#i have seen many new content creators recently and it is a surprise how little attention they are getting...

[nsfhetalia]

DON'T FORGET TO SUPPORT CONTENT CREATORS! Leave a nice comment, a supportive ask, reblog and spread their hard work... even some funny tags are welcomed. There was a time that the fandom survived thanks to that content, when we wouldn't even know if the HimaDaddy was still alive... so, don't forget. And do not complain later on if they are gone.

[jcmarchi]

Rise Of The Rōnin Creators Talk Popular Samurai Media Like Shogun, Coincidental Timing, And Cats

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/rise-of-the-ronin-creators-talk-popular-samurai-media-like-shogun-coincidental-timing-and-cats/

Rise Of The Rōnin Creators Talk Popular Samurai Media Like Shogun, Coincidental Timing, And Cats

With Rise of the Rōnin’s release, Team Ninja has added another strong action title into its vaunted portfolio. The samurai epic, which tells a fictional story within a historical Japanese period of revolution, is one of the studio’s most ambitious titles from both game design and story perspectives. We got the opportunity to sit down with producer Yosuke Hayashi and director Fumihiko Yasuda to probe into how Rise of the Rōnin got made.

One aspect of the game that sets it apart from other Team Ninja titles is the monsters or demonic enemies that pervade its other games are nowhere to be seen in Rise of the Rōnin. Being set against a historical backdrop, Rōnin is limited just to human enemies of various fighting styles.

[embedded content]

“This game is based in historical 19th century Japan,” Yasuda explains, “partly because we wanted to emphasize the bond system and the bonds that the player forms with historical figures that appear in the game. And for that reason, there are no supernatural elements. We also wanted to emphasize the dynamic between two samurai dueling each other by looking at their opponent, assessing what weapons and combat style the opponent is using, and adjust accordingly.”

The bonds system Yasuda mentioned has the main character gain affinity with a number of real-life historical figures, like Ryoma Sakamoto, a hero of Japan’s Bakamatsu era in the late 1800s. Hayashi explains why that era was a good fit for their latest game thematically, as well.

“The Bakumatsu period marked the end of the age of the samurai and the beginning of Japan’s modernization. Because of this, there were many ideals and value systems that were converging on at this moment in history. As our title focused on forming bonds with characters and making choices, we felt that this dynamic provided by this historical period was a good fit for the concept of the game.”

The name Ryoma Sakamoto is likely familiar to those with knowledge of Japanese history, but also maybe to those who played 2023’s Like a Dragon: Ishin from Sega. That game also starred Ryoma Sakamoto during the same era, creating some unintentional crossover story between Team Ninja and RGG Studio’s games.

“Yeah, so the timing…there was quite a bit of overlap,” Hayashi says, laughing. “But you know, we saw that – but at the same time, we weren’t really surprised that Japanese developers would be releasing or remastering a game set in the same period as [Rise of the Rōnin]. It’s a very popular period in Japanese history.”

As Team Ninja’s first real open-world game, Rise of the Rōnin had quite a bit to prove for the developer. Hayashi and Yasuda indicated that the ambition was worth any trade-off, as they saw making an open-world game as a challenge the studio had to eventually rise to meet as a natural step. Doing all this while retaining the core of the action gameplay from its linear titles was an important obstacle for Team Ninja to surmount.

Another challenge, Yasuda said, was making sure the cat animations in the game were accurate.

“I’m also a fan of cats. I own a cat myself and there are other members within our team that own cats and we’ve spoken with other media who have enjoyed that aspect of the game. And, of course, we were very particular about the movements that you know about cats in the animations. I wouldn’t say it was too difficult, but maybe we got a little too obsessed with it,” he admitted.

In a previous generation, Team Ninja found itself struggling with how to create action games for Japanese and Western audiences. While it is fairly recent, the TV show Shogun ended up exemplifying an answer for them.

“Yeah, we are watching it,” both Hayashi and Yasuda said, with Hayashi continuing. “It’s really that the show has a lot of visuals that are very Japanese that reflects how a lot of the production involved in it was Japanese. I think there is some cultural crossover there just like I feel there was some crossover with our titles.”

And if you’re curious about what movies the pair recommend watching for your samurai fix?

“Yojimbo,” they both nodded, referring to the Akira Kurosawa classic about a Rōnin samurai being courted by two rival clans. “Rise of the Rōnin is really similar to it, actually.”

[nickgerlich]

Data Driven

I have long been fascinated by how people do things, and specifically how they consume products. There’s always more ways than one to do anything. Just ask the folks who make Ziploc bags. They learned after the fact that people were using them for many applications other than just shoving a sandwich inside them.

It is in understanding the user experience that manufacturers and developers can fine-tune their offerings, as well as learn what the most important aspects of a product are. Assumptions made by managers, engineers, and new product teams are often rendered laughable once real customers are left to their devices.

The same holds true even for social media platforms. Pew Research just conducted one of how US users spend their time on TikTok, the Chinese-owned app that has drawn the ire of 34 states. In Texas, we cannot use TikTok on any state-owned device or network. Some have concluded this also means a state agency, such as a university, cannot advertise on TikTok, even though that is where their target market is hanging out. And, as conveyed in a recent email to faculty and staff at WTAMU, it extends even to personal devices that are used to do state business, such as accessing work email and the Blackboard app.

Ouch. That one may have to undergo a little legal scrutiny. I don’t use it, but I cringed when I saw what I perceive to be over-reach.

But back to the TikTok study, which included a survey of 2745 users as well as 869 more who volunteered to allow their accounts to be observed. By virtue of the study’s design, this is an opt-in sample, which, while revealing interesting findings, cannot necessarily be generalized across all 150 million US TikTok users. A random design would be needed for that.

One of the bigger takeaways—and no surprise, mind you—is that 25% of users create 98% of the content. I have observed the same phenomenon across other social media platforms. That’s another way of saying that the vast majority of users are consumers, compared to the creators in the smaller group. Furthermore, it means that most users check in to their TikTok accounts for other uses, such as information and entertainment. I have seen a funny variant of this on Facebook, when someone posts a comment to a controversial subject by saying, “I’m just here for the comments.”

There were another significant findings in that only 52% of users have ever even posted a video, and are more likely to simply watch the “For You” feature, meaning they allow TikTok to push content. This is the preferred means, as opposed to looking at accounts they follow.

This echoes the entertainment aspect of TikTok, as well as other social media sites. It fills my Facebook, Instagram, and Threads feeds. If the provider can make their site even just a little bit stickier by pulling us into content it thinks we will like, then it means they can sell more advertising. Remember, these are all advertising platforms masquerading as social media sites. Don’t believe me? Facebook’s ad revenue is estimated to be $171 billion this year.

While the study provides insights, it might be more relevant to dive into specific demographic groups, which definitely skews young. For example, 60% are between 16 and 24, while 80% are between 16 and 34. Only 25% are between 25 and 44, which, although it is an overlap of the other data, shows the drop-off by age. Narrowing the focus would provide more granular information, especially as it pertains to generational cohorts like the Millennials and Gen-Z. Even though Gen-X and Boomers are distinct minorities among TikTok users, they too should be studied to determine what usage differences, if any, exist.

The broader lesson is that we must always be in pursuit of this kind of knowledge, no matter what products or services we sell. There’s gold in the numbers. It’s up to us to mine and refine it.

Dr “Data Nerd” Gerlich

Audio Blog

[maxwell-grant]

Speaking of Tod Slaughter... any thoughts on Grand Guignol theater..?

Looking back on it, the first time I encountered the term Grand-Guignol was also the first time I looked at Fantomas, when I picked up the book above titled The Theater of Grand Guignol, which is all too fitting as Fantomas is Grand-Guignol to it's core. It's also a term that I've seen applied a couple of times to The Spider as well as some darker fan reinterpretations of Batman. Like film noir and sword-and-sorcery, it's a term for a type of storytelling that's associated with dime novels and pulps, influenced and was influenced by them in return, but isn't really the same thing and is, in fact, a separate "genre" (not quite the right term).

Indeed, if the common cultural association of pulp is that of something trashy and violent and darker than it's contemporary culture, one can see Grand-Guignol as perhaps the darkest of it's adjecent family, the Dario Argento to pulp's John Carpenter, the cracked mirror to all that exists.

Short and full-length plays were based on the hot topics unseen onstage at this extent before, from graphic scenes of murders, tortures, sexual violence to psychological thrills like resurrections of the dead, incest, suicide, characters being hypnotized, trapped or guilty of their loved one’s deaths. In most cases, it was a combination of several of those themes in one piece, which of course, multiplied shows’ popularity - AngryFishTheatre's article

‘At one performance, six people passed out when an actress, whose eyeball was just gouged out, re-entered the stage, revealing a gooey, blood-encrusted hole in her skull. Backstage, the actors themselves calculated their success according to the evening’s faintings. During one play that ended with a realistic blood transfusion, a record was set: fifteen playgoers had lost consciousness. Between sketches, the cobble-stoned alley outside the theatre was frequented by hyperventilating couples and vomiting individuals.’

Despite of its scandalous nature, for France Grand Guignol was more than a theatre: it was a tradition, an institution, and an attraction like the Eiffel Tower or the Folies Bergères, and Maxim’s... It was then highly fashionable. Celebrities of the day, South American millionaires and errant royalty went there assiduously to be scared out of their wits.

Going to the Grand-Guignol was less a social act than a private one and certain audience members preferred not to be seen. Some witnesses reported that the iron-grilled boxes in the back of the theater encouraged a certain ‘extremism.’

The cleaning staff would often find the seats stained - — Mel Gordon, The Grand Guignol: theatre of fear and terror.

It lasted almost the exact same time period as the American pulp era (from the late 1880s to 1950s), and even in it's origin, as the theater itself was built out of the ruins of a church, and it would attain fame and legacy as the shadow opposite to Moulin Rouge's glamour and spectacle. It's original intent on being focused on naturalistic theater led to breakthroughs of horror that made it the whole selling point, and much like the pulp lords of terror I talk about, their staged and spectacled terrors were still no match for the horrors of reality that followed.

“We could never equal Buchenwald,” the Grand Guignol’s final director, Charles Nonon, told TIME magazine that year. “Before the war, everyone felt that what was happening onstage was impossible. Now we know that these things, and worse, are possible in reality.”

And of course it goes without saying that the Grand-Guignol's influence on storytellers long transcended it's original lifespan. Gore for gore's sake is hardly something I enjoy, but I've definitely enjoyed many, many films that reached to extremes of horror and violence and gore for horror and comedy alike. I would not claim the Grand-Guignol started this because I could very well be missing out on something, but they are undeniably a huge part of the history of horror as we know it, along with the German Expressionist works of the 1910s that were as well both inspired by, as well as influential, on the Grand-Guignol.

Time and time again we see the pattern emerge, of creators or outlets or mediums that emerge as cheaper and less critically-reputable alternatives to the mainstream attain extraordinary and influential success both in their circles as well as those who would never admit to looking at them for inspiration otherwise. In fact, you could very well argue that it’s alive not just through films and comics and so forth, but in newfound forms of media created by people with all the freedom to put together whatever their imaginations and limited resources and lack of restraints can create.

Like Youtube Poop.

Now maybe I'm biased here because I grew up with YTP, but really, the main intent behind every YTP is to twist the media it's using to provoke a new reaction from you, every YTP is varying levels of a rollercoaster of jokes and edits and little narratives stacking up and flowing together, references and poop jokes and murder jokes and slurs and parody and criticism and SuS and literally anything the creator thinks is gonna get a reaction that wasn't in the original material. And it doesn't even have to be exclusively about jokes, there's a lot of YTPs that are centered on horror or drama or even are just completely original narratives using the assets at hand, sometimes even clocking in at almost movie-length.

There's no filter or censors or teams making sure it's tested to the audience, it's just as much chaos as someone with video editing skills can manage to create, and more so than anything else nowadays, it's the medium that abides and amplifies the same principle that ruled and defined Grand-Guignol: "The Hot and Cold Shower"

Grand Guignol, was not the inventor of this concept, but probably the first performing arts company that used it as its main programming principle. Every evening at the theatre was programmed with plays heavily contrasting in their nature. In the 6 plays presented on a regular night, every 2 horror plays were followed by a light comedy and the light comedy by another horror play or two. Using this contrast the creators aimed to give their audiences a fuller range of emotions. They called it a "hot and cold shower".

You could also make a similar argument for creators that used Garry's Mod or Source Filmmaker to create Youtube content, many of whom either followed the styles of YTP or created their own which ended up influencing others in return, and you can definitely see how YTP as well as these have influenced our current generation's taste in comedy as well as the editing styles of many prominent creators. It even seemed for quite a while that GMOD and SFM content of this type was dead, but it definitely seems like it's gotten a revival recently, and really just never went away. Likewise, a lot of people think YTP died circa 2012 or 2015, which is completely false, it just changed a bit, as things tend to do if they are to stick around.

The entire approach of extreme hot and cold, extreme horror and comedy shuffling per second and extreme absurdity overriding is something you definitely get nowadays a lot more out of these newer forms of media than anything that film and television's capable of giving, and just as Grand-Guignol started out relatively ordinary (focused mainly on naturalistic horror) before it completely spiraled into a perpetual race for excess, we've gotten so desensitized so quickly to surprises that you can see in real time the growing needs for content that's faster and more chaotic and funnier and more dramatic and more absurd and more well-produced but also worse produced and, yeah.

I definitely wonder how we may see future filmmakers and cartoonists and creators be influenced by, not just the above, but also the rapidly changing landscapes of meme culture and social media and the gradually less-funny theater of the absurd that reality's become. I definitely imagine we'll be in for some interesting times.

Y'know, if we make it that far.

Alternatively you could also argue Jackass is also a modern Grand Guignol and they just cut out the narrative middleman to get straight to the "people getting fucked up for your amusement" part, but at this point I'd just be inviting a retread of all the "Is -X- pulp" questions I got for "Is -X- Grand Guignol", and I may have stepped straight into a rake with this one.

[dukeofonions]

Sensing a pattern thanks to the critical fans' asks... I'm a professional producer who's attempted on numerous occasions (unsuccessfully) to secure Thomas for a part in a Broadway-bound musical. TL;DR: How he and his team -- not just friends, but "pros" -- "run their railroad" confuses the hell out of us, and is probably the biggest obstacle to his getting anywhere besides YouTube. Frankly, we now wonder if this is by design and not just typical lack of experience winning the race, as it were...

(Sorry it took so long to respond work has been killing me the past few days.)

Longer Version (1/?): We've been working on this musical for just over a decade, and after we discovered Thomas's long-form content and the singles he's released, we thought he was a good fit for it. Without going into detail, the show's always been kind of a long shot, for many reasons, but we (still) think it'd be a great showcase for his brand of talent. So we decided to approach him and to gauge his interest, since he'd discussed Broadway dreams before. And there, our troubles began...

(2/?) So, five years ago, we approached Thomas through his then-management, Reboot the People, a company that managed a *lot* of content creators back then. (Their remains still exist on Twitter @RTPfamily.) They may have been a little out of their depth when they heard our pitch, and wisely looped in his agent at the time, Ty Flynn at UTA, from whom we heard... nothing. Okay, maybe it wasn't his thing; we had other projects to pursue and we moved on but... we still kept an eye on his content.

(4/?) When we returned to the project a couple years later, Thomas was still a favorite for the part for which we had him in mind, and building a much bigger audience than before, so we decided to reach out again. The business fawsterdog email address, as I'm sure fans have discovered by now, is useless. No one there ever got back to us. More than that, when we tried to learn who was managing him now (at times pleading on Twitter and during streams for info), we kept hitting dead ends.

(5/?) We finally managed to obtain a lead when we watched the "NO ADDED SUGAR for a MONTH!" video, and someone described as Thomas's manager actually appeared on camera, Matt Hogen, the president of Direct Artist Management. Further Googling revealed Matt had apparently been his manager as far back as 2013, way earlier than we'd been directed to Reboot The People for business inquiries. To say this runaround was confusing as hell, *even for show business*, is the understatement to end them all!!!

(6/6) At that point, after all that confusion, we just gave up!! If we have to chase someone's representation to the ends of the earth, only to find out there was one person we should have been talking to the whole time, it's probably more convoluted behind the scenes, and we don't need that extra stress in our lives. Watching the recent storms unfold, and wondering how true to life the "Putting Others First" video is, we can only assume he likes the *idea* of career more than really having one...

(I lied, 7/7) Bottom line: he presents a picture of unreliability and a lack of professionalism both to his fans and to industry people, and -- assuming there's *any* autobiographical truth to Sanders Sides content -- it may be because he's deliberately not taking this seriously. If losing out on big opportunities is the price he pays for keeping his mental health and well being in check, that's fine. But it's not how you succeed in this business... in any business, really. I wish him the best...

Wow, that is a lot.

Well for starters (and I hope you don't take this the wrong way) I am the tiniest bit skeptical about this story being true. I mean I can definitely see it happening giving Thomas and the team's track record, but there are just a few things that make me hesitate.

For one thing I'm surprised that a professional producer found their way onto my blog (which I try to keep out of the open) and took the time to read through some asks then send an ask of their own. Not that it's impossible of course, because here you are. But you know anyone can claim to be anyone so I hope you don't mind my skepticism here.

And admittedly I'm not entirely sure how the producing world works along with agents, especially when it comes to getting someone cast for your show. I can't see Thomas turning an opportunity down like that unless he just wasn't interested or never knew about it.

Which, honestly, if you did try getting into contact with his agent and he was told about it and wasn't interested then ya know, the least they could do was tell you so you could start looking for someone else.

I did also find the Twitter account for Reboot The People and yeah, it's long since abandoned and I'm wondering how you even got directed there in the first place when he had a manager already (if I'm understanding the time line right)

I do kinda question the whole asking for answers in streams bit (since Thomas rarely if ever does public live streams and I don't think he did much back then the only streams he does consistently now are for patreons) and he never leaves them up anyway so it's not like I could go back and look through the chats (not that I would because I ain't got time for that) but again, it's not impossible for that to have happened. Just a tiny detail my brain got hooked on.

Even if I'm still somewhat doubtful about your story (again please don't take it the wrong way I just like to be sure before I 100% believe something) I do agree about Thomas and the team's lack of professionalism, just look at the Story Time Madlibs situation, and they continue to make decisions (especially within the patreon) that just continue to baffle me.

I mean at the end of the day no one knows what's going on behind the scenes. And as it stands Thomas has found enough success with YouTube where he's stable enough to make it his full time job and can go months or even a year without posting a video.

But he even brings this point up in one of his Sanders Sides videos that YouTube isn't a stable job, and you never know when everything can suddenly flip and before ya know it the job ain't as stable anymore, and at that point you've gotta have some kinda back up plan for if things go south.

Because eventually (and I've already seen it happening) people will just get bored without new content or just grow out of it and they'll move on. Even if they've got nothing against the creator, that's just what happens. Some will stick around but even then no one's bound to last forever. Especially when there's always new stuff to be found.

But hey, he's good where he's at for now so I guess one might as well enjoy it while they can. I would like to see him succeed in actually securing a bigger role (whether in a film, Broadway, or even a TV show) because I think he'd do really well and he has been contacted by Disney before to be in one of their shows so who knows?

[rainbowsky]

More on the Fan Fic issue

I have a few more asks about the issue raised the other day, some of which are long and go into detail on the 'wars' that have been happening on Twitter and AO3.

Sorry for grouping these but I wanted to put it all under a cut because these are long, and also in case people don't want to dig into these issues (which would be understandable).

Anonymous 1 asked:

"I am very strongly of the opinion that the BJYX term is still a fandom umbrella term" I agree. Mainly because Bjyx is the most popular. Many antis always say bjyx, and have no idea the others. So sometimes it's easier just to say bjyx instead of explaining all three. I myself more like "who cares as long as they happy." So I enjoy Yizhan in all contexts. Many bxgs I know also like that, mostly ibxgs. I think deep down all bxgs (no matter which position they prefer) just want Yizhan to be happy

Not sure we can be so certain about that last part, Anon (I think for a lot of people GG and DD are just characters in a smutty story they have in their heads), but I agree about the term being popular regardless of the type of fans people are.

From what I can see the BJYX term seems to be used 80-90% umbrella, 10-20% dynamic in both international and c-social media (for every 10 times you see the term used, only one or two of those usages - probably less - are referring to a dynamic). This is my totally unscientific estimation, but I think even 10-20% dynamic is being generous. The number of people who are fixated on a sexual dynamic aren't nearly as large as they'd like to believe.

Anonymous 2 asked:

about the promptfests - i’ve been on twitter since early 2020 and what i’ve noticed is that this influx bjyx-only promptfests started gaining speed once lots of rational voices started leaving the fandom recently either because a) new interests have caught their attention or b) the toxicity of the popular bxg circles on twitter have become too much to handle.

gdgdbaby was usually the organizer of dynamic-inclusive events, and she’s received lots, and lots, and lots of backlash by bxg, sometimes even by accounts with thousands followers, for using bjyx as a catch-all term. and as her interest in yizhan has since waned—hopefully for reasons unrelated to fandom toxicity—many of the people who were attracted to the welcoming environment she created distanced themselves as well.

zsww/lsfy fans have become an outnumbered circle who try their best to create exclusive events to avoid the “is bjyx a catch-all term” discourse, but never seem to gain as much traction as gdgdbaby (who has a sizeable following) or those who host bjyx-only events (who also have sizeable followings).

meanwhile the dynamic war has only become more and more hostile and bjyx is clearly the more populated group… ao3 is simply a battlegrounds, if i may dramatize the situation a little for the sake of humor, and the promptfests are a reaction to this irritating t/b discourse that has made bxg twitter completely inhospitable for me…and lots of other fans too.

(i’ve also noticed a huge reinforcement as of recently where ppl will call gg laopo, a milf, an omega, etc even outside of rpf (i.e. posting pictures of him at events and saying he looks pregnant or he’s going into heat) and it’s just… uncomfortable.)

(also please note i have a biased account of all of this drama bc many of my friends were harassed over it, and anyone who disagrees with my take may feel free to interject.)

I took the liberty of adding paragraph breaks because they are pretty important for some readers, particularly ND readers like me.

It's sad to hear how fucked up everything has become, but I'm not even remotely surprised. Toxicity leads to toxicity, and the whole idea of dividing up a RP fandom by sex position was misguided from the outset - no matter why it was done or how good the intentions might have been.

And yes, like I said, these people aren't just framing things this way for fan fic. This is how they talk about IRL GGDD.

I had written a lengthy essay here about homophobia in the fandom but deleted it all. Perhaps I'll post it separately at some later point. Suffice it to say that this stuff creates a climate that's often hostile for queer people. So much of it is deeply homophobic, whether people are aware of it or not.

It's really sad to hear about gdgdbaby being mistreated in any way. Anyone who steps up and sticks their neck out to help organize and coordinate activities that benefit a broader group of people should be celebrated and supported, not run out of town by an angry mob.

I've read some of her stories and even have one or two on my rec list. And here's someone who is not only writing good works, but also supporting others to write more good works. Such a shame.

Anonymous 3 asked:

Hello Mr. RBS! I think I can chime in a bit about the fanfic topic as I’ve watched this all unravel on twitter (where a majority of authors/readers are). I apologize if this gets long but it’s been something that’s also been on my mind.

I want to preface this by saying that I’m not a fan of the distinctions of dynamics as, like you said, the supposed line between real life and fanfic is long gone, so I’m not trying to be biased against one group over another.

Short answer to the question of, “is this retaliation?” : I do believe it is. (From here onwards I’ll be using bjyx as the dynamic term just for the ease of simplicity.) To understand why, I’ll have to explain with a bit of background info. On twitter, I’d say that there’s a quite large divide between bjyx and zsww/lsfy. That itself isn’t really a problem because people are free to like what they like and associate with whoever.

However there is a big problem where bjyx people are not just bjyx but also anti-zsww/lsfy. To the point where I’ve seen people say that they feel physically ill when they accidentally read zsww. I don’t think this type of behavior should exist in any dynamic bc in the end GGDD are real people with a real relationship behind this content and it’s just a gross fetishization at that point.

With all this happening, zsww/lsfy people have gotten more outspoken on how GG is often portrayed in those types of scenarios, mainly the over-feminization of him, bc it’s not just done in the context of fanfic but regular discussion of GGDD at this point. This tension between the dynamics kind of boiled over when the pregnant xz fest was announced, as you can take a guess at how that went over with zsww/lsfy people. lol.

But around that same time, another zsww/lsfy event was announced (I’m not sure if it’s the one anon was talking about) but the creator of the event suddenly got a ton of backlash for excluding bjyx, with the reasoning that bjyx is technically a part of lsfy. But the event was done to highlight zsww/lsfy (as all specific events are) bc the community and content for these dynamics are much less than bjyx.

Which is how we come back to the starting point of, is all this recent bjyx stuff retaliatory. I believe so bc the events (preg fest, dark event) are very specific prompts that target exactly what zsww/lsfy people have been outspoken against.

As to the point anon made about trying to drown out the tags, keep in mind that zsww/lsfy content is very minimal compared to bjyx and has only just recently started to gain more traction. I think most people would love to just peacefully exist in their own circles but I don’t see this problem between dynamics disappearing anytime soon.

Like I said with the above Anon, I've added paragraph breaks for ND readers.

What a mess.

I have absolutely nothing useful to say here about the fandom on AO3 and how it's managed by community members, but I do think it's unfortunate that people choose to be war-like rather than make space for diverse voices, and I think it's a real shame that some people have been essentially run out of the fandom because of this garbage.

Thanks for giving some context for how/why the major shift in tone of fan fic lately. I had no idea any of this was going on.

I urge people to work hard to give space for all voices and perspectives, and not just the ones they favor. I'd also urge people to reflect on how their thoughts, behavior and actions in the fandom might affect queer people in the fandom.

As always, we have no control over what other people do, say or think. All we have any control over is how we respond to what other people do, say or think. Hopefully we'll chose the path of peace and try to avoid fan wars or fights that only ruin the experience for everyone.

I guess one thing I'd ask any of the Anons who have written me about this issue - or anyone who has thoughts about it - is, what can we as readers/fans who care about diversity of voices and perspectives do to support that here and on AO3, without getting involved in any kind of war?

[mellometal]

Hi, everyone.

I have something extremely important to talk about that is NOT fandom related. I really do hope this can reach everyone on here, especially since it's still Autism Acceptance Month.

A few quick questions for anyone who happens to see this before I dive right into this: Have you ever heard of Dhar Mann? If so, have you ever seen his videos? What do you think about them?

If you don't know who Dhar Mann is, he's a content creator whose main platforms are Instagram and YouTube. He makes these videos about various scenarios from a couple on the brink of divorce, to kids bullying one of their peers, even about Autism Spectrum Disorder. All of his videos have some kind of message at the end that really drives the point home. One of his most recent videos is about ASD, which is what I'm going to discuss today.

Personally, I think some of his videos are interesting, despite the concepts being reused and recycled over and over; however, how I feel about the video he made about ASD is the complete opposite. I'll summarize the video he made so you don't have to watch it. (If you really want to watch it to see exactly what I'm talking about, I'm not gonna stop you. Do what you need to do in order to form your own opinion.)

The video Dhar Mann made about ASD is about this boy who excludes his autistic brother from participating in activities with his friends at school. The boy bullies his autistic brother and does pretty much everything to make his brother's life Hell, even going as far as to pretend that he doesn't know his own brother. The boy "instantly regrets his decision" when their mom is called into the school to discipline her son for bullying his autistic brother. What his mother says is what REALLY upsets me. The message of this video in particular is this, WORD FOR FUCKING WORD. I wish I was kidding. But here's the message below:

How the video concludes is the boy reluctantly includes his autistic brother in every single activity, the boy sees his brother's potential, and they live happily ever after. Whoop-dee-fucking-doo.

As an autistic woman who works with disabled people for a living, that message Dhar Mann put in this video specifically is not only extremely ableist, but is also spreading misinformation about ASD.

News flash to all the people who still spread misinformation about ASD: Not every single autistic person is a little white boy in elementary school, nor is every single autistic person a young white man who's a Super Genius™️. (I could go on all day long about how the media stereotypes autistic characters and autistic people in general, but that's a whole other topic.) No autistic person is the same, meaning we all fall on the spectrum in different places and all that jazz. There's no "look" to autistic people either because no autistic person looks the same.

Autistic women exist.

Autistic girls exist.

Autistic nonbinary people exist.

Autistic BIPOC and AAPI exist.

Autistic people who are completely nonverbal exist.

Autistic people who are completely verbal exist.

Autistic people who are in the middle of being nonverbal and verbal exist.

Autistic people who require minimal to no support exist.

Autistic people who require moderate support exist.

Autistic people who require full support exist.

Autistic LGBT people exist. (Reason why I bring this one up is because the media almost always shows cishet autistic men and I don't see autistic LGBT representation very often, if ever.)

Autism isn't something you can "catch". People have this same mentality about ADHD and Tourette's Syndrome too, which, by the way, you can't "catch" either.

Autism doesn't "go away" when you reach adolescence or adulthood. Why? BECAUSE AUTISTIC TEENAGERS AND AUTISTIC ADULTS EXIST. Autistic kids grow into autistic teenagers, then into autistic adults.

You can't "cure" it either. Unless you can build a time machine and a device to go back in time to change how a person's brain develops, there is no cure. ABA therapy is a fucking shit show in itself that does more harm than good.

The title of the video is a real squick for me too. It's mostly because I don't particularly enjoy people using person first language (the "boy with autism" part). I've seen many other autistic people on multiple other platforms sharing that same sentiment and preferring identity first language (autistic person). There are also others who prefer using person first language and those who don't have a preference. That's all perfectly valid. Whatever you prefer people using when referring to you, or whatever you refer to yourself as, in this case, is totally valid and I love you. This goes for disabilities in general, not just Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Regarding the message in this video, here's my response to it! A quick heads-up, my response is VERY long and VERY passionate. I was VERY close to making a response video where I tear that video apart AND tear Dhar Mann a new asshole. Unfortunately, it worked me up so much that I was really struggling with what I wanted to say and I had to stop multiple times because I kept stumbling on my words. That's how angry this message made me. I'll try my best to explain whatever parts you have questions about. I put my response in the nicest way I possibly could, despite me seething with rage, wanting to go OFF on him.

(The first part of my response are the first three screenshots, and the second part are the last three screenshots.)

The first part of my response, I did forget to add that the message is offensive and disrespectful to autistic people as a whole. I apologize. My initial comment got way too long. I pretty much covered that when I told him the message is ableist. I wanted to clear that up before anyone asks about it.

The second part of my response is me opening up about my experience with being diagnosed with ASD, formerly known as As//per//ger's Syn//dro//me, at sixteen years old. I also went into how not calling ASD what it truly is (which is a disability) and calling it a "different ability" instead is extremely harmful and is treating being disabled like it's a bad thing.

By the way, saying that a disabled person is disabled isn't a bad thing. I'm disabled. It is what it is. Does it have its challenges? You bet. Does it help me with certain things? Hell yeah. I can really absorb information about my favorite bands, characters, shows, books, etc., and tell you a lot about those things. For example, I can tell you that Su can't ride a bike or read manga and she's okay with that. I can also tell you she can't tie her shoes very well, which is why her boots don't have laces and are slip-on and/or zip-up. But that doesn't mean my struggles are nonexistent or that I never struggle. I do, and it makes my life Hell at times.

The narrative that autism is a bad thing to have, every autistic person is somehow broken and they all need to be "fixed" is also super fucked up and not true. That's the narrative that I received when I was diagnosed by a therapist I had. I'm gonna be real here, I cried when I was first told that I was diagnosed with ASD. I felt like I was broken. I already felt like a total outcast. Being told about my diagnosis made me feel even more broken than I already felt. I was so ashamed of myself, despite me not doing anything wrong whatsoever, that I masked for SEVEN YEARS of my life. I masked for so long that I forgot I was even diagnosed with ASD in the first place. I wasn't taught how to really put my special interests into good use. I kinda had to figure that out on my own. I was pretty much under the assumption that me being interested in anime, cartoons, music, comics, theatre, writing, etc., to the point of obsession, was somehow weird and hurting people around me. You know, despite those things being harmless. Despite me being able to separate those things from other things that are important (like work, for example). Despite my only surviving parent, other family members, and the woman he was dating at the time completely overreacting and not bothering to see exactly what makes these things so special to me.

(By the way, having a disability does not completely make who a person is. There are a lot more things that make who a person is than that.)

It's kinda shocking that I wasn't able to come to terms with my diagnosis until this year. Considering that I masked for so long due to being ashamed of myself, plus being treated like a burden for being disabled, it's probably not very surprising. I initially thought at the time that it was the worst thing to have, as I was already struggling with enough shit back then, but came to realize it's not a bad thing. It doesn't change who I am. But I'm glad I came to terms with it finally nonetheless.

This is getting way too long, so I'm gonna wrap things up here. If you've read this far, thank you so much. I'm sorry this got so long!

If you watched the video, what are your thoughts on it? If this is your first time hearing about Dhar Mann, how do you feel about him? If you're a Dhar Mann fan, did this change your opinion on him in any way? Feel free to sound off in the comments!

Have a great day, everyone!

[lightns881]

DTeam Tumblr Demographics Survey Results (Part 2):

What does DTeamblr look like, what does it have to do with MCYT history, and why does it look like a rainbow?

I’ll make an educated guess here and say y'all enjoyed my last post (totally unrelated to the way I gained almost 50 followers overnight). Anyhow, thank you so much for the overwhelming support! I’m so glad a lot of you felt you could relate to my deep-dive into the leading personality type on DTeam Tumblr. It took me so many hours to write and research, and as a math major and honors student, it’s no easy feat, so I’m so grateful for the attention it got!

Today we’re discussing the general demographics of DTeam Tumblr and why they might look the way they do. Number 8 will blow your mind! So make sure to keep reading and hit that little grey heart and arrow at the bottom if you like it, so more people get to see it! Thanks for your support! Now, let’s jump straight into the post!

Your Daily Dose of Data

From the 449 responses we received, these are some pie charts displaying the gender, age, and sexuality of all respondents.

Image Description: Female (52.8%), Non-Binary (37.4%), Male (9.8%)

Image Description: 16-17 (37%), 13-15 (31.4%), 18 and over (29.4%), 12 and under (2.2%)

Image Description: Bisexual/Pansexual (54.1%), Homosexual (16%), Asexual (14.7%), Other (7.8%), Heterosexual (7.3%)

Mmhm, delicious! Y'all ready to dig into these stats? Because I don’t know about you, but they certainly don’t strike me as what the general population looks like!

Welcome to Tumblr, the Only Community Where Straight Men are the Minority

So these statistics certainly didn’t take me by surprise. Mostly because the DNF Shipper Survey I took some time ago revealed a similar trend. Not to mention, Tumblr is probably the QUEEREST internet community on the planet. 

Funny enough, the survey revealed a shocking number of ZERO heterosexual males respondents. I’ll say it louder for the people in the back. ZERO straight males were recorded out of 449 respondents for this survey!

Now, this isn’t surprising for the Tumblr community by itself, but I can say I’m somewhat surprised in terms of the MCYT Tumblr community. (Obviously, the survey specified DTeam Tumblr, but there is a big overlap between both communities, so I will be using them interchengably when it seems relevant.)

Let’s break this down. The survey reveals the largest age population is 16-17, though it’s not by a great margin in comparison to 13-15 and 18 and older, which doesn’t surprise me either. Some of the major critics of the DTeam Fandom and other MCYT Fandoms love to claim the fanbase’s majority age range lies with children and pre-teens. While it’s an undeniable fact children are drawn to Minecraft, it’s also a misconception to paint it as solely a community for younger viewers.

In the MCYT Tumblr and DTeam Tumblr communities, specifically, we see this is not the case. Only 1/3 of the respondents of this survey are under the age of 16 (you could attribute part of it to the fact younger people might be less inclined to participate in this survey, but it is still a notable difference). I can’t say these age ranges are similar in other parts of the community like DTeam Twitter, Tik Tok, or Reddit, but if I had to make a guess, I’d say Tumblr lies toward the older of the bunch, with Reddit being the oldest and Tik Tok being the youngest (I do hope to perform this survey on some of the other communities, so please stay until the end if you want to help with that).

One of the likely explanations to why the ages for DTeam Tumblr look this way is the fact a big chunk of the community has likely been watching MCYT for a long time (even with breaks in between). I, myself, used to watch channels like PopularMMOs, Aphmau, and PrestonPlayz as a kid, and I presume many of you are familiar with them as well. With the resurgence of MCYT in the past year, it likely drew a lot of the older viewers in addition to the new ones.

But enough about age. What I really want to highlight on this post is the attraction of queer individuals to DTeam Tumblr and MCYT as a whole.

Why is the current MCYT Fandom so queer in comparison to the previous generations?

This is a huge open-ended question and considering I can only capture so much of the DTeam and MCYT community, the rest of this post should be taken solely as a theoretical analysis as opposed to fact.

With that out of the way, let’s start by discussing the shift MCYT has undergone over the years (I promise this will circle back to the question of queerness in the MCYT fandom, but we need some background before we can come up with a decent theory).

When Minecraft was first released, it proved to be a monumental change in the gaming industry. This simple little indie game took the world by storm. It was so vastly different from what the general population generally viewed gaming as (first-person shooters, story-driven games, action games, etc.) Not to mention, it didn’t exactly solely appeal to only a small margin of gamers, those being white cis males.

The gaming industry has notoriously been known in the past for its heteronormative community and general prejudice toward minorities. Though it has gone through a significant change over the decades, we certainly can’t say it’s fully gone.

Yet for whatever reason, the recent MCYT has taken the interest of so many queer people in comparison to other gaming YouTube communities. Why? Why are queer people so drawn to this community? And, more precisely, why does it feel so different than the old MCYT? Lastly, how does this relate to the conclusion about the leading personalities of this fandom we made in the last post?

The Niche Communities of MCYT Over the Years

MCYT has always been a huge, over-saturated genre of YouTube with content appealing to a variety of audiences. It’s dominated gaming content for years, and I think we can all safely say it’s never been bigger than it is today.

So why is it that just now it feels like the queerness of the fandom is popping off? Why now as opposed to say five years ago when MCYT was at another one of it’s strongest stages?

It seems like the community has made a tremendous shift in relation to breaking gender norms and LGBTQ+ subjects, not only in the fans but within the creators themselves. Was flirting and calling a pretty-boy streamer pet names as normal in the past as it is today? Were straight gamer guys putting on dresses and a full-face of make-up as supported back then? Were “marriages” and “pregnancies” within Minecraft boys an everyday occurrence like they are now? How is it that MCYT has dominated a Twitch dating show where flirting with the gay host and among straight contestants themselves is just another bit of entertainment? Where is this all coming from?

Recently, I watched a 2 hour documentary depicting all of the stages of Minecraft YouTube and how it has changed over the years. If you haven’t seen it and you have some time to spare, I HIGHLY recommend it! It’s very informative, and it honestly gave me such a strong sense of nostalgia that makes me choke up every time I think about it. I’ll link it below.

The documentary does a great job at exploring the different niche communities that dominated MCYT since it first took off. Some of such communities include the basic Let’s Players, the team-based Let’s Play channels like How2Minecraft, the roleplay story-centric ones like Aphmau and Samgladiator, the tutorial, building and technical side like Mumbo and Grian, the PVP-centric Bedwars or Hypixel channels, the Machinima community, the comedy side like ExplosiveTNT, the parody music videos, and so many more. All of the mentioned communities have dominated Minecraft at one point or another, many of them still having a rippling effect and/or a loyal community today. All of these communities have certain aspects that define them, some of which parallel the current overtaking content in the present.

How can we compare MyStreet to the Dream SMP?

Taking Aphmau as an example, her MyStreet series had a TREMENDOUS success a few years ago, racking in millions of views and bringing in a lot of money that eventually allowed her to hire voice actors and increase the production of mentioned episodes. The roleplay series was so successful it ran for six seasons!

Now, let’s compare that to the Dream SMP. It seems like a big comparison to be making considering they appear so different at first glance. For once, Aphmau is just one channel whose audience caters toward girls and younger people who enjoy romance. The series is set-up in an episodic-format that resembles more of a TV series than actual Minecraft videos.

Meanwhile, the Dream SMP is a collection of content creators with a mix of improvised storylines and the occasional regular video that resembles more of a Let’s Play series than a RP series.

You could say the only true comparisons to draw out of these two are the popularity they had/have and the profit they brought to their respective creators. 

However, there’s two other key similarities that you’ll find not only within these two specific examples, but many other channels and communities as well. Story and characters.

MyStreet’s story aspect is fairly obvious seeing as it’s a episodic series that focuses on a fictional story. The Dream SMP’s story aspect isn’t as clear, but it’s evident there is a story playing out in the foreground and background, whether intentional or unintentional, or improvised or not.

Character is where some of you might start to question me. It’s obvious MyStreet has characters. I mean, it is a fictional story, after all. But the Dream SMP? Light, they’re obviously people!

Well, my answer to that is yes and no--sort of. The Dream SMP’s story heavily relies on roleplay, bits as you might call them. Events that aren’t necessarily planned out as a fictional plot like the typical MyStreet episode is, but they aren’t exactly real. Schlatt is obviously not a villain in real life, he just likes to impersonate as one for the narrative. Wilbur isn’t crazy, but it’s a way to spice up the heroic story surrounding Tommy and him.

It’s video-game improv. Except the actors behind the content just so happen to be real people playing off the personalities and “brands” they have obtained. 

Brands. It all boils down to this. In the entertainment business, without a clear vision of your project and a clear way to brand what your consumer intakes, your project will likely not find a lot of success.

There’s a reason why Tommy plays off his loudness, using an overexaggerated laugh that although may not be completely fake, it is likely not the laugh he uses everyday. Or why BadBoyHalo is this supposed innocent muffin who doesn’t understand the crafting table meme and other references that are fairly easy to google and find the meaning of. Or why Sapnap is this chaotic being who loves starting pet wars and we love to paint as an arsonist in the Dream SMP. While all of these personality traits may be a part of their true selves, they’re played up for the camera--for the story. They act as the personas that define their characters in the narrative.

They have a clear brand and vision that appeals to the audience and makes them tune in on the daily to see how they all come together. It’s like roleplaying a more extreme version of yourself, one that brings home the money.

Story and characters run across every entertainment outlet. They define their brand. Aphmau has her characters and series. Hermitcraft has a set of memorable personalities and episodic videos that formulate its own story that is less like a narrative and more of a history of the server. ExplodingTNT has his recurring cast and comedic sketches. Most of these niche communities have a form of story and character defining them. It’s how they achieve a clear sense of branding and cater to a specific audience.

Queer Theory in MCYT

Having said all that, why does the MCYT of today draw in so many queer viewers?

Let’s think about this. In my last post, I ended by mentioning DTeam Tumblr is a sort of safe haven for INFP and INxx types who might be placed in the “other” category by society. INFPs, specially, are predisposed for escapism--one common form of it being fiction and entertainment. Not to mention, INFPs are feeling types who, as introverts, seek a personable connection. It’s why it’s so easy for them to obsess over book characters or fall in love with content creators.

Now, let’s imagine a whole community of LGBTQ+ INFP and INxx types. Actually, scratch that, we don’t even have to imagine it.

It’s what our community looks like today.

And why are so many so drawn to the DTeam and Dream SMP of all things? It’s a personable storyline that essentially forms a direct tie to the viewer. Unlike pre-recorded fictional TV series you tune into on your device, the Dream SMP is a whole load of chaos that blurs the lines between reality and fiction where fans can directly connect to creators and get to know them as people through a storyline that features sub-textual queer themes and non-conforming behaviors.

The MCYT content creator community of today is more non-conforming than ever before, and knowing this whole fact, knowing that many of them might place themselves in the “other” category or at the very least aren’t afraid to break the norms and be seen in that light, is a comfort in itself for LGBTQ+ INFP types. Once again, it’s a safe space that helps you escape from the troubles of real life, one you relate to.

Okay. So although this does answer why the fans look like they do, what about the creators themselves? Are we really supposed to believe this all came through naturally? That a bunch of straight guys suddenly decided wearing dresses was something they wanted to do?

I don’t mean to sound cynical here, and I’m in no way trying to insinuate creators have solely some sort of corrupt ulterior motive. Things are never as simple as they look. However, the truth is, a part of it lies on the attention it’s gotten.

I’ve talked a lot about DreamNotFound and the way Dream uses it as a marketing ploy. I stand by my point. However, he’s not the only one who does this in the MCYT community. Why did Finn suddenly go from wearing a dress to cross-dressing as a girl for a whole week? Why are so many creators suddenly deciding wearing dresses is fun? Why does every freaking straight MCYT actively want to flirt with George nowadays?

Let’s just let Techno’s favorite word answer this for us: clout.

It gets attention from one of the largest historically underserved minority community in the entertainment business. We might not be able to see gay flirting in every Netflix TV show or guys not minding dresses and getting fake marriages, but you are certainly going to get at least one of those in every Dream SMP stream and video you tune into. It gets attention. It brings home the money. And do I blame them? Not really.

Interestingly enough, there’s a lot of analytical posts on the MCYT Tumblr community that discuss the dangers of these tactics and why gay jokes and the way queer subtext is treated by MCYT creators is harmful. Despite this, it still attracts such a huge community of queers. So why exactly would queer people actively watch something that’s offensive or harmful to us?

I have a lot more to say about this topic and the morality behind Dream’s tactics, but I’m out of breath for today, so I’ll talk about it in my next post. What better way to start the conversation about the DNF and Karlnap questions of the survey than a good ol’ discussion on the morality of queerbaiting and the likes?

If you got this far, I’d appreciate it if you liked and reblogged this post if you enjoyed it and/or learned something new! Also, important news, I would really like to perform a similar study on the DTeam Twitter Community to measure the differences in demographics across platforms. I would REALLY appreciate it if you guys could go like, retweet and share the link I posted on my Twitter about it (tweet will be linked in the reblog below) so it reaches more of the DTeam Twitter community!

However, if you filled out the survey yourself here or you associate more with DTeam Tumblr than DTeam Twitter please DO NOT fill out the survey again! I’m trying to make sure it reaches the audience that mains on Twitter, but I need a little help with that since I don’t have as big of an influence on Twitter than on here for obvious reasons.

Anyhow, thank you so much for all your support! I really appreciate y’all and make sure to hit the follow if you want to lookout for the next demographics post! <3

(Pssst, I’m releasing a MCYT DNF superpower AU longfic next month... You should totally go check out the post on that if you’re interested in it...)

[livingasaghost]

warning: this post will contain spoilers for the new mike flanagan show MIDNIGHT MASS. content warning for death, grief, religion.

as someone who was scarred by horror as a child and someone who hates halloween, no one is as surprised as i am that mike flanagan is one of my favorite directors/creators. for those who don't know, this is the man behind THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE and DOCTOR SLEEP. when hill house was released a few years ago, it was barely even on my radar. the only reason i decided to watch it is because everyone kept going on about how it was so scary it made them throw up or pass out or whatever.

not sure how that spurred me to turn the show on because quite literally i do not like scary things and i've had nightmares for years because of the poltergeist. but, i did in fact turn on this scary show at night in the dark of my house alone. and spoiler alert: it changed my life.

since then i've seen hill house about four times all the way through and i've also seen bly manor. (and obviously midnight mass.) as i continue to watch mike flanagan's works, i've been struck by his storytelling, his vision, and his art direction. this man is a star of his craft. when i watch his works i spend half the time studying his camera angles, his script, the little easter eggs he leaves behind. his shows fall under the same category as most of my favorite media: highly conceptual creations that feature strong themes and messages that change the way you perceive the universe and yourself and other people. i think i will spend my entire lifetime trying to explain this type of storytelling. stories like house of leaves or cloud cuckoo land or the starless sea. stories about how life is just a story, just a dream, and all we can do is appreciate our time on earth and the people we surround ourselves with.

when midnight mass originally was announced and the trailer dropped, i don't think i fully appreciated what it would be. it didn't really occur to me that mike was working on a new show, and it also didn't occur to me that while this new show wasn't a "haunting" show...it also was exactly that. there was so much hype leading up to bly manor, and when that dropped i was left feeling fairly disappointed. i think it's better that this new series doesn't fall under the haunting franchise, but i can understand and appreciate that it's basically a continuation of mike's television works. it's the same cast, the same feel, the same director...just different. and nothing like hill house or bly.

MIDNIGHT MASS is the story of a small town, an island town, that gets a new priest. you can't know more than that going in, but if you're reading this i'll assume you've either seen the show or you don't mind getting spoiled. (last chance.) what first seems like a show about alcoholism and god, quickly turns paranormal and supernatural. the show explores so many deep themes like life after death, what happens when the church strays from god and begins to glorify itself, small town religion, forgiveness. while the plot itself is incredibly compelling and it's a great mystery, i think what always gets to me about mike flanagan shows is that at the end of the day, even though it's horror and it's thrilling to watch, there is always that underlying message that is beautifully crafted and explored and it's usually about death and/or grief. midnight mass is such a wonderful addition to the flanagan collection because it forces you to look at the act of death head on. while it does explore grief, so much of this story is about what happens when you die and where you go and what comes next. and i've spent a lot of my life actively trying not to think about that.

a few months back i read a little life by hanya yanigahara and that book is all about friendship and life and also grief. it's about knowing that no matter how long your life is, at the end of it, we all die and we all lose people and one day people will lose us too. and while it's been months since i've read or actively thought of that book, i think so much of that set the stage for my 2021. i have dealt with grief in recent months, i dealt with the loss of our cat, and the combination of all of that PLUS watching this show...it really struck a chord with me. a weird one. i think the older i get the more fascinated i am by death and grief and loss and while sometimes that can be debilitating and scary, i think it's also incredibly freeing.

there's a scene (that happens twice) where two of the characters are discussing what happens when/after we die. and since this show centers on christianity, of course one of those scenarios reflects on heaven. the other scenario pictured is from more of an atheistic/agnostic perspective: that when we die, our bodies shut down and that is the end of it. what shocked me most is that as someone raised christian, someone who actively believes in a god and has read a lot about "the afterlife" or what not, i don't know that i have ever let myself believe in or think about a death that doesn't have an afterlife. doesn't have a heaven. i can't tell if that's just really good brain-washing by the church or what, but in watching that scene i felt both the thrill of fear and also a bit of relief.

here's the thing. after thinking on it all more, i obviously don't have the answer. we don't know what comes next, if anything. i think most of what religion and faith comes down to is knowing we won't know and also knowing that there isn't any logic when it comes to spirituality. to a god. as much as science exists, if we believe in a higher power, we also have to accept that science cannot explain everything. that science isn't everything period. i would like to think, and will hopefully continue to believe, that erin's view of life after death is real. that heaven exists, that we will all be reunited one day, that there is a higher power who wants us all to be loved and not alone for eternity. that sounds real to me. but i also have realized that i have doubts. that the logic side of me believes that when we die, our bodies will shut down and we will go to sleep and that will be the end.

and you know what? even though that is scary and it's a recent thing for me to consider (especially as someone who is more and more becoming anti-religion in some ways), it's also a huge fucking relief. it's a blessing. to not exist.

that sounds like my depression talking, but it's not. i promise. i've never been the type of person who wants to live forever or extend my life span. part of the whole point of mike flanagan shows, of the types of books and stories i enjoy, is that without an end, there's no point. what's the purpose of living forever? if you've seen the good place there always reaches a point where you've reached your full potential, where you've done everything, where things stop having meaning because they've lasted so long. and obviously death is still scary, not knowing what comes next is terrifying, but watching this show gave me a kind of comfort about death that i didn't know was possible. and this is a horror show about religious vampires.

throughout all the gore and hypocrisy and terror and violence of this strange show, i found myself at peace.

[xoxo-ren-xoxo]

smptwt as of 04/07/2020

Right. You asked for it, so you shall recieve. Below the cut is probably one of the most thought-out, in-depth, hopefully unbiased (but probably not) and above all helpful accounts of what the fuck is happening in the smplive and lunch club fandoms right now. I will be covering everything I can- but in the case that I’ve forgotten something, please let me know so I can have a crack at making an update.

Before the cut, I’d just like to link my first three posts about this same topic, covering my thoughts and the events of the last couple of months of drama. It feels so strange that I’ve made so many of these, but as long as they help people, I’ll keep making them.

Part 1: https://crunchy-corvid.tumblr.com/post/619547090403622912/the-cscoopsmptwt-drama

Part 2: https://crunchy-corvid.tumblr.com/post/619746266158661633/more-on-smptwt-long-post

Part 3: https://crunchy-corvid.tumblr.com/post/619886809143476225/smptwt-part-3-030620

I’d like to preface this with a huge thank you to everyone who helped me collect and compile information for this post- and those who helped censor twitter handles and edit screenshots. Without you, this post would have never been made. 

Thank you to everyone on the Cancelled Heaven discord server:  https://discord.gg/emrh2u

Now, onto the thing.

So we’ll start at the beginning with the easiest ‘drama’ (I hate calling it that) to cover. Charlie (slimecicle) tweeted on his second account and it caused a little upset. It’s not much but it feeds into a greater conversation that I think is relevant here: 

We’ll start with Charlie’s original point, then move on to the reply. Obviously, this post was poorly timed, because everyone thought it was about the Cooper (cscoop) drama, when in reality it was just a general comment. I saw a lot of replies along the lines of ‘it’s okay you can @ cscoop’ and similar things. If you’ve read my previous posts you’ll know how I feel about the Cooper situation, but regardless, there are a few reasons why this is a Bad Take/poor interpretation of what Charlie said.

Charlie and Cooper are friends. They haven’t fallen out as far as we know. Charlie is left-wing, and definately doesn’t seem like the kind of person to be friends with someone who is racist/transphobic/sexist etc. So why would he be talking about Cooper in this post? 

Also, Charlie is clearly talking about people who still say slurs, not people who have said slurs in the past. This is how I read it, a jab at streamers and gamers who use ‘dark humour’ to justifty their actions. A lot of people seemed to relate this to Cooper, despite him never trying to justify his use of slurs. The people who did try to justify his actions this way were fans, not the man himself. So again, this post doesn’t relate to Cooper.

On to the reply, which sparks a different conversation all together. While I see where the commenter is coming from, and agree with them to an extent, Charlie is allowed to have his own opinion on the matter. And he is right. Using insulting language against heterosexual people does create a larger divide and doesn’t get anyone on our ‘side’. It just makes us look immature and causes a lot of straight cis people to assume that we hate them. 

On the other hand, I do think that saying things like ‘disgusting hets’ can be a funny joke if you are saying it to your friends who don’t have any issue with it. You probably shouldn’t get into the habit of saying things like that though, just in case you actually hurt someone with your words. Both sides of the argument have pros and cons, so anyone angry at Charlie for his opinion really have no reason to be.

Charlie’s reponse to this comment was reasonable, responsible, and mature, and he is clearly showing that he understands the concerns of his audience. This is all I’ll say about Charlie in this post. Honestly, he’s generally unproblematic and ‘safe’ to keep watching, if you enjoy a very drama-free environment. Have fun!

Now I’ll move on to Ted. He’s made some great points recently about cancel culture which I strongly agree with. Here’s his first tweets:

I don’t have much to add here, this is perfectly valid in my opinion- though I feel like sometimes you can tell a lot about a person by the people they follow. For example, if someone follows Trump, Ben Shapiro, and a bunch of right-wing youtubers, they probably agree with a lot of the things they say. But I think the point Ted is trying to make is that he shouldn’t be harassed about drama his friends fall into. If he isn’t involved, leave him out of it. 

Next we’ll take a look at his tweets on stans, probably sparked by the drama with Carson, which I will be talking about later. 

Again, I have no issue with what Ted is saying here. His idea is a good one, and a fun way to distinguish casual fans from people who create art, content, and (appropriate) fanfiction for the ‘flandom’! 

Basically, how I see it, is that a ‘fan’ is a casual viewer who doesn’t really get involved in the flandom, maybe posting about smplive and/or lunch club occasionally, but not being too involved. A ‘flan’ is someone who interracts a lot, creates art and fiction that respects boundaries, and posts more about the boys than a casual fan does. A ‘stan’ is a stalker-fan, creepy and obsessive, too invested, maybe creates art and fiction that crosses boundaries, and obsessively posts about the boys.

I think this new terminology is really cool and Ted is smart for coming up with it (also, probably hungry when coming up with it too). I think that the term ‘stan’ should be thrown out and used to describe the ‘bad’ side of fandoms. There is a risk that people will hide behind the term ‘flan’ to disguise the fact that they are a stan, but this is still a good step foward. 

But you’re not here to listen to me ramble about Ted or Charlie. You’re here for Carson. So let’s get on with it.

Carson made a series of tweets talking about stans, much like Ted did later. He seemed tired of stans harassing him about his friends, a sentiment shared by Ted (who faced very minimal backlash over his tweets). Here’s what he said:

Which is something I fully agree with. For big content creators like Carson and his friends, stan culture is absolutely insane. Recently they’ve been trying to ‘catch out’ many people who are part of smplive and/or lunch club, most obviously with Cooper and Schlatt but I’ve seen the others getting ‘called out’ too. Carson’s anti-stan stance is well-known in the flandom (yes I am using that word get used to it) so these tweets didn’t surprise me. 

For some reason stans seem to think that if one creator is okay with their behaviour, every other creator is too. This is not the case. Carson was within his full right to say these things about stans.

Obviously the replies got out of hand. People became horribly angry very quickly, and clearly Carson had already had enough because pretty soon he started blocking stan accounts- which only made them more mad.

Of course, there were supporters and anti-stan comments out there too, such as this fun exchange:

But a whole lot of people got angry. Carson was trending for a while, too, after he started blocking stans. Unfortunately some people did get wrongfully blocked, which sucks, sure, but use of an alt account or logging off of twitter can solve that problem (this can also be said for stan accounts. Carson didn’t stop any of them from viewing his content, just blocked them so that he didn’t have to see their tweets).

Carson did this for his own mental health. After a long conversation with older people who have been in fandoms for decades, I can tell you that being at the top is always hell. New threads created about you every day, friends you can’t trust, and people giving you shit for things other people said. I can’t imagine how someone as popular as Carson has dealt with this for so long.

People who were blocked started to claim that they were having panic attacks, that they hyperfixate so they can’t help being obsessive, and that Carson doesn’t care about mental health for these reasons. They said some pretty toxic and manipulative things and a lot of people clearly didn’t know what they were talking about:

First of all, these comments on the Katerino and Fitz situation are honestly disgusting. These people are only proving Carson’s point that stans will be super supportive one second and turn around to hate you the next. To bring up something like this, something completely unrelated and highly personal- knowing Carson will see- is disgraceful. To speculate about a relationship that Carson has explicitly stated he doesn’t want people to speculate about just to try and make a point? Horrible.

A lot of stans seem to have this ‘we made you famous so we dictate how you feel’ mentality, which I hate. Exactly as the reply says, they sound like toxic parents with these words. To think you deserve ‘respect’ from someone after accusing their friends of horrible things and harassing them to the point that they block you is so manipulative and quite frankly cruel.

Again, Carson has the right to block anyone he wants. Creators are not your friends, they are entertainment. If you are making them upset and harassing them, you shouldn’t get mad when they block you. 

Listen. It can be tough, finding out that someone you look up to has blocked you. Yes, I’m sure people had a not-so-nice time with their mental health when it happened to them. But in most cases, they were blocked for a reason. Some people were even literally asking to get blocked and then got mad when they did. But again, no one has been barred from viewing Carson’s content. He simply blocked people who he didn’t want to see in his comments section.

You have freedom of speech, but you don’t have freedom from consequence. If you say something that hurts someone else, you’re not always going to be free from their judgement. 

Carson has been very open about his own struggles with depression and imposter syndrome recently, and people are viewing his actions as... hypocritical? This is flawed logic. Carson blocked stans because they were bad for his mental health, the fact that some claim to have had ‘panic attacks’ as a result is not on him. He has the autonomy to block who he wants to block. 

Wilbur Soot made some comments about the situation, which can be found in this video from 7 minutes 30 seconds in, and goes until 10 minutes and 11 seconds in:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/667971714

What Wilbur says here is completely understandable. He doesn’t have a problem with stans, but doesn’t speak for anyone but himself. Just because one person is okay with something doesn’t mean someone else is, too. 

Also, a lot of people think that it’s okay to hate on someone like Carson or Schlatt, then turn around and stan Wilbur, which is kind of fucked up, because they’re friends in real life. How would you feel if someone was super nice to you, then turned around and harassed your friends?

A lot of people claimed to have ‘hyperfixations’ on Carson or lunch club, which they used as an excuse to be obsessive and creepy. This is bullshit, but someone else explained it a lot better than I could:

And I absolutely agree with this. You cannot use neurodivergence to explain away your creepiness. That’s just offensive to people who do hyperfixate, and leads to even more problems and misunderstandings.

Carson did a stream much later where he talked about all of these things, and boy did that go well (not). Here is a clip of him talking about hyperfixations:

https://m.twitch.tv/clip/SuaveBlushingDotterelBCWarrior

Now, here’s where my support for Carson falters. He should have done more research on what hyperfixations really are before he said things about them. He hurt some people with what he said, and just saying he’s uneducated on the topic isn’t really an excuse.

HOWEVER. Carson was given very little time to research (about 24 hours between his original tweets and his stream) and, more importantly, it is very obvious that the use of the term ‘hyperfixation’ has been warped and manipulated by stans who are misusing the term to excuse their behaviour. Carson probably saw stans using it and assumed it was something synonomous with ‘obsessions’.

What he said was poorly worded, but the point he was making is the same as the (much more researched and informative) tweet above. Anyone getting mad that he is somehow ‘invalidating mental health or autism’ with his comments clearly don’t understand the point he was trying to make in the first place.

And here’s a clip of Connor talking about it, too, as well as defending Carson’s right to block people as he wishes:

https://www.twitch.tv/connoreatspants/clip/YummySlickPlumageSpicyBoy

https://www.twitch.tv/connoreatspants/clip/JazzySpotlessMelonMoreCowbell

What he said here is completely valid, a little poorly worded in the same way as Carson’s statement, but overall something I stand behind.

Some people are claiming that Carson is being manipulative or ‘gaslighting’ fans and stans:

Carson is not against fans who create cool stuff for him and his friends. He is against the people who harass him, accuse his friends of horrible things, and try to look for every little thing they’ve said and done wrong. This is what he said, and people got mad at him for it, and so he blocked them. That is it. There is no gaslighting. There is no manipulation. I’ve seen much more manipulative things coming from the stans’ side of things.

Now we move on to Noah’s reply to Carson’s tweet. Which, yes, caused a whole new can of worms to be opened.

Now, for those like me who have trouble figuring out Noah’s way of speaking, let me translate: ‘stans are insecure people who start to feel entitled because they’ve started to view a streamer they like as a friend/someone who shares their pain.’ 

For those of you who don’t know, this is what ‘don’t negotiate with terrorists’ means:

However, almost predictably, stans saw the word ‘terrorist’ and lost their goddamn minds. That, coupled with the complicated phrasing of Noah’s words, caused a lot of stans to freak out.

This conversation is full of Bad Takes, but my main issue is that they are trying to diagnose Noah with an actual mental illness. That is not only offensive to people who have that illness (especially calling him ‘insane’ in the same sentence, as well as implying that having said illness makes you a bad person) but is also highly hypocritical since so many stans claimed to all be neurodivergent themselves. 

Also, 90% of his fans aren’t stans. They’re mostly fans or flans. You are a loud minority. You aren’t as powerful as you think you are. Noah even started to retweet hate comments, that’s how few shits he gave. He also shows that he is concerned about people making things up about him, which is understandable.

Plus he outright said that stans are not fans of him, which in most cases, they’re not. Noah’s content isn’t as widely watched as some of his friends’ stuff, and a lot of stans don’t watch his streams.

But anyway, here’s one good take I saw floating around:

After this, before his stream, Carson deleted his original tweets and spent some time with his family, which was a sensible and mature thing to do at this point. 

During Carson’s stream, someone notified him that his ‘fans’ had started to doxx stans. Here is his reaction:

https://m.twitch.tv/callmecarsonlive/clip/SpicySassyGerbilArgieB8

A lot of people got mad that he didn’t do more to stop the doxxings, but I want to raise the question: what was he supposed to do? He can’t control his ‘fans’ (another breed of stans who don’t call themselves stans were doing the doxxings, to be honest) and he said not to do it. He was streaming, he didn’t know how serious it was or even if it was true, at that moment, what was he supposed to do?

It did get serious. People I know were doxxed. Anyone posting anything (positive or negative) about lunch club, smplive, and Carson were in danger. It was not fake like some people claimed. The twt handles in this post are blurred out because of the doxxing threats. I am making this post at my own risk, but I do feel that tumblr is safer than twitter at the moment.

This being said, it is in no way Carson’s fault how out of hand this has become. He has been against doxxing in the past and his sentiments haven’t changed. He has said more about the doxxings in replies to tweets such as this one:

Also, here’s what the mods on Carson’s discord server had to say about the situation. They’ve clearly talked about this with Carson, and are strongly against anyone who is doxxing these people (especially since a lot of the people being doxxed are minors).

A similar sentiment was shared on Ted’s discord server:

Here is what ItsAsaii had to say:

So that’s basically where everything stands right now. If you want an even fuller update on everything, check out Carson’s stream ‘afternoon fellas and fellettes’ where he talks about everything.

Here’s the last tweets I have from Carson regarding the whole situation:

And I agree fully with what he has said. And again, Carson doesn’t owe stans anything. Just like what was said here, he had subs and fans before he had stans, they did not ‘make’ him, and they cannot control him.

This is all I have to say, for now. If I have missed anything or you’d like me to cover anything else, please let me know. If I have hugely missed the mark and said something super wrong/offensive, let me know. If you’d like me to talk about a streamer or youtuber not related to lunch club, throw me a DM or an ask and I’ll try to compile some things, even if I don’t watch their content or know who they are.

If you’d like up-to-date information about drama in smptwt, streamers, and youtubers, join the Cancelled Heaven discord server- which I linked at the start of the post. 

I thank you all for reading, and suggest that you reblog this so that as many people as possible can see it. If you want to risk it, go ahead and link this post in a tweet or something, but please do be careful. 

For some ‘extra reading’ (watching) I highly recommend Contrapoints’ video on cancel culture: https://youtu.be/OjMPJVmXxV8

And Philosophy Tube’s video on artists and fandoms, there’s some really insightful things about parasocial relationships: https://youtu.be/3IG0Y63LkDM

Lots of love, and have a great day <3

[seercayder]

No but I feel as though artists are probably experiencing one of the most hostile years of posting art online that they’ve ever experienced for maybe forever. And I mean this for both amateur artists and professionals (with maybe a lil bit of bias since I also do The Art).

Tumblr’s nudity ban has crippled any piece that is either NSFW or uses nudity as artistic expression and it ultimately drove away both the artists themselves and a lot of their fans, which destroyed any remaining traction for the artists who managed to remain. Tumblr is no longer an artistic freedom-friendly site and it shows, which is a fucking shame bc they genuinely have one of the better tagging systems than other sites and I believe that most feedback on art there has been positive and friendly, which has now gone the way of the dinosaur much like Deviantart.

Twitter has problems with image compression but their biggest issue is toxic abuse, which I find to be the most damaging to artists out of all the other problems i’m listing here. Both the lure of anonymity and the mindset that ‘Speak Loud In Little Words To Make Point Means You Are Important And Right’ has fuelled the absolutely vile comments I have seen directed at artists on the site. Although it’s mainly aimed at fanartists and ship artists, I have noticed unwanted (even rude) criticism on immaculate, well-done art pieces, which is extremely belittling and insulting because the artist (although they may be open to criticism) if they haven’t asked for criticism then that means that they are not in the right mindset to receive any, and therefore it is not your place to throw disparaging comments at them.

But the biggest issue with abuse on Twitter is obviously aimed at fan-artists, especially those those that draw NSFW or “problematic” content. I could go into a whole spiel about how a drawing of a fictional character doesn’t affect reality but in short: If you find disturbing art of a non-existent character (or hey, even non-disturbing art, it’s just something you don’t like) then ignore it. Don’t go and fucking bully the artist you psychopath. If it is truly illegal then report the piece and then see if it gets taken down. Because 90% of the time it won’t be taken down because it doesn’t go against guidelines and you’re just trying to police the site like you’re the thought-police, monitoring other peoples art as if you have the god-given right to. And if you’re a minor stay the fuck out of 18+ accounts. Don’t comment, don’t follow, don’t even look. I am absolutely amazed by the mindset that some children have to waltz into a space not made for them and having the balls to insult the 18+ artist, who have specifically said “no minors”, for posting icky content. It gets even worse when you see how they abuse the Privatter or Curiouscat links the Twitter artists provide, made for anonymous feedback or for being the final barrier for an adult piece that says “hey this stuff is NSFW, don’t click if you are underage, last warning”. I’m gonna go into this more when I cover TikTok in the next few paragraphs. But ultimately, the artists on that site are having to be constantly vigilant against abuse, and it’s not unusual for them having to spend hours going through their 1K+ followers and having to block every underage follower who just didn’t fucking listen to their warnings. Imagine how exhausting and irritating and down-right uncomfortable that must be; having to monitor every fan that sees your work out of fear that they’re a minor seeing adult content or that they could throw abusive comments at you. Horrible.

Instagram is saturated with bots attempting to steal your work or advertise it on their own page and feedback isn’t really a ‘thing’ on there. Also, their algorithm (which may have also been implemented on Twitter, I believe that the Twitter algorithm now avoids promoting popular artist terms, but I can’t be certain bc the Twitter post that pointed this out is long-lost in the depths of my timeline, bc again, no tagging system) is based more around sharing than likes, which can be a huge barrier to artists. Sure, you may like someones art and even leave a nice comment on it, but do you really want to share every piece you come across, especially if it’s not something you would show dear Aunty Susan who follows you? It’s infuriating that a whole site dedicated for images is so difficult to use for artists, and with Instagram implementing features that are similar to Snapchats ‘stories’ it’s clear they’ve moving in a different direction, focusing on momentary attention-grabbing photos. This is simply because Instagram is advertising itself as more of a promotional influencer site nowadays, and anything that could sully their reputation has to be thrown into the algorithm trash. NSFW art or just plain ‘bad’ art? Trash. If you’re not gonna make money for them then why should they bother? You wanna promote your art? Pay for it because the algorithm will absolutely be working against you.

Now, the biggest fucking offender for worst art-sharing site of the year is TikTok (no surprise there), which is absolutely rampant with reposts and uncredited artwork and a gateway for abusive comments against artists. Like the Ouroboros snake, it goes through the same pattern every time; People (usually minors) find art on Twitter or Pinterest and repost it, usually without credit or going against the artist’s wishes about reposting. Then it either goes two-ways: Firstly, if the piece is SFW it will get about five-seconds of interest, a like for the reposter and people will then just move on. TikTok is built entirely around short bursts of satisfaction, feeding a a constant loop of serotonin for a few seconds before you move on. So ultimately, people rarely then hunt down the original artist, especially if their credit isn’t readily available, and usually the original artists doesn’t see any rise in likes, followers or popularity and are usually unaware that their art is even getting any attention on TikTok.

Or, if the art is NSFW, it can go down the second way. It is reposted and, as the majority of TikTok users are under-18, many users find the image uncomfortable, especially if it is a bit more ‘out-there’ or of a ship they don’t like. The reposters sometimes find the image off of Privatter, which is even worse since the piece has been posted to Privatter not just as a final barrier against minors, but also as a form of directing the piece to a specific and niche audience due to it’s... spicer than usual NSFW content. I’m talking really specific pieces with really specific kinks. Now that piece is floating around TikTok, widely seen by the general fans of a fandom, who again, are usually underage. The viewers grow uncomfortable, as the piece is not made for them, especially since sometimes the reposter only posted the piece for shock-value, and would even encourage insulting comments by only posting the credits for the purpose of getting fans to throw abuse at the artist (”The artist is ***** but they ship **** and are icky”) and so the viewers finally decide to make the effort to hunt down the original artist, only to throw insulting and bullying comments at them, made worse by the fact that they are children who don’t have the sense to hold back and have been fuelling their mindset in the echo-chamber that is TikTok.

And as a result of a lot of this hostile feedback for artists, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find a space for amateur artists who are just starting out, since the art community is becoming a little bit scary. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that new (or not even new but recently promoted) sites such as Artstation are becoming a better place for professional artists only, but it is very intimidating for learner artists. That’s not necessarily a bad thing - I believe that part of the reason for Deviantarts decline was that the tagging system was horrible, so good art was being drowned out by amateur, fetish content, so more advanced artists were distancing themselves from the site, especially if they were trying to build a portfolio for employment. I also find that fanart usually gets far more likes than more original art pieces, even if the original piece is amazingly good, which isn’t a criticism against fanart but posting your original piece on a site more aimed at professional pieces may help you reach your target audience better and improve likes and interaction. However, that does mean that if you are an amateur, or hell, just an average artists who is still learning, your best bet for exposure is posting your piece across multiple sites and very, very regularly, braving any abusive comments if you try anything slightly “spicy”. Which, obviously, become a very potentially toxic atmosphere and it’s not uncommon for artists to feel burn-out or depressed at their lack of attention or the cyber-bullying they may receive.

I’m not trying to say that posting artwork has always been easy, but there is definitely a more aggressive culture surrounding it and I think artists have to be aware that chances are they will face insulting comments, reposters, frustrating algorithms, cyber-bullying, a lack of interaction and burn-out as they try and appeal to websites that would do the bare minimum for you in terms of promotion.

This isn’t meant to be a post to scare away artists, I just wanted to point out that there is a big fucking problem and it feels as though it’s getting worse. Nowadays, websites have become a bit too comfortable targeting creators rather than fans when it comes to monitoring content and artists have been put under more and more pressure as they face more and more abuse that is rarely addressed, especially by the sites themselves that host the content. Things that are a huge punch in the face for artists, such as NFT’s, are becoming more normalised and it’s honestly just sad.

[hecallsmehischild]

Recent Media Consumed

Books

A Knot in the Grain and Other Stories by Robin McKinley. Not bad for a fantasy short story compilation, but as I read the stories I felt like too many questions went unanswered, or the answer wasn’t clear enough. I know there’s an art to not answering questions and making that intentional, but I didn’t pick up the feeling of the author being intentionally vague. It was still fun to read. I’m really just in a fantasy binge mode.

Fire and Water by Robin McKinley and Peter Dickinson. Both books are collections of short stories based on elemental spirits. Eh…. they were okay. Didn’t like them as much as the others.

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Hard book to get through. There’s so much monologuing and it doesn’t all make sense to me. People seem to be talking trite nonsense half the time and then being unbearably deep the other half. It is an interesting look at morbid aspects of the human heart. Might be that it’s a bit over my head to appreciate fully, but I’d like to read at least one more by this author. Maybe The Brothers Karamazov.

Movies

Hello Dolly. (mini liveblogging of reactions) There are way too many musicals I have not gotten around to seeing, simply because I have old favorites and sometimes it’s hard to get out of a rut. I am two minutes and four seconds in and CLEARLY not watching this before now was a failure on my part. I am in awe of the opening sequence that is just a series of legs and feet, but they are all moving to the music and they tell a dozen different stories that are very easy to understand even without seeing anybody’s top half, this is EXCELLENT framing and shooting and I feel like I’m in for a real treat. (In the middle of “It takes a woman”) I cannot tell you how much I missed over the top satire. This very much has the feel of My Fair Lady’s “With A Little Bit of Luck”. But then it’s taken up by the protagonist with an entirely different tone and WHAM the feels hit. I’m not enjoying all of the musical numbers, but there’s this one bit in the middle of the song about dancing where Dolly accepts a dance invitation from the grizzled old groundskeeper, and seeing this high-class looking widow take his invitation without a shred of irony, and to see him take her dancing in such a way that shows he’s clearly done this for many years and may be a widower himself, it’s just this strange sweet kind of moment that’s meant to be savored. And then again WHAM this high class widow, whenever she has a musical number in private, just NAILS you with her song and performance and all her emotions. Barbara Streisand was incredible, absolutely incredible. A lot of the other characters don’t really feel real, they feel like Musical People. She slips on the clothes of a Musical Person but then she drops the facade and shows you how hard all this is for her and it’s incredible. The movie is worth it just to watch HER. Even if it is very stressful watching her manipulate conversations and move people around like pawns. I have to say I do not, for the life of me, understand why she wants a relationship with Mr. Horace Vandergelder, or why he agrees. They look like they’ll make each other miserable for life.

Honest Thief. I went in with low “dumb robbery movie” expectations and was pleasantly surprised. I think I was most surprised by the fantastic chemistry of the couple and pretty much everyone’s acting. Aside from the acting it wasn’t anything remarkable, but everyone took it up to the next level. Nice flick. Also it tickles me to hear the voice of Aslan talking about how he carried out perfect robberies.

Nezha. Holy. Cow. Okay it doesn’t make total sense to me, not all the way through, but I chalk that up to missing cultural/lit knowledge and translation issues. Setting that aside, animation was gorgeous. Story was fun, but also compelling. There was some gross-out humor, but I’ve seen worse. And the climactic fight scene? Man. It went SO LONG but I didn’t even care. Some fight scenes drag on, but this one could have been twice as long and I would have been fine with that. The creators of this film really went all out with creativity and variety all throughout the film. I don’t totally understand the ending but I would love to see more (as the credits scenes hinted that there might be more). Oh wait, there is more and it’s called Jiang Ziya…

The Mitchells vs The Machines. This movie was so full of heart and also so full of complete over the top dumb goofiness. It kind of reminded me of Despicable Me in that way. Definitely brought a smile to my face.

Shows

Star vs the Forces of Evil. I had to re-watch through Eclipsa’s and Meteora’s arc because I’d seen that much before, but too long ago to remember. I re-watched it, then settled in for the last season which I hadn’t seen before. Watching through the new content and… I’m… disappointed. Story seems to be all over the place. The conflict is so forced it hurts. People are flatter than flat. And they’re all idiots. I feel like the show is trying to reach for a moral and don’t even know what that is from episode to episode. Wow. And as I go into the final arc, it just gets worse. Ham-fisted with zero focus and twists out of the bloody blue that make zero sense. You know… this series was hard to get into because characters were annoying and gross at the start. But then it added depth to each character and made me care about them as it went along. But everything after Eclipsa became queen has flushed all of that down the toilet as fast as possible and it is maddening to see that story-trust wasted. Nothing means anything in this story, that’s the conclusion I end up coming to. Nothing means anything and there is nobody worth caring about. I am radically disappointed. And kind of angry at the sheer number of levels at which the storytelling became terrible.

Games

Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening. I wasn’t sure how I’d handle another controller-based game after getting so accustomed to Breath of the Wild (I’m on a second re-play of that, I play it whenever my brain is on the fritz so badly that I can’t do anything else). But it turned out to be pretty easy to get into. The hardest part is getting stuck about how to solve certain puzzles and trying to figure it out over and over. Sometimes I figure it out, but sometimes I need to look up a hint online. I’m almost at the end of the game and I’ve enjoyed it quite a bit. I want to play more Zelda games...

Katamari Re-Roll. This is so stupid. I mean, SO VERY STUPID. And so much fun. You start off as this tiny little person just rolling a ball around and you can pick up anything smaller than you (thumbtacks, coins, caramel candies) and as your ball gets bigger, your options open up (mice, carrots, eggs, crabs) and open up (shoes, toys, cats, dogs) and open up (humans, food carts, cows). I hear you get to roll up houses at some point. I’m looking forward to that. For now I’m at the level where I’m rolling up a lot of people. They’re all wiggly and shrieky. It’s funny. There’s a time limit on each level, and you have to reach a certain size by the time limit, which is the only really annoying thing about it. But I’m still having a lot of fun.

World of Warcraft: Classic. Of all the games I never thought I’d play, this is probably toward the top of the list. I don’t like the concept of grinding. I like story. But after playing Breath of the Wild, I also found out that I love exploration/open world type games. My husband helped me build a character and we ran around doing quests and levelling up. Now I’m a level 17 Dwarf hunter who does skinning and leatherworking. I have a pet wolf named Chompers. I’m having a lot of fun. Probably not obsessive levels of fun, but enough fun that I’m happy to sink a couple several-hour sessions a week into playing.

[pragmatic-optimist]

🌟 Blog Tag Game 🌟

Tagged by my friends: @mistmarauder @acejuddryder @alwaysablossom and @iboatedhere (I am so sorry this took so long, but I really appreciate the tags!)

1. Why did you choose your url?

I love a good oxymoron. Lol. So that’s part of it. 

I went to this work conference thing last February (pre-Covid 😳) where one of the sessions talked about mindset, different types and which are healthier.  

The presenter discussed the ways that blind optimism can be problematic (facts). Then, they talked about pragmatic optimism. They explained how pragmatic optimism allows us to understand the reality of the problems we face while also retaining confidence in our ability to successfully confront them. I really liked it. It gave me language for something I was already practicing in my own life. So I changed my url and here we are.

2. Any side blogs?

No, just my one little blog! Though I have thought about starting a fic rec side blog, a library of sorts. I read so much fic and I recently started to categorize it for myself in my bookmarks to make it easier to find my favorites. So I thought I could use my Monica Geller powers for the good of the fandom, but it hasn’t gone beyond an idea because what is time? 😆

3. How long have you been on tumblr?

7 years, which is nutty! I took a break here and there, but glad to be back and in the 911 LS fandom. 

4. Do you have a queue tag?

I do, but I don’t use it often. It’s #this is how we queue it

(Name that song? I’m a 90s kid 😂)

5. Why did you start your blog in the first place?

I’m a procrastinator. Lol. At the time, I was in grad school and looking for new distractions.

6. Why did you choose your icon/pfp?

It’s Betty Suarez! Ugly Betty is my favorite show of all time and Betty is the fictional character whose personality best represents me. When we talk about the importance of feeling seen in TV/Media, Betty is the first time I fully felt seen on screen. Several of her storylines resonated with me and my life. She’s my fav, as is America Ferrera who I have loved since her debut on Disney Channel’s Gotta Kick It Up. (My 90s kid is showing again lol). 

I do want to note that recently I have been strongly considering a Carlos Reyes icon…

Betty has some serious competition. 👀

7. Why did you choose your header?

Three words: Carlos Cow Eyes.

8. What’s your post with the most notes?

I can’t just pick one because there are categories 😆. They are all text posts from when I live blog shows, which is funny because normally I don’t think my posts are that interesting. So when a note blows up, it surprises me.  

The post with the most notes ever is this one from May when I decided to watch an episode of Grey’s because April was coming back (I ❤️ Japril) and I was hoping the writers would re-open the endgame door. Apparently others agreed with me and we were rewarded (🙌🏾).

The post with the most notes from my 911 Lone Star shouting is this one from the s2 finale and I love that it’s a post about Nancy. So many of us resonated with her in this moment! #foreveramood

And two of my personal favorites are this one about Sierra and this one about Rafael. Grace and Carlos are my absolute favorite characters on this show, in large part because Sierra and Rafael are incredibly talented and wonderful people.

9. How many mutuals do you have?

I have no clue, but definitely more than I would expect to have. What are you all doing here? Lol. I appreciate each of you! 

10. How many followers do you have?

532 👋🏽 

11. How many people do you follow?

264 making my dashboard lively.

12. Have you ever made a shitpost?

Every Monday night when 911 LS aired 😂. Not as many lately.

13. How often do you use tumblr each day?

This question is rude.

14. Did you have a fight/argument with another blog once?

Nope. I avoid unnecessary conflict/drama in my day to day, so I definitely don’t engage in it here. 🙅🏽‍♀️

15. How do you feel about “you need to reblog this” posts?

If it’s for signal boosting important info and world events, 100%. Reblogging to support content creators/writers is also important and something I try to do often. The superstitious ones have an email chain vibe and I don’t really engage with them. Though I am a little “stitious” and there is always that brief moment of hesitation where I go “should I?”  

16. Do you like tag games?

Yes!! Even if it takes me a little while to reply sometimes.

17. Do you like ask games?

Double yes!

18. Which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

They all are in my eyes, so much talent!

19. Do you have a crush on a mutual?

Yup on each one! Honestly, I admire so many of you and it makes me happy to see your posts on my dash every day. 💕

-

I’ll tag some people, but I’m super late to this and I think it has made several rounds already. So no pressure! 

@daniela-bella @aliceschuyler @sneetchestoo @buckybarnesalways @alilypea @reyescarlos @howtosingit @bellakitse @morganaspendragonss @marjansmarwani and anyone else who would like to do it. Please tag me if you do! 

[four-loose-screws]

What would you rank all the fire emblem games that you have played.

Thank you for waiting, anon! This essay is finally finished! XD I don’t know if either of us ever intended for this to end up so long, but it did.

It’s interesting to see how each person experiences each game, so I hope everyone enjoys reading this. If anyone wants to ask questions for more details or just for conversation, please do!

I did a tier grouping ranking as well as ordering from bottom -> top, because that helped explain my feelings a little better. This isn’t really reflecting my nostalgia or personal feelings for the characters/world quite as much as “how much fun I had in my initial playthrough(s).” Because I think that’s what these sorts of lists are generally asking for.

First, I’d like to make a general statement about why I love FE games so much: Well, most simply it’s because I have more fun playing FE than any other series. That much is obvious though, right? I also love them because they all stand out in their own way, with their own unique combination of features, and because they are all super ambitious titles. It may lead to some rushing and half-baked ideas, but ambition is what excites me the most in any series. Even if the creators are not able to fully realize the ideas they had, the hard work still wows me as I play, and I can see hints of the full vision they had in every nook and cranny. Even the lowest games on this list are pretty high up there for me in fun level. The “fun but flawed” games just had glaring issues that interrupted the fun from time to time.

...FEs 1 & 3 are overall exceptions to the “unique and standing out rule,” being early games in the series; and FE6 set up post-Famicom FE, so it’s pretty basic, too - but they still get their own awards for setting a solid foundation for a fun video game series that withstands the test of time.

I can’t fully explain it, why I attached to FE the most over all other game series out there. But when I play FE, I usually don’t think about what’s not so great about the games. I just have fun. The gameplay always has me thinking, and I get engrossed in the stories and unlocking convos and supports.

Basic Tier

These games are really hard to judge properly in the ranking system, because they are just so basic for the series.

FE1 / FE11

When FE11 came out, I remember it getting so much flack for being really, really boring. But I didn’t get that. I like FE gameplay and storytelling at its core, so I don’t need the bells and whistles to have a good time. I knew this is where the series started, and was surprised with what content there was considering this is a remake of a game on the Famicom (NES).

FE1 set a very solid foundation for what the core of the series would be. Load it up next to a modern game, and it feels so the same and different all at once. I’ve only played a little bit of FE1 itself. I just can’t get through it because FE11 is SO similar to FE1, so you really only have to play one to get the whole experience. I didn’t feel like playing the same game over again at the time, so FE1 is still on my unfinished list.

Basic, solid foundation for the ages / 10

FE3 / FE12

After FE11 played it “safe” and took an “upgraded graphics with a few new ideas tacked on” approach, I was blown away by how much FE12 did, even if it was more for worse than better sometimes. It added so many conversations, was the first to tinker with the idea of a more fleshed out Avatar, added more story… and so on.

From what I’ve read recently, the new story stuff isn’t that great, but I don’t remember now. I’ve only played this game once. Overall, despite some clunk with the giant maps and so on, this game really challenged itself to improve from FE11, and it’s how I learned to love remakes that aren’t afraid to deviate from and add a lot to the original!

Set the stage for what kind of fun and ambition an FE remake could have / 10

FE3 is way more of a classic than any of us in the West can truly understand. It sold insanely well (the best in the series until Awakening I believe?), challenged the programmers to put FE1 on the cart as well, long before re-releases were a thing in the industry, and the game even made it to the Super Famicom Mini! I haven’t played it yet because again, it’s hard to get the motivation to play through the slow speed and clunkiness when I’ve already experienced the remake, but I’m looking forward to it some day.

The good ol’ days of the Super Famicom & SNES / 10

FE6

This was the first game without Kaga (the series original creator), so it set the stage for a future without him. The series might have strayed far from his plans for story and such, but this game, while it was pretty basic, firmly established a new foundation for the series on a new system, and gave a glimpse of what greatness the future had in store.

Overall though, this game is harder to commit to memory than others, except for classic characteristics like how terrible Roy is until, finally, BAM he gets his sword in the final stretches of the game; and running in circles from Douglas so you can avoid fighting him and successfully recruit him after the chapter.

Awkward, but sets a solid foundation for post-Kaga and post-Famicom FE / 10

Fun But Flaws Distracted From The Fun A Lot Tier

FE16

I really, really hate to say it, because this game tries to mix up the FE formula with the school setting and other new features and changes, and brought in a good mix of old and new, just like all the other FE games. But this game left very little impact on me for such a big experience. And I’m leaving out the fact that trying to play all four routes is dull as heck when I place the game this low. I’m basing it off of just how much I enjoyed the first playthrough.

Overall, I was most turned off by the class system. Which is funny, because I’ve seen others praise this as FE’s best class system. Everyone’s different. Classic classes like troubadours are just gone. The top tier classes are super limiting. Of course, you can just stop one tier down, but that’s not emotionally satisfying to me - I want my characters to reach the top! Despite having such free choice, I feel more limited than anything. If they’d just stopped at 4 tiers and not tried to go to 5, I think that would have been best. They had to stretch out the available classes too much to get to 5. ...Although being able to have an army of dragon riders is awesome, I’ll give it that. Dragons are too cool. 

I was also really disappointed by the story. Fire Emblem has established that it can write a really emotional plot, and not be afraid to pull punches, with games like 4 and 8. I was expecting a huge contrast between part 1, where everyone is friends and classmates, and part 2, where war rips them apart, transforms them into different people, and forces them to brutally slaughter each other.

But in reality…the hate between Dimitri and Edelgard has nothing to do with the school at all… That was jarring to me. Of course there is no one right direction to take a story in. But the worldbuilding and story writing… feels even less coherent than Fates. That’s an accomplishment.

This is the one time I say ambition was really just too much. The game didn’t get enough polish. A game about the seasons doesn’t even have seasonal differences...

While my friends who don’t usually play Fire Emblem have had a fantastic experience with this one, after all I’ve been through, I found that I liked other FE’s more.

I think the best part about this game is the characters and supports. After Fates had a ton of supports in it just because it had to have them, the creators of this game weren’t afraid to change up the support formula once more, so they could balance quality and quantity. ...And then, ironically, this game went for the (almost entirely) mute, personality-less avatar character. Funny how that works out. XD

Dragon Lord Army Go! / 10

FE14

I feel this game deserves way more credit than it gets, while also agreeing with the critiques. The ambition was as great as ever. But then it got stuck in development hell and we got what we got. (For those who don’t know, the team was divided in two - the team that wanted a more fanservic-y experience, and the one that wanted to make a standard FE.)

I think the gameplay is the best part of this game, Conquest is great, and the gimmicks are indeed gimmicks, but still fun. In offering three different experiences, the entire package will please few, but that was the point of the multiple routes, to give everyone one route they would like, not to please everyone with all three.

But beyond the gameplay, the story is all over the place, the multiple routes just create more questions than answers; and features like an increased number of support convos and children feel like they are there only because of a desire to bring back “popular” features. After multiple food/cooking supports in a row, I couldn’t take it any more. There was so little that the characters were actually talking about in their supports vs. Awakening. I generally feel that more supports = better, because character interaction through supports is of course a highlight of post-Famicom FE, but in this case, the numbers did not do any favors.

Bringing back weapons that don’t break didn’t feel well done, either. I just ended up using basic weapons the whole time because I didn’t want to deal with the drawbacks of the higher level weapons.

Back to a positive for me: The hub world was neat, though it needed some convoluted story writing to be included. I was amused by going through the different features and collecting the items. I agree with Nintendo of America taking out the “petting minigame,” but since I lived in Japan when Fates released, it was amusing to do on the train and weird out the bored Japanese people who peered over my shoulder.

Since all three routes were different, this game was fun enough until the end in comparison to Three Houses, of which I am STILL trying to slog through the last route one year after release. But Fates was made for every route to be different, whereas Three Houses was not, so it’s not surprising I feel like that.

But time for the real talk about this game… why is everyone’s HP so low??? What happened?????

Up and down and all around in quality from start to finish / 10

FE15

I really want to like this game more. Oh, do I. It’s absolutely GORGEOUS, the character art makes my heart skip a beat, the game proved that full voice acting does fit FE really well, it fleshed out things like the dungeon crawling & story, and added support conversations & skills, etc. while still staying kind of basic, retaining the feeling that the original was on the NES. The momentum for the fun and ambition that an FE remake could have transitioned well from FE12 to here and led to this being a stunningly presented game.

But the creators totally missed the point on what were the defining features of the game in my opinion, and that mismatch of vision ruined a lot for me. I loved the imbalance, struggling as I placed my units in corners of maps just to survive, until I obtained all those OP items, and my super soldiers marched into battle and did wild and amazing things. Valbar with +5 move and 40 speed with the Speed Ring is the one thing I remember the best of FE2 and oh man was it fun, and did I love it.

And I mean, I understand why the creators weren’t going to keep that imbalance, it doesn’t make the game good for everyone. It’s just something I found fun, and made the game stand out among the other FEs. But the developers really just replaced old imbalance with new imbalance, the dread fighters being the one thing I remember in particular.

And they defined FE2’s best defining features as “the maps and the terrain effects” and I just did not agree. That was the stuff I DISLIKED about FE2! And that’s what they wanted to keep most? The terrain that made battles one giant miss, and the gigantic maps where I’d spend half the time just getting to the enemies? No thanks.

Then the story only cranked up the horrible treatment of the women, with Faye… being Faye, and I hated the direction they went in with Celica’s story...  Ugh.

For every step or two forward, there’s one back / 10

FE10

FE games are always ambitious, but this one cranked the dial up to 10 and tripped over itself a lot. Still, it provided (even if it is info dumped) an intense and satisfying ending to the Tellius saga, and is another classic for the ages. I found the pacing boring and slow until then, though.

I think now that I’m older I can appreciate the story much, much more - and how it shows the story and aftermath of the Mad King’s War from multiple points of view -  but the lack of the support conversations, and too much going on for any aspect of this game to be properly refined, still make this one lower on my list.

If only I could have played it more than once, to really get a good memory of the events of the game. My Wii actually scratched up my disk (How this happened, I don’t know, and it’s the ONLY disk my Wii ever slaughtered). It only held out long enough for my sibling and I to enjoy one playthrough each. I’ll get to playing my Japanese copy eventually!

Part 4 = Laguz Royals Emblem / 10

Somewhere Inbetween Tier

FE5

The last of the Kaga games. Still clunky and difficult, but with it’s own super unique features in capturing, stamina, and stealing weapons.

The brokenness of staves is not at all a flaw, but a feature in my opinion. Encouraging bizarre thinking and finding new ways to plow through maps is fun. I would probably be critical if this was a modern game, but I think older games need these quirks to stand out among modern titles with better graphics and decades of gaming history behind them.

And you still can complete the maps in a more traditional manner if you are determined. I did even for Reinhardt’s map.

Also, I gotta say... I don’t agree that this is the most difficult FE overall… it just has the hardest individual maps. The difficulty spikes are all over the place. The game goes from bashing your head against a wall to snoozefest constantly.

Fog of war was a mistake though, if I was a time traveler, I’d go back and make sure the programmers never figured out how to include it. XD

Steal ALL the tomes! / 10

FE13

Experiencing this game and its release in real time was an experience. The fandom really, truly thought this game might not only be the last FE ever, but also that it might not get a localization. Thinking there would never be a localization, I spent a night of my first trip to Japan buying a Japanese 3DS and a copy of the game. I only had 2 weeks on that study tour, but I was so determined that I used some of my precious free time to go shopping for it. To afford it, I even used the money my college gave to me for food, then subsided off of cheap convenience store meals with what little I had left. I barely had any true understanding of Japanese at the time, but I wanted other fans to experience this game, so I worked as hard as I could to translate as many supports as I could. This game is why I got into translation, and was what I really thought might be the end, so it will always have a special place in my heart for that.

Now to actually talk about playing the game itself. I really enjoyed it the first couple of times. Who cares that pair-up and the kids were OP, you either blast through the game with them and have a good laugh, or ignore them, set some challenging rules, and enjoy having at least a little challenge. I didn’t care much that the supports were a little lower quality because of the sheer number of them, I eagerly awaited unlocking each one, and reading what the two characters would talk about. (We fans have fanfiction to turn to if we hunger for more development. :p) The bonus content was plentiful, and a great fanservice-y way to bring the series to a close.

After all is said and done though, the game left me feeling empty when I thought about replaying it any further. The maps and story felt empty in comparison to previous games. Now that it’s been 8 years since the initial release, I’d of course enjoy a replay or two, but after having played FEs7-9 5 or 6 times in a row before moving on to the next game… anything less than that level of excitement was surprising for me. I placed this game kinda high on the list because it’s fun when you play it. It’s just doesn’t have as much replay value, I feel.

Also, as a group, the children characters are my favorite in the series. They all come from deeply traumatic backgrounds, and the way they work through that trauma and navigate being given a second chance, but also not a true second chance because this timeline is different from their own, is endlessly fascinating for me. I don’t know if other fans give them enough credit, so I wanted to point them out in particular.

Would have been a fantastic way to send off the series, despite the flaws / 10

FE2

This game is flawed, imbalanced, makes me want to throw things, and it’s all, somehow, in a way that makes me LOVE IT. ...So long as I’m playing using an emulator with a speed up button.

This game is so hard, and the hit percentages are such garbage. But as I played, and unlocked more and more OP weapons and items, until I reached a point where the zombie dragons - what once took all my efforts - were an enemy that can easily be slaughtered in 1-on-1 combat... I felt so satisfied.

Old games need some kind of charm to make them still worth revisiting in a world of much better graphics and features that have now had decades to be refined. For me, this game has that perfect kind of quirky charm in spades.

The maps and terrain though… I have no words, just bash your head into the wall and you will understand how I feel.

Also, this game reminds me of Zelda 2 in it being a black sheep of its respective series… that’s a fun little nugget of info.

Duma’s sprite / 10

FE7

I don’t remember this game as well, despite it being one that I’ve played about 5 times? I don’t know why, it’s yet another fantastic Fire Emblem with its own ways that it stands out, managing not one, not two, but three lords, introducing the tactician, and so on. Guess time has just not been kind to my memory on this one.

I remember being really impressed with the length of this game back in the day, and Hector’s mode offering enough differences to make it totally fun to replay the main game again.

Lyn gets kind of pushed to the side (because that’s what generally happens to women main characters in Fire Emblem, if there’s a male lord around), but having the three lords was really fun. With three people, you get a great balance between all of their personalities, and they all play off of each other well.

Of course I loved Lyn and Hector, most everyone does, but I was always just as much of an Eliwood fan. His average stats pushed people away from liking him as much as the others, but I always looked up to his kindness. Eliwood / Ninian was an especially favorite pairing for my sappy teenage heart. Eliwood was just so romantic and sweet to me.

And though the game was made easier with international audiences in mind, the developers hadn’t invented all of the “easier/for convenience” features yet, so this is the last time we got to enjoy some “harder” features like needing to buy weapons during battles, and a convoy separate from the main lord. That’s cool if you like that stuff.

Unlocking the paralogues is hard though / 10

Favorites Tier

FE8

When it comes to FE8, while there’s plenty to like about the gameplay (despite the game being so easy, but again, like I said with Awakening, you can just set your own challenge rules), what I really love to ramble on about is the story and its emotional impact. Lyon is so precious and kind, but has so many inner conflicts stewing deep inside of him, leading him to elder magics, and… The Demon King is just ends up as a sideshow compared to Lyon coming face to face with his own demons. Both the characters - and many players, I’m sure - hope and hope to find a way to save him, but there just isn’t one. There are never any real leads. There’s nothing. Only the harrowing reality that some people cannot be saved, no, that some people do not want to be saved. The inevitability of Lyon’s demise, and seeing it all play out, packs a punch most plots can only dream of.

But it’s not like I won’t talk about the gameplay features either. Bringing back much of the best of FE2, the overworld map and everything to do really enhances the experience. I mean, yeah, I guess two side dungeons isn’t that much to get excited over, I can see that critique… but I didn’t care, it allowed me to easily chase support conversations, and (with some RNG abusing to obtain enough Boots and money to buy the stat-boosting items, but hey, whatever it takes) I could max out my characters’ stats and truly “complete” a Fire Emblem game.

Sacred Stones is so awesome.

Finally! A postgame! I sure hope the developers keep this up in all the future games… oh. / 10

FE9

This is the first FE game I ever played, so it will always occupy the most dear and special place in my heart, even if FE4 eventually won over as my favorite.

Do you believe in first sight? I do, and this is what taught me it’s real. From the first second of the first cutscene, I was enthralled. ...And that’s saying something, when the FE9 cutscenes are the kind of thing only a mother could love. But I just knew. I may have been a wee lass of 14, but I knew a love that would last a lifetime was being born. ...Or that would at least last 14 more years. I can’t predict the future. Maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow and hate Fire Emblem with a burning passion? 2020 has taught me that tomorrow is always a big fat question mark.

Fun fact: in case you are wondering exactly what inspired my very initial interest in this series, it was a TV commercial. Probably this one. I just remember Ike running, of all things. My sibling and I both thought FE9 looked interesting from this commercial, and sought out the game all on our own with zero private knowledge that anything FE even existed.

This is where obsessions are born. Or mine at least. / 10 

FE4

As I’ve established, this is my favorite of favorites. The bizarre way money, arenas, items, and more were handled, actually made the game more and more fun for me. Big maps are just so fun. Gen 1’s story is a tale for the ages, and Gen 2’s story is… well, classic FE, which never gets old for me. It will never cease to amaze me even today what the SNES/S Famicom could handle.

All I’d want added is a “warp between conquered castles” feature. I’m completely neutral on a remake otherwise. Of course a lot more could be added and detailed upon that I’d be happy for, but that’s my one specific wish.

Calvary Emblem Forever / 10

Bonus:

FEH

I played this game every day for around 2 ½ years before I finally felt I had to break the habit, so I’m not leaving it out! This title got a lot of flack for simplifying FE gameplay, but… looking at it that way completely disregards the niche app games fill, and the interesting ways developers view what type of games app games should be, and how the developers work hard to both innovate for the format yet stay faithful to the source. It is surprisingly deep, and the maps + higher focus on unit skills make you think entirely differently about how to win in what is, in essence, the same gameplay as the main series.

Plus, what fan couldn’t get suckered into the fanservice of it? My best moments include attaining a +10 Nephenee while only spending money to get 2 of her, the other 9 were all F2P orbs; and becoming a Narcian/Valter shipper after supporting them on impulse because they were both on my flier team, and realizing the sick, twisted chemistry afterwards. Discovering rare-pairs is fun.

Also, finally, this game dared to nerf magic users a bit by making them RNG 2 only. If only the main series could do something like that.

I really enjoyed Heroes a lot, I just quit solely because it was a time drain. It was time to move on and play other things. And I’m glad I got out when I did. Seeing the game stoop to over-the-top powercreep (above and beyond what it was always implementing) and add the monthly service to keep the $$$$$ raking in was hard to watch.

Perfect app-style game gameplay-wise and fanservice-wise, but why aren’t gacha illegal yet / 10

FE Warriors

Oh yeah, this game exists too! It’s a Warriors game. If you like the formula and it never gets old for you, you’ll have fun with this game. If you don’t mind the limited game representation too much, you’ll have fun with this game. For me, the answers to those questions were a yes, so I enjoyed FE Warriors. Yay for wailing on hordes of enemies / 10

[gstqaobc]

CBC NEWS The Royal Fascinator Feb. 7, 2020 Hello, royal watchers and all those intrigued by what’s going on inside the House of Windsor. This is your biweekly dose of royal news and analysis. Reading this online? Sign up here to get this delivered to your inbox. Janet Davison Janet Davison Royal Expert

Who will step up for Meghan and Harry?

(Lefteris Pitarakis/The Associated Press)

It was a striking image that day in June of 2012 — just six people on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, sending a signal widely interpreted to foreshadow a slimmed-down future for the House of Windsor.

It was the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee marking her 60 years as monarch, and joining her on the balcony were her eldest son and heir, Prince Charles; his wife, Camilla; Charles’s two sons, Princes William and Harry; and William’s wife, Kate. (The Queen’s husband, Prince Philip, was in hospital at the time and it would be four years before Harry met his wife, Meghan.)

Charles has long been thought to favour a core group of senior family members to carry the House of Windsor forward in the next reign.

But Harry and Meghan’s departure from the upper echelons of the family leaves a big hole in that plan.

"I think [Charles] envisaged having Harry as part of that,” Ingrid Seward, editor-in-chief of Majesty magazine, said via email.

Seward said that along with William and Kate, Charles saw his sister, Princess Anne, and his brother, Prince Edward, as part of the plan.

Harry’s departure “really blows a hole into Charles’s well-thought-out plan for a slimmed-down monarchy based on the core family,” royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith

told Vanity Fair

.

Even though Harry is now down to sixth in the line of succession, he would still have been expected to carry out more senior duties for several years because numbers three, four and five in the succession (William and Kate’s young children, George, Charlotte and Louis) are up to two decades away from being active royals.

“So Charles and William have been counting on Harry to be, in effect, third in line to the throne and that’s all out the window, too,” said Bedell Smith.

Harry and Meghan have been staying out of sight for the past couple of weeks and are thought to be on Vancouver Island, where they were over Christmas before making their seismic departure announcement.

In the meantime in the U.K., it’s been royal business as usual for everyone from the Queen on down. Elizabeth was out and about twice this week —

and reminisced about her father and his corgis

— as her regular winter stay at her Sandringham estate, north of London, draws to a close.

Charles and Camilla were at a reception for the British Asian Trust and other engagements. William, who has a new role as Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and Kate were at the British version of the Oscars and did a day trip to Wales.

Observers have been trying to figure out whether there’s any evidence of Harry and Meghan’s departure affecting what other senior members of the family are doing.

But in many ways, that seems to be a stretch — at least for now.

“As official engagements are usually fixed some months in advance and Harry and Meghan’s official departure is not until the spring, I don’t think we have yet seen much direct evidence,” Seward said.

“The crux will come on family occasions and none are scheduled in the immediate future. The future of Harry’s military appointments is obviously under consideration and will be announced as soon as it is decided.”

Still, it all leaves many open questions about how other members of the family may step up their roles. One person seen by many as likely to gain more prominence is Edward’s wife, Sophie, the Countess of Wessex.

“I think Sophie will take on a lot more royal duties and patronages,” said Seward.

And then there are Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, daughters of Prince Andrew, who has stepped down from public duties in the wake of fallout from his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and a disastrous BBC interview related to that.

“I am not sure about Beatrice and Eugenie,” Seward said. “Before all this happened, I know Andrew was keen for them both to have royal roles, but Charles was not.”

Another spring wedding

One thing that is sure for Beatrice — she has a confirmed wedding date and venue. Buckingham Palace said this morning she and fiancé Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi will marry May 29 at the Chapel Royal at St. James’s Palace in central London. The Queen will host a reception just up the road, in the gardens behind Buckingham Palace. After a flurry of royal weddings in Windsor over the past couple of years, this promises to be a lower-profile, smaller and more intimate affair — perhaps not surprising given the controversy surrounding Beatrice’s father, Andrew. St. James’s Palace does, however, have a rich royal history. Other weddings that have taken place there include that of Queen Victoria in 1840. It’s also been the scene of several christenings, including Beatrice herself in December 1988, and more recently Prince George in 2013 and Prince Louis in 2018. Andrew and the FBI — what's going on? Prince Andrew was the focus of more attention recently after the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York told a news conference held outside Epstein’s former mansion that Andrew had given “zero co-operation” to the inquiry into the convicted sex offender.Immediately after that, sources close to Andrew were reported as saying he was angry and “bewildered” by the claims he had been unco-operative, and that he hadn’t received any request to speak to the FBI.A lawyer for a victim of Epstein also urged Andrew to co-operate with the FBI.Seward said until an approach is made by the FBI through official channels, “nothing will happen.”“This doesn’t lessen the potential wrong, but he can’t answer anything until his lawyers are contacted, and then they don’t have to answer straight away,” Seward said. “I think he will help the investigation, but has probably been advised to wait until such time as all the necessary evidence as to where he was and what he was doing has been gathered.”Andrew has said he did not see or suspect any sex crimes during the time he spent with Epstein. He has also denied any inappropriate relations with a woman who has said she was forced to have sex with him three times between 1999 and 2002. Andrew has said he has no recollection of meeting her..

Royal angst — beyond the House of WindsorOther royal families have also seen their share of controversy and high-profile headlines in the last little while.The public prosecutor in Luxembourg has launched a probe after reports of physical violence toward staff who work for the tiny European country’s royal family.It was only the latest headline there, coming about a week after Grand Duke Henri issued a statement to defend his wife, Grand Duchess Maria Teresa, against allegations of a “hostile working environment” at the palace.“Why attack a woman? A woman who speaks up for other women? A woman who is not even being given the right to defend herself?” Henri said in his statement.Next door, in Belgium, former King Albert II admitted he fathered a child during an extramarital affair half a century ago.The acknowledgement came after a court-ordered DNA test found that the 85-year-old, who abdicated in 2013, is Delphine Boël’s biological father.Boël had been engaged in a longstanding court fight to prove that she is his biological daughter.

Royally quotable

"Yet in 2020, and not for the first time in the last few years, we find ourselves talking again about the need to do more to ensure diversity in the sector and in the awards process – [a lack of diversity] simply cannot be right in this day and age."

—  Prince William

speaks during the British Academy Film Awards

.

Fans of the Netflix drama The Crown will have to content themselves with just five seasons, rather than the six everyone had been expecting. Creator Peter Morgan had said he’d planned on six seasons of the show focusing on Queen Elizabeth’s reign, but the other day he nixed that idea and said five seems like the “perfect time and place to stop.” The way the series is going, that should take viewers up to around the year 2000. Given some of the higher-profile royal controversies of late, perhaps it’s understandable why Morgan is content to stop at that point. “I think there’s concerns the closer you get to the present day, in terms of how much dramatic licence can you ethically take about events that are unfolding,” said Toronto-based royal historian and author Carolyn Harris. “And also, the show would become more controversial if it was speaking about events that are in many ways still unfolding at this time, and imagining conversations behind palace doors.” Season 5 will see another actor take on the role of Elizabeth. Imelda Staunton, who’d long been rumoured for the part, will follow Claire Foy (seasons 1 and 2) and Olivia Colman (seasons 3 and 4).

Royal reads

1. A century before Harry and Meghan, an Italian noble family

sought refuge in B.C. — and stayed

. [CBC]

2. The RCMP and U.K. security officials are

discussing how best to protect Harry and Meghan

while they are in Canada, and who will ultimately pay for their security. [CBC]

3. Harry

lost a press complaint

he filed against a newspaper over a story it published about photos of African wildlife he has posted on Instagram. [BBC]

4. To mark the 200th anniversary of King George III’s death, his

massive collection of military maps

has been made available online, offering insight into global conflicts from the 16th to 18th centuries. Also going back in time,

a vest worn by Charles I at his execution

is going on display.  [The Guardian, BBC]  

Cheers!

I’m always happy to hear from you. Send your ideas, comments, feedback and notes to

royalfascinator@cbc.ca

. Problems with the newsletter? Please let me know about any typos, errors or glitches.

GOOD MORNING ALL, I THOUGHT I WOULD SHARE THE MOST RECENT NEWSLETTER. I HAVENT HAD A CHANCE TO READ IT YET BECAUSE I WANTED TO GETBIT OUT TO THOSE WHO DONT HAVE IT OR KNOW ABOUT IT. GSTQAOBC 🇨🇦🇬🇧🇦🇺🇳🇿  💜💜💜🙏🏻🙏🏻PG🙏🏻🙏🏻💜💜💜

[gaminginferno]

Borderlands 3: The worst game I can’t stop playing.

(Story spoilers abound)

I’m just about to finish up levelling the last of four playable characters in Borderlands and I find myself, like I have since the second time I played through the main campaign, generally upset at the game and how it’s made almost specifically to infuriate me at every turn. However, this never stops me from playing, far from it in fact, but instead I grit my teeth and continue despite all of the problems. Why is this? Well, we first have to talk about what is wrong with the game.

#1: There is so much WAITING!

I’ve watched speedruns of previous Borderlands games and I have seen them beaten in an hour or so, so I understand what it means to run through the game. I also know that the developers have seen them since they have done commentary on some playthroughs for charity events. This is why I can only assume that they have specifically made this game as slow as possible to progress through as they possibly can to prevent more speedrunners breaking their game. The amount of times that I have to wait for an NPC that I’m supposed to be following to arrive where I’ve been sitting for the past minute, or for the dialogue that I’ve heard a thousand times to finish so that I can head to the next area is astronomical. There are literal mission objectives to wait. Just wait. It didn’t bother me the first time I played it, since I was actually paying attention to the story, but once you play it the second time through it becomes a complete slog to get through. Speaking of the story,

 #2: The Antagonists

When Gearbox first announced that they were basing the main antagonists on content creators, I was apprehensive to say the least. Filling the shoes of Handsome Jack, one of the more celebrated villains in gaming history, would be a trying test to many and giving them a very recent identity like that would make it all the more difficult. That’s why I’m not surprised in the least that they messed it up. The first issue is that they obviously have no idea what a content creator is because they run out of ideas VERY quickly into the game. By the time you leave Pandora, they almost completely shed their video star moniker and head to full on cult leader. Speaking of which, there is little explanation as to the origins of why they became so popular or why they became evil. They show up on the scene and become popular, but it’s never explained why or how they were able to do this and nobody else has. There just seems to be a lack of narrative regarding the Calypsos and it’s honestly disappointing because they have shown themselves to be better than this, but instead chose to make some half-hearted statement on content creators that falls flat at every turn.

 #3: Ava

This may be more of a personal issue, but WHO IS SHE WRITTEN FOR? Ava feels like she was plucked out of The Breakfast Club in the 90s rather than her being in a game in the late 2010s. She has the same anti-authority, rebellious nature as you would expect from those times, but it seems incredibly dated as a stereotype. For her only side mission to be about finding her diary makes no sense for a generation that has social media and the internet and shares their personal thoughts and ideas on both. It is glaringly apparent that they never considered anyone under the age of 30 when making the character and she becomes much more annoying as a result.

 So Why Play?

Despite the slow gameplay, the terrible story and irritating new characters, I still find myself playing over and over and I think the main reason is because it is still a Borderlands game. The gunplay is just as good as it has been, if not better, and the variety of weapons still allow for a lot of replayability. It’s still a good game, despite its many flaws, and if you play with the voices off and find something to do while you wait, then it is a lot of fun. Just don’t expect to find Handsome Jack-level character building.