#I have another post that summarizes them far more succinctly but it isn’t like a legit summary LOL

[skyloftian-nutcase]

Can you give a brief summary of your AUs please?

Sure! :)

Breath of the Sky: A year after Skyward Sword, the newlywed lovebirds are slingshot into the future just before the Calamity. They now have to navigate being in this place, revered as Hylia and the Hero of Myth, while BotW Zelda and Link figure out how the heck they’re supposed to accommodate and deal with it. Chaos and lots of drama ensue. Currently playing: the Lovebirds and the Anxious Duo travel together with the Champions to survey Hyrule and see the Divine Beasts.

Forsaken AU: Original AU with original characters. When Princess Zelda, known for her prowess with her magic and her confidence in her abilities, gets disturbing visions of an oncoming darkness, she tries to claim the Triforce for herself to protect Hyrule. However, the Triforce shatters at her touch as she isn’t worthy to wield all three pieces, and she inherits the Triforce of Power. Put out but not defeated, Zelda goes on a quest to find the fated Hero of Hyrule - she knows it’s usually a dude named Link, and he likely will bear at least another piece of the Triforce, so that’s two birds, one stone! Except… half the kingdom names their boys Link. But after going through half a bajillion Links, two of them are promising! One she can sense a strong magic in, even though he just says he’s a masseur and knows nothing about fighting. The other hardly says anything at all, but Sir Edgy and his faithful doggie companion can’t keep hiding his secrets from her forever.

Blood of the Hero: Ten years after the Calamity, the Shrine of Resurrection is damaged, leaving Link vulnerable and dying. Link’s parents, Abel and Tilieth, who were on the Great Plateau protecting the shrine, are now tasked with saving their son’s life by taking him to the Sheikah shrines across the land. Currently playing: Link’s still out of it but he’s about 5-6 hearts and one stamina vessel in and showing signs of improvement while his dad has a complete spiral from ten years of PTSD buildup and his mom tries to pick up the pieces and take care of them both. Oh, and Impa thinks they’re all insane.

The Imprisoning War: Millennia before Hyrule Warriors, Ganondorf attempts to steal the Triforce and it predictably shatters, starting a two year war that nearly destroys both Hyrule and the Gerudo. The other two Triforce piece bearers are HW Link’s predecessor, the half-Sheikah/half-Hylian named Link, who is madly in love with Ganondorf’s daughter and came to look at Ganon as something of a father figure, and Zelda, who has to overthrow her father to lead Hyrule to victory. Once Ganondorf is defeated, things only get worse for Link as he has to abandon Hemisi, the woman he loves who just helped him and Zelda defeat her father, and enter an arranged marriage with Zelda to save what’s left of their broken kingdom. (Backstory for Golden Mercy)

Golden Mercy: When Ganondorf returns during Hyrule Warriors, he’s on a mission to make things right, though what that means is beyond everyone around him. Kidnapping the Hero of Hyrule and telling him he’s protecting him from the Queen is not what anyone expected, and nobody can quite figure out what his ultimate goal is. Link sure is confused, though, and… starting tor realize there’s more to Ganondorf than just being a monster. Zelda, on the other hand, is quickly spiraling with panic and fear over losing her friend and Hero, as well as trying to protect her kingdom from such a threat that was so dangerous the previous Hero split his soul into pieces to prevent him from ever returning. (Lots of redemption arcs. Lots of them.)

Wild Spirit: When BotW Link is mortally wounded in the Calamity, Zelda decides that Hyrule can be saved more quickly if she lets the Spirit of the Hero be reborn in a new Hero rather than hope a potentially malfunctioning shrine can maybe heal her friend in a few decades and he might not even know what to do. BotW Link dies, but his spirit remains to guide the next Hero, a young man from Lurelin Village. This new Link is friends with his strange spirit companion, and slowly learns his destiny as he grows older. Now that he’s of age, he must take up th mantle of Hero of Hyrule, and his first task is to find the Master Sword, which was entrusted to his predecessor’s father, Abel.

Dad Squad: This one I share with @nancyheart11 and literally anyone else who wants to jump in and have fun with the Dads. When the Yiga use new magic to jump to different points in Hyrule’s history and kidnap Heroes of Hyrule, it’s up to their Dads to save them. Then again, Link doesn’t really need saving all that often, and putting a bunch of Links together is never a good idea for the bad guys, so the Links bust themselves out. But now they’re running around lost and confused, the Dads are still trying to find their Boys, and the Yiga are somewhere in the middle. As for their motives… well. There’s a dark magical mask, maybe a Bad Dad demon king, and a whole bunch of idiocy chaos.

LU in Healthcare: Basically what it says on the tin. The Chain is in modern land and they’re all involved in the world of healthcare! And somehow everyone tolerates my pittance of updates/lore.

Hero of Shadow: During the events of TotK, the demon king discovers the grave of someone he knew and loved dearly - a young Sheikah/Hylian warrior named Link. Using his powers, Gan resurrects him at a price, to ensure that his boy stays safe and loyal. Meanwhile, this young shadow warrior is trying desperately to break free of his father figure’s control while fighting his own feelings on the matter, and his only guide is a strange mystical voice that leads him to shards of a broken sword. In the surface, TotK Link is starting to figure out that something else is going on in the depths. (Essentially, I threw my Imprisoning War blorbos into TotK)

…I think that’s all of them. Wow, I have a lot of AUs lol. So much for brief. 🥴

[tamamatango]

“Keroro Gunsgo To The Polls”: The Possible Behind-the-Scenes of the Ad-nime Short Nobody Expected

A much less existentially depressing display of political campaign buffoonery.

Here’s yet another unplanned post from me. The other long-form ones I was talking about before I keep putting off because of work and also another pretty ambitious project I’m putting together taking my attention—I don’t know how or when to talk about it here juuuuust yet, but it exists in public and some of you already know what it is/have seen it, so stay tuned perhaps.

As you can see from the video link/photo, this post is a writeup about a surprise video apparently commissioned by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government that uses the Keroro characters to encourage young people to go out and vote in the upcoming elections for the Governor of Tokyo. It came out about a week ago, but I initially glossed over it because…well, I thought it wasn’t new. After all, the copyright DOES attribute the copyright to 2014 and it looks very similar to the Flash anime at first glance, so…this must be a reupload from the 2014 Tokyo gubernatorial election or something, right?

Upon looking more deeply into it, no. There’s no record of this ever existing before this week, and it was later confirmed to be new via social media channels. Which means this is technically a brand new piece of animated Keroro content, which I pledged I would report on. So here I am. Whoopee.

This post is going to be about the short from a production standpoint, primarily. I’m not going to spend time on the plot (if you want to call it that lol), as it was already pretty succinctly summarized by this post here by @unfo11owmelol , and I can say it’s more or less accurate, so thank you! I will make a comment in that the Dororo ranting about plastic thing seems to just be a running gag he has now—he was always an environmentalist of course, but his hatred of plastic specifically is kind of new; it was even a major punchline in this month’s manga chapter. In fact, this short has the manga’s quirks written all over it. It’s almost as if Yoshizaki himself was heavily involved in it. Oh wait, he was. But we’ll get to that.

The Context

As previously mentioned, this short was commissioned by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and posted exclusively to their YouTube channel. This is where I was going to have a few sentences about how it was literally exclusively on the YouTube channel because none of the official social media accounts posted about it, but as I was writing the last 40% of the post, Keroro PR and one of the Tokyo government accounts finally mentioned it. So give a pat on the back to ol’ Kirb’s amazing procrastination abilities. Anyways, for the whole week before they finally decided to acknowledge its existence, it literally just dropped on YouTube with no warning and the only reason anybody on social media knew about it is because people whose YT feeds it popped up on were like hey what the fuck is this.

“What the fuck is this” is a pretty good question. While the fact that it’s about the gubernatorial election specifically isn’t directly mentioned in the video, it was pretty obvious given the timing, as it’s set to occur on July 7. I am not the most knowledgeable about Japanese politics as a whole, but this year’s race for governor is apparently particularly competitive, with over 50 candidates running. Here’s a short article giving a rundown of the race so far. The top issue is unsurprisingly the low birthrate, which has been causing panic over the fate of Japan’s economy for a considerably long time now. That’s why the government is very concerned that the voter disparity is incredibly polarizing, with young people voting much less than the elderly.

Well, what better way to fix low youth vote turnout than with anime? After all, the Zillenials want nothing more than to obsess over fictional characters while the world crumbles around them into inevitable disrepair I’m not projecting at all. The irony here is that, when the anime was originally in its prime at least, Keroro’s target audience was elementary schoolers. Indeed, the short definitely has the aura of a PSA they’d show to children, but obviously children are not voting. There’s even a point in the video where Tamama says going to the polling place is an opportunity to visit your childhood school, which is a statement more relatable to young adults. I guess at this point the main audience for Keroro really is considered to be the people who grew up with it in their child/teen years—unless the actual new anime gets a primetime kids’ TV slot, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Considering this is the most viewed PSA about the election on their YouTube channel by far, I guess it worked to an extent? It’s currently hovering just under 20k views, which isn’t really too much in the grand scheme. But now that it’s been officially shared on social media, perhaps that’ll give it a boost. Will most of these viewers actually go out to vote is the question…

Production staff peculiarities

As with any animated Keroro content following the end of the Flash anime—which until the new show airs has basically just been this, the new project announcement trailer, and some anti-piracy ad they were doing in movie theaters that they ironically scrubbed from the internet—BN Pictures is credited as the animation studio (though the studio Sugarless Factory assisted; they pretty much exclusively do production assistance for various projects). This is interesting because it looks completely unlike anything they’ve ever done. Unless I’m missing something, none of the anime they’ve produced before have been done in a similar Flash-like style.

Now, as we Internet addicts all know, Flash has been officially dead for a few years now. However, it might still be used very rarely in lowkey web animations like this, although a friend who knows more about anime production than I do told me even those are more commonly made using Live2D now. The credits for this short are very…short, but the director and a couple of other animators worked on a particular Flash-animated series called Oshiri Kajiri Mushi (“Bottom Biting Bug”) that first aired on the TV channel NHK in 2012. I’m guessing these staff are freelance, as that show was produced by the studio Kinema Citrus (a team founded by ex-members of Production I.G and Bones), and were possibly brought on to this short because they had experience with the software. If it is animated using something like Live2D, the experience still applies, as it’s apparently more similar to Flash than something more commonly used in anime like Clip Studio Paint. The director also has 3D CG credits and there is a credit here for “motion” that includes his name, so maybe a little of that was used as well. (Wouldn’t be able to tell myself—most experience I have with 3D animation is a one semester Maya course I took in high school lol).

Curiously, despite the potentially similar animation software and very similar artstyle + color palette, none of the animation staff, as far as I can tell, worked on the 2014 Flash anime. That is, except for…Mine Yoshizaki.

On all animated Keroro media, Yoshizaki’s primary official credit is “original creator,” of course. As the series creator, he would of course participate to a degree in most things related to the 2004 series, doing stuff like sitting in on some writing and recording sessions, contributing ideas/concept art here and there, and so on. There’s actually a Newtype article from around the announcement of the first movie I dug up that was officially translated into English, in which Yoshizaki talks about the pressure of being in that role. Most mangaka interviews I’ve seen about their involvement in their works’ anime adaptations are pretty overwhelmingly positive, but he was definitely more mixed. This might be a post for another day, since I have some speculations about his relationship to the anime as a whole. Damn, I need to stop coming up with essay ideas that are probably too big for my pea brain.

Anyway, Yoshizaki was quite a bit more involved in the 2014 series. He served as one of two people responsible for series composition (scriptwriting), though that could be because the Flash anime was a much more direct adaptation of the manga than the original anime, which might as well have been an entirely different series. IIRC, some episodes of Flash were literally 1:1 with the manga’s script…so I guess that counts as writing the anime too lol. He also storyboarded a few episodes and wrote the opening theme song’s lyrics. The next Keroro animation after that was the anti-piracy theater ad in 2021, which he storyboarded for. But you’ll notice with all the credits we’ve discussed so far that he was never involved with the animation proper past the storyboarding stage…until now!

Not only was Yoshizaki credited as original creator as usual, he also did directorial supervision, storyboarding, and was a key animator—the only key animator, in fact! I know it’s just a five-minute short, but the Flash series’s episodes were even shorter than that and had multiple key animators per episode, so this is kind of a big deal. It also might explain why the character designs look just a little bit more on-model to the manga designs than Flash’s did, even though they look almost identical at a cursory glance. It’s easiest to tell by looking at the less-rounded head shapes, plus a few minor details like Tamama’s eye highlights and the bridge of Kururu’s glasses. I am very normal, how could you tell?

So yeah, this makes this short the most Yoshizaki has ever been involved with the actual animation process. I can’t say it gives him the most additional credits, as it’s tied with the Flash series for three extra, but it’s something!

Closing out the staff section, some notes about the cast. As you might expect, the usual actors reprise their roles. Most notably, Mamiko Noto is back to play Mois for what I believe (unless I’m missing a random collab or something) is her first time in the role in ten years, and she pretty much didn’t miss a beat! In addition to Fuyuki and Natsumi’s VAs playing them recently at the Keroro expo, that’s three additional voices besides the Keroro Platoon’s that presumably are still going to be able to return for the new anime.

Otherwise, the platoon sounds pretty much like they did in the anniversary trailer and various other small projects like the anti-piracy ad and Tales of the Rays collab from last year (they each had multiple spoken lines there). Keroro sounds a tad deeper; Tamama has some of the Jibanyan nasal now; Giroro didn’t really talk much but sounds mostly the same; Dororo is also a bit deeper and sounds kinda awkward but I think that’s less the voice direction and more Yoshizaki possibly wrote the dialogue and he speaks more assertively in the manga lol; Kururu sounds literally the exact same because Koyasu is a magic man.

Made in [Insert Year]?? (Ft. A lesson in trademarking)

I mentioned this at the beginning of this post, but for a solid few days, I really thought this video was just an ancient (2014 feels ancient now anyway) reupload. After all, the copyright string says 2014, and only media produced during the Flash series era has that copyright year, so I brushed it off. Here, let me show you all the anime copyright strings per the current anime portal:

There’s no 2004 date on the TV series’s copyright, probably because it covers the entire series from 2004–2011, plus now 2024 onward (and possibly the anti-piracy ad from 2021 as well), and also most anime-branded merch and things. But when the show was airing proper, it was attributed to 2004 (you can see this in the opening credits of any season). The 2006–2010 dates are for each individual movie. And there’s the 2014 copyright that’s the exact same as the video’s, though here it is for the Flash anime, as there’s pictures of it on the anime portal site. As an aside, before 2015, Sunrise was listed instead of BNP. At some point all anime rights got retroactively transferred from Sunrise Inc. to BNP—not sure how or when exactly that occurred. For the movies, there were slight shakeups in the production committee as well (you can see my new project trailer analysis for more on that kind of stuff).

As you can see, copyright strings for the series are attributed to the year each individual “product” came out in, for the most part. But now we know that this ad is brand new. So…does this mean this political ad is counted as part of the Flash anime? They obviously didn’t plan to include this specific video ten years ago (unless Kadokawa bought out an oracle or something, wouldn’t surprise me). Maybe they left the door open to more episodes of the Flash anime proper, but that isn’t what this was advertised as.

Well, I have a theory. A theory that might be totally wrong, but a theory nonetheless. Let’s go on a massive tangent about the Japanese trademark system! (Disclaimer: I have no formal training in the legal field. I just have really weird research hobbies.)

I’m going to focus on two basic principles here. First, once trademarks in Japan are officially registered, they are active for ten years before the copyright applicant must reapply to renew ownership of the trademark for another ten years. Second, trademarks have to be filed under certain classifications that basically tell the JPO (Japan Patent Office) what goods and/or services the applicant plans to use the trademark for. This means that sometimes the same trademark will be filed multiple times for different use classes. The classifications are each given a two digit class number, which is further subdivided into five-character group code(s).

You can actually search through all public patents yourself on J-PlatPat, and the site is machine translated into English (though you still have to type the copyright you’re looking for in Japanese). Let’s take a look at the three different filings for ケロロ軍曹 (just the name of the series itself, not the logo).

I’m on my phone so I couldn’t fit the entire window, but the important information is here. Kadokawa Corporation is the filer for all of these, though Yoshizaki’s name is probably also on whatever application documents they sent, which aren’t viewable. The three versions of the trademark were filed on different dates about a year apart. You’ll see that class 16 is there twice. For the first filing, it was class 16 and multiple group codes designating different kinds of goods (class 28 also contains goods-related things); the second filing covers a single group code protecting “printed matter” (presumably this was to cover any physical distributions of the manga).

I’m going to take a closer look at the third filing, which was officially registered in 2004. Class 09 covers a shitload of different goods and services, like way too many to list. What I’m thinking is that the first set of goods trademarks filed in 2001 was just to cover the kind of stuff they’d attach to issues of Shonen Ace and volume releases as giveaways—paper goods, board game-type items, and toys/dolls are all covered under it. Then in 2003, in preparation for the inevitable merchandise and collaboration dump the anime would lead to, they opened the floodgates to literally any Material Thing they could think to cover. Like, I’m pretty sure we never got any Keroro-branded egg candlers, fire alarms, or “cigar lighters for automobiles”, but might as well cover all your bases. Wouldn’t want the local fire department handing out emergency gear with your cartoon frog on it without permission, you know.

Included among these materials are some items that might be a bit more relevant to our case here. There’s a number of clauses related to physical and digital film, photography, and other media: “CD-ROM and DVD and other recording media, electronic publications, downloadable music, downloadable image[s]”. Now, while this doesn’t cover “animation” specifically, it can possibly be stretched to fit that definition. This is especially because, in Japanese, the term the MTL output as “images” is actually eizou, which can refer to both images and video.

So, the version of the trademark registered for the brand in 2004 likely covers certain media-related things. There are other classes that include the word “animation” specifically, but it’s possible that those classes weren’t classified the same way back then as they are now, and maybe anything film-related could’ve been interpreted by the law to include animation. Nowadays, though there are specific classifications for animation, specifically “animation available for download.” This subgroup actually happens to fall under class 09, though other classes contain similar items as well, such as class 41. You can search classes by number or keyword if you’re curious about this.

As I pointed out before I presented this data, all of these particular filings are for specifically ケロロ軍曹, not ケロロ. If ケロロ is to be used in isolation, it would have to be specified as such in the registration data, because what’s actually stopping someone else from coming along and trademarking just ケロロ? Now, remember the name of the Flash anime? That’s right—ケロロ. Just “Keroro”, not “Keroro Gunso.” Incidentally, this video is actually not formally titled under ケロロ軍曹 (despite what the thumbnail says). The only name in the title of the actual video is ケロロ.

So here is my theory. Maybe it’s a hypothetical, but I’m going to treat it like it’s concrete for argument’s sake. In 2014, to prepare for the Flash anime and related branding, Kadokawa filed for the trademark ケロロ—individually, without 軍曹. Because it was the 2010s at that point, it’s possible that downloadable animation was more specifically defined in the group codes filed for, even though the Flash anime did air on TV (again, the strategy to this is about covering as many potential use cases as possible for maximum copyright protection). Maybe it was under class 09, maybe it was another class, or even more than one. For whatever reason, the trademark is not publicly available. But because of what kind of animation/video/whatever that specific trademark covers, this little election video is covered under that 2014 trademark.

You might recall how I said trademarks have to be renewed every ten years. Incidentally, it just so happens that 2014 was ten years ago. Most likely, the (secret?) trademark was recently renewed so that stuff like this would be allowed to be made and can continue to be made in the future, independently from “Keroro Gunso” as defined by the 2004-verse and the manga proper. And because 2014 is the original filing year of that trademark, that is the year that is displayed with this project, even if the trademark was renewed in 2024, or some other recent year. By the way, all the ケロロ軍曹 trademarks I covered were also renewed this decade, so Kadokawa can keep on doing whatever exactly they were doing with those. There’s probably even more hidden-from-public-view trademarks, who knows, there’s a thousand potential asterisks here but you get the picture.

Fascinating, isn’t it? As I said, it’s possible that I’m just talking out of my ass and all of this is either way more simple or way more complicated than I’m making it out to be, in which case I just wasted multiple paragraphs of your time. But hey, at least it was a fun lesson, right? I’m not the only one interested in this, right? RIGHT?!?!?!

Okay, I’m just about done here, but I’m going to tell you something plot twisty. Do you know what actually first clued me in to the fact that this was not made in 2014 before it was confirmed to be the case? Not the upload date. Not the fact that nobody ever talked about it prior to a week ago. Not even all the probably useless copyright shit I just spent a whole other post’s worth of words on.

It was this part of the video:

See, in this screenshot, if you look really closely, you’ll notice that Kururu is using an iPhone parody with three cameras. The first iPhones with three cameras were released in 2019. Therefore, this could not have been made in 2014. This stupid detail is what it took to get me to think about this video for more than thirty seconds.

Thank you, Kururu’s crippling iPhone addiction.

So yeah, go out and vote or whatever, wherever you guys are. Otherwise you’ll have to look Mois in the eyes and tell her no, and that will make her very sad, and she might blow up the planet as consequence. Not that the planet isn’t already being destroyed. Any of my fellow Americans want to join me for a screaming session following the last few days of federal fuckery? I’ll bring chocolate-covered pretzels to snack on and we’ll write the names of corporate lobbyists on them, it’ll be fun.

[fireladybuckley]

It Isn’t in my Blood

Fandom: 9-1-1 Prompt:  Inspired by @kitkatpancakestack‘s “what if Buck finds the pamphlet“ post Pairing: Implied future Buddie - Evan Buckley (Buck) x Eddie Diaz Word Count: 2,330 Summary:    SPOILERS - A 5x01 missing scene - Buck finds the pamphlet on anxiety and panic attacks given to him by the cardiologist at the hospital and encourages Eddie to tell him what happened. Eddie breaks down and admits that maybe not everything is okay.

Beta’d by @firemedicdiaz​ Thank you babe <3

Read it on Ao3

             “I’ll just be a minute, you staying here?”  Eddie asked, hopping out of the truck and looking over at Buck.

              “Sure, sounds good,” Buck said, yawning.  Eddie nodded and closed the door, hurrying up the sidewalk as Buck settled back in his seat.  It had been such a long, chaotic shift and Buck was exhausted; Eddie just had to drop off a form at Christopher’s school and then they were going for breakfast.  Buck figured he had time for a short nap and shut his eyes, but sleep wouldn’t come.

              After a while it became apparent that Eddie was going to be longer than he’d said, and Buck was getting restless.  He grew bored quite easily of late, so he began poking around Eddie’s truck - changing the radio station, fiddling with the air freshener.  Absently, Buck hit the button on the dashboard that opened the glove box in front of him and looked down into it, wondering if there were any travel brochures left in there from a previous road trip that he could look at.   Instead, he pulled out a very different kind of pamphlet that looked like it had been shoved in carelessly and as he read the front, his eyebrows contracted with a small frown.

              Understanding Anxiety and Panic Attacks - Recognize the Signs and Symptoms

              Underneath the pamphlet were a couple of folded sheets of paper.  Upon quick inspection, Buck saw that they were discharge papers from the hospital dated a few days earlier with Eddie’s name in the patient field.

              Buck’s heart squeezed painfully as he stared at the slightly crumpled papers and then back at the pamphlet, realizing what it must all mean.  Buck had been startled earlier in the shift when that doctor had called out to Eddie, but Eddie had been very resistant to talking about his trip to the hospital.  Buck had dropped it for the time being as they had been chaotically busy the entire shift, but he had always intended to grill Eddie about it later.  Now, he suddenly understood what must have happened.  He knew from experience how scary panic attacks could be, how they could feel like a heart attack, especially if a person had never had one before.  

              He remembered how uncomfortable Eddie had looked when Buck had tried to confront him.  Buck knew how much Eddie relied on everyone thinking he was this stoic, unmoving rock, because it allowed him to hide his feelings and keep everything bottled up.  Buck was well aware that he himself and Bobby were the only two people that Eddie ever opened up to, and it made Buck’s heart hurt as he considered how shaken up Eddie must have been by the whole incident to be so resistant to telling him about it.

              Buck sighed, wishing he had known, thinking about how he could try to help Eddie as he skimmed the pamphlet.  He wanted to help, hating the idea that Eddie could be going through this alone.  He distinctly remembered how Eddie had tried to drag Buck out of his horrible depression and anxiety after the fire truck had crushed his leg and he wanted to be there for Eddie in turn.  Buck knew that Eddie had Ana, but if Buck was right about their relationship, he suspected that Eddie would be uncomfortable talking to her about his emotions.  He’d always had the feeling that while Eddie clearly liked Ana and they got along well, their relationship wasn’t particularly deep and Buck knew that Eddie had to really trust someone before he would open up.

              Lost in his thoughts, Buck was still looking at the pamphlet in one hand, the discharge papers held loosely in the other, when Eddie returned.

              “Alright, that’s all done, let’s go t-- Buck, what the hell?”

              Buck jumped as the driver’s door opened and Eddie swung himself inside, only to freeze when he saw what Buck was holding and reading through.  Buck started to stammer as Eddie snatched the papers and pamphlet out of his hands and threw them back into the glove box, snapping it shut and staring straight ahead, his chest rising and falling quickly, his jaw set.

              “Eddie, I-I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to snoop, I just found that in the glove box and I couldn’t help looking at it…”

              “It’s fine.  It’s nothing.”  Eddie’s voice was clipped, and Buck could tell he felt vulnerable and was not pleased about it.  

              “I mean, it’s not nothing,” Buck replied cautiously in a coaxing tone.  He hadn’t been planning on talking to Eddie about this before breakfast, but then there was no time like the present.    “Is this why you were in the hospital the other day?”

              Eddie shot him an annoyed look, because it was obvious that Buck had seen the discharge papers so the question was redundant, but then he sighed and nodded.

              “Yeah.  I’m fine though.”

              “Eddie… you’ve been through so much.  There’s no shame in having a panic attack--” Buck began, but Eddie started the truck and cut through his words sharply.

              “I don’t panic.”

              Buck frowned as Eddie pulled away from the curb and began to drive without saying another word.  Deciding to give him some space for a few so he could collect his thoughts, Buck stayed silent as they moved through the streets.   To his surprise, Eddie pulled up in front of Buck’s apartment building and parked, still looking straight ahead.

              “I… thought we were going for breakfast?”  Buck asked slowly, not sure what to expect.  Eddie seemed to steel himself, then glanced towards the building and shut off the truck.

              “I know you’re not going to let this go, and I don’t want to do it in public.  Let’s go up to your loft.”  

              Eddie’s voice was gruff, but Buck was grimly pleased that he wasn’t resisting.  Buck knew that Eddie knew Buck would not let this slide, would not let it rest until he was sure that Eddie was okay.  Taking his lead, Buck agreed and hopped out of the truck, following Eddie up to his building and then leading the way into his apartment.

              “Let’s get this over with,” Eddie said in a resigned voice as he moved into the kitchen and leaned against the counter, Buck pulling himself up and sitting on the counter across from him.  “What do you want to know?”

              “What happened?” Buck asked simply.  “I know you went to the hospital, you were seen by a cardiologist, and now you have a pamphlet on panic attacks.  What actually happened?”

              Eddie gnawed the inside of his lip, still refusing to look at Buck as he mulled over what to say.  He was staring at the lower part of the counter in front of him, Buck’s shoe dangling in his line of sight, though he wasn’t seeing much.  All he could see in his mind was that damn suit store, the feeling of the tightness in his chest making him feel claustrophobic and deeply uncomfortable.

              “I don’t know.  We were trying on suits, and then I just… collapsed.  I thought I was having a heart attack,” Eddie summarized it as succinctly as he could, but he knew it wasn’t going to be enough for Buck.

              “Okay, but what triggered that?” Buck asked, his voice gently prodding.  “Did something upset you, or…?”

              Eddie shifted uncomfortably, and Buck’s lips curled in a small, sad smile.  

              “Eddie, it’s just me.  You can talk to me.  You know you can trust me.  Please tell me what happened.”

              For a brief moment, Eddie lifted his eyes and met Buck’s gaze.  Buck’s expression was earnest, concerned, and Eddie knew he was right.  If there was anyone in this world he could trust, it was Buck.  Still, he hated talking about his emotions, especially ones he felt like he couldn’t control.  And yet, he felt like if he didn’t share it with someone he may explode because he was starting to seriously wonder what was going on in his brain.

              “I… you know I’m not good at this,” Eddie muttered, and Buck nodded.

              “I know, but… you were there for me when everything with my parents was going on.  You told me it was okay to feel what I was feeling, and to share it.  I want that for you, too,”  Buck told him gently, and Eddie sighed.  He felt like a hypocrite; he had told Buck those things, and he had meant it.  But for some reason when it came to himself, he had different rules.

              “The last time Chris and I wore suits was at Shannon’s funeral,” Eddie said, averting his gaze once more as he began to speak.  “I guess that was already putting me on edge.  I couldn’t stop thinking about her death and everything that had happened right before she died.  I just wanted to get out of there.”

              Eddie paused but Buck didn’t say anything, not wanting to interrupt.  Buck had a feeling that if Eddie stopped talking he wouldn’t start again so he waited patiently, keeping his mouth shut.

              “I think Chris was feeling it, too, but I was too distracted to notice.  And then… then the sales guy called Ana Chris’s mom.”

              Buck tilted his head to the side, looking over at Eddie, slightly confused.  Eddie and Ana had been together for nearly six months, it was only natural that at some point she would be mistaken for Chris’s mom.  But Eddie seemed shaken and Buck wasn’t sure he was going to continue.

              “What happened then?” Buck asked quietly, trying to gently prompt Eddie to speak again without spooking him.  Eddie had gotten a somewhat haunted look in his eyes and Buck could tell he was getting upset.  He was tempted to tell Eddie to stop, not wanting him to be distraught, but he sensed Eddie really needed to get it out there, so Buck would do everything he could to coax it out.

              “I- I genuinely don’t know,” Eddie said, shaking his head.  “Hearing that, it just… it intensified my thoughts about Shannon, and thinking of Ana as Chris’s mom is just - just so far beyond where we are in our relationship, and I- I…”

              Eddie was starting to get visibly upset and Buck slipped off the counter, moving over to stand beside him in case he needed support.

              “It made me realize that m-maybe I don’t want-- maybe things aren’t going so great, or something.  I don’t know.”

              “And then?” Buck prompted gently, feeling his heart break as Eddie glanced at him, clearly upset.

              “And then… I don’t know.  I don’t panic,” Eddie said stubbornly, though as he thought back to what had happened, he let out a long, unhappy sigh.  “But… I guess I panicked.  I don’t know.  I felt overwhelmed, and my chest got tight and I couldn’t breathe… I got really dizzy and fell over, I thought I was having a heart attack.”

              “Panic attacks can be really scary,” Buck told him, trying to reassure him.  “They can definitely feel like heart attacks.”

              “I don’t panic,” Eddie repeated, scowling at the floor.  “I never panic.  Not in the military, not when Shannon died, not when you nearly died several times…”

              “Eddie, you’ve been through a lot,” Buck reasoned, trying to brush off the last part of the sentence, as though it wasn’t a big deal to him that his near-death experiences were one of the things Eddie considered most upsetting.  “Do you think the shooting could be part of this?  Or is it just your relationship?”

              Eddie shifted uncomfortably again, not responding, and as Buck watched him, he saw tears start to pool in Eddie’s eyes, despite Eddie continually refusing to make eye contact.  

              “Are you okay?” Buck asked quietly, reaching out and touching him, gripping Eddie’s forearm lightly in a gesture of support.   This one little touch seemed to have caused him to come undone, however, and Buck saw his expression contort, his lips pressed together tightly as he tried and failed to stop himself crying.

              “No,” Eddie finally blurted out, seemingly completely against his will.  “No, I’m not okay.”

              Buck’s heart broke and he immediately reached out to embrace Eddie, giving him a chance to pull away if he wanted.  When he didn’t, Buck wrapped his arms around him and held him as Eddie choked into his shoulder, trying desperately to stop himself from outright sobbing.  It was rare that Buck had seen Eddie cry - he hadn’t seen it since Shannon’s death - and Buck wished he could take Eddie’s pain away, wished he could make the world right for him again.  

              After a few moments Eddie squirmed in his arms and Buck got the message that he was uncomfortable so he pulled away, but he didn’t go far.  Eddie seemed determined to not meet his gaze, furiously wiping at his eyes, and Buck gently rubbed his back, sensing that he really wanted comfort but was trying to stop himself from allowing it.  They stood like that for a while, until Eddie’s attempts at stopping his tears dissolved and he took a shaky breath, letting them slip down his cheeks as he pulled himself together.

              “It’s okay to not be okay sometimes.  You’re going to get through this,” Buck told him, his hand stilling in the middle of Eddie’s back.  “And I’m gonna help you get through it, if that’s what you want.”

              Eddie swallowed, sniffing, as he listened to Buck speak.  He’d always gone through things alone.  He’d always thought that was the best way to do it.  But in that moment, standing there, knowing he had Buck’s full love and support behind him, Eddie started to wonder if maybe having Buck at his side would be a much better option than going it alone.   Eddie nodded slowly, glancing at Buck for a moment before looking away, nodding again.

              “Yeah,” Eddie took a shaky breath and looked over at Buck, feeling the tiniest flicker of hope in his heart.  “That’s what I want.”

-----------

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[prongsmydeer]

Ayesha Liveblogs Tiger King 

“I think it would be fair to say that Carole is the Mother Teresa of cats” now there’s a sentence I never thought I’d hear

“I’d never been a person who had friends” statements like this always perplex me because surely there had to be ONE other person in however long you quantify childhood that you identified with. Like not one whole ass person? You’re not the only person who loves cats Carole

The juxtaposition between Carole Baskin’s “Animal Print for Animal Rights” and Joe Exotic’s “Tiger King underwear is our bestseller” is poetic cinema

Okay this isn’t a reflection of my opinions on this man but I Saw a Tiger is a good country ballad there I said it 

“When I first met Joe, I was like a month out of high school” well that’s not good

[Joe Exotic voice] Some people have tigers to cope

Doc Antle has only been on screen for 30 seconds and already he has made himself memorable by directing the film crew

Is Bhagavan Antle Indian in some way or did he just have a really intense Eat Pray Love journey with his guru

Also is he really a doctor orrrrrrrrr

“I am out there in the forefront so known of being this guy that is in love with big cats and has them love him back” please don’t tell me this guy does anything weird to his animals

“People only care about saving what affects them” 

“You can’t put a price on holding a baby tiger” but you did and apparently it’s $625 

The fact that multiple tigers have had albinism is probably a sign of major inbreeding practices at these zoos

You know, even if I ate meat*, there is no way I would be able to handle any kind of early prep stage of it bc seeing these cow carcasses is A Lot

*If u r reading this I don’t care if u eat meat leave me alone

“Animals just wasn’t enough, okay? So then I started adding magic” well that took an unexpected turn

I don’t know if it’s for real fair to criticize every person who has brought a big cat out in a public venue/talk show because I know at least like Dave Sal/moni is always going “THESE ANIMALS MAKE TERRIBLE PETS” 

As a sidenote from what I understand this Saff person keeps being deadnamed/misgendered throughout this documentary and I do not appreciate it 

“I grew up a professional cowboy in a family of professional cowboys” every sentence on this show is a journey

WHO is letting their ONE-YEAR-OLD lay on top of a tiger cub I know you’re at a zoo but BRUH

“It’s going to be a small Waco” to say this ON THE NEWS

This 2 minute stretch of episode is all the PSA anyone ever needs to never own a gun

Well I think we can all agree that PETA is a fucking mess

God this is like battle of the people who are terrible at doing anything good for animals

“What do you carry that gun for?” “People” AHHHHHHHHHHH?!?!!!!?!?

“I sleep with an AK-47 under my mattress, loaded, ready to roll” WILL SOMEONE HELP THE U.S. OF A

I was warned about this show and yet I was still not prepared for the level of UNHINGED it would be 

How in the FUCK does a place like this not have an on-site medic

“Why don’t you come back on another day” he said, after telling the public an employee had his arm taken off 

“I am never gonna financially recover from this” SURE JOE THIS IS ABOUT YOU

To go back to work a WEEK after getting your arm amputated... BRUH

“Any law that you think’s unfair or unjustice, it is your obligation, it is your responsibility to stand up against that bullshit law” well Thomas Jefferson was a slaveowner so clearly the injustice thing was relative for him

Traditionally don’t drug addictions fuel people choosing extreme paths with their life rather than the other way around? 

JKHGKJHGKJH this whole exchange:

Interviewer: What kind of doctor is he?

Maria: Mystical science.

Interviewer: Mystical science?

Maria, nodding: Yeah.

“How many wives does Doc Antle have?” I didn’t expect this but somehow it tracks

I’m gonna bet none of these people with subcontinental names have a single bit of South Asian heritage like okay “Moksha” and “Rajnee” did Bhagavan name you

On a more serious note: It’s really fucked up that these men keep meeting literal teenagers, making them their employees, and then also get into relationships with them. I cannot emphasize this strongly enough THIS IS NOT GOOD OR HEALTHY

It’s pretty weird that Doc Antle keeps emphasizing so frequently that one of his partners is Italian 

“I’m gonna go be a yoga animal trainer” ah, white people bullshit

“Goodbye. Don’t fall in love with your boss.” Good advice, Dad

I was not expecting all this subcontinental imagery to get under my skin this badly but what’s your problem dude can’t u be normal for like a second 

“You’re this garbage person, but if you listen to me, I’ll make you great” again this tracks but gross

Again, on a more serious note: if a partner ever talks to you this way please call a domestic abuse hotline 

Not that India is at all in a good place right now but I personally ban Doc Antle from ever entering India. Banned. Forever. I will not be accepting constructive criticism at this time

“I didn’t really know any better” is a really good way of summarizing what all of these younger partners have been through

Wow Carole is really explaining this abuse issue succinctly 

Antle’s indignation at being implied to be a cult leader despite the fact he is most definitely a cult leader

Joe’s story in his documentary is constantly “is this going to be a humanizing moment PSYCH it’s still terrible”

HOW IS THIS LEGAL PAY YOUR WORKERS A LIVING WAGE

Why is this husband-killing thing JUST A FOOTNOTE AT THE END OF THIS EPISODE OH MY GOD

We have deviated so far from the tiger thing oh my god

Why is the only man in this documentary who is faithful to his spouse the man that smuggled drugs inside of snakes

Every time I learn a new thing about a person in this documentary I have to reorient myself

This whole episode has been about this murder and I’m concerned that its title, “The Secret,” hasn’t even been revealed yet

GOD I take back what I said about I Saw Tiger, the concept of this song/music video for Here Kitty Kitty is so disturbing that this man deserves no credit whatsoever as a musician 

CAROLE WHY ARE YOU GIGGLING ABOUT THE MEAT GRINDER IT’S NOT FUNNY

Well I don’t have much to say about this episode other than yikes

I guess if you’re really out to spite someone stealing their brand and posting exactly the opposite of everything they stand for is an effective if weird and petty way to do it

Do you think the whole throne footage moment was a “Frankenstein realizing what he has wrought” kind of thing for Kirkham

This is really like watching a sports game of two teams you can’t stand except the sport is murder and other miscellaneous crime

If we’re all being real with ourselves the documentary filmmakers themselves MUST have had some issues going on to be able to walk into this situation and not do anything about it

This series really seems to present a compelling case for why every major figure in this documentary has potentially committed at least one terrible crime

Ah there’s the judgment from the woman in Florida I guess it’s two crimes with one stone

God these poor animals they do not deserve anything happening to them

While obviously people are enticed by the prospect of someone they’re into having an animal JUST GET AN ALREADY DOMESTICATED ANIMAL LIKE DOMESTICATED CATS AND DOGS EXIST OH MY GOD DO NOT USE EXOTIC PETS AS DATE BAIT

 It has been so long since we heard about Travis ngl I already forgot about him 

Why is every single person in this show SO OFF THE WALLS I mean I know why but also WHY

This documentary is also a treatise in the flaws of the U.S. prison system and how it sets up people up to fail or re-offend upon release

Take a shot every time a middle-aged man in this show mentions that he casually bought himself a big cat as a teen

“Joe was the entertainment director.... by title” I don’t think this was meant to be a burn but what a burn

I am almost certain I WATCHED that Last Week Tonight episode during that election and if u told me that 4-5 years later I would be rewatching that clip in a documentary about this man’s journey to being convicted for murder then I cannot say I wouldn’t be surprised but I would probably believe it 

Also I have to wonder what John Oliver thinks about being part of this 

[“Beyonce?” voice] Shaun Majumder?

Sidenote: Until this exact moment I thought of Shaun Majumder as Ben Mulroney even though Brian Mulroney is white as hell I guess I have faceblindness but only for Canadian talkshow personalities

I have been aware of this before now but the fact you can buy a GUN at a Walmart what in the FUCK is U.S.A. doing

Man does this campaign manager really want to take ownership of anything Joe Exotic has ever done

Ngl I was wondering why someone who had at one point clearly had a lot of money seemed to have such poor dental care access but meth certainly does explain it

I mean people can be attracted to both men and women (hello) but since Joe was fuelling their drug addictions since they were teenagers attraction is at best a null factor and at worst an added layer of terrible to this whole mess

It’s hard to even respond to this in a meaningful way because this is so fucked up. Don’t own guns.

“That was a big fucking mistake,” he said, right after someone explained that he was driving large groups of people in an enclosed space in a busy city with wild animals that could maim or kill them

Padlock penls piercing really does not seem like a first date bombshell

“We went to dinner and he never went home” well if that doesn’t set you with a sense of foreboding

TWO MONTHS AFTER WHAT IN THE HELL OH MY GOD also I hope Dillon is okay

“It wasn’t about the animals anymore” you THINK

“It was sort of funny when they started but it’s gotten really dark” how meta

Of all the reasons Joe could’ve abandoned his zoo, I really didn’t think embezzlement would be what pushed him

“He won’t tell anyone where he’s at, not even me,” said Dial, with no acknowledgement of the fact that Joe is also theoretically still married and would maybe tell his husband???

Oh Dillon spotted??? Yikes get out dude

Take a shot every time a white person who really doesn’t understand where the word “karma” comes from starts talking about karma as if it is the Law of Revenge

The fact this man brings a film crew out with him while he’s on the run evading a federal investigation..... incomprehensible

“Joe just wanted to put it in somebody’s name and continue to be the tiger queen, I mean king,” really REALLY of all the reasons to object to Joe you’re going to choose homophobia wow

Is this about an attempt to have someone murdered or does something happen to Baskin it is very unclear

This documentary has an interesting format of switching focus from crime to crime to crime 

“I’ve never been as proud of being married to anyone as I am being married to you” It’s weird to compliment your husband by comparing him to all your other husbands

How is the lesson for Jeff Lowe in this “let’s build another zoo” surely at that point it’s better to just cut your losses

[Garretson voice]: You should pay me for being a bro, dude

“I’m a libertarian, so technically, fuck the Feds,” I’ve never heard an intonation that better suits a conservative millennial 

I mean I don’t think it was advisable but honestly why are people surprised Joe took the stand isn’t delusions of grandeur kind of his thing

Sometimes it’s just that they’ve added in other moments to break up the awful immoral crimes with just run of the mill douchebaggery like the nanny/gym thing huh

I guess the silver lining in this is that potentially these big cat zoos will shut down but like where do these animals who have been raised in captivity go??? I don’t trust anyone in this documentary to not exploit them in some way ugh 

“Not a single animal benefited from this war,” correct, Saff

“I was wrapped up in having a zoo,” not really an excuse but ok

[unpopularly-opinionated]

RE: My post earlier about the Ooblets Epic Games Exclusive backlash.

I’m not going to show the Twitter user, if you follow the indie game development scene on Twitter it’s likely you’ll recognize this tweet, either way that’s not who I am. The Ooblet’s account on the other hand is fair-game since it’s basically a product placement.

I feel it needs reiterating how utterly dense this kind of tweet is, and how completely skewed the narrative for this issue has gotten, so let me reiterate in obnoxiously large and emboldened font to try and get the point across:

THE GAMING COMMUNITY IS NOT TOXIC

“Honesty” and “transparency” are all well and good, but unless you’re honestly trying to drive away your own community, perhaps you should try being a little less honest and a little less transparent. No one (or I guess no one but this guy and the few who agree with him) is going to thank you for honestly throwing them under the proverbial bus after they’ve spent months, if not years, supporting your project; your dream.

I’ve heard from others that “this is just how they write” and “it’s meant to be funny”, and to an extent, I can understand that. But let me just include some screenshots from the post in question to reiterate my point, because I feel like my previous post didn’t quite get the point across:

(Context: What the Epic Games Exclusivity Deal means for you, the fan and/or financial backer of Ooblets).

I get that the Fortnite bit is the joke, ha ha, Fortnite used to be wildly popular, I get it, good meme. What isn’t the joke, and what was part of why people got upset was the first bit, specifically the “download the Epic Games Launcher and make an Epic Games account” bit, that bit.

Now, I personally have no qualms about having the Epic Games Launcher on my PC. I have long since looked beyond the ‘scandal’ of tech companies saving and selling my data to distant lands to be used for nefarious moneymaking schemes. Is it bad? Sure, maybe. Would I prevent it had I the chance? Of course. Do I have that chance? Not a chance in the world, so I decide to live with it.

That said, many others have not reached that point of fuck it, and understandably so. I hit that point because of my negative outlook on society as a whole but, praise be, there are in fact still some optimists out there who look at these shitty corporate tactics and say no to them, and good on them for that.

That is what I would say is the bulk of the primary issues people have with the Epic Games Store. The missing features bits aren’t terribly important, as even this post says, if you have a social life on Steam, then use Steam. The EGS does not need to be your do-all replacement.

This is where the post should have stopped. Here and now, had this post ended, any and all issues with this decision would have been but a whisper in the wind. As I said in my previous post, yes they undoubtedly would have received plenty of critical, and non-critical backlash for the decision regardless, but ending the post here would’ve 100% put the developers on the right side in this situation and I’d be right up there agreeing with that tweet.

(Context: Are you angry at Epic and/or us for this decision?)

Referring to earlier when I said that playful tone and humour are all fine and dandy, I understand that this is probably meant to sound playful and humourous, but it comes across as largely self-important and ignorant, and the bits that follow do in no way dissuade from that appearance.

While my response to this complaint was similar to their own, in that you should just use Steam for the features that the Epic Games Store lacks, they go on to essentially say that this is just baby EGS and that Steam used to be just like it and look at it now.

While they aren’t technically wrong, from a development point of view, the big thing they need to understand is how web standards have dramatically changed since 2003 when the Steam store launched. Launching a store, of any variety, without a shopping cart is a big no-no.

As far as missing features go, that’s not like missing a friends list or a IM feature, that’s missing a crucial part of a web-based storefront. Imagine going to a store and only be allowed to purchase one thing at a time, that would be ridiculous.

Their response to this was as corporate as any triple-A publisher, or really any corporation at all, from any industry. Just a complete disconnect from society that frankly is unwarranted from what is quite literally a two person operation. Not to mention, their response is quite literally what every parent warns their kids about at a young age. “But mooooooooooooom, everyone is doing it!!!!” Yes sweetie, but if everyone jumps off a bridge, are you going to?

Apparently, yes.

And not to discount the idea of making money, by all means make money, but let me put it this way, had they left this post exactly where I said they should have previously, all of the blame would be at Epic’s feet. Because at the end of the day, having your game be exclusive to one service does not make you money, it makes them money. So this whole “everyone is doing it” schtick doesn’t fly when coming from the developers. Had this been a post by Epic (and frankly with all the shilling I could be convinced it was from them) then this argument might have made just a tiny bit more sense.

Underlined in yellow are the jokes; the “playful” and “humourous” attitude I’ve heard so much about. Underlined in red however, are what the developers are actually genuinely saying with complete and utter seriousness.

“There are worse things in the world to be upset about.” I kid you not, that’s their argument.

Now, all of that reiterated, to get to the actual point of this post (wish Tumblr let you do multiple “Keep Reading” lines but I digress), the article linked in the tweet here is about the previous “non-critical” backlash I mentioned they’d receive, though multiplied exponentially by their horrendous blog post, and further community responses to said blog post.

I’d like to refer to a completely unrelated post I made quite a while ago that really needs to spread like wildfire if you ask me:

RECEIVING INSULTS, UNCRITICAL FEEDBACK, AND/OR DEATH THREATS DOES NOT INVALIDATE THE CRITICAL FEEDBACK NOR THE ISSUE AT HAND.

I am by no means wiping away death threats or mean words as things to scoff at, by all means take them as seriously as you will, but under no circumstances should 20+ people telling you to kill yourself invalidate the hundreds of fans and financial backers who are upset with your recent financial decision, or your response to criticisms to those decisions.

This happens time and time and time again. Someone of note does something bad, for one reason or another, and instead of responding to the completely warranted and justified criticism and feedback they instead play up the 15+ people who IM’d them to drink bleach and throw it up as “an example of the ever present toxic gaming community”.

More or less, the substance to this article is their “apology”, and I use that term very loosely but I’ll get to that, to the community at large for the recent events. The post summarizes the issue from their (biased) perspective, posts some screenshots of the colourful responses they’ve received, the usual woe-is-me schtick.

I’d like to highlight a few bits from it to further exemplify the continued mindset of these people:

I have given the full context to this next statement with these screenshots so that I can now take parts of these statements out of their context to, at least to my belief, succinctly identify the mindset of these folks:

“I understand the relationship people think they might be owed when they exchanged money for goods or services, but...we’ve never actually sold them anything and don’t owe them anything at all.”

I don’t want to get off-topic any more than necessary, but this, this right here is why fundraisers, Kickstarters, GoFundMes, Patreon subscriptions, or any other form of crowdsourcing platforms need to be handled with extreme care. I hesitate to say regulated legally, but I am by no means opposed to that idea.

I want to express this carefully and plainly: LEGALLY, yes they are absolutely right that they do not owe anyone anything. At least to my knowledge, they didn’t have a formal Kickstarter, their financial backing came primarily from whatever it is they do for a living AND the support of their Patreon backers.

And while I do not feel that it needs addressing, for the sake of consistency I will address it: MORALLY they owe the game to anyone who financially supported them with the express purpose of developing the game.

“We definitely owe all of you who supported us, but also fuck off you entitled cunts because we don’t owe you shit.”

When in the face of well-deserved criticism, deflect deflect deflect. As if a broken record, I’d like to again emphasize that yes, legally they owe no one anything. Morally, they do. Legally, they don’t. Morally, yes. Legally, no.

This, in essence, is a response to the majority of people who are like me, who aren’t screaming vitriolic personable attacks, telling them to drink bleach, long jog off a short pier, the works. Essentially: “If you aren’t with us, then you’re against us.”

Because apparently pointing out your blatant mischaracterisation of the gaming community, your outrageously awful personal relations skills, and most especially your morally bankrupt understanding of the relationship between you and the people financially supporting your passion project means we are, by their logic, on a level equivalent in nature to the 10+ people telling them to drink bleach.

Fixed for typos:

Remember how I said this was an “apology” in the loosest form, well what I was referring to was how in the beginning during their (totally unbiased) summary of the events, they more or less said “Sorry you didn’t respond the way we wanted you to.” Beyond that, yeah, it’s not an apology.

And why would we expect one? Nothing they have spat out in the face of their fans so far has even a hint of self-realization or self-reflection in it. Even their acknowledgement of their (horrendously under exaggerated) bad PR skills comes across as a hollow acknowledgement, if it can even be referred to as an acknowledgement at all, because if you truly truly acknowledged it, then this post wouldn’t exist.

As to this anti-Semitic fabrication making the rounds, I have not seen it so I will take their word for it that they did not make one, especially since I have seen fabricated evidence involving Discord messages rearranged out of order. What I feel needs addressing specifically in this chunk though is his reference to “my messages taken out of context to insinuate I don’t care about our patrons/fans”, because if you’ve seen my previous post then you’ll know no amount of context makes this statement look good:

Sure, it’s a true statement of fact now that they have Epic’s money, but it’s fairly obvious that it reads “We have Epic’s money now, we don’t need you anymore.” I’m sure they didn’t mean that, but that when combined with their other statements regarding how they don’t owe their patrons anything, what they are saying is clear as day.

But hey, credit where credit is due, at least with this we can agree:

But of course, as these people are now infamously known for not ending their posts where they reasonably should...

Now I know how much money goodwill, faith, and morals make, and again I would fully expect this kind of response from the likes of EA, Ubisoft, Bethesda, or fuck even Amazon or Facebook to show that corporate greed has no industry bounds, but this is a two person team whose passion project is to make this game which is being financially supported by loyal fans and future customers.

And that’s just it, that is the mind-boggling part to me, that this is all just the self-important, mischaracterising, morally bankrupt, and childishly ignorant ramblings of a small little husband and wife duo.

In summary...

As was said in the blog post, I’m sure that looking from the outside in we don’t get to see the full scope of the vitriolic comments they’re receiving, so to that I give them credit, and the most sincerest of apologies. I’ve received a few death threats and vitriolic hate-filed messages in my time on the internet, and while personally I am unphase by them, I can fully understand that it can be damaging to one’s self-esteem and self-confidence, especially when it comes in relation to your passion project. I am sorry.

But unwarranted, hate-filled, vitriolic, suicide-baiting messages do not invalid those of us criticizing you for the things that you did do, the words that you did say, and the actions that you did take. I mentioned this in my previous post, but as it stands, the centerpiece to this issue isn’t even about the Epic Exclusivity Deal anymore, it’s about you. You and your treatment, of not just the community at large (for which, might I add, is your primary customer base), but of your treatment towards your loyal fans and financial supporters along the way.

You, for whatever reason, act as most of us have come to expect a soulless and faceless triple-A publisher would, when in fact you are just a two person team with public faces. You’re taking the shots that the likes of EA, Activision, or Bethesda would and have taken, but you’re forgetting that it is above and beyond easier to find you then it is to find them.

All we, but more importantly your fans want from you is for you to make the best game that we all know you’re capable of. And for those who supported you this far along the way to be given even an ounce of respect, despite you not needing their support anymore.

[blooming-blooming]

can you talk about when you were aphobic and why you changed your mindset? The general consensus is that aces and aros can hide their identity and don't go through the same abuse as the other sexualities and a huge part of the people against them say they are attention seekers and shouldn't bother to try to be in the community. Is this line of thought accurate? Legit curiosity here

Because Tumblr is an incredibly well coded website, trying to post this on my phone for whatever reason vaporized the ask so I had to resend it to myself verbatim. Hopefully posting this on my desktop won’t like, completely break the website. A plus, though- I sent a link to the broken post with a screenshot of the original ask on my Twitter, and a lot of my friends who also used to be aphobes at the same time as me said this all rang true to their experiences as well, and I put a lot of things into words for how they felt during that time. So, I’d say this is pretty accurate for a lot of aphobes who didn’t go as far as having discourse blogs, at least. Anyways!

I’ve actually been meaning to address this about myself publicly for a while, so you’re fine! It’s kind of amazing... I used to get so mad when people called aphobia rebranded homophobia, but recollecting a lot of what I thought... that’s literally what it is. This is going under a cut because it’s a really long post with a lot of personal info, but if people wanna rb they can, idc.

This is... a really loaded question, so it’s probably going to be a long answer, because there are a lot of very intricate factors that lead to the aphobia in the LGBT community and gatekeeping, I think. One very important fact for my experiences that’ll make sense why it’s relevant later (or right away, if you know your aphobic troll talking points) is that my uncle was gay and died in the AIDS crisis before I was born.

I think the two biggest factors overall are 1) aphobic troll posts often getting heavy traction and 2) misunderstanding the ace/aro - allo dynamic as being oppressed - oppressor, rather than the actual dynamic of fellow community members sharing different experiences. 

In my experience, the consensus is also less about attention seeking, more about aces actually being cishet and trying to steal LGBT resources. The “hiding their identity” logic in my experiences was also less that, and more that being ace/aro didn’t actually impact their identity enough to be “oppressed”. 

Basically, the MO is that being ace doesn’t make you LGBT because asexuality impacts how you feel attraction, not the attraction you feel in and of itself (not true), and thusly if you’re heteromantic/heterosexual along with being ace/aro, you’re still cishet. (Or, if you’re aroace, you’re not cishet, but you’re still more privileged and not a part of the community because you’re not oppressed for experiencing same gender attraction.) That’s the gatekeeper logic in a nutshell. 

The biggest thing that makes people aphobic, I think, is as I said: troll posts. In recent years, the only things to really come across my feed about asexuality when not from aces are solidarity posts. Because of that, I’m not sure if the posts that bait people are the same as when I was younger, or if using troll posts at all are even as prevalent now. However, they were very prevalent on my feed in 2014-2016. They’d be standard homophobic talking points, but dressed up on fakewoke language with aces and aros as the punchline - generally, things along the line of, “These two gay kids were holding hands at my school’s GSA today and it disgusted me because I’m romance repulsed.” Things that, in hindsight, are really obviously fake, and were really obviously said to rile up LGBT people. The most infamous line of rhetoric trolls used, which is what got myself and many others I know to go aphobic, was, “if aces were a part of the LGBT community, the AIDS crisis would have done less damage because aces would convince people to have less sex.” You can see why this would enrage several of LGBT people, especially someone like me who has very, very personal losses related to the AIDS crisis. It was a lot of cheap shots at an extremely vulnerable community to rile them up against their own, and unfortunately it worked hook, line, and sinker. 

Something that really pushed the “us vs. them” mentality that had people fall for posts like this is that many ace people put more focus on the asexuality than they do other aspects of their identity, leading us to assume a much higher ratio were cishet than in realty. (This, and conversely the “well I support LGBT aces, just not the cishet ones” is an aspect that MAJORLY gives me homophobia vibes now. Acting entitled to extremely personal information on peoples’ attraction and gender is so, SO invasive, and it’s something LGBT people are subject to enough /all the time/ outside of their own community, let alone also being forced to in it.)

With this foundation set, it brings me to point two. Many people were very predisposed from aphobic troll posts to viewing aces/aros as homophobic cishets, so when actual aces coined allosexual/alloromantic to talk about their experiences, people completely misunderstood the meanings of these terms and once again took out their aggression on them. I think I summarized it pretty succinctly in my introduction, but these terms were created so aces/aros could talk about their unique experiences in contrast to other people, both in and out of the LGBT community. However, aphobes took it the wrong way (especially with the help of - surprise! - more troll posts!) and viewed it as if ace people were saying having romantic/sexual attraction at all makes you more privileged than them, and thusly are oppressing them. Obviously, this isn’t true - aces/aros are oppressed by cishet people, just like the rest of the LGBT community. The terms only existed for clarification.

This was another key factor for me in particular- my sexual attraction to women was a very, VERY vulnerable point for me that I struggled with for years, even after coming out. The concept that I could have privilege over another person for something I had so much difficulty with was incredibly insulting. This was probably my peak in aphobia, because I felt MY community was being invaded by my oppressors and trying to spin me to be the oppressor. 

There’s a lot more aspects of aphobia, I think the vulnerability a lot of LGBT people have is another very major aspect to why a lot latched onto aphobia. That’s a very complicated subject I’m not quite sure how to delve into besides what I’ve already explained on it lending itself to those aspects, however. There was also just... a lot of straight up denying facts that you didn’t agree with. The most common I can remember is denying corrective rape happened because of aphobia, and insisting it was actually misogyny. Which... I’ve used eloquent language to this point, but I’m going to be blunt: telling someone they’re wrong about how/why they experienced their abuse is fucking disgusting. 

I think that covers the bases for how I felt during this period... I didn’t follow discourse blogs or anything, so a lot of my friends just stopped reblogging it as we realized a lot of it was also just an excuse people made up so they could bully ace kids. From there, it was mostly just slowly opening up, reading the posts my ace friends made and shared on the subject, and reflecting on myself. It was definitely a progressive process; I went from “neutral on ace discourse” after realizing most aces aren’t even cis and/or hetero (though, ftr, it doesn’t matter if they are or not)

Then late last year/early this year I started feeling isolated in the community for not being attracted to men (which was a personal thing and not the fault of other groups), and... things started clicking. I realized that aces, regardless of orientation, also lacked either sexual and/or romantic attraction to men, and suddenly started feeling less alone - especially because ace lesbians also exist. While I don’t think I particularly reached out, my mind opened up significantly more with that, and I started realizing a lot of common ground between us as a community in general. 

While I was having this realization, posts started coming on my feed about just how badly the ace community had been damaged by the rise of aphobia and ace discourse, and it started really sinking in just how horrific aphobia truly is. An entire community was more or less dismantled right when it was just starting to thrive, and the members are only just now starting to get back to a place of comfort again. It’s sickening, especially to know I was a part of it. Last month I saw a post about an ace lesbian being harassed at a pride event because she only had ace merch on, and someone justified it with her making her identity “about sex” - That was what really solidified everything for me and how much I’ve changed, because that is what homophobes say about nonsexual gay PDA with zero changes. 

I do want to apologize to all the ace people in my life, both if you knew I felt this way, or if you’re just finding out I used to feel this way and are hurt by it. I know I’ve apologized to at least one person privately, but you can’t truly love someone if you don’t support all aspects of them. I’ve worked ridiculously hard to unlearn everything, but that doesn’t justify that I thought these things to begin with. I understand any action people need to take to feel comfortable.

This was... a really deeply personal post that covers half a decade, more or less. But it does feel good to get out and like a weight has been lifted. Like I said, this is something I’ve wanted to publicly talk about and own up to, but didn’t know how to go about it. If nothing else, I think this is a pretty comprehensive look at how aphobes think and operate for resource purposes.

[balletshoes2barbells]

December 10, 2017

Where do you see yourself in the future? Did you go to college for that “MRS.” Degree? What are your plans? I can not tell you how many times I have heard this not only asked to me but my friends that I spent 4 ½ years with at Mississippi State with. There is nothing wrong with having a plan but we need to realize that sometimes that doesn’t always work out the other side of that is when you KNOW something is right you need to fight like hell to keep it and work at it.

 I started reading a sample of this book called Love that Last by Jefferson and Alyssa Bethke. I have only read the first two chapters so far and it’s already caused me to start thinking and evaluating myself.  Here are some pieces out of the two chapters that I felt were important and stuck out to me while reading.

 “…We get into our midtwenties or midthirties and feel like we should be beginning our adult lives, yet it feels more like the end. We are tired. We are hurt. We are exhausted. And we don’t want to do it anymore. We are left to pick up the pieces of our adolescence, and we now look back with enough perspective to realize just how detrimental our decisions have been. How did we get here? Why are so many of us entering adult life, our marriages, jobs, and new families hanging on by a thread rather than starting our journey with vibrancy and life and fullness? Maybe it has something to do with our bad definition of love. Clearly something isn’t working. Clearly we’ve got some wires crossed. Our culture at large is hurting. Sick. Unhealthy. Bruised. Broken.”

 Now not every word pertains to me but I have seen it in so many of my friends and people that I know they are just so worn down by life. Where it does pertain to me is that with in the next month I will be turning 24 and I would be naïve to say that I didn’t think about whom I want to spend the rest of my life with and make memories good and bad with. I fully believe that God didn’t intend for us to go through life alone. As men and women we are incomplete and we have built in us a longing, a longing to bring together those two souls to become one.  

 One of my favorite Greek words is “Love”. I love how other languages beside English words have emotions and feelings to them. The Greeks distinguish between four different ways: Agape- the love of God for man, the kind of unconditional love he has for us. Eros- which is often mistaken for intimate type of love it can also be defined as the beauty within that person. Philia- affectionate regard, friendship, between equals. Storge- love affection, having a natural empathy mostly dealing with the family. I believe we need to have a little bit of all four to truly understand what love really is.

 Now I am no perfect person to explain what a relationship should be or consist of but here is my opinion and some of the lessons that I have learned along the way. Me being the type of person I am I hardly ever open up to people and let them know what is really going on in my mind unless I feel comfortable around you…. this has come back to bite me before. I have only (I honestly wouldn’t even call them dated) 4 people in my 23 years of life. Looking back on those “relationships” two were because I was a dumb high schooler and honestly had no concept of what a relationship should really be. The other two were out of pure convenience, I was in my opinion a broken person inside and out and stayed in those relationship because I, Me, Myself was selfish. I have moved past that and learned hard lessons from them and I guess you could say, “found myself again”.  I know what I want in a relationship and what a real relationship should be. I have had to constantly pray about it and put that part of my life in Gods control.  

 “As water reflects the face, so ones life reflects the heart.” Proverbs 27:19

 This post is already long enough as it is so I am going to end it with another piece from Love that Last hopefully it clarifies what I think of relationships and marriage in general.

 “In Scripture, marriage is an overflow of love. It is no coincidence that the Bible begins and ends with a marriage. Adam and Eve in Genesis. Jesus and His church in Revelation. If you could summarize the bible succinctly, it would be about God creating, looking for, pursuing, and restoring a bride. A people for Himself. To be called into that oneness. Its why all the love stuff- those butterflies, dating, romance, marriage, intimacy, sex, and that deep connection you feel when your are both vulnerable and fully loved at the same time- is not about us. In the end, we are just reflections.”