#and all of that is fine it’s not genuinely something I have an issue with

[euniexenoblade]

any tips for dealing with hatemail? i get the general idea but something about being accused of bigotry with no evidence really irks me because I want to sort out any issues I have but I can't from the type of thing in hate mail and I have a feeling that's intentional to take advantage of my good will. is there anything you think would be good to keep in mind so I can not block out people giving genuine criticisms while also not spiraling? (I'm fine atm but I'm assuming the anons are only going to get worse with time)

The thing is, if you make a real mistake the people who help you realize it are not going to be anonymous name callers. That isn't to say that the people telling you that you fucked up will be nice about it, but hatemail has like, a structure to it. And people wanting to tell you you're spitting bigotry or propaganda will generally do it with their name shown. I do not take criticism from anonymous seriously, you shouldn't either.

On average someone is going to reach out via dms, privately, and talk things out with you. Granted, not 100% of the time, but it's nice to have your embarrassment private, and most people know that. Most people around you know you're a good person and want you to be the best you that you can be without making you look like a fool with zany one liners for notes.

Really, it's just identify their angle. Is the asker misgendering you? Calling you names? Questioning your intelligence? Weaponizing bigotry against you? What does the asker have to gain from this? To embarrass you? To hurt you? To teach you? Hatemail tends to be hyperbolic "you hate all trans men wahh!" Like of course you don't.

It depends but hate ail functions on vibes tbh. If the person isn't willing to say it off anon, it's bullshit.

[utilitycaster]

On the heels of your critique of C3's pacing and the sludginess of it all—something I have been contemplating lately is how the perceived need (certainly ICly and seemingly OOCly) for BH to move at a breakneck speed from event to event has had an effect on inter-party discussions and bonding that I find really pretty tragic. I can't help but wonder, would we be dealing with the indecision and rehashed circular debates we're seeing now if the party had been able to take the downtime they needed to really get to know themselves and each other, and to better define what's important to them? I often see people expressing frustration about how badly certain characters "need to TALK to each other!!!" but to date, I just don't know if the pace of the campaign has created many opportunities for that. And that's the thing I miss the most about the previous campaigns, just having more breathing room to let the characters and their relationships develop organically. I dunno. Increasingly I feel like these are interconnected issues.

I think I've talked about this before so I don't want to get too in the weeds but: yes. I think at this point Matt is like...making space deliberately for them to talk in-game, but at this point the party has spent so long not really talking and we're so late in the game that no one really takes him up on it or when they do it's the old Gods Debate again.

I really think the problem is once again what I've been saying for like, well over a year now. I don't think the cast was given as much direction as they were for campaign 2, nor was the campaign deliberately tailored to this party, so it has always been ill-fitting. Even some of the pre-planned elements have fallen flat (I have innumerable reservations about the Laudna book, but I do want to read it if only because I still could tell you basically nothing about her and Imogen's time together pre-campaign - it's one incident in Gelvaan, helping Zhudanna one time in Jrusar which wasn't even pre-planned but rather their "session zero", and apparently they saw someone with boob tassels one time). Things like Ashton and Imogen's relationships with the gods feel tacked on after Taliesin and Laura realized that having some sort of pre-existing opinion on the gods was in fact deeply relevant to this campaign; I do genuinely want an answer from both of them of whether "I had prayed to the gods and they never answered" existed in their backstories more than 5 minutes before it came up in game because I'd bet good money it was "no, I threw that in on the fly." So you have characters that are a little more broadly sketched, which would normally be fine (I mean, I don't think most of Vox Machina in the original birthday party one-shot had a terribly deep backstory to start), except for the fact that they never had to take watch, they had a patron giving them jobs and a generous stipend from the start of episode 2 until his demise in episode 38, and both Imogen and Laudna; and FCG and Ashton already had apartments in the city so no one needed to bunk up with anyone they didn't already know. The party did not need to take watches; they did not need to decide on a direction; and they didn't have to learn to resolve conflicts and make choices as a collective group. And yes, the pace has been pretty breakneck throughout, so there wasn't space early on for the cast to feel out their characters and what motivated them and how they'd act. I think the first time I saw a large number of people in the fandom going "MAKE A FUCKING DECISION ALREADY I DON'T CARE WHICH ONE" was with the party doing a similar endless handwringing about Dusk in episode 29, and I don't think they've really gotten better. Like, I do think episode 29 is already on the late side anyway, even for a long-running campaign with a lot of wiggle-room; for a long-running campaign with some very specific plot beats planned, this really needed to be done in character creation.

So now that there is more room to debrief and talk, because in-character they're still on a deadline and the world's been ending all campaign, and because that groundwork wasn't laid, they don't talk about anything except the task at hand. Like...I think a defense I've seen of this campaign is that it's about a group of people who really aren't suited for what has been laid before them, but the problem is that's kind of every D&D campaign that starts from a low level and this is a particularly weak example thereof. Vox Machina didn't show up ready to kill dragons nor Vecna, and the Mighty Nein are still Wildemount's best kept secret; both of them grew into their current hypercompetence. Bells Hells don't really belong to their story, nor does it to them, so yeah, hard to talk within that framework.

[sailorsleepymoon]

I’m literally the saddest little guy on planet earth sobbing and crying and sitting in a little puddle

[bunnieswithknives]

I feel bad for neglecting Hazel so much, I do have many thoughts about her.. and also a mermaid au that im probably not going to do anything with

[neurob-ug]

Why is it still so hard for some people to grasp that pronouns ≠ gender? Someone going by they/them does not mean they're non-binary. Nor do she/her or he/him indicate a binary identity such as binary man or binary woman.

The most gender-conforming* cishet woman you know could go by he/him pronouns, and it would say nothing about his relationship to his gender identity. The same applies to a gender-conforming cishet man deciding to go by she/her pronouns.

Look me in the eyes when I say this: The sooner you learn that gender is far more nuanced and funky than some silly linguistic tool, the more relaxed and actually enjoyable your relationship with language will become. Why are we even "debating" (aka. arguing) about neopronouns or referring to an entire group of people as "they/thems", "she/theys", "he/theys", etc. in 2024?

Fuck.

(*gender-conforming by societal standards)

PS: I know that for some people, their pronouns are part of how they define their gender. That, however, is not the point of this post. The point is that by default, there is no direct correlation between a certain pronoun and a certain gender. The possible combinations between the two are endless, which is why a conclusion that someone must be one based on the other is always false.

[icewindandboringhorror]

Some (late) holiday photos of the boye~!

[tendercoretroglodyke]

queen did you forget that the biden "apple" we picked is very much also killing people. like literally thousands of people. currently and actively??

[stop-breaking-my-heart-dragonage]

Me, when Sebastian joins my party for the first time: Okay, this time I'm not going to forget about you, Sebastian. I'm going to make an effort to use you a lot this playthrough so I can better understand you.

Also me, immediately forgetting about Sebastian while finishing Act 2 and making it halfway through Act 3 before I finally notice his Faith quest: ......................Oh. Right. My bad.

[ahricore]

i'm so fucking stressed out

[novuit]

I feel like I decorate my tumblr blog theme for fun because I can't visit my site unless I use a VPN which is really weird.

[fagoutboy]

the more ive sat and thought about it the more dissatisfied i am with that doctor who finale

[bmpmp3]

utaformatix... save me..

utaformatix

save me utaformatix

[fearandhatred]

guys hear me out i feel like some things are said or done either because of ignorance or bigotry, and i do think they are two different things and that to some extent ignorance can be excusable. but being unwilling to learn from your ignorance is in itself bigotry. in my opinion

[lilac-melody]

REMEMBER!

It’s 100% okay to hate a ship. It’s 100% okay to have strong feelings about a ship. It’s 100% okay to coexist with people who do ship said ship. It’s 100% okay to not want to talk to people who ship said ship.

BUT!

It is not okay at all to harass others for their ship. It is not okay at all to complain to other people that a person ships something you don’t like. It’s not okay at all to send death threats or wish harm upon someone over a ship. It’s not okay at all to publicly bitch about people who ship a ship you hate and bash the ship itself.

If you have criticism, that is fine. If you really want to complain about a ship or etc, then talk with your friends.

Everyone has their bubbles. Don’t pop other people’s bubbles.

[ablednt]

NPD BPD combo will make you feel like a starving wild circus animal every time you remember other people exist

[stupidnaturals]

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