#and boycotting is not the only example of this

[bellamysgriffin]

i have thoughts too complex to put into this quick tumblr post but i do think the online leftist community's problem with constant virtue signaling and "will this make me seem/feel like a good person" politics has absolutely gotten in the way of effecting actual change and in some ways is an active impediment to it and one of the ways you can most clearly see it is the ways in which we are currently discussing boycotts

[icewindandboringhorror]

Various images of things

[decadentworld]

You know, I’m kind of realizing that fandom discourse and ship wars are at their worst at this point in time, different to some ten years ago for example. Ten years ago a person could hate on a ship, or a character, without reason and go on their merry way. There were ship and character wars too, anti-fan groups even, but the hatred came from a place of personal preferences that didn’t really interfere with the course of the source media. Those were the good old days of squick and NOTP.

Now, though. Now haters need to find a reason to get a character, a ship, the actors who play those, or even the people who stan them cancelled, just because they don’t like any of those. It’s a pretty serious issue given that a lot of the times the problematic things attributed to those characters in question are either fictional (you know... because a fictional character can be compelling while not being an angel), misattributed because of a lack of critical thinking and nuance, or completely made up.

Just think for a second if Avengers 1 came out today for example. There would be so many people trying to cancel Loki for the things he was praised by in terms of character back in 2012. I don’t really like where fandom culture is going, honestly.

[lunathewafflelord]

Pro tip: if "Boycott (...)" is trending on Twitter, don't click it. 99.99% of the time most of the Tweets are incredibly bigoted and the boycott is related to the company supporting trans people. I have not once in recent days seen a Boycott (...) trend in which the boycott was actually a valid complaint.

[fading-event-608]

Hello! I see people here are talking about Gaza again. 

I’m not one to vaguepost, nor do I usually spend time arguing with zionists and liberals online, but the amount of “pro-Palestine” liberals I’ve seen in the last day saying that Gazans “deserve genocide” because Trump won…

I’m not surprised to hear that democrats are mad at third-party voters. It’s true that even if all swing third-party votes went to Kamala she’d still have lost, but reality isn’t important to these people. Democrats want a monopoly - of course they’re upset at everyone who isn’t voting for their party. Of course they’re more upset with communists and anarchists than they are with nazis.

None of this is new. But even though we’ve seen these patterns before, I am absolutely sick to witness these people blaming Palestinians for this. I’m sick hearing them almost gleefully wishing for Gaza to be turned into a parking lot. I’m sick coming across individualistic little diatribes about how they’re “done” boycotting, “done” helping others.

Is it Palestinians’ fault that Kamala’s campaign was so poorly run?

Is it Palestinians’ fault that the US is now so full of nazis that the Democrats lost the popular vote for the first time since 2004, by 5 million votes?

Is it Palestinians’ fault that the US supplies and supports Israel in their annihilation of Gaza and other occupied Palestinian territories, as well as neighbouring countries?

Is it Palestinians’ fault that the government assisting Israel’s genocidal project was, for the past four years, Biden’s administration? A Democrat’s administration? 

The crime that Palestinians have committed in the eyes of these liberals is the crime of existing where said liberals can see them - namely, on social media. The unofficial charges: not being silent, resisting, asking for help from the people best equipped to give money for their survival. So again, I’ll ask - is it the fault of Palestinians that the people best equipped to help them are those in the imperial core? That the people Palestinians must go to for help are people benefitting from both this genocide and the genocides the empires that house them are built on?

Of course the gravest offence is interrupting the liberal supply of white noise. Comfort is, after all, the biggest priority in liberalism - silence and denial is self care. Murder by proxy is the most popular of hobbies, and is best enjoyed with the sound off. But Palestinians are not quiet. You can see their faces now - and the identification of them as something other than faceless, or rather someone, begins to burrow through the insulation built up around you. 

You have the barest sense of how fragile your world is. You can either turn away from this, or continue your journey towards the truth. These liberals are examples of those violently turning away and taking up the slaughter again, desperate to dispel any reminders that they are not the only people on earth worthy of life.

You can literally buy an indulgence now by donating to a Palestinian fundraiser. Yes, even if you’re not a Democrat, or you’re from Europe (chances are your government supplies Israel too, or is at least complacent), or there’s any other facet of your identity that supplies nuance. This is up to all of us, no matter who we are. 

I’ve been spotlighting Falastin’s campaign to save her family in Gaza for more than two months now. I will continue to do so until they’re safe; but their safety will likely be a long time coming. This is in part because Falastin’s campaign must support 24 people, and in part because donations are slowing down - not only for Falastin, but for a lot of other fundraisers I keep an eye on. To be afraid for so many people while watching liberals angrily abandoning this cause is distressing and disheartening.

This is life or death. I don’t care who you are, and I care even less to hear if you’ve voted or who you voted for. All I ask is that you boost this post and, if you can, donate to Falastin. The Gofundme is in SEK and the rates are:

10$ = 107 SEK

25$ = 269 SEK

50$ = 538 SEK

100$ = 1,076 SEK

You can also donate via PayPal in USD: [LINK]

We also host a raffle for hand-made Palestinian thob [info HERE], and the first winner will be chosen in a bit less than 2 days. 

P. S. Yes, Falastin’s campaign has been vetted, several times across multiple platforms:

#282 in El-Shab-Hussein and Nabulsi's spreadsheet [HERE], 

#957 in the Butterfly Project spreadsheet [HERE]

Falastin's account: [LINK]

[neurotypical-sonic]

do people just not know how boycotting works. or how rallying together to make a difference works. what other examples can I use to make it make sense. okay pretend that someone is fund-raising, and their goal is to make $1000. you may think "man I can only afford to donate $1, and thats such a small amount and it wont make any difference at all, so why bother."

that might be true! $1 isnt a lot of money, and there is very little you can do with $1!! okay, so now pretend that one hundred people who see that post think the exact same thing. "Why bother contributing when what I do makes no difference?" and so none of them contribute that single dollar.

If they all decided "It may not be much, but I can contribute what I can" then suddenly that fundraiser has been given $100. Thats a significant amount of money, and much more than $1!!

do you fucking understand. why is everyone so fucking defeatist. "There is nothing I can do as an individual to make a difference" no one is asking you to single handedly stop wars. People are asking COMMUNITIES to come together to make a difference. Chose to be apart of that community.

Apes together strong. Lets break into Area 51, they cant stop all of us. Whatever fucking slogan that works for you

[idontmindifuforgetme]

wanted to point out that some of the brands that have been making the rounds as brands to boycott are not even mentioned on the BDS's list of companies to put pressure on. for example, although Starbucks is problematic and it's not wrong to boycott them, people have been exclusively going against Starbucks as if it's the only company that supplies Israel with money and weapons--and it's literally not even on the official BDS list. and when people do share BDS lists, they tend to mention far too many companies. this goes against the BDS movement of targeting only a specific handful at a time.

here are some companies the average consumer can boycott easily, taken directly from the BDS website (refer to the link for the full list):

mcdonalds

google and amazon (to clarify, the bds lists these as pressure targets—boycotting if reasonable alternatives exist, but putting pressure on them while continuing to use them is also acceptable)

sodastream

airbnb/booking/expedia (listed as pressure targets, but also reasonable boycotts)

burger king

papa john's

pizza hut

PUMA

boycott produce from israel

note that the bds lists collective boycotting as the most effective method of boycotting. although it encourages individual boycotting as well, it predominantly advises that you find local boycotts in your city. if you’re unable to do that, at least you have a list of feasible brands not to purchase from in the future. ethical consumerism is important, especially where genocide is involved.

[risoria]

so. have you seen the pictures from Rafah of the blackened, charred infants? the toddler with no head?

i would like to ask a favour of everyone seeing this post, from one human to another. don't think about the things you can't do - because as it seems, nothing is enough, and nobody can do enough - there is no use to be paralyzed by these thoughts. instead focus on the things you are already doing and the things you can do. i will start by compile a small list of personal suggestions, and please add to it from your own resources! this list is not numbered, i will just add things that i can think of off the top of my head and if it is of any help to at least one person, thats good. take care of yourself - that includes taking care of others, and this world we live in.

this is obvious but keep listening to Palestinian voices. i am mostly active on twitter so i will give some examples from there: Hind_Gaza, HossamShabat, BayanPalestine (press). MuhammadSmiry, does community work with Care for Gaza. m7mdkurd. Everyone is saying mostly the same thing - keep talking, keep protesting, keep boycotting. so do it.

keep talking. humans are social animals and it's as simple as this: the ongoing genocide is dire, urgent and catastrophic - i dont think i need to tell you that. but when people, a lot of people, share posts with each other and reiterate this fact the urgency will be felt stronger by everyone, and reach people who would otherwise maybe not see the reports of the genocide on their screens. if people instead choose to stop sharing and stop talking because it's "been so long" or it's "too difficult", the suffering will become normalized and the only thing people will see on their feeds are mundane things - food, pets, fandoms, and it will send the message that oh, it's not that important after all.... sometimes, you SHOULD feel disturbed and uncomfortable. these feelings are not evil - they will be channelled into actions to better a situation and better the world. silence is violence.

search for protests near your town, sometimes they're hard to find but once you find your local organizations for the Palestinian movement, follow them and you will usually find them! this all depends on where you live of course - but most often there will be fundraisers and events and mailing campaigns etc, and the more people joining the better. and, most importantly i would say, share these events and pictures (no faces of strangers, ofc! from protests on your facebook, twitter etc - because that way people close to you will see them and that it's completely rational and normal to attend protests, and if they've been on the fence maybe they will reach out and join you.

donate if you are able and share links to the different organizations - some examples are Care for Gaza, Sulala animal rescue, the Gazan Municipality Life for Gaza project (https://gaza-city.ensany.com/campaign/6737), the PCRF.

individual gofundmes - here is the google doc with a lot of campaigns, but im sure there are lots of them that arent yet added: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-DDMFyn-ttboPXrz1bB3MFk7BlzCwfugh4259Wh7U1s/htmlview

donate e-sims, which will be sent by the Esims for Gaza team to people in Gaza, to help communicate with their families etc during blackouts. it's very quick and easy and on nomad you can get a referral code which gives someone else 25% off their first purchase, and there's also often different bonus codes. on the website there's tutorials for how to buy the different esims. https://gazaesims.com/

there's some different charity shops where you can buy Palestinian products and the proceeds help Palestinian artisans and people. here are some examples, please add more if you know any: https://handmadepalestine.com/ (based in Ramallah, Palestine), https://forpalestine.dk/ (based in Denmark), https://www.shoppalestine.org/ (based in the US)

boycott!! the BDS of course have their targeted brands (https://bdsmovement.net/) but there's also for example the witness website with lists of brands and the reasons for boycotting them (https://boycott.thewitness.news/) and some different apps that do the same thing, like the "no thanks" app. yes, the list of brands is very, very long. maybe all of it isn't feasible BUT i think a good start would be to go through them and decide which ones are unnecessary either way that you're better off without (mcdonalds, starbucks etc), and then which ones are part of your usual shopping routine, make a mental note of them and pick different options - see it as an opportunity to try new things, to support local brands and smaller businesses!

go do yourself a favour and give Palestinian-Canadian artist Nemahsis' new single "stick of gum" a listen, it's super good! <3 https://youtu.be/VsqYlmf3SAg?si=EK_TZjo0Ijny8hMT

please, add more tips and resources below or just share your own pictures or art or thoughts!

[leidensygdom]

Fighting AI and learning how to speak with your wallet

So, if you're a creative of any kind, chances are that you've been directly affected by the development of AI. If you aren't a creative but engage with art in any way, you may also be plenty aware of the harm caused by AI. And right now, it's more important than ever that you learn how to fight against it.

The situation is this: After a few years of stagnation on relevant stuff to invest to, AI came out. Techbros, people with far too much money trying to find the big next thing to invest in, cryptobros, all these people, flocked to it immediately. A lot of people are putting money in what they think to be the next breakthrough- And AI is, at its core, all about the money. You will get ads shoved in your fave about "invest in AI now!" in every place. You will get ads telling you to try subscription services for AI related stuff. Companies are trying to gauge how much they can depend on AI in order to fire their creatives. AI is opening the gates towards the biggest data laundering scheme there's been in ages. It is also used in order to justify taking all your personal information- Bypassing existing laws.

Many of them are currently bleeding investors' money though. Let it be through servers, through trying to buy the rights to scrape content from social media (incredibly illegal, btw), amidst many other things. A lot of the tech giants have also been investing in AI-related infrastructures (Microsoft, for example), and are desperate to justify these expenses. They're going over their budgets, they're ignoring their emissions plans (because it's very toxic to the environment), and they're trying to make ends meet to justify why they're using it. Surely, it will be worth it.

Now, here's where you can act: Speak with your wallet. They're going through a delicate moment (despite how much they try to pretend they aren't), and it's now your moment to act. A company used AI in any manner? Don't buy their products. Speak against them in social media. Make noise. It doesn't matter how small or how big. A videogame used AI voices? Don't buy the game. Try to get a refund if you did. Social media is scraping content for AI? Don't buy ads, don't buy their stupid blue checks, put adblock on, don't give them a cent. A film generated their poster with AI? Don't watch it. Don't engage with it. Your favourite creator has made AI music for their YT channel? Unsub, bring it up in social media, tell them directly WHY you aren't supporting. Your favourite browser is now integrating AI in your searches? Change browsers.

Let them know that the costs they cut through the use of AI don't justify how many customers they'd lose. Wizards of the Coast has been repeatedly trying to see how away they can get with the use of AI- It's only through consumer boycotting and massive social media noise that they've been forced to go back and hire actual artists to do that work.

The thing with AI- It doesn't benefit the consumer in any way. It's capitalism at its prime: Cut costs, no matter how much it impacts quality, no matter how inhumane it is, no matter how much it pollutes. AI searches are directly feeding you misinformation. ChatGPT is using your input to feed itself. Find a Discord server to talk with others about writing. Try starting art yourself, find other artists, join a community. If you can't, use the money you may be saving from boycotting AI shills to support a fellow creative- They need your help more than ever.

We're in a bit of a nebulous moment. Laws against AI are probably around the corner: A lot of AI companies are completely aware that they're going to crash if they're legally obliged to disclose the content they used to train their machines, because THEY KNOW it is stolen. Copyright is inherent to human created art: You don't need to even register it anywhere for it to be copyrighted. The moment YOU created it, YOU have the copyright to it. They can't just scrape social media because Meta or Twitter or whatever made a deal with OpenAI and others, because these companies DON'T own your work, they DON'T get to bypass your copyright.

And to make sure these laws get passed, it's important to keep the fight against AI. AI isn't offering you anything of use. It's just for the benefit of companies. Let it be known it isn't useful, and that people's work and livelihoods are far more important than letting tech giants save a few cents. Instead, they're trying to gauge how MUCH they can get away with. They know it goes against European GDPR laws, but they're going to try to strech what these mean and steal as much data up until clear ruling comes out.

The wonder about boycotts is that they don't even need you to do anything. In fact, it's about not doing some stuff. You don't need money to boycott- Just to be aware about where you put it. Changing habits is hard- People can't stop eating at Chick-fil-a no matter how much they use the money against the LGBTQ collective, but people NEED to learn how to do it. Now it's the perfect time to cancel a subscription, find an alternate plan to watching that one film and maybe joining a creative community yourself.

[incorrect-riordanverse]

It's really disheartening that Rick Riordan stance on the war I understand that he wants to be neutral on this stance but in my opinion by becoming neutral he only worsening the issue as many Palestines are dying that are mostly children, how the majority of Israeli are supporting the Genocide of Palestine, and how the government is trying so hard (but miserably failing) to justified the genocide. I will hold him accountable for what he said on this issue as during this period the choice is basically "you are with us or against us."

Part of me wishes he will realize what he said was wrong and understand the bigger issue that plays at hand. I will criticism for his actions as how can a man who promotes LGBTQIA and representation of minorities and disabilities in his books turn a blind eyes to Genocide of people. However we can only wait and see on his next move.

One last thing about your previous you said you don't group Riordan with other authors where do you would group him with? Also this is more on an opinion base answer but many people are boycotting companies that support Israel there as been another post on Twitter on boycotting authors. Rick Riordan happens to be one of them. Do you believed that he should be boycotted with other authors or he should be properly educated and apologized for his previous statement? If you believed he should be boycotted what do tou have to say to those who might have the mentality of "separate the art from the artist"

thank you for this ask, and i completely agree with you! it is extremely hypocritical of him considering what he preaches for in his books. i think he’s convinced he has properly addressed the apartheid by using very vague language that can be applied to anything, and in doing so, he’s addressed nothing really.

your first question on who i would group him with— probably other authors who are doing the exact same as him in their virtue signalling. i always like to link my other blogs to each other, so i don’t think it’s a secret that i have a red queen account and i’m pretty passionate about that. unfortunately, victoria aveyard is another fantasy author who has literally wrote a whole four-book series on the uprising against oppression but is now playing neutral in her address of the apartheid. rebecca yarros is in the same boat, although i haven’t read ‘fourth wing,’ fans have said there are large themes of oppression within the book. so if i had to group riordan it would probably be in the ‘i-like-to-write-about-it-for-profit-and-praise-only’ group.

in terms of boycotting, i think that’s a great idea! i would also like to remind everyone that the percy jackson tv show is coming out in a little over a month, but disney is a huge industry financially supporting israel as well ($2 million in funding), which is obviously far more damning than a poorly written address by one person. there is a boycott happening for disney as well— and the pjo show will be released on disney + . i implore everyone to not watch it on that platform!! personally i will be pirating it online (idk if i’ll get into trouble saying that here but lol oh well), because im pretty sure the boycott is only for withdrawing financial support, not simply consuming media.

i feel like separating art from the artist only works if that artist is… like, dead, and you’re using that art and its values as a historical insight to how the world was during its time. you can still like a piece of work that has a problematic artist, you can engage with the work (to an extent). but separating art from the artist barely works because either:

to engage with the art is to support the artist in some way, so that artist is making money based on your interaction with that (particularly in the case for singers and streaming of songs)

that artists’ views and values are so rancid that it’s literally embedded within the text itself. to ignore it is harmful.

harry potter is my all-time favourite example to use, because jkr is the scum of the earth, and her views are entrenched in her work. a lesser known example is sarah j maas and her books (she’s also not as dogshit as jkr, but then again, its not hard to be a better person than her). i’m not going to bag on these people for liking things by problematic people (would be hypocritical of me), i just think it’s cowardly not to address it when you come across it, or at least admit to it. to simply write things off as ‘separate to the artist’ is like purposefully turning off your critical thinking skills.

on whether boycotting or an apology is enough— if riordan did apologise and used specific language and not the nonsense he had in that blog, expressed his remorse for his ignorance and then actually did or said something to support the people of palestine then, yeah. that’s fine and that’s how we learn ig. but he should educate himself, too many activists, people from the arab community and especially palestinians are expected to be all-knowing and to educate everyone else on an already draining and personal tragedy. it’s been exhausting for me, i can’t imagine what they’re going through. if riordan (or anyone) needs to be educated, he should do it himself, and (at least in my opinion) i don’t think the info is very hard to find now. it’s just about weeding out the misinformation.

i think boycotting is a good idea as of now. it can serve to be a catalyst for self reflection for many people. also, as much as i hate most online discourses, talking about it online needs to happen. i don’t want these authors to forget, for a moment, about the ignorance they posted online during a time of international crisis.

[loving-n0t-heyting]

i find it somewhat perplexing the way a lot of liberals i see not only treat voting and electoral organising altogether as good and important or even treat voting in the upcoming us presidential election as good and important but treat the very concept of an election boycott as demonstrably pointless and counterproductive apriori and in all places and times. i think this sweeping position only even potentially makes sense if you treat elections as more or less like a god deterministically allotting political office and power in accord with a preestablished voting function taking only legitimate ballots cast as argument. if only 10% of eligible voters are willing to cast their votes, ceteris paribus this is going to undermine the appearance of legitimacy of the electoral process—which can obviously often have consequences desirable from the pov of ppl who see the process as in fact illegitimate!!

ig sometimes ppl qualify the maximally strong version of the claim instead saying its only in competitive elections you have a self evident rational duty to vote, and ig in fairness most of the meaningful vote boycotts that come to mind are for races where ppl already know ahead of time who the winner is going to be (see above point re legitimacy); the example that brought this whole line of thought to mind was the recent presidential election in algeria, for example, where the perceived illegitimacy and tebbounnes status as a shoe in were obviously linked. but you can find examples of vote boycotts its hard to denounce where the races involved were in some sense quite competitive. the 1984 elections for the newfangled indian-only house of delegates in south africa, for example, saw the top two parties differing by half a percent in terms of votes and one seat in eventual representation, but were still widely boycotted for... obvious reasons. are we really going to condemn the indian south africans of 1984 for this? does anyone really think the world would be a better place had nonwhite south africans dignified the desperate death throes and pitiful conciliatory half-measures of apartheid with large scale electoral participation?

ig this is all kind of academic and abstracted from certain looming usamerican concrete realities, but so are the terms in which ppl justify the sweeping universal versions of the pro-voting position

[mixtape-timeout]

It’s baffling to discover that certain authors have blocked me since I made that post. Let me reiterate that holding people accountable for Zionism is not drama, and refusing to platform people with such ideologies is an important part of activism. It always begins with your own community. I have been isolated from many people in my own, real life community for my strong activism for Palestine. I find it very offensive for users who have never spoken about Palestine to pretend I’m just an online Twitter-fingers type person when I have sacrificed so much in my life and fought so hard both in real life and online for Palestine. To act like I am attacking someone on the internet just to feel morally superior is a completely ludicrous statement and diverting from the true issue.

If you think that someone:

1.) Blocking countless Pro-Palestine people ((including other authors))

2.) Taking issues with boycotts and refusing to boycott, calling boycotting “pathetic”.

3.) Making many Pro-Israel posts calling Palestinians terrorists then deleting them only because of backlash.

4.) Making almost every conversation about the genocide about how Israel is the victim, refusing to acknowledge Israel’s crimes, and sharing “activism” posts that skews the genocide as a "war" where both sides are suffering instead of what it really is: The oppressors commiting genocide on the oppressed.

5.) Saying a Zionist propoganda movie which glorifies a Zionist war criminal is your all time favorite.

6.) Using Zionist talking points such as “Zionist is just another word for Jew” and is just another way to be anti-semitic.

If you think all of these examples don’t indicate where that person’s loyalties lie and don’t warrant being called out, I truly don’t know what to tell you. I think it’s ridiculous to act like I’m grasping at straws to look morally superior when there is so much clear evidence. I was terrified to make that post for days because I have been constantly attacked and ostracized for supporting Palestine in real life. My friends advised me to turn off my DMS and Inbox because they knew I would get hate for it here, too. I made that post purely to warn Stays of an individual with dangerous beliefs in our community, and if you see that as something to block me for, you need to re-evaluate yourself.

[jaskierx]

about the bit where people keep harping on about taika signing the letter and that’s pretty much their only reason for shitting on him and “boycotting” him:

correct me if I’m wrong but weren’t there hundreds of celebs who signed that dumbass letter? like if these people want to check who signed that letter every time they want to listen to music or watch a movie/tv show then they can be my fucking guest.

but it seems to me like what they’re actually gonna do is pick out the celebs on that list they already hated (taika for example) and only throw fits about them 🤷‍♀️

also sending 🩷 to you for dealing with all this bs, I wouldn’t be able to handle it

no you're completely right. nearly 250 people signed it. it's so interesting that people are fixated on the brown jewish man on the list and not any of their white faves isn't it 🧐

sometimes there will be some clown in the tag posting about how ofmd fans are horrible people bc taika is a zionist (bc he signed the letter) and i'll go on their blog to block them and they're posting about nope (jordan peele signed the letter) or better call saul (bob odenkirk signed the letter) or honor among thieves (chris pine signed the letter) or ted lasso (jason sudeikis signed the letter)

nobody is a zionist just because they signed that letter. the letter simply supported the release of hostages. if you think it's abhorrent to want hamas to free israeli civilians then that says far more about you than it does about any of the names on that list

[winwintea]

You do realize that by boycotting riize as a whole you guys risk them being disbanded or put on hiatus for a long as time like fx? You are quite literally killing these 6 other boys career bc sm killed one of their careers. I get the situation sucks but come on people it’s fucking SM they don’t care abt international fans.

anon it is everyone's own personal decision on whether or not to boycott. i do not hold it against anyone if they choose to or choose not to.

personally, i am choosing to boycott, because as someone who has supported sm artists since 2018, i am tired of the treatment these idols have been facing. you must understand here that we are not boycotting with ill-intent to jeopardize their careers. sm is an extremely greedy company. for a company to advertize a group such as riize as a global company but neglect the opinions of international fans is really quite stupid. and there's not a very large chance sm would disband them or put them on hiatus. f(x)'s example is not the same, as the group faded out because the members themselves didn't really want to focus on music that much. (sulli and krystal had turned to acting, victoria got popular in china, while luna and amber just kinda phased out themselves with their solo careers)

in a roundabout way, the boycott is also a way to protect the members or any other idol sm currently has. everyone cares about the boys and we want to see them flourish. but this situation will be used as an excuse for knetz to get whatever they want. in all my years of stanning kpop, i've never seen a situation get this extreme, and it's only going to get worse. if another dumb controversy occurs, one that is equally stupid as this seunghan one, then knetz will protest and huzzah, we lose another precious idol. sm is also a big figure in the industry, that other companies will follow suit and if anything happens to your favs that's not aligned with what knetz wants then they're on the chopping block as well.

you are so correct in your point about sm not caring about international fans, but they're also greedy as hell. not only did sm allow knetz to bully seunghan by keeping those funerary wreaths there, they also heard that ot6 briize was going to boycott and well they don't want to lose money right? ot7 briize generally outnumbers ot6 briize, and as i've stated before i'm so done with sm's bullshit.

sorry for the long ass yap, but i respect your opinion anon, and you can choose to disagree with me and say that it will still jeopardize their careers, but i am firm in these beliefs at the moment.

[problematic-ship]

Anyone who genuinely believes that AO3 hosts child porn and continues to use it is a piece of shit. By their own logic, they are continuing to use a site that causes harm to children. If they had ANY moral leg to stand on, they'd just stop using it and go on sites like fanfiction.net that don't allow smut. But they apparently value their terminally online fanfiction addiction more than their own supposed moral crusade.

For example, I, a degenerate proshipper, refuse to go on sites like pornhub after learning about the lawsuits concerning the ACTUAL child porn that was hosted on there. That is the only moral option you can take regarding sites that host CP. Why aren't antis boycotting AO3? Why isn't CP a deal-breaker for them? Because they KNOW it's not CP, they just want to bully people for shipping anything other than the puriteen-approved yaoi softboi ships. They also don't go after people making actual money from writing about underage characters having sex, like George R.R. Martin or Stephen King or HBO or many YA novelists, because they don't actually care. They just want to feel self-righteous and bully people.

[alpaca-clouds]

Dungeons & Dragons - Or: Why Capitalism Sucks at Making Money

If this past year managed anything, it managed to get me really into DnD. Before I did not play DnD much, rather going with Shadowrun or (heavily homebrewed) World of Darkness. But with first Honor Among Thieves releasing - and then Baldur's Gate 3 giving me brainworms tadpoles... Yeah, hurray. New hyperfixation unlocked.

But as I started to read through all the lore, but also meta stuff happening around it. And yes, I quickly understood why basically everyone was frustrated with Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast. But I also think, that this betrays one of the big issues with capitalist logic and how it often fails to reach an audience - for the reason I outlined before: capitalists are actually super bad at realizing what works and why, because they only judge based on spread sheets.

And yes, the headline is hyperbolic. But let me explain.

A Community-Based Game

I mean, the biggest scandal of DnD this year was probably the entire thing about the community license. And this is very much something that shows quite well, how bad WotC is at recognizing why DnD works and has worked so long.

DnD centrally has been build around this idea of community. Now, mind you: This community was very, very focused on cis white guys for the longest time, but everybody else just managed to get in there and make their own little bit of community. Which also lead to a lot of homebrew stuff, that at times tackled some issues that the rules themselves did not address at all or not well. The combat wheelchair is probably the best known example of this.

But even outside of marginalized communities... DnD always thrived through the community aspect itself. People self-publishing magazines and adventures for it since the fucking 70s. As well as play sets, dice and what-have-you. DnD was always very much about all this and thrived through it. And now in came WotC saying: "Oh, yeah, actually you will now have to give us a big cut. (The big irony was, how Unity made the same move later on.) The fandom outcry was obviously big, there was a boycot, it worked. And WotC went all:

Of course they basically won the world competition in backpaddling (though again, Unity was a big contender this year as well) and quickly went back on this. But of course there is a problem: When your entire product is so much build around community and your community starts mistrusting you, you got a problem.

And this is basically what happened.

The Audience Problem

There is another problem of course. Financially the DnD movie failed - and I actually think this says a lot about how WotC kinda misunderstands the audience.

Now, there will be people trying to tell you, that given that the movie had great reviews and stuff. But the movie had a production budget of 150 million USD and only earned a bit more than 200 million on worldwide box office. Given that the marketing budget was likely around 30 million, the movie barely broke even.

Of course, part of the reason for it was that it just had a bad release date. It released parallel to the Super Mario movie, which ended up being one of the most successful movies of this year.

A friend of mine could not believe that the movie had financially flopped. They were like: "What the hell? Literally everyone I know who watched the movie went to cinema like three times to see it again." But... Yeah, that is true. But the issue is that these people are a very certain group.

Because lets make one thing clear: The people, who adored the movie so much, that they went to the cinema several times and bought the DVD/BluRay on release... were mostly queer nerds. Because this is the group of people who this movie spoke to.

And let's make this clear: I love the movie for this. I love that it so clearly went for this audience. Because I am part of this audience - and I adore this film.

But basically the movie has a general issue in terms of audience. Because on one hand the movie is too nerdy to have a wider audience appeal of people who had never played DnD, while on the other hand the movie was kinda not nerdy enough to go full force for the nerd audience.

A lot of people in the fandom have instantly sussed out one thing about the movie: "Why doesn't Edgin cast any spells? And why do we see so little of the weirder species?" And part of the reason undoubtedly was budget related. But the other reason is that... well, it is currently a well accepted wisdom in media production that you cannot sell a high-magic story. At least not outside of animated media.

Hence... There is surprisingly little magic being cast in this. And we also do have a mostly human main cast - or why Doric is the most classically pretty tiefling you have seen with her human skin tone and all of that. Because media productions do not trust the audience to accept high magic concepts.

Who is DnD actually for?

Okay, let me talk a bit about DnD 5e - and a good decision, and a bad decision. And how that affected DnD.

Everyone, who is somewhat into DnD probably knows that 5e massively changed the game. With one simple goal: Make it more accessible. Which manifested in several ways.

For one, the game was in some ways made less offensive. Because prior to 5e there was a ton of racism, sexism, queerphobia and ableism inherent to the game rules and times to the game lore. This is just a fact. Things like species that are inherently evil and stuff like that - and also some of the real-life racial coding inherent to some of the species. Removing all that stuff is a good thing. Like amazingly good.

And also, they made the rules a lot more accessible. Before the rules were bogged down with a lot of stuff, that was simplified or removed. Again, this is a good thing.

And this worked. It worked really well. Of course, this was also partly due to stuff like Critical Role and other actual plays like that happening and promoting the game. The player base probably increased ten-fold from what it was before.

Yes, it should also be noted that there is probably a good topic for a study on how formerly nerd-thingies became more and more mainstream during the last 10 years or so, but yes, DnD was one of those things.

But in this there was also a rather bad decision made, which ironically also mirrors what happened with Marvel. And this decision is: Because we want to reach a wider audience, every single thing we release for this has to reach the widest audience possible - rather than allowing that certain things might have a more specific audience.

I am sorry to talk about the MCU here, but it is just such a perfect example of this: The MCU basically made two mistakes. Overwhelming their audience with too many releases. But also not allowing the movies to be for a certain audience, but for the broadest audience possible. A good example is how they dealt with the minority-lead movies. They got directors and at times even writers from that minority - but then basically did not allow them to be too specific and be too critical of, for example, a racist system because that might not go over too well with white mainstream audiences.

Now, WotC did not really do anything like that. But they also went with this idea that everything they officially released should have the broadest possible appeal. Hence the weirdly low-magic approach to the movie, of which I assume that it definitely was an executive decision made.

The fact that the movie resonated so much with the queers more than anyone else was also not intended - at least not from the production company. Like, let's be honest. No, Xenk and Ed were not supposed to be read as romantic. And how appealing the found family trope was, probably was not intented at least on the side of Hasbro (not sure about screenwriters and director).

The Lore Problem

This perfectly connects to one of the big issues that all the franchises going for a broad appeal after being very nerd-focused for so long, run into: The Lore Problem. And this is quite ironic, because I ran into the problem earlier this year as well.

See, as I was writing fanfics for DnD:HAT I quickly ran into the problem that I knew next to nothing about the world of Faerûn. Sure, once upon a time (like between 2007 and 2011, while I was living in Austria with my then-boyfriend, who really was into those games) I played the old games of Neverwinter Nights and Baldur's Gate 1 + 2. But let's be frank: I barely remember shit from those games. And getting to understand what actually happened in the lore between and after... Well, there is just a ton of lore. I mean, people are playing around with this world for literal decades. So, yeah. This can very much be overwhelming for someone getting into it anew. Like, where can someone new even start?

The fact that - at least partly for legal reasons - most of the Actual Plays also do not work with the official lore, rather just using the rules to create their own worlds, obviously adds to this. Even the tables I played on so far always preferred original worlds, because the lore of DnD is just very intimidating.

The one thing that actuall ended up getting me into the lore was BG3, because it left open just the right questions to go into the Forgotten Realms wiki and just look for stuff, before also starting to listen to lore podcasts.

But here is the thing: WotC is also not helping with this issue. Like, they absolutel could create a proper accessible compendium on DnDBeyond that would just allow people to get an overview of the world and the timeline of things happening, maybe go into some of the major factions of the world and such. I mean, heck, they really, really want you to use DnD-Beyond rather than roll20. Yet, in DnD-Beyond I do not even have a monster compendium without paying, which roll20 offers.

Like, sure, WotC, it is okay to lock up the adventure modules behind a paywall, no problem. But if you do give me even the most basic tools to run a campaign, I am gonna use roll20, thank you very much.

But yeah, what WotC should make just more accessible was just: Timeline, important places and the maps (heck, make them interactive, you have the fucking money), maybe also a proper list of the pantheons and factions within the world. Heck, add maybe some inspiration there for what players might want to do within one of the scenarios and then, under this, go and link "hey, we made this one adventure about this, if you are interested!"

Something I did not realize originally was how much freedom the lore still leaves the people. Like, often even the important settings and events are just set-ups for adventures that the characters can have in there. There might be a few novels or comics then, that go into an example of a thing certain established characters like Drizzt or Elminster did during the time, but there is a ton of freedom to explore.

But by basically locking everything up behind a paywall, you will never get people even interested in this kinda stuff.

Because here is the thing: I like my lore. I love lore. I adore lore. But... Without BG3 explaining some stuff and giving me specific questions to ask about it, the lore would have been very inaccessible to me.

Just think of people as... people

Of course among it all there lies the central problem that comes with capitalism running something like this. See, whatever CEOs and shareholders are sitting on those chairs with WotC and Hasbro, they do not see the players as players or the community as a community, but as consumers. Just as they see their employees not as valued constributors, but very exchangable wage slaves.

They do not see the value of the community exchange with stuff like fanmade modules and things. While incorporating a bit of homebrew stuff in DnD Beyond, they are absolutely not interested in the wider market of people just creatively interacting with DnD and making a little bit of money from it. If anything they see those people as potential rivals on the market.

Heck, they have issues seeing things like Critical Role or Roll20 as the enrichment for the franchise that either are - but more like potential rivaling forces and money they have lost.

And their employees? Yeah, as we learned... Most people who from the side of WotC helped the Larian team with BG3 have been let go by now. Because WotC and Hasbro do not care for their employees, they only care about having some numbers going up.

I fully admit it. Apart from Buying BG3 and the money I have invested in anything DnD:HAT related, the only money that WotC got from me, was some of the novels I bought on Audible.

But here is the thing: WotC is doing a shite job at wanting me to invest into any of their stuff. Partly because those modules I would like to have are not available anywhere anyway - and partly because... As I said, give me a reason to get something, rather than just expecting me to randomly get something.

And mind you, this is no slight against any of the people just working for WotC. This is mostly about shareholder and executive decisions made. Stuff that basically just sees either their employers or the players just as a ressource to exploit, rather than... people.