#then it became a shitshow

[tremorsmackenzie]

it is so weird to rewatch phase 1 and have these canonically extremely skilled and competent women in every movie, but also still see the same old sexism applied to them.

like, natasha romanoff, who at this point went through the fucking red room and everything that's associated with leaving the red room, having a breakdown after running away from the hulk for a little bit. thats pretty much a morning workout for her. generally the way they still sexualized her in this movie and had her act in some scenes.

i know it was 2012 and joss whedon but come on

[burr-ell]

"the tendency of this fandom to only engage with what THEY want these characters to be#as opposed to what their creators are trying to do and the stories they want to tell" slap this on a bumper sticker, you just summed all cr discourse (about PCs at least) in 2 sentences

It truly is maddening (and it's not by any means exclusive to the CR fandom). The reason why the discourse always goes the way it does is that at the end of the day, the loud fanwanky people only see what they would do, if they were self-inserted into the story, as a valid choice; and they are, more broadly, fundamentally disinterested in what others think or feel. There are several examples of this, and the variety of spaces within the fandom that produce these ideas is an indicator that this isn't endemic to one specific group of people.

-Keyleth is an important character whose feelings and choices are validated by the other PCs and cast even if they still disagree with them, in spite of how she and her preachiness get in the way of the Murderhobo Jubilee? It's not because the cast are all friends and they genuinely believe Keyleth is valid and are interested in how these discussions and choices can guide the story. It's because Marisha is the DM's girlfriend, and also here's my totally unbiased theory that my pet favorite players Sam and Travis secretly hate Marisha and Keyleth.

-Vax's presence is still felt and nodded to in the post-canon VM oneshots? It's not because he was an important character who mattered. It's because Liam wants to make everyone talk about his tragedy because he has Main Character Syndrome. Scanlan Wishes for Vax to appear at the wedding? It's not because he cares about Vex or because Sam and Liam wanted a sweet tribute to Vex and Vax's relationship and by extension Liam and Laura's friendship. It's because Liam thinks Vex's life should always revolve around Vax, and Sam wants to enable him and jerk himself off as the one who facilitated it.

-Beauyasha and Fjorester become canon? It's not because the players wanted it and it happened naturally. It's because there was a secret behind-the-scenes push to "force" those ships to become canon instead, and like, Dani Carr is some sort of shipping puppetmaster who made the players do it, and "they" (whomever "they" is) decided to sink Beaujester or Widojest because it was "obviously" going to become canon before the pandemic hiatus gave them time to "make the corporate-approved ships happen".

-Beau and Caleb try to reform the Empire and dismantle the Cerberus Assembly from within? It's not because it makes sense for their stories or that people who would take this position regarding a corrupt government might have a valid perspective that differs from your own. It's because the people at Critical Role Productions LLC are all spineless neoliberal cowards who won't commit to real activism. The best activism, after all, is violent, and violent revolutions have always resulted in stable aftermaths, and the real world has never demonstrated that this mindset is foolish.

-Relatedly: Caleb doesn't kill Trent personally? It's not because the most poetic justice would be to deny Trent the thing he wants most from Caleb. It's because "Limo Brain" is too obsessed with tragedy to have the stones to do "what needs to be done".

-Asmodeus, DnD Satan, turns out to also be CR Satan? It's not because it fits with the cosmology and the lore; it's because Matt Mercer is too attached to the "establishment", and the Prime Deities should have actually turned out to be the bad guys because of my personal baggage about Western religion and Christianity they're a little mean to my blorbo sometimes.

There's a pattern here: fans had expectations that they'd built up for themselves after projecting and building up fanon and deciding what players meant before they explained themselves fully, and when the players strayed from that, they were derided for all manner of reasons. I think we're seeing that same pattern play out in C3 as the story progresses in a way that fans dislike, and in fact we have seen fanwank spread whenever someone does anything that interferes with personally catering to a) the favored ship and/or b) the favored philosophy. (Orym, Ashton, FCG, Percy, Pelor...all valid when they affirm the Fandom Opinions and all disdained when they don't.)

Don't get me wrong, I think there's a place for comfort stories that deliver a personal catharsis. And I'm not going to dismissively say "well if you want it so bad make your own" because, as an artist, I am very familiar with the fact that creating is hard and draining and sometimes you just need to consume instead. But when you become so wrapped up in yourself and your feelings to the point where your perspective is the only valid one, someone else's feels like a betrayal when it isn't. It's always "They aren't doing what we wanted and here's why they're terrible people because of it" and never "Hmm, why is this what the cast wants? Let's examine that."

This isn't a new phenomenon, but I think it ultimately stems from not assuming that other people can differ from you in major ways in good faith. There are a lot of reasons for that (some more understandable than others), but I think you rob yourself of the potential to enjoy something new when all you do is demand what you already want. No matter what you're doing or where you are in life, you tend to become a better and wiser person when you open your mind to what other people have to say, no matter how mundane the subject matter. Sometimes the stories people have to tell are challenging—and the only healthy way to deal with that is to engage with them on their own terms.

[raviollies]

Ireena did not have a good time last session

[liquidchocolatecake]

currently captive audience to a knock down drag out fight in my brain between desire to respect the wishes of the creator and not look for anyone redistributing the comic and god i fucking miss wonderlab i miss wonderlab so much you have no idea i want wonderlab back so bad

[cozylittleartblog]

these tags just made me feel fucking ancient

[my-my-my]

I’m on Bluesky if anyone is on there 🫡

[nunyverse-scribe]

Me when my head is pounding from crying over a conversation that kinda just reinforced all the shittiness I went through while also throwing me for a loop on whether or not I’m valid for feeling the way I feel, but I have to repress all of that bc ✨employed citizen✨

[carlosdropshot]

magnus cort nielsen to uno-x is an unexpected and fascinating move. it looks like uno-x is gonna go for a WT license or at least for regular WCs in big races. feels fitting that denmark should have a big team given the impressive number of elite danish riders in the peloton nowadays. magnus is truly one of my favorite riders and i hope he shines in his new team!

[ecocharlier]

Guys! I'm curious, which other social media platforms do you use for fandom? I used to post on Instagram, and I tried Twitter for a short while but idk anymore 🤔

[tasmanianstripes]

Amazing how it took the developers of Poppy Playtime two whole chapters to finally make a bare minimum of a functional game

[jtl-fics]

Watching Ash’s journey end on Pokemon has me remembering a quasi-SI fic that I was talking about with a friend for AGES.

It was one where the MC ends up in the body of the female protagonist of the Black / White pokemon games like 2 days before they’re set to get their pokemon. At FIRST they’re like “Oh wow this is great! I finally get to live the dream of being 10 and having UNLIMITED power via my legion of SWORN FRIENDS. I can’t wait to live in a Pokemon world! I love it-”

Then her mom services her a Miltank steak and suddenly she has a whole ETHICAL crisis. Like POKEMON ARE NOT FOOD THEY’RE SENTIENT WE CAN’T EAT THEM OH GOD. Like it’s just been hand waved away in the canon of the show / games but there are plenty of dex entries about how delicious certain pokemon are.

So she’s like “I am now a militant vegetarian.” and picks Tepig because well...he’s a pig he can sniff out truffles right? That’ll be useful for living a vegetarian life from now on. There is a lot of “Oh god, am I becoming PETA?” and “I’ve become what I most feared in my previous life, a Militant vegetarian” sort of comments all the time.

She considers becoming okay with it and then sees adverts for a ‘Togepi omelette’ and is just like BRB going to go cry in the woods for the next 6-8 hours.

While she’s in the woods she runs into N and the entire plotline of the B/W games gets thrown off because she’s just like “Hey, do you wanna help me find delicious non-pokemon alternatives for food?” and N is so immediately on board with that that he’s already forgotten that Team Plasma exists.

The thing is MC is so fucking weird. She has no idea about the actual customs / cultures of Unova and she seemingly changed OVER NIGHT but N has no fucking idea about that. Everyone he’s ever met in his entire life were either pokemon or Team Plasma so he’s just like “Yeah she’s normal.”

Meanwhile Cheren and Bianca are just like “This SCOUNDRAL has brainwashed our BFF” because MC was just living her life as a blank slate and then one night just “How can you eat that?! That’s not FOOD that’s a MILTANK!” erupts from her house.

It’s not until waaaay later when Team Plasma grunts are just like “WHAT DID YOU DO TO LORD N?” that they think oh wait shit maybe she brainwashed him?

N’s just happy to have such a nice friend who shares his passion for Pokemon rights.

[televenus]

youre so real for this

😭 like. yeah yeah fnaf is cringe but look man i was a kid when it came out. i was exactly the crowd and was fully immersed in all the hype and truly the early days feeling of community between the teasers and theories was like nothing else. probably the first time i was really Involved with something online and the in depth retrospective from somebody else who was lost in the sauce is just so compelling and nostalgic

[iknowicanbutwhy]

12 hour shifts should be illegal. Holy hell.

[thornofthevale]

no sir you don't understand that's my emotional support decade and a half old poorly aging youtube web series

[sevynchaos]

uefa co-organize the bdo for the first time and a scandal already, not even shocked one bit

[prokopetz]

"Oh, she looks like a meth head" no she doesn't – she just looks tired. Which you would, too, if you were pulling double shifts because all the other Oompa-Loompas bailed when it became clear what a shitshow the event was and you've spent the last 90 minutes getting hassled by the parents of crying children after the candy table ran out of candy.