parts are just ✨neat aesthetic lul ✨ and would gladly get rocket launchers put in their ass so they can be a walking mech even though one of the biggest points on cyberpunk is the idea of cyberpsychosis is a common topic which is basically a mental illness caused by the overload of cybernetic augmentations to someone's body.
please get the fuck out the genre. criticizing cybernetics has nothing to do with trans or disabled people unless you're the kinda person that'll just get wolverine fingers just because HAHAHA SO FUNNY YES I WOULD DO THIS
Please tumblerize some other genre.
I don’t think they get the whole “cult of the machine” aspect of cyberpunk. It’s not about someone who lost a limb regaining an arm through cybernetics. They had already lost a limb so they didn’t give up something for it. It’s about someone having to get their own perfectly fine and functioning arms amputated and replaced in the name of performance.
Imagine a person who works at a job that requires heavy lifting. In order to keep his job he has to get his arms replaced because he can’t keep up otherwise. Now when he hugs his daughter he can’t feel it the way he did before and she complains how it is uncomfortable.
Once you buy into the cult of the machine it is no longer about people or freedom, people are reduced to performance and upgrades... except for the wealthy elite.
If you want to do cyberpunk aesthetic without all the philosophical stuff associated with it Transhumanist SF is the genre you’re looking for. And, to be frank, I prefer it cause (no pun intended) its fucking metal.
The philosophical aspects of cyberpunk are essential to the genre, and to be perfectly frank if they don’t occur within a piece of media it shouldn’t be called as such.
It's alright if you like the concept or the aesthetic of artificial limbs or unique prosthetics or amplifying augmentations. But understand that Cyberpunk as a genre is about dehumanisation, the commodification of life wherein the right yo humanness can only be afforded by those with money or authority. Leaving those who are poor and even regular people to pawn off their humanity one scrap at a time to just survive.
If you don't want the deeper philosophical aspects and commentary boiled into Cyberpunk as a genre, you can always just pen a scifi story where technological augmentation is commonplace. But the link between physical wholeness, the ability to connect with others and oneself are directly connected to the state of one's body are central tentpoles of the genre. Without them, it isn't a Cyberpunk story
So here's the thing, the cyberpsychosis thing is literally only from two games... two tabletop games BTW, where it was made to balance things out. One had it mess with your soul, the other basically made it where you just had a massive mental break and could be more machine than man, if you were getting it in a nice, sterile, anesthetized, medical facility, rather than a hack job.
Basically the Cybernetics steal your soul thing is mostly post-cyberpunk, and truthfully, goes against a lot of the points that were made about tech being neither utopian, nor very much a danger.
Then again, the genre really moved away from its roots right after Johnny Mnemonic failed at the box office, and it started looking less and less like the future it was predicting.
In addition to cyberpsychosis just being a Cyberpunk (the game) thing and not a cyberpunk (the genre) thing, the idea that cybernetics eats your soul/corrodes your humanity/[alternate way of saying The Same Thing] is far from universal. Neuromancer was one of the earliest cyberpunk books and there was more evidence that being a self-loathing internet addict or the stuff you have to do to be able to afford cybernetics was more psychologically destructive than the actual cybernetics themselves.
The screencap in all honesty isn’t “tumblerizing” shit and might actually be closer to the cyberpunk roots. The main concept of cyberpunk is that technology is cool, but instead of eradicating the social ills of today, tomorrow (as was the dominant trend in sci-fi back then), they’ll be co-opted by the sources of those modern ills (namely capitalists who through megacorps upgrade from “robber barons who put their hand on the scales of the government” to “country-wide equivalent of a company town and your new McGovernment™©”) to perpetuate the same evils in the future, but in newer and worse ways. The issue with cybernetics wouldn’t be that it eats your soul, but that the only ways you’ll get some are if you’re born rich, get outfitted with some as part of your job so they can work you harder and longer (you’ve got metal legs! you don’t need a chair to work the factory line, get back in the wage cage), do some soul-killing things to be able to afford them (or go into debt for life), or make do with shitty back-alley knock-offs. Actually getting chromed-up is only a problem if you make it a problem, or if you contrive some in-universe reason for why Metal Hand Bad actually like Shadowrun and its Essence mechanic (although getting sucked by a vampire, becoming a drug addict, or other traumatic experience also drops Essence). Notably, not only does the ultra-grimdark Warhammer 40K not ever imply that cybernetic implants hurts your soul (the Tech-Priests are just freaks but so is everyone else in the Imperium), but some Cyberpunk 2077 material (inconsistently) implies that cyberpsychosis isn’t even real, instead being made up so when someone goes nuts, people blame the tech and the cyberpsycho for being irresponsible with it, and not say, the dystopic hellhole that everyone lives in and the conditions that would drive a person to go postal. No surely it must be the mecha-kidney that made this man go insane. More or less the cyberpunk equivalent of “the violent video games did it”.
So with the knowledge body-modding being an inherently bad thing is relatively fringe in most cyberpunk media, and that putting the onus on the tech instead of the conditions and society around the tech misses the point of cyberpunk’s main themes severely, I think arguing over the implications of that trope in fine, either in regards to people for whom body-modding is either necessary or only a step away from what they’re already doing, or when it’s in odd contrast to other elements in the story (getting a gun-hand or a replacement mecha-arm instead of a cloned flesh-arm is damaging to your very personhood but committing murder isn’t, or a human becoming part machine makes them less of a person but a robot developing sentience is unambiguously a person, etc.). The moralism over Those Darn Millennials Installing The Ass-Mounted Machine Gun is great for an in-universe philosophy (Eclipse Phase is very pro-transhumanism and has some well-written anti-transhumanist factions), but doing it in real life is pretty weird actually.
fun fact! did you know that you can gain extra ‘forbidden time’ by staying up late in the night? but Watch Out
Shit this is great! You can get so much done if you don't sleep!
THE CONSEQUENCES
On how a video game about fucking a bear interrupted furry discourse
People don’t realize the absolute comedy that just went through Furry social media.
See, feral smut (i.e. smut of four-legged characters who otherwise satisfy the Harkness test) has always been a contentious subject in the furry fandom, due to how easily it leads to unwarranted real-life accusations of zoophilia. It’s an annoying bit of discourse that has been rearing its head every other year since the modern fandom began four decades ago.
Which, you know, pretty rich, coming from the fandom where a pretty large percentage readily admit to having had some form of sexual awakening over the TLK and MLP:FiM franchises.
And anyway, that discourse was exactly what was going on last week. People getting harassed on Twitter, as an extension of the whole “groomer” moral panic. A lot of fandom relative newcomers parroting arguments right out of the Burned Furs movement (a late 1990s/early 2000s movement dedicated to “purifying” the furry fandom from “perversion” and “degeneracy”).
And then, just as the discourse was at its most heated, Baldur’s Gate 3 entered the chat.
Suddenly, everyone was talking about the game that will let you fuck a bear. Yes, a bear, as in Ursus arctos. A Druid shapeshifted into a bear, to be fair (again: the Harkness test), but a bear nonetheless.
And mainstream media erupted with reports that the game’s sales skyrocketed based on that scene alone.
And the discourse suddenly screeched to a hilariously embarrassed halt.
10/10 comedic timing, no notes.
Me: my god.. i did it.. i killed him..!
Angel on my shoulder: we're extremely fortunate. You shot him in the side of the head and you're wearing gloves. Place the gun in his hand and set the house ablaze. Officer Goger's tragic suicide will be the perfect cover story
Devil on my shoulder: Goger was always eating stuffing and spelt wheat and steel cut oats. Bet he'd taste reeeeal good on a spit with an apple in his mouth. Come on, i've seen the way you've looked at him..
My tulpa, a 6'9" DD smokeshow hottie PS1 graphics anthro leopard girl in a lab coat: you must put a baby in me Your Highness, quickly!
Please take this in the most encouraging and constructive way possible: replace the batteries in the CO2 detectors in your home
A collection of Ehime in various outfits meant to proudly show off her curves.
So many notes ppl confused by corn wielding Colima dog wait until you see the dancing figures…..blow your mind. Teach you true love
humankind…what more can I say. I can only aspire to have such deep and rich a human connection with anyone in this life that will be as radiant as a ceramic figural pair of dancing xolos
They’re also at the center of a roundabout
Mexican here, fun fact! While we call them “Dancing dogs”, they’re a young pup and an old dog, and the older one is revealing wisdoms right on the pup’s ear.
You’ll recognize the older dog bc he’s got wrinkles!! It’s a wonderful scene!!
one of the strangest social dynamics on this website is how there will consistently be one or two kinks/fetishes that are considered trendy to post about, and users who are otherwise very averse to being openly horny on main go wild reblogging posts about petplay or knotting or the eroticism of the machine or whatever erotic interest is currently This Year's Trendiest Kink.
all the people in the tags saying things like "thank god vore isn't the big meme kink anymore those were the dark ages" need to think about the implications of the t-shirt my fursona is wearing in my icon lmao
the thing that was wrong with vore being a meme was that the people making the jokes were still weird and mean to people who actually do like vore, not that the vore jokes were simply being made in the first place
Yup
it's like the chinese zodiac but less predictable.
this year, everyone who is into rabbits has plenty of furry art of rabbits. next year, good news for the dragons
for a year or so, tumblr will be all into memes about piss or vore or whatever.
and yeah. it's a double edged sword because your kink being the hot meme kink doesn't mean you don't equally get hate for it. you're not allowed to be SERIOUS about this shit.
pantsuripper
