#i legitimately do not know how to address this and am gonna have to talk to my therapist bc this is uh. oh boy

[autistic-shaiapouf]

Seeing that my roommate is moving some of their stuff around and has made a small pile, today I only just realized that the pile is all things I had given them as gifts 😶

[allwormdiet]

Sentinel 9.5

Every thirteen year old in this story is going through hell

Dear Parian, how do you puppet cloth dolls with boxing gloves on their hands?

Nah but this is nice to see them getting along with each other, and I'm glad that Vista gets to see something cute in such a blighted fucking time.

The background levels of desperation and fear in this setting remain very strong and evocative.

Gayyyyyy

Vista like "hey I'm not young enough to actually enjoy this, but I'm old enough to act polite about it"

God that's so fucking cool

Oh man who could have possibly predicted that putting a thirteen year old in constant life-or-death situations with people dying around her could possibly result in a warped perspective on death and dying, that's so weird

Oh man, who could have possibly predicted that enlisting a thirteen year old in a quasi-military policing organization where she's legitimately got seniority over high schoolers could possibly result in feeling distanced from her own age, that's so weird

So like, is there truly nowhere else to put the team portrait gallery than right where everyone sees them every time they enter? Just put them in another hallway or wing or something, especially if you're dropping bodies.

Still a little darkly funny that Browbeat doesn't even get a portrait, guy was straight up too new to even put in front of a camera

The idea that Coil has only managed to infiltrate the PRT at all because they're letting him infiltrate the PRT is. Oh my fucking God he's so bad at this. So far every win we've seen him take against other players is because they feel bad enough to let him have it. Coil, you have got to fucking hang it up my man, the minute someone decides to actually deal with you you're cooked

(It's almost certainly gonna be Taylor, on account of that child you kidnapped and forcibly addicted to drugs)

Okay so like. Hwoo. I keep talking about the expectations being put on the Wards in this fucking story but this is a really steep one. Let this fucking mole into your midst and let him do what he does. Let a tinker, a goddamn superpowered tech specialist, hang out where your stuff is.

I know they all agree to do it but they already all agreed to fight fucking Leviathan, Vista agreed to kill a man for seconds on the clock, we're waaaaay past the point where any boundaries might still be crossed

Hey you know what, self-awareness is good, it's healthy, I wish someone would let Taylor have some but that's fine

Okay, well, at least Piggot is willing to treat these kids a little like kids. And address some of the concerns that they have. And promise that she'll find some kind of compensation for the fact that these kids are going above and fucking beyond in their role as junior heroes.

Glad Kid Win gets a... win

and while I don't love Clockblocker making fun of Piggot, I get it. She's the authority figure in their lives, she consistently plays the role of bad cop with them. That's how it goes.

Okay so Vista turned thirteen on the day that Leviathan hit Brockton Bay, which means she's been at this since she was eleven, maybe younger. This now puts her pretty firmly in the same age bracket as Alec, and that might put her at silver or bronze for youngest known trigger event depending on how old Miss Militia was at the time.

Also, the fact that Vista has thrown herself into her career as a cape, at age thirteen, as a means to not have to spend time with her parents? That's bleak. I continue to maintain that she should be allowed to commit any misdemeanor she wants to and get away with it forever

So Hookwolf almost murdered an 11-12 year old and they truly can't just commit to having a single Triumvirate member sit on his Birdcage transport the entire way along just to make sure he actually gets gone? At least until they're out of the Empire's reach, surely, like what the fuck

Do the unspoken rules not kick in on attempted murder? Do you need a corpse to make it stick?

Jesus God, Sophia, I am trying to keep an open mind about you but so far you have just been such a jerk in so many directions.

Like obviously she's not doing well but what's the alternative for her at this point

Just gotta pick up the slack left by two older, more experienced(?) teammates who had a lot of hopes and emotional bonds riding on them. And Browbeat.

Does anybody on this team like Sophia?

Weld is good people. Also I think "empathetic" is technically the correct word unless the ability to warp space like putty also comes with emotion reading.

This is sweet.

Also, yeah, cry. It's good for you.

Godddddddd fucking dammit Sophia.

This is so unreasonably cruel to do to a teammate, never mind to a kid

"Bluh bluh life is pain, the real world is all about what's hard, suffering builds character" shut the fuck up Sophia, Vista put up bigger numbers against Leviathan and doesn't have a rusty knife in place of a personality.

Also "kids" girl you have at most three years on her

Big bad Shadow Stalker can't handle being the one under the microscope

Yeah no for real, the moment she gets provoked in a way even kind of resembling the way she provokes others, she resorts to acts of physical violence. Thin-skinned hypocrite, thy name is Sophia Hess.

Guess Vista's lucky she's not taller and more gangly or else Sophia would've tried to rip her ear off.

Current Thoughts

Vista is the PRT's strongest soldier and she is out there fighting their hardest battles. She also has not reached high school yet and possibly wasn't even in middle school when she first donned the costume. This whole system is a scam.

Cool to see Weld better settling into the leadership role, at least.

And then Sophia. Sophia, Sophia, Sophia. I don't know what the Undersiders have planned for you but right now I'm having a hard time feeling sympathy. Do unto others, you little maniac.

[cocogum]

Nora is being indirectly mistreated by her own family.

(And why my Noramalia obsession is slowly increasing-)

I don’t know why this happened the way it did but episodes 7 and 8 FED ME SOME GOOD NORAMALIA MOMENTS ✨✨

Also, let me just say how episode 7 ended up being the FIRST EVER recorded conversation between Amalia and Nora and it was WONDERFUL 💕💕

My girl is always the one complaining first but for once, it’s Nora who beat her to it 😭😭

I never thought I’d see the day when someone else would say their complaints out loud and it would be AMALIA OF ALL PEOPLE to try to look at the positives of the situation!

No matter how many times I keep analyzing how these two behave around each other throughout these two episodes, my heart keeps fluttering cuz I see NO FLAWS WHATSOEVER IT’S PERFECT ‼️‼️💖💖💖

Just look at how Amalia keeps being the one supporting Nora and snapping her awake from her panic attacks!

You’d usually think the ones who’d help her often with her problems would be Yugo, Qilby, and even Adamaï, her actual BROTHERS, or even her own mother but NO!!! It’s AMALIA!!!

Amalia saw how Nora looked super out of it during the battle and decided to go to her and snap her from her trance AND EVEN HELD HER SHOULDER OMG ARE U FUCKING KIDDING ME?!!?

But you’re gonna tell me: “chillax dummy, she only did that cuz it was the right thing to do. Yugo was busy supporting Adamaï and Qilby’s just being a dick.”

Oh yeah?

Well I reject ur premise.

Amalia is such a good girlfriend that she KEEPS BEING BY NORA’S SIDE EVEN AFTER SHE CALMED DOWN.

Ankama could’ve made Joris support her instead since he was free but nope! It HAD to be Amalia 💕💕

Just look at how my girl keeps holding her from behind and making sure she’s alright.

Keep in mind that Amalia has no idea what’s going on with Nora. This is the second legitimate time she sees Nora like this (since Nora also had one of those moments back in the Sadida kingdom) and Amalia does not know if her frozen state usually happens when she sees something that triggers her or if this is just something that Nora gets from time to time.

Whatever Amalia may be thinking about this, it doesn’t change the fact that she’s the only one in the group who realized her peculiar case and did something to help her.

Not only is this character development for Amalia, but it also shows how she caught Nora’s odd behavior much more quickly than the others. And it only took two times for her to see it to do anything about it.

LOOK SHE’S STILL HOLDING NORA ‼️‼️‼️

Are you seeing this shit⁉️⁉️⁉️

How the hell am I the only one addressing Amalia’s care for Nora???

And Nora just lets her!

Even after her little panic attack ended, she still lets Amalia touch her back for support!

This is honestly such a cute detail and I love how the small noramalia moments are treated like this 💖

When you really think about it, the relationship could work, especially for Nora’s part.

Nora’s family is especially messy and chaotic. Her mother is too traumatized by the necromes to do anything about her situation or even ask her how she’s feeling. She didn’t even have an alone talk with Nora to properly talk about how she was feeling. I bet that even when Nora had managed to save the Eliatrope goddess and got to be alone for some time, not even once did the Eliatrope goddess ask her anything cuz Nora was too busy consolidating her mother while internally freaking out for her brother.

Yugo and Qilby are just fighting with each other while Adamaï stays on the sidelines and doesn’t try to get closer to his mother, preferring to put some distance between him and her.

So who’s left to talk about her troubles or to let out her frustrations and misery?

Amalia.

The only person who attempted to help and noticed she had something off.

The only person who, despite not being family or even a divinity, attempted to do anything about her case.

The only person who stayed next to her and placed her hand behind her back even when she stopped freaking out.

Amalia would be a good person Nora could choose to go to for her problems.

It’s clear to see Nora had no room to breathe or place herself first at any moment that we got to see her. Her mother and her brothers are taking too much space and they don’t seem to realize how much she’s got to lose despite the evidence plastered right in front of their faces. Even when Nora explains to them how she managed to find their mother and how Efrim had to sacrifice himself in the process, she gets absolutely no words of consolidation from her brothers or her mother.

Instead, she just gets looks of sympathy from Yugo and Adamaï but it’s clear that they don’t seem to be sad about Nora being stuck in her dofus but rather because she lost her brother. For a primordial eliatrope to understand that their dofus won’t hatch because their sibling got infected means that they’re aware they can predict their time of “death”, ending their continuous cycle and rebirth that was supposed to last for eternity. Since the eliatrope council cannot die and constantly come back to life, this could technically be considered their actual death.

Upon knowing that Nora knows this however, the Eliatrope goddess simply says :

What kind of answer is that?!

Her mother is basically implying that there’s no hope for Nora but at the same time is saying that she loves her??

She does realize that her words feel empty now that she told her she couldn’t let that happen again right?? She’s basically indirectly saying that Nora is a lost cause.

It's clear to see that Nora has much more to lose than her other family members.

She’s the only one who lost her brother for good and will likely not get reborn in her next life with him because she’ll be stuck in her dofus forever. To be able to get reborn over and over again but not be able to anymore because your brother froze the cycle is a fate worse than death. She’s the only one who’s hiding her sadness and pain to give space for her mother because she thinks her problems are way less important than what’s currently going on. She’s the only one having panic attacks and thinks she’s seeing her brother everywhere. She’s the only suspect who is likely the reason why the portal to the necrome world is even there and is very likely the sick eliatrope.

So to have Amalia do this small and kind gesture for Nora made my heart warm up at the fact that she IS worried for her and is still holding her up after she had her little struggle.

Their relationship doesn’t even need to be romantic. Just as long as I get to see Amalia be by Nora’s side for anything, I’d be happy.

Cuz to be real with you, I’m starting to get annoyed that her family doesn’t seem to understand the level of severity of Nora’s case.

If Amalia noticed Nora was having a panic attack, then she could notice her struggles hidden inside her if Nora confided in her. (this also means her family should be able to clearly see it but since they’re not doing anything about it, they shouldn’t be an option for Nora to go to).

And that’s what I would like to see.

A moment like this where Nora can properly rely on someone who isn’t her family.

But for a romantic relationship, I can definitely see it too lol

Amalia’s usually the one speaking her thoughts so shamelessly but Nora might as well take her place and be a boss ass bitch while Amalia’s the more caring side and supports Nora and hears her troubles.

That can be a good dynamic to see. We only saw a glimpse of it when Nora was complaining about the rulers of the world. So it’d be nice to see these two talking to each other again like this.

[sansloii]

SHIPPING SPARK NOTES: EVAN DUERR ( bio can be found here )

things people should know about him going into it all:

Evan self sabotages a LOT so he will either say or do some shit that puts him in hot water with... whoever he's kinda interested in. Or whoever’s kinda interested in him. The nature of his job makes it easy for him to fuck someone once and never talk to them again and trust me when i say that he's done this. and can do it again.

And that leads into this second point—he needs patience and time. He will fuck up, he will pull away, and he will say things he doesn’t mean. And will make it very clear that’s not something you have to put up with ( though it’s meant as a distancing tactic, it’s very true ). you can hold out for him if you so choose, but the path to him settling and choosing introspection instead of running is paved with potholes and bumps.

one has to be okay with how close he is to Mikah, but they do not have to tolerate feeling like they’re third-wheeling their friendship. The two are very close and Evan does feel something semi-romantic towards them. He has never acted on it and likely never will in the near or far future unless there is some plot reason for it. He will get over it if he is interested a relationship with someone else. He will not cheat.

If the above didn’t clue anyone in, the man is emotionally closed off. He does not want to talk about his feelings at aaaaaalll... copes with them with sex and alcohol. Also gets super invested in emotionally unavailable people or people that are not interested in him like that ( See: Mikah ) for a reason that totally has nothing to do with past trauma and neglect.

He is a mess. I am sorry if you like him. Your journey will not be easy. I promise he's like a puppy beneath all that nonsense. You just gotta wade through some bullshit first.

Details:

Hoo boy.

So like… as far as getting close to Evan, it’s in a similar vein as getting close to Mikah. Friendship is key. Though that friendship can occur in many ways, it’s the comfort of… understanding him beforehand (or starting to) that helps him ease into things. Evan knows himself very well and knows that… while it’s not like he’s wants to be an asshole or wants to like… string people along, he also knows that the type of vulnerability that tends to go right along with romantic relationships is something that he struggles with a lot. It’s so much easier said than done for him and part of him struggles with wanting to work through that and address why he feels that way. It’s a difficult process and Evan chooses to… not deal with it—he makes an active choice to not deal with it, which has led to the unraveling of many of his past romantic relationships. It is easier for him to drown whatever… thoughts and regrets and moments of second guessing in sex and alcohol. Backing out early is always more appealing to him so he doesn’t end up getting hurt or hurting someone else long term. Because his mind rationalizes it as “why would you stay in a relationship that you know you’re gonna fuck up? You already fucked up a handful already—don’t bother.”

And yet, he’s a very attentive person. He tries to be a good friend ( albeit, he is a bad influence ) and it’s not like he’s a unreasonable dickhead all the time. He wants companionship, but to a point ( again, see how he is so close to Mikah ) and wants that closeness without that defined commitment—at least, that’s what’ll get him to stay right now.With him, it’s like two wolves fighting each other internally. Romanticism gives him the fucking hives, but he’d be lying if he said he wouldn’t mourn a relationship like the one he has with Mikah.

:) so like… enjoy navigating that little shit show. Evan does not make it easy.

As for preference, Straight and simple—he does… tend… to lean towards people that could absolutely curb stomp him. Like legitimately kill him. Won’t, but the capacity has to be there. Doesn’t matter if they’re shorter than him, doesn’t matter if they’re taller, bececause it isn’t what he’s looking for… it just happens.

What he craves in the bedroom is a challenge. He likes butting heads a little bit ( or a lot ) with whoever he’s sleeping with. He’s no stranger to being dominant and tends to play that role in the bedroom. However, if his partner wants the reigns, he will give it to them…. But only if they take it or yank on his leash a little. There needs to be a little give and take with him—some balance. He doesn’t mind if his partner is rough with him ( and encourages it ) but will… keep an eye and ear on how rough his partner wants him to be with them. Leave bites, leave scratches, leave bruises—he will not care.. unless you don’t allow him to leave any in turn. Evan has a open mind and is willing to try something he hasn’t before within reason ( though… that list is admittedly kinda small, but that’s because it’s mostly made up of “Hard no’s” for him ).

[tw1stedthicket]

You know, what? I feel super fucking salty. About kinda everything related to my former time in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But in this moment in particular, salty that there isn't quite a developed way in their system to address people who wish not be contacted unless those people pursue the legal process of having their names removed off the legal church records and petitioning the help of them to "undo a contract of religious affliation". I've told people a few times before that I do not wish to be contacted, but I still am, and I know the reason is because there's not really a way for them to have a continuity of records that demonstrate lack of membership. Right? Like that makes no sense. If you don't wanna be part of it, then your name oughta be removed. But they have to keep it on there. I wish there was a way to like, "inactivate" it in some way. Maybe add a note with some days of correspondence where I stated I wished not to be contacted. Maybe that's the part of me that works administrative stuff in healthcare talking? Or the part of me preparing to document every note as a counselor? But I have enough sympathy for these people who contact me that like, they don't know any better. Especially because most of the people contacting me are new to the area. Also, me personally, I feel like my deconstruction would have been impossible had I not had people around me who showed me the clear dichotomy over time of people who were grounded in reality, accepting of the broader world, and legitimately intended to do so for the sake of unconditional love and friendship, and how irreverent it was but in the best, most authentic and fun way, and that was holy all on its own.

So I just kinda feel like, what the fuck is the point of targeting my hurt or anger at people still members. It's just gonna come across to them as mean-spirited and bitter. Nobody deserves harrassment either I might add, which sucks ass already because missionaries do get that from people; and although I believe in my heart that they're doing fucked up shit by audaciously trying to convince people to move from their own convictions to believe a con by a dude from the Second Great Awakening of American history that ended up spawning a church that functions mostly like a corporation (rich ppl at the top getting paid and making investments and people at the bottom earnestly trying their best to achieve worthiness) - I do also believe in my heart these people think they're motivated by love, that would have them leave their family if asked and tell other people that they can be with their families "forever" because of the restoration of the ability for us to "seal" families together in our church and by our authority from on heaven, and they would only be hurt because they are too mired in mind control right now. I've been waffling on about my desire to remove my records from church membership whilst still living at home and what PR shit that might cause for my TBM father and brother, but. I can't honestly say that being contacted every once in a while is like, all that offensive. It's a different story for others who have people try to "bear their testimony" at them or show up at their house unannounced. But I did kinda think of something.

I've tried to imagine what I might say to people a million times over, but. I think if the opportunity comes. I'm gonna flip the script. I won't shun them away like others. I won't invite them to try to argue the ins and outs of books of scripture, or answer for things they have been trained to just default to "I know it's true blah, blah, blah." I'm just gonna meet them on their level. Earnestly tell them I feel compelled by the Spirit to say that God loves all his children. I won't get into the weeds of belief or disbelief, because who the fuck knows and who the fuck cares anyway - live and let live, to me. But I'll say, God loves all his children. He loves you, missionaries. He loves me too. He made us all in His image. And I'll come out to them right there. "I'm a lesbian. And I know God loves all of his lesbian children." "I know God loves me enough that He wants to see me again with my wife, and my kids, and my family, in heaven with him throughout the eternities."

Let them sit with that. Sit with the notion that no, actually, God doesn't love you enough to save you, and you seeing him again isn't actually part of his plan. His plan is for you to prove yourself through perfection to be worthy to even stand in his presence. Let them try to find a way to worm around the fact that my future wife and kids *aren't* a family. Let them try to say that this vision of love and how clearly I feel it isn't actually love, that God actually hates sin, oh - but we don't hate gay people! Let them try to wrestle in their mind why their God has damned some people He made that there's no way they couldn't just...change the temple ceremony, right? There's no way they won't ever allow gay people who earnestly want to fall in love with people a way into the church and into heaven, right? That anybody gay they know who has a heart and wants to love, technically loves *different* than them, and it's a love that God can't stand to be in the presence of...but what if they can? What about how they can stand in my presence and feel that I am human? Will they reject that? That will be a question for their spirit and conscience.

I have a lot of quandries about why I left. But it will never happen until it touches your heart, your sense of humanity, your love for others, your integrity, your conscience, your deeply held idea of "choose the right" -- even "choose the harder right". I believe they feel it. I once did. Not my job to do anything for them. But I'll meet them where we are and let them chew on that, if ever given the chance, I think. Until one day I remove my records. And then one day, if they get married in the temple, and they decide to have kids, and their kid grows up, and one day their kid comes out to them, hey. They might think of me. Think of my love for my family and my future family. And I hope they'll realize it's the same.

[fireemblems24]

Scarlet Blaze Ch 11

Sorry this is taking forever, but here's ch 11.

MAIN STORY

Oh, shit, do we have to fight Gilbert next? AND ANNETTE? This suuukkkkks. It especially sucks since you know they didn't have a choice but to risk their lives just defending themselves.

Annette is so precious. Fuck. I don't want to fight her.

Gilbert being a good daddy though 😭😭😭😭

At least CF was entertaining. SB is a giant snoozefest where I have to kill all my favorites.

Man, they all sound like psychopaths. They're all super excited to go kill people who are just defending themselves. Even Dorothea's only worried about marriage.

MAP/SIDE STUFF

Shez just said that everyone who gets killed in the war "is standing in our way." Imagine comparing self-defense to "getting in our way." Yikes for that characterization compared to how concerned GW!Shez is about Claude's aggressive decisions.

Lamo, Mercedes is like wtf am I doing here fighting the Kingdom and Annie? 

Aww, Marianne (and Dorothea) are like the only two who realize they're fighting other people and not just being all murder happy like the rest. 

Dimitri just got put on par with Holst and Caspars dad by Balthis, kind of, unofficially best Kingdom warrior? 

We're addressing the Ferdinand and Hubert subplot again. Which is good. It's by far the most interesting part of SB. Though, it's just a repeat of what we've seen from it before.

Ok, they're adding some different stuff which is interesting. Bringing up that even if Fredie's dad tried to retire and stay out of Edelgard's way, that he would still have to die because of what he symbolizes. Hubert and Ferdinand disagree on whether people like Mr. Aegir can get a second chance (as in, can you when you've become a symbol).

This is especially interesting to me in regards to what happens to Rhea, Dimitri, and Claude if they surrender to Edelgard and become her puppets. Basically, Hubert is saying that, no matter what, they'd have to die because anyone who would rebel would use (fill in here) as a symbol of their resistance. Claude may be the sole exception here because he can scoot off to Almyra, but it's very obvious that Rhea and Dimitri (and their staunch allies) are fighting for their lives, because even if we're generous and say Edelgard would spare them and give them life worth living (i.e. not locked up), Hubert would most certainly have them assassinated.

Which also brings up another point. People always talk about how it's wrong/bad for Dimitri to try and spare Edelgard at the end of AM because what kind of life would she live? But always praise Edelgard for trying to spare Rhea towards the end of CF but no one - not a single soul - asks what kind of life would Rhea live? I gotta make my own post about that.

SB is really gonna be - kill yo dad, the route. Ironic since I played this the day after Father's Day.

I have to fight Sylvain 😭

SHEZ & MANUELA A SUPPORT

Manuela is flirting with Shez lol. He said he liked her voice and she pushed him with like "is that all" until he talked about her looks lamo

Aww, Shez actually likes her hungover side. Saying he likes warrior her, singer her, healer her, and drunk her. That's kinda cute, actually

Shez said that he can't keep his eyes off her. Laying it on a bit thick. And said she's more attractive now than she was younger haha.

Yeah, Shez, I have no idea how she was supposed to see that in any other way lol.

HUBERT & LYSITHEA B SUPPORT

Hubert finds Lysithea studying at night and teases her about ghosts. She runs away.

The Imperial Army is a bunch of children who don't want to eat their veggies. This is 100% cannon. Hubert orders guards to sneak them into soups for the soldiers actually get their veggies. I cannot. (though, imagine the privilege, Faerghus could never)

Lysithea freaks out because she ate veggies.

Veggies are legitimately delicious though. I don't know what the Imperial Army's problem is.

EDELGARD & MONICA A SUPPORT

Guys, I'm so excited. A Monica support. I wonder what she'll talk about.

Monica counts how many times Edelgard worried about her and invited her to tea. I just . . . no.

This support was pure cringe.

I love how "Kingdom bad" because they're willing to die to defend their homes, family, friends, and everything and anything else they've loved from invaders, but Monica is to be admired because she's oh so loyal to Edelgard that even in when Edelgard leaves her for dead, it's a happy moment for Monica because it helps Edelgard's cause. Like . . . double standard much?

PETRA & CONSTANCE C SUPPORT

Constance is something else. She confronts Petra because Petra's dad invaded and it led to the demise of Constance's everything.

I enjoy supports that address conflict, but girl, that was not Petra's fault. Don't take it out on her.

Oh, good, she's not. She recognizes that Petra's people suffered, and that neither of them were involved, so there's no bad blood.

Then she hahahas and leaves. Lamo, this made me love Constance.

Petra doesn't get a chance to say she agrees and seeks out Constance, but finds her in the sunlight, and needlessly to say, is very confused.

MAIN BATTLE

Hubert and Edelgard just said submit or die.

Wow, Linhardt is like I wish the nobles would think about all the people who they're forcing to fight. The lack of self-awareness is astounding.

Ferdinand can join the "lack of self-awareness club" for acting like it's the Kingdom causing the violence.

Baron Dominic opened the gate, risking his defenses to rescue soldiers. Hubert judged him. But we're supposedly the good guys. I swear the writing goes out of it's way to make the Kingdom look good.

Fuck. I have to fight Gustave :( He dead :( Poor Annette.

FUCK. Now I have to fight Annette.

Fuck this route. Ingrid, Rodrigue, Gustave, and now Annette - all dead.

Even Baron Dominic's death is making me sad. None of the Empire generals get this kind of humanization when they die lol.

Edelgard and Hubert sound insane. Edelgard's acting like their deaths were inevitable because of their lineage (when they would've been just fine if not for her actions), and Hubert's like he's happy to die so it doesn't matter. What a bunch of looney tunes.

Edelgard just said whoever wins gets to decide what's right. I mean, victors do write the history but yikes at the implications.

So deep - "we're up against the world itself." Sounds like a teenage edge-lord wrote this lamo.

We got crusher. Joy. Did they pry it out of Annette's dead hands?

Oh, joy, more backtracking. Revolts in the Empire. I thought we were out of the backtracking era and into kill every Blue Lion era.

xxxx

[accio-victuuri]

EXPLAINED : WANG YIBO IS DESPERATELY ILLITERATE???

On a normal day and considering what’s been going on for years & years, I wouldn’t want to address any negative press about Yibo. I would rather spread positive news and showcase his talents but i’m making an exception on this one. I am writing this as a Yibo fan who has watched a lot of his interviews and shows and feel like I have a good sense of what type of person he is. A fan who is sick and tired of people using the fact that he doesn’t have a college degree against him. There is really nothing that disgusts me more than those who feel superior just because they have a piece of paper. I accept people’s criticism of him but this is obviously beyond that so I wanna talk about it.

Sadly, he is at a disadvantage as casual people will only see a cut video or a certain post and will tend to run with it. add the fact that the general public don’t have much good point of view towards celebrities. I’m not going to discuss the alleged attack from yyxq’s side or the fan war going on cause that’s just too messy. and well, organized black propaganda is expected cause everyone can’t fuckin comprehend how Yibo is embarrassing everyone else with how good he is at acting and making money for companies that invest on him.

»»————-　　————-««

I thought this was gonna pass naturally but today “Beijing Youth Daily” shared the article called : can the desperate illiterate perform well?

The reason is that the lead actor of a Chinese New Year film was interviewed during a road show. When asked about his impressions of the work and the characters, he didn’t know what to do. Netizens dubbed him “desperately illiterate”.

This first paragraph clearly talks about WYB and the incident at one of HB’s roadshows. This is the whole article and it goes on to talk about literacy in terms of being an actor and all that, trying to make their article into a legitimate thinking piece. Take note that WYB is not the only one “mentioned” here but the title and the intro is about Yibo so he is at the center of it.

In fact, "illiteracy" in this context does not mean to engage in academic discrimination. We all know that there are specializations in the art industry, and the level of education and professional ability are not necessarily directly linked. The "illiterate actors" that everyone refers to often refer to those actors with low cultural reserves, empty heads, incomprehensible scripts, and incomprehensible characters.

This has been going around weeks ago but today, there were lots of verified accounts sharing it. I’m seeing talks of this is a fake account, organized verified entertainment accounts reposting or whatever, it doesn’t matter. the point is — this is out there. People have read it. Some have talked about it. I would have loved to see them actually name Yibo if they are really so brave, but I guess not really. They can only hide in their accounts like the cowards they truly are. This should come as no surprise, trending today of all days because it was officially announced that HB’s cinema run will be extended. Also that HB is at the #2 spot with only a meager 7% of the slots. It’s only a matter of time before HB overtakes everyone and that’s bad news for a lot of people. Also HB will be released in North America this week.

Coincidence? I think not. We all know what’s going on here. 💀💀💀

Now let’s see the Q&A portion that sparked this talk of illiteracy:

Q: In another time and space, if you met Mr. Ye, what would you say to him?

Wang Yibo: "Are you asking what will I say when I meet the character? First of all, I think this question is meaningless. I don't want to say anything, and we won't meet."

Q: Yibo, who is Mr. Ye in your mind? Do you think you shaped him and wanted to show him to the audience, what do you think is the most difficult thing about him?

Wang Yibo : In fact, I really don’t know how to answer this question ..

( He tries to answer this but the host and CE end up speaking in behalf of him )

As a Yibo fan, this kind of answer is not new to me. This is not the first person on a Q&A that Yibo has shut down if he doesn’t like to answer. He’s always been honest, sometimes, painfully so and may be misinterpreted by those who don’t know him. I can explain that he’s already tired of all the roadshows or the question itself was too much etc etc but as i said in the beginning, I CAN ACCEPT CRITICISM. I understand why certain people was put off by this answer. Especially if this your first exposure to him after hearing about Hidden Blade or watching it. There is nothing more that I wish for Yibo, than to be appreciated by the General Public and his popularity to extend to more than just his fans. I wanna say that this may be a learning experience for Yibo. This is his first roadshow experience. Promoting a movie is totally different from what he did with Dramas. He has two more movies, and I hope he will be more prepared. The Yibo i know and support will not be screaming and playing the victim because of this, he would learn from it and bounce back. He will be better.

What I can’t accept are the people who obviously are insulting his whole being because of this 1 thing. Don’t mind all the good things he said in other cities or other times — let’s just rally behind this and attack him. The thing is, they don’t have much negative things to say about his performance in the film or how it’s doing in the box office so they will find something to make him look bad. and this is it. It’s also too much to say that he is ILLITERATE. I don’t think someone who is illiterate can host, memorize/choreograph dances, memorize scripts, be considered a language genius, act scenes, understand directions from directors etc.

It’s so unfair cause there are people like Yibo who need time to articulate their thoughts. Or those who prefer to reply in shorter sentences. It doesn’t mean they are illiterate. they are not stupid. All the comments saying “of course he is, he didn’t graduate college..” not only on weibo but on international platforms. It’s always what they say. I wonder if they actually believe it and like how do you sleep at night with that poison in your head? It’s not like Yibo chose to not go to college cause he’s lazy. He had work to do. He had a career that will leave no time to focus on studying. He is clearly not stupid cause he got high marks while studying in Korea. It’s so ironic, especially those people in China who are saying this cause they know a college degree does not even guarantee them employment. Even a Tsinghua University graduate will end up as a tutor just to make ends meet. It’s the same thing all across the board — A College Diploma alone does not guarantee success. but of course people will just happily insult him and it’s fine, at the end of the day, Yibo is thriving and will continue to do so.

The next coming months, as BTF & One/Only gets released, expect more attacks. I hope we don’t get distracted and just let the positive be louder than the negative. 🙏🏼

To the people behind the scenes working to bring Yibo down, well, I hope they turn purple in anger cause this is only the start of his success.

[fandom-hoarder]

Considering OP is yelling at ppl to leave them alone when questioned on specifics because a post that says “the grooming in spn fandom is insane” (specifically Wincest) was “not a callout” and only “a legitimate safety concern” about “a space is known for well you know”, they are not worth the time. They also reacted very rudely to an anon who only wanted to apologize for following them (thinking that OP was anti Wincest and trying to respect OP’s boundaries). Just not worth it.

[I held onto this in my drafts for a day, but I think I'm just gonna publish it after all. Even though v did a much better job of addressing the op directly, imo, I'm not interacting with the op. I'm also going to gather screenshots in a posterity post, but it will likely be unrebloggable.]

Hmm, I debated publishing this ask, because I'm really just. So tired. And annoyed. And it's not a great combination for tact. Nevertheless...

I haven't seen the yelling myself, just avoidance and redirection. Flippancy. But maybe it's happening in a space I can't see, or between people I've blocked, idk. If so, it sounds a lot like it IS January 2023 redux 🙃🙃🙃 -- I HAVE seen it now, and my suspicion still stands, though still not 100%.

People need to stop making such serious accusations when they refuse to back it up. Words fucking mean things. Saying a certain sector of the fandom--that ostensibly you're also a part of?--has a problem with grooming and is stupid...that was NOT worded in a way to help people stay safe. It was worded like a vague callout post to scare people. We've seen those before. 🙄

A post that was actually concerned about grooming in online spaces *in general* would list some things to be aware of, things to recognize, tips for getting out of a situation. But no, it's this vaguepost without anything specific, with the one question in the notes asking for an explanation or if it's sarcasm-- unanswered [eta: well maybe they responded and I can't see it, since I realized I had op blocked]-- and one reblog from a person who claims it wasn't about wincesties specifically, when it demonstrably WAS??

So who is doing it, and where/how? I don't necessarily think it's a good idea to make public posts with names that devolve into personal beef and worse, but if someone is making the accusation that there's a grooming problem in the fandom they need to come with receipts or at the very least descriptions of the situation??

This isn't cutesy. You know exactly what anon is talking about, as shown later. Reblogging the post unaltered gives at least the appearance of agreeing with it as written.

This isn't to make light of! You reblogged it.

This isn't helpful.

If there was no one specific, why reblog a post specifically about the wincest fandom having insaneeee grooming? It wasn't "just in general." It's not a joke, yet this reply looks entirely unserious.

I am too old to keep seeing this type of shit go through the fandom at regular intervals, especially when it's so often a false accusation based on interpersonal drama. The only purpose this serves is riling up the dash. It's exhausting, and waters down the gravity of the accusation by making it a phrase that cries wolf.

I'm not even saying outright that the post is a LIE; just that it has seriously similar markers of past drama that was approximately 90% unaddressed purity culture biases about fiction, 9% interpersonal beef, and 1% actual concern for a human being who was an adult, but young. And it led to the utter gutting of fandom, loss of acquaintances, deletion of a glut of fic-- all due to smearing the reputation of a writer by using horrible UNTRUE AND INCENDIARY ACCUSATIONS.

So I'm sure many of you already understand why I take umbrage with these types of posts! Who knows if it's about fiction or something real? 🤷‍♀️

And since there's no further context to be found, the way it LOOKS on the dash is that someone is taking creeper!Dean too seriously. It could be about something else, but who knows.

[swiftiefirefighters]

i think the addiction language is making people a little uncomfortable because we're already on edge. there's been fandom homophobia, the show making a "turned gay" joke, buck not addressing his bisexuality in canon, and #letbuckfuck (which i personally don't think is biphobic i'm just... not a fan), plus people's personal interpretations of what the show has been doing. i don't think there's anything inherently wrong with using addiction as a metaphor, it's just that a lot of factors have been compounding and people are disappointed and feeling vulnerable about everything.

fwiw, my post was actually in response to a buddie post that was tagged as anti-bucktommy but i do get that people are feeling particularly touchy rn. (tho i did see other posts they just didn’t trigger my comment.)

i have my own opinions about the whole buck hasnt said bisexual and that’s Bad thing (i don’t think it’s bad, tbh, i think he still doesn’t have the word bc thus far it’s been Only Tommy and that’s part of the whole hes still got shit to figure out thing - speaking from experience as a 40 year old who came out late in life in my 30s and spent years trying to find the right words and half the time STILL doesn’t know it anything really fits) and i PERSONALLY feel uncomfortable with some of the talk about how if we thinks he’s still figuring shit out were infantilizing him or treating him like a child. sexuality is hard especially when you’re kind of feeling it out as you go and honestly labels aren’t everything. i get it people want the tangible representation but for some of us that IS a person who just kind of needs time to say the actual words and is still trying to figure it out. i do think he’ll get there though and maybe that’s Very Naive of me. but right now i think he’s only thinking about tommy - and honestly i think that’s kind of where he’s always been.

its not surprising that mr im an ally i mean sure ill look at a hot guys ass but that’s normal i’ve only ever really kissed or thought about kissing one man and im hung up on him hasn’t really thought about a label TO ME. i don’t begrudge anyone who feels differently.

we all have shit rn that’s making fandom uncomfortable to us so i DO get it. we’re all just feeling our feelings. since 8x06 ive found everything to be a little depressing, particularly hostile, and honestly just completely unenjoyable which is why i haven’t been here much. (both because tommy leaving was just so devastating to me and because i feel like the atmosphere in fandom is just thick and tense which i do understand why but it’s just sigh) so i DO get it. and everyone had a different lived experience that’s gonna color how they view things.

honestly i kind of just wanted to post about how clean is the greatest break up song of all time. i am very sorry if it poked at anyone’s wounds or made anyone feel bad i just love music and pop culture and metaphors and i have not stopped thinking about that song since buck said the thing about relapsing last night.

like it is legitimately still baffling to me anyone reads the things i say on here and cares at all about them even tho i know they do. i just wanna shriek to the void about the weewoos. i won’t argue that it’s the greatest show of all time or anything but i love it i find comfort in it and its fun for me. i’m trying more and more not to take it seriously bc at the end of the day it’s a show where there can be a bee tornado and a shark on the freeway and your dead wife’s clone and then a tsunami just wipes out santa monica and it’s completely rebuilt 6 months later. also chris was gone 3 months 3 months ago but he’s also been gone 3 months last night and how old is eddie diaz anyway????

[thelediz]

Sonic Underground episode 26: Six is a Crowd

AKA the obligatory reverse/evil AU

I’m watching Sonic Underground in search of inspiration to finish a fic I’ve been writing forever. It’s a sad state of affairs. See the recap of the first three episodes here, if you're interested!

The plot (for want of a better word): To teach them a lesson, the Oracle of Delphius sends the triplets to another world, this one ruled over by three mysterious dictators: the Sonic Underground themselves! Can our heroes overcome their own worst selves to prove the heroes they really are?

Today’s parental guidance warning is actually about appearance-shaming. Specifically fat-shaming and a little bit of hair loss. It’s not directly addressed in the episode, but it’s there, and I give it a bored stare, and you should too.

So-ho, remember in episode 20, it ended on an image of a tiered thing? This was a snow-globe. Apparently that was foreshadowing for this episode, because the Oracle wants it when they talk to him. The plot doesn’t actually have anything to do with it, it’s just… a weird moment to remind you the episodes are linked, I guess. For the next few episodes, we're going to have actual continuity, and it's gonna be weird.

(SOMEONE CARED ABOUT THIS SHOW AND ITS PLOT.)

In other news, there’s something weird going on with the Oracle’s voice-sync, where his audio is just a fraction out from his mouth movements. I am pretty sure it’s not intentional.

They are transported to a city that is what the Archie comics used to use as the image of Mobius: multi-tiered, lots of greenery to the point that it often overflows the tier edges, flying cars, colour pallet of bronze and silver everywhere. So at least the evil hedgehogs we don't know about yet know how to make a city look good.

We get out first hint of weirdness when Sonic sees a statue of himself, and it has a gut. Sonic is unimpressed with this insult to his ‘perfect bod’. Now, this is legitimately funny in hindsight, because Classic Sonic (which Underground!Sonic is designed after) is a Round Boy, in contrast to Modern Sonic being a soft dorito. Generations made the joke of (when they saw each other) having the two Sonics slap their stomachs to draw attention to the difference. So it’s a bit of a meta-joke these days that Classic Sonic was chubby. (I actually take it a step further, because while I cannot finish a single level of the Sonic Riders games, that character model was a Long And Thin Boy. When combined with how short the triplets are compared to adult characters in this series, I like the idea of Sonic’s growth spurts causing him to have some pretty serious inconsistencies in his weight appearance, despite him having always been healthy and athletic.) But this episode isn’t going for that. It’s just saying evil!Sonic would be fat because he eats too many chilli dogs and doesn’t exercise enough. Because evil people do these things. Mmhm. We move on.

There are statues of the other two which aren’t as remarked upon, but closer inspection does show some weirdness. Sonia is super spiky and just straight up looks like a bitch, while Manic is holding a bag and smirking about it.

While Sonic indulges his chilli dog obsession, we see our first glimpse of this world’s Robotnik, who has hair. Because evil people are bald, too. After some minor success from the triplets, he manages to catch them, and we are introduced to the actual story of this world:

Here, the Sonic Underground are the evil dictators. Manic taxed everyone’s money, Sonia enacted cruel laws that restricted freedom, and Sonic outlawed music (he gives no reason for this, he just did). Robotnik is the leader of the Freedom Fighters. Luckily, Robotnik has a spy bot in the royal court and quickly discovers he hasn’t kidnapped the dictators, which is further proven by our heroes playing

The Song: I can do that for you. It’s a very sweet and corny song, vaguely reminiscent of “I’ll be there for you” by the Rembrandts, but cheesier. I kind of dig it.

So the plot, now the scene is set, is to have our triplets stride into the castle and make a mess. They fire all the palace guard SWATbots and split up to take on their evil selves individually.

Sonic chases his version to a race, but evil!Sonic is using weapons, and so wins.

Manic uses some kind of vacuum bot to take all evil!Manic’s money, and then sucks him up too.

Evil!Sonia doesn’t notice Sonia (who is dressed completely differently and doesn’t have a crown) is mirroring her behind an empty frame, and so is caught off-guard when Sonia confronts her and Manic arrives with his double. She faints. Because girl, I guess.

Sonic is saved by Robotnik showing up, and takes down his double by using his weapon against him. And so the bad guys are all captured.

So because our heroes aren’t actually evil even when they’re bad guys, the solution to this situation is to show the evil triplets the realities of the world they have created. And realism once again takes a nice trip out the window as their evil hearts are healed by a quick tour of the city.

I kid you not. That’s all it is.

And with that, our triplets head home to hear a monologue from Aleena about how power can corrupt, but good will totally triumph over evil soon, promise.

Oh, Trashfire, it was a close one, I almost thought you were on a roll with two good episodes in a row, but you didn’t let me down with that conflict and resolution. That was atrocious.

Because in contrast to the last episode, these evil characters' flaws weren’t based on our heroes’ flaws, and the solution didn’t make sense in context.

So much like the episode it calls back to, it’s another awkward Divine Right implication; that these people are heroes and royalty because we say, not because they’re actually good or worthy or…

It's not a good message to be sending, is what I’m getting at here.

But we move on regardless.

[lediz-watches]

Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

To quote or paraphrase Andy Farrant (I watched the stream a few days ago, the wording's not in my head) "It was better than it had any right to be."

This was such a fun movie, though. It was silly popcorn fun with legitimate heart, which is exactly what action adventure movies should be.

I loved the overarching narrative and the way it showed a legitimate found family long before it verbally addressed it. I loved the relationship between Holga, Edgin, and Kira, and that beautiful repeated phrase "I'm gonna bring back your mom".

As someone who loves the idea of DnD but has never had much success with it (I think it's very telling that my favourite DnD stream is Oxventure and I couldn't sit through more than ten episodes of Critical Role), it was so curious how they played this. They didn't (although they very easily could have) show you the rolls, but you could definitely feel them sometimes. I'm not just talking about the Nat20s and NatOnes, but like Simon's player in general is a very good player with such cursed dice. He failed so many saves and had to adjust around them.

I actually wonder how someone who has never played the game would react to some of them, actually. Like, there's a point where Simon gets his foot caught in some cobblestones. To a DnD player, what happened is that it's clearly a failed stealth check followed by several failed saves from everyone to free him. But I wonder if to a non-player whether that seemed like a bit of an arbitrary complication to the story for DRAMA.

But there are, I should point out, very few points where I actually noticed those points that would likely end up as a divide. Mostly, I think, the movie was incredibly accessible.

Like, even painfully DnD tropes. Everyone points out that Xenk is either a DMPC or a player who barely ever gets to play and so is always overpowered so they can be a fun addition. But the actual painfully DnD trope about him is that he's just SO Lawful Good. So lawful that he can only walk in straight lines. But rather than it being specifically a DnD joke, he's a parody of The Perfect Hero. Everyone knows that trope. Everyone can follow that trope.

So the only problem I have with it from an adaption perspective is how twisted and messy the story felt. As a DnD player, it was fine - the players were scrambling to find solutions to a problem and were going on multiple quests to figure out what they would do. But I can definitely see how an outsider might find it all... incohesive.

They're gathering party members > oh, that wasn't good enough.

They're going to search for a helmet > oh, that isn't available.

They're going in search of a hero > oh, he's going to give them a different quest for the helmet.

They've got the helmet but more importantly they have this hero > oh, he's leaving, okay.

They've got the helmet > oh, that won't work.

They're doing a heist > oh, that's not going to work either...

Like, I get it. I FELT it. But I can also see how an outsider might react to it in the same way I originally felt watching The Dark Knight. After a point, plot twists get tedious. And some of these plot threads could have been entire stories on their own rather than quick asides. Everything was a little too shallow in order to fit a lot of story into a twisted adventure.

But that said, I enjoyed it. And I loved the complications in this a lot more than I do in heist movies where it all turns out that it actually went exactly as the grandmaster thief intended all along.

And more than anything, I loved the main arc. I am always a sucker for Found Family, but this was beautiful.

From the very start, the film goes out of its way to SHOW us that Holga and Kira are an unconventional but very real mother and daughter. Holga has a closer relationship with Kira than Edgin does. BUT the story is told from Edgin's perspective, so it repeatedly TELLS us that Holga is Edgin's partner, Kira is Edgin's daughter, and the quest is to bring back Edgin's dead wife so she can be a mother to Kira.

I love that dichotomy SO MUCH. I adore it when stories not only use show and tell cohesively, but make the difference between them a POINT. It was amazing, and something that I think couldn't have been done nearly as well in a written medium, I'm so in awe of how effortless it felt.

That one line was... mmph! Nice job, Mr Pine, nice job making that line hit your character so hard.

AND while I probably can't get into it without going on a whole essay about western ethics re: resurrection, there was something I really appreciated about how the film didn't linger over Edgin's wish and decisions about his wife. This was a DnD campaign. Resurrection is expensive and a pain, but it's a thing that happens, the only issue is Faerun lore about other planes, let's move on.

Last thing I'll talk about is the characters themselves. This was such good casting, and I love the characters and how they're embodied.

I love Holga's unapologetic dumb muscle and how much heart she had. (Side note, Bradley Cooper's cameo was wonderful and heartwrenching and that whole mini-arc is going to quietly stay in my heart for a long while)(Side-side note, I love Bradley Cooper so much more as a supporting character actor than a lead. He's SO GOOD at what he does but lead characters make his arcs overwrought)

I love Simon and Doric's blunt, awkward style and how you can tell they'll work well together but would be hopeless without Edgin's charm and energy to guide them.

I love Edgin, and I LOVE Edgin played by Chris Pine, who balances that charm and quiet desperation and arrogance into one perfect BARD. He was SUCH a BARD, even though he was missing the magic and lore (yeah... Simon fails saves, Edgin fails knowledge checks all. the. time. His dice hate the lore and it's absolutely a running joke at the table). His personality was just embodied Harper bard and it was perfect.

I love Hugh Grant's villain era because I actually find it a very natural evolution of his typecasting. But more than anything, I love that Forge isn't and never was actually evil. He's Neutral. He's selfish and willing to do either good or bad to achieve his goals. He didn't really want his friends to die, and you know, the overall outcome of the scheme was regrettable, but he would get away with money, love, and his life, so... -shrug- And Hugh Grant plays that so well. He's so dry and deadpan and you're never sure whether he's making fun of you or not, and it just works. So it's Nice. I like it. Nice.

But yeah! I could ramble about the things I loved for days, and there are certainly things I would have preferred, but this was actually a really good, really fun movie using DnD rules and tropes.

Good game, Paramount. Well done.

[macksting]

[ID: Reblogger hashtag. Says, "Felt this big time when my corporate team lead asked me if I understood what empathy was. Made me feel so demotivated. So inhuman." /end ID] *blinks* Christ. Did you talk to HR? I know, prolly no good would come of it, but at the end of the day their job is to make sure work keeps getting done, and this is not appropriate workplace behavior on their part.

D'ya ever notice that folks who talk about empathy don't have a definition for it, or not one that makes any sense? I don't know for sure, but I blame Simon Baron-Cohen. (Not Sacha, I don't have strong feelings about him. But they are cousins.) I remember back in the 90s reading about the Extreme Male Brain theory of autism and thinking, "wow, this is bullshit." I then proceeded to not think about it for a few years until I encountered it again in an opinion piece about how we as humans respond to a large scale tragedy vs. a small, intimately described tragedy, revolving around the boy who got trapped in a well. It was a not-uninteresting article until I got to the point where the writer started talking about how an autistic person has to create morality from logical principles, lacking (apparently) any inherent ability to empathize with others. That's the first time I realized anybody took that seriously. It's such an absurd, offensive premise. Naturally I looked deeper into it and discovered that asshole has an outsized influence in the UK and his bullshit research, some of which is done rather dishonestly according to a friend whose friend had to study under him, is gonna pollute the discourse around us for a long time. I wonder how much effect he has both on the mistreatment of autistic people in Great Britain* and on the infamous medical gatekeeping of transition. Not that there isn't more than enough going on without his ass. I don't really have a point here. I'm just angry that folks who talk about autistic people and empathy often have no reasonable or consistent definition of empathy. I mean, I had a friend who was legitimately low-empathy. (We aren't friends anymore, but it's not her fault per se and I mean her no ill will.) And she did have a very logical framework for why she has cultivated a "help first" response to crises. We suspect her ability to not feel strongly about the pain of others probably actually helps her keep a clear head, so it's a strength. So I get it! Low empathy people exist, and autism can be a part of that. But I do not fucking trust the field of psychology to talk about this in a responsible or intelligible way. They'll freely use mutually exclusive definitions of empathy to try to vilify us without ever addressing the illogic of it. Assholes. Honestly I wouldn't even mind as much if they were merely wrong, or worse yet right, but they don't even care. * I have a friend in Glasgow who has the same problems, so it's not just an English thing, and it sounds like it's a problem in Wales too; I just don't know anything about Ireland in this regard and am loathe to lump them in with England for any reason whatsoever.

[ID: Warning decal. Says, "Warning!" in white on red for high visibility, then in black impact font, "This machine does not know the difference between metal and flesh, but cares a lot, so please stay out of its way. It would be very sad if it accidentally hurt you." /end ID]

[celesteiscute]

This stupid situation is all I can think about and it's driving me crazy that my roommate just straight up lied to me when I expressed hesitation about moving in with them. They told me that they're really easy to live with and that their cat is very well behaved and that they keep it really clean. This is gonna get super venty so I'm putting it under a read more.

When I moved in with them, I asked how they wanted to deal with conflict if something ever came up and they said that they preferred if I were direct with them. Then, when their cat being in my bed constantly became an issue, I asked if they could do something about it and they literally shut down and stopped speaking to me except over text messages. They texted me later saying this was because I "bombarded" them and they actually only wanted me to bring things up in the morning so they can think about it throughout the day. 2+ months later, after exactly 0 attempts on my roommate's part to compromise about the cat situation and me asking exactly 1 time after the first time I brought it up for them to please keep the cat out of my bed my bed when I'm not home because the cat was getting better about it when I was home but I was still finding litter in my bed which grosses me out, I got a message about how we needed to have an in-person discussion about our living arrangement. That "discussion" was them reading from their notes app a speech they wrote about how they wanted me to move out. The monologue included a list of my unforgivable sins which were

1 Raising my voice at the cat (this was only in instances where the cat was on my bed because they asked me to be the one responsible for training their cat and I obviously wasn't going to start beating it with a shoe or something)

2 Closing my bedroom door on my way out that morning (I do this every morning. The cat just happened to be on the other side of the door that day)

3 Leaving trash on top of the trash can (it was one frozen meal box that was there for less than half an hour because it was full but I was eating)

4 Leaving my laundry in the dryer on their designated day (they had changed which day was their day and I forgot because I was more worried about the cat vomit they had left on the carpet all day even though when I complained about having to clean up cat vomit they offered to clean it next time so that morning I asked them to clean it and came home 12 hours later to find that they hadn't and it dried up)

The whole time I was really trying to think like "wow what have I done without realizing like am I being super horrible?" and I was trying to introspect and really couldn't come up with any reason why my roommate was being so cold and refusing to speak to me about anything. When it was laid out in front of me, I realized that they were just insane and impossible to live with. Legitimately (with the exception of my tone with the cat) they were talking about single instances of me "disrespecting the house" that could've been addressed.

Either way, whether I'm being asked to leave because my roommate realized they simply can't handle conflict like an adult or if there's more to it that my roommate just won't communicate for whatever reason, I have to find new housing. Looking for housing is already stressful when you know it's coming. Like, I was stressed five months ago when I knew my lease was ending soon and I needed to find a new place to live so I'm sure you can imagine how and why this getting thrown on me on a random Tuesday night turned into an all-consuming type of stress.

I keep trying to remind myself that I'm not in a situation where I'm being evicted. I'm still on this lease whether they like it or not so realistically there is no enforceable deadline but its obviously uncomfortable as fuck. The worst part is that I'm traveling internationally in three weeks and there's no way that I can find a place and move before my trip. So like I was kinda worried about my trip but now I can't even be excited for my trip because I'm stressed.

[sirenalpha]

I am saying that Netflix is addressing it though, they're toning down the misogyny not erasing it and since the show's not out I can't say how well they've achieved this goal only that it's a legitimate one in terms of crafting a better, more consistent narrative

the original show was a cartoon for preteens made in the mid 00s by two white guys who barely understand misogyny

the whole post is about how flawed this aspect of Sokka's character and the show's messaging on misogyny overall is, Sokka's "arc" to unlearn misogyny being something major and important to the character is something that exists in fandom and isn't accurate to what's on screen

the point of Sokka's character is not to unlearn toxic masculinity, this "arc" of his lasts all of 4 episodes and is solely focused on the idea that women can fight and be good at it, no questioning other aspects of how women are restricted, how labor is divided, it's not even about the water tribe's cultures northern or southern or Sokka's personal stereotypically masculine interests which you can tell by the fact Sokka's unlearning isn't brought up at all while in the NWT and his interest in meat, hunting, and being manly isn't questioned at all and continued on through the show, an arc doesn't matter much if it results in no narrative consequences or has a strong counterargument of yeah Sokka insulted Suki but he should still get to kiss and date her

like look at these responses to see what I mean by cartoonish/unrealistic set up, this is what I'm taking about

I can attribute some of Sokka's early set up vs the s1 finale and s3 flashbacks to they literally didn't know they were gonna do that because it's a serialized show, but once you have it Sokka's issues are goofy and it cannot realistically be attributed to him being the only teen male left behind

their tribe has been dwindling and losing their separate non-NWT culture for decades, it's all hands on deck for survival people are gonna break the boundaries of traditional divisions of labor so they can live and on top of that, while sure women can raise sexists (I'm not even advocating for Sokka to exhibit no sexism at all) but I am saying Kanna crossed the whole world to get away from that, that's not having a casual opinion on sexism

it doesn't make sense with Sokka's personal familial and cultural history, and it doesn't make sense for it to be a 4 episode blip for one male character when like I said you see the exact same thing in the EK regarding female benders with absolutely no commentary at all and almost the same in FN and also no commentary

why doesn't Toph say anything about other female benders or ever talk to Katara about this? Why do Toph and Katara never talk about facing Azula literally the only other female bender they've met the whole damn show? why is dealing with or combatting misogyny still about addressing a male character's insecurity with his masculinity and he needs a kiss from the girl who's better than him afterwards to get through it? why can't a male audience hear and see more from a female perspectives on all this as a cure to podcast bros?

Netflix is making a live action show for an older audience in the 2020s with the foreknowledge of the original show already having been finished instead of an ongoing serialized work

if they tone down Sokka's misogyny, they are more aligned with their medium and audience while correcting an inconsistency or potentially a retcon of the original show

but it also leaves them room to say or deal with misogyny in other ways if they don't have to spend time on babysitting Sokka's ego for an episode then letting him go right back to being stereotypically masculine

will they do that or do it well? No idea cuz it's not out and I haven't watched it

but I am saying the original show did a bad job in this area, it's not that important to Sokka's overall character or arc as his insecurities don't have to be intrinsically tied to misogyny or masculinity so Netflix has a legitimate narrative reason to tone down Sokka's misogyny to improve the overall show and handle the messaging around misogyny better

so like I said, this is a non-issue as a statement, it's not destroying Sokka as a character, it does not delegitimize the adaptation

it's also not saying the adaptation will ultimately be good or better than the original show either cuz again it's not out yet, just because they stated a legitimate intention doesn't mean the execution will be any good

I'm seeing so much commentary on people reacting to the live action atla toning down Sokka's misogyny

and I'm over here like this is a total non-issue because in my own rewrite of the show I already did that exact thing, it makes complete sense to do it and they should do it because it's a weaker aspect of the original show

Sokka's early misogyny is utterly cartoonish in comparison to the set up of the rest of the SWT, it doesn't feel realistic for the only teenaged boy in a dying culture surrounded by adult women with a grandmother who left a more out and out misogynist society to act the way he does

how Sokka "resolves" his misogyny is equally cartoonish, I never liked how in The Warriors of Kyoshi literally episode 4 of the show makes a teen girl compromise her own culture with a female only fighting tradition teach a boy who is supremely rude and disrespectful to her and then still be attracted to him afterwards, it's more misogyny to fix misogyny and is very obviously men writing about how to fix misogyny especially as they have Aang make a joke about Sokka wearing a dress after going through how meaningful the fighting costume is and how a lot of Asian clothing with hanfu influences like atla borrows from would have men in what to western eyes would be dresses, Aang has already seen multiple male authority figures in robes, the joke makes no sense

I also wouldn't consider Sokka's misogyny genuinely resolved after this, consider how the show deals with his romantic relationships with both Yue and Suki and how both can be seen as extensions of how Kataang is treated in the show, rewards for the hero, especially with how Sokka interacts aggressively with Hahn instead of respecting Yue's wishes whatever her reasons for them, I think an argument can be made that Yue's death is a fridging for Sokka's storyline rather than or in combination with being a consequence of Aang's failure as an avatar or the culmination of her own storyline where she fulfills her duties as a leader to protect her own people

Beyond his romantic relationships, while Sokka drops a lot of his more misogynistic language with Katara, he doesn't support her when she faces off with the NWT leaders to learn waterbending, and he still leaves the caretaking and food preparation and grocery shopping to her which is more common than him going out to hunt or gather in order to provide for the group while he takes a leadership role like determining their travel schedule and routes, it is not an even division of labor and falls along traditional sex stereotypes

In addition to his typical duties to the group, Sokka also remains invested in the trappings of masculinity after ep4, he's concerned about what's manly and how he compares to Jet for example, there's no investigation or interrogation in his interest in meat and hunting and how they relate to masculinity and his misogyny, in the episode with Piando, his insecurity as a non-bender is resolved by giving him a new male mentor and a new martial skill, sword fighting, which is masculine in both western and Asian cultures rather than assuaging his self esteem issues in any less stereotypically masculine ways, I also think it was done so he could compare more favorably to Zuko, another male character, and even his interest in engineering and mechanics comes with a male mentor and is a traditionally masculine pursuit

the show's poor handling of misogyny also extends beyond Sokka, with the NWT, the show acts as if Pakku is the only reason the tribe is misogynistic and the only consequences to that misogyny is that women can't waterbend and there are arranged marriages, and that both the NWT and Pakku's misogyny is resolved by allowing only Katara to learn to waterbend which she doesn't even earn on her own merits, she gets the opportunity because Pakku likes her grandmother

none of this is realistic, misogyny is not because of one bad apple, Pakku doesn't make Yue's arranged marriage, Chief Arnook does, he picked Hahn for her, and the show acts as if Arnook has no authority to compel Pakku to teach Katara or any ability to persuade him in order to reduce his culpability in the NWT's misogyny as its leader to make him a more respectable character so it's not uncomfortable when Aang and Sokka follow his orders in the battle later on, but women not being able to bend and forced into arranged marriages is still status quo when the gaang leaves, Yue's just dead

I'm not even convinced the show runners understand what's wrong with arranged marriage, the issue is not Yue can't be with Sokka who she likes and at most has a slight crush on cuz she's only known him for like two days, it's that she's being treated as male property, a broodmare, and a vehicle to ensure Hahn receives the throne because her father has no male heir and picked some guy to succeed him instead, like it's not explicit in the show but that is the implication based on the historical reality of princesses in arranged marriages, and the show has her get out of it only through death idc that she ascends to being a spirit, it's still a teen girl that dies

There's also no discussion by the show of the Earth Kingdom's misogyny when it has the exact same shit going on, Toph is the only female earthbender in the show not including avatars, there might have been a female earthbender in the background when Katara broke them out of prison, but I'm not really counting that, the entire army and Dai Li are all made up of men, the EK might even be worse because the show doesn't demonstrate that women and girls even have the capacity to earthbend aside from Toph and avatars and Toph doesn't even learn from a human, she has to learn from animals, the show treats this as commentary on her disability but the show has no compelling reason why it can't also be commentary on her sex, Toph was also originally supposed to be a boy so this could have ended up so much worse there literally would have been no female earthbenders aside from avatars at all, I'm not counting Oma as she might just be a mythological figure not a real person that once lived

The Fire Nation kinda barely avoids the same issue, Azula is the only named female firebender aside from avatars in the show but she has two female sidekicks who despite being non-benders show martial skill and there are clearly female soldiers and guards in the FN military so there are much stronger implications of female firebenders existing and being completely allowed to train their abilities and that Azula isn't exceptional in that respect like Toph is, only for being a prodigy with blue fire

Azula was also originally supposed to have an arranged marriage in s3 and they dropped it in favor of showing that royal and noble girls could casually date in the FN which has wild implications for women's empowerment in the country more so than but especially in combination with the fact women can train and join the military (which is why I say the FN is not fascist it's literally the least misogynistic country aside from Kyoshi and by like a country mile so it's literally not misogynistic enough) not that the show does anything more than minor teen drama with it

again, the vast majority of this misogyny is completely unremarked upon by the show especially after s1 when they leave the NWT, it is clearly a fictional world made by men with no true understanding of misogyny just a vague awareness that misogyny is bad and what the really obvious and outdated examples of it are, this is a narrative inconsistency in the show to have the examples and commentary on misogyny be so cartoonish in the beginning and then disappear after s1

your options to resolve this inconsistency is to either go all in with more realistic misogyny and provide commentary on all of it but this takes effort and will be divisive, or take the easier route and ease off the cartoonish-ness of it and comment less on it to avoid drawing attention to all instances of misogyny in the show

obviously Netflix was gonna do the latter

(not me tho, I'm making it less cartoony and dealing with it in my rewrite)

[innuendostudios]

I was invited to give a talk on GamerGate over Zoom in early 2021. I've long been frustrated that there isn't a good timeline of GG and its origins on YouTube. When people ask "what the hell was GG anyway?" they often get referred to my or Dan Olson's videos on the subject, but both of them were made while GG was ongoing, and presumed a degree of familiarity on the part of the audience. There was just too much to say about what was already happening to spend time getting the audience up to speed, and it was safe to assume our audiences had enough context to follow along. But time moves fast on the internet, and many people who now care about such things weren't there while it was happening, and are lacking the necessary context to follow the better videos. For a long time, I've only been able to direct them to RationalWiki's timeline, which is excellent but so exhaustively comprehensive that it's likely to scare off first-timers.

I realize an hourlong lecture isn't necessarily helping matters, but the first 20-or-so minutes of this video are my attempt at streamlining the timeline such that people can be up to speed on the most important stuff fairly quickly. The rest is talking about what it all meant, how it prefigured the Alt-Right, and using it to better understand digital radicalization.

This video was made with the help of Magdalen Rose, who edited the slides to the audio while I was laid up with a back injury. Go sub to her channel! And please back me on Patreon.

Transcript below the cut.

FUCKING VIDEO GAMES? FUCKING VIDEO GAMES. THEY MADE DOZENS OF PEOPLE MISERABLE FOR YEARS OVER VIDEO GAMES! NOT EVEN FUCKING VIDEO GAMES, FUCKING ARTICLES ABOUT FUCKING VIDEO GAMES. THIS IS WHAT PASSES FOR LEGITIMATE GRIEVANCE. ARE YOU KIDDING ME WITH THIS SHIT??

Hi! My name is Ian Danskin. I’m a video essayist and media artist. I run the YouTube channel Innuendo Studios, please like share and subscribe.

I’m here to talk to you about GamerGate, and I needed to get all that out of the way. I’m going to talk about what GamerGate was and how it prefigured The Alt-Right, and there are gonna be moments where you’re nodding along with me, going, “yeah, yeah I get it,” and then the sun’s gonna break through a crack in the wall and you’ll suddenly remember that all this is happening because some folks - mostly ladies - said some stuff - provably true stuff, I might add - about video games and a bunch of guys didn’t like it, and you’re gonna want to rip your hair out. By the end of this, you will have a better understanding of what happened, but it will never not be bullshit.

Also, oh my god, content warning. Racism, sexism, antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia, rape threats, threats of violence, domestic abuse - I’m not going to depict or describe at length any of the worst stuff, but it’s all in the mix. So if at any point you need to switch me off or mute me, you have my blessing.

Brace yourselves.

Some quick prehistory:

In 2012, feminist media critic Anita Sarkeesian ran a Kickstarter campaign for a YouTube series on sexist tropes in video games. And, partway through the campaign, 4chan found it and said “let’s ruin her life.” And a lot of the male general gaming public joined in. And by “ruin her life” I’m not talking 150 angry tweets including dozens of rape and death threats per week, though that was a thing. I’m talking bomb threats. I’m talking canceled speaking engagements because someone threatened to shoot up a school. I’m talking FBI investigation. The harassers faced no meaningful repercussions.

And in 2013, Zoe Quinn released Depression Quest, a free text game about living with depression. They received harassment off and on for the next year, most pointedly from an incel forum called Wizardchan that doxxed their phone number and made harassing phone calls telling them to kill themself. The harassers faced no meaningful repercussions.

(Also, quick note: Zoe Quinn is nonbinary and has come out since the events in question. When I call Zoe’s harassment misogynist, understand I am not calling Zoe a woman, but they were attacked by people who hate women because that’s how they were perceived. Had they been out at the time things probably would’ve gone down similarly, but on top of misogyny I’d be talking about nonbinary erasure and transphobia.)

Okay. Our story begins in August 2014. The August that never ended.

Depression Quest, after a prolonged period on Greenlight, finally releases on Steam as a free download with the option to pay what you want. In the days that follow, Zoe’s ex-boyfriend, Eron Gjoni, writes a nearly 10,000-word blog called The Zoe Post, in which he claims Quinn had been a shitty and unfaithful partner. (For reference, 10,000 words is long enough that the Hugos would consider it a novelette.) This is posted to forums on Penny Arcade and Something Awful, both of which immediately take it down, finding it, at best, a lot of toxic hearsay and, at worse, an invitation to harassment. So Gjoni workshops the post, adds a bunch of edgelord humor (and I am using the word “humor” very generously), and reposts it to three different subforums on 4chan.

We’re not going to litigate whether Zoe Quinn was a good partner. I don’t know or care. I don’t think anyone on this call is trying to date them so I’m not sure that’s our business. What is known is that the relationship lasted five months, and, after it ended, Gjoni began stalking Quinn. Gjoni has, in fact, laid out how he stalked Quinn in meticulous detail to interviewers and why he feels it was justified. It’s also been corroborated by a friend that Quinn briefly considered taking him back at a games conference in San Francisco, but he became violent during sex and Quinn left the apartment in the middle of the night with visible bruises.

Off of the abusive ex-boyfriend’s post, 4chan decides it’s going to make Zoe Quinn one of their next targets, and starts a private IRC channel to plan the campaign. The channel is called #BurgersAndFries, a reference to Gjoni claiming Quinn had cheated on him with five guys. A couple sentences in The Zoe Post - which Gjoni would later claim were a typo - imply that one of the five guys was games journalist Nathan Grayson and that Quinn had slept with him in exchange for a good review of Depression Quest. Given the anger that they’d seen drummed up against women in games with the previous Anita Sarkeesian hate mob, #BurgersAndFries decides to focus on this breach of “ethics in games journalism” as a cover story, many of them howling with laughter at the thought that male gamers would probably buy it. This way, destroying Quinn’s life and career and turning their community against them would appear an unfortunate byproduct of a legitimate consumer revolt; criticism of the harassment could even be framed as a distraction from the bigger issue. Gjoni himself is in the IRC channel telling them that this was the best hand to play.

The stated aim of many on #BurgersAndFries was to convince Quinn to commit suicide.

Two regulars in the IRC, YouTubers MundaneMatt and Internet Aristocrat, make videos about The Zoe Post. Incidentally, both these men had already made a lot of money off videos about Anita Sarkeesian. Matt’s is swiftly taken down with a DMCA claim, and he says that Quinn filed the claim themself. (For the record, in those days, YouTube didn’t tell you who filed DMCA claims against you.) Members of the IRC also reach out to YouTuber TotalBiscuit, who had been critical of Sarkeesian and dismissive of her harassment, and he tweets the story to his 350,000 followers, saying a game developer trading sex for a good review might not prove true, but was certainly plausible.

This is where GamerGate begins to get public traction.

Zoe Quinn is very swiftly doxxed, with their phone number, home address, nudes, and names and numbers of their family collected. Gjoni himself leaks their birth name. The Zoe Post, and the movement against Quinn - now dubbed “The Quinnspiracy” - make it to The Escapist and Reddit, which mods will have little luck removing. The Quinnspiracy declares war on any site that does take their threads down, most vehemently NeoGAF. People who defend Zoe against the harassment start getting doxxed themselves - Fez developer Phil Fish is doxxed so thoroughly, hackers get access to the root folder of his website.

In what I’m going to call This Should Have Been The End, Part 1, Stephen Totilo, Editor-in-Chief at Kotaku where Nathan Grayson worked, in response to pressure not just from The Quinnspiracy but an increasing number of angry gamers buying The Quinnspiracy’s narrative, publishes a story. In it he verifies that Quinn and Grayson did date for several months, and that not only is there no review of Depression Quest anywhere on Kotaku, not by Grayson nor anyone else, but that Grayson did not write a single word about Quinn the entire time they were dating.

In response, The Quinnspiracy declares war on Kotaku. r/KotakuinAction is formed, which will become the primary site of organization outside of chanboards. The fact that their entire “movement” is based on a review that does not exist changes next to nothing.

Some people start to see The Quinnspiracy as potentially profitable. The Fine Young Capitalists get involved, a group ostensibly working to get women into video games but who have a Byzantine plan to do so wherein they crowdfund the budget and the woman who wins a competition gets to storyboard a game, but another company will make and she will get 8% of the profits, the rest going to a charity chosen by the top donor. 4chan becomes the top donor. They like TFYC because the head of the company has a vendetta against Zoe Quinn, who had previously called them out for their transphobic submission policy, and he falsely accused Quinn of having once doxxed him. 4chan feels backing an ostensibly feminist effort will be good PR, but can’t resist selecting a colon cancer charity because, they say, feminism is cancer and they want to be the cure to butthurt. They also get to design a character for the game, and so they create Vivian James, who will become the GamerGate mascot.

Manosphere YouTubers Jordan Owen and Davis Aurini launch a Patreon campaign for their antifeminist documentary The Sarkeesian Effect and come to The Quinnspiracy looking for $15,000 a month for an indefinite period to make it, which they get.

In what will prove genuinely awful timing, Anita Sarkeesian releases the second episode of Tropes vs. Women in Video Games, and, despite not being a games journalist and having nothing to do with Quinn or Grayson, she is immediately roped into the narrative about how feminists are ruining games culture and becomes the second major target of harassment. Both she and Quinn soon have to leave their houses after having receiving dozens and dozens of death threats that include their home addresses.

After being courted by members of the IRC channel, Firefly star Adam Baldwin tweets a link to one of the Quinnspiracy videos and coins the hashtag #GamerGate. This is swiftly adopted by all involved.

In response to all this, Leigh Alexander writes a piece for Gamasutra arguing that the identity that these men are flocking to the “ethics in games journalism” narrative to defend no longer matters as a marketing demographic. Gaming and games culture is so large and so varied, and the “core gamer” audience of 18-34 white bros growing smaller and septic, that there was no reason, neither morally nor financially, to treat them as the primary audience anymore. Love of gaming is eternal, but, she declared, “gamers,” as an identity, “are over.” Eight more articles contextualizing GamerGate alongside misogyny and the gatekeeping of games culture come out across several websites in the following days. GamerGate frames these as a clear sign of [deep sigh] collusion to oppress gamers, proving that ethics in games journalism is, indeed, broken, and Leigh Alexander becomes the third major target of harassment. These become known as the “gamers are dead” articles - a phrase not one of them uses - and they make “get Leigh Alexander fired from Gamasutra” one of their primary goals.

Something I need you to understand is that it has, at this point, been two weeks.

Highlights from the next little bit: Alex Macris, a higher up at The Escapist’s parent company, expresses support for GamerGate; he will go on to write the first positive coverage at a major publication and cement The Escapist as GamerGate-friendly. Mike Cernovich, aka “Based Lawyer,” gets GamerGate’s attention by mocking Anita Sarkeesian; he will go on to hire a private investigator to stalk Zoe Quinn. GamerGate launches Operation Disrespectful Nod, an email campaign pressuring companies to pull advertising from websites that have criticized them. They leverage their POC members, getting them, any time someone points out the rampant racism and antisemitism among GamerGaters, to say “I am a person of color and I am #NotYourShield”; most of these “POC members” are fake accounts left over from a previous, racist disinformation campaign. Milo Yiannapoulos gets involved, writing positive coverage of GG despite having mocked gamers for precisely this behavior in the past, and gets so much traffic it pulls Breitbart News out of obscurity and makes it a significant player in modern conservative news media.

[Hey! Ian from the future here. This talk mostly addresses how GamerGate prefigured the Alt-Right strategically and philosophically, but if you want a more explicit, material connection: Breitbart News took its newfound notoriety to become, as its Executive Chair phrased it in 2016, "a platform for the Alt-Right." That Executive Chair was Steve Bannon, who threw the website's weight behind The Future President Who Shall Not Be Named, and, upon getting his attention, would then go on to become his campaign strategist and work in his Administration. So, if you're wondering how one of the central figures of the Alt-Right ended up in the White House, the answer is literally "GamerGate." Back to you, Ian from the past!]

In what I’m calling This Should Have Been The End, Part 2, Zoe Quinn announces that they have been lurking the #BurgersAndFries IRC channel since the beginning and releases dozens of screenshots showing harassment being planned and the selection of “ethics in games journalism” as a cover. #BurgersAndFries has a meltdown, everyone turns on each other, and the channel is abandoned. And they then start another IRC and things proceed.

It goes on like this. I’m not gonna cover everything. This is just the first month. It should be clear by now that this thing is kind of unkillable. And I worry I haven’t made it obvious that this is not just a chanboard and an IRC. Thousands of regular, every day gamers were buying the story and joining in. They were angry, and no amount of evidence that their anger was unfounded was going to change that. You could not mention or even allude to GamerGate and not get flooded with dozens, even hundreds of furious replies. These replies always included the hashtag so everyone monitoring it could join in, so all attempts at real conversation devolved into a hundred forking threads where some people expected you to talk to them while others hurled insults and slurs. And always the possibility that, if any one of them didn’t like what you said, you’d be the next target.

To combat this, some progressives offered up the hashtag #GameEthics to the people getting swept up in GamerGate, saying, “look, we get that you’re angry, and if you want to talk about ethics in games journalism, we can totally do that, but using your hashtag is literally putting us in danger; they calling the police on people saying there’s a hostage situation at their home addresses so they get sent armed SWAT teams, and if you’ll just use this other hashtag we can have the conversation you say you want to have in safety.” And I will ever stop being salty about what happened.

They refused. They wouldn’t cede any ground to what they saw as their opposition. It was so important to have the conversation on their terms that not only did they refuse to use #GameEthics, they spammed it with furry porn so no one could use it.

A few major events on the timeline before we move on: Christina Hoff Sommers, the Republican Party’s resident “feminist,” comes out criticizing Anita Sarkeesian and becomes a major GG figurehead, earning the title Based Mom. Zoe Quinn gets a restraining order against Eron Gjoni, which he repeatedly violates, to no consequence; GG will later crowdfund his legal fees. There’s this listserv called GameJournoPros where game journalists would talk about their jobs, and many are discussing their concerns over GamerGate, so Milo Yiannopoulos leaks it and this is framed as further “proof of collusion.” 4chan finally starts enforcing its “no dox” rules and shuts GamerGate threads down, so they migrate to 8chan, a site famous for hosting like a lot of child porn. Indie game developer Brianna Wu makes a passing joke about GamerGate on Twitter and they decide, seemingly on a whim, to make her one of the biggest targets in the entire movement; she soon has to leave her home as well. GamerGate gets endorsements from WikiLeaks, Infowars, white nationalist sites Stormfront and The Daily Stormer, and professional rapist RooshV. And hundreds of people get doxxed; an 8chan subforum called Baphomet is created primarily to host dox of GamerGate’s critics.

But by November, GamerGate popularity was cresting, as more and more mainstream media covered it negatively. Their last, big spike in popularity came when Anita Sarkeesian went on The Colbert Report and Stephen made fun of the movement. Their numbers never recovered after that.

Which is not to say GamerGate ended. It slowed down. The period of confusion where the mainstream world couldn’t tell whether it was a legitimate movement or not passed. But, again, most harassers faced no meaningful repercussions. Gamers who bought the lie about “ethics in games journalism” stayed mad that no one had ever taken them seriously, and harassers continued to grief their targets for years. The full timeline of GamerGate is an constant cycle of lies, harassment, operations, grift, and doxxing. Dead-enders are to this day still using the hashtag. And remember how Anita had nothing to do with ethics in games journalism or Zoe Quinn, and they just roped her in because they’d enjoyed harassing her before so why not? Every one of GamerGate’s targets knows that they may get dragged into some future harassment campaign just because. It’s already happened to several of them. They’re marked.

(sigh) Let’s take a breath.

Now that we know what GamerGate was, let’s talk about why it worked.

In the thick of GamerGate, I started compiling a list of tactics I saw them using. I wanted to make a video essay that was one part discussion of antifeminist backlash, and one part list of techniques these people use so we can better recognize and anticipate their behavior. That first part became six parts and the second part went on a back burner. It would eventually become my series, The Alt-Right Playbook. GamerGate is illustrative because most of what would become The Alt-Right Playbook was in use.

Two foundational principles of The Alt-Right Playbook are Control the Conversation and Never Play Defense. Make sure people are talking about what you want them to talk about, and take an aggressive posture so you look dominant even when you’re not making sense. For instance: once Zoe leaked the IRC chatlogs, a reasonable person could tell the average gater, “the originators of GamerGate were planning harassment from the very beginning.” But the gater would say, “you’re cherry-picking; not everyone was a harasser.”

Now, this is a bad argument - that’s not how you use “cherry-picking” - and it’s being framed as an accusation - you’re not just wrong, you’re dishonest - which makes you wanna defend yourself. But, if you do - if you tell them why that argument is crap - you’ve let the conversation move from “did the IRC plan harassment?” - a question of fact - to “are the harassers representative of the movement?” - a question of ethics. Like, yes, they are, but only within a certain moral framework. An ethics question has no provable answer, especially if people are willing to make a lot of terrible arguments. It is their goal to move any question with a definitive answer to a question of philosophy, to turn an argument they can’t win into an argument nobody can win.

The trick is to treat the question you asked like it’s already been answered and bait you into addressing the next question. By arguing about whether you’re cherry-picking, you’re accepting the premise that whether you’re cherry-picking is even relevant. Any time this happens, it’s good to pause and ask, “what did we just skip over?” Because that will tell you a lot.

What you skipped over is their admission that, yes, the IRC did plan harassment, but that’s only on them if most of the movement was in on it. Which is a load of crap - the rest of the IRC saw it happening, let it happen, it’s not like anybody warned Zoe, and shit, I’m having the cherry-picking argument! They got me! You see how tempting it is? But presumably the reason you brought the harassment up is because you want them to do something about it. At the very least, leave the movement, but ideally try and stop it. They don’t, strictly speaking, need to feel personally responsible to do that. And you might be thinking, well, maybe if I can get them take responsibility then they’ll do something, but you’d be falling for a different technique I call I Hate Mondays.

This is where people will acknowledge a terrible thing is happening, maybe even agree it’s bad, but they don’t believe anything can be done about it. They also don’t believe you believe anything can be done about it. Mondays suck, but they come around every week. This is never stated outright, but it’s why you’re arguing past each other. To them, the only reason to talk about the bad thing is to assign blame. Whose turn is it to get shit on for the unsolvable problem? Their argument about cherry-picking amounts to “1-2-3 not it.” And they are furious with you for trying to make them responsible for harassment they didn’t participate in.

The unspoken argument is that harassment is part of being on the internet. Every public figure deals with it. This ignores any concept of scale - why does one person get harassed more than another? - but you can’t argue with someone who views it as a binary: harassment either happens or it doesn’t, and, if it does, it’s a fact of life, and, if it happens to everyone, it’s not gendered. And this is not a strongly-held belief they’ve come to after years of soul-searching - this is what they’ve just decided they believe. They want to participate in GamerGate despite knowing its purpose, and this is what would need to be true for that to be ok.

Or maybe they’re just fucking with you! Maybe you can’t tell. Maybe they can’t tell, either. I call this one The Card Says Moops, where people say whatever they feel will score points in an argument and are so irony-poisoned they have no idea whether they actually believe it. A very useful trick if the thing you appear to believe is unconscionable. You can’t take what people like that say at face value; you can only intuit their beliefs from their actions. They say they believe this one minute and that another, but their behavior is always in accordance with that, not this.

In the negative space, their belief is, “The harassment of these women is okay. My anger about video games is more important. I may not be harassing them myself, but they do kind of deserve it.” They will never say this out loud in a serious conversation, though many will say it in an anonymous or irreverent space where they can later deny they meant it. But, whatever they say they believe, this is the worldview they are operating under.

Obscuring this means flipping through a lot of contradictory arguments. The harassment is being faked, or it’s not being faked but it’s being exaggerated, or it’s not being exaggerated but the target is provoking it to get attention, which means GamerGate harassers simultaneously don’t exist, exist in small numbers, and exist in such large numbers someone can build a career out of relying on them! It can be kind of fun to take all these arguments made in isolation and try to string together an actual position. Like, GamerGate would argue that Nathan Grayson having previously mentioned Zoe Quinn in an article about a canceled reality show counts as positive coverage, and since Grayson reached out to Quinn for comment it’s reasonable to assume they started dating before the article was published (which is earlier than they claim), and positive coverage did lead to greater popularity for Depression Quest. But if you untangle that, it’s like… okay, you’re saying Zoe Quinn slept with a journalist in exchange for four nonconsecutive sentences that said no more than “Zoe Quinn exists and made a game,” and the price of those four sentences was to date the journalist for months, all to get rich off a game that didn’t cost any money. That’s your movement?

And some, if cornered, would say, “yes, we believe women are just that shitty, that one would fuck a guy for months if it made them the tiniest bit more famous.” But they won’t lead with that. Because they know it won’t convince the normies, even the ones who want to be convinced. So they use a process I call The Ship of Theseus to, piece by piece, turn that sentence into “slept with a journalist in exchange for a good review” and argue that each part of the sentence is technically accurate. It’s trying to lie without lying. And, provided all the pieces of this sentence are discussed separately, and only in the context of how they justify this sentence, you can trick yourself into believing this sentence is mostly true.

So, like, why? This is clearly motivated reasoning; what’s the motivation? What was this going to accomplish?

The answer is nothing. Nothing, by design. GamerGate’s “official” channels - the subreddit and the handful of forums that didn’t shut them down - were rigidly opposed to any action more organized than an email campaign. They had a tiny handful of tangible demands - they wanted gaming websites to post public ethics policies and had a list of people they wanted fired - but their larger aim was the sea change in how games journalism operated, which nothing they were asking for could possibly give them. The kind of anger that convinces you this is a true statement is not going to be addressed by a few paragraphs about ethics and Leigh Alexander getting a new job. They wanted gaming sites to stop catering to women and “SJWs” - who were a sizable and growing source of traffic - and to get out of the pockets of companies that advertised on their websites - which was their primary source of income. So all Kotaku had to do to make them happy was solve capitalism!

Meanwhile, the unofficial channels, like 8chan and Baphomet, were planning op after op to get private information, spread lies with fake accounts, get disinformation trending, make people quit jobs, cancel gigs, and flee their homes. Concrete goals with clear results. All you had to do to feel productive was go rogue. In my video,

How to Radicalize a Normie, I describe how the Alt-Right encourages lone wolf behavior by whipping people up into a rage and then refusing to give them anything to do, while surrounding them with examples of people taking matters into their own hands. The same mechanism is in play here: the public-facing channels don’t condone harassment but also refuse to fight it, the private channels commit it under cover of anonymity, and there is a free flow of traffic between them for when the official channels’ impotence becomes unbearable.

What I hope I’m illustrating is how these techniques play off of each other, how they create a closed ecosystem that rational thought cannot enter. There’s a phrase we use on the internet that got thrown around a lot at the time:

you can’t logic someone out of a position they didn’t logic themselves into.

Now, there are a few other big topics I think are relevant here, so I want to go through them one by one.

MEMEIFICATION

So a lot of interactions with GamerGate would involve a very insular knowledge base.

Like, you’d say something benign but progressive on Twitter.

A gater would show up in your mentions and say something aggressive and false.

You’d correct them. But then they’d come back and hit you with -

ah shit, sorry, this is a Loss meme.

If I were in front of a classroom I’d ask, show of hands, how many of you got that? I had to ask Twitter recently, does Gen Z know about Loss?!

If you don’t know what Loss is I’m not sure I can explain it to you. It’s this old, bad webcomic that was parodied so, so, so many times

that it was reduced to its barest essentials, to the point where any four panels with shapes in this arrangement is a Loss meme. For those of you in the know, you will recognize this anywhere, but have you ever tried to explain to someone who wasn’t in the know why this is really fuckin’ funny?

So, now… by the same process that this is a comics joke,

this is a rape joke.

I’m not gonna show the original image, but, once upon a time, someone made an animated GIF of the character Piccolo from Dragon Ball Z graphically raping Vegeta. 4chan loved it so much that it got posted daily, became known as the “daily dose,” until mods started deleting every incident of it. So they uploaded slightly edited version of it. Then they started uploading other images that had been edited with Piccolo’s color scheme. It got so abstracted that eventually any collection of purple and green pixels would be recognized as Piccolo Dick.

Apropos of nothing, GamerGate is a movement that insists it is not sexist in nature and it does not condone threats of rape against the women they don’t like. And this is their logo. This is their mascot.

If you’re familiar with the Daily Dose, the idea that GamerGate would never support Eron Gjoni if they believed he was a sexual abuser is so blatantly insincere it’s insulting… but imagine trying to explain to someone who’s not on 4chan how this sweater is a rape joke. Imagine having to explain it to a journalist. Imagine having to explain it to the judge enforcing your abuser’s restraining order.

Reactionaries use meme culture not just because they’re terminally online but also because it makes their behavior seem either benign or just confusing to outsiders. They find it hilarious that they can be really explicit and still fly under the radar. The Alt-Right did this with Pepe the Frog, the OK sign, even the milk glass emoji for a hot minute. The more inexplicable the meme, the better. You get the point where Stephen Miller is flashing Nazi signs from the White House and the Presidential re-eletion campaign is releasing 88 ads of exactly 14 words and there’s still a debate about whether the administration is racist. Because journalists aren’t going to get their heads around that. You tell them “1488 is a Nazi number,” it’s gonna seem a lot more plausible that you’re making shit up.

MOVE FAST AND BREAK THINGS

Online movements like GamerGate move at a speed and mutation rate too high for the mainstream world to keep up. And not just that they don’t understand the memes - they don’t understand the infrastructure.

In an attempt to cover GamerGate evenhandedly, George Wiedman of Super Bunnyhop interviewed a lawyer who specializes in journalistic ethics. He meant well; I really wish he hadn’t. You can see him trying to fit something like GamerGate into terms this silver-haired man who works in copyright law can understand. At one point he asks if it’s okay to fund the creative project of a potential journalistic source, to which the guy understandably says “no.”

What he’s alluding to here is the harassment of Jenn Frank. A few weeks into GamerGate, Jenn Frank writes a piece in The Guardian about sexism in tech that mentions Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn. In another case of “here’s a strongly-held belief I just decided I have,” GamerGate says this is a breach of journalistic ethics because Frank backs Quinn on Patreon. They harass her so intensely she not only has to quit her job at The Guardian, for several months she quits journalism entirely.

Off the bat, calling a public figure central to a major event in the field a “journalistic source” is flatly wrong-headed. Quinn was not interviewed or even contacted for the article, they were in no way a “source”; they were a subject. But I want to talk about this phrase, “fund a creative project.” Patreon is functionally a subscription; it’s a way of buying things. It’s technically accurate that Frank is funding Quinn’s creative project, but only in the sense that you are funding Bob Dylan’s creative project if you listen to his music. And saying Frank therefore can’t write about Quinn is like saying a music journalist can’t cover a Bob Dylan concert if they’ve ever bought his albums.

And we could talk about the ways that Patreon, as compared with other funding models, can create a greater sense of intimacy, and we also could comment that, well, that’s how an increasing number of people consume media now, so that perspective should be present in journalism. But maybe it means we should cover that perspective differently? I don’t know. It’s an interesting subject. But none of that’s going on in this conversation because this guy doesn’t know what Patreon is. It was only a year old at this point. Patreon’s been a primary source of my income for 5 years and my parents still don’t know what it is. (I think they think I’m a freelancer?) This guy hears “funding a creative project” and he’s thinking an investor, someone who makes a profit off the source’s success.

The language of straight society hasn’t caught up with what’s happening, and that works in GamerGate’s favor.

In the years since GamerGate we have dozens of stories of people trying to explain Twitter harassment to a legal system that’s never heard of Twitter. People trying to explain death threats to cops whose only relationship to the internet is checking email, confusedly asking, “Why don’t you just not go online?” Like, yeah, release your text game about depression at GameStop for the PS3 and get it reviewed in the Boston Globe, problem solved.

You see this in the slowness of mainstream journalists to condemn the harassment - hell, even games journalists at first. Because what if it is a legitimate movement? What if the harassers are just a fringe element? What if there was misconduct? The people in a position to stop GamerGate don’t have to be convinced of their legitimacy, they just have to hesitate. They just have to be unsure. Remember how much happened in just the first two weeks, how it took only a month to become unkillable.

It’s the same hesitance that makes mainstream media, online platforms, and law enforcement underestimate The Alt-Right. They’re terrified of condemning a group as white nationalist terrorists because they’re confused, and what if they’re wrong? Or, in most cases, not even afraid they’re wrong, but afraid of the PR disaster if too much of the world thinks they’re wrong.

ACCOUNTABILITY AND CONTROL

A thing I’ve talked about in The Alt-Right Playbook is how these decentralized, ostensibly leaderless movements insulate themselves from responsibility. Harassment is never the movement’s fault because they never told anyone to harass and you can’t prove the harassers are legitimate members of the movement. The Alt-Right does this too - one of their catchphrases is “I disavow.” Since there are no formalized rules for membership, they can redraw boundaries on the fly; they can take credit for any successes and deny responsibility for any wrongdoing. Public membership is granted or revoked based on a person’s moment-to-moment utility.

It’s almost like… they’re cherry-picking.

The flipside of this is a lack of control. Since they never officially tell anyone to do anything but write emails, they have no means of stopping anyone from behaving counterproductively. The harassment of Jenn Frank was the first time GamerGate’s originators thought, “maybe we should ease off just to avoid bad publicity,” and they found they couldn’t. GamerGate had gotten too big, and too many people were clearly there for precisely this reason.

They also couldn’t control the infighting. When your goal is to harass women and you have all these contradictory justifications for why, you end up with a lot of competing beliefs. And, you know what? Angry white men who like harassing people don’t form healthy relationships! Several prominent members of GamerGate - including Internet Aristocrat - got driven out by factionalism; they were doxxed by their own people! Jordan Owen and Davis Aurini parted ways hating each other, with Aurini releasing chatlogs of him gaslighting Owen about accepting an endorsement from Roosh, and they released two competing edits of The Sarkeesian Effect.

I say this because it’s useful to know that these are alliances of convenience. If you know where the sore spots are, you can apply pressure to them.

LEADERS WITHOUT LEADERSHIP

One way movements like GamerGate deflect responsibility is by declaring, “We are a leaderless movement! We have no means to stop harassment.”

Which… any anarchist will tell you collective action is entirely possible without leaders. But they’ll also tell you, absent a system of distributing power equitably, you’re gonna have leaders, just not ones you elected.

A few months into GamerGate, Randi Lee Harper created the ggautoblocker. Here’s what it did: it took five prominent GamerGate figures - Adam Baldwin, Mike Cernovich, Christina Hoff Sommers, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Nick Monroe, formerly known as [sigh] PressFartToContinue - and generated a block list of everyone who followed at least two of them on Twitter. Now, this became something of an arms race; once GamerGate found out about it they made secondary accounts that followed different people, and more and more prominent figures appeared and had to get added to the list. But, when it first launched, the list generated from just these five people comprised an estimated 90-95% of GamerGate.

Hate to break it to you, guys, but if 90+ percent of your movement is following at least two of the same five people, those are your leaders. The attention economy has produced them. Power pools when left on its own.

This is another case where you have to ignore what people claim and look at what they do. The Alt-Right loves to say “we disavow Richard Spencer” and “Andrew Anglin doesn’t speak for us.”

But no matter what they say, pay attention to whom they’re taking cues from.

AD CAMPAIGN

George Lakoff has observed that one way the Left fails in opposition to the Right is that most liberal politicians and campaigners have degrees in things like law and political science, where conservative campaigners more often have degrees in advertising and communications. Liberals and leftists may have a better product to sell, but conservatives know how to sell products.

GamerGate less resembles a boots-on-the-ground political movement than an ad campaign. First they decide what their messaging strategy is going to be. Then the media arm starts publicizing it. They seek out celebrity endorsements. They get their own hashtag and mascot. They donate to charity and literally call it “public relations.” You can even see the move from The Quinnspiracy to GamerGate as a rebranding effort - when one name got too closely associated with harassment, they started insisting GamerGate was an entirely separate movement from The Quinnspiracy. I learned that trick from Stringer Bell’s economics class.

Now, we could stand to learn a thing or two from this. But I also wouldn’t want us to adopt this strategy whole hog; you should view moves like these as red flags. If you’re hesitating to condemn a movement because what if it’s legitimate, take a look at whether they’re selling ideology like it’s Pepsi.

PERCEPTION IS EVERYTHING

One reason to insist you’re a consumer revolt rather than a harassment campaign is most people who want to harass need someone to give them permission, and need someone to tell them it’s normal.

Bob Altemeyer has this survey he uses to study authoritarianism. He divides respondents into people with low, average, and high authoritarian sentiments, and then tells them what the survey has measured and asks, “what score do you think is best to have: low, average, or high?”

People with low authoritarian sentiments say it’s best to be low. People with average authoritarian sentiments also say it’s best to be low. But people with high authoritarian sentiments? They say it’s best to be average. Altemeyer finds, across all his research, that reactionaries want to aggress, but only if it is socially acceptable. They want to know they are the in-group and be told who the out-group is. They don’t particularly care who the out-group is, Altemeyer finds they’ll aggress against any group an authority figure points to, even, if they don’t notice it, a group that contains them. They just have to believe the in-group is the norm.

This is why they have to believe games journalism is corrupt because of a handful of feminist media critics with outsized influence. Legitimate failures of journalism cannot be systemic problems rooted in how digital media is funded and consumed; there cannot be a legitimate market for social justice-y media. It has to be manipulation by the few. Because, if these things are common, then, even if you don’t like them, they’re normal. They’re part of the in-group. Reactionary politics is rebellion against things they dislike getting normalized, because they know, if they are normalized, they will have to accept them. Because the thing they care about most is being normal.

This is why the echo chamber, this is why Fox News, this is why the Far Right insists they are the “silent majority.” This is why they artificially inflate their numbers. This is why they insist facts are “biased.” They have to maintain the image that what are, in material terms, fringe beliefs are, in fact, held by the majority. This is why getting mocked by Stephen Colbert was such a blow to GamerGate. It makes it harder to believe the world at large agrees with them.

This is why, if you’re trying to change the world for the better, it’s pointless to ask their permission. Because, if you change the world around them, they will adapt even faster than you will.

THE ARGUMENT ISN’T SUPPOSED TO END

Casey Explosion has this really great Twitter thread comparing the Alt-Right to Scary Terry from Rick and Morty. His catchphrase is “you can run but you can’t hide, bitch.” And Rick and Morty finally escape him by hiding. And Morty’s all, “but he said we can’t hide,” and Rick is like, “why are we taking his word on this? if we could hide, he certainly wouldn’t tell us.”

The reason to argue with a GamerGater is on the implied agreement that, if you can convince them they’re part of a hate mob, they will leave. But look at the incentives here: they want to be in GamerGate, and you want them not to be. But they’re already in GamerGate. They’re not waiting on the outcome of this argument to participate. They’ve already got what they want; they don’t need to convince you GamerGate isn’t a hate mob.

This is why all their logic and rationalizations are shit, because they don’t need to be good. They’re not trying to win an argument. They’re trying to keep the argument going.

This has been a precept of conservative political strategy for decades. “You haven’t convinced us climate change is real and man-made, you need to do more studies.” They’re not pausing the use of fossil fuels until the results come in. “You haven’t convinced us there are no WMDs in Iraq, you need to collect more evidence.” They’re not suspending the war until you get back to them. “You haven’t convinced us that Reaganomic tax policy causes recessions, let’s just do it for another forty years and see what happens.” And when the proof comes in, they send us out for more, and we keep going.

The biggest indicator you can’t win a debate with a reactionary is they keep telling you you can. The biggest indicator protest and deplatforming works is they keep telling you in plays into their hands. The biggest indicator that you shouldn’t compromise with Republicans is they keep saying doing otherwise is stooping to their level. They’re not going to walk into the room and say, “Hi, my one weakness is reasoned argument, let’s pick a time and place to hash this out.”

And we fall for it because we’re trying to be decent people. Because we want to believe the truth always wins. We want to bargain in good faith, and they are weaponizing our good faith against us. Always dangling the carrot that the reason they’re like this is no one’s given them the right argument not to be. It’s all just a misunderstanding, and, really, it’s on us for not trying hard enough.

But they have no motivation to agree with us. Most of the people asking for debates have staked their careers on disagreeing with us. Conceding any point to the Left could cost them their livelihood.

WHY GAMES?

Let’s close with the big question: why games? And, honestly, the short answer is:

why not games?

Games culture has always presented itself as a hobby for young, white, middle class boys. It’s always been bigger and more diverse than that, but that’s how it was marketed, and that’s who most felt they belonged. As gaming grows bigger, there is suddenly room for those marginal voices that have always been there to make themselves heard. And, as gaming becomes more mainstream, it’s having its first brushes with serious critical analysis.

This makes the people who have long felt gaming was theirs and theirs alone anxious and a little angry. They’ve invested a lot of their identity in it and they don’t want it to change.

And what the Far Right sees in a sizable collection of aggrieved young men is an untapped market. This is why sites like Stormfront and Breitbart flocked to them. These are not liberals they have to convert, these people are, up til now, not politically engaged. The Right can be their first entry to politics.

The world was changing. Nerd properties were exploding into popular culture in tandem with media representation diversifying. And we were living with the first Black President. Any time an out-group looks like it might join the in-group, there is a self-protective backlash from the existing in-group. This had been brewing for a while, and, honestly, if it hadn’t boiled over in games, it would have boiled over somewhere else.

And, in the years since GamerGate, it has. The Far Right has tapped the comics, Star Wars, and sci-fi fandoms; they tried to get in with the furry community but failed spectacularly. They’re all over YouTube and, frankly, the atheist community was already in their pocket. Basically, if you’re in community with a bunch of young white guys who think they own the place, you might wanna have some talks with them sooner than later.

Anyway, if you want to know more about any of this stuff, RationalWiki’s timeline on GamerGate is pretty thorough. You can also watch my or Dan Olson’s videos on the subject. I’ll be putting the audio of this talk on YouTube and will put as many resources as I can in the show notes. The channel, again, is Innuendo Studios.

Sorry this was such a bummer.

Thank you for your time.

[sparklyeevee]

If you have the time/inclination, could you talk about the overlap between propagandistic rhetoric and communication disorders?

That line really hit on some experiences I’ve had (and am trying to deconstruct so I can more easily push past my gut reaction and be a better ally in the future)

I will do my best. This might be a little wide-ranging, and potentially disorganized in exactly the unsettling way I was talking about, because it's something I've only noticed recently and it sometimes takes me a very long time to get my thoughts into an easily communicable order when I see a pattern. (Note also, I'm gonna mostly use "they" when talking about people with communication disorders. I do also have one, but it is not of a type or severity so as to cause most of the problems described below).

When someone has difficulty putting their thoughts into words at all, or has a limited vocabulary, or is trying to work around a stutter, there are some things they tend to do. They might repeatedly circle back and express the same idea in slightly different ways, while trying to narrow down on exactly what they mean, or to express it clearly to an interlocutor who didn't get it, or might not have gotten it, the first time. They might use wonky vocabulary - longer or more technical words than are necessary, language so simplified it's legitimately unclear, or word choices that are slightly...off, so that you're pretty sure you know what they mean, but you can't be totally sure because it's not what they said. (Sometimes it's similar sounding words, like using 'mortified' when they probably meant 'horrified', sometimes it's using words with slightly different connotations, like my ex who would say "seal" any time he meant "close", even if it was like, a tab in his browser). They might start a sentence hoping they'll figure out how to say the end of it by the time they get there and then not manage it, so they just kinda trail off and hope you know what they mean. When discussing the usage or meaning of words, they might focus very hard on etymologies or dictionary definitions, especially if those are tools they were taught to use in speech therapy. They may struggle more than other people to update to Approved Language for sensitive topics. They may try to preemptively address disagreements or misunderstandings that were not actually likely. A lotta people with communication disorders are also someways neurodivergent, so they may speak at an unusual volume, have tonal weirdness, interrupt more frequently, or have more trouble dealing with interruptions from others.

Sometimes they'll also like... I don't have a good way to describe this one. A little over a year ago, I was helping my partner design a roleplaying game (I don't like, on purpose only date people with communication disorders, but it sure has worked out that way), and I had an idea about how to address a potential issue, but I wanted to make sure I understood it correctly. So I asked "So [thing] works like [description], right?" And he said "No" and then launched into an explanation of the whole subsystem, including the exact thing I was asking about, which did, in fact, work how I'd said. He was acting based on his own anxiety that since I hadn't included every single thing about the mechanic under discussion, he might not have explained it properly. But naturally I felt like he was trying to maintain control of the conversation and status as the person who knew what was going on by telling me I was wrong when I wasn't and hoping I wouldn't notice. So I guess... Prioritizing making sure they've said what they wanted to say, and expressed themself clearly, over any of the other things that might matter in a conversation.

The effect, often, is that following what they're saying at all can require your full attention and engagement, without any brain left over to consider your own responses or assess whether you agree with what they're saying, whether it makes sense, etc. And, y'know, a fair amount of repetition, which we know from science can make someone more likely to believe something. Someone delivering propaganda wants this effect, that you have to pay close attention and have trouble thinking clearly about what they're saying, and will deliberately use similar techniques to that end, where the person with a communication disorder will use them mostly by accident in the course of trying to express themself at all. Similarly, someone using propagandist rhetoric may speak a little too loudly, to make it harder to think, and to increase the emotional charge of what they're saying, or too softly, to further force you to focus on understanding what they're saying. Someone with a communication disorder may do the same thing just because they don't regulate their volume well.

By interrupting, responding harshly to interruption, or behaving as though any objection, disagreement, or confusion on your part is clearly you failing to understand them, the propagandist makes it more difficult to marshal a coherent response, and retains control of the conversation. The person with a communication disorder may do the same things on impulse, or in an effort to retain enough control of the conversation that they can say their thing at all, or in response to experiences indicating that disagreement or confusion are the result of them not being clear.

(None of this is meant to imply that someone with a communication disorder can't also be doing propaganda. They totally can. But if, y'know, you're talking about a TV show you both like and your interlocutor is using conversational tactics better suited to a street corner evangelist or one of those angry YouTube people, chances are they just have a communication disorder.)

Unhelpfully, leftist social circles are basically more hostile to communication disorders than far right social circles. The pressure for up-to-the-minute word choice and complex unspoken rules about who should be given more conversational airspace on which topics are obvious problems. But in my experience, leftists are also more likely to have an implicit belief that good communication = maturity = being a valid person. People who can't communicate well are reflexively evaluated as immature, too much work, even toxic, especially (but not exclusively) if they're unwilling or unable to preface Every Single Interaction with like "I have a communication disorder, please be patient". This means that a lot of people with communication disorders (especially men and boys, who are more likely to have communication disorders in the first place) end up spending at least some time in libertarian, MRA, rationalist, or otherwise... Bad social contexts, because that's who will have them. Plenty of them get past it eventually, but often they carry the communication patterns typical of those groups with them into the wider world, where it brings them under additional suspicion. My partner one time asked for feedback on why people were getting angry at something he wrote in a Facebook comment, and I told him like, "There's nothing wrong with what you actually said, but you write like an MRA". And he was like "Well yeah, they were the only people willing to listen long enough to understand me."

Nothing in the above paragraph directly relates to the overlap between communication disorders and propagandist rhetoric, but it exacerbates the social problems that overlap can cause.

Thank you for asking about this - this is the best I've done so far at actually laying out my thoughts about it. Also please feel free to ask if you have more questions or need clarification.