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thecoolerliauditore · 1 year ago

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i don't get all the fuss about CCs reading fanfic. if you didn't want people to see it then why would you put it publicly online. like aren't you taught that if you don't want something to be seen you shouldn't put it on the internet?

i don't understand the people mad at tommyinnit for reading fanfic. like you have this space where you talk about this real person but *he's* not allowed to read it? wtf

anon this is so angrily worded are you okay lmao

i'm not really huge on fic writing myself (dabbled in it here and there but i have friends who are writers) and i care negative percent about the dee ess em pee side of things so I'm not really The Person to ask but I'll try my best to explain 👍

CCs reading fanfic is fine. They're allowed to lurk as much as everyone else is.

CCs reading fanfic in videos is exposing fic writers to their wider audience and mcyt fans have a history of harassing fandom creators into online nonexistence for any reason under the sun while simultaneously the CC themselves actively makes money off of the fic writer's work.

I ramble a bit more and it got kinda long but that's the main point. (more stuff under the cut)

Fics are "about" the cc, yes but they are often not made for the cc but rather for the writer and maybe a close group of friends. That means they're often a combination of the writer's love for the source material and a sprinkling of their own interests/experiences. This can go anywhere from smashing two interests together in crossover AUs to deeply personal stuff like using gay ships to explore their own experience as a queer person.

Straight CCs are Not Going To Understand the latter in the way that writer and their gay friends are going to enjoy it. They can read it but they're never gonna be able to look at it the way their fans will.

That's one of the more forward examples but this applies to everything. You will never have that degree of separation from the source material to be able to enjoy fic the way fans do, you're simply not the target audience.

What's more is (not talking about the thomas innit guy or whatever i genuinely don't know who he is lol) these reading fanfic videos tend to have more of an unfortunate.. point and laugh aspect to them? A lot of the time it's presented in this LOOK AT HOW WEIRD THIS THING IS! way that can be humiliating for the author and incite even more harassment because the audience gets introduced to the author not as a person but as entertainment. You can see how this is a bad combination when you consider the previous point about a lot of fanfic being personal, I hope. It all can feel just a bit exploitative.

It does Not take a lot for a CC to open the floodgates on harassment. Just earlier this year another youtuber followed one of his fan artists and that eventually lead to that artist being full-on doxxed. Regardless of anyone's opinions on that situation, whether the youtuber is to blame, etc. etc. it's a pretty blatant example of how CCs even just interacting with fan creators on social media can lead to people being unhinged if they don't like their work. Now imagine making a Whole Video.

and don't say "oh just don't write weird stuff you don't want them seeing" because:

a space where writers are afraid to share their more intimate experiences with taboo subjects like mental health, queerness, abuse, and so on is Not Healthy artistically. Less communication about these topics = less people finding others who are like them = more people feeling alone in the world. I don't want that just in a fandom because a youtuber (who is not forced to look at fic) doesn't want their cubito to kiss certain people.

people. will. find. things. weird. anyway. i've seen twitter call the most mundane, wholesome, coffee shop au fics PROBLEMATIC for daring to ship two characters who have a four or five year age gap. I've seen literally almost every ship you can think of get called incestuous at some point or another because Someone On Twitter said they have "sibling energy" and all of a sudden it's incest and the writer should Die I guess.

"weird stuff" is really hard to define in the first place.

CCs are not authority and we don't have to listen to or cater to them. Fic is never going to directly affect them.

this isn't even getting into character/cc divide and how it's different for everyone and a lot people don't like "writing about real people" so on so forth.

This is only tangentially related but there's this.. odd thing i've noticed where fic writers aren't "respected" in the way artists are in fandoms? I've noticed people are often "scared" to talk to artists and react to things like animatics with more awe than anything else ("this has no right to be as good as it is!") whereas with fanfics it's more like. WE'RE READING FANFIC?!?! 😳😳 (I GET MARRIED TO WHO?!?!?)

There's something to be said about how a skill gap in visual art is more immediately noticeable to your average person than in writing but anyway. anyway.

#random thoughts #discourse #i hope this makes sense? You can tell I'm not a writer lol #anon this ask very much sounds like it was made in bad faith tbh but these are thoughts i wanted to get out anyway so

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erikahammerschmidt · 4 months ago

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Angry rant about - progressive discourse and infighting - evil people and corporations with too much power - how aforesaid discourse keeps blaming powerless ordinary people for what the evil giants do - and the various double and triple standards in how this blame gets handed around - (With extra anger toward Disney.)

Read at your own risk, or to be safe just don't. I'm venting.

I am baffled sometimes at how the dialogue around here is still keeping Disney in this separate ethical bubble from everyone else, not beholden to any of the same rules.

The same people who will say you are 100% irredeemable if you even read fanfiction of Harry Potter-- and who are even aware how much more money Disney contributes to homophobic and transphobic causes than JKR does-- won't bat an eyelash at people who have whole season passes to a Disney park.

Is it because Disney says the right words in public, makes some highly visible gestures of support, and does most of the harm behind the scenes without fanfare?

Is it because Disney is a corporation and not an individual -- the people aren't all bad-- and when you support Disney you're also supporting all those good marginalized people who just happen to work for Disney? ...who don't really have a choice, because Disney is the only gig with good enough jobs in their field, or the only one who'll hire them, because the diversity and accessibility of Disney's hiring practices contains some of their highly visible gestures of support (even though their overall practices screw the same people over big time)?

...and all that is also true of Raytheon and Lockheed, and the same progressive discourse around here says that working for them makes you irredeemable and worthy of immediate doxxing...

(...do Disney employees get away with what Raytheon and Lockheed employees don't because Disney's line of work doesn't do harm as bad as theirs? ...but then, why does Disney also get away with worse harm than JKR in the bigoted-corporate-lobbying department?)

I don't even fuckin know.

I mean, I personally try to have as little as possible interaction with ANY of the above entities. Including Disney equally.

I even somewhat hate myself for developing an interest in TRON, the past couple years-- even though I've come to accept that I only really like the 1982 movie, which I bought secondhand on DVD, and will not be paying Disney one cent for anything new they barf up in that franchise. (It'll suck anyway. Jared Leto? Ugh.)

It still puts me, ethically, on the same level as a Harry Potter fanfic reader or worse.

And if that level is one of the deepest circles of hell, as discourse on here would have it... then I'm damned forever, aren't I?

Except I'm not, because Disney lives in its own ethical world, and stuff that's evil for anyone else to do is fine for Disney.

I wrote a theology paper about that once. Except instead of Disney it was God. Says something about what we worship, I guess.

I don't even know what my own ethical beliefs are anymore.

Closest I can come is despair. Sure, we mere mortals can do some tiny little things to minimize how much we support the big evil gods and devils. But anything we can do, or not do, is a drop in the bucket. Insignificant. As useless to demonize as it is to praise.

Voting all down the ballot in every election is also a drop in the bucket, individually. But, since it actually does something toward choosing people who just might have more power than a drop in the bucket.... it just might be the thing we can do that makes the most difference.

Maybe just a little bit bigger drop in that bucket than how we scrape up a living, or what we buy or read or watch to make that living bearable.

I hope, anyway. Because I'll hope for whatever I can, in this fucked up world.

#politics #ramblings #angry rant

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keepingmyoptionsfluid · 2 years ago

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Look, I love 9-1-1 so very very much but coming at it objectively (and as someone who works in TV, and has done for several years), I would not be surprised if this was the final season. I would be gutted if it was canceled but not surprised. Shows which I never thought would be cancelled have been left to dry up, over a decade of production has ended. I worked for two and a half years for a flagship show on a major global network (not giving specifics cause I ain't gonna dox myself when I've seen the behaviour of some people on this tag) and they are really struggling at the moment.

911 simply does not have the viewership it once did, the actors are all getting more and more famous (thus more and more expensive) and the hugely negative reactions online are super damaging. It's one thing to have people complaining about the show while still watching but the drop in viewership combined with bad press, and review bombing (literally what the fuck guys... If you didn't like it, you don't need to ruin it for everyone else? How vindictive and nasty can you be?) can be seriously damaging.

Channels are leaving things to the last minute to renew shows because they are running out of money and this uncertainty can be seen in the writing - season five ended in a way which would be a reasonable final ever scene - and there is only so much that you can do when every season ends with the same vibes of "this could be goodbye forever".

Also, the show is just changing - which is natural over time. Whether you are a buddie fan or not, the Buck & Eddie relationship was a huge part of the show and the writers have basically nuked their screen time for whatever reason which is causing a lot of issues with fans. The human stories are just starting to struggle as storylines aren't being explored and the repeated refusal of the writers to ever have on screen make-ups after issues leads to a lack of trust. If two characters have problems that are a huge plot point, you cannot simply have all make up and big moments off screen (see chimney punch, madney breakup, buck parents make up etc). Characters are making increasingly OOC decisions for reasons which are never explained which leads to the conslusion that either the writers are trying to desperately avoid certain situations with specific characters, or they simply do not understand their characters and aren't willing to try and explain things that don't make sense.

They're running out of storylines too as we see with them getting frankly more and more ridiculous. Now I for one don't mind this, it's a fictional show and I've read fanfic much more bonkers than canon, but for a casual viewer, there's a limit to how much people are willing to let go. (I will take literally anything because I am long past the point about caring about reality in fiction. I like liking things and you're not gonna stop me).

This isn't meant to be a negative post (although it's come out more depressing than I thought) but realistically, I'm not holding out hopes because TV is a numbers game and bad ratings and bad reviews lead to cancelled shows. If you don't like an episode, don't rate it. Would you genuinely prefer the show cancelled because your fave didn't have a big role in an episode? It's literally an ensemble cast so everyone gets their own big storylines.

Anyway, here's hoping I'm wrong and I can joke about this miserable post in the future. I'm off to read 911 fanfic 🤣

#911 fox #911 #911 spoilers #look i know people habe strong feelings but honestly you can choose not to be a vitriolic child #we all have faves and things we dont like about the show but ive never seen such horrific cyber bullying as i have in this fandom #the behaviour is utterly dispicable and i hope to all god that the cast dont know how fans of this show act #except i know they do because some people abuse the cast when they dont like episodes #like you woild never do that to someone in real life so why is it appropriate to do it to an actor #they owe you literally nothing #working in tv lets you see the genuine worst sides of people sometimes #im lucky ive only had a few online attacks but DMming hate to actors? grow the fuck up

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insipid-drivel · 2 years ago

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What is one weird thing that you're proud of? And what is the story around it?

I once harassed the shit out of Starz Entertainment on facebook for publishing a highly misleading ad that preys on dark patterns and sending glorified cyberbullies to try to abuse me off of facebook.

I got 3 of their social media goons to ragequit. I won't post a screenshot of the first ad, primarily because I don't have one. Suffice it to say that it was very obviously a screengrab from the show "Outlander" and had a 10 minute "timer" (read: gif) that warned that, at the end of the "timer" a special deal for 6 months of a huge discount on their streaming site would expire.

I decided to test this by sitting and watching the timer to see it expire. As was totally unsurprising, it was definitely just a gif meant to get reaction-clicks, more traffic to their site and algorithm, and potentially prey on someone with a gambling addiction (like my grandmother) or other compulsion-causing condition to unwittingly throw their money at the ad to make it stop counting down. This is a real anxiety many gamblers and neurodivergent people have, and I have seen quite a few people with autism and/or ADHD and/or a slew of other conditions reveal that those kinds of malicious ads have indeed gotten them to part with some of their money just so they would make the timer go away.

Now, I decided to make this known to Starz by commenting under the ad itself where thousands of other people had also commented. To wit, I simply explained the sheer number of manipulative tactics they were using with this particular banner ad and how, upon reading their subscription TOS and the real terms for the discount (which wasn't fake), I also elaborated that the special discount lasted for several more MONTHS. Not just 10 minutes on facebook.

So I got mouthy. I didn't say anything directly defamatory or even intentionally insulting; I just wrote a small thesis paper on how their ad was the perfect example of Corporate Manipulative Tactics That Are Bad. The comment was 100% intended for anyone who really wasn't sure if the 10 minute timer ad was legit or not, and I would've rather had people know than remain ignorant before signing on with Starz since they're willing to lie 6 months down to 10 minutes.

I mean, I understand haggling, but come on.

Anyway, I post my response, and immediately I get a funny feeling. Mostly because within minutes, I receive a reply under what I wrote from a very generic (but real) person on facebook who forgot to lock their FB account and I could see in their "about me" section that they worked for Starz. This person called me stupid, that I was full of shit, that I was pathetic, that nobody cared what I had to say etc. etc. I only replied by using their replies and facebook's own algorithm and to continue my little TED talk about dark patterns using this person's attempts at cyberbullying as my soapbox. I stayed at the top of the comments section for a few days thanks to that.

Finally, someone shows up in my DMs. Calling me all manner of things, but pretty much the most boilerplate "I'm A Middle Aged Ad Exec And This Sounds Mean To Me So It Should Work On You" insults and harassment.

For the record, do not attempt to do this unless you have a lot of energy and a very open schedule, because I come from the era where 4chan was tricking kids into mixing bleach and ammonia to make "crystals", but really getting them hospitalized or buried for phosphene/mustard gas poisoning. "Goncharov" is a cute troll, but it's just that. Cute.

So Ad Troll #1 has to close down their FB account after I doxxed them when they told me to literally kill myself.

Less than 24 hours later, in comes some other person who totally isn't Starz affiliated ( /s ) to continue the same line of attempted verbal abuse. I mean, I find cold reading at a magic show boring, but they weren't even trying that. It was just schoolyard insults, again. I replied by mentioning she had the countenance about her that reminded me of a weather balloon full of Botox and tanning lotion had crash-landed on a topographical map of the Rocky Mountains. She stopped harassing me, closed her FB account, and disappeared after her nephew started pissing himself in the comments and saying "This is why nobody talks to you at Thanksgiving, Carol."

Third one? It gets fun. That's when I just started posting screengrabs of what these advertisers/social media whatevers were saying to me in FB chat, and I just began posting every screenshot directly as a reply to the very Starz ad they decided to behead me over. Tagging Starz's real company and corporate offices very. single. time. Probably well over 50 times, while continuing to give a long explanation about target manipulation and the tricks they use in Las Vegas casinos. I lived in Vegas for about 10 years or so and both my mom and dad worked within the contract and legal departments of MGM.

Suddenly, Troll #3 just disappears. Mid-insult. Curious that my wireless might've been acting up, I refreshed my facebook page just to make sure the game was still on.

The manipulative ad with the fake countdown timer had disappeared, and was replaced by this:

What a coincidence.

#long post #starz entertainment #yeah i'll still tag those fucks

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cryptidshuffle · 1 year ago

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not really a vent but i am complaining about life shit under the readmore lol

i feel so weird mentally rn and its making me feel like shit urgh. ive felt like shit pretty consistently since i moved back home so like. all year pretty much. like i used to be able to distract myself with school but after i graduated its like shit what do i do now. i really just had no purpose for a while. to the point where i didnt work and now have like no money and more credit card debt than im comfortable with having.

the whole point of me going back to work at d isney is bc i really didnt know what else to do with myself. ive felt bad ever since i left there. the only reason i didnt stay was bc i wanted to finish my degree and i did. idk if i actually liked workng there that much or if i just liked being on my own for the first time. but regardless being at my parents house feels suffocating after having that independence. so regardless ive justified going back to dw as like. the reasonable thing for me right now and i am excited to be going back. merch ive been told is way easier than quick service and my location seems like itll be fun (not to dox myself too hard but its at my personal favorite park... lol i lucked out) and i have friends from my first college program that still live and work down there! i even met up with a few recently and it felt good and i didnt feel lonely and weird.

anyways uh. i had a point with this im sure

im moving down there like. soon. little less than 2 weeks. and i dont feel prepared ive spent the last several days doing jack shit staying up late sleeping in later. barely crawling out of bed to eat a snack and dinner and then crawling back to bed.

i feel like theres so much i need to get done before then in terms of packing and what not and things i wanna do before then and it doesnt help that my moms planning one last big family weekend trip the weekend bc my brother will be home from college so shes gonna be weird about everyone all together for a week before everyone leaves again. i hrgrhrhgrgr

not to mention i have to share a room and didnt have time to try snd link with a roommate. what if i get paired with some freak. what if i get paired by someone who decided im some freak. i literally wont know until i get there urgh. the last roommates i had we barely talked but at least i knew one was also nonbinary and also we all had separate rooms. its different when u gotta share. urgh

and its 3am!fuck my life

#sorry im trying to veer away from using twitter circles to vent #bc twitter is in shambles

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angelguk · 4 years ago

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I’ve been reading your stuff and supporting you since you started and adore your writing but it rubs me off a bit wrong when you criticize ARMY as a whole along with other anons because you’re writing off an entire group of people who just enjoy BTS to varying degrees and there’s always bad apples in any bunch but the ease with which you insult/criticize ARMY as a whole is, frankly quite hurtful.

anonymous said to angeguk: I’m not trying to cause any problems or insult you or anything really but as someone who’s supported you and also feels like they have a friendship with you from the multiple anons we’ve interacted with, it hurts to see you do that when I think of myself as an ARMY. Also I don’t know the details of what you said regarding Jin and Since I don’t know much about your background I can say, as a Korean person, that older siblings would rather spend the rest of their lives on their knees 2/3

than take their younger sibling’s money. As someone who is quite familiar to Jin and his brothers situation I hope you won’t make any further assumptions of people’s character so soon :/ 3/3 also I realize I forgot to put 1/3 but the talking about ARMY criticizing was my first part of the as

before i say anything i’d just like to say that i’ve noticed what people infer from the things i say, are not actually what i meant. (using the literary definition of inference). i appreciate you raising this concern and i understand regarding your background you would feel a certain way about the content of that tweet, however, i would like to say that majority of the things i say online are not to be taken seriously. personally, i don’t take the internet seriously unless it directly negatively impacts an individual. seokjin does not care what i say about him i assure you, because truth be told he doesn’t know i exist. does that mean i can say anything? of course not, there’s boundaries. but then again banter/sarcastic jokes exist and what i said would never have been noticed if a certain account didn’t compile it and give it exposure. i understand the sibling relationship you’ve explained and just like OP (of the original twt that i responded to, they said: “it’s probably because he’s brother didn’t want to accept the money” again i drew the same conclusion but me making the harmless joke i did doesn’t directly impact seokjin in anyway, therefore it shouldn’t have caused the outrage it did — given that i don’t have a huge platform on twitter).

as for criticising armys, i have :/ reaction to that because i have had several terrible experiences with armys (particularly on stan twt). this includes, anti-blackness, classism, the whole witch-hunting thing they have going on with doxxing individuals, and somewhat of a cult-mindset sorry to say it but i see it. are there good armys, yes 100%. i know some, i interact with them daily. but! the toxic armys have made being online a :/ experience for me. i’ll avoid generalisations as much as possible because i know that’s not fair, however, if it doesn’t apply to you i think you should just let it go. i don’t think i insult armys — criticise them yes, simply because we should be aware of the harmful things that can brew in fandom culture and acknowledge them instead of reverting to the “bad apples” metaphor. a few bad apples in the bts fandom could be 100k+ people. also, i’ll always be critical of fandom culture regardless of whether it’s about kpop or any other topic of interest.

#apologies if i've rubbed u the wrong way but majority of what i say is based of actual experiences i've had with armys #ask #anon

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bi-dazai · 5 years ago

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a summary of the whole contrapoints thing from someone who has been spending most of her time on twitter and seen it first-hand throughout

(im using screenshots, some ive downloaded from trusted twitter mutuals and some ive made myself. since i have the shinigami eyes extension and many of my twitter mutuals dont, some scs will be inconsistent. i have checked each downloaded sced tweet to make sure theyre real.)

please dont try to start an argument on this post, im just summarising whats happened. ive already argued myself out over on my twitter and whatever point youre trying to make has literally already been said 20 times before.

Basically in late august/september natalie said some inflammatory shit about pronouns and nbs and “binary transes” which she’d said stuff along the lines of in the past. both nb and binary trans folks have criticised her lightly for this kind of attitude in the past as well. she has a pattern of behaviour (including being very...lenient towards terfs) but the stuff she was saying and the bad takes were tolerable, if incorrect and a little ignorant. what she said this time was basically “asking for pronouns in trans spaces is good i guess but it hurts passing/semi-passing transes like me” which is a take that makes no goddamn sense and is extremely ignorant towards both nb folks and trans folks who do not have the luxury of even trying to pass. she exaggerates the actual effect it has on her as well. basically the entire tweet reads really badly (the discussion was about asking for pronouns in trans spaces):

peter coffin made some batshit crazy takes (as usual) including inventing the term “enby cultural capital” which he refused to actually evaluate on past asking people to read a book (if you cant clarify your point on your own then you have an issue). he started tweeting like a madman and making it painfully clear how hard he will go to bats for natalie despite him being nb himself (many people joked/suspected that its because he wants to fuck her, same with philosophytube, and honestly looking at how they see her that isnt hard to believe).

natalie went off twitter for a while, eventually leaving an apology that was actually alright and made me and several others believe she would return a little more understanding of trans intra-community issues, especially in terms of class because she has always had an issue with ignorance from that angle. she said she had a friend called gwen taking over (nobody knows who this is nor had they ever heard of this friend, leaving some people suspicious that she may have made her up. im not going to confirm or deny this because i have no clue.)

idk what peter coffin was up to because at this point i and most ppl had officially stopped listening to him but i believe he was angrily tweeting about cancel culture. a lot of people were as well, even though the bulk of the criticisms of natalie had been written and expressed in a mature, appropriate way. some of my twitter mutuals who had been involved in discussing natalie’s past trends with these issues as well as her lack of class consciousness and (probably) accidental antisemitism began to get messages from what was very clearly alt-right trolls trying to doxx natalie. it was real information, which is extremely concerning, but no person published it and her criticisers that got those dms were vocal about not bullying or doxxing natalie. natalie wasn’t pushed away because of “cancel culture”, and “cancel culture” really isnt a real thing and many contra fans believed this too until she came under criticism, which highlights a pretty weird mentality but whatever.

anyway, she came back this week with a new video titled “opulence” which i dont care for watching so i just read about it from my twitter mutuals who did. since i didnt watch it ill only summarise its criticisms very basically.

to put it simply the main criticisms of the video were that she conflated trans aesthetic with literal opulence and class again, which people weren’t a fan of. she talked about her experience over the last few weeks, spinning it her way because how else would she spin it, thats to be expected. it was mostly just the usual contra, flawed takes and a bit of class ignorance...except for one blaring massive issue which is absolutely undeniable proof for where she’s heading with her politics and her content.

on that video, natalie invited infamous transmed, the guy who outed lana wachowski for money, buck angel, to collab with her. this guy is infamous in the trans community for being a cis bootlicking bigot. he makes kalvin garrah look like a lovely guy. he’s been around for a very long time and he’s very famous for being a massive asshole. heres just a taste of the kind of attitude he carries:

contra has previously spoken up about why you shouldn’t platform bigots. so her platforming a bigot has some very very obvious implications.

needless to say, people were and are pretty mad and very disappointed. a large majority of her fans have been against this.

when oliver (philosophytube) promoted the video on his twitter many replies to his quote tweet were his fans begging him to be even mildly critical of contra.

on contra’s subreddit (for clarification, natalie isnt a mod there and im not sure about how involved she is on the sub) there was even a thread created in which MANY of her fans on there expressed criticism of contra’s views. the mods then locked the post, deleted comments, and banned the use of the word “truscum” because it was offensive i guess? it was a move very close to “terf is a slur” territory

furthermore, some pretty infamous transphobes have been in support of her and buck angel in the past, including ian miles cheong which is...wow. some of these are scs from a twitter mutual, but the ones with red names are from me - i have the shinigami eyes extension, so basically any person with a red name is a known transphobe (im surprised buck isnt marked yet lol).

finally, ill put some threads here that give a pretty good analysis and view of the situation imo

#long post #contrapoints

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thelastarchangelaskblog · 5 years ago

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Session 16

This is our most recent session! Our DM ( @the-grey-hunt) titled it “Oh Boy Guys” in her session notes after we were done, which goes to show just what...uh...happened.

A lot. An...unexpected amount. Including something our DM didn’t expect to happen for another three plot points but I don’t know what she was expecting with that curve ball she threw at us. (Her status on Discord is now back to RECALCULATING.)

Anyway, our entire party was present but for @imagine1117, which was a bit...unfortunate.

So what happened anyway?

(Read more.)

It’s still raining outside, and we’re no longer in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s headquarters and have never been in Ankh before but really do need somewhere to stay.

@heliocentricgeometric: I'm thinking about what this anxious weirdo would do.

Tony just asks a random gnome where an inn is that they can stay at, and they’re directed to a nice boarding house that has 3 rooms we split between the six of us. Once we’re dried off, we reconvene in one room to discuss S.H.I.E.L.D.

Zira is adamant that she’s joining but no one else has to. Rhodey ( @rebaobsessions) is just as adamant that she’s not going to join it alone and DJ (doxblogsstuff) agrees.

But what about Tony? He’s not a fan of joining a shady organization, although he doesn’t specifically list his reasons for why. He does state he’s willing to ally with them as an independent contractor.

Tony: I'm not going off by myself.

Rhodey: Good.

DJ has doubts about this plan, since he doesn’t think Fury will agree to an independent contractor role.

DJ: Cranky Pants made it sound like it was a black-and-white choice. I don't know if he's been paying attention, but there's a lot of grey out there.

Tony: Shady organizations that think in black-and-white aren’t organizations I want to join.

Bob ( @thechaoticwave) hasn’t agreed to joining either! He states he needs more information and just left with more questions after talking to Fury and getting some answers.

There’s a meta joke among us about the fact that Bob occasionally also has the name Tony and he and Tony can make a detective club. Zira suggests Tony become a detective and the joke spirals from there.

DM: Tony & Tony Private Detectives

thechaoticwave: Tony-squared.

Dox: T-squared. Their calling card is a t-square nailed to the door.

Back in game, Tony is stating his own decision shouldn’t affect anyone else’s, but Rhodey doesn’t want to leave him alone.

Rhodey: You’re not going anywhere without me by your side.

Tony: I’m not asking you for that.

Rhodey: You don’t get to ask or not ask me that— It’s already given, Tony. It’s already given.

(MY HEART, GUYS)

The conversation doesn’t really have a resolution since Bob still needs more info and Tony is resolutely not joining S.H.I.E.L.D. We wait for the rain to stop before heading down and do some errands.

DJ wants to visit the store his relatives have here since it’s an Artificing store. He invites Tony since it’ll be cool for Tony to check out. Tony agrees to come along but will have to leave for his own errands.

DJ asks the head of the inn where his relatives’ store is, actually using their name. He tries being stealthy but it’s not quiet enough to get past our groups’ passive perception.

There are...reactions among the players.

DJ last name reveal.

inu: wait WHAT WAS THAT

Everyone else: JAMJAR

There are Jar Jar Binks gifs going around in the lurking chat, and Tony in-game is going what very, very quietly.

In the meantime, Zira is interested in why DJ is wanting to go shopping and what is this about holidays?

Zira: We need to jump back. We need to jump way back. What holiday?

An explanation later that involves the practice of gift giving.

Zira: Does this mean I should be getting gifts for you? I don't even know what you like! I mean...explosions?

Some other folks are like...I don’t know if I can find a good gift since I’m terrible in real life. (coughrebacough)

inu (in lurking chat): Now I have an idea for DJ's gift.

Everyone else in voice chat: Oh no.

We do eventually find our way to JamJar Jar Jar Artificers.

The proprietors: Welcome to Jamjar Artificers ...Have I met you before?

DJ, their relative: I'm Junior.

Madi and Mani are the twin proprietors of a store that sells absolutely nothing made by actual artificers. Tony is familiar with almost everything in the store and is an actual artificer. The stores’ contents are also super expensive and we don’t have the funds because our DM hasn’t provided us with a ton of loot drops...

Zira: Being hunted for sport actually doesn't pay very well.

DJ: I could have used a little more gold and a little less near death experiences.

Madi and Mani would really like DJ to buy this cat figurine that has been in their store for absolutely ages. (Please guess which cats this figurine is modeled after. Please.) It’s still 75 gp but they’re willing to knock down the price!

After some more exploring, Tony eventually gives DJ everyone else’s money bags and leaves on his own errands.

He manages to find his way back down to the first floor, upon which he...senses a little something...a little something familiar.

It’s Balthazar.

Balthazar is here.

Balthazar is physically here.

He’s here and painting a mural on the wall!!

Tony has absolutely no idea what to do, but he’s too curious for his own good to just leave without acknowledging his brother in some way. It’s been two years since he’s last seen him in person!

Tony says something nice about Balthazar’s painting, getting his attention. Balthazar turns to him, presumably about to say something nice,

There’s a moment, and then Balthazar sees the signet ring Tony has.

Balthazar: What’s that ring you're wearing?

Tony looks down at this ring he has always worn and never even considered.

Tony (to himself): Oh shit.

Balthazar tries some kind of spell but Tony aces the wisdom save.

Balthazar keeps asking where Tony got the ring from. Tony is absolutely truthful that it’s his ring and he stole it off a table and not any fingers. Balthazar is incredibly doubtful and suspicious of this because his brother would never let go of that ring and why does Tony have it

I want it to be known that everyone in the lurking chat is losing their minds over Balthazar being physically present and ALL OF THEM IN A STORE AND NOT PRESENT.

Bob ends up leaving because he’s uninterested in what the rest of the party is doing. Zira follows after him.

thechaoticwave rolls a Nat 20 on perception.

DM: Bob, you go up to the balcony, look down, and see this dude about to throw hands with Tony.

Bob flies down, and Zira is right on his heels to see what’s up and is like HEY, WHAT’S GOING ON. This gets everyone else’s attention, and soon they’re all trying to find their way down to the first floor.

Bob interjects himself smack in the middle before Balthazar can throw any punches. His presence is enough for Balthazar to back off a little, but he’s still insistent on the ring being his brother’s (Gabriel) and why does Tony have it?

Bob makes the offhand suggestion that maybe Tony’s his brother! :D

The rest of the group sprints to Tony’s defense, and Balthazar is now faced down by a 6′6″ tall aasimar with sharp teeth, Rhodey who has a ton of weapons, a bird, JARVIS, and a halfling. (Luna is off to parts unknown.)

Rhodey asks Tony if he knows what’s going on here. Tony just nods because anything else would be a lie, wouldn’t it?

Balthazar is now amenable to moving this conversation somewhere more private because Tony isn’t having this discussion here.

They go into a side alley. Balthazar reiterates that the only reason his brother wouldn’t have this ring would be if he was dead.

Tony: He’s not dead.

Balthazar: And how do you know that?!

Tony: Because...he’s me.

There’s...a stunned pause. Helio is accidentally ejected from voice chat while Bob is trying to give Zira a high-five.

And then Balthazar is instantly in denial because how???

Zira: Well, is he your brother then?

Balthazar: NO!

Balthazar is insistent he’d know if Tony was his brother. He’s spent enough time with his siblings to know them! And Tony doesn’t look like any of them!!

This means...is Tony under a disguise??

Helio: 465 is now in the front y’all!

reba: Oh, NO

465 is mad. She is so mad, guys. She demands to know what Tony’s real name is. If that’s even his actual face!!

Tony doesn’t answer, just says they need to go somewhere private if he’s going to do this. Balthazar leads them to his place because he doesn’t want to be led somewhere unfamiliar.

Tony takes off the amulet, and it’s Gabriel.

Helio: Can we pause for a second

DM: Yeah, let loose.

(three to four simultaneous meltdowns)

Balthazar is having emotions. Gabriel is having emotions. Everyone else in the party is just probably in varying stages of wtf-ery and 465 is apparently startled enough and Zira startled enough that Zee is back in the driver’s seat because 465 and Zira are now fighting.

Zee: Mr. Tony... Gabriel. Mr. Tony-Gabriel.

Balthazar eventually tells everyone to make themselves comfortable. He’s found solace in a chair himself.

thechaoticwave: Bob just flops down as soon as he says make yourself comfortable.

DM: Like, on your stomach?

thechaoticwave: Yeah.

Zee is super talkative and introducing herself and the Zira collective to Balthazar. DJ puts a hand over her mouth. He’s wearing the gauntlets of ogre strength and I think Zee licks it?

DM: It tastes like metal and dead people. The dead person is mostly on the inside.

Balthazar swears a little as Gabriel talks; he doesn’t like what he’s hearing.

Zee: That was a bad word. Also is your shirt broken?

Balthazar: No. I'm hot.

Zee: Why don't you take it off?

DJ: Zee, darling, Mr. Balthazar looks a little stressed out right now. Why don't we not critique his clothing choices right now?

Balthazar: If you’re going to call me Mister, use my last name Quill.

Gabriel keeps telling Balthazar about what happened back home. That he left because he if he hadn’t then he probably would have gotten himself killed. And he’s going after the ones who left to join the Horned Crown.

Balthazar looks like he doesn’t want to hear this and doesn’t know whether to believe this. He’s curled in on himself in the chair.

Gabriel eventually reaches out, but something he says upsets Balthazar and he withdraws. Gabriel doesn’t try again.

Gabriel tells Balthazar they’ll leave and are heading to their boarding house. Balthazar can find him there and bring Hannah if he wants.

Balthazar snidely asks if he’s going to skip town. Gabriel glances over to the group and Rhodey and DJ are very adamant on going LIKE HELL with their eyebrows.

Gabriel puts the amulet back on and leaves before anyone else does. Rhodey eventually follows after, leaving Zira, Bob, and DJ to follow.

Rhodey tries to touch Gabriel’s shoulder, but Gabriel actually flinches and puts space between them. Rhodey doesn’t try again.

They end up back in the boarding house. Rhodey and Gabriel are in the room they share. Rhodey lets him know he can take time to think and Rhodey’s here if Gabriel wants to talk. And that he still trusts him and loves him.

There isn’t a verbal response from Gabriel, but he does nod.

Rhodey rolls a Nat 1 on insight against Gabriel’s 19 (17?) for deception. It’s...uh...bad.

Rhodey leaves the room, closes the door, and starts crying against it because he thinks something really awful, guys.

I’m just going ahhhh in the voice chat because owwww

DM to inu: This is your bed that you made and you're going to lie in it.

Zee and DJ find Rhodey crying against the door. Zee is instantly jumping to comfort and gives Rhodey a hug.

reba: Helio, your characters are too perfect and you have three of them.

DJ shoves Rhodey aside while he’s hugging Zee. Zee and Rhodey head downstairs for some water while DJ goes to talk to Gabriel.

DJ: Oh my god, you are so fucking DUMB

Gabriel doesn’t respond to anything. DJ accidentally injures him on trying to pull his hands away from his face because he rolled a Nat 1 and so the gauntlets catch on Gabriel’s skin. He’s rubbing at the wounds angrily but still kindly and is telling Gabriel to go talk to Rhodey because he was crying.

Gabriel: You’re a good kid.

DJ: I’m an adult.

Gabriel: A good kid.

Gabriel goes downstairs, but Rhodey and Zee are sitting together and drinking some water. Zee has managed to cheer Rhodey up some, and Gabriel doesn’t want to bother them.

Zee catches sight of him and waves him over. Rhodey catches sight and raises a hand. Gabriel makes to go to a corner table and Rhodey droops.

Only DJ is there and keeps poking Gabriel in the back, but JARVIS headbutts him because that’s just rude and stop poking Gabriel! DJ hauls Gabriel off to Rhodey and Zee because he’s not leaving them to not talk about this!!

DJ: Zee, sweetheart, let's go over and talk to Neil and Luna, who is invisible. Because Rhodey and Tony need to have a conversation like two adults.

Gabriel sits down but has a chair of space between them. Neither of them speaks.

inu: Two guys at a table sitting in awkward silence.

DM: Two bros sitting in a hot tub.

Rhodey gathers his thoughts and eventually tells Gabriel he’s still there for him.

Rhodey: I still trust you. I still love you

Gabriel: You don’t know me.

Rhodey: Are you going to say that, after all we've done? That it’s all a lie?

Gabriel: ...no.

Gabriel tells Rhodey it was a mask. Rhodey doesn’t like hearing this. He wants to know if everything about them was a lie. If anything was real.

Gabriel tells him a little about leaving and that none of this was intended. That he made attachments he never intended to make but he’s made them.

Gabriel: I don’t want to leave.

Rhodey: And I definitely don’t want you to go.

Gabriel: Then...I guess we can try.

(There is a part where Rhodey says he loves part of Gabriel already. Can’t he love the rest? my heart)

Rhodey reaches out a hand, and Gabriel gives it a look before grabbing hold of it. He’s holding it pretty tightly, and Rhodey’s squeezing back just as hard.

And that’s where we end the session!!!

see, so much happened

#d&d campaign #imagine1117 #doxblogsstuff #thechaoticwave #the-grey-hunt #rebaobsessions #heliocentricgeometric

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thedogsled · 7 years ago

Text

Hi guys. I’m going to cautiously title this ‘About Zimbio, Destiel, my personal struggle with the idea of wlw vs. mlm, and why what we achieved in the vote today says a lot about our magnificent fandom’.

This is a reminder in advance that I make generalizations but I don’t mean any harm by them. I’m happy to discuss this topic and capitulate on some things, because my experience of shows is extremely limited right now (unless I want to watch them in French). Just like Dean I say ‘we’ a lot but please assume sometimes I mean ‘I’, I by no means make any claim to speak for all of the following groups at any point: bisexuals, mlm shippers, wlw shippers, television executives, social media marketers, the mainstream audience, destiel shippers--etc, etc, you get the drift.) If any of the following upsets you, please let me know, it’s not my intent to cause any harm, only reassure my friends that they did a good job.

I promised I was going to write a post on this, because I’ve seen just a little mumbling and unhappiness that Destiel didn’t make it through in the semis. I get it, it’s only natural that it’s going to lead to some hurt feelings, but I wanted to really put across to you all why I say I was proud of us for our semi-final performance, rather than you just take it for granted.

We are an old fandom. Thirteen years is a long time; it makes Supernatural the longest single run fantasy/sci fi series on American TV (and I mean I think it’s unfair to compare it to non American shows like Doctor Who anyway just on pure numbers, especially since Who has gone through thirteen fourteen? fifteen? are we counting radio drama? actors in the lead role; it’s like a different show every time.) So. It’s had a superb run. Fantasy/sci fi shows are typically considered to be niche, not massive hits (comparatively speaking; SPN isn’t Grey’s Anatomy or NCIS I’ll grant). But what networks are finally waking up to is the power of the fandom of those ‘niche’ shows, dedicated viewing power which can grow a network’s brand, particularly online, and networks are eager to wrangle that.

This modern era of television is fandom’s era of television. Netflix are promoting gamification of television watching (even for kids) as well as choose your own adventure style TV. Binging and rewatching box sets is a whole thing now, not just the domain of the “geek”, and shows which can convince people to stick around and watch something instead of moving on when they run out of material--they’re the ones gaining success, while traditional shows slip further and further as they fail to capture new demographics. We’re making strong social media contracts with the creators and actors of our shows, and making it clear to them - in a way that is increasingly being recognized for the opportunity it represents - that there must be give and take with modern audiences, especially if you seek gratification through social media. (I read a great article I reblogged that called it the ‘Brandom’ effect.)

It’s wonderful, and it’s terrifying, because both fans and creators don’t know what to do with it. They can give fans too much power and the show goes off the rails, or deny it to them entirely, and earn only vitriol. Some shows rub their power right in the face of their fans and increasingly they pay for it. Some showrunners are outright incapable of talking to their fans at all without being respectful (I’m looking at you The 100), and some fans are ghastly, aggressive and outright disrespectful in pursuing what they want (it is a different thing showing joy over your ship as it is to dox actors and send their wives hate mail). Some showrunners, instead, are more embracing of their fans, like the Earpers, and if you want an idea of how actors should be engaging with fans, check out David Haydn Jones’ twitter. That man is a saint. It’s a delicate game of mutual respect, and occasional drama, and intent is the name of the game: do you have good intent, is it honest? People crave honesty on the internet where everything and everyone is fake--and that honestly is a tough thing to achieve when studios are too heavily concentrating on their bottom line.

So, this is a changing landscape, like I said, and people are struggling with new marketing techniques, trying to find their place in the world, running into walls when they realize that in fact they don’t understand their queer audience members. When something works, shows are very quick to jump right into it, almost relieved to have evidence that if they do X thing, their fans won’t all jump ship in horror, but here’s the thing, networks are in a lot of ways far slower to respond than shows. If you want to do something, you have to prove to the person holding the purse strings that it’s a profitable endeavor. Producers are set in their ways, especially old school producers, not realizing how quickly the landscape is changing, and writers are fighting against that all the time, because they’re often a lot more in touch with the creative fandoms they’re trying to inspire. Many have come from fandoms themselves. Queer writers should mean more queer storylines, right? But it means fighting money men to make it happen. Oftentimes that leads to the whole ‘one queer ship is enough’ standpoint, and when it comes down to it, those money men are more likely to put stock in safe investments, in proven investments. Consequently, wlw is flourishing because it draws in audiences without losing them. It’s arguably less risky to make Alex Danvers gay than Castiel. It’s more PC, accepted by wider audiences, groundwork laid by Dark Angel and Buffy in my own recent memory. When good results come from featuring those kinds of ships, they appear increasingly on TV, and it’s AWESOME. There were 16 wlw ships in Zimbio March Madness, and 11 of them got through all the way to 8vs8. There were only 2 mlm ships in 8vs8, and 3 het ships. Internet fandom, passionate and social and dedicated? It speaks, and it says ‘More LGBT rep please’.

We’re in a transitional period. Changes are coming, but when you look at the big mlm ships of the last few years, you can see the uphill climb that’s still ahead of us. I spoke with our Hannigram and Johnlock friends last year about what their experience with this was like. (I haven’t spoken to Sterek folks, but I know there’s disappointment from that front too). Johnlock shippers are largely furious about how explicitly the finale no-homoed their ship when there was absolutely no reason to. Having watched the finale myself, I feel like they really went hard against shippers explicitly. Hannigram suffered too. I haven’t finished S3 even now, but what I recall of the conversation went like this: they’re together, but there was a kiss that didn’t make it to air, and then the show was cancelled. In any case, what I’m saying right here is that this is part of a pattern, a theme I’m struggling with, where mlm fans are dispirited and disappointed and feeling disrespected by the very mainstream shows they’re watching.

(Which isn’t, I’ll quickly note, that I’m saying the same isn’t true of wlw audiences. The last two ships in Zimbio this year are non canon ships, and the fans of both have been hurt by the shows they watch, but they still keep coming back and watching the show. Swanqueen is ending, but the pair have been consistently mirrored - dark and light - with the emotional journey of the show largely being made over the shared custody? I don’t know, they changed it every week while I was watching it of Emma’s son. Supercorp is clearly full of eye sex thanks to the actress’ chemistry (and McGrath is so gorgeous she’d have chemistry with a brick wall) and yet has been outright mocked by the show’s cast. If that sounds familiar to Destiel fans, I almost want to say that Supercorp have it worse; just as with Swanqueen, they’re often told simply to shut up because there's already wlw rep on the show.)

But where shows are willing to go there now, diminished risk is the key, especially as resale value of shows reflects multiple, competitive platforms constantly needing to purchase content to fill their airspace. Naked women, women kissing and women having sex - bisexual women who are explicitly still available to men - that sells, but as far as I can tell networks are struggling to sell the same narrative about mlm. Maybe that’s my perspective only, maybe that’s me watching the wrong shows (and not at all because I don’t enjoy looking at women’s bodies, I do, but variety is the spice of life) Look at the outright surprise last year when GOT gave us a beautiful, pus covered, full screen dick. GOT, of course, which is insulated because it is a Number One performer. I present to you, in terms of dicks on screen, American Gods, then. Neil Gaiman is my hero, selling the network on the premise that they could have his great stories if only they were willing to gleefully integrate peen on every episode. Or so I’m told. There’s a lot on my ‘to watch’ list that I haven’t got around to yet. I will tell you, of course, that mlm is out there, Evak were voted out against Supercorp in the quarter finals) but on a big show like Supernatural that risk is exceptional. That’s why when we talk about Destiel ‘going canon’, we make the shockingly ambitious request of them HOLDING HANDS, or mutually saying ‘I love you’, and sometimes feel like expecting anything more, like a kiss, or god forbid a sex scene, is too much to ask. Why? When lesbians and bisexual women are presented on TV, kisses and sex scenes are a matter of course. In Alex’ coming out, in Thirteen’s coming out in House, Angela’s coming out in Bones - huge ensemble shows where main characters, all women, have come out and kissed (and returned to male partners in the case of the later two). (I should point out I am talking about genre “mainstream” shows in general, not for example Queer as Folk, where the primary aim is to explore sexuality, not fight dragons or solve crimes)

Now in addition to this problem, an issue that I’ve seen for years is that from inside the fandom world we are made to feel as though we are somehow obscene or inferior for shipping mlm ships, a projection that comes from the way mainstream folks will react to you if they happen to discover you drawing dudes together. Sometimes we hide our online selves from the real world out of shame that has only built over the years, where it’s considered that supporting mlm ships instead of wlw ships makes you fetishistic, or objectifying of gay men. I’ve seen it in fanfiction spaces and in rp spaces on dw and lj that shipping wlw has been raised to a point of being considered ‘more pure’. If you ‘claim’, they say, to be a queer woman, you should wholly be supporting wlw ships. When I started hearing this dialogue I was THIRTEEN. This was before Willow/Tara. There were just less wlw ships on tv, and there were less female characters whose autonomy didn’t depend on men, or portray them as being fragile, the weakness of their gender or whatever. There were standout female characters in my youth, absolutely, but they were all independent (mostly) straight women: Kathyrn Janeway, Sam Carter, Clarice Starling, Dana Scully. They kicked out against the system, the world they lived in, intelligent and defiant ladies I still idolize. Nowadays, though those wlw ships are available, and populated by so many beautiful, powerful, progressive female characters - and yes miraculously even strong female characters who still embrace their own womanhood. In contrast mlm ships are not keeping up because, in some way, I think that the ‘impurity’ of shipping mlm has stuck. I struggle to think of even straight non toxic male role models, nevermind male role models who are in engaging, romantic relationships with the same sex. This stagnation of masculinity (apart from the rise of the geek hero which often, as in the case of TBBT, doesn’t break away from inbuilt misogyny) troubles me immensely. (I’m not saying all male characters are awful, incidentally, but it’s not a positive message to outright expose the flaws of toxic masculinity without offering understanding, lessons, and growth. But that’s another essay.)

Trust me, I’m not saying everyone feels that TV is being stacked against mlm, but as a bisexual I really feel fractured by the whole thing. I feel like I’m supposed to loathe myself for shipping mlm, particularly when that mlm ship is ‘two white guys’. The fact that I as a woman enjoy male and female bodies is irrelevant, because one desire is pure, and one desire is fetishism. There is no balance. I’m allowed to be titilated by members of my own gender kissing each other and only that and heterosexuality. As a bisexual who is currently leaning toward wlw myself (sexuality existing on a sliding scale imo), it is the power imbalance in heterosexual couples which puts me off. It’s painfully true to life. I have a particular loathing for Booth and Brennan from Bones, for example, where his toxic masculinity is unilaterally forgiven because it’s true love, while Bones, once independent and stubborn herself, is increasingly nudged further out of character in order to forgive him his trespasses. But when I ship mlm, or write fanfic of my favorite couples, any power I give them is not based on their gender. The same I imagine is true of wlw. (An unfortunate consequence of this is people project it onto real life, where power inequality and abuse can exist regardless of make believe ‘purity’, and consequently people end up believing that something is wrong with them rather than their relationship, similar issues as people face when they imagine marriage is the goal, and everything else is happily ever after, because Disney told them so. In which case I advise you to rewatch Mary Poppins.)

During voting, I was reticent to address why voting for Destiel over the other ships was important to me. It was personal. (Of course anyone could have sent me an ask if they were curious). But why I was voting didn’t matter. It was enough that I was voting for the couple I love, whose relationship my blog is devoted to, and whose love story I hope is resolved. But there is more to it than that. What’s important, I guess, is how I feel about Dean. My reading of him is of a bisexual, still in the closet - perhaps even to himself - in his thirties. He made it out of high school, but that’s it, because he dropped out of higher education for family commitments. He likes rock music and classic cars. He loves pie, and dumb medical TV dramas, and cowboy hats, and riding rodeo bulls and chatting to strangers. He struggles with voicing his true self with people who know him, and might judge him in a way he will never come back from. Dean is basically me. I am all those things. And in this case, he’s in love with a genderfluid (has been both male and female) guardian angel whose love for Dean explicitly and singularly, has been described as a profound bond, and the greatest love story ever told. Castiel’s love for Dean, his willingness to do anything for him, is all I think any of us want from a romantic partner. And yes, we all find different things in our ships, and presumably other people connect with Destiel for reasons that aren’t the same as my own, but that’s okay. My reasons are my reasons.

And yet I am still thrown into that emotional disconnect: that because this couple is an mlm couple I’m wrong to ship it, that I would be better putting my energy into watching shows I don’t necessarily enjoy as much so I can find my representation in more respectable (or potentially less queerbaity) fandoms. That Supernatural isn’t good enough because I’ve been repeatedly told by people inside and outside the fandom that it isn’t good enough. I’ve got to tell you I agree that it struggles with being progressive. While season 3 of Grey’s Anatomy was showing the struggles of a pre-op mtf woman and her wife in an ep that made me actually cry for the dysphoria represented, on the other channel SPN had just got done killing a token ‘woman with an off screen girlfriend’ character. By season 11, we’ve had two gay male couples, both holding hands and leaning into each other to express their relationship. SPN is slow. Nobody in the world would deny that.

But to be quite honest, also, finding representation doesn’t have to mean ‘a ship’, it can just be a well written bisexual woman with a badge, and you aren’t restrained to just one rep either! In fact, the more the better. I find myself particularly starved for that rep, especially since - having been fetishized for my bisexuality irl before - I see painful reflections of that on television. That’s obviously going to be related to bad writing and TV’s particular way of objectifying women in general, too, but when a woman (say Angela Montenegro from Bones) has a two episodes storyline where she makes out with another insanely attractive actress, the music rising, lit with soft shades, the camera focused in on their mouth--before the plot is forgotten entirely, it is incredibly difficult not to see that as objectification and not bisexual solidarity. I want more mlm on TV because I want more bisexuals of both genders on TV, and because of the harmful insinuation in mainstream thought that a guy who comes out as bi late has somehow been lying to himself and was gay all along, while women who are bi are just exploring their sexuality and somehow more up for it. Those views need to be constantly, constantly challenged, because, honestly, people believe them. (Probably not me or you, but it’s out there).

(As an aside: mainstream is also harsh toward female writers who write mlm stories. There have understandably, as a result, been female writers who chose male pseudonyms to pen their gay romance novels. I first experienced this to a lesser extent back in Gundam Wing fandom, because if you were a ‘male’ author it legitimized you and people would read your stories in preference to those penned by girls. Back then it was a numbers game. The prejudice does remain. Audiences are sometimes outright cold to female authors who pen mlm stories! You need only look at the conversation about boycotting Love, Simon because it was written by a straight woman to appreciate just how deeply we’ve built this disconnect, as though to write something the author must always write from personal experience. If that’s the case, I feel terrible for Thomas Harris and Jeff Lindsay, and JK Rowling (who speaks about choosing her moniker because it was genderless) must certainly have had an exciting childhood, what with all the magic and dragons.

As a result I think we (or at least I) have internalized some harmful things about who has the right to interpret themselves in stories told about men, or male protagonists. And in lashing back at girls who for years have been doing just that, considering it to be lesser if I find a role model in Dean instead of Angela, we have harmed the integrity of mlm fans themselves, who increasingly struggle under a burden of self imposed guilt. It is reflecting back poorly on mlm performances, even as wlw stories flourish. In this raising the pedestal of wlw purity, the ‘ethical’ alternative, we dismiss what people can learn about themselves from male role models too, something that we instead encourage if it’s a teenage boy finding a role model in Elsa. My closeted bi self loving Dean Winchester harms nobody, but I am still made to feel lesser for doing so, even if sometimes that feeling is ridiculously self imposed. Hell, maybe I’m alone in this feeling and the rest of this is bullshit, but that’s why I said ‘I vs we’ was definitely a part of this commentary.

In any case, this is what I think this means to the Zimbio vote: As wlw rep has been increasing, mlm has been facing a disappointing deficit. Those once big fandom movers ‘Superwholock’, the Hannigrams, the Sterek shippers--have fractured and splintered off. Destiel has come in waves but it’s still somehow here, without its original opponents from back in the day. It’s here, even with setbacks after season 8 and 10 that had fans breaking away from Supernatural entirely. Optimism now reflects optimism felt before, but let’s face it Castiel was killed permanently at one point, and Bob Singer said outright, even just a few years ago, that Destiel and social media stuff just didn’t come up in the writing room (pr is not showrunning, etc). People are hugely entitled to struggle with optimism for non canon mlm ships because history repeats itself. Add into that feelings like I described above, and the struggle is real. It can sometimes feel like you’re fandom’s three legged, one eyed donkey.

Add to that how old Destiel is. Every fandom coming into existence now, every ship built around, comes into contact with Destiel at some point. If you type ‘queerbaiting’ into Wikipedia, our ship is cited. In Google, we come up first. Thanks to antis (and some genuinely bad behavior from bad apple shippers over the years) we’ve earned a reputation, and it moves before us into every ship interaction we have. Because of that, we can appear both intimidating and as something to be avoided, because ‘what if you meet a crazy one’? You’d think seniority would be a good thing, but few people see us as a ship that’s been there and done that, as they do Swanqueen. We aren’t the ship that can perhaps offer advice on things going on in whippersnapper fandoms based on our experiences, as it would be in an ideal world. We’re not a ship to be aligned with, and because of this odd perception of wlw vs. mlm, there was simply never any potential that support for Supercorp wasn’t going to skyrocket. It was a fight against ‘That monolithic mlm ship that just won’t stop’, as it were, because here we still are hanging onto threads hoping our ship will go canon, and based on past evidence, the fall of other mlm ships, and only looking in from the outside, that seems like wishful thinking.

So we were unlikely to gain allies from heartbroken mlm fandoms. We were unlikely to find allies in wlw fandoms. It’s sad, of course, because for all the talk of representation in media, the desire to express a balance and cheerlead for mlm, imo an obvious representation underdog, simply doesn’t ever come up. Our friends and relatives roll our eyes at us if we talk about Destiel because we get that ridiculous light in our eyes when we do. Ultimately, that meant that Destiel was on its own. It had to unify. It had to pour its passion into voting and be a family again. It’s been knocked out in previous years - honestly based on what I’ve heard it’s been a disaster - but THIS YEAR we pulled out all the stops. That was all us. Despite antivoting, Destiel shippers - and only Destiel shippers - fought and fought - thousands of votes after thousands of votes, as we made small leads only to slip three times further. We didn’t stop. We were there and fighting right up until the end. And it may just have been a silly online poll, but I think it really goes to show what we can do when we put our hearts into it. We more than doubled the amount of votes cast in the previous round, over the exact same time scale, even though Supercorp fought back with everything they had, all the vibrancy of being a fresh, shunned ship determined to prove themselves, using social media strategy and unity to bring in votes from wherever they could get them. They fought well. They were wiley and smart, and so passionate; passionate like I thought I’d forgotten how to be.

And we kept fighting. We were in the semis, with twice as many votes more than Swanqueen, and we fought tooth and nail and almost got there, slipping just in the last half hour.

I have to believe that that’s because some people in the Destiel family have hope. I know we’ve drawn in a lot of new and returning shippers recently, I’ve seen you following me and starting out in meta writing yourselves, joining Destiel exchanges for the first time, sharing your first codas. The DCBB and Pinefest have had ENORMOUS turnouts. We are, despite all odds, growing as a ship again.

I really hope that we can overcome the shame that has somehow been drummed into us for shipping mlm. I hope that we can all, whether we ship wlw, mlm, het or poly or whatever peeps are doing these days, make sure not to raise one as an ideal over the others, because it’s not in the spirit of family, of fandom. It is never ‘us against them’, it’s never a case of moral or ethical superiority, definitely not even in everyday parlance and least of all in a shipping popularity contest.

And maybe despite the risk, we’ll get an ‘I love you’, some hand holding. Hell, maybe even a kiss (Supernatural never even gave us a kiss between Jesse and Cesar, though, so I have my doubts.) But God if that wouldn’t pave the way for better deconstruction of toxic masculinity on genre TV, more presence of bisexual men and gay men on genre TV, and more men kissing and open expression of sexuality on genre TV.

So here’s my final word. Maybe the bunnies will kiss. Maybe they’ll even do what bunnies do, who knows? And maybe next year we’ll win it.

I hope I didn’t step on any toes with this post. I felt like these words needed to come out of me, though, so here they are. Thank God there’s no more Zimbio until next year, right? Please refer back to my first paragraph for disclaimers. Thanks, though, if you read this far.

#zimbio #destiel #bisexuality #as i was writing this i was like wow i have issues #it felt good to talk about them #please feel free to disregard #shipping #multishipping #woes #personal #my bed is calling me #looooong post #dean is bisexual #what that means to me

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dumbledore-stole-my-sandwich · 3 years ago

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Need advice, first time this has happened, actually a bit scared

Heyo, so, I'm actually creeped out and a little worried.

I, 27 Male, am a pretty disabled person. Legally ruled 100%. As such, my income is low, and my means to meet others isn't as broad as other people have it.

I tried OkCupid years ago, didnt like the site changes and it also didnt pan out. Tried Match, didnt find connections, the site was nice but not finding anyone didnt make the money worth it. I tried Plenty of Fish, and it's all single moms (I dont judge, I'm just not ready for a child in my life currently, even if it's my date's), people who are polar opposites (I grew up in Cali, now live in a small town in the midwest, and am not really into the whole trucker/country lifestyle thing, I'm more of a homebody gamer), or a lot of scambot profiles. An insane amount. I actually called up a Nigerian scammer once and repeatedly told him some, uh, unsavory commands. I laughed, he didn't.

So now fast forward to yesterday and today. Here I am, with a lot in my life going on (friend died of cancer along with a lot of other huge life events), and honestly, I wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone and meet someone new. As a friend? FWB? Relationship? Dunno, I just wanna meet people and see what happens. I have tons of online friends I voice chat with daily and who mean the world to me (some have met me in person), but it'd be nice to meet up with people more maybe, as friends or as more, who knows? I figured maybe with everything going on, a shift in my life might help, like meeting someone new.

So I downloaded MeetMe to try it out. As can be expected, a lot of scambot profiles there with shady links, figures, no big deal. So far, since downloading it a few days ago, I've spoken with 3 people on the app who I can confirm aren't scambot profiles (already better results than PoF).

First person I texted wasn't my type at all. She flirted with me, I thanked her, told her I appreciate her interest, and I kindly said that she wasn't my type but that I wished her the best of luck. I was very, very unattracted to her appearance, however she was kind, and I wanted to be nice to her. That ended fine and I hope she finds what she's looking for.

Second person who hit me up was... Odd. They had a meme picture as their profile picture so I didn't know what they looked like. It listed them as female, but had a male name, Jimmy (I dont remember if there was a last name and I wouldn't post it anyways, I'm not looking to dox anyone). They seemed kind at first, male, female, didn't know, and didn't care. They asked how I was, they asked what ways I was disabled, what I could and couldn't do, and they were understanding. Hey, at the least, maybe a new friend? I'm only interested in women romantically and sexually, but friends can be anyone as long as they're nice. They asked if i smoked, I said no but I don't judge others, I just dont like the smell of it. They then... Asked if they could.... Give me a bj. I laughed a bit in text, wondering if they were serious. Dead. They were offering to pick me up in their car, give me a bj, and drop me off. I thanked them for their interest but as they revealed that yes they were a guy, I said that I liked women. They then kept pressuring me. They kept telling me "No one will know" and that it'll feel good and such. I kept declining and telling him I was straight, and uninterested. I finally had to start ignoring his messages when he was still hitting me up today. (I should have blocked; I thought deleting the convo would be enough, still new to the app).

Third person, her name was Jessie (not posting last name for dox reasons). She was really cute looking, and she lived in my small town. I sent her a like to her photo, and we talked briefly. I asked her what she was looking for and she said NSA (no strings attached) hookups. I was pretty sure this was another scambot and I was going to be sent phishy links, but no, this was actually a legitimate person. She said she really wanted to give me oral. I thought it was odd that she wanted to since from my understanding, don't most women like to receive, and not give? Hey, who am i to judge, everyone's different right? Maybe that was her way of "trying me out" for more to come later since we were in the same town? I asked if she knew of a nearby park, so we could meet in a public location. Truth was, NSFW stuff, SFW stuff, I cared less about that, and more of, honestly, I haven't had affection or anything NSFW in too long, and i figured any sort of experience, even just talking and a hug if they decided to change their mind, would be nice. She said she knew of the park but had to take 30 minutes to get ready. I said sure. She was being kind-- once we confirmed to meet at said park, which i said was about a 5 minute walk away, she said don't leave immediately because it'd take her ten minutes. It was sprinkling out, and I appreciated that. She asked me about my "size" on my way walking to said park, and I responded to not text and drive. She sure seemed eager though, which hey, after not getting too lucky with others, it was a nice change of pace. I walked just a street away from the park, and she revealed to me that she was a he, that he was a bi guy, and that the pic that he had wasn't of him. I told him not cool, I said that wasn't okay, and I called him out on being Jimmy. I told him to stay away. I walked back home. A text came on the app as I walked home, saying he didn't see me there, and asking where I was. I said that I had left. He was persistent, saying it'd feel good and to give it a try. I told him that if I ever catch wind of him catfishing/trying to meet me again, I'd contact authorities for harassment and stalking.

Well, here I am, at home, 30 minutes after all of that, typing this up, and uh... Anything I should do?

Appreciate the advice.

submitted by /u/NikuCobalt [link] [comments] from Online Dating https://ift.tt/CXcnPxW

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contemplatingoutlander · 7 years ago

Text

TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION: Yeah, I know it makes no sense but Purv was both able to lie about sock accounts AND yet tell the truth about Sam and Cait

This post was submitted in two separate submissions by the same Anon, so I am combining the two below.

“So you are saying Purv is a liar, but has sources. So how do you know that’s true? And if she has sources, how do you know Purv isn’t a puppet used to sell the narrative that Sam and Cait aren’t a couple?

“I am not sure if you are aware but Puffy is actually your posts for her investigation of Purv. Anyway, she is glad that you are telling the truth about Purv. She is also saying that you were brainwashed by Purv’s lies about Sam and Cait not being a couple.”

Thanks for your questions Anon!

REGARDING PUFF. I’m sorry to hear that Puff is reportedly using my posts for her own ends but there is no doxxing involved in what I am doing so all she is learning is that as (probably everyone in the fandom knew except some NSTs) Purv really had sock accounts.

I don’t know who Purv is as a real person and I have never been interested in the rumors about her. I think someone’s real life identity is sacred and no one has a right to dox anyone else and reveal that identity. She has always used pseudonyms and I respect that. I just think she had more than one account under different pseudonyms. So all I’m doing is outing the anonymous accounts WITHOUT outing the real identity of the person behind them.

YEAH, IT’S A BIT OF A DICHOTOMY. The only way I know how to explain the dichotomy in Purv’s behavior is that it seems to me she believes the ends justify the means. So she is willing to lie at times to reach what she believes is the good “end” of telling the truth about Sam and Cait and calling out trolls who are harassing SOs, etc.

To me human beings are mostly shades of gray. It is because we are all capable of good and bad actions that I accept the fact that Purv could lie about some things and still tell the truth about Sam and Cait.

PURV IS NO ONE’S PUPPET. Neither Purv nor any of the other NSTs (including myself) has ever been anyone’s “puppet.” I know some of you are very invested in conspiracy theories but honestly, there is no reason for Starz or Sony to invest time and money for FOUR YEARS trying to hide the “real romance” between two B-list cable TV co-stars. Especially given the fact that it would be a PR goldmine if they were really together. (See this POST for debunks of other conspiracy theories.)

THIS IS HOW I KNOW PURV IS TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT SAM AND CAIT

PURV HAS SOURCES. I know Purv has had “sources” because I’ve spoken to a couple of them. There was also a period of time in the past when I spoke with a few of my own first and second degree sources (nobody who was a close friend of Sam’s or Cait’s but people who directly knew them) and so from them I also had confirmation that Sam and Cait weren’t a couple. I also accidentally stumbled on something I wasn’t supposed to know and discovered that at least in the past, Sam and MacKenzie were a real couple--she was NOT his beard or a fake SO. But I’m not at liberty to tell you what I know so you are free to believe me or not. But once you know something you can’t “unknow” it.

THE EVIDENCE SUPPORTS PURV’S CLAIMS. Furthermore, there is a mountain of evidence that supports the information that Purv reported (see POST1 and POST2). We’ve also done a LOT of debunking of the ES misinformation about this evidence and about their own evidence (see this POST for a partial list). Finally, we’ve looked at how PR and BTS photos are done and how certain gif makers can frame and slow down moments to make them look more significant than they are. This is what helps us to know that Sam and Cait aren’t actually sharing a hidden passion but just a great friendship--which is no small thing (see POST).

I LOST MY FAITH IN THE SHIP ON MY OWN AND THROUGH INFORMATION FROM ANOTHER SHIPPER--NOT THROUGH PURV

YEAH I USED TO BE A SAMCAIT SHIPPER. I shipped Sam and Cait for a couple of months in February and March 2015. Purv never “brainwashed” me out of the ship. I figured it out on my own. Of course I had read the info on Purv’s twitter account and it made me nervous but I kept rationalizing it away.

The information I had the hardest time rationalizing away were Tony’s friend Gerry B’s tweets. Gerry innocently made some tweets lin December 2014 and January 2015 regarding Cait being Tony’s girlfriend. ·It is very clear from his tweets that he was referring to Cait.

The first tweet came on 12/10/14 when he stated, “Outlander to be screened in UK next year (and I get to see who my pal Tony’s girlfriend is).”·Another few tweets came on 01/08/15 when Gerry commented on a picture of Cait and Sam at the PC awards, “the one on the left is McGill’s girl.” When an Outlander fan jumped into the conversation and asked, “You mean Caitriona?” Gerry responded“I do.”

But I still managed to kind of rationalize all of this away! 🙄 (See this POST for my debunks of shipper rationalizations of these tweets.)

But it wasn’t until April 2, 2015 that my ship sank.

I was a lurker back then and that day I followed a random shipper as she went to talk to Gerry about Cait and Tony. Gerry shooed her away but in the process another mutual friend of Gerry’s and Tony’s (David M) entered the conversation and tweeted, “eh? 1 of these outlander super fans? Bless. I felt the same when I found out that Reg Holdsworth and Bet Lynch weren’t a real couple.”

I felt like I had been punched in the gut. Since David is also friends with Tony, I took this statement to mean that he knew that Sam and Cait weren’t “a real couple” because Cait and Tony were still together.

After that I couldn’t rationalize any more. But my belief that the ship wasn’t real was shortly reinforced when s-shipper K (who used to be second only to Jess in Shipperville) wrote a post in April 2015 about how she went to Tony’s bar and discovered to her dismay that Tony and Cait were really a couple.

I knew how much of a shipper K was. She had no reason to lie (and every reason to hide what she knew).

So I lost my ship by following one shipper to Gerry B’s twitter account and reading a post by a shipper I really respected.

I love Sam and Cait. I would love for them to be together but they aren’t. I’ve learned to support them in all their personal choices as long as it makes them happy. No one “brainwashed” me.

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anachrosims · 3 years ago

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Gonna add a little bit of philosophy to this:

No one is saying that a person does not deserve to be compensated in some manner for working hard.

However, I would like to address something important that I see gets overlooked in these discussions in the form of several questions:

What effects do permanent paywalls have on a community?

They create an unnecessary divide between the people who have disposable income and those who don’t. I have personally never seen a proper justification for permanent paywalls that doesn’t pull the, “BUT I DESERVE IT!!!! I’M AN ARTIST!!” card, or the “LEL DON’T BE SO ENTITLED IT’S NOT LIKE YOU NEED IT ANYWAY” shit.

This is also one of the most divisive issues in the Sims community where defenders of permanent paywallers are so ardent about keeping those tasty ‘luxury’ items coming that they will harass and dox literally anyone they feel might be a threat.

What incentive do creators have to continue doing custom content for free if exclusivity not only makes other creators more popular, but allows them better resources to continue taking advantage of the community?

This is POISON for the creativity of the community. I’ve watched as more and more creators go to pay-only exclusives over the years as more people feel emboldened by the rest to do so.

“If they can make money, then I totally can too!” Monetization, commodification aren’t diseases, but they certainly spread like them, and that’s not helped by the bullshit many of us are going through in real life.

Why do you think it’s okay to segregate a community in the form of who can have what based on their ability to pay up?

In literally every other online modding community, it’s agreed that since everyone already bought the game, it’s kind of a dick fucking move to put modifications behind a paywall.

Why do you think it’s okay to take advantage of people who are trying to dive into escapism (via Sims), by dragging real-world capitalistic tendencies into the mix?

Most of the big popular perma-paywallers are people who do ‘luxury’ content. We’re all stuck in the materialistic grind for survival. Society is already preying on us as it is to commodify literally every facet of our lives. Why is it okay for creators to gaslight people into paying them or getting nothing, in light of this?

Not having money is no excuse to restrict a community based on their ability to pay up. This is why public museums and libraries are so important. Yes, authors deserve to be paid for their writing, librarians need to be paid, as do artists and the people who run the galleries.

Setting up a gallery and being like, “only people who pay $10 can experience this--oh and if you don’t have the money, you can’t get your hands on it” is literally just perpetuating this bullshit machine nightmare we’re all in.

If a creator wants to turn something into a job, are they really prepared to try to achieve and maintain the standards of it being a job?

There are millions of artists out there who put their noses to the grindstone to make a proper living out of their creative passion. Permapaywallers are literally preying on a community largely made up of kids or people who don’t know any better about the 3D modeling/gaming industry. As a creator for TS4 and an artist myself, it’s a fucking joke that people are trying to convince everyone they’re artistic martyrs.

If they really want to make a living off selling models, like Sunny said before, they should be going to 3D model sites where they can actually make good money--but that’s ONLY if they’re doing models that are purely from scratch and with their own textures and resources.

This leads me ponder the following:

If a person creates CC from scratch, why would they not go do this professionally elsewhere? Do they enjoy the Sims 4 that much, or has it become about the adulation of the community?

If a person does not create CC from scratch, then what right do they have to demand money from the community when they have not paid EA/anyone else for the rights to use content that isn’t theirs?

What do you know about the gaming industry?

A huge problem I see time and time again is so many people don’t know much of anything about the gaming industry nor the creation of digital assets.

Another BIG REASON why modding communities don’t charge money and discourage doing so, is because they are ultimately working with the intellectual property of a huge corporation. Sure, fanartists and cosplayers make money off company’s IPs, but that’s at the company’s leisure, and there are actually many, many cases of artists and cosplayers at conventions being sent cease and desists and running into actual legal trouble.

What right do you have to use your hardship to punish communities by setting up a permanent paywall?

The answer is “none.”

Early access at least helps stride the line, because people have the OPTION of paying or just waiting.

Is this really about paying artists what they deserve, or is it about taking advantage of a community desperate for materialistic escapism?

Is this really about being fair to creators exercising their passions, or is it about taking a hobby and crunching it into numbers and money at the (literal & figurative) expense of the community?

Is this about artistic freedom and creative passion, or about milking a community for all it is worth?

I think the actions of permapaywallers who throw tantrums, even in cases where they mesh from scratch, can answer those last three questions well enough.

Hello, I want to preface this message by saying I respect your opinions and agree with you frequently. However I do not see how perma-paywalling original, high quality cc is wrong. If labor is entitled to all it creates then I feel that applies to cc-creators, too. Not all creators are doxxers/thieves, & they can be poor, too. How is stealing from an individual creator a moral thing, but pirating a game from a billion $ mega-corp less is moral? I don't see the through line of logic here.

So I have a unique perspective on this being that I'm an art teacher, so let's talk about this: First, we must address the fact that in a perfect world, all artists would be paid for their work. But the truth is, this is more of a rarity than a common occurance. There are some people who are lucky and blessed to be able to do art for a living and make enough to survive on, but there are many who fail to do so successfully or have to resort to taking on another job to suppliment their income. But the main question I have for you is...if we want to go down this rabbit trail of "everyone who puts in hard work should be paid", then we get to a really slippery slope. Because the truth is, the process of making sims 4 CC doesn't just involve one person. First, it requires the sims 4 game and all of the expansion packs that are needed for that particular cc (ex: if the cc was a dog related item it'd need the dogs pack) so EA has already gotten their cut. Well and good. But then we get to the issue of the model. Assuming the person has not stolen the model and created it from scratch, there's no issue there. Oh wait, nevermind there is. Because the person who created Blender needs to be paid for their hard work, since they're maintaining the program and giving it out for free. But what about textures for that model? Where are they getting the textures from? If they aren't making the textures themselves...are they paying people for them? Or are they grabbing them off google without proper attribution? That's also called into question. Let's assume they're making the textures themselves. No issue. Then we get into the issue of the program needed to turn the mesh into a package file. And there we have an issue. There's only a handful of programs that do it, all of which are provided to the community for free with no profit for the creators, and updated accordingly. This includes sims 4 studio, the TSR creator, etc. The people who update and maintain these do so for free for the community, and don't make any money off them. Oh and let's not even mention the amount of "designer" alpha CC items certain creators have put out there that have been using people's logos and brand names. Do we need to pay those brands too for the copyright infringement those creators do when they make meshes of those items? Because even turbosquid and CG trader know not to mess with that and make sure that any models involving brand names are not to be used for profit due to licensing. The issue is that custom content is a patchwork process that requires a ton of processes and resources that OTHER people have already provided FOR FREE to the creative community. In addition EA controls what can and cannot be done on THEIR platform. If you don't like how EA does things, you can take your models and go to another one. Secondlife, IMVU, 3D modeling sites, or even blender RENDERS of things are all options that will allow people to permapaywall to their hearts content. (Assuming they are making things 100% themselves, and paying who they need to for any resources needed like textures/meshes). But the sims 4 is and should be off limits. EA was giving people a GIFT when they allowed the 3 week early access period, because if you actually read the end user license agreement for the Sims 4, you basically give EA the rights to any custom content you make for the sims, for them to reproduce, or other people to reproduce, WITHOUT COMPENSATION TO YOU:

And that's the legally binding EULA. The whole 2-3 week early access thing is an add-on gift in the form of a guru posting what they'd like to see happen in the community. So personally, if it were me, I'd just not look a gift horse in the mouth and just play by the rules, or take my ball and go elsewhere to peddle my wares. Because if people can mesh...they can sell their meshes in a better enviornment than the sims 4. I hope this makes sense, I'm writing this at 9 PM at night on a weekend while coming down with a cold so...

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