#Vs loudest anti fan

[jellytamalies]

caught between cruel masters

[twistedtummies2]

The Devils I Know - Number 28

Welcome to “The Devils I Know!” For this spooky time of year, from now till Halloween, I’ll be counting down My Top 31 Depictions of the Devil, from movies, television, video games, and more! Today’s Devil asks an important question: what happens when two Princes of Darkness meet face to face? Number 28 is…Jason Isaacs, from the Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Trilogy.

As I’ve said more than once in the past, the “Castlevania” games are one of my favorite video game franchises of all time, right alongside “Kingdom Hearts.” However, one of my gripes with the classic era of the games is that their lore got increasingly more convoluted as the games went on. This is to be expected with a lot of old, classic series that are still ongoing: as time went on and audiences/players cared more about characters and stories, the games evolved, but as a result those same stories and characters could end up going in crazy directions that often caused headaches in hindsight. Between 2010 and 2014, Konami attempted to reboot and revamp the franchise with a game series that would, at least in intent, update the franchise while also giving it a less convoluted lore.

The result was “Castlevania: Lords of Shadow,” which was followed by two sequels: “Lords of Shadow II,” and an in-between kind of game called “Mirror of Fate” (which, coincidentally, happens to be my favorite Castlevania game, and I don’t care how unpopular that opinion may be). There were plans to make a fourth game, but for one reason or another, those have never come to pass, as of this date. Fans of the Castlevania franchise remain split about the reboot trilogy, and the loudest voices seem to be the most negative. I, however, personally really enjoy the reboot; it’s not perfect, but neither was the Classic era. I think both are worthy attempts at the franchise, each going in solid and intriguing directions, with their own pros and cons. In the Classic Castlevania era, the main antagonist of the series was Count Dracula. However, in the “Lords of Shadow” games, Dracula is actually made into the main protagonist for two out of three games. So, with the King of the Vampires as your main character, who do you pick to act as the big bad in his stead? Why, Satan himself, naturally! In those two games – “Lords of Shadow” and “Lords of Shadow II” – the Devil himself ends up being the ultimate evil which our anti-heroic vampire must defeat. In both games, the Devil’s presence is teased throughout the story, but he ultimately doesn’t show up properly till the last act, and becomes the final boss which the player must overcome. Much of what makes this take on Satan work is his voice actor, the inimitable Jason Isaacs. Let’s face it, when you’ve played Captain Hook, Lucius Malfoy, and the World’s Most Evil Redcoat, you’re darn well-prepared when your time comes to tackle the Devil himself. Isaacs brings a sense of smoothness and subtlety to the part, giving Satan a mixture of slippery cunning and grandiose power that turns what could have been a rather two-dimensional character into a very well-crafted villain. Though his time in both games is fairly short, Satan is nevertheless a memorable adversary. And seriously…Dracula vs. Satan? How can that NOT be an awesome confrontation?!

Tomorrow, the countdown continues with Number 27! HINT: He must love chaos theory.

[kalinara]

I was thinking about the interrelationship between “ships” and canon in my own personal taste.

I generally find that I prefer “ships” that have SOME basis in canon.  I do not require the ships themselves to BE canon (and in fact, I sincerely dislike quite a few canon ships), but I generally prefer to choose characters who have some pre-existing interaction - either positive or negative - to build from.

I’m generally not a fan of crossover ships, or weird time travel ships, unless there’s something really compelling that makes me think the characters would vibe well.  (I’ve read a couple of Mandalorian time travel fics that paired Din Djarin with Jaster Mereel, and based on my very limited knowledge of the man, I feel like that could work!  It fits with the underlying theme of Din Djarin as the quintessential ur-Mandalorian.)

As a slasher, at heart, I am not married to a character’s canon sexual orientation.  In my heart, everyone is bi or pan.  Some of them may just not have figured it out yet.

I think there’s a big difference between ships that “have a basis in canon” vs. ships that “will happen in canon” vs. ships that “I want to see happen in canon.”

One of my very guilty pleasure ships, for example, was Rick/Negan in Walking Dead.  If you followed me during my Walking Dead phase, you may recall that I was pretty virulently anti-Negan (or at least anti-Negan apologia).  So the pairing was not one that I would want on the show.  But I did think there was an intriguing, borderline sexual dynamic between the two on the show, that authors have done very well at exploring in fic.  So, as a dark ship, I am/was kind of into it.

My biggest issue with Reylo fans, though, wasn’t that they shipped Reylo, but so many were very aggressive about their ship becoming canon, which is an idea that I find genuinely harmful.  (The actual execution in Rise of Skywalker ended up ambiguous enough that I didn’t mind it as much as I thought I would.  But the versions proposed by the loudest Reylo fans really were just awful )

But now the official story’s done.  There’s no real danger anymore of young girls internalizing the idea (yet again!) that they HAVE to forgive a man who hurt them.  IMO, the potential for harm has passed, Reylos continue to enjoy their ship and I have nothing against that.  

I get irked sometimes by accusations of queer-baiting, because most of the time, it seems to translate to “my chosen pairing didn’t happen.”  I’m sorry, but 911 is a show with multiple canon queer characters that have a substantial amount of screentime.  The fact that these two particular hot guys, with a close friendship, aren’t actually fucking is not an example of queer-baiting.  Bad taste on the part of the showrunners, maybe.  

I will maybe give Supernatural fans this one though.  I didn’t particularly feel the Destiel vibes throughout what I saw of the show, but that whole confession-sucked away into the void thing, did seem pretty blatant.  (That said, the way they reacted to Misha Collins accidently/incorrectly coming out as bi, as though it would have been somehow invalidated because of “queer-baiting” was just horrid.)

It’s annoying to me because I do worry sometimes that shows will get so fixated on the idea of not queer-baiting (because some fanbases are fucking scary) that they’ll start to avoid showcasing male friendships at all.  I don’t know if there’s any real basis to this fear, but I’ve mentioned before that I think there’s been a considerable decrease in the comfort end of hurt/comfort on television shows in the past ten years or so.  I watch my old DVDs of Stargate Atlantis, and see so many hugs, hand-holding, waiting at bedsides with a smile and soft words, and I realize that I don’t tend to see that in modern television shows anymore.  I don’t know why this changed but I don’t like it.  I feel like television has become a lot colder, a lot more focused on people suffering alone, and that’s really fucking sad to me.

Besides, I tend to like these “queer-baited” pairings too.  Of course I would like t see more explicit canon representation.  But that doesn’t stop me from enjoying canon-adjacent fic that use the pre-existing dialogue and dynamics to spin them in new directions.  It would be spectacular if Trent/Ted became canon in Ted Lasso, but I also appreciate how their complicated relationship has developed in canon, and I love seeing it explored in fics.

I don’t really have a point to this, I guess.  I like canon.  I like shipping.  I like when canon feeds the shippers.  But I don’t need ships to become canon.  And sometimes I wouldn’t want them to.  I can enjoy them anyway.

[gra-sonas]

How is the Superman & Lois fandom? Because the fandoms that I'm currently in are exhausting as hell and there are new drama every hour so I need a new show and a new fandom, please and thank you! Sorry, this is extremely weird but I know that you love S&L and thought I will ask you lol. Sincerely, a very tired anon

Hello, very tired nonnie (I FEEL YA!)!

I’m afraid that I don’t know anything about the SaL fandom here on Tumblr. I’m not part of it, and apart from occasionally checking Hoechlin’s tag, I’ve never looked at anything else in regards to the show here on Tumblr.

On Twitter, most fans are excited (those who are not, especially when they trashtalk Hoechlin, get muted or blocked immediately, I don’t have the time or patience to deal with haters), and among fans of the show, I haven’t seen much controversy (other than stuff like “the kids are annoying” vs “I love the kids”).

Can’t say anything about fandom on IG bc I’m not part of that either.

Sorry for being so unhelpful, nonnie. :(

And I’m sorry that fandom for you’s exhausting and no fun atm. I hear that a lot from various fandoms, and it makes me sad. That’s not to say that in previous years fandoms have always been without drama (LOL, I wish), but I don’t recall fandoms ever being this exhausting and frustrating either.

Sometimes it feels like these days it’s only about who’s THE LOUDEST™ (and, of course, these are also the people who are RIGHT™, and anyone who disagrees or likes something else is WRONG™), add to that the invasion of “purity culture” (and even worse, antis)  and other shit in fandom spaces, and things are getting increasingly unpleasant for anyone who just wants to enjoy the pretty and ship their ships in peace. :/

I don’t really have an answer to any of these problems, but what (mostly) works for me these days:

mute/block/blacklist to the max (whether it’s tags, content, or users)

find “your people” and stick to them, and if “your people” is just one like-minded person, stick to them and talk to them about what you like

create content you want to see/that makes you happy

if you’re not a creator, reblog (Likes are absolutely meaningless since they don’t “spread” the content, they’re a nice nod to the creator, but it doesn’t help them get exposure) creators, rec content, leave comments etc.

personally, I’m also trying my best to talk about things I like (instead of only lamenting about the things I don’t like). Sometimes it’s important (and inevitable) to vent, but my personal experience is that I’m happier when I focus on the things that (still) spark joy.

It’s not a perfect system, fandom negativity still gets to me, but my somewhat “aggressive” positivity approach has certainly helped me make it through the past 11 months of this eternal RNM hiatus much better than I expected.

Sending lots of ❤️ your way, nonnie. I hope you’ll find “your people” (and they’re also NO DRAMA PLEASE), and you’ll experience some fandom happiness. YOU DESERVE IT! Good luck!!!

[freedom-of-fanfic]

Just wondering if you have thoughts on why klantis can't accept if their pairing does not become canon. I mean, even with other age-appropriate pairings like Allurance and Kallura, they can't seem to accept their existence. But the mere thought that their OTP may not happen in canon seems to be an almost existential fear for them, let alone a queer ship like Sheith. They'll all turn into pumpkins if klance isn't canon! Youth and ignorance of how fandom works, perhaps?

so this pressing need for Your Ship™ to be the Canon Ship™ isn’t a new or even unusual phenomenon … but I think it’s taking on a new fever-pitch in VLD fandom due to how social justice is misused these days.

factor 1: it could be canon

As long as I’ve been in fandom, I’ve spent most of that time shipping ships (if I shipped at all) pairings that had no chance of becoming canon: i.e. slash or femslash. 

there’s a weird security in that! If you’re shipping mlm/wlw in a show where they will never canonically date, much less be endgame, you don’t have to worry that they’ll have a bad breakup or - in general - much serious relationship drama. (most series that feature romance only have serious drama in the romantic relationships.) Their canon romantic pursuits make no difference because you already know your OTP was never going to be canon. and even if you could reach the creators with your feelings about a non-straight ship, slash/femslash fans were the Weird Ones back then; you didn’t talk about your ships with anyone but other transformative fandom members.

This is no longer the case. As LGBT+/queer people have gained more and more visibility, media representation has been more and more realistic to expect. Younger LGBT+/queer fandom members are especially ‘used’ to representation being a genuine possibility, and they consume media with that expectation in mind.  They even boldly inform the creators that they demand representation! (we’ve come a long way from the early 2000′s.)

factor 2: the meta of vld raises hopes higher

In the case of VLD, the creators have mentioned that they want to include queer representation. Of course that’s got a lot of us looking out for when it shows up. Also, some of the executive team staffed Korra - the animated show for teens that made the queer ship canon.

According to the executive directors of Korra, Korrasami confirmation was grafted onto the end of the series partially because of the fandom. Its popularity online seems to have been the spark that led to the final handholding scene. If that isn’t motivation enough to beg and plead and bang on the door of the vld staff in hopes they will fulfill every dream of non-straight shippers, what could be?

Making sure the staff knows that klance is the best engame, of course.

factor 3: fandom is an echo chamber filled with purity/‘social justice’ culture

without getting into it at length: a lot of factors have made tumblr a dangerously toxic environment where saying something that bullies don’t like is volunteering for public verbal slaughter and holding the party line is the best way to avoid trouble. and that party line is extreme and getting more extreme because the people who dictate the social rules of tumblr are the ones who are willing to punish anyone who steps out of line (ie bullies). this has turned tumblr into an echo chamber of people repeating whatever the loudest people say and dissenting voices are more likely to catch hell than get heard.

currently the ascendant fandom voices are ones that support purity culture - that is, content needs to be free of ‘bad’ or ‘corrupting’ content to be allowed to exist - especially because kids might see it and get corrupted. therefore, all ships need to be ‘pure’ to be allowed to exist.

The other ascendant voices are exclusionist voices. the more gay/lesbian a ship is, the better it is: in fact, it makes the ship even more pure. (all other kinds of queer representation matter less.)

this is how klantis came to exist: pro-klance antis who use purity/exclusionist standards to prove that klance is the most pure ship of all - and therefore is the one most allowed to exist. everything that competes with it is problematic or not as good representation somehow.

why does this matter? because vld is a kid’s show! if klance is the most pure and the most LGBT, that means it’s the one that has to be endgame.

and they have to prove this because vld fandom is neck deep in a ship war (that klance would lose based on traditional standards. adds that extra spicy desperation flavor.)

factor 4: there can only be one

klance fans who demand klance be canon endgame are not all that different from the average ship war soldier.

the most epic ship wars are almost always sparked by one thing: sharing a popular character. Harmony vs Harry/Ginny, Zutara vs Kataang, Wincest vs Destiel, MaKorra vs Korrasami - they all have one character caught between two ships with so many fans that a few of them on both sides were bound to be pants-on-fire wankers that can’t stand people having different opinions than them and existing. sheith vs klance is the same old song (or would be if social justice wasn’t the most popular bludgeon of choice, as noted above.)

the traditional weapon of ship wars has been ‘being more canon’, so most warring is done by close canon analysis, scrutinizing the words of the creators for hints of how it ends, etc. This unto itself isn’t ship warring, but it quickly gets personal for the pants-on-fire wanker types: they accuse fans of the ‘wrong’ ship of all sorts of horrible things … even in the old days these wars could get hideous. (VLD fandom is giving the HP fandom a run for its money in terms of Real Life Consequences for ship warring, but HP was pretty intense.)

Where both ships have the possibility of being canon endgame, the ship that is chosen by the creator to be the Happily Ever After ‘wins’. and because these ships share a character, only one pairing can ‘win’ (poly isn’t a likely canon endgame for a while yet, I’m afraid). and the overwhelming intensity of ship wars can often make the participants forget that any third endgame option exists.

–

so adding up the above factors, a lot of klance fans are experiencing a range of pressures:

queer/LGBT+ representation has been hinted at by the creators & is a realistic possibility in today’s political climate

some of the creative team has a history of making ships endgame in response to fannish support

they feel that klance is the best queer representation the series could provide because it’s ‘pure’ and also very clearly mlm rep

other non-straight/otherwise progressive ships threaten klance’s position as the only ship that can be the rep the creators hinted at, and they don’t want to ‘lose’

all of this together, I think, makes some klance shippers particularly urgent that klance be the series engame - in a way that might have been less intense a decade ago.

(and honestly the fact that they feel they can influence the ending by being loud enough is the worst part. I’m worried they’ll blame themselves if klance isn’t the ending romance, or feel that the creators ended with something else only to spite them.)

[onceuponamirror]

something wicked this way already came; “dark” betty cooper, utilitarian ethics, and the trolley problem

@village-skeptic tagged me in a wonderful meta post by @burberrycanary and my response spiraled into a whole monstrous thing so rather than hijack i thought i would make my own—

because over this past week i’ve noticed some really heated discussions and opinions about morals and judgments about what betty did to cheryl, and although i’ve already discussed it once [x], i decided, yanno, that just wasn’t enough for me. so.

THE COMPASS DOESN’T POINT NORTH

the entire series opened with betty declaring that she did everything for everyone, and she wanted just one thing for herself—but once she got a taste for it, or once a girl whose entire identity was shaped by external expectations of her, she started to realize the purpose in doing more for herself.

and like anyone who doesn’t know the limits of their newly found strength, she takes it too far. she’s a sheltered, privileged girl who is just now realizing that the system only plays to her, not her boyfriend or his family. she’s learning that the world is unfair as she goes.

or, what i’ve been trying to say is—dark betty didn’t disappear when a wig was stashed inside of a locker. she never went anywhere at all, in fact. 

“dark betty” is betty, fists unclenched, and that rage finding purpose. it’s the same girl who has been told what she can’t do her whole life, who has had nothing but rules and expectations about such.

because betty is an anti-hero, or becoming one, and has been for a while. 

i think that a lot of people hold betty to a much higher moral compass because she’s quite literally several angelic tropes come to life, particularly in her appearance and demeanor. (literally—the reason the archie comics have always been successful is because they’re compilations of cultural tropes.)

but betty when herself said that jughead was the soul of riverdale, this is the writers laying out their moral compass—it’s jughead, not betty. his journey, his foot on each end of the town line, his turbulence through political systems and cultural expectations—he is the ethical middle ground. 

i love her, but betty is not, and has never been, even as she presented that way. 

her sense of justice developed as self-defense, which makes sense considering her family; there’s nothing more machiavellian than the desire to encourage the stepford fantasy.

as in, she was raised to do whatever it took to appear perfect and pleasing, but meanwhile her parents are people who tell her to keep her head down and look out for herself first and foremost. hal and alice cooper’s ethics end beyond extensions of themselves, and that was something passed onto betty.

as in deux, an anti-hero is someone who does the “right” things the “wrong” way, and usually for personal reasons. 

(cheryl blossom could be considered one herself; and frankly, she and betty are hardly so different. they’re both deeply loyal and thus highly protective, willing to do whatever it takes to appease their inner sense of justice, and now forcefully against being defined by anyone other than themselves.)

but anti-heroes are often loved as male characters, and much more easily hated as women. author roxanne gay said it best on an essay profiling “likability” :

“[likability] is a very elaborate lie, a performance, a code of conduct […] the unlikeable man is inscrutably interesting; dark, or tormented, but ultimately compelling even when he might behave in distasteful ways […] when women are unlikeable it becomes a point of obsession in critical conversations.”

betty did something highly unlikeable, and that was the whole point. it was deliberate, it was part of her character. a person’s greatest strength is always their greatest flaw—this is because it is the most defined part of the personality, and thus it manifests loudest.

betty’s loyalty is her strength; it’s what drove her to want to protect the girls she knew from a harasser. but it’s also her flaw; it’s what also drove her to handcuff said harasser and drug/nearly drown him.

but i bring this all up not just because it’s a fun feminist tangent (though it is) but because betty’s cornerstone arc last season is the same one as it is now, as the old favorite utilitarian ethical dilemma—do you do one wrong thing to achieve the greater right?

CONSIDER THE TRAIN

or, for example, the trolley problem, an old standby in summarizing ethical thought experiments. it goes like this:

a trolley train is barreling on the tracks towards five people unable to move. on the other track: one person, who also cannot move. you have the ability to throw the switch, which will kill the one person, but save the five. 

if you do nothing, five people will die. 

for many people, the answer is obvious and simple: five is worth more than one. 

but—the follow up to this experiment is to reconsider it less passively. the scenario is the same: the trolley train approaches five people trapped on a track. 

instead of throwing a switch from afar, however, you are standing overhead, watching from above. next to you stands another person. the only way to save the five people is to push the person next to you onto the track, forcing it to stop but certainly killing the person beside you. 

but when you ask many people this, they balk. the answer suddenly feels that it’s wrong to push someone, because that’s a physical act, one of certain death that you will have to watch. 

but the end result is the same—one person dead, five saved. and i don’t bring this up to be an edgelord presenting an endless cycle of ethical theory, but my point: 

reactions to moralistic decisions feel more exaggerated when you see someone getting pushed. 

as in, i think many people felt strongly about betty “pushing” cheryl to save jughead and his father because it was a physical act of manipulation. we saw it play out. it felt worse, seemed heightened. 

there is no simple conclusion to this, and that is the whole damn point. because that is the nature of ethics as a theoretical discussion—you can go in circles forever, speaking in hypotheticals and arguing what you would do in the situation, or passing judgment, etc.

but doing nothing is an ethical choice too, when you’re on a set track—and i’m taking it out of the parable and speaking to the systemic track of the prison industrial complex or broken justice systems that i can’t believe is respectfully being brought up on this otherwise soapy teen drama—

anyway.

so, in the case of betty, cheryl, and jughead, she decided there was no way to save multiple people without pushing one. 

but people reacted very strongly to betty and her choice this past week. like. very strongly—from fans of her and from those who already were unsure about her. it was an interestingly visceral range of reactions, but one that i think comes from all of the aforementioned above, and requires a lot of consideration about the individual’s theoretical opinion about ethics vs it applied to situations. 

and so, the question becomes—what would you do? 

[helihi]

RWBY’s writing and pacing

It’s not weird to be on Tumblr and notice how people’s opinions tend to be polarizing. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about politics or a simple tv show, the larger the fandom, the louder people tend to scream.

Last week, the FNDM went from “Does Illia is gay?” to Illia fits into the predatory evil gay trope and she might as well end up dead to fill the Bury your gays quota. Although we were able to see people in the grey area, the extremes were the loudest.

This week the discourse is as follows: RWBY’s writing is bad vs. “Oh my god, why do people always want action packed stories, you need some breathing in between and some exposition to set things up!”.

I’d like to bring an objective view on regards to this subject because I consider it to be extremely important when it comes to the show.

If you don’t ask for better writing, you’re not going to get any.

If you applaud mediocrity, you’re gonna get mediocrity.

RWBY’s writing has never been great. It has had fantastic set ups and scenes, but it has never been great. Yes, that also includes the time when Monty was still alive (Rest in Peace). I’m sorry, but the flaws have always been there.

I’d like to point the following things out for you guys to understand what I’m trying to say:

Volume 1

RWBY was barely starting, they didn’t have a big budget, so the episodes were short. This caused the plot to be very simple and every problem being solved quite rapidly.

The characters at first seem like tropes.

A shit ton of clichés.

Because of plot convenience, some characters act OOC to what we later know about them. (Since Jaune had to stand up to Cardin, no one of team RWBY or JNPR stood up to him when he was bullying Velvet and being a racist prick).

Blake being a faunus ended up leading to the volume finale and didn’t build up Team RWBY relationships and dynamics. We could have had a serious moment of self reflexion, not only Weiss realizing that she was putting every faunus in the same bag, but Yang and Ruby dealing with the fact that Blake hid who she was because of racism (also prompting a realization that maybe, until that point, they contributed to said racism by being bystanders).

However, vol 1 had great things on its side that allowed the show to continue.

Variety of characters.

Rich lore

Cool character concepts and weapons.

The show was funny.

I can accept that the start of the show was not the best, it was understandable giving how little budget they had.

Volume 2

The tone of the series becomes slightly more serious. We have new characters and new villains being introduced into the show. Something big is cooking and this is the first glance we get at it. The good include:

The humor is back.

That food fight scene eveyone loves.

The dance.

Papa Shcnee may not be a good person being foreshadowed.

Yang convincing Blake to go to the dance while also giving her space.

Dr. Oobleck being a great teacher and giving the girls an insight on themselves.

Neo and Raven making an appearance.

However, for some reason this volume seems really blurry in my head. Neptune’s character introduction is really bland, the in betweens of everything seem really irrelevant and most importantly: the season finale seems like a mid-season finale if anything.

Volume 3

My favorite volume; I’m going to be the least biased I can be. This volume featured a Naruto style tournament (I’m sure other animes did it before Naruto, but this one is the most widely known). This allowed the writers to show us some great battles, team combinations, and do some world building.

While the first half of the season relies more on comedy and action, when shit hits the fan it goes perfectly well. I have to say, the moment Yang gets caught after Emerald uses her semblance was the first moment since I started watching the show that I felt hooked. Somehow for the first time ever, I felt that something could actually happen. Stakes were being raised, and it shouldn’t come as anyone’s surprise that this season was the one that attracted as much fans as it did.

There are some bad things, unfortunately, about this season.

Ruby’s silver eyed warrior powers come from nowhere and it was only mentioned in the first episode ever.

A shit ton of new characters! But 0 depth to any of them!

We never get to see Team JNPR interactions that are not JP or NR centric, except that one time Jaune talked to Ren briefly in vol 2.

Seriously this volume needed more character interactions. We could have had Pyrrha interacting with team RWBY more. Even more team CVFY.

The FNDM grew exponentially, and the expectations to how RT was going to follow up to the fall of Beacon built up the moment volume 3 ended.

And finally, volume 4 arrived.

Volume 4

There’s nothing wrong with a slow volume. It’s true that you can’t have a show 100% about fighting. The reason popular animes and good shounen fights are popular is because of the stakes set up by character motivation and the plot. The problem with volume 4 is not the lack of fights, but how bad it fails at exploring the characters after the fall of Beacon.

Jumping from one character’s story line to another one didn’t help either. The constant teasing with cliff hangers began getting really obnoxious here. Is Qrow going to die? Is he? IS HE??

Ruby: she gets no character development. The only scenes that could be considered part of her arc would be: Ruby waking up listening to Pyrrha’s voice, only to find out it’s Jaune’s phone; the small talk she and Jaune have before fighting the creepy Nuckelavee; the letter she writes at the end.

Weiss: probably the best written storyline of the volume. However, having her train and building up the possibility of her actually facing her father before escaping, only to have her running away in high heels was not pay off. You can easily find a way to write Weiss confronting her father before leaving Atlas to find her team and save the world.

Blake: she heads to Menagerie in order to see her family again and find the way to cope with what happened at Beacon. She felt extremely guilty and was really in a bad place. Having Sun be with her makes sense, he says it himself, but the execution was extremely poor. Sun didn’t give Blake a choice. Furthermore, Blake is not able to open up after what happened at Beacon because she gets interrupted every time.

Sun: I’m so sorry his character ended up being comedic relief. He could have learned more about how to deal with Blake, and provide her with more emotional support that he ended up doing but no.

Yang: although I agree with most people that the events of volume 4 don’t have a canonical time stamp (because Miles and Kerry wanted to avoid plot holes), her coping with the fall is awfully paced. Armed and Ready was not earned by the end of the volume. I’m sorry, but Yang is not ready to face her demons yet. She’s suffering from PTSD, clearly needed to talk about what happened at the fall, and her feelings for Blake are filled with rage and hurt.

STILL NO SILVER EYES EXPLANATION DESPITE THE FACT THAT RUBY ALMOST DIED. WHY DOES THE SHOW KEEP TREATING THE MAIN CHARACTERS AS CHILDREN?

Klein being a really good character but only making an appearance twice.

The good of the volume include:

Raven and Qrow.

Ren’s backstory.

Weiss’s family being explored.

Did you miss it? You might have blinked.

Volume 5

This volume promised a lot of fighting, and to be honest, I rather have better set ups. Most of the people who are defending today’s episode claim that those of us who complain want mindless action without careful exposition.

I would like to remind everyone, including Miles and Kerry, the golden rule or writing for an audiovisual medium: SHOW, DON’T TELL.

I was already alarmed when I saw that Illia had more character development in a short, outside the main narrative, than Ruby got in an entire season.

I have many issues with this volume, most of them involve awful writing.

Ozpin’s story: why are the characters of the show getting so little information on him? Story wise it makes sense that us, the viewers, to piece together the information of this important character little by little; but within the show it makes no sense that Jaune and Yang are okay with knowing as little as they do. HOW OLD IS OZPIN? WHO IS SALEM? WHY DOES SALEM WANT TO DESTROY EVERYHTING?

Menagerie: Filled with cliffhangers and the slowest moving story ever. I love politic centered stories. For crying out loud, when everyone dropped snk because of it, I was hooked as fuck. The problem is that once again, the writers give you small doses of a plot line that should already be over.

Raven: is she evil? is she an anti-hero? Can the FNDM stop judging Raven so harshly after barely having any sort of explanation to why she’s doing things?

Most of the exposition during this volume has been through conversations of things we already know. The only things that are new are: Ozpin turning the Branwens into birds, the Branwens joining Beacon to learn how to kill huntsman, Ozpin confirmed for wizard and creator of the maidens.

And the worst part is, the CRWBY has written amazing scenes. Exposition doesn’t have to be bad, it can be perfect when done right:

Weiss and Yang’s conversation during ch8 was so beautiful. It established some common ground with them, it served to show Weiss’s character development; Yang finally gets to open up about Blake. The physical and oral communication this scene has is perfect. I love it so much, this is what the show needs. (Also, the animation was gorgeous, imma cry)

Illia’s conflict: not only when capturing Blake does she confess her feelings, she tells Blake that she was so blinded by her love of Adam that she didn’t know what Illia was going through and why she is acting the way she is now. The stakes are high with her, and I honestly want her redemtion arc ASAP.

Jesus, I wish I didn’t have to explain all of this, but I’m tired of people jumping to conclusions without thinking why people are complaining at the pacing of the show.

RWBY’s writing has never been great, it has had good times, but the pacing as always been terrible. Volume 4 showed the cracks clearer than ever before because more people were watching and the bar was set higher.

Anyways, here’s me hoping next week’s episode is better. This further proofs that my brothers claim is right: “The only way to enjoy RWBY is by binge watching it”.

[professorspork]

Hi, I have a fiddly question and I was pointed your direction. (Blame Punchy). When someone says - this is re: black panther - that a thing "does not belong to (x kind of person)"...what does that mean? I. I've never felt ownership of a piece of media in my life, and I don't understand what I'm not supposed to be doing here.

ooh. fiddly indeed!

i think there’s often a sense in fandom of, like… “because this is my private hobby, it is just for me.” which is true! you can do fandom any way you like. the trouble is, some people then jump to “because it is my private personal playtime fun, it doesn’t affect other people and they don’t get to have any say in how i do it,” which is not true.

the war between these two notions– the first being that fandom is a hobby and i can do what i want, the second being community members have a right to safety in their community– is how you get things like reylos vs antis, arguments over whether and how people should post explicit fanart if it’s for children’s shows like steven universe, and fights over what counts as censorship when it comes to tagging and trigger warnings

tumblr is a place where people who like diverse media types, regardless of to whom it was marketed or intended, can talk about the thing. but every property has an intended audience, every property has fans for whom the stakes are biggest, the investment most passionate and in some cases dire

steven universe belongs to children. it should be safe for them to be in SU fandom without having to look at gem boobs or being told that, uh, if they don’t support violent revolution they are part of the problem

likewise– black panther belongs to black folks. they’ve waited long enough. there is no other thing out there that can do for this audience what black panther will do for them. and so it’s important for us as white fans to think about… volume. that it’s possible to shout for joy without drowning out others who have waited longer to be heard.

we talk a lot about the “secure your own oxygen mask before helping the person next to you” analogy when discussing mental health and self care. but when it’s an inter-community issue, a representation issue, i think we have to come at it a different way. the “let people with babies or mobility issues have the seat on the subway” approach. which is to say: some people should be given more access to a comfortable environment based on circumstance. in this instance, black folks in fandom shouldn’t have to be on the defense when they’re interacting with all things black panther.

let the movie stand on its own. don’t bring your white faves into it, or focus only on the white people in it. don’t appropriate AAVE when discussing black panther to try to fit in– there are plenty of people who can say with authority that wakanda is lit, they do not need you to say it. and uh, if you’re tempted to somehow say something like “actually black panther is racist,” maybe don’t.

the fact that you’re so baffled about what this sense of entitlement would look like is an encouraging sign that you’re not a participant in it, but in general, when trying to parse a sentence like “this thing does not belong to x kind of person,” ask yourself if you’ve ever seen anything like the thing before– if you got to grow up seeing images like that thing. if the answer is no, let the people who needed it most be loudest.

i hope that helps! 

ETA: also, the source and content creator matters! the fact that black panther has a black director is a huge deal-- it means that black panther literally was not created for the white gaze, that inherent to its creation was an implicit understanding of what it’s like to be seen and be black, of black bodies in motion, of black voices. we’ve seen this from queer content creators and from women content creators, and we’ve respected it then, and felt it. this is no different

[avatar-dacia]

...yeah, no.  Aside from that being a false equivalence, framing anti-‘shippers as Big Meany-Pants Bullies and ‘shippers as Innocent Beleaguered Victims pretty much completely absolves ‘shippers of their own bad behavior (which, as it just so happens, has been known to include verifiable examples of the exact same shit that you're trying to pin on antis). 

And also?  The very same ‘shippers who go off about how all ‘ships are sacrosanct, and who whine the loudest about anyone so much as not liking their OTPs...tend to about tie themselves in knots in order to pathologize their nOTPs, even if said pairings are completely innocuous.  (To say nothing of demonizing characters whose greatest “sin” was not being the Pale Dude Fandom Fave™—looking especially at fans who make excuses for the fave when he’s out of line or the actual antagonist.) 

In other words: not only does the “innocent victim ‘shipper vs. evil bully anti-‘shipper” narrative horribly misrepresent the issue on multiple levels, but there isn’t even a clear-cut line between ‘shippers and “antis.”  Not only are the people on both sides of any given altercation about ‘shipping usually all ‘shippers to some degree, but there seems to be a hell of a correlation between attributing all fandom venom to “antis” and putting leather pants on some pale dude.  Just saying.

[golgibodyodyody]

These points are disorganized because I’m on mobile but both series:

- are on YouTube (weak comparison because Jreg is a small creator vs Rainbow High being produced by a company but still)

- star characters who all mostly look the same except have a central colour/colours that identify them

- don’t have many episodes and the ones they do have are fairly short, leaving little room to actually get a sense of character personalities/dynamics outside of the loudest characters, yet

- have a fan base that collectively decides that two characters are OBVIOUSLY in love and that not making the ship canon is queer-baiting and problematic (left unity/#jella) *

- feature a plot point wherein one member of said fan favourite ship leaves the group but comes back/will come back eventually

- have the cast live together in a lavish building (mansion for Centricide and school for Rainbow High)

- have a lot of fans that seem to take it very seriously considering it’s a political satire series made by some guy/a glorified advertisement made to get kids to buy their dolls **

- has merch that fans either love or hate (some criticizing the Nazi imagery on the anti-centrist ball plush while others don’t care or think it’s just part of the satire/some criticizing the whitewashing of some of the dolls and how the designs don’t always live up to what was expected based on the episodes and others not really caring)

Centricide and Rainbow High have very striking similarities and idk how I feel about that.

[atomicdrop]

SMW (February 19, 1994)

We’re in a high school gym in Jellico, TN for Smoky Mountain Wrestling! The hosts for this shindig are Bob Caudle and “Dirty” Dutch Mantell. Dutch isn’t fucking around and draws a name out of a hat for the Beat the Champ Challenge right away.

He draws Larry Santo so the match is going to be Santo going up against the TV Champ, Robbie Eagle. Larry Santo appears with Chris Candido and Candido says he’s going to give Santo a five minute wrestling lesson in the locker room which will be more than enough for him to beat Robbie Eagle.

Match 1: Well Dunn vs. Bobby Blaze & Anthony Michaels

This is Well Dunn’s debut in Smoky Mountain. According to commentary they’d already been in the WWF prior to this. I vaguely remember them being in that super shitty Royal Rumble but other than that recall little of the work of Messrs. Well and Dunn. The audience begins chanting “faggot” at them almost instantly.

Blaze avoids a clothesline from Well and armdrags him. Lots of armdrags in this match. Michaels tags in and gets double-backdropped for a two count. Michaels is apparently just out of the Smoky Mountain Wrestling school so he doesn’t have the experience yet.

Blaze has enough of Michaels inexperience and comes in to wreck house on Well Dunn, but the ref admonishes him so Well Dunn double-team Michaels. Well hits a forearm and picks up the win.

Post match Well Dunn compliment one another and then declare that Smoky Mountain has some of the best tag teams so they decided to head down to get the gold.

Winners: Well Dunn

A decent squash match to establish Well Dunn as a team to be reckoned with...with is a weird sentence to type. Like I said, before I really don’t remember them doing anything in the WWF beside being the shitty 1995 Royal Rumble. Maybe in Smoky Mountain they’ll get a chance to shine!

Match 2: Dirty White Boy & “Prime Time” Brian Lee

This match took place at the earlier Sunday Bloody Sunday event and we join the match already in progress. This is a chain match for the SMW Championship.

The White Boy is already busted open as we join the match and Brian Lee seems to be in control of the match. Brian Lee begins touching the corners, but the Dirty White Boy touches each corner as well (because that’s what happens in literally every chain or strap match with the “Touch All Four Corners” stipulation).

Tammy Fytch (aka Sunny) sees this taking place and comes in with a can of hairspray to ruin Dirty White Boy’s shit, but the ref stops her. As she and the ref are jawing with one another Ron Wright gets in the ring and kicks “Prime Time” in the dome.

Dirty White Boy touches the final corner to become champion.

Winner: Dirty White Boy

It’s clipped so I’m not really all about it, but maybe it’s alright since strap matches are generally kind of anti-climactic.

Video Replay...

We get footage of some house show match between Dirty White Boy and Brian Lee. There’s a stipulation that if Brian Lee loses, the Dirty White Girl gets a match with Tammy Fytch. Lee loses the match, but knocks out the Dirty White Girl in the process.

Fytch demands the match between her and the Dirty White Girl start immediately. She pins the unconscious woman while Referee Mark Curtis makes the count with a look of disdain upon his face.

Meanwhile With Bob...

The Dirty White Boy and Girl are there and they are hot! Dirty White Boy announces that he and the Dirty White Girl are going to take on Brian Lee and Tammy Fytch in a mixed tag team match.

Match 3: “The Bullet” Bob Armstrong vs. Terry Funk

This is also from Sunday Bloody Sunday and we join the match already in progress. Terry Funk has Armstrong laid out on a heap of chairs in the middle of the ring. FMW did this spot a ton back in the 90s.

Anyway Funk goes up to the top rope and hits a fucking moonsault onto Armstrong and the chair heap. He makes the pin and then the ref begins to count as both men try to get to their feet. Oh, this is a Texas Deathmatch.

Both men are back up. Armstrong hits a back bodydrop sending Funk into the chair heap and the follows up with a DDT into the heap of chairs. He makes the pin and both men are down. Armstrong staggers to his feet, but Funk can’t answer the ten count. Armstrong is the winner and apparently commissioner of SMW.

Dory Funk Jr. shows up and helps his brother beat up The Bullet. The announcers can’t decide if they branded him or hit him with a cane, but it matters little. Jim Cornette gets in the ring and wails on Armstrong with a tennis racket and then demands that Armstrong kiss his feet, which apparently was a stipulation of Armstrong getting the match at all or something.

Before the shame of kissing a fat man’s feet can take place, Tracy Smothers and Anthony Michaels hit the ring and chase off the Funks and Jim Cornette.

Winner: Bob “The Bullet” Armstrong

This looked like it was probably a pretty good brawl, but clipped here it’s just kind of meh.

Meanwhile at Titan Towers Smoky Mountain Shopping Center Office Space...

Commissioner Bob Armstrong fires the corrupt SMW board member who was helping Jim Cornette and kicks him out of the building. He then accepts a challenge issued for a handicap match between him and the team of Dick Murdoch and Jim Cornette.

Meanwhile Backstage...

Cornette gets word that Armstrong has accepted the challenge but he’s pissed off and calls Armstrong corrupt, but says that Murdoch beat Armstrong before so he’s not worried about the match. Meanwhile With Bob...

Tracy Smothers and Robbie Eagle come out. Tracy waves around a “check for $2,500″ and says that he’s confident that Eagle will beat Santo and wants to make a side wager with Chris Candido about the outcome of the match later that night. Fuck! It’s Jeff Jarrett...

Jeff Jarrett has a video package saying he’ll be at the Armstrong Family Reunion on March 10th. I hate Jeff Jarrett. He ruins everything. Down and Dirty With Dr. Dutch Mantell...

Dutch tells us SMW has signed what is sure to be one of the greatest tag teams of the 90s, the Thrillseekers. Oh shit it’s Lance Storm and Chris Jericho. Lance Storm looks exactly the same, but Chris Jericho looks so young here.

They were great champions in Canada but have forfeited the Canadian Tag Team Championship to come to SMW where all the best teams are like the Rock n’ Roll Express and Well Dunn...all the best teams. 

They sign on the dotted line and Bob Armstrong signs and welcomes them to SMW. They’ll be debuting in SMW soon.

Meanwhile With Bob...

Tammy Fytch shows up and throws a tantrum about how she’s not a wrestler and she doesn’t want to get bitten by the Dirty White Girl and get rabies. Brian Lee carries her away.

Match 4: Rock n’ Roll Express vs. The Heavenly Bodies

This is from some other time and some other location. We’re in the closing minutes of a match for the SMW Tag Team Championship with a one hour time limit. I think it’s a two falls out of three match. It’s all tied up at one fall apiece. The time expires and the Heavenly Bodies retain their titles.

Winner: Draw

This looked like it was probably a decent match. The last couple minutes were a flurry of pinfall attempts with Mark Curtis flying all over the place trying to make the count, but showing the last two minutes was kind of stupid. They could have just gone straight to the Rock n’ Roll Express and have them be like, “We went sixty minutes and it was a goddamn draw!” or whatever and given the time spent showing this otherwise meaningless match to some other match. Meanwhile Backstage...

The Rock n’ Roll Express talk about how they could have gone another hour while the Bodies were sucking air and so, they challenge them to a Marathon Match, which sounds like what the WWF would later call an Iron Man Match. The match will be an hour and whoever has the most pinfalls at the end of that time will be the winner.

Meanwhile With Bob...

The Heavenly Bodies and Jim Cornette accept the match and say that the women of Tennessee know that the Heavenly Bodies can go 60 minutes. Ew...gross! Look at the Heavenly Bodies! Look at that dude’s teeth! They’re horrible!

Jim Cornette promises the end result of the match will be 14-0 in favor of the Bodies. Why 14 Jim? How did you come up with that number? Match 6. Robbie Eagle (w/ Tracy Smothers) vs. Larry Santo (w/ Chris Candido)

Your Beat the Champ TV Championship match for the evening! Apparently Candido has accepted Tracy Smothers’ side action and they hand checks to the ref.

The match gets underway with Santo slamming Eagle hard. He goes for a corner charge but misses allowing Eagle to take control of the match. Eagle works the arm but this pisses off Santo who chops the fuck out of Eagle, hitting him with one of the loudest chops I’ve heard and then bites him.

Santo goes on the attack and pounds Eagle down and then clearly botches something because there’s a random shot of some kid’s face for like 10 seconds.

On the outside Candido attacks Eagle. Eagle tries for a sunset flip back into the ring. Candid gets on the ring apron and grabs Santo by the wrists to prevent him from getting caught in the dreaded sunset flip. This brings Tracy Smothers in to kick Santo’s arms in clear sight of the ref.

The ref’s like, “Whatever mang,” and Eagle rolls up Santo for the win. He’s $1,000 richer and Tracy Smothers is $2,500 richer.

Winner: Robbie Eagle

This was a pretty okay match for guys I’m pretty sure were just job guys. The stuff with the side bet, while kind of corny gave the match some additional plot stuff to work with so that was pretty good.

Meanwhile With Lex Luger...

Lex Luger is somewhere in the WWF but says he’s excited to go to Georgia to see all the great fans at the Armstrong Family Reunion. I think he’s the Narcissist here still, so I don’t think he means it.

Meanwhile With Bob...

Candido wants a match so he can get his check back. Smothers comes out and is like, “I’ll let you know next week if I’ll give you a chance to make your money back.” Candido freaks out and Bob and Dutch tell us about the matches we’ve got scheduled for the following week.

Final Thoughts

I would have preferred less clipped matches and more just “here’s 10 seconds of whatever happened at this house show,” during the dudes’ promos. Maybe then we could have gotten another random match.

I like the Beat the Champ concept but the hat thing seemed really low rent. Get one of those lottery tumbler things dudes!

Will I watch more Smoky Mountain? Probably. I mean I’ll at least watch the remaining four or five episodes that are up on the Network, but beyond that? Definitely maybe.

[flauntpage]

On Philadelphia and Video Gaming: A Conversation with Fusion Chief Business Officer Joe Marsh

The Philadelphia Fusion lost last night, but it happens.

They went down to the New York Excelsior, which is a dumb team name. I hate losing to New York, but losing to the “Excelsior” is even worse.

I checked out the Twitter replies last night and people didn’t seem too happy with the performance of “Sado,” who I think is our main tank. Some fans were calling for “Fragi” to play instead, so it seems like we’ve got a bit of a controversy brewing. I might even call up Sports Radio 94 WIP to share my feelings.

Anyway, I stopped by the viewing party at Xfinity Live last night before the match started. I didn’t have time to stay for the actual thing, since I had to roll back to the Wells Fargo Center for the Sixers game, though it looked like a nice crowd was there for the event.

I did have a candid and interesting conversation with Joe Marsh, who is the Fusion’s Chief Business Officer. We talked about the popularity of esports and the growth of a nascent Fusion fan base, and even though I load my Fusion articles with satire and humor, I tried to keep it pretty straight with Joe while learning some things about gaming along the way.

Here’s the full discussion:

Crossing Broad: I gotta be honest; the last time you guys did this, for the season opener, I looked at the crowd photos and was kind of shocked. This place was packed. I assume you were not shocked.

Joe Marsh: Not anymore. But if you would have asked me that in January of last year, I think our first watch party had something like 300 people at Wahoo’s. As the season progressed we started building the fan base. This was all from scratch, you know? We were a hockey team with no esports experience, so we had no fans. Then we had to shoot content and shoot video for a team that was playing on the west coast, so it’s kind of hard to attract a fan base when your talent is across the country. But once we reached the playoffs it kind of spiked from there with the underdog video. We brought the guys to (Philadelphia) and did a thousand people twice. The first watch party had 800 people pre-register before they even walked in the door. Consistently drawing a thousand people each time is pretty good.

Moe after the jump:

Crossing Broad: When I come to one of these events and I’m looking at the crowd here, who am I seeing? Am I seeing young? Old? Men? Women? What is the demographic of the Fusion fan base?

Marsh: You’re definitely seeing young. But you’re seeing a lot more women, even as far as merchandise sales it’s 60/40 women, which is surprising, because most games you’ll see the stats and it’s 88% male fans vs. 12% female. But at live events, purchasing merchandise, it’s primarily female. Even in Korea, when we go there, a lot of the fans are women. The fans here are female, but it’s not because they like one player, it’s because they like and play the game. A lot of young fans, too, the average age is probably 14 to 25. We do see older fans because it’s parents bringing their kids down here. I always like to chat up the fans that are sitting there and they say, ‘I have no idea what’s going on, but my kid likes it, so I take them down here,’ and I’m thinking ‘cool, that’s awesome.’

Crossing Broad: Do you see a cross-section of… I guess I should ask it this way – What is the cross-section of Philadelphia Fusion fans that are also interested in the Sixers, Eagles, Flyers, and Phillies –

Marsh: Four for four.

Crossing Broad: Yeah, the old cliche we hammer into dust is this “four for four” thing. Do you see the Fusion fan base interfacing with those other sports?

Marsh: I think the biggest benefit that we have as a team is the fact that we’re a Philadelphia-based team. Because you have that built-in (idea of) ‘you’re from Dallas and I’m from Philadelphia, so we hate you.’ Overwatch is the only geo-based game right now, so we have a market, we have a home base to go to. We have that built-in kind of grounding, but the difference is our fans, a lot of them could never relate to traditional sports, that four for four idea. But when video games like Overwatch came out, now they can relate to that (mentality). Now you’re seeing the same passion you’d see with a Sixers or Flyers game watching one of our matches. When we went to the grand finals in Brooklyn (last summer), that was primarily Philly fans. We bused them up there and they were the loudest people in the building. That same fighting spirit, the cheering, the never give up attitude, it’s carrying over. It’s what we do in Philadelphia. It’s kind of ingrained in you.

Crossing Broad: Older people who might not be familiar with esports, they always get hung up on this idea of, ‘why am I going to sit around and watch somebody else play video games?‘ I’m sure you guys have heard it a million times now and tried to combat that narrative a million times now. What’s your answer to that?

Marsh: It’s the same question asked right back to them. Why do you want to watch a basketball game when you’re never going to be able to dunk? You might be the size of Muggsy Bogues, but you’re not Muggsy Bogues. Why would you want to watch the Eagles play? Because you’re never going to be able to throw a 50-yard touchdown. It’s the same concept. You just enjoy watching someone who is the best at something ply their trade. It’s the same thing in video games. I can play a video game, then I play against one of our guys and I suck. If I played pickup basketball with LeBron, I’d lose 10-0. I’d lose 10-9 if he spotted me nine points. You just like to watch the best in the world do what they do, and that’s the reply to that.

Philadelphia Fusion/Comcast-Spectacor

Crossing Broad: One of the things I find intriguing about esports is that when I was a kid, I hated sitting around watching other people play. I’m a thirty-something year old kid from the suburbs –

Marsh: Me too (laughs).

Crossing Broad: So you can relate. We would sit around, and if someone else had the Nintendo 64 controller, I got bored. Now you’ve got kids growing up, a generation that experts say are addicted to their phones, they can’t sit still, everybody has A.D.D. or whatever, yet here we are in 2019 and they’re watching other people play games. I guess the question is, what changed? Is it the advent of the internet? Twitch? Accessibility? Why is it different now?

Marsh: I think it’s the internet and it’s also the sites you can go to. If you go on Twitch, you can look at any kind of content. It’s like going down a rabbit hole on Youtube and you start looking at Kimbo Slice fights.

Crossing Broad: I wanna watch Soundgarden videos.

Marsh. Yeah, exactly. Twitch brings you some of the best gameplay in the world. In the NBA, we don’t get to see those guys practice. We just see them playing the game. Gaming fans are allowed to see that. They stream. Our players go stream, and you watch them have fun and goof off and talk to them, interact with them on their streams and donate money and support them.

Croossing Broad: People do the same thing with Youtube stars and influencers, they’ll just sit there and consume their content for hours at a time. It’s really not that much different.

Marsh: No, it’s not. I think it’s more – with Youtube you can’t interact with those people in real time. You can type comments. On Twitch, I could make a donation and you can respond and say, ‘hey Joe, that was awesome, thank you.‘ For that person, it’s a big deal to them. You can interact with them. It’s the connectivity. I think it’s a lot of that, and having the accessibility on your phone. A lot of our fans, you’ll see them in there double screening and they’re looking at the phone, they’re interacting on Twitter, they’re watching their tweets on the big board. It’s the ability to multitask and do more than one thing and I think that’s what separates the young vs the old crowd. And I’m like you, I grew up playing Goldeneye in the basement, no Oddjob.

Crossing Broad: Yeah, no Oddjob, remote mines in the facility.

Marsh: In college we’d play Call of Duty with the door open and talk trash.

Crossing Broad: Halo was big, too.

Marsh: Yeah, so we’d do the same exact thing, but now it’s online. Before it was just in person, and now it’s gone global. You can be in your house with your headset on and people say it’s anti-social, when you might be talking to someone in Israel.

Crossing Broad: Right, you could argue that it’s the total opposite of being anti-social.

Marsh: For sure.

On the big screen, esports. On the small screen, Sixers pregame live.

Crossing Broad: So tell me about the new arena.

Marsh: Been working on that for a year. Originally when we looked at it, we were trying to go to University City, where the critical mass of college students is located. Timing wasn’t going to work out. So when they offered us the plot of land next to Xfinity Live, which – this was always in the master plan, to build an arena or an amphitheater here –

Crossing Broad: Yeah, and I remember the original blueprints for this place, and it was supposed to be bigger.

Marsh: Yes. This was supposed to be bigger and there was supposed to be an arena there. When they offered us the land we jumped at it. We interviewed architects and found Populous. Since the fall we’d been designing and trying to find the right fit, and what you saw a few weeks ago is what we’ve got. It’s 3,500 seats with traditional arena amenities, so our training center will be in there. It’s got full-on production space and a media room. Then you look at premium seating. You have club seats, you have box seats with TVs that show you the perspective of a player on the stage. You have traditional suites and a VIP back bar. Everything you’d find in a traditional arena is there. It just happens to house an esports team, but it’s also fit for concerts and comedy shows and all that other stuff.

Crossing Broad: Last one for you, and this is kind of an open-ended question. If I was sitting in the Fusion board meeting and y’all were talking about strategies to move this thing forward, what would I be hearing? What are some of the immediate goals to grow this thing and get more people interested?

Marsh: I think getting more colleges in the amateur scene involved. The NCAA is never going to regulate gaming. Players get paid right now, so you’d run into the same argument traditional sports is having right now – getting paid vs. scholarship. These colleges are now giving out scholarships for gaming, but they’re able to collect prize money.

CB: So if I was on the League of Legends team at Penn State or whatever, I could get paid for that?

Marsh: Yeah. When you enter tournaments, you get prize money. Certain schools, like Harrisburg University, which is one of our sponsors, they actually give you a scholarship to play there, AND you get your prize money. So you’re kind of double dipping anyway, which then gets you into the age-old argument with the NCAA and paying athletes in traditional sports. I think servicing that scene, getting more colleges involved, getting more high schools involved (is important). The City of Philadelphia was kicking around starting a league this spring. Programming our venue with those types of events – because we only have 14 nights a year with the Fusion – it makes you think about what you want to do with the rest. It’s amateur events, getting those collegiate events, then also getting major events in Europe and the west coast to come here. And there’s always going to be the next new game, so like now it’s Apex Legends, being first to those things is what’s going to drive a new market. Games are going to fade. League of Legends has been around for a decade-plus, but then you have games like Fortnite, which has been around for two years-plus. That could fade away. Call of Duty popped, then didn’t really go anywhere. Sea of Thieves was hot for like three minutes. You’re always going to have the next fly-by-night game, it’s about capitalizing on that fan base. There’s a lot of crossover in hosting events. The live event experience is what makes gaming that much better than watching online. It’s like hockey. Watching hockey is much more exciting in person than on TV. Watching playoff hockey is even that much better.

….

Thanks for reading.

Let’s go Fusion.

The post On Philadelphia and Video Gaming: A Conversation with Fusion Chief Business Officer Joe Marsh appeared first on Crossing Broad.

On Philadelphia and Video Gaming: A Conversation with Fusion Chief Business Officer Joe Marsh published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

[punknrasslin]

PCW Road To Glory 2018

Show 2 & 3 of a 4 day weekend then, hence why I’m writing these one by one in the week after the shows. Status- tired. In dire need of a weeks nap & strong coffee. Can now recite the whole vegan Spoons menu, by the time this year is out it’ll be bedded in my brain for all eternity.

So, onto PCW then. Usual home venue here of Evoque, conveniently located in between a Yates & Fishers with a Spoons (the old faithful) opposite side of the road. With many takeaways within staggering distance for those who are into that. Evoque prices considering this is a club aren’t awful. £3 for a Vodka Diet Coke. Was sat front row for this one, sat to the right of the aisle with a fantastic ringside view. Defiantly worth the few extra pounds!

Two shows a day as per PCW rule, one afternoon one evening with a 9PM finish. The afternoon show begins with a quarter final RTG Tournament match between Dean Allmark & ‘Loose Ledge’ Adam Brooks. Course with it being an afternoon encounter we begin with Allmark ‘Dabbing’ on request along with referee Des & Brooks half heartedly. It appeals to the family audience it’s a comic relief for the kids but I personally don’t get it. Good match though & Allmark advances.

We move on to the second tournament of the event then to the Tag Teams. Polo Promotions getting eliminated (any wise fans will of noticed they were booked in Carlisle in the evening so no shock). Not a fan of Polo myself but each to their own. Also elsewhere, a newly reformed Team Single advance. But I must point out one name here not just for in ring ability but also fan interaction. Sugar. Dunkerton. Ever watched the Raw after mania & heard the crowd chants & thought ‘they really get this guy he’s over’. It’s that but in a nightclub in Preston. Reworking Sugar Sugar by The Archers into Dunkertons name. Kudos to the boys for that one provided me with endless amusement & it was truly a moment to say ‘I was there’. Sugar, Do Do Do Do Do Do...

Must really focus on the matches here though. The afternoon main event was one of the best I’ve seen in a while, certainly the best PCW have offered up in a while, between Mat ‘Bro!’ Riddle & Zack Sabre JNR. Edge of the seat stuff from bell to bell, truly fantastic in ring contest. If this opens new eyes to the Indy style of British Wrestling then so be it it’s a fantastic starting point for those newer to the scene.

One minor criticism here, PCW only allowing an hour between show 1 & 2. Including a meet & greet with a current wwe roster member (Apollo Crews). Baffling really but I guess needs must for a 9PM finish. In ring photos with Apollo for £10, usual. Still time for the Spoons noodles & a decent view of the afternoon rugby between England & Wales.

The evening show then & it’s Semi Finals time. The only match I didn’t get out of the singles matches was ironically between the 2 biggest names on the card. Moose vs Apollo Crews (referred to here as his Indy character Uhaa Nation). It’s for some not for me, sections of the crowd seemed a little distracted during it but the kids were impressed to see 2 men usually seen on their tele on the flesh. Dean Allmark vs Sabre JNR was more my thing on paper but when it came down to it, bit of a anti climax. Sabre looking unhappy after the match also, but it sets up a an Allmark Crews final.

I must touch more on the tag semi final here but what I really mean is I must mention the crowd reaction to the Dunkamania/Big T & Tel Match. Which couldn’t start for the first 5 minuted due to, well, a very loud crowd reaction to Dunkerton. Tel playing his heel perfect diving into the loudest section of fans & trying to silence them. Of course it only makes them louder. And of course this chant goes well into the match & even continues as interval entertainment which apparently was streamed instead of commercial on Powerbomb.TV so kudos Andy, Geoff & the lads for that one, which I believe began with a simple Simpsons related tweet. It started on Twitter it ended with a room full of people catching on & clapping, singing, dancing. Truly never smiled so much at a show!!! Still got the darned tune in my head!

Moving on from crowd movements, it’s into the two finals we go. Firstly, the tags. Team Single taking on Tel & Big T (booooooooooooOoooooo, Dunk were over as). The tag final wasn’t bad, Tel is a good heel playing off the little guy using a bigger tag partner to win matches. It nearly worked but Single emerge as newly crowned tag champs. So TBone is now both PCW Champion & one half of the tag champs.

Singles final then the winner getting a future title shot. Allmark going up against wwe raws Apollo ‘Uhaa Nation’ Crews. Logic here says Allmark will win seeing as Uhaa is shall we say otherwise employed in the states. And it does end that way but it’s a big match for Dean who steps up to the bigger stage well. An ambassador of British Wrestling who’s now getting recognition. Future title shot for him.

All in all, a good show. PCW have pulled out the big guns for this with brining Uhaa back 1 night only to bring in the casuals. A decent sized crowd, bigger than usual for PCW. Had the delight of catching up with some old friends here too, as this was the first promotion I really went to regularly. In recent years their crowds have somewhat dwindled but with the card, plus the fact it’s RTG it bring a fair few faces back.

Headed to bed to blog about Fridays Liverpool trip after the event, no post-wres partying. Hey, a man gotta rest. Had to be up Sunday for Progress!

All in all, a great middle of a stacked weekend. Blog number 3 covering sundays graps up soon I promise. And as those who attended will know, it was a bit of a good one. Have a lovely week all and I’ll put a little something up in a couple of days.

Jx

Blog soundtracked by.. The Archers. YOU ARE MY DUNKERTOOOON & YOU GOT ME WATCHING YOU! A 1, 2, 3, 4.. SUGAR!!!!!!!

[junker-town]

Here are all the signs that prove Miami is officially back

The Canes had a statement 41-8 victory over Notre Dame.

The Miami Hurricanes made a dang statement on Saturday night by beating the No. 3 Notre Dame Fighting Irish 41-8 in Hard Rock Stadium. With the victory, the Canes made a return to national relevance that we haven’t seen since the early 2000s.

Now that it’s safe to declare Miami’s quality is officially back, here are all the signs that show The U’s returned swagger.

Miami’s home stadium isn’t the old Orange Bowl, but it rocks just as hard as that place once did.

Notre Dame senior LB Drue Tranquill: "Credit to their fans, that was the loudest game I ever played in."

— Christopher Stock (@InsideTheU) November 12, 2017

During the dark Al Golden Era, empty seats were a staple of Hard Rock Stadium. But since Mark Richt’s arrival, the place has been lit with Miami swag:

Last season, Miami announced that the average paid attendance was 58,572. That was the program’s highest since 2004 (59,134) and fifth-best ever. During 2017’s game against Virginia Tech, the attendance was 63,932, just under max capacity.

“Miami is an event city,” Underwood said. “A Saturday night, primetime, national TV game is an event. It is no surprise that the crowd last week was awesome. I fully expect that to continue in the future. Miami is getting back to the kind of performance we all expect, and South Florida supports winners.”

It’s loud. Like. Really. Really. Loud. http://pic.twitter.com/xalu1KQfkK

— Miami Hurricanes (@MiamiHurricanes) November 12, 2017

You guys brought it tonight and we felt it on the field. Thank you, Canes fans. http://pic.twitter.com/8gB5qx709K

— Respect (@CanesFootball) November 12, 2017

Richt has Miami winning it again, but the team is playing by his rules.

This isn’t the U from glory days of the 1980s-2000s that was perpetuated by a bad boy image within the program. Richt has brought the swag back to Coral Gables with a much more quiet demeanor. Before a game last season, he told his players what he thinks the definition of what Miami swag really is:

“Everybody talks about Miami having ‘swag,’” Richt said before 2016’s Appalachian State game. “When I took this job, all they wanted to talk about [was], ‘Is Miami getting the swag back?’ I said, ‘You know what? Swag ain’t dancing to me. Swag ain’t saying, ‘I got a first down.’ Swag ain’t swaying before a kickoff and they run back to the 45-yard line.

“Swag is whooping the man on the other side of you! That’s what swag is. Swag is, when the game’s over, we win the game! That’s what swag is.

“I don’t care what the boys did in the past. The reason why it was swag is because they WON! Not because they had some kind of antic. You understand what I’m saying? I’m counting on every one of you guys to whoop the man across from you, EVERY. SINGLE. PLAY.”

And the Catholics vs. Convicts schtick that made up the Miami-ND rivalry in the past doesn’t really hold true either, thanks to the way Richt is running things:

As far as Miami’s concerned, these Canes are markedly different than their predecessors.

I’m not sure that even Miami fans really know what to do with them. This team has swagger, but it isn’t the same as it was in the 1980s or early 2000s.

They win, but they’re not doing it with rosters loaded on both sides with NFL talent. There is no Seventh Floor Crew, no boat parties with rogue boosters, and no Cocaine Cowboys-era excess.

No team is devoid of disciplinary issues. A walk-on QB was arrested for DUI and cocaine possession last September, and two were arrested for resisting arrest right before Mark Richt’s first spring practice. The QB is no longer on the roster, but the other two had their charges dropped and remain with the program.

At Georgia, Richt embraced one of the more strict drug policies in the country. The origin of the “Mark Richt has lost control” meme sprang from him constantly suspending and booting players for infractions that many other schools would’ve handled more quietly. So in fact, Richt tends to exercise more control that most coaches.

Also, this team is actually disciplined!

Miami had one penalty, and it was delay of game? The U is not back.

— Chris Vannini (@ChrisVannini) November 12, 2017

Saturday night’s game was bigger on TV in Miami than Dolphins’ games.

According to the Miami Herald, the game had a higher TV rating than a lot of Dolphins games:

The UM-Notre Dame game was seen in more than 32,000 more homes locally than the Miami Dolphins’ first Sunday night game this decade, just six nights earlier.

Per the newspaper, it also ranked higher than every 2017 Dolphins game, and higher than every Heat game since Game 7 of the Heat-Raptors Eastern Conference semifinals game in 2016.

Legendary Miami figures are having fun watching The U again.

That was the nail we needed! Folks you can start telling all your friends @CanesFootball is fo real https://t.co/eIhLQ1t3nb

— Michael Irvin (@michaelirvin88) November 12, 2017

I know everyone was saying I was speaking to soon. Let me ask again. Wha y’all got to say NOW about @CanesFootball LIVES

— Michael Irvin (@michaelirvin88) November 12, 2017

Ed Reed got to see Miami’’s big win first-hand.

.@TwentyER is HYPE! http://pic.twitter.com/f2JWrRuC2I

— Miami Hurricanes (@MiamiHurricanes) November 12, 2017

Proud to be #MiamiHurricanes fan..Mark Richt and his staff had this team well prepared and ready to play. Go Canes!

— Jimmy Johnson (@JimmyJohnson) November 12, 2017

This has literally been me every second of this game! #GoCanes #proud http://pic.twitter.com/fPXV9WZNGL

— Jimmy Graham (@TheJimmyGraham) November 12, 2017

It’s all about the U! I’m proud to say I’ve been bleeding orange and green for 14 years! We back! #MIAvsND #GoCanes http://pic.twitter.com/C9K9kBaKdT

— Jimmy Graham (@TheJimmyGraham) November 12, 2017

For those that said we couldn’t do it or that we weren’t ready for tonight’s game...thank . We’re back & we’re going to be a problem for everyone in college football again. Let’s go #Canes!!! #NDvsMIA

— Jarrett Payton (@paytonsun) November 12, 2017

I can’t wait to hear every reason @CanesFootball doesn’t deserve to be in top 4 next week. Should be fun

— Greg Olsen (@gregolsen88) November 12, 2017

Before the game, former Miami linebacker Ray Lewis posted a pep talk:

Let’s go Canes @CanesFootball #theU #MiamiHurricanes http://pic.twitter.com/3ebwxgZYw1

— Ray Lewis (@raylewis) November 11, 2017

Of course Uncle Luke loves it.

What made me the most happiest tonight was we did not rush the field like other schools who haven't beaten anyone when you have 5 Rings that's something you don't do

— LUTHER R CAMPBELL (@unclelukereal1) November 12, 2017

Even the Miami Heat like what the Canes are doing!

BIG TIME WIN @CanesFootball! TURNOVER CHAIN! TURNOVER CHAIN! TURNOVER CHAIN! TURNOVER CHAIN!

— Miami HEAT (@MiamiHEAT) November 12, 2017

The turnover chain is next-level Miami swag.

These badass Cuban links adorn the neck of any Canes player who gets a takeaway:

Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports

They’re created by Miami’s own AJ the Jeweler, an idea spawned by former Cane Vince Wilfork. It is awesome, and probably the best of college football’s sideline props. And the links look familiar to anyone who’s seen a rapper from South Florida.

27-0 http://pic.twitter.com/CgApYSXGin

— SB Nation CFB (@SBNationCFB) November 12, 2017

After the victory, Richt claimed victory by the turnover chain itself.

The turnover chain is here to stay. http://pic.twitter.com/bP8dEX5BFP

— ESPN CollegeFootball (@ESPNCFB) November 12, 2017

The Canes celebrate big wins by chanting “YEET” in the locker room, and it’s glorious.

Yeeeaaaaahhhh. That was fun. http://pic.twitter.com/fYolfq3oCX

— Respect (@CanesFootball) November 12, 2017

Last week, the Canes surprised Richt with a locker room Gatorade bath beforehand.

Got ‘eeeeemmmmmm! http://pic.twitter.com/cL9KUJN4uj

— Respect (@CanesFootball) November 5, 2017

Miami even got Jeb! Bush to brag about college football. Hilariously, his followers were not interested.

It’s over. We are back.

— Jeb Bush (@JebBush) November 12, 2017

Some of the real gems here are in the 280-character responses.

Back to what? The Era of Political Dynasty Families like the Clintons and the Bushes is OVER. My advice is find a real job and work for a living like the rest of us. Americans are fed up with the Globalists and Washington elitists who hate America.

— Dragonforce_One (@DragonForce_One) November 12, 2017

Jeb your delusional. Americans now say they have had enough of the Bushs.Your father, Brother & you are just like the Clintons, Anti American Globalists. None of you spoke up while Obama tried to destroy USA. Now you criticize OUR BELOVED PRESIDENT TRUMP.#MAGA GO AWAY

— Build The Wall (@LAMOONLYNN) November 12, 2017

One great account decided to remind Jeb! of when he turned his Presidential campaign in 2015 into a college football marketing tour.

We didn't forget this, Jeb. http://pic.twitter.com/V7gaArxBU6

— The Fraternity (@TheFraternityBR) November 12, 2017

Miami’s Twitter account has also been gloriously dunking on doubters all season.

To a since-deleted tweet from USA Today’s Dan Wolken that read “Miami is so fraudulent,” the account responded with this after last week’s 28-10 win over Virginia Tech:

sup. https://t.co/vtvLsIdCy4

— Respect (@CanesFootball) November 5, 2017

After this week’s game, Wolken was trending throughout the city:

Dan Wolken, @danwolken is now trending in #Miamihttps://t.co/l436IbrUt8 http://pic.twitter.com/2tqU2ohbis

— Trendsmap Miami (@TrendsMiami) October 15, 2017

TWITTER ADVISORY: No one is safe...

— Respect (@CanesFootball) November 12, 2017

And finally, Vanilla Ice’s victory mustache?

WOOOOOOOOW !!! #MiamiHurricanes @CanesFootball @univmiami #SuperStash http://pic.twitter.com/qERtcIP7gn

— Vanilla Ice (@vanillaice) November 12, 2017

You may not want to believe it, but Miami is definitely back, folks, All is right in the college football world.

[shinriki]

About Ship wars

Ok, well don't say I didn't warn you. A couple terms first: * Shipping - Derived from "relationship." Imagining two characters being romantic. This is usually accompanied by producing fanworks that depict those characters in a romantic situation. The relationship can be canonical or not, and the fan works can be everything from PG handholding to XXX vore. (If someone ships Kylo Ren/Rey it means they like to think of them in a romantic/sexual relationship.) The pairing itself is called a ship. * Shipwar - When shippers of two different ships attack each other over their ships. * Wank - common fandom term for drama * Antis - People who invest energy in attacking shippers of a particular ship, and employ arguments of morality of social justice to do so. * Fandom in this case refers to a particular subset of fandom that is traditionally female oriented, focuses a lot of male/male pairings, and often chooses fanfiction as its primary output. There are 2 big things to remember as you read this. 1) Some people are SUPER SERIOUS about fictional characters getting it on together, and 2) they will use any means at their disposal to stop people from doing it wrong. Imagine the ridiculousness of PS vs. Nintendo fanboys ratcheted up to 11 and you get an idea of how some fans approach shipping. Generic ship wars have been happening for a very long time. If you thought Harry Potter deserved to fall in love with Draco Malfoy and Ginny was the devil you were in good company and would gather together to get those dirty Ginny fans run out of the internet. Bad actors have always been around to exploit this, either to troll, or to worm their way into popular or rarefied circles. [The Ms. Scribe Story](http://web.archive.org/web/20140401225619/http://www.peeep.us/0418dc98) is a good example of what the old school shipwars could produce as far as wank was concerned. And in it you see the seed of what would become the modern "Anti" mentality, which is framing yourself as a victim of bigots to win sympathy points, all for the purpose of forwarding your preference of who bangs who. This portion of fandom has always been closely linked with genre fiction, since many people in the latter are engaged in the former. Genre fiction had and still has some issues concerning race, sexism, and homophobia, which is par for the course in almost all media everywhere. In 2009 those issues came into contact with some MASSIVE WANKERS, leading to what continues to be known as [Race Fail '09](https://fanlore.org/wiki/RaceFail_%2709). A lot of people don't know this, but the term Social Justice Warrior started to pick up usage around this time, to define some very particular, very caustic people who were destroying communities by claiming the moral high ground and attacking anyone who had an opinion even slightly different from them. A few of them are listed at that link. It quickly became apparent that pointing the finger and claiming -ism! was an efficient method of silencing certain people. Fandom, however, remained relatively insulated from this fail, which was spreading mostly in certain websites and in professional circles at the time. In '09 the internet was still relatively decentralized, and fandom was dispersed among various livejournals, archives, webforums, and so on. This limited the damage one movement could do, because just because Winterfox was shitting up one site didn't mean there was another that hadn't escaped unscathed. Enter web 2.0, and specifically, Tumblr. As the internet began to coalesce into platforms that aimed to monopolize user engagement, the separation between communities grew more and more difficult. Before, if you wanted to see Kylo Ren and General Hux having kinky tentacle sex you went to a community specifically for that and didn't have to worry about those people who had their own community for Rey and Finn. But now, all the shippers were converging into a single pot, a pot that had no filters, no privacy functions, and actively wanted everything to be shared as widely as possible. Another massive change that happened about this time is that the attitude towards kids in fandom had shifted. Back in the good old days a 13 year old understood that lying about their age was the price you paid to get your porn. The kids these days no longer have that mentality. They don't think twice about declaring themselves children on the internet. This will come into play later. Ok, as we near the present here's a quick review. * Ship wars are serious business to some people. * Screaming about social justice is a proven method of getting people to shut up. * There are some crazy people out there who will do anything to manipulate themselves into a position of infamy. * Everyone has slowly been squeezed into the same fandom spaces, adding pressure. * Children are fucking everywhere. When you combine all those elements what you get is this, some really loud ass motherfuckers who think that whoever can claim oppression and bigotry the loudest is the one who deserves to ship things the way they want, and there can be only one. There have been some reaaaaaallly bad fandoms for this, but since the OP is specifically about the age issue, I'm going to stick to that and not get into some of the ridiculous racism angles this has also taken. A lot of shows that fans like to ship for are cartoons, or shows that are ostensibly aimed towards younger audiences, but adults often are a big portion of the fandom. Ponybros are the more infamous version of this, but they are a bit of an outlier as they don't run in the same fandom circles as the old lj>tumblr fandom that is the source of this particular wank. Big targets of these conflicts include Welcome to Nightvale, Homestuck, Steven Universe, and the new Voltron series. When Voltron came out it got super popular among fandom. A lot of fic was written, and a lot of art was drawn. Since it's a show with a team cast, people were shipping a lot of pairings that shared a member, which is often where the worst of the ship wars happen. For example, two of the biggest ships were Shiro/Keith, and Keith/Lance. Now if you're a kid who ships Keith/Lance and haaaates Shiro/Keith, and you need to stop people from producing things involving Shiro/Keith, and you know accusing people of moral crimes is an effective tactic for this, it turns out your best option is to use pedophilia as a weapon. So people started insisting that Shiro had to be at least 20, and Keith had to be a minor, and shipping these two meant that you were a pedophile. No, it doesn't make any sense, but the people who do this are dead serious about this. They called themselves anti-Sheith (the pairing's "smushname") and went so far as harassing the showrunners for the exact ages of all the characters and tattling on professional artists for indicating a fondness for the ship to their employers. And if people push back and say you're being an idiot, you can throw that back in their face by saying that they are adults abusing minors while simultaneously endorsing abuse and pedophilia! 20 year olds started calling themselves children so they could position themselves in a place to abuse 22 year olds. Teens started declaring 30 the age in which all women should get off the internet and stop having hobbies. And all this was done because they didn't like a fictional pairing. This is by far not the only instance in which pedophilia was brought up as a massive reach to support attacking shippers of the wrong ship. One of the most absurd instances was spearheaded by a 30-something woman named graceebooks, a member of The Johnlock Conspiracy (another very deep rabbit hole) who actually harassed a rape survivor to tears, in public, because she preferred to have Sherlock topping John rather than John topping Sherlock, and even though these people share the same ship, and the SAME FICTIONAL CHARACTERS ARE INVOLVED, the TJLCers actually had the balls to make the claim that Sherlock topping John = pedophilia because John was being infantalized or something, IDEK. Both Voltron fandom and TJLC share this absurd notion that their "gay babies" will become a canon couple too. That's a whoooole other ball of crazy, but it explains why some people go insane over this. They genuinely believe that if they fight off the rival ships in fandom space the showrunners will reward them by making their faves kiss on the show. So that's the context. What then happened is that these idiotic arguments that were being used for ship wars were then adopted by young, stupid children who did not understand or care about the context, and saw only the arguments themselves, and took them as reasonable and good arguments, and believe in them completely. While most of the initial wankers were just cynically throwing shit at the wall and hoping something stuck to drive out rival ships, there are now a large number of people who believe in a moral code that came out of that. It's like watching a religion form sometimes. The end result is OP, who has bought into a convoluted logic process developed to legitimize the harassment of shippers, and is now trying to apply it to the actual real world, with predictable results. Soucrce: Redditor shares a detailed explanation of how Tumblr's fandom culture formed into the mess it is today, complete with examples. https://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/6b5ke3/redditor_shares_a_detailed_explanation_of_how/

[flauntpage]

Have We Learned Nothing? – A Sixers Column

Bitch, whine, moan.

Sob, fret, complain.

Gripe, grumble, cry.

That’s what I heard from MANY – not ALL – but MANY Sixers fans on Saturday night, the entirety of Sunday, and also Monday morning when I reluctantly opened Twitter.

I’m willing to bet that the loudest complainers were anti-Process types who just came back to the bandwagon this year, set unrealistic expectations for a squad featuring a rookie point guard, second-year center, and second-year power forward, then went off the deep end spitting nonsense after a team with zero playoff experience failed to meet the outrageous goals that THEY THEMSELVES set.

Take a breather.

The Sixers are down 3-0 to a better team with a better coach as of May 7th, 2018. Ben Simmons, Joel Embiid, and Brett Brown have disappointed under the brightest glow of the still-nascent spotlight. There’s no disputing that. I think everyone is in agreement that the coach and the two stars have underwhelmed, though I’d also extend that to Dario Saric and Robert Covington and a number of the veterans who have actually been here before. Nobody is blameless.

Does that mean that the players suck and the coach should be fired and the general manager should resign? No, of course not. It means that the more experienced team with the more experienced players (minus future superstar Jayson Tatum) simply took round one in what will inevitably become the Eastern Conference’s premier rivalry over the next half-decade.

That’s it. That’s the explanation. That is William of Ockham’s razor. 

Yet here we are, doing what Philadelphia always does, and proclaiming the franchise dead and buried and flattened to the point of no return.

“They’ve been EXPOSED!” is a local favorite.

Can we please stop using that word? He got “exposed.” She got “exposed.” We say it as if coaches and players and executives can never evolve or learn or adapt, as if once a flaw is exploited, it always remains.

There are a million examples of people who were once “exposed” but figured it out and turned it around. Doug Pederson and Nick Foles come to mind. How about LeBron James? Jared Goff? 2004 Drew Brees vs. 2003 Drew Brees? Even Sergio Garcia won The Masters.

Of course the counterpoint to that is Byron Maxwell, so I’ll give you that one, but let’s continue with the Eagles theme.

These knee-jerk, “fire everyone” types are the same fans who became so irrationally flustered when the Eagles hit the wall after starting 3-0 with a rookie quarterback and first-year head coach. That pair, Pederson and Carson Wentz, won the franchise its first Super Bowl the very next season. Same thing with the cross-section of fans who complained about Earl Thomas vs. Brandon Graham for YEARS. “Why did we draft THIS GUY when we should have drafted THAT GUY!” Blah blah blahhhhhhhhh! Well, the guy you loved to hate just secured the Lombardi trophy. Jason Kelce basically wrote this column for me when he highlighted every criticism of a championship squad.

Have we learned nothing?

It’s obvious that we as a group of media, fans, and Philly people in general lack the simple ability to evaluate recent history and apply it to likewise scenarios. It’s like a provincial version of “Batman Begins,” where instead of pouring that hallucinogen into the Gotham water supply, the villain instead creates a drug that forces all Philadelphia sports fans to grow up with advanced-stage nearsightedness.

Here’s the thing; the best trait of the Philadelphia sports fan – unconditional support and emotional attachment – is also the worst trait of the Philadelphia sports fan, because it results in a recurring and collective lack of critical thinking and temperance.

I said at the beginning of the season that I felt like 2017-18 was a developmental bridge. This was the campaign that was supposed to connect the end of “Process” era to the beginning of the competitive era. The goals were to establish Ben Simmons, Joel Embiid, and Markelle Fultz as cornerstone players, qualify for the postseason, and get that crucial April and May experience under your belt. They hit all but one of those goals (Fultz).

A final and related goal, in my opinion, was to head into this offseason with a full understanding of what you currently have and what you are also lacking, which I’d have to label as incomplete because of Fultz debacle. If Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid are known quantities now carrying crucial regular and postseason experience, then Fultz is still sitting on the basketball tarmac and waiting for takeoff.

I think one of the problems is what I mentioned earlier, the fact that people who are just returning to the Sixers are expecting immediate success. The contrast is that the Sam Hinkie/Process supporters are extra-patient by default, so it creates a large disparity, or maybe a wider spectrum I would say, that separates each respective end of the Sixers’ fan base. Lost and forsaken in the expansive middle is the calm and rational fan who says, “you know what, I’m disappointed right now, but they’ve taken a lot of steps forward this year.”

The Sixers have talked about adjusting expectations this year, the idea that their goals changed as they figured out that they were better than advertised. First it was playoffs, then it was home court, then it was 50 wins. I appreciated that from a competitive standpoint but didn’t find it to be healthy in regard to practicality. I’ll go to the grave believing that expectations must be set at the beginning of the season and can’t be placed on a sliding scale, because progress is best documented in larger chunks that incorporate a more robust sample size or body of work.

Look at the treasure trove of information Bryan Colangelo and Brett Brown now have, RE: what’s wrong and what needs to be fixed. This ass kicking is so valuable to the Sixers because it puts their glaring weaknesses on display for everyone to see. If they didn’t know it before, they now understand exactly what teams are going to do to slow them down and bottle up Ben Simmons. They know that they need players who can create their own shot on offense. They know what Embiid has to do to improve his low post game. There’s data and film on turnovers, rebounds, transition opportunities, dribble hand-offs, horns, SLOBs, and every play imaginable.

They’ve got the entire summer to figure out.

If Bryan Colangelo blows the offseason, or you see a lack of improvement next year, then you absolutely start thinking about the head coach and the strategy that’s currently in place. As far as I’m concerned, this was year number one for the coach and year number two for the GM, and the latter has much more on his shoulders than the former.

All of that said, this season was a wild success. You’ve got two young superstars, a couple of key supplemental pieces, and a road map for the future. To say otherwise is total horse shit, no matter whether you were pro-process, anti-process, somewhere between ambivalent and apathetic.

We all just need to be a bit more like Andy Reid. We need to “do a better job” of taking the erudite long view and suppressing our hereditary knee-jerk myopia, because it’s utterly rudimentary and pointless and makes us look like jabronies.

    Have We Learned Nothing? – A Sixers Column published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/