Zooier Than Thou

Zooier Than Thou

Celebrate zoo pride at the world's first zoo convention in this extended episode. Our Main Event is a discussion about ACT UP and direct action hosted by Sigma and Aqua, and our GoH is Kalevra. Plus, attend a zooey job fair, buy a horse dong bong in our dealer's den, and attend a live recording of Ask Zooey!

Listen @ zoo.wtf
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Thoughts About the Episode

Goodness gracious, what a long episode to try to put together in the same month as Anthrocon! I definitely had a blast, and got to meet some new zoos face to face, but as soon as I got back, it was nose to the grindstone, hardcore!

The topic was originally put together by Aqua and Sigma, and they did a whole lot of research and prep for this episode about ACT UP, so hats off to their diligence! Meanwhile, Lovecat was putting together a skit about a zooey job fair, and threw out the idea of one day doing a zoo convention-style episode, where everyone gives a short panel on something that they care about and we theme the episode around it. While that idea is probably still something we’ll explore in the future, as all the pieces came together and Anthrocon was fresh in my mind, it seemed serendipitous that everything fell into place to support such a construct. We had panels, a job fair, an interview with a Guest of Honor, and even a sponsor segment to work into a dealer’s den interview. So I arranged the episode as such and played with the format a bit. Let me know how you feel about the emails being toward the end of the episode!

Gosh, there was just so much to do, and it seemed like there were more requests to have things added as we went through planning. I already had an Ask Zooey skit ready to go, because someone wrote in with that question a couple of months ago, and they reported our advice had actually made a difference in their relationship! I didn’t realize at first LC was planning to have that job skit ready for this episode, and Aqua felt it would be topical, as well. Our sponsor reached out last month, and we wanted to do a feature since they’re actually, legitimately sponsoring us — and their stuff is right here on ZooCommunity.org! It all just worked out to be a lot of content. I streamlined it as much as I could, and cut a whole hour out of our topic discussion, but it turns out there’s a lot to do at a zoo convention! Some of you will groan at 3 hours of ZooTT, but I’ve already had someone say, “This is not enough! More!” I hope it’s really informative and helpful! Also, big thanks to Steeeve for stepping up to help me host this thing! Much appreciated!

Shout out to Kalevra, first of all, for all his work interfacing with AASECT. It just goes to show that one person can make a big difference that impacts many people. We’re hoping to put something together with a few AASECT therapists for the podcast, and we’ve got a couple on board, but we need to plan that out pretty far in advance and make sure we have our ducks in a row.

And of course, obligatory shout out to Epiphiny and their horse cock bongs! They let us know this was in the works a while back, but now it’s up and running, so if you wanna get high on stallion dicks, definitely check them out! 10% of the proceeds go to help ZooTT with production costs!

Website production has stalled a bit, so I’m looking into temporary options that are static, and it’s all kind of a blur for me. I’m a WYSIWYG kind of rat, so anything more complicated to implement is tough for me. Desperately trying to get rid of the Cloudflare problem, but I have word that our site has been DDOS’d during Anthrocon, so it’s a necessary evil for now.

I’m just working on a lot of stuff at once, so I appreciate your patience, and I hope you’ve enjoyed our ridiculously long, 3 hour episode this month. Thanks for listening every month. It’s a privilege to serve this community!

One more thing! There’s a zoo magazine-style publication online, zooey.pub! They opened up shop right at the start of Zoo Pride Month, and I was fortunate enough to do an interview with Tarro, one of the main people behind the project. They’ve got several articles up for your viewing pleasure, but if you wanna contribute your own thoughts and essays, hit them up! They’ll always be looking for more zoo content!

Happy Zoo Pride Month!

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What did you do for zoo pride month? Do you have any cool projects you want to get off the ground? Let us know in the comments, or e-mail us!

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You can contact us using the anonymous web form at zoo.wtf
Mike, Aqua, and Toggle explore the evolution of the ZETA principles, the reasons they were created, and how they might change in the future. Plus, travel to the far-off planet of New Texas to meet this month's secret zoo!

Listen @ zoo.wtf
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Thoughts About the Episode


Sorry it took so long to write this post. Production week is characteristically very busy, and once the episode was out, I really needed to give myself some me time, to clean my house, play video games, and hang out with a zoo friend for the weekend. I’m super happy to be composing this in a clean home studio. It makes a huge difference for my mood, and it smells like freshly baked cookies to boot!

Originally, we were going to be doing an entirely different topic for this month, involving a story in Europe, but as we worked through it at the beginning of the production cycle, it became clear that this was a topic we couldn’t rush, and we needed to give ourselves ample time to prepare and let the situation play out a little more. Instead, we pushed forward our discussion about the ZETA principles we’d planned for Zoo Pride month. This ended up working out really well, so I’m happy we did it. Plus, we ended up having a bit of relevant pride month discussion that worked well with the topic.

We knew we wanted to have a discussion about how the principles had changed over time, but as we looked over the resources — helpfully accessible right here on ZooCommunity.org — we realized we actually had insight into why they were created, and that’s what really guided the discussion. Big thanks to 30-30 for posting the original 10 zeta rules along with his analysis, which gave us a good amount of insight into a time we weren’t able to be present for. And thanks to GreyWolfLover for posting screenshots from EbonLupus’s essay which featured the current ZETA principles, also invaluable insight for our discussion. Thanks to their posts, we were able to step into the mindset that guided the creation of the principles and what purpose they served, and we learned some new stuff we didn’t know before.

The other purpose of the episode was to foster discussion about how the ZETA principles should change to meet the needs of the 2022 zoo community. A few months back, there was a big kerfuffle on Twitter around the ZETA principles that was basically co-opted by zoosadists who wanted to undermine the zoo community. Even so, some interesting points were raised about the language, as well has how the principles have been used by some as a means of gatekeeping others. I really wanted to have Flehmen, in particular, come on and discuss his position on the principles as a generally respected zoo who’d felt ostracized by the principles in the past, but he basically said he’d contributed all he intended to contribute.

The other thing that became clear as we asked some older members of the community about the principles is that some of them hadn’t even heard of them until two to three years ago. While they’ve been around and they’ve been pretty ubiquitous, not everyone was aware of them, which means a large segment of the zoo community wasn’t even using them as a guide in the past.

Suffice it to say, the ZETA principles from 20+ years ago are worthwhile, but our needs as a community have changed, as has our understanding of the world around us. My hope is that we can create principles that better reflect what we need now which can be adopted by as many zoos as possible. We talked about ways we might facilitate that kind of discussion, like starting a telegram channel and stuff, but I wanted to be careful not to presume some kind of authority that hasn’t been earned or granted to us. If Mike makes a group, for instance, he’s naturally going to invite people he knows and trusts. That leaves a lot of people out of the discussion. So we kind of settled on just inspiring the conversation to happen, and we hope our listener base is wide enough to spread that discussion around, and we can worry about how to “ratify” updated principles after actual discussion has taken place.

It is entirely coincidental that our secret zoo this month involves the character 30-30 in the same episode we talk about the zoo 30-30. BraveStarr was originally slated to come out last month, but it was delayed, and this discussion was slated for next month. I’d never seen BraveStarr before, so Lovecat put together a little viewing party so we could get the feel of the show. I have to say, I’m happy with how Lovecat was able to loosen up his prosaic writing and put together a silly skit worthy of an 80’s action cartoon. I thought he did a great job, and he gave some really great performances, as well. Big thanks to Tex for stepping up to play 30-30 — probably a role he was born to play as a horse from Texas — as well as to all the other voice actors who came through for us. I also wanna shout out to a couple of folks that volunteered but didn’t make the cut. We truly appreciate you stepping up when called upon, and we look forward to getting you involved down the line. I think the hardest part was getting the music put together. You’d think there’d be a lot more “80’s action cartoon” royalty free music, but I guess that’s just an aesthetic that people aren’t going for enough to generate sufficient demand. I hope you enjoyed what we put together!

I suppose that’s about it! Happy Queer Pride!

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What changes would you make to the ZETA principles? Did you learn anything interesting about how they’ve evolved? Let us know in the comments, or e-mail us!

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You can subscribe to us on Twitter @ZooierThanThou, @OneBigGrumpyRat, @ACatWhoLovesYou
You can contact us using the anonymous web form at zoo.wtf
Kick back and relax with the ZooTT crew as we discuss everything from zoo science to cartoon crushes. Plus, listen as Rabbit and Othello try to sort out their friend’s weird animal names, and rock out to a new pop punk track about a very special mare.

Listen @ zoo.wtf
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Thoughts About the Episode

After the last episode, and knowing the work coming up in the coming months, I really needed a month where I could take it easy on planning. One of the things most requested through our podcast survey was more time spent between our contributors just having fun and talking, so I figured this would be a great time to experiment with that. I set a timer for an hour and a half, brought a couple of prompts, and we just talked about whatever shit we felt like talking about. Apparently this is how most podcasts are actually made, and if that’s true, I can see why the process is a lot of fun for people. We had a great time shootin’ the shit. I definitely wanna try to incorporate that more, somehow.

I spent most of my time this month putting together a song. I knew I really wanted to do another pop punk song, since it’s been a long time. I’ve been listening to a lot of Yellowcard lately, so I picked up on their vibe a little bit. One of the things they seem to write about a lot is wistfully remembering lost love.


I also knew I didn’t want to write a song about a dog, because we do a lot of dog stuff. So I drew inspiration from Doodle’s experiences with a mare he loved. When I showed him what I was working on, he wanted to sing it, so I rewrote the melody to be in his range. It almost seemed like he wouldn’t make it in time for the deadline, but he did! I had a bit of trouble getting his vocals to fit into the mix since they weren’t perfectly clean, but I think I got it to work. Added a gentle chorus effect and put it through some tape saturation, cleaned it up fairly well.

Usually the music is written, recorded, and produced in about two weeks, which means the production is typically rushed. I started during our off week this time, so I had a bit of time to work on it. It’s not perfect, but I think it turned out alright. As always, it kind of depends on your speakers. I only have so many to test them on, so for some, the vocals are forward in the mix, while others sink them back, but universally, it’s punchy and loud in the right ways. I also already recorded all the vocals and harmonies for my own version of the song, so I might release that as an alternate or something down the line.

Finally, someone sent in an Abbott and Costello-style zoo parody a few months back that we’ve been trying to get done for like three episodes, but no one was available to edit it and complete the concept. I finally passed it on to someone who wrote for us back on S3E12, and they gave it a spit shine and sent it back in time to record. I went to my non-zoo friend who does a lot of voices. The first run through was alright, but just… alright. But after that, we were fucking around and he did the last line as Paul Lynde, and then he was like… “Can I just do the whole thing over, but as Paul Lynde?” and I was like, “Abso-fuckin’-lutely.” Gold, in my opinion. There’s an unscripted line in there, where Abbott says something like, “It would just be bleating and body language anyway,” and he quips, “That’s just the way I like it,” and I literally fell out of my chair. Perfectly in character.

The website is being worked on, albeit slowly. It’s difficult to get folks to work on projects like this in a timely manner, universally. It’s a problem I’ve had with pretty much everything I don’t have a hand in doing myself. So thanks for your patience. You won’t really see much design change, but what you WILL see is Cloudflare’s bullshit being removed. I’m frustrated every time I load the website and it’s still there, so I’m right there with you.

I hope you enjoy this relaxed episode!

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How did you feel about the loose structure of this episode? Is this something you want to hear more of? Let us know in the comments, or e-mail us!

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Don't forget to subscribe to our Bonus Content feed: bonus.zoo.wtf
You can subscribe to us on Twitter @ZooierThanThou, @OneBigGrumpyRat, @ACatWhoLovesYou
You can contact us using the anonymous web form at zoo.wtf
Attend the tale of Stuart Adams: his humble beginnings, his rise to prominence, and how it all came crashing down, in an exploration of Mutual Assured Destruction.

Listen @ zoo.wtf
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Thoughts About the Episode

Holy shit, what a production cycle. Everything was basically a week behind, and that’s mostly my fault, but the end product came out really well, I think.

This one’s been in the pipeline for a few months, ever since Stuart first shared his story with us. The circumstances were less than ideal, and I remember after he laid it all out for us, he said something to the effect of, “You could completely destroy me now.” And I thought… “That’s a very strange and unhealthy conclusion to come to. Why would you say that?”

But he didn’t just say it once. He repeated it a few times over the course of a couple of days, and we were like, “We’re not here to destroy you. Why do you keep saying that?” We realized that he’s basically been living under this specter of Mutual Assured Destruction for almost three decades. Old habits die hard.

We originally conceived of this episode as an interview, like our normal format, with Stuart coming onto the show and us having an unscripted conversation. There was a big problem, though: Stuart was too afraid to come on the show. No matter, typically we can do a text interview and just have someone read the lines. But Aqua proposed that a narrative podcast format might better suit the story we wanted to tell. He mocked up an introduction and set it to music, and I knew we had something fantastic. I want Season 4 to have an air of experimentation with the format, and this was something we hadn’t really done yet. I made him narrate, because his delivery was excellent, and figured we’d sort out the rest as we went along.

However, putting something like this together takes a lot of work on the front end. An hour of scripted content takes some time to get together, and we were already at the end of writing week before we’d come to the conclusion this is what we were gonna do. This was a collaboration between all of our writers, who worked all the next week to get it done. All other writing tasks were dropped in favor of putting together the narrative, and it was revision after revision, right up until the final cut. Even just gathering music for something this long took hours. But I think the end product really shines, and I’m really thankful to everyone who helped get this podcast from concept to production.

I reached out to a friend who does some voice acting Down Under, and y’all, I’m a real sucker for an Australian accent. Working with his voice was… extremely pleasant, to say the least, though it was occasionally distracting. I wanna jump his bones really bad. This is not a joke. His voice is everything. Totally smitten.

Finally, super thrilled that Harley stepped up to cohost and be my interviewer. He did a fantastic job, and I was really impressed with the unscripted bits I threw at him. You might hear where I react surprised by how fluidly he reacted. I definitely wanna have him back on!

I think I’m gonna take next month off, though, in terms of planning. After an episode like this one, we really need something lightweight and simple. Since people have asked for more unscripted content and shooting the shit, we might play with that in May before tackling more heavy topics in June and July. We’ll see!

Anyway, please let us know what you think about this format and whether or not you want to see more of it!

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Have you ever had experience with MAD-like situations? How are you going about forming positive relationships in the zoo community? Let us know in the comments, or e-mail us!

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You can subscribe to our RSS feed using your favorite podcast application: rss.zoo.wtf
Don't forget to subscribe to our Bonus Content feed: bonus.zoo.wtf
You can subscribe to us on Twitter @ZooierThanThou, @OneBigGrumpyRat, @ACatWhoLovesYou
You can contact us using the anonymous web form at zoo.wtf
Vex and Lovecat get the skinny on 7 different projects happening right now in the zoo community, including Zany Zoo Memes, DSI, and ZETA OpSec. Then, find love in the Republic of Monica, and rock out to a new song by Shiv!

Listen @ zoo.wtf
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Thoughts About the Episode

Man, I think March is just a terrible time to produce a podcast. Things always ramp up right around this time, and I end up taking on more than I can handle. We were planning on doing next month’s podcast this month, but I had to be like, “Guys, I can’t be in charge of it this month. I just have too much to do.”

In the end, Mike the Dog came to the rescue with a topic that allowed us to get some fresh voices on the show and give updates on current projects, with Lovecat and newcomer Vex taking on hosting duties. I think whenever I’m not there, though, everyone’s like, “Oh god, we’re not gonna have enough material! It’s gonna be too short!” So they booked like six or seven folks at once and ended up handing me a full five hours of audio to edit. As such, this is the most brutal I’ve been with the editing machete. Each person spoke for roughly an hour, but I didn’t allow any one segment to take longer than 15 minutes. Because of this, and because Descript let’s me edit audio by selecting text from a transcript, this was actually a lot easier to edit than normal because I could just take entire tangents and remove them at once without having to listen to them. It’s a powerful feeling!

I also went over the survey results, for my part, and I might post my full analysis on a separate ZooCommunity forum post at some point. Thanks to everyone who participated! We got a lot of responses! In the end, I don’t think a lot is going to change in terms of the format, but we’re gonna try to tighten things up from here on out and just keep people’s feedback in mind.

Lovecat’s been working on his secret zoo for a couple of months, so we’re happy to have that presented. Though, our female voice actress said “Rai-oh” instead of “Re-oh.” It’s not too big a deal, but probably something anime fans will knock points off for x3 I think it’s neat how it speaks to that forbidden, repressed love thing I reckon a lot of zoos deal with at some point in their lives. Lovecat has a good sense of prose, but he’s a bit wordy. At times it felt like an audio book, so I actually ended up editing it down from 15 minutes to just under 10 minutes. You can hear the whole thing in its original form as bonus content this month. It’s got a sort of lushness to it.

Shiv actually reached out with their new song for last month’s episode, but I was already putting the final touches on the outro and already knew we’d have a spot for this one. This is a premier, so they haven’t released it anywhere else yet! It’s kind of a ska punk type of song. I dig it, and they learned a lot more about mixing as a result of our back and forth discussing the release. I hope you enjoy it!

Speaking of music, I hope you like the new intro. I’d been toying with doing an electronica version of the theme, but I was having trouble envisioning how that would work. I’ve also idly thought it might be cool to do a jazz version, and one day while I was in the shower, I had a spark of inspiration about how that might sound and sketched out the horn parts, and I got really excited about it and ran with it. After tracking the bass and drums, I got help from Logic, Konny from Shiv, and ZipWok to put together some keys, and from another zoo I know who’s a music producer for the mix. I tried to get Doodle back on the vocals, but he was too busy. Steeeve offered to croon, but he couldn’t be loud while the kids were sleeping. So the honor fell to Kynophile, who did a fantastic job. I really love the horns a lot, which are from EastWest’s Composer Cloud. They sound fantastic!

I guess that’s pretty much it. I hope you enjoy the episode, and I hope maybe you start thinking about what kinds of cool things you wanna do as a zoo!

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What zoo projects are you most excited about? Got an idea for a project of your own? Let us know in the comments, or e-mail us!

_________________________

You can subscribe to our RSS feed using your favorite podcast application: rss.zoo.wtf
Don't forget to subscribe to our Bonus Content feed: bonus.zoo.wtf
You can subscribe to us on Twitter @ZooierThanThou, @OneBigGrumpyRat, @ACatWhoLovesYou
You can contact us using the anonymous web form at zoo.wtf
Toggle and Steeeve take it easy on this chill season finale celebrating three years of ZooTT. Plus, laugh at our mistakes, teach a horse proper manners with Zooey, and howl at the moon with us one more time.

Listen @ zoo.wtf
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Thoughts About the Episode

Sorry for being so late! It’s been a busy week, and it doesn’t seem like that’s going to change any time soon. I have a few projects I’m working on in addition to the podcast, and I hope they bear fruit and are useful for everyone!

Season 3 has been pretty intense! It’s a lot of heavy topics with very few of what Tugs would call “Tentpole Episodes,” or episodes that are light and fluffy and help the audience take a break from big topics. So we wanted to end on something a bit lighter, less scripted, and fun for everyone. We also had a backlog of emails to get through, so it was a good chance to get it all done and celebrate a successful season. I also wanted it to be no more than an hour and a half, rather than the big, monolithic 3 hour blocks we’ve done for a lot of this season. We set a timer for the email responses to make sure we weren’t rambling on too much, and I gotta say, this was one of the easiest episodes to actually edit. I definitely want more like this, but it can be hard when you have two hours of solid topic material to get through, like with OPSEC.

The Ask Zooey question is one of my favorites in a while. The question was submitted by a listener who responded to our call for writers with experience with horses, and it allowed us to give really solid animal care advice. It’s fun, light, and informative, and it’s a great way to close out the season. I’m very happy with it!

I had been thinking of how to do something worthy of a finale, and I remembered Zipwok’s song from S3E2. I reached out to see if he could record a clear version of the guitars, and had him throw in some vocals as well. I got a friend of the podcast to play an improvised trumpet line, put together an arrangement, and got as many people as I could from the show to record vocals. I think it lands pretty solidly at the end of the episode, so huge thanks to Zipwok for helping me put that project together. And thanks to Doodle and Arlo for giving me some main vocals to work with, as well!

A couple of big things: one is that we are doing a survey to collect feedback from listeners, and we’d like your input! We wanna make improvements to the show, so we wanna know what you love and what you hate! Here’s the link:

Second, I get a lot of folks asking me where they can find groups for zoos on Discord, and I highly recommend against using Discord in the first place. There’s some decent telegram groups, though, and I think I good public one is ZooFurs Unity. It’s not a porn chat, to be clear, but if you wanna just talk to other zoos, it’s very active, and there are some decent people there. Give it a try!

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What are your favorite moments from Season 3? What kinds of things do you want to see in Season 4? Let us know in the comments, or e-mail us!

_________________________

You can subscribe to our RSS feed using your favorite podcast application: rss.zoo.wtf
Don't forget to subscribe to our Bonus Content feed: bonus.zoo.wtf
You can subscribe to us on Twitter @ZooierThanThou, @OneBigGrumpyRat, @ACatWhoLovesYou
You can contact us using the anonymous web form at zoo.wtf
S3E11. The Safety Dance 2022!

Aqua and Kynophile introduce the concept of OPSEC and offer important advice for zoos exploring their identity in online spaces. Plus, find out what dog hath wrought upon humanity, and awaken the beast with a new rap by Doggie Dearest, featuring MC Ruffski.

Listen @ zoo.wtf
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Thoughts About the Episode

Gosh, honestly, I’m not sure what to say about this episode. I didn’t really have much to do with it.

I guess I start by saying that Season 3 has been going hard and heavy from episode one. There’s been a pretty clear arc, a line from topic to topic where the next one is set up in the topic before it, and that’s been quite purposeful. A lot of that is thanks to Aqua and Mike, who are this season’s new zoo voices we’ve added to the team. I do love that every season we bring in new people who give the show fresh perspective. I hope that trend continues. We’re going to really need to constantly update the podcast art, though. Gosh!

Aqua’s been thinking about doing an episode on OPSEC for some time, and now was finally the time. We needed to give Mike the time off from hosting and writing and doing literally everything, so it ended up being Kynophile’s turn to do hosting and writing and literally everything. Aqua has been putting ideas together for some time, so he came super prepared to deliver this topic, and it’s probably one of the most important ones we’ve done given how many people are coming online to represent themselves as zoos. There was so much to cover that we’re probably going to have to do a few bonus episodes to dive deeper into certain aspects of OPSEC, but this is a pretty good overview, so I encourage you to listen to it.

We finally got the dog scientist Twitter skit done, and I’m pretty happy with it. Not too much to say about it except that it’s good, and I hope you like it!

Kynophile’s been sitting on this rap for a long time, and it’s probably the best one he’s written. He based it off an epic rap battle of history, and he’s got some pretty smart rhyme schemes going. I got another friend who likes rap to contribute her voice, and I think she did pretty well. I had to chop up a 4/4 beat to make it 6/8 to fit my part. It’s surprisingly difficult to find 6/8 rap beats that are royalty free. I hope you enjoy it!

This is a good episode, but other than a bit of writing, I wasn’t super involved in this one, which is kind of nice. I hope that gets to be a trend! You’ve pretty much heard enough of Toggle’s voice. I want to let other zoos’ voices take front and center. Thanks to everyone for stepping up and getting everything done on time.

Before I forget, I can’t post this without giving a shout out to ZetaOpSec on twitter, who has worked with an artist to produce some fantastic cartoons for furries and zoos about OPSEC. If you haven’t checked it out, please do, even if you don’t have twitter. Here’s some great threads:


If you have Twitter, be sure to follow and RT. This is fantastic information that all zoos — and furries — should see.

Hmm, what else? Got a few bites from some horse zoos about contributing writing and segments, so I’m hoping to put them to work. We’ll see if I’m successful. We really don’t have a lot of horse zoo representation on the show since Fausty died, and while Doodle is a wealth of knowledge and insight, he’s not usually available to contribute his voice or write scripts.

I guess that’s about it! The next episode is the last of Season 3, and we’re going to try to keep it light and easy.

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Did you learn anything new from this episode? Do you have your own OPSEC tips to share? Let us know in the comments, or e-mail us!

_________________________

You can subscribe to our RSS feed using your favorite podcast application: rss.zoo.wtf
Don't forget to subscribe to our Bonus Content feed: bonus.zoo.wtf
You can subscribe to us on Twitter @ZooierThanThou, @OneBigGrumpyRat, @ACatWhoLovesYou
You can contact us using the anonymous web form at zoo.wtf
The ghosts of Christmas future are rattling their blockchains! Sigma and Mike the Dog discuss overcoming hardship and finding community with Canis Gnosis. Plus, get in touch with your inner beast, sing along to a parody of a classic cartoon Christmas carol, and find out exactly what happens when you hop the wrong fence.

Listen @ zoo.wtf
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Thoughts About the Episode

I need to start by thanking our cast and crew for putting this episode together while I was on vacation. This episode would not have happened without everyone stepping up to get it done, and it’s fantastic to boot. So let’s start with the episode.

For my part, I made sure to get any writing I was responsible for done before I left for MFF. Me and Mike the Dog got together to write the intro and outro, and Mike had a note in our project manager about a skit based on this image:

c27l68z576181.jpg


Somehow we banged out a silly poem, and I got a friend of mine from Down Under to read it for us. It turned out really well, I think :3

Lovecat pulled out the Secret Zoo this time, and that, too, turned out pretty nicely. I’m happy to say that apparently my editing brought out exactly what he had hoped to accomplish, so that’s a big plus. I think family and love are good themes for a holiday episode, wouldn’t you agree? I’m proud of everyone for putting it together!

Kynophile came up with a silly parody of what might be the most poorly-aged Christmas song ever featured in a classic children’s movie, Be Prepared to Pay. I’ll leave you to look it up and find out why. I was worried about it at first, but Kynophile managed to arrange it in a way that was fun and carefree. It turned out great, I think, especially considering how much of a rush we were in to put together the track. Seriously, we couldn’t have pulled it off without all the hard work everyone put in.

And then there’s the meat of the episode, the topic. Sigma and Canis proposed this topic some months back, and we felt it would fit in well during the holiday season, a season of hope in the face of adversity, when we have to huddle together and weather the cold while looking forward to brighter, warmer days. Someone from our humble forum on ZC wrote in about their experiences being doxxed a few months back, and I felt it made a perfect pairing with the theme. Thanks for sharing your experiences, because I think people really need to hear that our worst fears are survivable. And big thanks to Canis Gnosis for being vulnerable for a second time on our podcast. This topic turned out to be super substantial, and I’m very very pleased with how it turned out.

It’s worth noting the myriad technical difficulties the crew dealt with while I was out of town, losing entire hours’ worth of recordings, dropping connections, and general difficulties getting through the process. And despite all the setbacks, they managed to put together one of our finest episodes, I think. Thanks for your patience and perseverance!

And now, briefly, let’s talk about how fucking amazing my MFF trip was! Man, I really needed this vacation. On every leg of the trip, I got to stop and meet another zoo and hang out with them, which was truly a privilege. And that’s not to speak of the bunch of zoos I met while at con! I got to witness some of the grassroots efforts other zoos are doing within the furry fandom and spend time with some very impressive and admirable people. I also finally got a proper zeta pin, and I’m displaying it proudly wherever I go! Shout out to the zoo who was giving those away! And let’s be real, I also got to fool around with a lot of really neat people, to boot! This isn’t the forum for getting explicit, but suffice it to say, I had a blast. Then, it was off to spend time with friends for the following week. One of them introduced me to a new video game that’s like Mother 3 with the nightmare fuel turned up to 11. It’s really a blast, and there are tons of secret bosses and hidden dungeons with creepy and powerful enemies. I also got to spend time with Kyon, ZeMen, and some of there friends and try a vegan pizza place local to them. All in all, it was everything I wanted and more, and it was exactly the recharge I needed.

I guess that wraps it up! Happy Saturnalia, animal people! I hope this season finds you well <3


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Have you survived a difficult trial as a zoo? Are you going through a difficult time now and could use some encouragement? Let us know in the comments, or e-mail us!

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Aqua and Lovecat are joined by Toggle to answer listener questions about Veganism and share their own experiences. Plus, travel back in time with a new song from Shiv, and guide a sad good boy through difficult life changes with Zooey.

Listen @ zoo.wtf
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Thoughts About the Episode

It’s been a very long month for me, putting out various fires, putting together the podcast, all while trying to help guide the launch of a North-American version of ZETA Verein with Sigma and Sappho, among others. Folks, I am worn out, but I’m relieved to have this episode finished, and with MFF on the horizon and a four-day weekend for Thanksgiving, I’m getting the vacation I need very soon.

As we were working on the animal activism episode, Aqua’s research led him to wanting to discuss veganism on a future episode. Lovecat had originally planned to do something similar last December, but found that there was some tension in discussing the topic among zoos and opted to lay down the foundations that led us to choosing that path instead. This time, however, with several listener emails broaching the topic and everything this season easily leading up to this discussion, the time seemed right. Lovecat was worried as we approached the deadline that we wouldn’t have enough to discuss, but I’d say after whittling down a 3 hour discussion, we had plenty to say, and all of us are pretty happy with how it turned out. I like to think we approached the topic in a way that isn’t off-putting; while LC is fully vegan, Aqua hasn’t yet sworn off meat and dairy, while I have autistic food hang-ups that make certain things difficult for me, and I think that makes this discussion really human. We wanted to be approachable and encouraging without condemning zoos for not being vegan, and while also acknowledging actual barriers to entry. Let us know if we achieved that!

These Ask Zooey questions are getting difficult! I think we did a decent job of giving advice as a group, and I hope it’s very helpful for the sad good boy who wrote in. It’s interesting how this has kind of evolved from a tongue-in-cheek, raunchy comedy sketch to being actual zooey relationship advice, and I suppose that’s a natural progression as the show evolves and more people are asking for real advice. Still, I’d love to have time to actually hash out some funny animal entries again like we used to. I think there’s really just not enough comedy in this episode overall — topical banter excluded.

Honestly, I just didn’t have a lot of time to write, and there wasn’t really anyone else available to write this month, either, so we’re light on content. Not that we needed much more with our massive topic discussion! But it’s nice to change the pace with different sketches now and then. Fortunately, Shiv saved the day with their new song, In June! They asked us to feature it on the show just as we were about to ask if we could, so that worked out splendidly. And boy, it’s a really good song! I enjoy it a lot! I think it might be really cool to consistently feature other bands doing zooey music on the show so it’s not just me and Kynophile doing it every time. Gonna have to hit up Zipwok for more tunes, too.

If you missed it, there’s another forum trying to get started called myzetaspace.com. It’s got a different focus from ZooCommunity in that it aims to be a more adult space, but with strict guidelines in terms of making sure there’s no abusive material. It wants to build up to be an alternative to ZooVille, so give it a go if you have the chance. As we mentioned, they recently did an event featuring zooey music, including Zipwok and ZooTT, and it went over pretty well. New forums are difficult to get off the ground, and they need support and content, so if you have some time and some topics, help fill up their board!

There’s probably plenty more to say, but frankly, I’m really tired. I need some time off, so I think I’m gonna start right about now. Enjoy!

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Are you vegan? Are you considering going vegan after our episode? Let us know in the comments, or e-mail us!

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You can subscribe to our RSS feed using your favorite podcast application: rss.zoo.wtf
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You can subscribe to us on Twitter @ZooierThanThou, @OneBigGrumpyRat, @ACatWhoLovesYou
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Steeeve and Zemen host this Howloween Double Feature! First up: in the hazy realm between light and darkness lies The Eigen Ground. Then, enter an altered state of consciousness as you find yourself In the Belly of the Beast. Finally, join us for our Samhain ritual, in which we honor our lost loves ones, followed by a song of remembrance.

Listen @ zoo.wtf
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Thoughts About the Episode

Sorry this one is so late! It’s been a really, really busy week as we work to make very large changes to the way our website functions. When we’re done, it will look more or less the same, but it will be faster and more reliable. You may have already noticed that episodes are loading faster, since we’ve moved all the files somewhere a bit sturdier with longer uptime. Anyway, it’s a big project, so it’s taking a lot of free time. On to the fun stuff.

I wanted to get through a lot of emails with this one, which I think we did successfully — though we accidentally addressed an email that we’d already addressed previously. Ah well, these things happen. I need to get more organized when it comes to emails. I think Zemen and Steeeve did a great job hosting, though, so shout out to them!

We like to do fun stuff with the community on Howloween, and every year has included skits submitted from members of the community. This year was no different, with a pretty impressive Twilight Zone-style skit that I think has all the characteristics of Rod Serling’s work — the way it builds, the character types, and that sense of cold and callous poetic justice. Well done, zooey writer! There was some concern that perhaps we were indulging a bit too much in schadenfreude with this one, but I don’t get that sense. I don’t think you’re particularly rooting for either of the characters, because both are kind of shitty in their own way, and at least on my part, I don’t particularly revel in the protagonist’s situation as much as enjoy the progression of the information being delivered. Perhaps some people feel that way, but I kind of hope not. I’m pleased with this one. It’s not the type of skit we could have pulled off with our own writing team, I feel, and that’s part of why I love getting these submissions from listeners. (The other part is getting new people involved and airing new zooey voices!)

The other skit I’m quite pleased with, as it was a collaboration between me and Sappho. If you haven’t heard somehow, Sappho came out on her hypnosis YouTube channel, and it garnered a lot of attention online. I recall she told me ahead of time that she planned to do it, and I cautioned that coming out publicly is very different from coming out to a friend or a family member, and that she would need a very robust social network to survive such an endeavor. I kind of expected it would be some time before it happened. Suddenly, she was like, “Hey, wanna be on my show for coming out, right now?” and I was like, “I’m a bit too busy to do a voice chat right now,” and that same day she’d posted a coming out video. It happened pretty fast! I have to say, it’s not bad! I would have done it differently myself, but in terms of being positive, informative, and appealing to non-zoos, I think it hit the mark pretty well. Whoever you are that was interviewed, nice job, all things considered. Original reactions were very positive, but of course, once the trolls found it, the channel was inundated with negativity. Sappho’s been through a lot since then, but she’s holding up remarkably well, and her initiative is pretty impressive. She’s got a drive for activism that I hope doesn’t burn out too quickly, and she seems receptive to counsel from others, which is wise. I’m hoping she’s able to do great things for the community.

I will say, things got a little vorny this episode, unexpectedly, with both skits having elements of vore fantasy in them. My real goal with Sappho’s skit was to be as accurate as possible regarding hypnosis, while retaining an element of horror — it’s Howloween, after all! Sappho gave me a crash course, and I employed the advice she gave in the script. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what I was going to write, and the one we used was not the first scenario I’d come up with. I decided on a place that was open and public, but private and relaxing, and started there. Somewhere along the line, I decided there was going to be some kind of monster haunting the protagonist, an inner zooey demon or something. And then suddenly I was writing hypnovore, so I just leaned into that as heavily as possible. And then suddenly, the character was therian, and you know what? This is Halloween, so we’re going to let him transform into a bear. It’s one of those things that came into being while it was being created, spontaneous rather than planned. And it works well! Lord, I’ve gotten some comments about how horny this skit is, let me tell you x3 Apparently, for one person, I basically hit every single button. Unexpected, but once I realized what I was doing, I just went for it x3 And it helps that Sappho has the \*perfect\* voice for riling people up. Also, no shortage of accolades to Mike the Dog, who gave a pretty great performance, as well!

Our Samhain ritual went well, and I hope it brought some comfort. I know a lot of us have lost loved ones recently. We even got a random entry for a dedication to Fausty, which was a surprise. There’s not a lot to say, since it’s not really a creative process, but I think it came out well.

Finally, I decided a couple of months ago I wanted to write a song to pair with the Samhain ritual, and the piece that stuck out in my mind was Left Behind from Spring Awakening. You’ll note structural elements lifted directly from this piece, if you’ve got a good ear.


I also pulled some elements of the chord progression from the verse of Last Dinosaur by The Pillows. I felt like it had a bittersweet quality to it, and it really works here, imo.

Arlo came in and brought elements from Godspell’s In the Willows, mapping out a basic melody and putting together some lyrics. I tweaked the melody a bit and adapted the lyrics to fit, and I leaned heavily into sentimentality for the progression of the music. I’m hoping the build-up and release, immediately following the quietude of the ritual, served to be emotionally stirring. Arlo took the lead on vocals, and I think he does a very nice job, here. This song definitely wouldn’t be the same without his contributions. I hope you enjoyed it!

Well, I’ve blathered on for quite some time now, so I’m gonna end it here, I think. The next full moon is November 19! See you there!
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Did you find value in our Samhain ritual? Did the hypnosis skit push your buttons? Let us know in the comments, or e-mail us!

_________________________

You can subscribe to our RSS feed using your favorite podcast application: rss.zoo.wtf
Don't forget to subscribe to our Bonus Content feed: bonus.zoo.wtf
You can subscribe to us on Twitter @ZooierThanThou, @OneBigGrumpyRat, @MeowofLove
You can contact us using the anonymous web form at zoo.wtf
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