#@Beastars: bro u want me to feel bad for Hannibal? for Hannibal fucking Lecter??

[f-nodragonart]

@theload: 

My point is that the "instincts" things like Beastars uses aren't supposed to be accurate, because that's not the story these shows are telling. They're using animal stereotypes as a shorthand to talk about other issues (including eugenics, it's not necessarily by accident).

Maybe "window dressing" is the wrong word, what I mean more is shorthand and coding based off of how humans percieve animals to get the message across. The animals don't act like their real counterparts, but they instead act the way cultures percieve them.

Which I don't think is wrong, or even bad. A lot of furry works aren't claiming to be hard science fiction, and instead do what they need to do to set up the world. To use another example, almost all of Star Trek's science is bullshit, but the science isn't the point. It's the backdrop to exploring issues of cultures and humanity.

I can kinda see your point about using a subject as a shorthand, it definitely works in some cases. but I can’t find it in myself to fully agree, at least on certain bio subjects

b/c the thing is that for specific bio subjects like evolution and instincts, a lot of the general public like. actually thinks that’s how those things work. a lot of ppl think evolution has a “goal” and that “goal” is “human-like” sentience (and that we humans have reached the peak of evolution), and that affects how they view the world and other animals as a whole. a lot of ppl think that predators are instinctually, mindlessly violent and that affects how they view predatory animals when discussing policies like keystone predator reintroduction

I’ve never watched Star Trek and I’m not very informed on physics, tech, and the like, so I rly can’t speak on what ST does wrong. but from what I’ve seen from ST fans discussing it, while the show wasn’t necessarily accurate, it playfully toyed with tech and what it might be capable of, giving a lot of Trekkies ideas for what *could* be possible, and led to the ideas for a lot of tech we see today. I don’t think it’s fair to compare that to a show that literally has a rabbit crawl into a wolf’s mouth b/c that’s what her “instincts” are forcing her to do

and again, I must reiterate that using evolution and instincts as key factors in a story that’s an allegory for human racial oppression is. tricky and must be approached very very carefully, but can often come off incredibly tone-deaf and harmful. the best-case scenarios are few and far between, and other folks have spoken abt this issue better than I can

Beastars in specific is a weird one to bring up, actually. b/c out of the three furry stories I mentioned as pushing my buttons, it was actually the MOST divorced from human reality, yet even more biologically inaccurate for it. like, it felt like it was rly TRYING to be about anthro animals navigating a pred/prey world together, within a human backdrop

more importantly, the issues b/t preds and prey aren’t simply arbitrary assumptions, but real fears based on very REAL very PRESENT threats. prey animals are REGULARLY killed and consumed by predators. this isn’t a problem that’s directly comparable to human issues concerning discriminated groups, and the way it’s handled just. ENTIRELY breaks a lot of the worldbuilding for me. why does prey even want to live w/ predators? how did they all reach the conclusion of cohabitant cities, when prey can be killed at any time? why haven’t prey made their own separate societies? what exactly is driving this desire for cohabitation? yeah this is a fake world but it doesn’t make SENSE even by its own standards

and am I supposed to feel bad for predators being discriminated against? when murder is an accepted biological reality for preds in the show, I rly truly don’t! that discrimination against them is completely justified!! like how am I supposed to feel bad for Juno crying abt being bullied for being a predator, when literally a couple eps later she uses her predatory status to intimidate Haru? I don’t feel bad for Juno, I don’t!!!

so if Beastars was in fact trying to be a specific allegory for human eugenics, as u say, then that makes me even more nauseous. what race, exactly, is the one doing the violence and devouring, here. if there’s any human allegory here, I think Jack Saint is onto something w/ deviance, but even that runs into issues when, again, the predators are constantly fighting violent instincts that regularly kill others, and they’re being discriminated against for that reason, yet that discrimination is branded as a bad thing

like, Doe of Deadwood, while explicitly being *about* nonhuman animals, also had some commentary that could be directly compared to human issues, yet it handled those comparisons far more gracefully than most furry media that tries the same

[transcript start]

Doe: Were it you then, what would you do?

Doe: You were born with healthy blood and sturdy limbs. Graced by nature.

Doe: It is much easier to adhere to the narrative of survival of the strong when birth affords you such fortune. That the weak shall be humbly devoured, and go quietly from this cruel world.

Doe: How comfortable it must be to stare upon the dead and feel safety in nature’s narrative. How terrifying to see this narrative defied.

Buck: How dare you--

Doe: How dare I reject what nature fated for me.

[end transcript]

and even saying all that, I do still rly love Beastars! it’s a rly fun story! I’m just saying that maybe Beastars and similar furry media that’s using bunk biology (and esp those that are simultaneously trying to make thoughtful commentary abt the human condition), has some issues

-Mod Spiral