#the site is Fucking Dead. the reason people left is because the creators. i think were forced to sell out? but they have the rights back.

[wetpapert0wel]

hey......what if. instead of tumblr making their own gaiaonline avi things......what if we just went to gaia online.......

[antiyourwokehomophobia2]

I got to be so real I kind of have mixed feelings about this post, and I'm not as mad rereading it as I was the first time I read it.

On one hand, I kind of agree that doing fucked up things to a fictional character doesn't necessarily mean that you're bad.

If I write a story in which a child is put to death, I'm not suddenly in favor of children dying. The person who wrote "the lottery" isn't in favor of people being stoned to death just because they wrote about it. I write stories all the time where characters are subject to homophobia or racism or general bigotry and I'm obviously not in favor of those things. However, there's a reason some stories that deal with the same subject matter are better received than others. There's a reason that even though "Avatar: the last Airbender" was written by two white men it's not called racist like some other works by white creators that handle POC.

I feel like the idea that how you approach fiction and fictional characters says absolutely nothing about you is insane.

If you watch a piece of media and then you go to write fanfiction about the media and you give all the white characters a good, happy ending but give all of the black characters sad ones where they're beaten to death, I absolutely think that says something about you! If you read/watch media with a fictional child and immediately want to write a story in which that child is raped by one of their parents, I absolutely think that says something about you and your character! The characters might be fictional, but you are not. Your choices do not exist in a vacuum. Why do you want to produce and see media where people of color end up unhappy and/or dead? Why do you want to write a lot of non-con? why do you want to see two siblings fuck?

Even though you didn't do anything to anybody in real life, I have to side eye why you're obsessed with seeing and writing that type of content. If you're writing a rape scene just because you like it (you don't comment on it or anything. In fact, it hardly ever comes up again) then yea, I do think you're probably a bit fucked up.

A white woman who writes all of her black male characters as "big" and "manly" and "dangerous" and "dominant" is absolutely revealing something about herself through her fiction! Maybe the fake black guy isn't being objectified since he's not real, but you can't seriously tell me that the white woman who wrote him has not revealed anything about how she views black men lmao. You can't tell me you'd seriously believe her when she says she's not racist.

I mean this site in particular talks all the time about the way certain groups are portrayed by certain authors. This site will be the first to cancel authors who write marginalized people in an unsavory light. If you think the fiction you consume doesn't matter, then you can never say anything about representation mattering ever again. A black child who only ever sees white characters cannot be influenced by that because fiction doesn't matter, right? You can't cancel an author for being racist. So what if all of their characters of color are portrayed as violent and evil? If what you write doesn't say anything about you, then that author is not racist at all!

I mean, seriously. How many authors have been canceled because they wrote black characters in a way that left the viewers with a bad taste in their mouths? How you choose to treat fictional characters absolutely says something about you!

I understand that fiction is how a lot of people deal with stuff. If something bad happened to you when you were a kid, you might want to see your favorite character go through that and overcome it, but the thing is: I feel like there's a line. I feel like too many of you use past trauma to justify what has honestly just become a paraphilia. Some of you don't read media about SA because you were SA'd and are trying to deal with it; you read it because you have a 'kink' for it. Too many of you hide under "healing" when you genuinely just get off on seeing fucked up things happen to characters. It's no secret that people who have experienced trauma sometimes go on to become abusive and perverse themselves.

The things that you enjoy and dedicate time to absolutely say something about you! Whether you think it says something good or bad doesn't matter, but the idea that it just exists in a vacuum and says absolutely nothing about your character and who you are as a person is quite frankly insane!

Even if you're writing it because you're trying to deal with trauma that happened to you or you're trying to create a safe space for people who have been through fucked up stuff, that says something about your character and who you are as a person. The stories you dedicate your time to reading and writing absolutely reveal who you are. We talk endlessly about the misogyny of male writers in the past and present. If posts like the one linked were true, then it wouldn't matter if a man spent all day writing stories where every single female character of his is treated like shit and assaulted. Media would be entirely unable to be criticized because the fictional characters aren't real and thus how you treat them says nothing. If a man with three daughters wrote a story where a fictional father SA'd all three of his children, that wouldn't be cause for concern at all? It'd say absolutely nothing about him? You wouldn't side eye him? You wouldn't be concerned if a primary school teacher spent all day writing stories where children are molested? You would send your child to a school with a teacher like that and be completely and utterly okay because "the fiction you write and consume says nothing"?

Of course there is nuance, but I don't like the way this post seems to absolve anyone into fucked up fictional stuff of guilt. No, reading and writing fucked up stuff does not *automatically* make you bad, but if you're doing it uncritically and because you get off on it, I'm not gonna pretend that's irrelevant to who you are as a person.

[tarnussy]

Ok I have to ask about the tags on the Malenia fandom post... How the hell did they try to make Godrick a pedophile

There are 2 occasions that stood out to me: According to the first one, he is a pedophile and a rapist because the dead dragon didn't consent to be grafted (like???). Then there was mention of the grafted scions as well, tho that was in a separate post if I remember correctly. (Of course, creepy kids when Godrick -> bad!!! Creepy kids when Rennala -> good) This wasn't on a small account either, and like so, a whole eco chamber decided it's now canon. Based on who this person's fav character is, this assumption was extremely hypocritical. They called out this behavior from fans against their fav character (which was right 100% to call them out) but then, they turned around and did the same behavior they resented so much, this time against people who like Godrick (I assume bc usually his fans stay quiet or just ignore it, or are bullied off the site). Second one: person had a client at work who was overly kind in a smarmy way, so he was labeled creepy and "must have been a pedophile" all based on vibes, and then according to that logic they thought Godrick was one too simply based on their personal vibes (and seeing him in the worst faith possible). They had a feeling he was like that, and so people who like him were no different (according to this person). Second person was actively making the fandom as unenjoyable as possible. Their genuine goal was to make fandom experience fucking vile for anyone who liked Godrick (or anyone that liked a character they didn't like, all which I happen to like). And not just this person but a whole group of their besties who flocked to this behavior like flies to a pile of steaming shit. Just because why not, I suppose. I do feel like my experience with ER would have been much better if I never checked the tags or the fandom ever. Which is hard bc I am a creator myself and I used to monitor main tags because of my own posts as well. Before becoming an active blog, I liked nearly every character (M@lenia was my favourite female character back then!) but I'm unfortunately the type of person whose brain holds onto bad memories a lot and also associates characters with bad apples like this. And M@lenia's apples almost all seem super fucking bad. Very similar to stans of Alcin@ Dimitr3scu, same level of witch hunts as well. At this point there is no way I could ever look at M@lenia and not immediately think of all the disgusting, hypocritical and unfair behavior a big portion of her fans have been doing for years. Which is sad bc I think she is a cool character and I think she has chill fans as well who are nice. Too bad they are overpowered by the most loud ones. And it has an extreme level of irony bc this same type of fan is the one to scream into the void how awful Radahn fans are. I can 100% tell, since I am on every single social media for my ER accounts and interact with people everywhere, that Radahn fans are nowhere near on the same level. Sure, they have their arguments or even slightly problematic behavior but it's never at a level of personal witch hunts and ganging up on others. I know a couple of people who (similarly to me) liked both Godrick and M@lenia at some point, and just altogether left the fandom because of the constant attacks and arguments her fans were doing. So this is a way bigger issue than it seems. And ofc anyone who ever dared to speak about it was either witch hunted or ganked in the tags. I had multiple people hit me up in privately about this back when it was going down, so that definitely reassured me it wasn't just my observation. And, you know, fandom should be fun. Why be a petty asshole for no reason? And to a level that is very much harmful in real life? So their "it's just a game" shit-ass argument when you call out this behavior has no place when it comes to organized harassment that affects people in real life. And somehow it's always the perps who cry wolf. And everyone else who is affected should stay quiet in fear of witch hunt against them. You see this wall of text above? This is me keeping it short. Only scraping the surface here.

[alovelyburn]

I think the craziest part about Griffith in my mind is that he probably would've been the most popular character in Berserk if he didn't assault Casca. Like he's very well written and his motives were pretty understandable. It's just the one thing he solely did out of spite ruins him for people.

I do agree with this - he's the type of antagonist that tends to commandeer fandoms more often than not in most fandoms. Which is why it always bugs me out that people are so hostile to him. I do realize it's the rape but that's kind of difficult for me to fathom for... maybe three main reasons.

First, I just have a hard time understanding people being angry at fictional characters for things that never actually happened. I have long since come to realize that I'm the only one in the universe like this aside from @zombiesgohome lmao but it doesn't make it any easier to fathom for me, I straight up can't understand it.

Second, tbh, is that Griffith didn't even do it, Femto did. One of the things that really bugs me out about Berserk's English-speaking fandom is how ... not even unable but like unwilling people are to acknowledge any difference whatsoever between human Griffith and Femto/NeoGriffith to the point where they just straight up make shit up about Griffith (like that he's a serial rapist and raped Charlotte) in order to support their obviously incorrect theory that he was just a monster from day one. And it's especially weird because this concept - the "Person was different before they were turned into a [whatever. vampire/demon/werewolf/zombie/lich/whatever] and now they're very different" thing - isn't exactly uncommon. And in Griffith's case, we are repeatedly told that he's changed and that his heart is frozen. Even Miura himself explicitly rejected the concept that Griffith was Just Evil (hell he kinda rejected the idea that Griffith is evil NOW). And yet....

They don't care, they ignore the story, they ignore the creator, they somehow imagine that a child who engages in self-harm while claiming that he's fine is actually literally completely fine, or that someone who has an emotional breakdown and self-destructs when left by Guts is just having a tantrum because he lost his toy. They imagine that he's spoiled even though he literally grew up on the street. They even blame him for his own extreme and prolonged torture and it's just fucking weird, I've never seen anything like it in my life. I think this is the thing that I find most baffling of everything in any fandom I have ever been in, and it will never, ever, ever make sense to me.

And third, this has a lot to do with my personal experience in fandoms, but Berserk was literally the first fandom I ever encountered that would have cared about this.

I'm a fandom veteran, you know? When I see people trying to argue that AO3 should ban [insert dead dove: do not eat topic here], it's just incredibly ironic to me because the reason AO3 exists is that Livejournal tried to enforce rules against what would now be considered problematic content and people were so angry that they started plotting an escape from the site. It's also the reason Dreamwidth exists.

So basically... when I first finished reading Berserk, I was genuinely shocked by how hated Griffith was because in literally every fandom I'd been in until then he would've been the most popular character even with the SA. Hell a lot of people would've just used it as a diving board off which to launch their darkfic.

And it's so odd to me that like... so many fandoms were out there trying to infuse into their canon the things that Berserk fans were angry about having to see.

[echobx]

oh I'm ranting again. but ig by now you guys know that I can't keep my mouth shut. so to add to the list of all the apparently unpopular opinions that I have...

I don't actually think role play (rp) (and real people fanfic (rpf)) is bad, not if it's characters, and also not if it's celebrities.

"How can you say that? What's wrong with you?" I mean, there's plenty wrong with me but not here. Especially not here. I'm aware of my "controversial" takes when it comes to fandom, but honestly, the only reason you find them controversial (if you do) is because you haven't been in fandom long enough. Which, I will grant, is difficult if you are 1. not old enough to know better 2. are in a fandom that is rather young, like OBX is. But telling people what to do and not to do, simply based on you not wanting to see it, is simply and clearly an act of censorship. Now I'm not saying that it equates to the censorship our governments are trying to put on us in online communities (especially in the US recently) but it lays a ground for the politicians to base their argument on. Because when you go and spread around that some things "shouldn't be done" and "shouldn't be written" and "shouldn't be drawn" that creates a base layer of what politicians will take and say "see, they want us to censor them" and that is never ever good. bc it might at first be role play and "dead dove, do not eat" types of content, but it will really quickly lead to the banning of queer content, and I won't fucking stand for that.

so, yes, you might cringe at RP and other things, but you also have the possibility to simply block those accounts, to block the tags to filter your own online experience, especially on tumblr since it's the only truly user friendly social media site that we have left.

and on the fact of people bringing up Chappell Roan in this discussion. Chappell very clearly said that she feels uncomfortable irl bc it happens IN HER REAL LIFE. if she cared about people just talking online about her without any irl reason for it, she would've said that. but she didn't. she was rightfully pissed that people approached her irl and didn't take no for and answer and only after that they went online and talked shit about her. this is entirely different to RP. (it also reminds me how straight people forced Kit Connor to come out and then blamed queer people for it, when no queer person ever made him feel the need to come out because we accepted him even when he was in the public closet)

RP is clearly tagged as such, the people who do it are very much aware that it's a game, and not real. if you can't make that distinction, that's on you. not the person who RPs or the people who interact with the RP.

side note: if RPing is bad, why are you watching historical dramas based on real people? why is it okay for the industry to make bank on the lives of dead AND living people, but a normal person can't do the same without getting paid? maybe you should also think about that, because it's literally the same. y'all watched Elvis and Bohemian Rhapsody and The Crown and so many more shows and movies that are based on real people but aren't what actually happened 100% and that is okay, but when fandom does it you want it to be wrong and a moral failure? get a grip.

there's a clear line between fiction and reality and it's not the creator's fault for you to go and blurr that line because you don't understand the rules. RP and RPF have been part of fandom culture since the beginning, and just because you don't like it, doesn't mean it will go away, because there's nothing wrong with it.

just do with RP/RPF what you do with more important things in our daily lives, more serious matters. Look Away. bc clearly you are good at it any times else.

[wizardessheart-sideb]

Can you pls show me some more otome tumblr blogs! I was so hoping for a Vain, Viggo and Zett route... Where is the best otome community site, like reddit or discord or something?

owo yeah, here are some of my friends/fave blogs!

@swordsmanofsweets @lizzylunawizardessfanfics @nadia-the-wizardess @leonthecardboardunicorn @florinarden @wizardessfleur @sigurdcurtisholdsmegentle @uraminowaltz

So for community sites. I think this can be pretty subjective so I’m gonna try and like, fully explain pros and cons and why I like it. In my opinion, I would consider Tumblr the best otome community site. I’d say it’s fairly easy to find fandoms on Tumblr and if you want to reach out to people, you can pretty easily do it. However, the biggest reason I love Tumblr is because it’s a very low-pressure social media site. This site allows for a lot of anonymity and I really, really appreciate that. Here I can talk all about how I want Hugo Peers to Wreck Me and everyone’s like “me too” but if I said same things on other platforms, it’d be a one-way ticket to Horny Jail. Jokes aside tho, there’s more anonymity here and the site is better set up for all kinds of posts, in my opinion. One con is tho is that because most interactions on this site happen privately, it can be a little intimidating to reach others.

Discord: Another huge favorite of mine. I absolutely adore Discord. I think it’s an amazing tool for making close friends with other people in the fandom and Discord is honestly such a solid program anyway. You can just go to a place and talk to people with the same interests and just have a good time. The major downside is is that like any group chat with friends, there can be a LOT of drama. I know with the old WH RP server there was drama every so often. Another downside to Discord is is that you really have to already know people to get into servers and I would say there’s bound to be drama and stuff in servers so that’s unfortunately something you can count on happening at some point.

Facebook: I honestly don’t like Facebook in general, but I also really don’t like the Facebook side of the fandom. A lot of people are always so rude and awful on the official SWD page and tbh it’s really soured my opinion of the Facebook side of the WH fandom to the point I don’t want to engage with any of them. I know there’s otome groups you can join on Facebook, however I’ve not joined any of them and Facebook seems like a hella public site where people can easily snoop into you and your life. So I’m not a huge fan of it, but I do have friends who are in otome groups on Facebook and I guess it’s fine since they haven’t left? I don’t know.

Reddit: This is by far my least favorite site. So the pros first bc I have a lot of cons. Certain games can have their own subreddits and it can feel like a more streamlined experience as opposed to tumblr. Now for cons:

If your fave game doesn’t have a subreddit, you either have to start your own or go to the generic otome subreddit

It honestly has the feel of “we’re in a less friendly discord/skype group for a certain game, but everything we say is public record and not private at ALL”

People on Reddit can be a little crazy sometimes.

I’m going to be 100% honest, although I’m subscribed to the otome subreddit, I really only use Reddit to keep up with influencer, make up brand, and make up guru drama so I can consume makeup as ethically as possible and stay informed about content creators bc following all of those make up peeps on twitter and insta is unnecessary and would be exhausting. 

Twitter: Again, I’m not super into the otome scene on Twitter, but I think it’s so-so. Twitter isn’t a great site for writers but great for artists so there’s that. It’s also a SUPER PUBLIC SITE like. Again, if I said something like not even that racy like “I wanna bone Hugo Peers” everyone on tumblr would be like “yeah mood he’s pretty” but if I said that on Twitter I feel like loads of people would just come and kill me On Sight. Not to mention as a queer person, I’m really uncomfortable with Twitter for a lot of reasons that I’m not going to get into. Overall, I feel like Twitter’s good for artists and short shitposters, but that’s really it. 

I can’t speak for other sites like Insta, Tik Tok, and Byte. I’m basically only in cosplay, drag instagram, and love live dance cover insta so I don’t know any otome accounts. Tik Tok is a horrible, horrible app and I think their attempts to silence people who are queer, dark-skinned, fat and/or don’t fit into the very narrow beauty “standard” is fucking disgusting and I refuse to use the app. Byte is a lot better of a video app however I don’t really use it bc I only knew one person on the app and she’s dead now so I just. Haven’t really used it but Byte is lightyears ahead of Tik Tok in my opinion.

[thevortexofourminds]

On leaving Tumblr

I’ve been on Tumblr for about six years with this blog. It’s a niche blog with a small number of followers (but WHAT amazing ones. I love you guys and girls) - at least when we look at the numbers that some of the bigger blogs have. Numbers are not important to me. And the number of followers doesn’t say anything anyway. I love this blog, and my only interest always was to create a blog that I would want to follow. And apparently, there are a handful of people who have the same kind of interests as I have. My photography-blog @tvoom is bigger. The number of people following this blog and the number of notes on some of my photos - to me personally - are mindblowing. Even though this blog probably still doesn’t count as a big blog, I would have never expected that my photos will ever attract this attention. My more experimental photo-blog @tvoom365 is very small. One reason certainly is that I rarely post anything and hardly ever “promote” it. Or maybe the photos are not as good ;) But the feedback was always astoundingly positive.

One of the biggest mistakes I made in my time on Tumblr was to delete my writing-blog. Two years of writings and recordings were gone. I deleted the blog because I realized that the reason I made that blog in the first place was not a “reason” for me anymore. I was stupid enough to think that just because that one thing in my life which made me start writing (again) changed, I will have no reason to write anymore. HA! Well... at least I still learn. I might be stubborn but not THAT stubborn.

I learned two things through that:

a) Stories don’t have a meaning beyond the meaning that we assign to them. And we can assign any meaning we want to. So a story changes by how we read a story. You as the reader and I as the author are equal parts in the creation process. And neither your opinion nor my opinon is the “right” opinion or the “correct” way to understand or interpret a story. Because what’s in your head is nothing I can change anyway. So... I will not apologize for what’s in your mind. Because I didn’t put it in there.  It’s the old “When a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there to hear it - does it make a sound?” thing. No, it doesn’t. The falling of the tree creates changes in air pressure. But "sound” is only created by the listener. And what that specific sound means to the listener... that’s dependent on the listener and highly personal. So much for “objectivity” ;P After this face-palm moment, I started to write and record again and gathered a tiny but wonderful audience.

b) Tumblr is not @staff or @support or a CEO or any person who “pulls the strings”. Tumblr is you, and me, and everyone who has a blog. A community only exists because of the people who take part in it. Agreed, the boundaries changed, but what we put within these boundaries... that is upon us. In the last five years or so, I put a tremendous amount of time and effort into doing my part in creating an environment in which a community can grow. I met dozens of wonderful, creative and amazing people, I was fortunate of having the privilege of being part of some of the coolest projects that I can imagine. And all of these things are and were only possible because of the people involved. People who do and did what they do and did DESPITE all the hardships. DESPITE all the problems. Who just did what they love doing and not to gain anything from it. I have the deepest respect for all the creators and curators of all sorts of genres on Tumblr. Because I KNOW how hard it is to keep something going for years and years and years. Thank YOU for doing what you do. And to those of you, that I have the privilege of working with directly (too many to mention): I love you all. And I am grateful for you. All I did and all I do was only possible because of you and the thousands and thousands of supporters, artists or no.  Leaving Tumblr would mean that I’d not only give up on what I’ve achieved and what I’ve been doing for years, what I was part of building up, but it would also mean that I’d be giving up on myself. Heck... it took me decades to find out who I am. I will not give up on this crazy dumbfuck that I am ;P Because that is what I am. I am a person who creates, I am a person who loves to share knowledge, beauty, art, and sometimes (well... quite often) a stupid joke. I love to share my experiences and art in all sorts of ways. And since Tumblr never was a platform that allowed me to do this in exactly the way I wanted to, I always used other platforms as well. Tumblr’s video-player is probably the worst in the history of the internet, so I’ve been posting my videos to YouTube. Tumblr’s audio-player is a bad joke, so I post my audios to Soundcloud. And I embed that all in my Tumblrs.

Tumblr’s “adult content ban” will most certainly go down in internet-history as one of the most hypocritical “internet moves” ever. The interesting bit is that it probably will be known as “the porn ban”. Which is not even true. I’ve seen people post claims like that “Tumblr now defines nude-photography (or anything that the dysfunctional algorithms flagged) as porn and therefore bans it”. That’s not true. The truth is worse. The truth is not even that Tumblr bans genitals and therefore also porn. Yes, nudity and genitals are banned. And porn is banned. Smarter people than I wrote in much more intelligent ways than I ever could what’s bad about this. But rarely have I seen anyone write about the real big problem. The big problem is that the new community guidelines of Tumblr are sexualizing women by banning female nipples except for photography of breastfeeding and medical reasons. So, the legality of showing parts of the female body is based on the function. If the photo does not depict this function, the photo is deemed sexual. And sex is forbidden. While male nipples don’t have any other function (at least not that I’m aware of, please educate me) other than being an erogenous zone. Just think about this for a moment. Male nipples are allowed. Because banning male nipples... that is prudish, isn’t it? But looking at how incredibly hypocritical and bigoted the western world (and especially the US) is at the moment, this just fits, doesn’t it?

The question is: Should we let the idiots win? Only the unorthodox, the ones that pushed boundaries, the non-streamlined, the experimentalists - in short - the “un-normal ones” make the world evolve. “Conservatism” derives from “to conserve”. And we only conserve what is already dead so that it doesn’t start to smell. It’s too late Tumblr. This doesn’t smell. It already stinks.

Some people will HAVE to go to other places to not compromise on their art or self-expression, leaving Tumblr only a stump of what it once was and maybe will never recover from. Unless we creators find a way to stay true to ourselves and use the base of what is still here to create something new and amazing. As a curator of (also) artistic nude-photography, an occasional artistic nude-photographer myself, and an artist who also makes “adult-themed” art, Tumblr is dead for me in this specific area. Will I use a different platform for these things? Since “adult writing” is not banned (yet) I can continue here. For the rest: Maybe. I might re-open my Flickr (Flickr belongs to the same company btw... and allows artistic nudes... hypocrisy much? Edit: I learned that Flickr was sold to SmugMug) or I might start a DeviantArt account. I don’t know yet. I will certainly reference these new places in case I’ll decide to give it a go. Fact is that I will expand. Creativity is change. And no, we will not like each and every change. But hey... that’s life. As long as we change, we live. Also, I will certainly not let stupid, bigoted, greedy, hypocritical liars limit me. And the big lie is that it was never about “making Tumblr a better, more positive place”. It very much sounds like “Make Tumblr great again”, doesn’t it? It’s the same set of mind. The same priority: Greed. It was always only and exclusively about money. And apparently, Tumblr can make more money with actual Nazis still around and with nudity banned. I am German, my great-grandparents lived through a time in which real artists had to flee a place and the Nazis stayed...

Another thing: How is Tumblr a better, more positive place with the porn-bot problem still not being solved? Granted, we will not see any visual porn anymore, but the bots are still there. And they still follow and reblog posts, they add or even replace the original content (”thanks” to the prior Tumblr “improvement”) with links to shabby sex-sites and “sex offers”. That is your more positive Tumblr, @staff . Congrats! You fucked up royally. Because now it’s even evident that this was never your concern anyway.

Since @pwsfineartnudes cannot continue after December 17th, 2018, and I was asked to join @abstract-challenge (after Amy sadly left Tumblr for personal reasons), maybe that is one way to expand. So I will happily and gladly try to find ways to contribute to this - for me - very new and very different fascinating photographic adventure. Thank you for the challenge and the trust you put into me.

Rock on, my friends! You are Tumblr! You will only get out of it what you put in. You are amazing! Always have that in mind.

- Pete 

[bomberqueen17]

for the lurkers/likers

I was talking to @walburgablack this morning on Instagram of all places (we are all desperate not to lose one another, and some of us jaded veterans long ago started exchanging our other handles, because we have never believed any one site would stay), and while both of us are the sort of inveterate essayists who have no real problem fitting in to a largely text-and-OP-based platform like Dreamwidth, we were mourning a little about what we’ll lose by leaving Tumblr. 

She pointed out that it’s not that you can’t lurk on DW; it’s dead easy to just read and not post. But she admitted, it’s a big barrier to actually follow someone instead of reading silently on their page, and an even bigger barrier to actually leave a comment-- you have to be coherent, you know?-- and like her, I admitted I was using the current kerfuffle as a good reason to actually follow people I’ve definitely read for a while but never actually engaged with in any way. (I am absolutely feeling weird about the social-order inversion of following handles to other sites when they are relative to me very BNF and I’ve never actually spoken to them before but here I am with them suddenly following me back when we were never mutuals on Tumblr? It’s weird. I feel like I’m presuming.)

I was on Livejournal for about a decade before it imploded (I never left, I just also never accepted the latest TOS that wasn’t translated into English, so my crossposter broke and it kicks me back an error a day)-- and in that time, I know I had a substantial following of anons who never commented, never reached out to me, never contacted me, but once in a great while someone would leave an anon comment or, later, on another platform, would confess that they’d been reading me for years. Now, I was not a big f-locker on LJ, so there was a ton of stuff I wrote publicly about. (Towards the end, I started having some hostile RL anons-- I never did find out who, but someone who knew me was reading my blog and copy-pasting it for non-readers. Even f-locked posts sometimes, so I had to lock down a lot of things. This is preserved in my privacy groups on DW, even though I don’t really remember the details otherwise-- some of those groups are explicitly me trying to exclude the person whose account i thought was being used to read locked posts and copy-paste them to stir shit. I never did figure it out, and anyway-- LJ imploded, and the RL drama changed, and nobody cared anymore, but. This involved MySpace too, for the record, so there’s some ancient shit for you.)

And what I’ll miss about Tumblr is that it lowered the bar for engagement. I have a lot of followers on Tumblr, more than I ever had on LJ. And an awful lot of you don’t write a great deal on your own. You like posts, and you reblog stuff, and sometimes you leave replies, which usually make my day. But a lot of you have moved into being people I recognize, people I care about, people whose rare actual commentary is a thing I treasure. And that built up because I can form a mental relationship with an avatar and a series of “likes” and reblogs; I can tell what you’re interested in of my content, if it’s that you came for the fic and stayed for the cute farm pictures, or vice versa. It’s all very pleasant. Even if it’s just that you’re only into the fic and don’t care about the rest-- that’s cool too! I appreciate that, and it’s part of my experience here.

And you-all are the ones I’m worried for, now. On DW, what will you do? Is there room for you? Of course I think so, I can’t help but write thousand-word essays every time I sneeze. I’m a content creator and it’s what I do and I couldn’t stop if I tried, and I have been chafing in dissatisfaction (i.e. I’ve fucking hated it) for six years on this site because it’s not really designed for me, and I’m fucking delighted to be hopefully finding enough people on a better text-based platform for it to meet my social media needs. 

But, as someone said over there, it’s kind of like everyone’s coming home from war. Like... home, what a profound relief, but... we’ve lost so many and it’s been hard and some of us are pretty fucking damaged, and it’s never going to be the same.

And the casualties are going to be the people who don’t fit on text-based platforms. All of you darlings who don’t have a lot to say on your own, but love things, and curate their reblogs, and signal boost what they believe in, and like what they like and comment only rarely and with great trepidation but often with fantastic insight-- 

Oh, I’m just so worried for all of you. I don’t know if Pillowfort will work for you better; I’m going to look over there, worried as I am about their weird UI blind spots and their shaky underpinnings and good-natured (?) ignorance about real-world problems and why can’t i see who liked my posts why have likes-- if I can get the site to load, it spun a little wheel for me for two hours last night, I haven’t logged in since mid-November-- and I’ll be on Twitter and Instagram and all of that shit. 

But I’m just worried. I don’t want to lose you. I didn’t really mind my LJ anons? but I couldn’t have much of a relationship with them, because I couldn’t see them, I couldn’t know who they were. And they were scary sometimes. Some of them were definitely hostile. I kept having to turn anon commenting on and off. I’ll try to turn it back on, on DW.  It lets you use OpenID if you’re not willing to log in, which is a super 2005 kind of dealie, but it makes sense, I promise. I literally don’t remember how it works but it’s a thing.

(There are still hostile anons on Tumblr too! Just, the barrier for engagement is slightly higher for them, there’s no “dislike” button, and silently hatereading is as invisible as it was on LJ.)

I don’t want to go back to that. I want there to be room for everybody. I’m hoping DW brings back more nuanced discussions, sure, and Tumblr’s a hellsite I can’t wait to escape, sure. But. 

I’ll miss you. I hope you find a home. And I hope that home still includes me somehow.

[me: dreamwidth | instagram | pillowfort | twitter | ao3]

[knightofbalance-13]

You know, so many common arguments people try to use against me have failed in a lot of ways and I feel like addressing them.

“You’re just harassing me for my opinion!”

Yeah the issue here is that there are people I have talked to in the past have disagreed with me on certain things and I’ve just let it go. If I am continuously talking about you, that means I have issues with how you do thing, not what you do. I think your reasoning is honestly dangerous and very bad for both critics and creators.

I’m sorry but I have standards for what I consider a critic. And those are ‘accept criticism themselves’, ‘try to understand the creator and what they want to do’ and ‘not personally attack their targets’ among other things. And NONE of them are followed by the majority of critics I’ve seen.

“Well you’re infamous in the community”

I would actually care about things like this if not for the fact that I have had former haters come to me and tell me about how they thought I was horrible until they actually listen to me and saw I wasn’t the monster they thought I was.

This tells me that a lot of things about me that are in the minds of the public are misconceptions made by people trying to slander me. Not helping this is blatant lies people will spread about me like me being a bigot or a part of a racial supremeist group or that I intentionally tried to drive someone to suicide. All three of which are blatantly false if you know anything about me considering I don’t care about race or gender or sexuality at all, I’ve exploded on Nazies telling them I’m gonna shove a white hot dildo up their ass and that one incident shows me TRYING TO HELP THAT PERSON. So excuse me if I consider my reputation beyond my control.

“Well I blocked you so you can’t talk to me.”

Yeah well issue is: Every single person who blocks me and says this will immediately shit talk me while I can’t do anything to defend myself. Entire reason I started doing this regularly was because Sokumotanaka shit talked me after blocking me and I felt so insulted that I jumped back in. Since then people will block me for no other reason than I disagreed with them and they couldn’t bullshit a way out. So excuse me if I don’t consider that as anything but a coward’s move.

“Well, you’re just a fanboy!”

Counterpoint: Fanboys hate me because I react to their blind adoration with pointing out the flaws in the show. I have also displayed blatant disrespect for sites like Crunchyroll for encouraging blind adoration/hatred. So I’m obviously not a fanboy.

And these go on and on. But here's the deal: Kerry left Twitter up until August 15th. Considering the bullshit that I’ve seen with the so called ‘critics’ of this fandom, I think we’re lucky he came back at all. I’ve seen people be blatantly sexist and racist towards the writers, telling them that they only get praise because they're white and male while also saying they suck because they are white and male. I have seen people threaten to burn down RT for a joke. I have seen people ask when Miles will die or be fired and then say other people react by saying ‘Wasn’t me!’ I have seen people say their issues don’t matter because they make money. I have seen people use Monty Oum, their dead friend, as a weapon against them. I have seen people outright lie and set them up as the bad guys all for their own damn opinions.

I have seen SO MUCH bullshit against them for no reason aside from having autonomy and recognizing abusive assholes when they see them. Assholes who can’t even take a tenth of their own punishment. So why should I care?

Why should I care about my reputation, about being blocked, about being perceived as a fanboy and being blocked because you can’t argue when the only other options is ‘let innocent people be attacked’? Why should I back down when I know you never will? Why should I be nice when I know you won’t even see your targets as human beings? Why should I do anything you ask of me when you won’t listen?

You don’t DESERVE my consideration and quite honestly, I don’t care about myself. So do your fucking worst, you’ll never win against me.

[captainskipjack]

I’m Going to Miss You

A warning to you all... this post is going to get very long and rambly... but I feel like I need to say it, given what’s going to happen mere hours from now. So for my own emotional health I’m going through with this. Read it if you like, I’d certainly appreciate your company if you do... but I understand anyone who wants to skip over it. It likely won’t make much sense to most people why it’s such a big deal to me. I’m not exactly the most mentally or emotionally stable person in the world after all. These thoughts likely won’t resonate with most. But if you like, feel free to join me on my little ramble as I break down over something that’s truly, utterly trivial. I’ll certainly appreciate your company.

Also, preemptively? To those out there who will scoff at this and jeer at how much of a deal I’m making out of all of this? I’m very much aware of how pathetic and emotionally unhealthy I am. If it were easy as just ‘getting over myself,’ I’d have done it long ago. I’m already seeking therapy, but it’s a long process.

Anyway.

This post probably won’t mean much, and most of the people that it’s directed toward won’t ever see it. Many of the people I’d like to send it to are the creators/mods of long-dead blogs or people I’ve never spoken to before, but whose work I’ve followed. But I feel the need to say it nonetheless.

I joined tumblr sometime in early 2012, I think. I was a part of the then-exploding My Little Pony/Brony scene, joining in the wake of the pony ask-blog craze. At that time, everybody and their dog was making a new My Little Pony ask blog, and as deep into the fandom as I was at the time, I couldn’t help but follow.

For a time, I even tried to run an ask blog myself, alongside a friend of mine, @atomic-chinchilla. We ran the blog “ask female shining armor,” which was all about Shining Armor from MLP getting magically transformed/stuck as a girl. It... didn’t exactly go well. We had a short run of popularity before the original “Twilicorn” controversy rocked the fandom and we found ourselves on the ‘wrong side’ of it. Or, to be more precise, I found myself on the wrong side of it. My friend didn’t care as much, but I was legitimately angry at the turn the show had taken, and I made the mistake of expressing it on the blog, without consulting my friend.

There was backlash. And unfortunately, since my friend was the highly-visible artist and I was only the writer behind the scene, @atomic-chinchilla ended up taking most of the heat. I felt really guilty and tried to mitigate the damage, but it was already done. A lot of other fans had declared the both of us persona non grata. @atomic-chinchilla had already been losing steam on the blog anyway and we quietly decided to just stop.

In retrospect, it was probably a good thing we stopped anyway. This was tumblr, and we were making a silly blog about gender of all things. We just wanted to make a bunch of silly jokes and shenanigans, but on a site like tumblr with its massive transgender/nonbinary/et cetera scene? We were playing with fire, and it could have backfired on us much much worse than it did.

If anybody is morbidly curious, you can still actually see our dumpster fire... at least for the next few hours or so... over here at http://female-shining-armor-blog.tumblr.com/

Or you can see most of the posts at @atomic-chinchilla‘s DeviantArt page or on Derpibooru.

Anyway. Neither of us quite “left the fandom” over this or anything. Indeed, My friend still watches the show, though not as devotedly as he once did, and I’m actually still active (for a given definition of the word) in the fanfiction community over on fimfiction.net

I continued to follow the pony ask blogs for... well... to this day actually. There aren’t nearly as many as there used to be. A couple still update, but it’s few and far between these days. Ask blogs in general seem to have mostly gone out of style.

But back then, even after my own flubs, I was still so strongly into it. They were a big part of my daily routine. I’d log onto tumblr and catch up with whatever these dozens upon dozens of characters were ‘up to.’

In time, I’d even spread out a little. I’d look for ask blogs from other fandoms. Adventure Time, Transformers, Godzilla, and others. The pony ask blogs never quite got overtaken, simply due to the sheer number of them, but each and every one was important. They were meaningful to me.

It was truly a big part of my life for a while. I’ve never been the happiest person in the world, and anything that would help perk me up even a little and get me through the day was important to me.

And to a degree, they still are.

Sure, 98% of them haven’t updated in eons. Some of them I haven’t even thought about in perhaps even years. But they were a part of my life. They were a part of me. And they’re a part of my personal history.

And it saddens me deeply that they might be lost.

Even if they aren’t totally deleted, the fact that the tumblr flagging algorithm is completely out of control and will seemingly flag things at random for no discernible reason suggests that they might be butchered. That they might lose posts. Perhaps many posts, perhaps only one or two. Even those small losses, though, to me, are tragic.

Because what this is, to me anyway, is a loss of history and culture. A loss of history that some may not think matters, and a loss of low-brow, niche, internet subculture, perhaps... but history and culture nonetheless.

It’d be tragic if a museum filled with priceless art burned down, right? If the Louvre burned down tomorrow, people would weep at what a tragedy it was, the loss of all that art and culture and history. But at least there would probably be photos and records of everything that was inside.

In this case? All this history... history that’s at the very least important to me on my personal journey through this life... is going to be lost without a trace. Never to be spoken of or heard of again. And someday my memories will fade and my body will turn to dust, and then they won’t live on at all.

I have a hard time dealing with loss. Loss of history, loss of memory, loss of culture, loss of life, loss of anything really. I have a really really hard time letting go of much of anything, even if I know it’s the healthy thing to do. Even if I know it’s only natural; that all things must come to an end.

Because just consider all that work. Consider all that work that goes into creating a piece of art. Consider all the work that goes into forging a place in history. Consider all the work that goes into just living. And in the end, no matter what it is, all that work will eventually crumble to dust. Forgotten, and never spoken of again.

...You can imagine how poorly I handle things like deaths in the family or considering my own mortality. If the loss of a bunch of old, dead ask blogs

Don’t even get me started on topics like the apocalypse or entropy or the eventual heat death of the universe. Thinking about topics like that give me the literal shakes.

The worst part is that I’m only talking about a fraction of what there is on tumblr that’s going to vanish. I’m only talking about this from my own perspective - the perspective of a singular fan of a very small number of fandoms. I can only wonder how other people of other fandoms are feeling. And then, of course, there’s the obvious, most-impacted people; the content creators themselves. Especially the NSFW content creators.

And of course, all of this... ALL of this rambling up to this point... is just the tip of the iceberg.

I’m going to miss those people that still update. I’m not exactly a social butterfly. I’m not the type to make friends easily with strangers. But those who are still updating, or even those who only occasionally pop in... I’m going to miss all of them.

And I’m going to miss my followers. It’s funny... I’ve never quite been the one to interact with people who follow me. I don’t know why anyone WOULD follow me, if I’m being honest. 99% of what I do on this blog is just reblog goofy shit from other people. But to those of you who’ve followed me... thank you. I’m going to miss you too.

I don’t know who you 173 people are. You might all be bots, for all I know. But thank you nonetheless. Sorry I never really reached out and interacted with you in any meaningful capacity. And I’m sorry I never really made anything of my blog beyond just a dumping site for goofy shit.

Even if I never really knew any of you, I’m still going to miss you.

I’m going to miss this site and its sheer ease of use. Even if it could become a hellhole of toxicity and hatred at the drop of a hat, the format of the site ‘clicked’ so much better with me than any other social media site on the planet.

I’m going to miss it all.

I’m trying to keep a saying I heard once close to my heart right now. A quote from Abraham Lincoln... that perhaps ironically, I first heard through one of the most painfully obnoxious and frustrating games I’ve ever seen in my life; Getting Over It with Bennet Foddy

“In this sad world of ours sorrow comes to all and it often comes with bitter agony. Perfect relief is not possible except with time. You cannot now believe that you will ever feel better. But this is not true. You are sure to be happy again. Knowing this, truly believing it will make you less miserable now.“

Perhaps I’m cheapening the quote, associating it with the loss of a sub-par social media site. With the loss of a bunch of old, dead ask blogs and the loss of followers that I never interacted with. But I do, truly feel a sense of pain and sorrow at this loss. And I’m trying to take this quote to heart and muddle through.

Perhaps, if any of you out there are as fucked in the head as I am, of if anybody out there is going through hard times for other reasons right now... it’ll mean something to you too.

I don’t know what I’ll do with this blog. As I just said, I dislike loss. I don’t make a habit of deleting anything. Nothing on this blog will be deleted, at least by my hand. I’m going to participate in the December 17th mass-log off.

...whether or not I’ll ever log back on... I’m not really sure at the moment

Anyway, I suppose I’ve rambled on long enough. To everybody out there that I watch... to everybody out there I’ve EVER watched... to all those ask blogs that helped me through hard times and brought me joy... to all the people that follow me for whatever reason... I’m going to miss you.

I hope we can all find joy somewhere else. Hopefully not too far off in the future.

Maybe I’ll see you there.

[ancientdoodles]

Don’t be like this dumbass. Literally OP said no one is telling you to reblog or like shit you aren’t interested in. This is in regards to things you are interested in and enjoy and very much think is worth a reblog or like. Everyone knows that using tumblr is a completely useless and moot route to take if you’re a content creator and no one is engaging with your content. Online platforms are literally for sharing, if you didn’t care for anyone to play in your sandbox then you wouldn’t post shit ONLINE ON A SHARING AND CYCLING SOCIAL PLATFORM. It’s like talking to a wall, no one wants to share their work with a wall. People want interaction, to share the things they love with people who love it. WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK FANDOM IS ABOUT?! Stop being a crusty ass douchebag for the fun of playing ‘devil’s advocate.’ S’not gonna make anybody like you for being an absolute dickwaffle. Tumblr dies because content creators are pushed to find a different site to gain traction which leaves you nothing but recycled memes. How do you think fanfics die out?? If you as the consumer don’t leave any sign that you are enjoying the work, why would the producer bother? Shows get cancelled because of this, movies never get a sequel because of this, your favorite food/drink brand get discontinued because of this. LITERALLY 2D ANIMATION HAS BEEN QUICKLY DYING BECAUSE NO ONE EVER SHOWS THEIR INTEREST IN IT WHEN THEY ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT!!! Small content creators don’t have much of a chance at even BEGINNING to find a niche for themselves on here if we’re all just gonna sweep their work under the rug when going through the tags and fandoms we enjoy. Big content creators already left this hellsite for sites that’ll actually give them a response for their work. It’s not new, it’s never been new to leave a dead site and you trying to defend the system that killed this fucking site in the first place isn’t helping anyone.

REBLOG the stuff you’re interested in and enjoy, otherwise all that you’re enjoying and getting a kick out is gonna disappear. It’s literally FREE content that you want and love and it’s fairly simple to just hit that little button and move on. The only reason I even use this site at this point is because it’s allowance of higher res. Pics compared to twitter and the occasional ask I get. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO REBLOG EVERYTHING FROM A CONTENT CREATOR YOU ENJOY IF THEY SOMETIMES MAKE THINGS YOU ARE NOT INTERESTED IN!! It’s literally not all or nothing. No one is going to come through your computer and smite you for reblogging that original character illustration, but not that Steven universe doodle. A content creator isn’t going to hate you for picking out the things you like. WE ALL DO IT!!!

It’s not begging for anything you pretentious prick, it’s about trying to keep fandom, fanfics, fanart, original works and this crumbling hellsite alive. Whether you like it or not, human beings get motivation from positive interactions and encouragement, it’s how we function. Why bother living in a space where people see you, but don’t speak to you when that’s the entire point of being in that space? Fandom and online social media is about interaction and sharing and making connections. Shut up and sit the fuck down in your corner if you don’t even care. Nobody needs your sourpuss attitude around here.

My intention isn’t to BOSS people around. But people who don’t create on tumblr really have to understand that if creators stop posting here, you won’t have anything else to like but maybe memes. If you want content to circle around to your dashboard... you have to pay it forward and reblog. That is why this website is dying. The Ban is not the only reason.

[elboyo-blog]

About Youtube Rewind

Right so… youtube rewind 2017 is out. Everyone’s favourite end of year tradition, showcasing all the trends people were talking about, and all the topics and creators on the site that cultivated the community around to make youtube stand ou…

I should stop. This is all bullshit as I am aware you all know, yourtube rewind is, was and always will be throwaway ‘look at us we’re unique!’ shite, but this years was especially aggravating. It really boiled down a reality that has been creeping up on us for a while. Youtube rewind 2017 just shows that youtube doesn’t want to be youtube. Of course that could be seen that last year, for example the whole Dwayne Johnson at the start but I believe that can be justified with the fact that Dwayne has a channel just for himself, what isn’t justifiable from last year at least is the fucking talk show hosts like trevor noah and Seth ‘cumstain’ myers.  This only gets worse and worse with this years entry however. But I’m getting ahead of myself, lets just break it down (tl;dr at the bottom)

overview (This will be the most chronological so watching along helps)

Right so off the fucking bat the vid starts with a Stephen Colbert(Not a youtuber) talking to Lele Pons (A viner and Instagram star who flocked to youtube where that ship sank) and some girl beside (I think she’s popular but I don’t know her), we then see some random girl run into the room and start the cue to ‘Despacito’ which I can see why it is there at least, as it sprung to the highest viewed it can have justification. It then cuts to some people dancing and switching shots locations and people (one of which is that one DJ marshmallow or whatever who, again, isn’t a youtuber). It stops at KSI (Who I’ll get too) using a fidget spinner (which ill also get too) with some some vloggers/IG stars beside him (probably). Oh, hey Rhett and Link.  We then get showcased to a slime playground of sorts. I have no fucking clue if this was a trend at all. The only thing I can link this too is all the ‘homemade slime’ tutorials I always hear about. The only thing I really got was ‘Wow! Muselk is thicc’ but other than that the whole thing I think was pointless. Then, for some reason, they put rinestones on their faces? Again, was this a trend? Like, was there a whole underground rinestone craze that slipped under people’s noses? Like most things though, I doubt if it was a trend it even started on youtube. Anyway, they do the dua lipa thing, go to Africa, uuuuuuuugehiehehiihesfiefbfrbeube, do dance crazes during said ‘uuuuuuuugehiehehiihesfiefbfrbeube’ that didn’t originate on youtube and HEY! The eclipse was a thing right? EventhoughthatprimarilyhappenedintheUSthereforealienatinganyrelatabilitythatyoutubewasgoingfor buuuuuut I digress. They do do one thing right which is the whole meme graveyard idea (fitting, I know) parodying the video for the worst tayloer swift yet (nothing beats love story fight me) oooooooh but then the DAB! They hit that DAB!  Into yet another ‘uuuuuuuugehiehehiihesfiefbfrbeube’. Oh cool poopy’s there. Don’t know who that other person is but maybe it’s a new character in the poppy lore or maybe its just a person I don’t know or maybe recognise. The whole hurricane Harvey thing they pull next is insulting to the point ill reserve a whole section to it. Skipping that we go to a roof party with the DJ and the fidget spinner, a perfect almagimation of all that isn’t youtube based trends, seriously the dj could maybe be related as he uses youtube as an outlet for his music but fidget spinners were a physical thing! It was a brand! Literally this year’s version of silly bandz! Yes Susan, include this! Very youtube, much wow! Fuck off. Anyway, we see the party is home to the biggest twats of youtube, team 10 and the pauly boys (Note: that’s a nice band name). with them on the roof are stars that again, didn’t start on youtube. Most of them are viners and/or IG stars with like one or two from fine bros React (I shit you not if you look in the back there’s the old guy from elder’s react). We cut to more slime bois (hey Tomska). When they cut back, (yes holy shit it is the guy form elders react! Jfc) and they do their sick moves like the floss, a move YouTube claims to have homebrewed as well (come on guys, Katy Perry tried to claim it first). Hey, look its every 14y/o girls wet dream. More slime boyos. I think KEEM screams the floor is lava but… that trend was an IG trend wasn’t it or like the last vine trend, but it got Ol’ Yellered, like, just because Fine Bros do a youtubers react to it doesn’t make it a YouTube thing! Jeez louis. Big Shaq’s there, that’s neat. Some filler dancing and cuts when they cut back to the graveyard reinforcing that is it a graveyard for dead memes which I have problem with, because that would insinuate that ‘All Star’ died this year. No, it didn’t, and as long as Steve Harwell is still on God’s green earth no it won’t, yes its popularity has dulled but it was actually a meme that just faded away, cropping up every once in a while, its survival is different to similar trends like ‘We Are Number One’ which can make people I know physically wince when heard. All star didn’t die, it’ll be back if it even left in the first place. More vloggers and traditionally attractive people flash by as a whole recap happen of the torment thrusted upon me. The last live action sketch is Lele and her friend greet the non-youtuber rounding out the production. The credits are actually the best part of this however as we see different pseudo-animators (think more odd1s out, less Psychicpebbles), such as Extra Credits, Tabbes, Jaidenanimation, Odd1sout, Rebecca Parham, ItsAlexClark and Simon’s cat. Though their subject matter is just as pander-y shite as the whole vid you can see the effort in their animation and it’s nice to see that youtube finally removed the dildo it has been shoving up most youtube animator’s asses for the last 3-5 years (but by ‘removed’ I really mean they just slapped a sign on it that says ‘here at YouTube, we love our animators!’ and pretend they solved the problem.

Dead fucking memes/(hate to use the phrase but) irrelevancy

The Dab, fidget spinners, shooting stars with more probably but it was hard to see during my stroke, point is, YouTube is out of touch and has zero self-awareness when it comes to memes and trends

I know the word sounds pretentious as hell but seriously, here’s a my honest-to-god reaction of who I saw on screen

·         Not a youtuber

·         Not a youtuber

·         Don’t know

·         Don’t know

·         Despactio guy 1

·         Don’t know *3

·         Despacito guy 2: electric boogaloo

·         Don’t know *2

·         Don’t know *2

·         Don’t know *2

·         Dj boi

·         Vannos

·         Don’t Know *4 Ft. Lincoln

·         Don’t know *3

·         Quick flashes of the great unknown

·         KSI and his favourite toy (not counting NetNobody’s dick)

·         Don’t know *6 (Empire was better)

·         Another 3 I don’t know but there is that one guy who screams a lot, think his names guacamole or something

·         @rhettandlink and another guy, classic trio

·         Don’t know*2

·         Don’t know*slime

·         Don’t know* rhinestone

·         Hey, its @a-kind-ale-war

·         Africa – Toto

·         Slo mo guys among the dead meme cosmos

·         Otherwise, you guessed it, no clue

·         Don’t know * field

·         Don’t know any of the eclipse crew

·        @caseyneistat

·         God’ wrath in the form of comets coming to smite us as failed creations

·         YouTube Is Shutting Down My Channel and I'm Not Sure What To Do

·         His beautiful bastards (nameless in my lack of knowledge)

·         6 zombies that died in obscurity, nameless and unknown, ‘tis a shame

·         Why I left Smosh

·         The cosmos of people I don’t know

·         KSI’s brother

·         Poppy

·         A DC lawsuit

·         Mooooooooorrrrrreeeeee spaaaaaaccceeeee

·         A youtube circle jerk of self-righteousness (more on that later)

·         People holding hands

·         The shitty vine family

·         Team 10 bitch who the hell are flipping you

·         The other one

·         Shitty IG ‘Comedy’ Squad

·         Black guys and backpack kid (Note: another good band name, though it needs tweaking)

·        @thetomska getting face fucked

·         Victims of the great slime massacre (slime control now!)

·         Old guy from react

·         Don’t know*roof party

·         Every teenage girls wet dream/gay ship

·         Daniel Keem saying floor is lava

·         Lava victims

·         A very cold rapper

·         Don’t know but has a sword

·         More zombie boys

·         A cluster of people 2012

·         Forehead in the back again (sorry jack)

·         @markiplier

·         Why I gave the pope Undertale

·         A finale of people I don’t know being absorbed by the cosmos

·         Neato mosquito animators

As you can see a good majority of the stars I doubt much people know, probably only chosen for the brand friendliness which begs the question…

Exclusions/double standards

A lot of people were excluded from this year’s rewind, which isn’t a surprise in the slightest. This issue was brought up last year as well, but with this year it showcases some hypocrisy with possible reasons to exclude folks. Firstly, KSI, he had the whole beef with NetNobody (the greatest Minecraft youtuber there is) but Netnobody was excluded, it couldn’t be numbers or presence as before retiring, Adam had about 11 million subs, maybe he declined, like most sane people would, or maybe because he neither pulls the views or the family friendly influence that he used to. Its safe to assume Ricegum and IDubbbz got rejected by choice, again sanity, or because of their beef, which is again hypocritical of the site as KSI was allowed on fine and Keem along with the Paul brothers aren’t the angels of Youtube either. Again, it seems YouTube is really trying to push this family friendly goofball persona which is perfect for the weird kids and the cool kids which is true but is only really surface level in the rewind and the reality isn’t really shown otherwise. Also fuck that Nazi racist Pewdiepie amirite ladies?

Hurricane Harvey debacle

I believe this is honestly the most insulting aspect of the rewind. Though it had good intentions it just highlights YouTube’s utter ignorance. Not to pull a PJW but this is dictionary definition virtue signalling. Youtube makes themselves out to be all together, yes youtube, you are the most influential platforms of our generation, cat videos and make-up vlogs can save the world! In all seriousness though this is one of the most botched poorly executed thing I’ve ever seen, and I’m counting HWNDU. For one thing the tone and flow is horrible, the segment is frankenstiened into the middle of the video and puts a halt on the relatively well paced video, and is followed by a radical hip and swaggity dance party yeah! As if the whole was a task by the team and when they were down with it they thought; “right, that’s over with. Back to the fun and cool stuff yeah!” if they kept the pace by putting the thing just before the credits as to highlight the message at the end and while everyone’s lifted by the message they’re treated to the credits and the talents of the wonderful animators. However, that would only make the segment flow correctly as, in my opinion, it comes off as quite nepotistic to big creators. A method they could’ve done is before they filmed or edited anything they could’ve announced to fans and viewers to send in webcam clips and videos of them holding hands in unity or saying unity, showing a UNITY between fans and creators. That said this brings me to my conclusion;

 Conclusion

Youtube doesn’t want to be youtube, it wants to be a family and advertiser friendly site for all to come, it wants to be seen as a beacon for ALL internet trends and ideas and it wants to be seen as a user and creator friendly platform. But youtube isn’t this, and youtube hates that. This year has seen the worst year in the sites history for user treatment and contact showing double standards with actual users and companies such as talk show hosts, with things like the adpocolypse rumoured trending tab rigging and trending tab blacklists. Along with this is the, as I said, nepostistic outlook on creators, with youtube success being less and less consistency based and more and more luck based on one video blowing up and staying that way, and trending (along with youtube in general), should facilitate a rise in creators and ideas instead of promoting channels who already have 5-6 million subs and censoring a lot of voice directly or indirectly. With no other options for video site (realistically, nobody uses vimeo or dailymotion and fucking rip vidme) youtube’s current state is more dire than ever and their push for a false identity within an identity crisis for the site is very obvious. This alongside their cowardice and compliance with controversy like in the nazi Pewds situation is showing to be really damaging.

Tl;dr: get a fucking backbone youtube and stop pretending to be something that you’re not.

[turnaboutancestor]

DGS2 Case 3: Review and Thoughts

sooooo much happened in this case, this was such a long case 3, who said this much was allowed in c ase 3

i am obscenely emotionally compromised by what happens in the last 10 minutes of the case so please forgive me if any of my explanations seem weird or lacking.

Review

Background

10 years ago, a serial killer by the name of Professor was running lose around England.  His targets were always those of nobility or higher, and it took until his last target--Klimt van Zieks, older brother to Barok--until he was finally caught.

The Professor’s trial was held in secret for one very important reason: he was a Japanese man in England as part of a study abroad program, and his identity getting out to the public would cause outrage and may even spark a war between Japan and England.

He was sentenced to hanging, and given a metal mask to wear.  Courtney Sithe--then known by her maiden name, Courtney Simon--declared him dead, but he was actually still alive.

Nevertheless, he was buried...and that’s when a young, promising university student appeared. Enoch Drebber was part of a small group of grave robbers that would go to the prison cemetery to dig up the bodies of freshly-buried prisoners.  That night he headed for the Professor’s grave, but as luck would have it he arrived just as Professor dug himself out of his own grave and “revived”.  He was spooked--understandably--just as someone behind him fatally wounded Professor with a gunshot, killing him for good.

Enoch told this story to a number of outlets, but only one, the Daily Circus, actually published his name. This article, written by journalist Elyder Meningen, sparked Enoch’s downfall. His “side job” as a grave robber exposed, he was forced to leave school and give up his promising career as a scientist.

Sometime just after this, Madame Rozaic showed up in the graveyard to take a “mold” of Professor’s face for her wax museum.  She later heard about the “revival” story from the Daily Circus and approached Enoch to take a wax mold of him as well for her “Hall of Terror” display.

Finally, for an undisclosed length of time, Elyder had been blackmailing Courtney, threatening to reveal that she misjudged Professor’s death if she didn’t pay a certain sum of money every month.

The Crime

One year ago, Elyder showed up to Enoch’s workshop. Known as an investor to the general public, Elyder had transformed into the center of a criminal organization via the many connections he made as a journalist over the years.  He himself didn’t actually remember Enoch as a subject of his article, and instead came to him as a creator and “swindler”.  He had just approached a young scientist by the name of Benjamin Dobinbough about his theory on teleportation, and wanted Enoch to build a machine for him with the goal of getting money from the government.

During this visit, Enoch noticed an interesting article in the newspaper Elyder was holding--the creation of a new forensic investigation unit, with coroner Courtney Sithe at the head.  Upon seeing this, he decided to get revenge on all the people that ruined his life a decade ago.  He would kill Elyder, and force members of Scotland Yard to be his accomplice.

The machine used for the teleportation machine was designed like a magic trick. There was a trick floor that connected to a shaft in the platform through which the experimentee would fall.  Then, from a balloon hanging above the test site, a second cage would fall to the Crystal Tower, setting up the illusion that a teleportation actually happened. In this first cage would be the real Elyder Meningen; in the second would be the wax figure of the Professor, stolen by Enoch a few days previously.

Enoch chose this particular wax model to coerce Courtney into going along with his plan.  She would find the wax model in the cage that fell through the Crystal Tower, along with a letter from someone who “knows the truth about 10 years ago.”  Using the instructions in the letter, she set up the crime scene so that it appeared that teleportation actually occurred, and that Benjamin was the culprit.

Though because Courtney was being blackmailed by Elyder, she didn’t need much coercion; she worked with the forensics unit to set up the crime scene as detailed by the letter, but on her own head to the underside of the machine and into the shaft.  Just as Elyder was getting out of the cage, she stabbed him with a screwdriver, setting up Benjamin as planned, but also getting her own revenge.

Other pertinent info

Where do I ever start. I think I start with a bullet list.

Professor is Asougi’s father, and came to Japan with Yuujin and Jigoku to study abroad 16 years ago

Professor’s method of killing was with a large hound that would rip into the victim’s neck.

Klimt was chief prosecutor at the time of his death, and it was he who helped set up the exchange programs

Asougi is very much alive, and it’s implied Sherlock was in on it, though we don’t yet know what “it” is.

Vortex introduced Barok to an amnesiac Asougi about three months ago. On Vortex’s orders, Asougi had to wear a mask, and he could not talk to anyone else.

After the trial, Barok called Ryuu and Susato into the empty court. He revealed to them who the Professor was (and also why he has such a strong hatred of Japanese people); this reveal also sparked Asougi’s memories returning.

Ryuu returned karuma to Asougi, and after cutting down the wax figure of Professor, left.

When Susato was very young and had finally gotten used to living with her father, she overheard him talking about a friend that had “died of illness” while in England, and that he left a son--Asougi. Asougi, to fulfill a promise with his father, became an attorney. Susato decided to become a legal cleric to help him.

For the International Forensics Symposium, Yuujin and Jigoku will be visiting England.

Susato knows about the “Hound of the Baskervilles” manuscript because Yuujin actually has it, and Susato spotted it in his office shortly before leaving for England.

For reasons yet unknown, Gregson is going to be transferred to Paris soon, and he plans to take Gina with him.

Thoughts

Holy hell I never expected this much out of a case that tends to be more filler than not.

Also the parallels between Jezail and Professor, what with international relations being at stake, are not lost on me. idk if the game will ever address them, thouh.

Honestly I was already surprised when Professor was revealed to be a Japanese man, and was curious when Susato mentioned she recognized him, but I FUCKING NEVER WOULD HAVE CALLED HIM BEING ASOUGI’S FATHER.

I don’t yet know how to feel re: the GUILT of the professor, however. As in: will the game go the route of proving he was framed? It seems like a very ACE ATTORNEY thing to do, to be honest, but I’m honestly not sure.  Either way, Asougi’s “true motive” likely involves the Professor’s case.

Otherwise, my head is just SWIMMING with all this new info...I can’t even begin to imagine how the game will go from here, when this case was already FINAL CASE CALIBER in terms of reveals and emotional gut punches.

[nemossubmarine]

Knights of the Night Sky 17

Hey, it’s the very exposition heavy first session of the final arc of KoNS, cos how else can you get your plot across, hmm?

We start with where we left off, with the fallen god and Bard.

Lutharin, Dophina, and Jeff have come to check out the fall-site and as soon as Dophina recognizes the person as Pholtus, she calls Kendrick over, so Kasbir is left alone with Bard.

Kendrick asks Pholtus if he is hurt. Which he is not, so that’s good I guess. Aside from that, he says he’d rather get out of direct sunlight before he starts explaining things.

Meanwhile, along with Bard, Kasbir finds out he is not the best comforter, as Bard is complaining about feeling empty and slowly breaking down. Breathing exercises are what happens.

We skip to the Knight’s HQ, where Joan and Mairin have been expecting our heroes. They have not, however, expected Pholtus.

There has been reports of sun elves going missing and gods falling, and also Lir has been sick and sulking, which might be related?

Pholtus says that he has called some friends over and they’ll explain everything then, so there has to be some waiting.

Joan pulls Kendrick aside when they enter the HQ and tells him that Skylar had contacted her, telling that Elpidios, Kendrick’s brother has gone missing as well, despite not appearing elven.

Oh yeah! I actually throw some magic items at my players for once. Six items are divided between the players.

While waiting, there’s some time to talk with people, so that’s what happens.

Mairin, who has been a mentor and a friend to Kasbir, takes Kasbir around the HQ, since this is Kasbir’s first visit. They exchange some pleasantries, but Mairin is really curious about why Kasbir has left the ship. Kasbir says that as he had to go on land for a long time for the first time, it made him consider about seeing the sights and getting a feel there, he is, however, not at all into Underdark, where Mairin has been sending her years.

Mairin says that if he ever wants to join the Knights officially, she’ll make sure to arrange it.

She also says she’ll introduce Kasbir to Lir, who’s grumpy and hasn’t been around.

The first party of people arrives. These are Moradin and Ulaa, a godly couple and with them Natalain Thedi, Lutharin’s monastery’s leader’s brother.

Natalain has received fancy new legs from Moradin (Kendrick cut them off), he has also received a quite heavy glow effect from Ishran, the sun god.

He successfully resisted the call of the sun god, partly because he is half wood elf, and partly because he is a sorcerer specialized in sun magic.

His brother, the monk Tassarion, did not however resist and has been taken. The irony of this is not lost.

Natalain is here to help as an expert of sun magic.

Dophina is still stuck with Reane, but not for long, since Moradin comes a-knocking, and says that he heard that they were in a pickle, and since he’s a god of creation, he’d whip up a new body for Reane to transfer to.

And he does, a metallic body (with a laser pointer finger).

Reane hops in and both they and Dophina are very glad to be separated.

Reane stays behind to chat a bit, unfortunately they don’t know much about the sun god, but they suspect other ones of their party is still out there somewhere.

Reane also says that they won’t stick around. They basically want to see if the Knights have their stuff, and then they’ll fuck off.

Dophina might be able to contact Reane if they really need though.

Lir has been sulking in the shadows for the most time, but he gets his hands on Lutharin and asks to sparr with him, which Lutharin agrees to.

They do a bit of fighting, and at the same time, they talk.

Lir asks how much Lutharin knows of the elf civil war. As Lutharin understands it, Lloth offered some elves power in exchange for their servitude and it didn’t go over so well, and there was fighting.

Lir says that from the drow point of view, the sun offered powers to the elves, but it also meant being controlled, and Lloth offered freedom.

So what Lir wants to know, is which option Lutharin would have taken. After some consideration, and also getting his ass beaten up by Lir, Lutharin says that he would have had to agree with the drow.

Lir seems happy(?) to hear this, and in exchange he tells that the reason he left the drow is because of freedom as well, but doesn’t elaborate.

So. Bard. It seems that there was a man in that body along with the god, in a similar situation to Dophina and Reane. And this possession was not consensual. Bard has regained all memories of the thousand years he spent with the god, and also of the life before that.

So about that. Jeff is wandering the HQ when he catches a harp being played. There’s only person who that could be. Jeff has been avoiding Bard, but he finally decides go see him.

And, indeed Bard it is, and they get to talking.

Jeff asks does he remember how he got possessed. Bard says that he was on a pilgrimage to the sun god’s temple in the Wilds (from this session), as his wife was pregnant with their second child, so she wanted him to go get blessings.

While he was there, the god fell, and latched onto Bard, and took control. For years they wandered, until they came upon one of the necklaces, and remembered some things. They lost it however, and had to get their hands on another, and so it went.

Jeff asks what he’s going to do now. Bard answers that he doesn’t know, on one hand, he just wants to lay down and pass on, on the other, he wants revenge. 

Jeff says that Bard has a place in the Knights, and he also says that he could teach Bard about his god, Fharlaighn, which Bard says would be nice.

Oh yeah, and Jeff learns Bard’s real name, which is Adam.

Next group arrives, this time carrying only one god. There’s Yondalla, the halfling goddess, as well from the mortal side Skylar and Prince Floyd.

Skylar takes Kendrick aside, as they are both quite distraught about Elpidios’ disappearance.

It seems likely that Alexis is Elpidios’ other parent, as he should be elf-blooded since he was taken.

Skylar says that it seems there was nothing either of them could have done to stop this. She also assures she will work tirelessly to help get him back.

Speaking of tirelessly, as she learns that Kendrick hasn’t been sleeping well, she promises to knock him out.

Kendrick in turn promises to introduce Skylar to Pholtus, which she is quite stressed about.

They hug. Aw.

Finally the last two expected deities appear, and though they are humanoid they are a bit weirder looking than the others. Dophina recognizes the woman as The Lady, a goddess of fortune she has called upon several times, while Jeff recognizes the blue elven man as Fate, the god of predestination as he has run into him in his studies.

The Lady makes a beeline for Kasbir to everyone’s confusion, telling Fate that this is the one she has chosen, which he says that he knows. They start arguing, but Pholtus break them apart, and says that everyone is here, so it’s time to get to explaining.

Jeff asks why Fharlaighn isn’t there, and Pholtus doesn’t know as he wanders off easily. He isn’t very worried about him though. He is more worried about Celestian and The Raven Queen who cannot be contacted.

Pholtus explains first the origin of the sun god. Basically the current gods of the world are not its creators. The creators are known as Elder Gods, and Ishran was one of them, the gods are their creation.

The rest of the Elder Gods decided to go play in their world as mortals and became first humans, but Ishran stayed behind and went to take a long nap.

Meanwhile the elves were born. They created themselves out of the energy of the Elder Gods; wood elves from forest god now lost in time and sun elves from Ishran.

Well Ishran woke up, and he was super into having elves so he started giving his elves insane magical powers which kinda worried some of the gods as it upset the balance of the world.

So, some gods conspired against him, causing him to fall.

This is not as unusual as one might think. Pholtus reveals that most worlds are not upset by gods falling as there are creatures known as the Sweepers who remove traces of the gods from the world to keep the world going.

They’ve been trying to do this here, but as part of the god lived on in Bard and in the necklaces, they can’t finish the job and are just confusedly killing people, cos that’s what they do.

The Sweepers are in fact the Maggot creatures.

 There are three suspects in Ishran’s fall.

Celestian, god of stars, as he was worried about the magic use, since it fell into his realm.

Lloth, the Spider Queen, because of course a world without sun would be very good for her.

And finally Yadira, who held the position of the Raven Queen before Pansy took over. The reason why she might have done this is unclear for the gods, but she is in fact missing and hasn’t passed to the land of the dead after giving up the title.

At this point Fate intercepts, saying he knows Yadira is around. The thing is, Yadira learned Fate was giving the key-cube to Lutharin, and so gave him the necklace. And the reason Fate gave the key-cube is because he saw the necklace being given, so Yadira kinda tricked him.

Fate has, as an apology, knitted Lutharin a sweater, with pancakes on it. Lutharin takes it. Dophina asks if he can teach her to knit.

You see, all four of the necklace holders are knitted into Fate’s, uh, scarf of destiny, which is a rather mangy thing full of holes. Kasbir was added later by The Lady’s insistence, as he is her favored.

Our heroes of course act why. For The Lady a handsome face and an adventurous spirit is enough, while the Fate says that the colors of the four’s threads were pleasant.

The Lady and Fate are constants in each universe, not created by anyone, so Ishran can’t affect them. They are however, quite chaotic creatures.

But that’s most of the information out of the way. Now it’s time to start thinking what to do.

The access to divine realm is closed off, but they do know a planewalker who may be able to help, so Dophina will try to get a hold of Reane.

Kendrick, who has a special connection to the Raven Queen, will try to contact her, to see if she’s alright.

Prince Floyd will try to locate some of the friends that Ishran has taken, as he is gifted with true sight, he’s the only one who can see into the realm.

Before our heroes can go talk to Ishran, they will have to make sure they can’t be influenced by him as they are still creatures living in sunlight.

That will require them to go to the drow who are the only one with the information. While they’re there they might as well see if they can locate Lloth, one of the suspected god throwers. Lir will take them to the drow, as he is one.

So there! Act three all set up and a lot of questions (but not all) answered! Whew. Next time, it’s back to everyone’s fave place; Underdark.

[samanthasroberts]

5 Hollywood Stories You See Everywhere (That Are Always BS)

Entertainment sites are facing a serious problem: There’s a limited number of things that happen every day, but their readers will click on an infinite amount of articles, as long as someone or something vaguely famous is involved. The solution? Follow the grand Internet tradition of making shit up. Print a headline saying “Bill Murray killed and ate Miley Cyrus!” and watch as it gets 100,000 shares before either of their publicists can deny it.

Now, all of us have fallen for stories like these in the past, but there are some particularly egregious types of bullshit articles that should really be setting off our hogwash alarms by now. Starting with …

#5. Stop Saying The Simpsons Predicted Stuff

The Internet is 80 percent porn, 70 percent fanfic on Tumblr, and 90 percent inaccurate statistics. Whatever’s left is made out of bullshit listicles about how some old Simpsons episode predicted today’s events. Apparently, they foresaw Donald Trump: Angry Half-Chewed Orange Starburst For President 15 years before it happened:

They also predicted that Lisa would be an adult by 2010, so …

But before you go proclaiming Matt Groening “King of the Psychics,” consider this: That episode aired in 2000. Guess what lying, hypocritical moron announced he’d be running for President in 2000? No no, the other one. Yes, Trump said he’d run for President under the Reform Party in 2000 (and had been talking about it since 1987), meaning The Simpsons predicted precisely squat. And as far as them “predicting” that President Trump would destroy the country … duhhhh. That’s like predicting grass will be green, or that a diaper will be loaded with shit.

Can anthropomorphic loaded diapers even legally run for president?

And we do this all. The. Fucking. Time. Unless some fat yellow dude destroys an entire city by pressing the wrong button at the power plant, it’s no big deal if real life imitates The Simpsons. It’s a topical show with damn near 600 episodes under its quarter-century-old belt. Of course there’s going to be overlap with reality — which hasn’t stopped sites like BuzzFeed from marveling over the matter. Let’s review their mind-blowing discoveries:

So the Simpsons made an irradiated food joke, and now Japan’s got irradiated fruit? That’s not a new idea. If anything, the vegetation around Chernobyl predicted The Simpsons. Oh, and the deformed Japanese veggies were bullshit anyway. Off to a good start, BuzzFeed!

OK. So. In 2004, a bunch of Ohio voting machines glitched and accidentally gave George W. Bush 4,000 extra votes. In 2008, the Simpsons satirized that incident. In 2012, it happened again for real. And that’s supposed to be a score for Homer and friends how? Just because your memory was crippled by all those ’90s nostalgia GIF parades doesn’t mean that the past suddenly didn’t happen, BuzzFeed.

This is probably the closest one: They successfully predicted that somebody who works with wild animals would eventually get attacked by one. Impressive. What’s next, claiming that The Simpsons predicted baseball players playing softball?

DICK TRACY, YOU ASSHOLES! THE JETSONS! EVEN THE FUCKING FLINTSTONES! Somebody got paid for this list! You know what, we’re moving on before this gives us an aneurysm.

Arrrrghhh! Too late!

#4. People Need To Chill About Idris Elba Playing James Bond

Eventually, Daniel Craig will stop being James Bond. And despite the fact that he’s a totally outdated character, tradition dictates that we’ll need a new one. One of the top names being bandied about is Idris Elba, who deviates from the Bond norm in one glaringly obvious way …

“The world isn’t ready for a Bond with facial hair. Sorry.”

OK, there’s also the race thing, an issue which Bond novelist Anthony Horowitz dealt with in the worst possible way. In an interview with The Daily Mail, he claimed that Elba would suck as Bond because he’s “too street.” The Internet responded by figuratively painting Horowitz’s naked body gold and leaving him to asphyxiate.

Most were only scandalized to find out there are still Bond books, though (or books in general).

First off, this quote came from The Daily Mail, so rage-sharing it is like raging over something the bad guy said at WrestleMania. Even worse, all these headlines conveniently ignore where he named other black actors he’d prefer play Bond. Everybody’s focused on “too rough” and “too street,” while see-no-eviling the part where he recommended Hustle‘s Adrian Lester instead.

There’s still a race issue at play here, of course — but not in the overt, simplistic way that everybody seeing red took it as. It’s deciding that black actors, who have proven their ability to play both suave and rough with equal tenacity, should only be one thing. Horowitz is typecasting Elba as a rough, street black man, and Lester as a suave, classy black man, and won’t let them sit at each other’s table. And nobody’s talking about this except … The Huffington Post? Really? Dear Internet: When BuzzFeed-Minus-Cat-GIFs is the voice of reason, it might be time to pay attention and rethink things.

Both because they’re right on the money, and because it’ll probably never happen again.

Ex-Bond Roger Moore got in similar hot water recently, accused of opposing Elba Bond over blackness. Moore himself had to clarify that he only said Bond should be 100 percent “English-English” — his interviewer later edited it so it seemed like he was talking about Elba. But you know what? When Elba finally becomes Bond and blows everyone out of their seats, all this ridiculous talk of race, class, and who’s street and who’s not will disappear. Because it’s the performance that matters, not the-

Wait … it was all a rumor? He’s NOT going to be Bond? There were never even talks of him being Bond, nothing but Daniel Craig dream-casting off the top of his head? We got all worked up over that? FUCK.

#3. Every Celebrity Death Hoax Comes From The Same Source: Your Idiot Friends

The world lost the best/worst father in movie history last August when James Earl Jones sadly passed away, according to the Internet. The only person who didn’t hear the news was James Earl Jones, who is still tweeting like normal. Yeah, it was another celebrity death hoax. So what happened? What crapbag news site yellow-journalism’d a beloved celebrity to an early grave this time?

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooot dead yet, guys.”

None, as it turns out. The source is us. We fake-killed James Earl Jones, the same way we’ve fake-killed every other celebrity since the days of Netscape. We’re not merely part of the problem; we’re all of it.

The only source for Darth Vader’s voice reuniting with the Force was the Woodward-and-Bernstein-approved paragon of journalism called FeedNewz. But FeedNewz isn’t a fucking news site — its real name is prank.link, a content creator where any random asshole can plug anybody’s name into the generator and create a fake news story about them. When people clicked on the “James Earl Jones dies” link to learn how an 84-year-old man could possibly pass so suddenly, they got this instead:

“Also, his most famous line was ‘I quit on you when you cleared out of Detroit with Willie the Pimp‘ … from The Lion King.”

GET IT? You thought a thing happened, but it didn’t! Doesn’t that tickle-torture your ribs? Here’s another knee-slapper: Justin Bieber was raped and killed in Las Vegas … except he wasn’t! How gullible you must be, to think people die.

Don’t worry, David Caruso is on the case.

But if FakeNewz sounds too shady for your phony death needs, perhaps you’d prefer a website that sounds an awful lot like a legitimate one? FakeAWish.com will kill any celebrity you like and report it under the name “Global Associated News,” which is the biggest waste of an official-sounding name since Dr. Phil first called himself “Dr.” Then there’s MSMBC.co, where you create a fake death story (like this one for Arnold Schwarzenegger) complete with a link that looks exactly like MSNBC.com if you’re both blindly clicking on everything and actually blind. And when somebody clicks on it, they’re greeted not by a HAHA PWNED page, but a real-ish-looking news story that you can’t read until you share it with your distant uncle and that guy you haven’t talked to since college:

Or with no one, if you go with the Google+ option.

Alternatively, if using those sites is too much work, you can go with the absolute laziest option and create a “RIP [celebrity name]” Facebook page for someone who isn’t in fact RIPing … and then watch it grow inexplicably popular. Rowan “Johnny English” Atkinson, for example, has no fewer than two pre-posthumous Facebook pages, each with over 3,000 fans. For the sake of our species, we hope it’s simply the same 3,000 who fell for the same thing twice.

#2. Stop Pretending Everyone’s Offended By Movies

Hey, remember when those Native American actors walked off the set of Adam Sandler’s new movie? It seems they were outraged over all the gross inaccuracies, blatant stereotyping, lazy jokes, and other things that have never, ever been in an Adam Sandler movie.

“We thought we were signing up for something more sophisticated, like a male deodorant ad.”

Notice how none of those headlines mention how many actors walked off the set, implying through omission that the number was “all of them”? Well, they did that for a reason: The real situation was way less volatile (and thus, more boring) than the hate-click media reported. According to one of the actors, only four out of 154 actors walked out, plus one consultant, leaving the rest to feel “betrayed” that they were being painted as “sell-outs” to the White Man. Oh, and another actor says they all saw the script beforehand, so those who quit probably should have seen the terribleness coming, even if they haven’t been to a cinema since Big Daddy came out.

Precedent shows “pee-pee on your teepee” wasn’t going to be a metaphor.

Then there’s Mad Max: Fury Road and the supposed shitstorm it caused among Men’s Rights Activists for daring to include women kicking ass:

“Feminists started all the wars,” one anonymous member said.

Makes sense, right? Babies throw tantrums. MRAs are babies, so they’re throwing tantrums. Except they weren’t. This entire story came from one blog post on We Hunted The Mammoth, which centered around the anti-Furiosa furor on Return Of Kings, a site so viciously anti-woman even Al Bundy would yell at them to grow the fuck up. But RoK isn’t a MRA site — just some random cootiephobes — and nowhere on Mammoth does it confuse the two. Every other site, desperate for traffic, did that.

Misogynists want her to grow hair and make babies and sandwiches, while MRAs want her to stop destroying masculinity. And to grow hair and make babies and sandwiches.

Did legitimate Men’s Rights Assbags hate Fury Road? Sure, because vagina. But they’re not nearly smart enough to organize some massive boycott of a film $375 million worth of people saw anyway. Also, despite what leading MRA loudmouths fantasize about while jerking off with mini-tweezers, nobody was “paid to put [an MRA boycott story] in the press.” It was lazy and biased, adjectives with which MRAs should be plenty familiar. And finally, we have the time the Noah movie threw every Christian into a hateful tizzy:

That’s a lot of cheek not-turning.

A survey of over 5,000 people found a whopping 98 percent were tut-tutting the movie for bastardizing the Bible. One problem: That survey focused on “faith-driven consumers,” and was organized by an ultra-religious group called … FAITH DRIVEN CONSUMER. They urge boycotts of anything that disagrees with their interpretation of the Bible, and are the same company behind IStandWithPhil, a petition to reinstate that homophobic guy from Duck Dynasty. Even Family Feud surveys like “Name a body part that rhymes with ‘eenis’” aren’t that obviously slanted.

#1. Nope, That Actor Didn’t Confirm A Sequel To That Movie

You know how we’ve dumbed down “literally” and “irony” so morons can feel literate too? “I literally ate an entire pig yesterday, and ironically, I literally ate an entire pig today, too!” We’re doing that crap with “confirm” now. Where once it meant “official news from an official source,” it now means “anybody saying anything about anything.”

Like these constant breaking news stories about a celebrity “confirming” a sequel to some film, when it turns out all they really said was “yeah it’d be cool to do that maybe.” Recently, the Internet went bonkers over Keanu Reeves supposedly saying that Speed 3 was going to happen:

The biggest question now is: Which of the e’s will they replace with a 3?

But no, Speed 3 isn’t happening, for two reasons. Number one: Speed 2. Number two: Keanu was making a goddamn joke. Some reporter asked him about Speed 3, and he said, “Oh my god, Speed 3: Redemption. Sure. Jack Traven kind of like, dusting it off.” That’s sarcasm, folks — another term we’ve dumbed down because nobody can get it right.

Granted, it can be hard to tell with this guy.

Even SlashFilm admits (at the end, when everybody’s stopped reading) that this is probably a non-story, writing “I’m not sure I take the affirmative answer that seriously, but he said it and it’s our job to tell you what he said.” It’s also your job to cleverly edit your headlines so overexcited Speed demons click and share your gossip without a second thought, it would seem.

Ewan McGregor ran into this too, with headlines screaming about how he’d be down with doing Trainspotting 2, even though it’s absolutely not happening.

How old is the ceiling baby now, anyway?

Good God, three paragraphs in, the man admits “I’ve not seen a script yet and I don’t know if there is one.” And yet People reported this anyway. You might as well report on him debating whether to order pizza or Chinese food.

Even Beetlejuice 2 isn’t as done a deal as the headlines make it seem:

Michael Keaton better start practicing his surf moves.

This “confirmation” was her going on Seth Meyers and yammering, “Um, I think I can confirm it, because Tim Burton did this interview — like, it was very hush-hush, top secret … and then he was doing some press for Big Eyes and he did an on-camera interview and he said, ‘Oh yeah, we’re doing it and Winona’s going to be in it,’ and I was like [shocked face].”

And we were like [unimpressed face]. Until some studio gives us an official release date (like Universal recently did with Jurassic World 2), Beetlejuice 2: At Least Lydia’s Legal This Time is nothing but actors talking.

But boy do we love when actors talk — we’ll believe anything they say, even when it’s so obviously a stupid joke. Like Michael Shannon saying he would return as General Zod for Batman V. Superman: Dawn Of Justice, but with flipper hands:

That’s almost as silly as the name of the movie.

Notice how none of those headlines say “flipper hands”? That’s because even the writers know it’s bollocks, but they still want to suck you in and get your clicks, so they tease you “new details” and “strange change.” Except according to Shannon himself, Zod is stone dead, he only appears via voiceover, and the flipper thing was him being a silly goose:

A Batman story starring a guy with flippers? That’s preposterous.

Welcome to the Internet, Shannon, where you can’t believe everything you read, except for that one thing you’re about to share with your buddies. That thing? Totally believable.

Source: http://allofbeer.com/5-hollywood-stories-you-see-everywhere-that-are-always-bs/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2019/02/12/5-hollywood-stories-you-see-everywhere-that-are-always-bs/

[nemrut]

The Reaper - Mercy Connection

So, Mercy patched up Reyes after the destruction of the Zurich HQ, right? Let’s go with that. She tried to revive him with flawed/incomplete/damaged technology at hand, Most likely it was either use the risky stuff she had right there right now or he dies.

My question would be, was she aware that she saved him? That he was alive and walked away and Mercy promised not to tell anyone he survived and the drawbacks and side-effects showed later, after Reyes had broken all contact and basically faked his own death (same as Morrison). Or did she try and thought she had failed but instead the technology needed a bit of time to kick in and he woke up later, flawed and broken and Mercy is unaware he survived, thinking him dead?

I would be inclined to think the latter, but my concern there is, no body ever showed up, right? Couldn’t have, since Reyes is using his body, being alive and all. (or does he?) Seeing that Mercy tried to heal him and if he had died right there, she would have given his body to the authorities who came for relief and after he was confirmed dead, it would have been sent back to his homeland for a burial. So what I mean is that I think we would have heard if his body had disappeared after the fact, at least in those newspaper articles.

Or the tech needed so long, he basically dug himself out of his own grave?

Same question regarding Morrison, I would assume that when the explosion happened, that Reyes and Morrison were in the same room. And if Angela found Reyes, chances are high that she’d have found Morrison as well. Not necessarily so, true, but still.

Did Angela know that both had survived, that both had decided to fake their deaths and she then took all the responsibility to be the face and de facto last remaining leader of Overwatch as the UN rushed to close it down?

That she had to basically carry all the blame and scorn of a public disappointed in their heroes and feeling betrayed by Overwatch and that members of Overwatch who saw her as giving up and betraying them by agreeing to the dismantlement resented her? Carrying all that whilst knowing that one or two of the three actual leaders who had started this, who were actually responsible for this basically fled?

That they (and let’s be honest, Ana as well, she could have come back at any time) foisted this terrible burden on her, she who had tried more than anyone to keep things peaceful but who had to fight against the weaponization of her technology and was betrayed by Overwatch as Ana’s tech shows (biotic rifle being built against her wishes, the stim boost that makes one tougher and stronger for a short time and nanobots that prevent healing and do harm, basically the opposite of what she would want) that she would be the target of everyone's scorn and spite?

And she still carried that burden. She didn’t tell anyone about Reyes or Morrison (if she knew which we’ll discuss in a minute).

Then again, Reyes knew Morrison survived. Seeing that the newspaper article about Soldier 76 assumed that it was Jack and given that Soldier 76 got a 10 million dollar bounty (which makes more sense if they knew who Soldier 76  and with that how dangerous he is), I’d say a few governments and high ranking professionals knew  or at least heavily suspected that Jack survived.

It’s unclear if Morrison knew Reyes did. He didn’t seem particularly surprised that Reyes was Reaper but at the same time I’m not sure he was certain. He recognized Reaper’s voice when he heard it but again, unsure if that was something out of the blue or merely confirming a theory. he was there for Ana, and not really for Reyes but we don’’t know.

Both had suspicions about Ana being alive, given their dialog. Morrison was there to recruit Ana. Ana seemed relatively sure Morrison was still alive but I’m not sure if she was surprised that Reyes was alive at all or how his state was.

So, it’s really unclear who knew what. We can’t really tell, it’s all a bit frustratingly vague.

That said, coming back to Mercy, I am not even one hundred percent sure it was Mercy who healed him. Heck, we don’t really have proof she was there. We all inferred it since it happened in the Swiss HQ and that’s Mercy’s turf but I can’t find a single line that says Mercy was right there when the HQ blew up in the fight. I am 99.9% certain her technology was used/involved in creating Reaper, since the effects on Reapers body are on a molecular level and that’s where the nano-tech is at but every piece of dialogue that I could find about the matter really makes me think it wasn’t Mercy.

Mercy: What happened to you? Reaper: You tell me, doc.

and from Old Soldiers

Ana; What happened to you...?                                                               Reaper: He did this to me Ana. They left me to become this thing.               Ana: Gabriel...                                                                                           Reaper: They left you to die. They left me to suffer...

Which doesn’t exactly sound like Mercy was involved, right? Especially since Mercy sounds surprised and more curious rather than horrified when she asks “what happened to you” ingame. As if she had no idea what happened to him and not that something she did had unintentional consequences. But she is also not shocked, but then again, there are no lines of voicing disbelief with Ana or Jack either and we know at least with Ana that she had no idea and all she says to her so far is to remind her that she could fix her eye.

When you google Mercy and Reaper lines, a variation of this pops up:

Reaper: Don't forget, you're the one responsible for this

Mercy: This is not what I intended Reyes

or

Reaper: (Revived by Mercy) This is your fault...

Mercy: This is not what I had in mind.

However, Lead Writer Michael Chu wrote on the official forums that this line/exchange does not exist in the game. And I similarly couldn’t find a soundbite of this dialogue and having played over 50 hours of Mercy myself ever since the game came out, not to mention way more hours where I had a Mercy in my team, I’m honestly not sure if I heard it or not. Here is a thread discussing that lines existence as a few are convinced it did exist at one point.

In one of these threads, this video is linked where some person is talking about Reaper and whatnot but they actually have a soundbite in which Reyes does say

“Don't forget, you're the one responsible for this”

It’s also listed under Final Blows when killing Mercy on overwatch.gamepedia.

Only Reaper though and no context given. We don’t know WHO is he saying it to. Could be Mercy, the overwatch gamepedia site thinks it was. Could be Soldier. Heck even if he did say it to Mercy, being responsible might just mean because her tech was used and not that she necessarily did it herself. She created the tech, she was researching bringing people back from the dead, it’s her ultimate ability ingame. Whether she herself used that tech on him, someone else did or just an accident, in a lot of ways, she would be responsible either way, since she was the creator.

So, maybe Jack and Gabe were fighting, stuff exploded and it was more comic book-esque in that the explosion made Angela’s lab blow up and the stuff there messed Gabriel up. Or, a darker take, Jack did something. In the Old Soldiers comic he does blame Jack. But he also says “they left me”. Is the “they” Jack and Overwatch or Jack and Mercy? The former makes sense for both instances, Ana and Reaper whereas the latter doesn’t for Ana.  Does he mean both but that would be unnecessarily confusing and unlikely. So it makes me suspect that Reyes meant Jack and Overwatch or at least Jack and his faction. We know from the Olympa Shaw article that there was a civil war within Overwatch.

These records indicate that a rebellion tore the group apart from within. On one side was Morrison, determined to hold together what remained of Overwatch. On the other side was Reyes, whose agenda remains unknown to this day. A battle raged between these men deep within Overwatch's base. At some point, their fighting triggered an explosion that destroyed the facility and sent the dreams of an entire generation up in flames.

According to Overwatch's former agents, this outcome was inevitable. "After Morrison's promotion to strike commander, his relationship with Reyes changed," Dr. Angela Ziegler, medical director of Overwatch, stated during a UN committee hearing. "The tension became more pronounced as time went on. I tried to mend things. We all did. Sometimes when the closest bonds break, all you can do is pray you stay out of the cross fire."

The UN data goes on to disclose something even more disturbing: Morrison's body was never recovered.

Quote from the article itself.So yeah, two factions clashed and Mercy, fitting to her character, was on neither side. Now, it would make sense for her to have been on ground zero on this day. Both because a) it’s the Swiss Headquarters and her being kinda the main (and so far only) Swiss hero makes sense for that to be “her” main place where she lives and all and b) that in her role as mediator between the two factions, that she was trying to keep the two sides from actually fighting.On the other hand, when two parties clash, are ready to clash and I suspect even wanted this fight to happen, one way or another, would they try that with Mercy there? Or would they want that to happen at a time when Mercy is no way near so she wouldn’t come between them? Or did it happen in a completely different manner?Frustratingly, it’s even vague whether or not it was just Reyes and Morrison fighting or if both were leading actual factions and the fighting was between more than two people. Seeing how big of a fuck-ups those two are, I can believe that those two could blow up the HQ on their own, but what, was the building completely empty for some reason? Unlikely, as the article says “ Among the casualties were Morrison and Reyes. ” meaning there were more than just those two. The word rebellion is used, does that mean that the HQ was going its normal way and then Reyes came with a surprise attack and Morrison had to rally the loyal troops and that fight caused the explosion? Or because of the investigations into Overwatch, no one was in the HQ, those two met up (or three with Mercy as the mediator) and things escalated and that made things explode?And then what, Mercy found Reaper and healed him but not Morrison? Am I to believe she didn’t search for him? You’ll notice the article goes out of its way to mention Morrison’s body but there isn’t one word about Reaper’s. It also doesn’t mention a single word about Mercy being there on that day, only that she later talked about the general deterioration of the relationship of Reyes and Morrison.If Mercy found Reaper and healed him, did he just stand up and walk away? Did he look for Morrison and couldn’t find him? He did say he had been looking for him ever since that day, well, does that mean that after the explosion, did he search through the rubble? Did he immediately flee? Was he an incorperal ghost and woke up days later? If Mercy healed him, what did he tell Mercy? Pretend I’m dead? All possible. Or she wasn’t there at all, the fighting lead them to her labs, stuff exploded and he got nanobots all over him and comic book science happened.Or Jack and “they” did something to Reaper.Fact is, we don’t know. Overwatch has a lot of these things where you just don’t know for sure how things played out. Timeline stuff is vague enough. Heck, the Reaper is supposed to be a mercenary active for decades and that seems to clash with the facts that we know. Was Reaper an alter ego that Reyes used for a long time or is it a mantle he picked up. Like Doomfist, that it is a title and he maybe killed the other Reaper. Or was it part of his Blackwatch persona?So many questions. Honestly, I’m not sure about anything. Before writing this, I was actually more on the Mercy was there and caused the Reaper thing side, because that’s an interesting story hook. It makes for nice conflict. But now, I have to say, the signs seem to lean more towards the fact that Mercy really had nothing to do with anything there, that she wasn’t even there and didn’t know that neither Morrison nor Reyes survived.I don’t know if the Overwatch writers did some retconning via the line, rewriting the story and character dynamics, or if I am overthinking things or if they just love being super vague. It’s fun to speculate but honestly, at this point, I’d love some concrete facts and hard dates.