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~Tigerstripe
experienced Writer (mostly sci-fi), Futurist, and self-taught armchair Historian & Engineer
hobbyist 3D Modeler - buildings, vehicles, objects (using SketchUp 2017)
novice Coloring Artist (using GIMP)
Eugene resident
personality type: INTP (ILI) "Architect" role variant, O3.7-C3.3-E1.5-A2.8-N0.8
character alignment: Passively Neutral-Good
irreverent blasphemous atheist who knows a lot more about religion & history than most religious nuts
No role-playing or random requests for instant-messaging, please ━ not ruling it out forever, but I would prefer to get to know you first. Message or note me here, or start commenting on my journals.
My characters may NOT be used for ANYTHING without my explicit permission. Thank you for respecting my wishes.
character "Vix Tiniri" (fennec-fox herm-vixen): NSFW reference ━ primary fursona & author avatar (used in several settings)
character "Sandra Tiniri" (fennec-fox vixen): ━ Vix's hedonistic lover/partner & devoted lifemate/soulmate (appears in nearly all settings where Vix exists)
character "Vix Miral" (Virmean female): anthro red fox w/ white socks, short red hair-fur, azure-blue eyes ━ my OC in the canon Star Wars universe (the actual movies, not a furry reimagining)
character "Tigerstripe" (tiger chakat): SFW reference and NSFW reference ━ author avatar in the Chakat-universe, and here on FA
character "Nightfreckle" (black leopard chakat): SFW picture ━ protagonist of hir own story series (in the Chakat-universe setting)
+ hundreds more supporting & minor characters, across at least 6 separate 'verses
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When it comes to relationships... I'm complex, and selective. I'm not at either end of any spectrum, but somewhere in the middle. Terms like "non-binary" and "fluid" and "bi-curious" would fit. Who I find interesting/attractive depends on many factors, with personality being the most critical... and can shift based on the physical gender of whichever character I'm using. I tend to prefer associating with female or fem-herm characters more often, mostly because I just get along with them more easily... but this is by no means a rule, and exceptions can always be made.
Make no assumptions; when in doubt, just ask.
Sorry, I don't do roleplaying in chat. I outgrew that time-burner long ago. Please don't go there.
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Current relationships (the IRL list, not counting internet acquaintances):
Roomie (we live together to split expenses & rent, but fight like siblings & have little in common):
1 non-furry friend in Indiana, whom I rarely hear from (maybe once a year), and even less often get to play Elite: Dangerous or Space Engineers with.
Nobody else. Extremely lonesome. :'(
hobbyist 3D Modeler - buildings, vehicles, objects (using SketchUp 2017)
novice Coloring Artist (using GIMP)
Eugene resident
personality type: INTP (ILI) "Architect" role variant, O3.7-C3.3-E1.5-A2.8-N0.8
character alignment: Passively Neutral-Good
irreverent blasphemous atheist who knows a lot more about religion & history than most religious nuts
No role-playing or random requests for instant-messaging, please ━ not ruling it out forever, but I would prefer to get to know you first. Message or note me here, or start commenting on my journals.
My characters may NOT be used for ANYTHING without my explicit permission. Thank you for respecting my wishes.
character "Vix Tiniri" (fennec-fox herm-vixen): NSFW reference ━ primary fursona & author avatar (used in several settings)
character "Sandra Tiniri" (fennec-fox vixen): ━ Vix's hedonistic lover/partner & devoted lifemate/soulmate (appears in nearly all settings where Vix exists)
character "Vix Miral" (Virmean female): anthro red fox w/ white socks, short red hair-fur, azure-blue eyes ━ my OC in the canon Star Wars universe (the actual movies, not a furry reimagining)
character "Tigerstripe" (tiger chakat): SFW reference and NSFW reference ━ author avatar in the Chakat-universe, and here on FA
character "Nightfreckle" (black leopard chakat): SFW picture ━ protagonist of hir own story series (in the Chakat-universe setting)
+ hundreds more supporting & minor characters, across at least 6 separate 'verses
╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
When it comes to relationships... I'm complex, and selective. I'm not at either end of any spectrum, but somewhere in the middle. Terms like "non-binary" and "fluid" and "bi-curious" would fit. Who I find interesting/attractive depends on many factors, with personality being the most critical... and can shift based on the physical gender of whichever character I'm using. I tend to prefer associating with female or fem-herm characters more often, mostly because I just get along with them more easily... but this is by no means a rule, and exceptions can always be made.
Make no assumptions; when in doubt, just ask.
Sorry, I don't do roleplaying in chat. I outgrew that time-burner long ago. Please don't go there.
╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Current relationships (the IRL list, not counting internet acquaintances):
Roomie (we live together to split expenses & rent, but fight like siblings & have little in common):
1 non-furry friend in Indiana, whom I rarely hear from (maybe once a year), and even less often get to play Elite: Dangerous or Space Engineers with.
Nobody else. Extremely lonesome. :'(
Stats
Comments Earned: 1414
Comments Made: 1681
Journals: 50
Comments Made: 1681
Journals: 50
Featured Journal
Life (unfortunately) imitates art
9 months agoOver 2,200 buildings have been totally destroyed or catastrophically damaged; the entire downtown historic center, businesses, museums... all of it, just ash and rubble now. The famous old banyan tree is badly charred, but it might survive. At least 4,500 of the town's 12,702 residents are now homeless, with many having only the clothes on their backs. The fire largely burned itself out when it hit the ocean, and is currently about 85% contained. Aid is pouring into the area, the island is a declared disaster zone, the President has declared it a national disaster, and FEMA has flown in cadaver dogs to start searching the rubble. To free up all possible resources for the disaster response, Maui is closed to all tourism until further notice.
The wildfire started in dry grasslands east of the town, where it found ample fuel from the 10-foot tall invasive species of grass that has been taking over the island for decades. This species dries out in the drought conditions common to this part of Maui, turning into superb kindling. The ignition source remains uncertain, but a leading candidate is a downed power line. In the hours prior to the fire, dozens of power lines were brought down by powerful 50-80 mph winds, which were created by an interaction between a high-pressure zone to the north, and a hurricane passing some distance to the south. These same winds grounded firefighting aircraft, and whipped the fire up into a rapidly-spreading conflagration that rushed into town with little to no warning. With power out and cell communications heavily disrupted, it doesn't look like the town's warning sirens ever sounded, and few people ever got warning messages on their phones. Those who did frequently said it came mere moments before the flames were at their homes, or after they had already fled.
At least 89 are confirmed dead as of my writing this: 67 bodies were found outside of the buildings, and search teams have only just begun to check the rubble (only 3% searched), so the casualty list is probably going to soar much higher. About 1,000 to 1,500 people are still missing; some probably escaped and haven't reported in, but some are probably victims. The fire rushed in so fast that people had only seconds or a few minutes to evacuate; even able-bodied people had to run for their lives. Quite a few were trapped in traffic on the road next to the ocean, and were forced to jump into the sea... some died, but the Coast Guard thankfully arrived quickly and fished most of them out. I expect a few may have been swept out to sea and will never be found. As for the elderly, slow, immobile, or the children... a lot of people may not have been able to move fast enough to even get out of their homes.
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I didn't know anyone there, and I've never been to Hawaii... but it still makes me tear up when I think about this and see the imagery of the charred rubble. This scenario hits a bit close to me... so here's why, and how it relates to the title of this journal:
In my "Creatorverse" setting, the stories follow a sort of episodic format, modeled on the way Star Trek told stories during its golden age of the '90s. Many chapters are semi-standalone, with crossover characters and a continuity of events to influence each subsequent story. Some of the larger stories have arcs that span several chapters. An in-setting year counts as a "season", and each chapter is an "episode". The story mostly focuses on a handful of key protagonists per season, with each season lasting maybe 25 chapters/episodes. My current list is about 120 chapters worth of ideas I want to explore.
As you may have guessed by now, there is a wildfire mini-arc on that list. It's been in the list for about a year now, planned as a three-chapter arc sometime in season 2, about a year after the story begins. That year is shaping up to be the worst fire season ever recorded in California, and dangerous high-energy fires are threatening the entire Greater Los Angeles area. The floating city (which I have recently revised to be named "Salacia" after the Roman goddess of calm salt waters & wife of Neptune, god of the sea) decides to help for humanitarian reasons, and is able to dispatch their prototype team of elite smokejumpers that's been training with the BC Wildfire Service. Although they have battled many blazes in the far northwest of Canada, this will be their first visit to America, and their first real trial by an especially intense fire.
This is a risk for the city though... because this is an all-dragon team, using prototype cyberbodies that allow them to field distinct new superhuman advantages in mobility, strength, durability, sensors, and communications. Not being human is a big problem... because of American politics and bigotry (as usual). In the latter decades of the 21st century, bigotry and the divide between conservatives & progressives is all too familiar to us today, differing only in victim demographics. In these decades, there's a raging debate about cybernetic & biotech human enhancement and augmentation... and a particularly ugly chasm of opinion about full-replacement cyborgs: people who replace every scrap of tissue except for their brains. The vernacular for such a being is a "cyber-transplant" or "cyber-transhuman", often shortened to the term "cytran".
I need to explain the depth of the controversy before the context of the risk becomes clear...
> > > > > Begin Exposition < < < < <
At this point in time, the UN remains highly skeptical of such technologies, and most member-nations have banned R&D about it, and have forbidden the creation of high-level cyborgs in their jurisdiction. The general fear is that such individuals are so far outside the norms of the human condition, they are loose-cannons that cannot be controlled if they decide the law no longer applies to them. To be fair, a rogue cytran is indeed a very dangerous individual, on par with some comic book supervillains, or a vigilante superhero, depending on your point of view. As such, civilian cytran models are generally limited in strength and endurance to be no better than the peak of human physical fitness... but there are also 'private' models that are much more advanced.
At the start of the story, cytran technology remains a trade secret, and the manufacturer (CyberTronics, a subsidiary of the megacorp that built Salacia) is very careful & picky about how & where & to whom they give access. The models sold in cytran-friendly cities are deliberately outdated and heavily nerfed, compared to what is available to the residents in Salacia, and only the Salacians have full access to the non-human "furry" configurations. Some authoritarian governments (in particular, China) dream of stealing & copying the cutting-edge Salacian version of this technology to create armies of supersoldiers or military robots to dominate the planet, while many other countries fear the broader applications of this highly disruptive technology. Such fears are mostly rational, but also couldn't be further from the manufacturer's intentions.
It's the irrational fears that prove the hardest to contain or soothe. Following a mass moral panic once the public realized that a cytran could be designed to perfectly mimic any human's appearance (which the reptilian-alien conspiracy theorists gobbled up), a UN Treaty mandated all signatories to enact strict laws to require cytrans have distinctive physical features to make them readily identifiable. For most civilian cytrans around the world, that meant exotic skin/eye/hair colors, elf ears, anime-inspired large eyes, transparent skin on the torso, etc. A lot of furry-fans of course took it to a new level, becoming anthros. A few went down non-humanoid routes, but these are generally very hard to adapt to for adults, as the required neuroplasticity is difficult to induce (children up to the age of 10 can generally become a taur, but adults will find it almost impossible to adapt, so taur body plans are very rare). As an unfortunate consequence, cytrans became increasingly subjected to discrimination, bigotry, and hate crimes because they look different.
In the EU, after some high-profile violent encounters between police and highly-augmented citizens, the consensus was that high-level cyborgs (including cytrans) should be fitted with a remote "kill switch" that law enforcement officers could use to safely paralyze them for an arrest. CyberTronics found this idea ill-advised and fraught with danger: any such remote access is a massive security risk, opening their products to attacks by hackers, or exploitation by criminals aiming to mug or murder cytrans, or abuse by an oppressive regime to disable exactly those individuals who were best equipped to resist a crackdown on dissent... so they refused to comply with the law. The technology was then banned for import in the EU. Most countries in Africa, South America, and Asia soon followed suit with their own import bans, outlawing the creation of new cytrans and the upgrading of existing ones across most of the planet.
This was the first serious warning sign that acceptance would be a hard road, so contingencies were dusted off to ensure cytran R&D could continue, and that the existing population would have a welcoming home. Unable to guarantee legal autonomy on any land on the planet, except perhaps in Antarctica, the chosen solution was to build a compact modular city in international waters. Engineers designed it to float above & be anchored to a seamount in the Pacific ocean, surrounded by a floating wave barrier so the city modules would be safe from rogue and storm-swept waves. The modular foundation parts would be built in Canada and the US, towed to the build site, and assembled. City structures and infrastructure could then be built inside and on top of these foundations. Almost everything had to be designed from scratch, with all-new building codes drafted to work with the challenges of this new environment.
In this way, Salacia was created. It cost almost a trillion dollars, but the megacorp that sponsored it views it as a worthwhile investment to guarantee the freedom to innovate, and it soon became their world headquarters and trade hub. Located southwest of Hawaii and just outside the American EEZ, it is effectively a de facto sovereign city-state, complete with its own culture, economy, government, and military. A fleet of nuclear-powered remote-operated cargo vessels tirelessly ferry trade goods & supplies to Japan, Australia, Taiwan, Singapore, and west-coast Canadian & American ports. No UN nation has jurisdiction in international waters; although a few naval superpowers (particularly the USA) sometimes impose their laws on unflagged ships at sea, they mostly leave the city alone because it is not a ship, not a threat to shipping, and it'd be a PR disaster if they dared use military force to subjugate it. As such, Salacia has been observed curiously, but is generally left to fend for itself against the elements... and the occasional group of pirates or criminal thugs that are stupid enough to think they can waltz in and claim the city as their turf (earning Darwin Awards in the process).
Cytrans were invented by the same people & megacorp that built Salacia, so the city became a free mecca for cytran R&D and their creation, along with all manner of "controversial" related fields. Here, cytran technology thrives, innovates, and is being aggressively perfected for its own sake... and although this technology is of little commercial value in a world opposed to it, it is vital and precious to the city's population, and the tech boom is driving innovation in all related biotech & cybernetic fields. Cutting-edge neuroprosthetics & synth-organs, derived from adapted cytran technology, are built in Salacia and exported globally -- these are easily the most advanced synthetic limbs & organs ever built; decades ahead of the closest competition, they easily meet or exceed the efficiency & longevity of natural human body parts, and threaten to disrupt or replace the current global standard of organ bioprinting. The city is home and sanctuary for a huge diversity of cytrans & cyborgs, and anyone fleeing injustice who can't find refuge anywhere else. Free of the laws & regulations of landed countries, and well-funded by one of the largest conglomerate megacorps of the century, the residents strive to make their city as close to utopia as they can imagine.
In Canada, cyber-augmentation is rare, but not illegal, and cyborgs are a protected class that may not be discriminated against. Life goes on and is pretty much normal, with the simple addition of a few rare cyborgs in daily life... mostly along the west coast. Although the Canadian government will not yet recognize Salacia as a sovereign nation-state, the people & government of Salacia have still managed to cultivate a firm friendship with the Canadian government, and the two frequently cooperate on many things of common interest. In return, the Salacian-associated megacorp has heavily invested in manufacturing, shipbuilding, and infrastructure all the way up the B.C. coastal fjords. Many Salacian ships are now built there, and some new towns have sprung up. Most of the dragon population now homesteads in the forested wild lands of B.C., helping to maintain the health and stability of the forests and wildlife; a few of them even serve as hiking guides (and bear/moose deterrent), escorting curious tourists through the wilderness while answering the many questions about dragons. For most people in North America, this is the only chance they get to meet a real dragon... and by far the most common comment is about how they're so much smaller than people think (flight-capable dragons are bigger than humans, but horizontal: they are typically equivalent in size to the biggest tigers, but lighter than they look).
In America, things are rather different. The issue of cyborg-rights is the Great Schism of the era. It's like the current culture-wars and backlash against LGBTQ+ rights all over again, but cranked up to 11. Opinions vary wildly and the topic is violently polarizing, with a patchwork of conflicting laws. The Federal government says some cyborgs are people, but doesn't include the modern "cytran" in that definition. Since the 2060s, there has been a standing Federal ban on the creation of new cytrans in America... which led to the practice being done on ships offshore, and eventually to the construction of Salacia.
On the question of whether a being that consists of only a human brain in a fully-synthetic body even counts as "human" anymore, philosophers, priests, preachers, pundits, and politicians are violently divided along the conservative/progressive divide in America, and driving that wedge as deep as they can with their rhetoric.
US conservatives predictably and vehemently argue that cytrans are inhuman abominations of science, a blasphemous insult to God's perfect design, and an existential threat to humankind -- they are absolutely convinced and paranoid that the cytrans will someday take over and become the dominant species on Earth, replacing or even annihilating humanity in the process. These jurisdictions refuse to grant cytrans any civil rights or allow them to exist at all. In such States (and countries, as this debate is by no means isolated to the USA), anyone found to have become a cytran is declared legally dead, stripped of citizenship, and either forcibly dismantled or expelled forever, with no legal recourse. Those who escape with their lives are finding refuge in Salacia or other progressive regions.
US progressives are much more accepting, if a little wary. They generally accept cytrans as being "human" in terms of legal rights, though they struggle to overcome the intense bigotry and abuses openly hurled against cytrans by their enraged conservative minorities.
> > > > > End Exposition < < < < <
So this is the sort of environment that awaits this elite smokejumper dragon team when they leap out of their plane north of Los Angeles. They are there with the full support and permission of the Governor of California, but a lot of people are not at all happy about it... and many question what good a fire-breathing dragon can be when battling a wildfire. Some believe the conspiracy theorists: that the dragons are only going to make the situation worse, or are even the cause of the fires.
This is the sort of rudeness, stonewalling, refusal to cooperate, or outright malicious intent they begin to encounter among a minority of the firefighters they begin to work with. After they're sent to the most hazardous areas multiple times and generally treated as expendable, the LA Fire Chief (happily, a very reasonable fellow with a low tolerance for bullshit and bigotry) makes some heads roll and forces the two groups to fully integrate and work together as a combined-arms approach to the battle.
This works wonderfully; with the dragons able to scout, rapidly dig firelines, and act as mobile communication hotspots, they quickly contain a major fire that was threatening Los Angeles, and completely snuff out a smaller fire. They do so well, that when a new fire is spotted developing next to the Paradise Ranch Mobile Home Park, the dragons are dispatched as a rapid-response force to squash it before it can jump I-5.
But then, as the dragons are taking flight to execute their mission, mother nature turns against SoCal in the worst possible way. The Santa Ana winds start to blow in with a sustained hot dry 60+ mph gale, grounding the waterbomber aircraft. The flames are whipped up into an ember-spitting all-consuming monster the likes of which California hasn't seen in recorded history. Mere minutes behind the dragons, the Hotspot Crew they had just been working alongside need to drop everything and run for their lives as the fire they had just contained flares back up and jumps the firebreaks... and ahead of them, this new fire explosively jumps the highway and races toward almost half a million people in Piru, Fillmore, Santa Paula, Oxnard, and Ventura, with absolutely nobody in position to stop it... except maybe the dragons.
The LA Fire Chief sends his human crews to battle the resurgent fire threatening Pasadena and LA, and asks the dragons to do what they can to tackle the second fast-moving fire. It's much too dangerous for human crews, who would quickly be overrun and burn to death... but maybe a fast dragon can slow the fire down. They all volunteer to go in, and thus begin the battle of their lives as they try to slow the developing firestorm long enough for all those people to evacuate. Their superhuman heroism over the next 24 hours will make front-page news around the world for weeks to come, shatter anti-cytran conservative rhetoric across the country, and sway public opinion back toward acceptance and repealing some of these anti-cytran laws.
12 fiercely determined dragons happen to be in the right place at a time when the situation is most dire... and even though they are outmatched and puny compared to the awesome power of mother nature's fury, their brave actions can begin to chip away at decades of entrenched hate, and maybe take one step closer to a future where humanity and cytrans will be friends and counterparts...
But will these brave few even survive this harrowing experience? How could they?
What kind of heroism is enough to stun the whole world and warm the hearts of a billion people?
So, I do still want to tell this tale... but in light of recent events in Hawaii, it's probably much too soon to finish this story arc. I do want to talk about it, though. These real-life events have prompted me to return to that arc and take a hard look at it. I've reconsidered a few points, and rewrote my notes for a couple of draft scenes... but experience & research = better revisions.
What do you think? Too soon or insensitive? Does this even sound like an interesting story arc?
User Profile
Accepting Trades
No Accepting Commissions
No Character Species
Fennec vixen... or sometimes Chakat
Favorite Music
Star Trek themes, nordic, movie & game soundtracks, cyberpunk synthwave, metal, some 80's rock...
Favorite TV Shows & Movies
Star Trek, Ghost in the Shell, Alita: Battle Angel, The Last Samurai, Ender's Game, Rogue One, Cloud Atlas, Avatar, Zootopia... (+ many more)
Favorite Games
Space Engineers, Subnautica, Satisfactory, Factorio, Elite Dangerous, anything Warhammer 40k, RimWorld, Mass Effect, Skyrim, Supreme Commander
Favorite Gaming Platforms
PC only (no console systems owned)
Favorite Animals
foxes (especially fennecs), felines, red pandas, dragons
Favorite Foods & Drinks
dark chocolate, anything cinnamon or mint (not spearmint), key lime pie, apple cider, ice cream, real grape juice
Favorite Quote
"Impossible is a word humans use far too often." - Seven of Nine
Contact Information
Thank you so much for the watch! Always cool to see another scifi fan around here~. :D <3
Kirchen