Hey all, Jack Wylder here. Did you know that Larry has an official fan group on Facebook? https://www.facebook.com/groups/99503651773/ One of the things we’ve noticed is that there are a lot of folks new to Larry’s books and it can be daunting when you join a group to not get the inside jokes. This post is intended to remedy that a bit. If you see something we’ve missed, just drop it in the comments and we’ll add to this as needed. Ladies, Gentlemen, and Hunters of all sorts CorreiaTech is proud to present:

(as compiled by Jesse Barrett, official CorreiaTech Minion first class)

The Monster Hunter Nation is populated by some… interesting people. We hold a Manatee in such respect that it’s almost reverence and attempt to speak his language (often assisted by FaceBook’s Translate function). We tell alt-history stories about a blue muppet doing black ops. Most of all, though, we are fans of the writings of Larry Correia.
As often happens, a number of unusual in jokes have developed over time. This is an attempt to explain a few of them for the newer members of MHN.

International Lord of Hate (ILoH)
ɪntərˈnæʃənəl lɔrd ʌv heɪt
(Title)

Back in 2014 the Guardian published an article slandering Larry, who decided to rebut their piece in a Fisk. https://monsterhunternation.com/2014/04/15/larry-f-correia-international-lord-of-hate/
Not to be confused with the Interdimensional Lord of Hate, Larry Correia of Earth Earth #345-B-98081.

HOON!
huːn
(Noun, Verb, Adj, other)
1) The sound made by a Manatee, the inflection being the key to understanding the meaning.
Example: Hoon!*
2) The Battle Cry of Wendell’s Roughnecks.
Example: HOOOOON!
3) A comment made by a citizen of MHN, usually showing strong support of the previous comment.
Example: HOON!
See Also: Maniteese, Facebook’s Translate ‘feature’.
*It is important to note that while HOON! is perfectly acceptable, HOON! is considered vulgar and offensive.

Wendell D. Manatee
Wen-duhl dee ma-nə-ˌtē
(Proper Noun)
CFO of CorreiaTech, the most powerful mega corporation in Earth #345-B-98081’s universe and manufacturer of the CombatWombat pistol. Wendell is originally from the alternate universe of the Christmas Noun and Tom Stranger short stories. Since that universe allows for interdimensional travel, Wendell often appears in this universe where he is practically worshiped by the citizens of MHN. Wendell got an MBA from Harvard, before serving several years in the Florida state legislature. That, coupled with his logistical and tactical genius during the manatees’ war against the Deep Ones, put his resume at the top of the pile when CorreiaTech started looking for a new CFO. Then he just blew them away with his eloquence during the interviews. Although he is primarily a CoD player, he still regularly beats Larry Correia at World of Tanks. Wendell usually travels in a mobile tank that bears a passing resemblance to the Spice Tanks used by Guild Navigators in Dune but has also on occasion made appearance in his prototype tank walker suit. In every known universe, Wendell is unanimously recognized as the most interesting Man(atee) alive. Fun fact: General Mattis and Wendell hang out. Once he retired, Wendell taught the General how to snorkle, and he introduced Wendell to home brewing.
Wendell appears to have his own Twitter and Facebook accounts, as well as giving interviews on occasion.
https://twitter.com/wendellmanatee
https://www.facebook.com/Wendell.The.Manatee/
http://superversivesf.com/2016/01/06/interview-sad-puppies-wendell-the-manatee/

See Also: You’re kidding right? $)(*& tank dwelling Hax0r!

Cookie Monster
ku̇-kē män-stər
(Proper Noun)
During the 2012 presidential election, someone posted a meme on Facebook about how electing Romney would kill Sesame Street. Larry chimed in and performed possibly the greatest thread hijacking of all time, beginning with the line “Except Cookie Monster. Because that dude is a straight up hard core operator… Conservative too” followed immediately by “And Cookie Monster is in favor of teaching war rather than reading. The dude is a freaking killing machine. He was in my mercenary company in Bosnia. I saw Cookie Monster massacre a whole village once… We paid him in cookies.”Things really got rolling after that and stories of Big Blue’s out of control black ops exploits are still whispered around MHN to this day. It would appear that his public face as a cookie gobbling star of children’s television is just a cover his real work as a covert operative nominally in service of the US government. Unfortunately, just as he does when faced with piles of tasty snacks, CM often loses his fragile self control, and when he is packing an under barrel EZ Bake the results are best left to the imagination… David Burkhead archived the whole thing on his blog and it can still be viewed there in it’s entirety. https://monsterhunternation.com/2013/07/17/the-great-cookie-monster-thread/

See Also: Muppets, really? Where did all these crumbs and blood come from?

Tom Stranger
Tahm strān-jər
(Proper Noun)
Tom Stranger is an Interdimensional Insurance Agent from Earth #345-B-98081 who often travels across the multiverse, caring for his client’s needs, and providing quality customer service. Tom always strives for perfect tens on all customer satisfaction surveys (or fives, when a world’s rating system is based upon stars, smiley faces, or stickers.) His job takes him to many worlds, where he deals with a variety of insurance related, sometime apocalyptic crises. On Earth 169-J-00561, Larry Correia (the writer) documented a day in the life of Mr. Stranger and released it as an Audible book (read by the Adam Baldwin of Earth 169-J-00561 where he is an actor instead of the president and leader of the Libertarian Space Cowboy Revolution.) The entire saga can be read at: https://monsterhunternation.com/online-fiction/

Superfluous Marketing Dog™
su̇-ˈpər-flü-əs / mär-kə-tiŋ / däg
(Proper Noun)
When super author Jim Butcher told Larry Corriea that he needed to add a dog (that did NOT get eaten), Larry created an adorable marketing ploy as revealed in CHRISTMAS NOUN 8: Too Noun Much Adjective. Superfluous Marketing Dog™ plush toys were intended to be sold across the all universes, but insider espionage resulted in a delay on sales to Earth 169-J-00561.
https://monsterhunternation.com/2015/12/18/christmas-noun-8-too-noun-much-adjective/ See Also: Awwwww! The original “It’s So Fluffy!”.

Clamps, NickWolf, and various other Internet Trolls
(Sort of) (Proper Nouns)
Unlike Melvin, MHI’s IT Troll, some internet trolls just can’t be reformed. Two notorious examples are NickWolf and Clamps. NickWolf was featured in several blog posts on MHN, where he kept coming back for abuse like a baby seal out for a night on the town. Clamps, on the other hand, is a more sad and sinister figure who is quite literally under police orders to have all of his internet activities monitored by his caretakers. He sometimes slips the leash and crops up on MHN or the various blogs of Larry’s friends and associates.
https://monsterhunternation.com/best-of-mhn/

Yard Moose Mountain
yärd / müs / mau̇n-tən
(Proper Noun)
Yard Moose Mountain, Utah is the Semi-Secret Base™ and Home of Clan Correia. It got the name when Larry looked out the window of his Secret Base™ and noticed that there was a moose in his yard. The legend soon grew and spread to all corners of Monster Hunter Nation. Larry has recently purchased a mountain and is working on Yard Moose Mountain 2.0, which will include, among other things, a zip line from the gun tower to the mailbox…
https://monsterhunternation.com/2016/02/19/yard-moose-mountain-2/

See Also: What, no volcano? ..with frickin laser beams on their heads, Outpost: Hippo River, Outpost: Burning Lizard

Straw Larry
str-aw / lahree
(Proper Noun)
You know how in TV shows the protagonist always gets split into “good” and “evil?” Or how in FAMILY CIRCUS there is “Not Me,” who is guilty of everything? Straw Larry is who is responsible for all the evil Larry Correia has been accused of, but hasn’t actually done. CHRISTMAS NOUN 8 describes him thusly:

Straw Larry was a hideous creature, dredged up from the fevered imagination of thousands of SJWs, given unnatural life through their salty tears of perpetual outrage and powered by their endless butthurt, he was the living embodiment of every awful, nonsensical, conflicting, mutually exclusive, asinine thing they’d ever accused Larry Correia of, made real. He got the name because he was literally a straw man. I guess it just kind of just stuck, what with all the straw and stuff.

Common Internet Shit Gibbon (CISG)

(ka-min in-tur-net shit gib-bon)

Noun

An odious, cowardly creature that primarily gathers on social media sights to interfere with discussions and inject their preprogrammed opinions into every conversation. Well known for their primary tactic of making up shit, throwing it as the wall to see what sticks. For a full explanation see: https://monsterhunternation.com/2020/03/30/this-weeks-episode-of-the-facebook-hunter-the-common-internet-shit-gibbon/

The Department of Fuck Your Job Security (DOFYJS)

(duh·paart·muhnt uhf fuhk yor jaab suh·kyur·uh·tee)

Proper Noun

“if I was President (ha!) I would only create a single new executive branch entity. The Department of Fuck Your Job Security.

The DoFYJS would consist of surly auditors, and their only job would be to go into other government agencies to figure out-

A. Do you fuckers do anything worth a shit?

B. Which of you fuckers actually get shit done?

Then fire everyone else.

For a more thorough reading, see: https://monsterhunternation.com/2022/05/11/the-dofyjs/

So “Cultural Appropriation” for writers has been in the news again lately.

First there was this dim bulb having a freak out because the keynote speaker at a writing conference dared talk about how silly the concept of Cultural Appropriation is. This is an incredibly boring and long winded freak out. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/10/as-lionel-shriver-made-light-of-identity-i-had-no-choice-but-to-walk-out-on-her

(the best part is how she got up and walked away from this dangerous offensive badthink talk AND ALL EYES WERE UPON HER JUDGING HER BY THEIR CULTURAL NORMS! When in reality most folks probably just thought she needed to use the toilet or something)

And here is the actual keynote speech which caused all that outrage: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/13/lionel-shrivers-full-speech-i-hope-the-concept-of-cultural-appropriation-is-a-passing-fad

You should read this. She makes some excellent points. This is coming from the Literati side of the writing world, but it is just as bad over in the exploding space ships and magic elves section of the book store.

I’ve talked about Cultural Appropriation before, and why it is one of the most appallingly stupid ideas every foisted on the gullible in general, and even worse when used as a bludgeon against fiction authors.

First off, what is “Cultural Appropriation”?  From the linked talk:

The author of Who Owns Culture? Appropriation and Authenticity in American Law, Susan Scafidi, a law professor at Fordham University who for the record is white, defines cultural appropriation as “taking intellectual property, traditional knowledge, cultural expressions, or artifacts from someone else’s culture without permission. This can include unauthorised use of another culture’s dance, dress, music, language, folklore, cuisine, traditional medicine, religious symbols, etc.”

The part that got left out of that definition is that engaging in Cultural Appropriation is a grievous mortal sin that self-righteous busy bodies can then use to shame anyone they don’t like.

Look at that definition. Basically anything you use that comes from another culture is stealing. That is so patently absurd right out the gate that it is laughable. Anybody who has two working brain cells to rub together, who hasn’t been fully indoctrinated in the cult of social justice immediately realizes that sounds like utter bullshit.

If you know anything about the history of the world, you would know that it has been one long session of borrowing and stealing ideas from other people, going back to the dawn of civilization. Man, that cuneiform thing is pretty sweet. I’m going to steal writing. NOT OKAY! CULTURAL APPROPRIATION!

Everything was invented by somebody, and if it was awesome, it got used by somebody else. At some point in time thousands of years ago some sharp dude got sick of girding up his loins and invented pants. We’re all stealing from that guy. Damn you racists and your slacks.

This is especially silly when white guilt liberals try to enforce it on Americans, the ultimate crossroads of the world, melting pot country where hundreds of cultures have been smooshed together for a couple hundred years, using each other’s cool stuff and making it better.

This weekend I painted miniatures for a war game from Spain, played a video game from Belarus, listened to rap music from a white guy from Detroit, watched a cop show from Britain, had Thai food for lunch, and snacked on tikki masala potato chips, while one daughter streamed K dramas, another read manga, and my sons played with Legos invented in Denmark.

A life without Cultural Appropriation would be so incredibly boring.

And most of you missed the really insidious part of that that academic, all-consuming definition. Without Permission… Think about that. So how does that work exactly? Who do you ask? Sure, these new Lays Tikki Masala chips are delicious, but are they problematic? Who is the head Indian I’m supposed to get permission from? Did you guys like appoint somebody, or is it an elected position, or what? Or should I just assume that Lays talked to that guy already for me? Or can any regular person from India be offended on behalf of a billon people?

This is all very confusing.

But hang on… India owes me. That’s right. Because vindaloo is a popular Indian dish, but wait! It was actually Culturally Appropriated from the Portuguese hundreds of years ago. I’m Portuguese! I didn’t give them permission to steal the food of my people!

So we will call it even on these chips.

And don’t get me started on Thai food, because the Portuguese introduced the chili pepper to Thailand. YOU ARE WELCOME, WORLD!

Some angry SJW recently assaulted a white kid with dreadlocks for Cultural Appropriation. Sure, he looks like a hippy doofus, but dozens of cultures, including a bunch from Europe have worn dreads. There are only so many ways you can grow hair. So half the time the when the Cultural Appropriation police freak out about something, they’re just being ignorant anyway.

SJWs got up in arms about white people wearing kimonos. That’s racist! But apparently they didn’t check to see if the Chief Japanese Guy had given permission first, because all of the Japanese kimono makers were like “Whoa, hold on there! These are just clothes. We like selling them to people. That’s how we live.” They tried the same thing with tacos, because eating tacos was racist. Which came as shock to all the Mexicans who sell tacos for a living (because tacos are proof God loves us and wants us to be happy) but shut up, actual people with skin in the game, SJWs are speaking for you now!

I think those misunderstandings illustrate the importance of a culture appointing one particular person for us to ask permission from, because otherwise you could have a culture with millions of people in it, and anything is bound to offend somebody… Tread carefully, or I’ll demand vindaloo back.

But how does this relate to writing fiction?

Basically there are a group self-appointed thought police who are just looking for a reason to bitch at authors, and scaring people into falling in line makes them feel important. They use Cultural Appropriation like a hammer to bash authors. In reality these people are basically useless, and can be ignored (or better, mocked) but many authors don’t realize that or they don’t like confrontation. So they self-censor and stifle their creativity to avoid giving offense.

Except you can’t avoid offending the perpetually offended.

Check out that first link if you want to get a good look into the culture warriors’ mindset. They’ve got this weird belief that if you tell a story about Person X, then you are robbing a real life Person X of their ability to tell that story. Like if a white guy tells a story about a teenage Nigerian girl, then a teenage Nigerian girl can no longer tell her story. Okay… Is there like a secret checklist at publishing houses I don’t know about? Sorry, Abegunde, this story is awesome, but we’ve already reached our quota on Nigerian YA for the year.

(Luckily for her, Abegunde can just go indy now!)

In the world of fiction, the SJW is constantly perched, like a falcon, ready to swoop in and shriek Cultural Appropriation at any author who dares transgress. So if you write about another culture you don’t belong to, and they don’t like you for some reason, they’re going to flip out. They’ll probably write mean reviews, form an angry twitter mob of rainbow haired Trigglypuffs, and call you names.

Ignore them. Or better, if you have the mindset and a career capable of withstanding their slander, mock them for their bullying stupidity. Bullies hate being laughed at.

If writers were limited to writing about people just like themselves, fiction would be incredibly boring. We are professional liars. Our job is to make up entertaining stuff. If we were that limited fiction would get really lame, really fast, because most authors are actually pretty dull. Sure, we write about heroic people in interesting situations, but most of us spend our days sitting in a chair in front of a keyboard, eating chips, and that’s boring as shit to read about.

Now, if you’re going to write about another culture, then you need to do your homework and try to make that as real and interesting as possible. But screwing that up doesn’t make you racist. It just makes you a bad writer. Get good, scrub. This doesn’t just apply to writing real cultures either. It is a question of basic world building. If you build an interesting culture that makes sense to the reader and feels real, score. You did your job.

Characters are the same. Liven your characters up. Give them likes and dislikes, give them traits, give them opinions, beliefs, hobbies, whatever. Make them people.  Make them interesting. That’s what really matters.

This whole bullshit about how an author has to “respect” a character if they’re a different culture… Bullshit. That character works for me. That character is going to fill whatever roll in the story I created that character to fill. Every culture has heroes, villains, victims, geniuses, morons, saints, and clowns.

If you’re not part of the cool kids crowd, and you write about a member of a “marginalized group” then they expect you to treat that character like an absolute saint, because otherwise the SJWs will swoop in to screech at you. This is why if you write a female character who is flawed somehow, somebody is going to accuse you of misogyny. Get used to it. The other option is perfect characters, and perfect characters are boring.

The key is writing good characters, period. Getting hung up on an artificial checklist is just bullshit. Make your characters interesting and give them an interesting story, entertain your readers, then laugh at the inevitable haters who are too hung up on minutia and agonizing over rules to create any art themselves.

Notice that this Cultural Appropriation thing only ever goes one way. Take for example a prog author who has never touched a gun, but apparently it is okay for them to write the gun culture. Usually as illiterate redneck Bubbas out murdering school children. Totally legit. Or take a goodthink peacenik author who has never served a day in the military, and they can write their blood thirsty, ticking time bombs of PTSD addled murder rage, and that’s perfectly cool. Christians? All up in your literature, as long as they are bad guys.

We don’t hate characters like that because they are appropriating our culture. We hate them because they are lame, boring stereotypes written out of obvious lazy ignorance. Quit sucking and you’ll sell more books.

Look, if you’re an aspiring author and this Cultural Appropriation nonsense has scared you away from writing what you want to write, you’ve bought into their con. Screw that. Write what you want to write. Because here is the ugly secret, no matter what you do, if they don’t like you or they get a bug up their ass about you, they’re going to attack you somehow anyway.

So you don’t write about any other cultures other than the one you come from because you are scared you’ll be committing Cultural Appropriation?  Okay. But then they can attack you for your lack of “diversity”. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

See? It’s a con game. The only way to win is to not play at all. Write what you want. Write what you think is awesome. Don’t let bullies scare you.

The sad truth is that what you actually put in the book is for the most part irrelevant to these people, because they’re just going to make up bullshit about it anyway. They don’t actually read much. See the talk above where the Fat Advocates were yelling at the skinny author and refusing to read her books, even though she was on their side. It came as a surprise to me and my readers when we were informed all my books were Manly White Men Having Manly White Adventure.

These critics don’t actually give a shit about anyone they claim to speak for. They’re not defending any underdogs. It is just a perpetual game of gotcha. They’re looking for reasons to be offended, because their culture equates being offended with being good. It’s all virtue signaling and posturing. And half the time they’re so damned ignorant they’re not even fluffing their feathers in the right direction.

For example, I wrote Son of the Black Sword. It is set in a fantasy world where the culture is based in large part on India and southeast Asia. I got one review from a culture warrior (on GoodReads obviously) where I was attacked because of my horrific stereotypes of Asians, and how I was so lazy that I didn’t even bother to do any research at all about different Asian cultures, because at the beginning I had some of the characters eating rice balls! And rice balls aren’t even Indian food!

Hmmm…. https://www.google.com/search?q=indian+rice+balls&biw=1366&bih=667&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj6pbChnY3PAhXBOj4KHUgJANcQ_AUIBigB

Disregarding that rather delicious looking Google image search, and the fact that in real life everybody who can grow rice figured out some way to squish it into a convenient clump, who is to say that the people of Lok didn’t culturally appropriate rice balls from somebody else before the rain of demons? It is after all, an imaginary place.

If I listened to these mopes, I never would have been able to write about Iron Guard Toru wearing samurai power armor bashing ninjas with a tetsubo, and that would make the world a much sadder place.

Cultural Appropriation is stupid when applied to the real world, and it becomes even dumber when they try to apply it to made-up worlds. If SJWs had their way we wouldn’t be able to write about somebody who looks slightly different than we do, how the hell do they expect us to write from the perspective of space aliens?

Cultural Appropriation is the stupidest argument ever.

Here is a treat for you guys.

Part 1 http://www.baen.com/rock_meet_hard_place

Part 2 http://www.baen.com/rock_meet_hard_place2

This story takes place between the finale of Swords of Exodus and the beginning of Alliance of Shadows (which will be out next month).

This story features the talents of an awesome up and coming author, Peter Nealen. And is a pretty nifty expansion of the D6 universe.

Here is the final list of all the stories which will be in the upcoming The Monster Hunter Files anthology (and a little description from me about them). I do not know the release date yet.

“Thistle” by Larry Correia (Owen and his team take on a new kind of monster in Arizona)

“Small Problems” by Jim Butcher (MHI’s new janitor has to deal with some small problems)

“Darkness Under The Mountain” by Mike Kupari (Cooper takes a freelance job in Afghanistan)

“A Knight Of The Enchanted Forest” by Jessica Day George (Trailer park elves versus gnomes TURF WAR!)

“The Manticore Sanction” by John C. Wright (Cold War era British espionage with monsters)

“The Dead Yard” by Maurice Broaddus (Trip goes to Jamaica on some family business)

“The Bride” by Brad R. Torgersen (Franks wasn’t the only thing Benjamin Franklin cut deals with)

“She Bitch, Killer of Kits” (a Skinwalker Crossover Tale) by Faith Hunter (Jane Yellowrock teams up with MHI)

“Mr. Natural” by Jody Lynn Nye (an STFU mission in the 70s has to deal with plant monsters and hippies!)

“Sons Of The Father” by Quincy J. Allen (Two young brothers discover monsters are real, and kill a mess of them)

“The Troll Factory” by Alex Shvartsman (Heather gets some help from MHI for an STFU mission into Russia)

“Keep Kaiju Weird” by Kim May (a Kitsune may have already earned her PUFF exemption, but she’s not going to let some monster squish Portland)

“The Gift” by Steve Diamond (Two of the Vatican’s Hunters from the Blessed Order of Saint Hubert the Protector on a mission in Mexico)

“The Case of the Ghastly Specter” by John Ringo (while studying at Oxford, Chad takes a case)

“Huffman Strikes Back” by Bryan Thomas Schmidt & Julie Frost (Owen’s vacation gets interrupted for some monster revenge)

“Hunter Born” by Sarah A. Hoyt (remember how I mentioned Julie didn’t get to go to her prom because of monster problems? Here you go)

“Hitler’s Dog” by Jonathan Maberry (It is WW2 and Agent Franks really hates Nazis)

That’s right folks, you can get the Early Advanced Reader Copy of Monster Hunter Memoirs: Sinners by John Ringo and me right now: http://www.baen.com/monster-hunter-memoirs-sinners-earc.html Because waiting for proof reading is for patient types!

For those that don’t know, an ARC is the early copy that hasn’t gone through the final copy edits, which would normally only be sent to reviewers and book purchasers. However, Baen discovered that impatient fans would pay good money to get a book three months early. So Jim started selling the Baen eARCS, and the rest is history.