Oh, the Surface Laptop Go's are like Macbook Air clones, really nice.
PropagandaIsUseless
I use it to post my art, and since some of my art is Furry related (SFW), and a bunch of Furry artists are fleeing to Bluesky, and I hate Instagram...
I decided Bluesky as my one place to post art things. Btw, it seems that the Furry community is largely in Trans solidarity, so that's nice. I'm still using a VPN however.
I have no experience with this, but that sucks to hear! Would it be possible to have some sort of "makeover" or try things with your hair/glasses/jewlery to look more how YOU like it? Like, accentuate cheekbones or frame hair? Maybe only temporarily to get a feel that your face doesn't always look a certain way. I just grew a beard and called it a day, so I'm no expert.
In a counter thought, would radical acceptance help over radical positivity? Like, I don't enjoy that the left side of my body (hands, feet, etc) are ever so slightly larger than my right. I can't change that, I don't really like it, but I've been living with it all my life, and I accept it, even if I would prefer it differently. I got more important shit to worry about, like friendships, my dog, and enjoying other things.
Yeah, I remember it and don't like it, but it's not "me"... or at least not a large part of me anyway. Yeah, faces are important, but it's the person behind the face that matters to me, and I hope you have people in your life who are similar. People have fat on their faces, some more, some less, and I don't think any less of you for having face fat. I also don't think any less of you for worrying about it. It's an important concern for you!
As a last thought edit: Maybe you could spend time enjoying parts of your face that you like, like your eyes/eyebrows/hair?
Surface Laptop Go. It's the nicest little laptop you can get for $200. Also, running Linux on a piece of hardware dripping with Windows logos is so cursed I love it! They also come in cool colors if you like that (I got the standard silver one, but still drool over the ice blue and sandstone colors, but not enough to buy another one!)
I'm typing on one now. It's just.... nice! (just don't get the 4 GB ram model).
Ubuntu (and most other distros) work out of the box, and there's a GitHub for a custom Surface kernel if somehow you run into something not working.
As far as hardware, the screen is slightly under 1080p, but at 12" it's plenty sharp for a laptop. More importantly, the colors of the display look very good and accurate. I'd take a nice "low-res" display over a shitty 4k TN panel any day. The fingerprint reader doesn't work on Linux, no drivers, but that doesn't bother me. The trackpad and keyboard are pleasant, and there's a USB-A, USB-C, and audio jack on the left. The rubber feet were peeling off the bottom, but easily reattached with rubber cement (I used clear bath silicone since Home Depot was out), good as new.
Battery life is about 3-5 hours, which is expected for running Linux. I get around 5 now after using some power optimization settings. The surface connector is nice for charging, and takes about 45 minutes. My battery was a little degraded from the previous owner, so you might even get 6 hours on a fresher device.
Yeah, I had a friend point out the parallels to the Anime scene. There's a lot of "gross" stuff that occurs in the niche corners of anime, when most people just wanna enjoy the manga/show.
Yeah, it's funny once I identified as a furry, and someone asked me "ooh what's your fursona?" I realized I didn't really want one.
FurScience has a few classifications (that they use mostly for survey purposes). Most people just appreciate and enjoy the art and culture, at the far end of the spectrum, people identify as part- or whole-animal, or that their past life was a specific animal. These people are in the minority, and I'm not saying it's right or wrong, just what is common and uncommon.
Wait, but that's what fellow comrades are!
Hi, I just came out as gay, and as a furry last week! After spending over a decade in the closet...
So, here's a short history of my experience of the Furry fandom.
When I was a young lad (teen), I noticed I felt attraction toward guys, but not girls. Boobs don't really do it for me. I grew up in a conservative christian household, so even those thoughts were considered evil. So, repressing those thoughts along the merry way, I found furry communities online. For the first time, Queerness was not punished. Queerness was not shamed, it was celebrated with art, writing, and "art". The online Furry community was a safe haven where I could imagine a world where I didn't have to repress all those things anymore, and be more of myself.
Now that I'm out (to my close friends), I'm noticing that Queer acceptance is a major cornerstone of furries. Next important thing to me, is the appreciation or enjoyment of the ideas, art, or media. Third is just a dash of Chemical X (weirdness), or more accurately, the courage to be yourself, enjoy yourself, and be cringe.
Yes, there are kinks, but I've heard the quote: "There is pornographic art and room parties, you're out of your mind to deny that stuff exists, but that isn't unique to furries. Think of Anime, Star Trek, etc. These fandoms and cultures don't have sexy or kinky things because of the content, they have those things in it because they are created by (and for) human beings." The furry fandom likely gets more shit for it because of A) the open queerness and B) actually it's probably just the open queerness.
Oddly, I've become slightly less attached to the Fandom, while enjoying it more, if that makes any sense.
There's tons of YouTubers that do documentaries on the stuff. There's like a 1.5h film festival submission that won awards on YT, describing the history of modern-day Furries.
Historically, pictures and stories of animal-people are as old as civilization itself. Even the Epic of Gilgamesh had a Furry character in it, off the top of my head.
The only thing that may be an issue is highly specific software, and games. Over the past year, whenever I start new stuff, I always get a Linux-compatible program/workflow, so it's gradually becoming a non-issue. Overwatch and Beat Saber are the only things tying me to Windows now.
Why wait? Buy a cheap ass laptop and have it as a Linux machine.
Make the kind of world you want to live in!