#why are publishers allowing people to publish crap

[rosencatholic]

The continuous hunt for a good fantasy romance book is never ending and I fear I will never find a good one in a very long time

[innerangeltoadlover]

IDEOLOGY : LIFE IN SCHIZOPHRENIA

1. I was inspired to write this because I believe a diagnosis of schizophrenia silences those who suffer from the illness. I wrongly believed after my sister took me to Court in an effort to make me homeless that I would never have to fight for my truth to be heard again. Poor outcomes for patients are linked to expedient treatments - ones which may ignore salient indicators of abuse in order to place mental illness as the cause of behaviour and the only valid truth. There is probably nothing more demeaning and disheartening than telling your therapist about abuse and having it received as a fairytale. My story will show the consequences of skepticism and disbelief in the treatment of schizophrenia which allows for the generalisation of experiences without differentiation. We are better than this.

Sometimes , well often, when we read a memoir there’s an assumption that the person writing has overcome some insurmountable hardship. It motivates us to think that we can do the same – and at some point we , like the author, will walk into the sunset with clarity, humour and perhaps in hand with another. These are the kinds of books I usually stop reading after the first chapter because life , and in particular my life, has not been like this. I want to write about the ugly side of mental illness and the reason why there are so many of us who exist without that longed for happy ending. For those of us who don’t crawl out of the mire our lives are not improved by the application of lipstick or the urging of those who have. Despite our travels through a social media polluted with inspiring memes and motivational scenarios real hardship is present and remains unchanged despite its synonymous pairing with choice.

So my story isn’t going to be particularly uplifting -there has been no victory here – I write because I have to – not because I want to. I’m hoping in writing that I might gain some internal peace over the war my mind wages with me, particularly at night when the lack of distraction makes sleep elusive. I think publishing is a bit of a minefield for people like me. I’m wary of writing anything that resembles some clueless manifesto but at the same time I think it’s important for people with this illness to write something real that isn’t Instagramable and also at nearly 60 I’ve come to view my illness as a valid part of my individuality and I wish to defend it rather than have this unique part of me trampled into submission by doctors who view me like a bacteria in a Petri dish. The truth is this illness is crap but the treatment is crappier and you are trapped in it , well I have been anyway. However the older I get the more I’ve realised that much of the prejudice and stigma linked to this illness has much of its origins in treatment. I used to have a social conscience and was concerned about the plight of my fellow sufferers but it has been chipped away. When my Shrink tells me of advances in care it sort of hangs in the air like a fog in a windowless room. These days I say very little when these professionals say this nonsense which I’ve heard so many times– I’m nearly old but I was young once and I wasn’t born in the Dark Ages- I was hopeful , though that hope has disintegrated. The old mantra “you can’t reason with a schizophrenic” is alive and well in most psychiatrists offices however it is often only the benefit of hindsight that allows us to see the stark relief against the empty rhetoric. It also painfully exhibits that in my case my treatment was inhibited by doctors who could not tell fact from fiction and who had ultimately decided that some lives are worth more than others.

[arospecsyourblockdudes]

Shang Qinghua is one of the SV characters I can most relate to purely in terms of also being a writer. I know that a lot of the stuff I want to write won’t end up being super popular (a romance with a purposefully unsexy vampire? a story between an m/f best friend pair with a really deep emotional bond and no romance? come on) and publishing is a nightmare anyway. But the difference is that I don’t plan to make a living off my writing. Poor SQH does. So if he wants to do fun things like pay his bills and eat food every day, he has to pander to the big audience.

He’s written other things that weren’t PIDW. Things that weren’t trashy stallion novels. Things he might’ve had a passion for and put his heart into. No dice. So PIDW it is and my god I can’t imagine how annoying and frustrating it is that the one work that you purposefully sold out on so you can, yknow, survive, is the only one that got big. It got really big. Really popular. That’s gotta be so fucking enraging. Imagine that, you think sitting down to write something you like is hard? Try to pump out a few thousand words of some crap you don’t even like every day, crap that you know had potential if following your actual ideas and plans for the characters would allow you to pay rent. Alas. The characters you lovingly crafted are watered down now. No one cares that you came up with a really compelling backstory for this one villain, he did bad things and he got murdered and that’s all anyone wanted to see. Not a real story, not something you put love into

In a way I think that’s partly why he and SQQ became friends. I’m a writer, we like feedback. We like to hear what people think of the things we write, even negative feedback can be appreciated. So if you have this one guy who reads everything, comments frequently, and (most important) can see how absolutely shitty this work of yours is? Someone that also sees the wasted potential of this story? Gotta be worth something.

[herrinarte]

Okay so I’m going to say something possibly controversial, and I hate to say it on pride month, but honestly I don’t want a book about Mor from SJM.

I’ve seen some people hyped about a book or novella on Mor potentially coming out in the future and absolutely no one can convince me that this would be a good idea. No one. My main issue would be Mor’s queerness and the blatant fact that SJM doesn’t give a single shit about queer stories or accurately portraying any marginalised group for that matter.

Let’s be real here, what SJM does best is straight fae smut stories that are enjoyed by predominantly straight, white, middle class women (obviously there are other people who enjoy them but I guarantee the majority are these women and there’s nothing wrong with that). I don’t believe for one second that SJM has the skills to write a compelling narrative about Mor and tbh, though I see people asking for a Mor book I don’t think it would sell as well as the other books, it would forever be known as ‘the gay one’ and yeah some people would read it but the series is mostly for the readers to self insert into and I just don’t think enough queer women would read it. I personally wouldn’t because I don’t think SJM cares too much about Mor. I mean we’ve know about Mor since book 2 and we still don’t even know what her dumbass truth powers are. She’s arguably one of the flattest characters in the series. Coincidental? I’m not so sure.

Mor isn’t a character who happens to be gay, she’s a character who the author felt she had to make gay. I will die on this hill. Honestly I don’t see why people complain about the lack of diversity in SJM’s work because look at the ‘diversity’ she has oh so generously bestowed upon us, it’s crap. If the woman doesn’t want to write about it I don’t see why she should have to. I think there are plenty of straight authors who write great queer and poc rep but SJM isn’t one of them.

I don’t think she will write a book about Mor unless she’s backed into a corner by the fans or her publisher. She doesn’t write queer stories and she certainly doesn’t do it for queer readers either.

But hey, maybe I’m completely wrong. Maybe SJM is secretly the biggest ally out there and as I type this she is furiously expanding her very narrow world view and writing the best damn book in the whole series with Mor at centre stage and I’ll have to eat my hat and die on my stupid little hill.

(Also if you completely disagree that’s totally cool but please don’t be a dick about it. People are allowed to disagree on things, there’s no need to get angry over fictional characters and an author who doesn’t even know who we are)

[canigetacupofugh]

How the OGL will affect YOU the Player

Gamer Solidarity is important, but here are the ways it might affect you the player. If the new OGL happens as it was written in the leak, here's how it might affect you, the person who only plays - It WILL cost you more money - WotC/Hasbro wants to move to a monthly subscription. One D&D would see you paying a monthly fee even if you're not online. So if you're using something like Roll20 or Tabletop Simulator, you'd be paying licensing fees for D&D on top of whatever they charge to use their platform. (they also want to do micro-transactions, which could also make it pay-to-win, but I'll cover that in another point).

It will be harder to find a group - Gamer Solidarity means a lot to a lot of people. Those of us who are mostly unaffected are still likely to side with the creators of the content we love. People are going to be refusing to play the new version, and moving to totally different systems or playing the old versions straight from the books. It's also going to be harder to find somebody willing to GM, which leads me into the next point -

There will be less GMs - Even if you somehow don't care that it's goinng to cost more for GMs, the new OGL will make it harder for them to run the game (which, BTW, 5th is already a lot more work for GMs than a lot of other systems) it's going to make the pool of people willing to run D&D smaller. Just don't play the new system you might say? Well, WotC has made it so it costs licensing fees to run it with Roll20 or Tabletop Simulator- and they're charging GMs more. Not to mention how if a GM uses 3rd party content, that content may not be available anymore thanks to the new OGL. Also, if you manage to find a GM running the newest version, the micro-transactions WotC wants to add in will make balancing encounters much more difficult.

Your favorite 3rd party creators will probably leave D&D - There's a lot of content that's been published under the old OGL and instead of grandfathering that in, WotC wants to just revoke the license. These means legal action could possibly be taken against them, even if they're publishing for versions of D&D that are out of print. The new OGL also means that WotC is allowed to just TAKE their content - so for fear of having their IP stolen, a lot of creators just aren't going to make things for D&D anymore. For ANY version.

Public Play will be an even bigger nightmare - This isn't really the OGL here, but this monthly subscription and micro-transaction BS only rewards those with cash and you WILL find yourself at the table with some asshole who bought a bunch of crap and is making the session all about them. I was there, I saw it happen with 4th.

None of this will affect me! - Well, good for you I guess? If you already have a steady game group who is all financially well off enough (or has a member willing to sponsor those that aren't) and you're all excited to try out the next edition D&D - cool, but if there are enough of you, you're supporting the people who do NOT care about you or the game. All they want is your money - and wouldn't it FEEL better to put that money somewhere better? (if your answer is to play in person, with an old edition, from books you already have, you're actually already kinda supporting the movement against the new OGL - be vocal about it)

Final Points - WotC didn't make D&D, they bought it. We aren't talking about a creator trying to regain control of their IP here, we're talking about a greedy company that wants to squash the competition. 3.0 saw a huge D&D resurgence into popularity, thanks a lot to the OGL. They tried messing with it before, this is why 4th edition gets shit on so much - I was there. (4th is actually a wonderfully accessible system and corporate greed messed it up). Fifth is so popular because the OGL came back, because content creators could make stuff for the new system again. WotC wants to STEAL these creators content. It's baked into the new OGL - they want the 3rd Party Creators to pay WotC royalties but if they take your self-published content and print it in one of their official books? They owe you jack-all. This will change the face of how IP legally works if it's allowed to just happen. It sets a DANGEROUS precedent for large companies to be able to retroactively steal IP.

Call to Action - Be against it, be loud, share with others WHY this is bad. Vote with your wallet, because that's all that WotC cares about- they have shown us now more than ever before, they do NOT care about you or the community. CANCEL YOUR DnD BEYOND if you have one - they have actually said this internally that the only numbers they're looking at as proof of if this will work are the DnD Beyond memberships. Cancel it. Might I suggest Roll20, Foundery, Tabletop Simulator, or Obsidian Portal for storing your character sheets for now?

Hope this helped somebody. I might write more about this topic.

[kimyoonmiauthor]

"You shouldn't put _this trigger_ in fiction *at all*" Censor before publishing discourse.

So, People of Color people aren't allowed to write about racism?

Women aren't allowed to talk about sexual assault, feminism?

Victims of r* aren't allowed to talk about it from their PoV and should leave it to people who've never, ever gone through it?

Men can't talk about how they too have gone through it and sort it in a social justice way and talk about the patriarchy is a way that goes deeper than the basic white feminism of Barbie?

People who know what *abuse actually feels like and would like to advocate against it* aren't allowed to talk about abuse?

When people talk about sex in YA, often the discourse isn't about writing safer sex and consent at all, but "should you write about sex with teens"

But this creates severe issues.

Look, I as one of the fundamentally token red shirts on this planet, queer, PoC, NB not a woman, but often have to fake it for the doctor's office because they won't let me check off NB and give me the form for that, with a history of abuse, history of institutionalization, want to fucking transform my shitty crap into diamonds by transforming my trauma into social justice awareness.

When you say, but you shouldn't write it into books at all, that means you silence the people who have gone through it, and need to talk about it, and wish to make the world a better place.

And sometimes the veneer of fiction is what people need in order to do that.

The reason, as many, many Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror authors have said their genre is one of the best ass places for talking about social issues is because of that ability to create distance from the issue and then dissect the hell out of it. This way it's not because I am left and live in this country... tory, whig, democrat, etc. It's these are the issues at stake, this is how it actually feels as this person going through this thing. This is why you exactly shouldn't do it, because it fucks with your head exactly this way long term.

But if you start labeling the issue in an exact way with the modern/contemporary terms from our world, people will start flipping out, but fiction gives the author super powers to say, this is what transformation of this AWFUL TERRIBLE thing looks like. And maybe this is why it's hard and this is how to do it.

Fiction can divide things into questions.

Instead of the discourse being, should teens have sex *in fiction*. I think the discourse should be, why aren't more writers writing like Norma Klein who was absolutely frank about birth control methods, what consent and safer sex was, and the results of (for her time period) a sexually abusive person that didn't get to go to jail, and marry his teen victim. And instead the reviews of her book are... OMG, she's soooo frank about sex I'm blushing.

Nyahh, you should read her because she's frank about sex, she's doing anti-body shaming initiatives, spends a fair amount of time comparing television to reality, talking about pubic hair as a natural thing, and combating TV images, and the "perfect" body through talking about sex. Maybe more romance could do that?

This guy doesn't have the 10 inch scholong all night long. But is kind, caring, knows what else to do in the interim during his refractory period? Did Norma Klein do that? Absolutely. She talked frankly about sex in order to push sex education. I got things in her 1960's written book that my sex education teachers failed to teach me, like anti-body shaming. Pubic hair is natural. (Romance is far, far from reality, I get that, but still... if you're going to blush at the word penis and think you can't possibly use it in a romance book in a frank discussion, then maybe you should reevaluate a bit. And I do wish Romance books went over consent too and made consent super sexy by having those frank consent discussion and making it oohhh I can't wait until we get through this discussion to *try* that, but we have to wait and oh my god, I didn't know that about you, I'm glad I get to *try* that. Make consent sexy. Make BDSM negotiations sexy. Make the how, "Would you like that?" OMG yes. sexy.).

The fact an ace is writing this about consent, safer sex and trying to ask people to not do body shaming isn't lost on me. But seriously. Also, I'm not sex repulsed, just on the indifferent scale. And aces can be sex positive.

Maybe in order to get queer joy, you need a bit of trauma up front so people know what the issues are. Maybe to get social justice in this area, you need to be able to talk about what people have to think about in order to go through transition and why people might opt out of it and how that too can be queer joy.

In order to transform the shit of the world, people should censor shit like happy slave gets with their master. YES. That probably should not be shared. Write it, keep it to yourself. OMG Nazis were good actually. Write it, don't share it with the general public.

But for the gnarly, for the honestly tricky, for the things that could be made into social justice, let it be written. Own voices preferred, but don't make them write it. But don't censor them either.

If a person who has gone through rape wants to write about rape and how horrific it is, then yes, let them write it. (BTW, I'm saying this as a person who knows what it's like and NO it's not "that's why you are ace, then." I was ace long before then. I was having ace-like thoughts at 5. Some people do, and that's fine. But don't paint everyone with the same brush.) But keep their feet to the fire and make sure they write it in a way that doesn't glorify it, doesn't make it feel "right" and aims it towards social justice. Then trigger warning.

"Precious" does have sexual abuse, rape and all of that, but if you get through that story and the difficulty, she transforms her shit into something positive. And it's an argument against rape, no matter what the book challenger thought. (OMG sex scenes and it's sexy? WTF is wrong with you, dude. Go see a therapist.)

What better way to make the book banners win than to let people who went through horrible traumatic shit never to make it to the bookshelf by shaming them for talking about it and transform their stories of horror into social justice gold?

There's quite a difference, though, when you're glorifying racism as a good thing.

[olderthannetfic]

Wait I’m genuinely curious about the mechanisms of this - so I know about ao3 and copyright law, but what about zines? I think the earliest are from the 1970s but how have they, as a media form, survived for so long if they’re also technically breaking the law by profiting off an IP? I get a lot are for charity and companies would be reluctant to sue projects for charity but I’ve seen some being sold that aren’t?

And also what about authors who post early updates on patreon or have patreon exclusive fics? That surely has to break copyright law?

Possibly answering my own question but maybe it’s because companies don’t care about this but I also did live through Nintendo viciously taking down let’s plays because they thought it breached their copyright by disincentivising people from playing the games?

Companies can be really strict about their IPs, so I’m really curious as to how this is happening and how people are protecting their works.

--

Getting away with shit and shit being legal are two very different things. ;)

And, to be fair, shit being illegal and companies threatening you with legal action are also very different things.

The oldschool ones were not for charity. You could make a fair use argument, but most zines survive simply because rights holders don't bother to go after them. Small print runs of physical objects are often not seen as significant enough to bother with. Zine makers often argue that they're only charging because they need to cover the printer's bill. Some prices on old zines bear this out; others don't.

Plenty of zines did get shut down by rights holders, however, from big-for-sff-publishing names like Chelsea Quinn Yarbro to Hollywood types like George Lucas. The reasons ranged from "My historical figure vampire is super original and your random-ass zine is endangering my copyright" (Fuck you, CQY. I'm never reading a page of your crap!) to "I just don't like Luke/Leia for some reason but won't tell you why" (LOL). I hear Lucas went after horny zines in general too. I wasn't around for any of this, obviously, but there are writeups online, including on Fanlore.

I presume modern zines benefit from the greater awareness around fair use and around bad press from suppressing fanworks, but they could still be in danger from big rights holders. Being legal or illegal is less important than who has the money for lawyers. Sometimes, a fan can get a big corp to back off by brazening it out, but you have to tell them your legal name and go "Come at me, bro!" Who wants to do that?

Fic Patreons are not only on shaky legal ground, but Patreon does not allow that use of the site. It's a private company, not a public service, and it can pretty much do as it pleases. Here are the guidelines in part:

Restrictions We don’t allow creations and benefits that violate our terms or policies. You can learn more by visiting our Community Guidelines and Benefit Guidelines. A high level summary of those rules is that we don’t allow:

illegal creations or benefits;

creations or benefits that are abusive towards other people;

creations or benefits that use others’ intellectual property, unless you have written permission to use it, or your use is protected as fair use;

or creations or benefits with real people engaging in sexual acts.

If your fans include people under the age of 18, then please remind them that they need their parent’s or legal guardian’s permission to purchase an offering or membership subscription on Patreon, and that those under the age of 13 cannot use Patreon. We are not required to allow any particular person or group of persons to be a patron or otherwise access Patreon services.

Now, yes, they do make an exception for fair use, but I doubt they'll side with the majority of fanworks creators on their particular Patreon works counting as fair use. (Actually, they might be more lenient on RPF. That "real people" rule is about porn starring live actors, not about RPF.) They might rule in favor of the person selling their fic on there, but they very well might not, and even if you were willing to fight it out in court, you probably couldn't since Patreon would be denying you service on their site, not suing you. They can deny service to whomever they want any time they want.

I don't advocate tattling to Patreon simply because I don't think there's any social contract around respecting Patreon's wishes, nor are Patreons I don't back super visible and in my face. Patreon is built by people who get paid to do that; the extra ethical issues present on AO3 are not present here. I don't really approve, but I'm also not going to go out of my way to rat on people. However, I'm sure that fandom enemies of BNFs with Patreons do tattle. I'd advise anyone monetizing this way to have other contact info for their patrons in case they suddenly get kicked off.

--

Basically, people are flying under the radar, and then periodically, there's a big drama where a rights holder or hosting site destroys everything.

[29daffodils]

Gay relationship is not immoral but being with a minor is. I don't know if you have the brain to comprehend it. You can portray such relationship in media but it should not glorify such behaviour or should be shown in a romantic light.

I don't where danyok is illegal (other than countries where gay relationship is seen as illegal which is not the issue we are talking about) when yok is full adult when he gets into a relationship with dan.

It's not even about whether a person is 18 or not cause Akk sleeps with ayan while akk is a minor and ayan is an adult in the story in technical terms but it's not an issue because they are in the similar space in life.

Whether you do the same in real life doesn't matter ( honestly we don't know) but other people could be influenced and could think something like this is normal especially among the young. Why do you think there is such backlash against colleen hoover books being published as romance. Sensitive stuff should be handled with care and not used for entertainment

ask #22 : media literacy, who?

listen anon.

since you are bringing up the brain's comprehension capabilities. let me tell you some things, which i know you will take in one ear, and out the other.

1) I don't know how old you are, but the way you speak shows you're not mature enough to engage in fandom in a healthy way.

i would like to think you're just young, because i have seen older fans think like and parrot bs like and ultimately it's come to bite them in the ass.

your simplest response to my previous answer could have been blocking me and moving on, but ofc you chose this. the anon cover. because what could be braver than that, right?

nevermind. your goal of making me see sense or whatever is ultimately pointless. kudos to you for trying though.

2) creators of media portraying sensitive themes are not liable for your well being. none. large productions or small fanartists.

my parents, however fucked they are, actually properly parented when it came to what kind of shows i was watching, or books i was reading.

I wasn't allowed to pick up a sidney sheldon book, even though my bestie was bought one by her parents. the reason is my dad reads through these things, her parents did not. or at least trusted her enough to know the good from bad. my parents made sure I wouldn't consume something that wasn't made for me. nevermind the fact that i picked up godfather in 7th grade from the school library and instantly regretted it.

so your bs argument about colleen hoover holds no ground here. you know why? because it's not on colleen to monitor her audiences or create stuff that can "teach you good from bad". no, she's creating stuff she wants to and trusts that her readers are old enough to know the difference or at least have someone who can outline those for them. she is creating for a specific set of audiences who love her.

so fuck it with your lame ass excuses. ask the parents to parent better. because they have clearly prioritised everything else besides the well-being of their children. and if you're telling me grown ass adults cannot differentiate and taking their moral lessons from a fucking fiction book —

( i have zero idea what's the content of that book btw besides domestic violence and a ..... divorce, maybe?)

— then, my dear. y'all are fucked. and probably your parents and the adults in your life did a shit job of telling you right from wrong.

3) my god, fuck it, some of y'all lack media literacy. clearly nobody paid mind in literature class 😑

the most immoral of media created, has a specific set of audiences. i write about stuff and know that people who can read between those lines, will know what i want to say. only idiots bring out the big words “glorify”, “romanticize” when they understand shit and want to look cool and pure and crap.

from your point, yok is an adult and dan too. how much older is dan? isn't yok 21-22 max? don't you think danyok have an unbalanced relationship because atp i could say that dan should have never gotten with that kid. you know why? because yok hasn't lived through things dan has, your stupid ass arguments about akkaye working out because bless my soul , two minors doing the deed??!, is nullifed here. people can be the same age and have different maturity levels, or be years apart, even while adults, and still be in entirely different paths of life.

anyway this is getting too long for you, i guess.

so my last point is.

4) you DO NOT have the right to police what kind of media someone should consume or not.

people who consume dark media, most of them know what they are doing. people cope through it, heal through it. i read fics where self-harm is glorified because it's the only way i can stop doing it to myself.

so don't you EVER come back here with how “immoral” media shouldn't exist or immoral things shouldn't be glorified. it's not art's job to educate you, unless the artist deems so. and lots of artists create stuff that doesn't glorify so called immoral things. read those books, genius.

if i could actually see you, i'd block the fuck outta you. but like the coward you are, I'm already expecting another anon ask.

next time though, all you are getting is my middle fingers. all four of them. cheers.

(p. s.: to the danyok girlies, i love them dw, I'm just using them as an example here)

[thenightling]

The reality of "Cancel culture" is jus an annoying casual bullying to make people stop talking about various subjects

Last night I posted something that amused me about Spirit Halloween. It was about spirit Halloween now selling adult sized reproduction Ben Cooper Halloween costumes (Popular but very cheap kids Halloween costumes from the 1930s to the early 1990s).

This resulted in someone hijacking my Tumblr post about to give a "Friendly reminder" that we shouldn't buy anything from Spirit Halloween because Spirit Halloween is owned by Spencer's Gifts and "in 2016 Spencer's gifts sold 'Grab America by the p-ssy' shirts and they have yet to apologize!"

I don't care. Yes, it's disgusting that Trump said he could grab a woman by her p-ssy and get away with it. Yes, the shirt was in poor taste but I'm not avoiding a store because it's owned by the same people who own another store that sold a tasteless shirt EIGHT years ago!

I am tired of being told what I should or shouldn't interact with.

I run a Neil Gaiman's The Sandman Facebook group and I was called a TERF apologist and even Transphobe all because I won't ban the mention of J. K. Rowling. She is literally mentioned in episode 11 of The Sandman Netflix series. And Neil Giaman's four part story The Books of Magic is often mistaken as a Harry Potter rip-off even though it was published over seven-years before the first Harry Potter book was published.

Even though my group's very first rule is "No bigotry" I was accused of leaving transphobic content on the group. Someone in "The Trailer Park Pagans are at it Again" group even kept a bunch of posts from transphobes from within my Sandman group from before I could ban them (Most of those troll posts were less than eleven minutes old when screen grabbed) to make it look like I allowed that crap.

When Hocus Pocus 2 was released to Disney+ someone in my group decided to announce that Bette Midler was a transphobe and she "No longer felt safe in the group" if I talked about Hocus Pocus. Like simply mentioning a fictional character Bette Midler played will make her manifest in their bedroom.

I am NOT justifying or "apologizisting" anything Bette Midler has said. Liking those films is not based on the personal lives of the women involved.

I posted an ASMR video by "Jim's ASMR" based on The Sandman and someone felt the need to tell me how "Problematic" he is because he cheated on his wife in real life with other ASMR artists.

I posted a Nostalgia Critic video and get a lecture about how problematic Channel Awesome is (Yes, I know. I know. I saw the manifesto.)

I really like Danny Elfman. Recently there were some awful accusations tied to him from decades ago that I will not defend but thankfully it appears there was no real evidence anyway. But apparently I'm not supposed to listen to my old recordings anymore, even though he's not getting any new money for them. Annoyingly some people have even used his Oingo Boingo song "Little Girls" as "Proof" that he's a sexual predator even though the song was meant to be a call out to shame people in Hollywood who take advantage of underage girls. You're not supposed to like the main character of the song, and he's even caught at the end of the music video version.

I was told Netflix's Castlevania is problematic and I should avoid it because of some misbehavior of the show's writer. I LIKE Castlevania!

I've been told to avoid Tim Burton because he's "racist" even though I've seen him make a conscious effort to be a lot more diverse in his casting.

On Facebook someone tried to scold me for being Wiccan. They lectured me because Wiccans borrow from other religions and there for "Culturally appropriate." Well, name any religion that doesn't do that. I replied with more or less that challenge and got "If you acknowledge the problematic elements of Wiccan why don't you avoid it?"

Because I'm a f--king adult and I don't avoid all things that are "Problematic." All religions borrow from other religions. There's no pure and untainted form of Paganism. It's Neo Paganism for a reason. And most of it was reinvented or cobbled together in the nineteenth century, just slightly older than modern Wicca pieced together from ancient folk beliefs.

Spirit Halloween Spencer's Gifts J. K. Rowling Harry Potter Bette Midler Hocus Pocus Nostalgia Critic Jim's ASMR videos Danny Elfman Castlevania Tim Burton Wicca (My own religion!)

I've reached a point where I'm sick of being told what I should avoid even discussing because it's "Problematic" or offensive. Note: I am NOT justifying sexual abuse or J. K. Rowling's anti-Trans views.

I understand there's a valid reason to avoid some of these things if you have strong convictions about them and that's up to you but I do not appreciate my posts being hijacked to be given a "Friendly reminder" why you shouldn't shop at Spirit Halloween.

"Friendly reminder" YOU don't get to dictate what I talk about or where I shop, or what music I listen to. If it's problematic that's on me. It's not your business. If I want to listen to an ASMR by a man-whore who doesn't know who to be faithful so what? I'm not sleeping with him, I'm listening to his semi-hypnotic insomnia aid videos.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Buzzfeed

Published: Feb 12, 2023

We recently asked Black members of the BuzzFeed Community to tell us the reason they left Christianity. Here are their insightful replies:

Warning: This post contains mentions of sexual abuse. 

1. "First, I never wanted to go to church, it was something my mom made us do. Second, homophobia. The last time I went to a church it was a lovely and inspirational sermon until the pastor started disparaging gays for absolutely no reason. Even at my grandfather's funeral, the pastor there managed to blame gays for the state of the world. Just random unnecessary hate."

—justchillman

2. "When I was younger, the pastor at the family church was allegedly involved in a scandal with a child and no one would do anything because he was a 'man of God.' I was instantly turned off of organized religion after finding out. That was the catalyst and the more I grew up and did some soul-searching, the more I realized I could not believe in a God that would protect a monster over a child (amongst other things as well)."

—sdhendrix182

3. "I stopped believing because my ancestors were forced to convert to what their masters believed. Plus, we pray so much and are some of the hardest believers, yet our lot in life remains the same generation after generation. I didn't understand why we were suffering so much even though we went to church and prayed so much. So, I stopped believing, stop praying and start doing and became very successful."

—Anonymous

4. "The amount of gossiping that went on in my church was astounding to me, even as a child. I always felt I had to be perfect or else I would give everyone else even more to talk crap about. The irony of the 'judge not lest ye be judged' Christians being the judgiest people I ever met was lost on them, but it made me really evaluate if I actually believed or if it was just putting on a show so I could fit in. I found out it was the latter."

—afinallullaby

5. "I was raised Catholic but as I got older, I questioned the church and its teachings more and more. A lot of it started to not make sense. When I discovered that I was nonbinary and pansexual, the church responded by forcing conversion therapy on me rather than accepting me. A God that supposedly loves everyone is not going to force that sort of hell on anyone."

—Anonymous

6. "I am a 60-year-old heterosexual African male and was increasingly bothered by the comments and jokes about gay people from the pulpit. I was a devoted and tithing member of a non-denomination mega church. My childhood years were spent every Sunday in a southern Baptist church. But I began to feel more and more uncomfortable with rhetoric that was justifying why gay lifestyles were 'unacceptable.' In short, I asked myself is this what Jesus would say or do with anyone or any group? My answer was no. This caused me to have enough doubt to question a number of teachings and stories in the bible that I was now able to look at with open eyes."

"I began to research the origins of religion and came to understand it is all about a belief, not facts. I then asked a basic question is there any area in my life where I operate on belief and not fact? With that in mind, I had to get honest and admit, I have no concrete data or facts that clearly show me there is a God. The idea of attributing what we don't understand to a God is no longer acceptable to me."

—Anonymous

7. "I grew up in church with pastors on both sides of my family. It's overwhelming as a child to be told all the things you can't do because it's a sin and you'll go to hell. Don't get me started on the teachings about relationships and sex. I wasn't allowed to date until I was 17 and once I turned 17, I was suddenly supposed to be okay with openly dating without feeling conviction. Religion played a huge part in me not dating or having significant relationships until my mid-20s and even then it still felt wrong."

"Additionally, end-time prophesy teachings (the rapture) were genuinely traumatizing. I was under constant fear that the rapture would happen and I would be left behind for some unknown sin I committed. I now have a child of my own and I REFUSE to put any sort of religious teachings in her head and I've told my parents that I will decide what's appropriate for her until she's old enough to make her own decision about religion."

—Anonymous

8. "At a very young age, I was forced to attend church. It felt like a cult. I was cognizant of the so-called church body I convened with. All I did was look and listen. Attending church continued until I was in my early teenage years. After all that I have experienced and been through I made a conscious decision that I did NOT want to be in the same place with any of those people which I will never do."

—Anonymous

9. "I didn’t grow up in church or a religious household, I was just told God exists, sin exists, and went to a few summer bible schools. As an adult, I wanted to grow my faith. The more I started reading, researching, and contemplating, I called bullcrap. It took about three years of combing through Christianity, Black Hebrew Israelites, and belief in God with no attached religious text before I settled on atheism. Honestly, I never felt more at peace or free."

—Anonymous

10. "As I got older, a lot of things in the bible just didn't add up (no mention of dinosaurs, no one could give an exact timeline of the events in the bible, the fact that the whole origins of the bible itself are a matter of debate). Not to mention that Christianity was used to keep slaves in check. I definitely have been persecuted for my stance, but I will never go back to any religion."

—Anonymous

11. "I did research on the history of the church and became very knowledgeable on all its past. Once I understood the roots of the faith, it became impossible for me to logically subscribe to it."

—Anonymous

12. "I grew up in a Baptist church in a religious extended family. My belief in some higher power diminished because of multiple reasons. Multiple friends of mine died in the same year and I just can't fathom how a higher power allows so much grief and hurt (at a personal level as well as across all of society). Mass shootings, violence, homelessness, assault, and so many heinous acts get explained away by free will, but why let people suffer if an all-powerful being could make it better? Modern Christianity is so far from the teaching of the bible. Looking at the mega-churches and the pastor and their lavish lifestyles, they're businesses."

—Anonymous

13. "I was raised in the church and the older I get, the more it seems to me how religion is used just to control the less fortunate."

—Anonymous

14. "I would say that actually reading the bible for myself without someone else's interpretation led me out of Christianity. Once I read it fully, I saw how humans created a God in their image depending on their circumstances and state of mind. While Christians will believe their God is going to save us from ourselves, the work of being better stewards of the Earth and each other falls on us. We must evolve into better humans."

—Anonymous

15. And "I was baptized at 12 and literally a year later I started to question my faith. So I read the bible in full. So many questions that many refuse to logically answer besides the usual 'Have faith.' I have not found anyone that can explain to me why God needed to kill all the animals except for the only two of own their kind on Noah’s ark when it was the humans who sinned. So many inconsistencies and not to mention man has touched the bible. What better way to control people than saying promises of heaven or being condemned to hell? I consider myself an agnostic atheist."

—Anonymous

Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity. 

==

Black Americans have consistently tended to be more religious and slower to leave their religion per capita than white people and other ethnic groups, and more likely to regard religious faith as being personally important.

[ Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/racial-and-ethnic-composition/ ]

But perhaps that trend might change.

[electricprincess96]

The amount of misinformed that exists about the Star Wars Expanded Universe is insane to me.

Firstly "it was never canon" then why was there a tier list of canon at Lucasfilm in which George's movies were at the top and it went down through T-Canon (Television Canon so The Clone Wars TV Show), C-Canon (Continuity Canon where the books and comic books and most games fell) and then so on and so forth. If none of it was ever canon, you'd have never needed this you'd just ignore anything that wasn't in the movies. Basically, if the piece of media didn't contradict anything in a tier above it, it was canon, which contrary to popular belief didn't happen as often as EU hater will tell you it did. And many of the contradictions that DO exist, existed because books were written years before the prequels and maybe had one off hand reference to something that's touched on in the prequels that is slightly different to how George ends up portraying it. Although he did deliberately refuse to allow EU writers to write about the Clone Wars because he knew he'd eventually try and make the prequels. If the books were never canon, whyd he need to stop people writing about the Clone Wars when it wouldn't matter if their version was wildly different from his. Unless he was deliberately trying to keep the overall continuity of the universe as coherent as possible.

George Lucas might not have viewed the EU as being AS legitimate as his movies BUT he wasn't stupid, without the EU through the 90s we'd have never got the prequels, they kept Star Wars alive, The Thrawn Trilogy reignited an interest in Star Wars. George regularly commented on EU material, he wrote the forward to Shatterpoint and gave ideas for The Darth Plageus novel. Just because they weren't AS canon as his movies doesn't mean they weren't legitimate.

And before people go "but George Lucas and Dave Filoni SAID" I don't care about what they said. Firstly Dave is irrelevant here he was an employee of George, he is not his legal representative stop rolling him out to speak on George's behalf. Secondly I care about actions and the ACTIONS at Lucasfilm throughout the existence of the EU makes it very clear it was considered a form of canon, yes it was lower than George's own works but they weren't published fanfiction, George regularly looked to the EU for influence, taking full characters from the EU and putting them in Revenge of the Sith for example. Words are meaningless, if your actions imply the opposite. And George's words aren't even consistent on this, so if he's said both that it was never canon and sometimes has said it was then the only thing I will go off of is what his actions tell us and that is that he clearly considered it canon that was built off what he created and yes he had the power to overwrite it but he tried very hard to make sure things fit together as well as they could.

Lucasfilm literally had a continuity guy who started out as an EU writer. You wouldn't need one of those if the EU wasn't canon.

Also the people who I see say the EU was just shit are always people who admit to not reading any of it. They haven't touched Darth Bane, Heir to the Empire, Darth Plageus etc. Like sure there was some crap (although ironically some of the worst like the Ewoks and Droids cartoon and the Holiday Special comes straight from George Lucas himself) but not as much as people who've never read any of the EU claim there is. And the arguments against the EU is always to somehow prop up Disney Star Wars and I'm sorry but that's got plenty of crap in it too so let's not pretend you've got the high ground here. You are not Obi-wan.

And because the EU had a tier list of canon it wasn't as confusing as some people claim it is to figure out what really happened at some event in universe. EU had 30+ years and managed it's canon very well for something that existed for that long. Disneys own Expanded Universe is 10 years old and already books are being overwritten by TV shows just cause Dave Filoni wants to, despite Disney promising that in their Star Wars there would be no need for canon tiers since everything would be made in collaboration and be considered equal.

The amount of blatant history revisionism and blatant wrong takes i see perpetuated about this topic will forever annoy me. You don't have to like the old EU, but to act like it was never important to the world of Star Wars is mental. The World of Coruscant originates from an EU novel that predates the prequels by years for fuck sake.

[www-proxxicles-com]

my standards for "compatible": wont crash the game if i have both of them on at the same time lmao, sounds like there's tons of opportunities for them to interact tho!

Is naturality mostly new mobs/will there be plants? More crops? Also taming mechanics - will possums work like foxes? Or do they actually follow you around/sit etc?

Its awesome to see a dino mod in the works tbh the last one i played was on 1.7.10 (fossils and archeology revival i think? its been a while) and that didnt have dinos spawning in naturally (tragic).

When/how did you get into minecraft & modmaking? I spent so much time on temporary servers playing hexxit w my friends lmao we only switched to a newer version with 1.16

these are some good questions!

paragraph 1: fair enough! i always love it when mods include cross-compat, makes it feel like an expanded universe lol there’ll be plenty of crossover points between all my mods

paragraph 2: naturality will be a mix of mobs and plants. i def want a mixture of the two, along with some real-world features (silkworms, ants maybe)! there’ll be a lot of crops- esp. “heirloom” real-world plants to explain why MC plants look so modern. as for taming and tamed animals- generally animals have two “tame” states in my mods—a “befriended” state where they won’t run away, are rendered neutral and allow you to breed them—and a “tamed” state which varies among the individual but generally allows for inventory access, carpet/chest/harness usage/placement, stay-follow-wander and riding. possums, in this case, are a 2-step tame process- 1. feed the mom, access inventory, 2. take babies and raise. most animals won’t be like foxes when fully tamed, though a few will

also tomatoes and corn’ll be in naturality lol

paragraph 3: i. love. fossils. and. archaeology. that was probably my first foray into all the crazy stuff MC modding could do, in probably 2017 or so. and don’t worry! prehistorian’s dinosaurs (for the most part) will spawn naturally, with fossils reserved for rare skins and some boss-summon material (ooo!)

paragraph 4: great question! i started playing MC in… maybe 2014-15 or so??? my memory’s pretty foggy, but i remember the new launcher and polar bears and thinking the new aquatic update was BIG NEWS. as for modding—i discovered that world maybe 2016-17-18 territory.

i had a big family server (that i’m trying to get running again) with one lonely mod- DrZhark’s MoCreatures! along with F&A Rev., MoC was another mod-codifier (modifier?) of sorts- it cemented the idea of “holy crap, these people are bending MC to their will!! HOLY CRAP!!!” that led me to learn Blockbench in… mid 2021?? granted, i had some art experience before then.

since i’d consider myself a relatively good writer, i came up with these huge master lists of creatures and features (which i’ll eventually publish as fully-fledged prox mod bibles). it’s been a real lesson in creativity, coding, and a whole bunch of other stuff! someday i might make a proper modeling tutorial for how to make a semi-decent animal model, since there’s literally nothing out there in proper Mojang style lmao

thanks for the ask! like i said before ask as much stuff as you want i love answering questions!

-prox

[gaykarstaagforever]

"The Lone Wolf radio station in New Vegas broadcasts sounds of human sacrifice at 2 am. And if you look at the game files, these are recordings of REAL murders, and there are also pictures of the actual victims!"

...I get this is creepypasta probably written by a 19yo. But as crap as Bethesda and Obsidian are / were, especially about the release of this game, I feel like they probably would have patched out evidence of actual crimes, even if they were so incompetent as to allow a dev to include it on the disc in the first place.

...That said, might explain the weird file sizes of these Gamebryo releases. Like, yeah, this 4 gig game maybe IS 30 gigs because of all the hi-res murder videos!

Though I know enough about game devs that if they in fact snuck adult videos onto a game disc, it wouldn't be of corpses, it would 100% be of barely-legal naked Japanese women.

"Haunted video game" creepypastas are tough, because no matter how terrifying anything is, everyone knows you could just turn the powerstrip off to rid yourself of the demons. That's why all of these stories have to contrive reasons why people keep playing them and recording the footage. It's like 80s horror movies where they always have to explain why people aren't just running away and calling the cops.

Plus I think these worked better in the early 2000s, before most people understood what modding and emulation was.

We know now that your evil video game is only evil because you installed an evil mod. Even if it is genuinely supernatural, that just means the Devil is paying a guy to turn ghosts into code and upload it to Nexus. Or the Creation Club. And it is certainly true that neither will check it for monsters before they publish it.

Every new haunted game creepypasta should just start with "SO I DOWNLOADED THIS GLITCHY RUSSIAN MOD, AND...!" Because everyone will certainly identify with that. Those things can poison your entire computer or at least ruin your console install, and they aren't even intentionally demonic!

I'm just saying we need to apply a little more realism to these things to make them more compelling. The reality is broken and stupid enough already for curses to slip in. Just embrace it. Because if I can avoid getting possessed simply by turning off my Xbox, that makes Satan look about as competent as Todd Howard.

And while Todd Howard's failings are certainly scary, it's a different kind of terrifying.

[bit-b]

Anti-piracy? Anti-emulator? Anti-consumer.

Disclaimer: I am NOT a lawyer. Do not take anything in this post as legal advice.

I just saw the promotion of a thing recently. For the sake of not inadvertently advertising their crap, I will not be naming who it was and/or what the product was that they were trying to push. I will say that it had to do with video game anti-piracy and emulation.

Lemme start out by saying that I avoid emulation whenever possible. I like playing my games the way they were intended to be played, on the consoles they were made for. In fact, people who follow me could probably vouch for the kind of crazy hurdles I've jumped through to pull off certain game streams.

Also, I DO NOT in any way endorse piracy. I'm a major advocate of paying for the content that you enjoy. If people don't pay for a group's work, that group won't have money. If they don't have money, they won't be able to do more work. Even if you wanna use a game or program a decade out of print, I still feel that it's a good gesture to own that product.

THAT SAID: EMULATION IS NOT PIRACY.

I can understand the confusion. After all, there are people online that host illegal copies of ripped games. And emulators have enabled people to be able to play those illegal rips without actually owning the game. It's easy to jump to the conclusion that every use of an emulator must be bad. In actuality, the emulators themselves are not illegal.

Pretty much all emulators out there are not based on the original code of the consoles. Emulation is possible due to years of 3rd-party tinkering and reverse-engineering to make certain games run on different systems.

So if you own the game, if you have the tools to rip said game, and if you use an emulator capable of playing that game on another device, then nothing was stolen. You're just choosing to play the game in a way that makes you happy.

It only becomes illegal if you choose to post those game files online for anyone to use. Because at that point, it can be argued that you're handing the files over to people that have not payed for the privilege to play. You would be denying the devs and publishers the right to profit from their work.But again, if you're not distributing content, no illegal actions are taking place.

So it makes me sad to see people look at emulation software and say "God, why do they let these kinds of tools exist?! Don't PIRATES use this software?? How is this allowed?!?" Because it tells me that people don't consider the context and intent of the use of these tools. It's like getting upset about hammers existing because some people have used hammers for murder.

For a different example, let's imagine that someone photocopied a card game, laminated them, and played with them in their swimming pool.

Now, imagine people complaining:

"Wait, you didn't scan those cards and print new ones to make those, did you?! That's a crime!!"

"You're not supposed to play card games in the pool!! It wasn't designed for that!!"

"Aren't you worried that the card manufacturers are gonna arrest and sue you?!"

"Don't you know they MAKE waterproof cards?! Why would you skirt around their official product?!"

And I say:

If any copies were made, it was only out of necessity for the tinkering process. Copies were not distributed to other people.

Just because a thing wasn't originally designed for something doesn't mean it CAN'T. If anything, showing that it's possible to make a thing do something it normally shouldn't is kind of interesting.

How is it illegal to take something you purchased and use it in a different way? You could buy a golf club and use it as a baseball bat. Should you be penalized for that?

Even if the product-maker makes the same kind of alternate product, what's forcing a person to use the official one over their own?

Like I said. DON'T pirate. Own your games and software. But I feel like people equate tools used by pirates as piracy itself. And that's not a fair judgement.

----------------------------------------

Now, that's just the FIRST part. The second is the anti-piracy.

Like I said, devs need money. I want to support them in their profession. I want to own what they create. And I encourage everyone to pay for the things they use. But what I can't stand is this idea that software NEEDS extra anti-piracy built in. (outside of the anti-piracy measures already implemented in your game launcher) In my opinion, adding extra layers of anti-piracy does nothing but harm the end-user.

Pirates don't use software with all the security stuff built into it. They use CRACKED versions. It takes a little time for them to crack it. But once they do, they have full unlimited access.

Meanwhile, I've heard only a handful of cases where 3rd-party anti-piracy measures are removed by the developers after it's no longer necessary. This means that everyone who bought legitimate copies of the product will likely be forever locked down by these stupid extra measures. And this sends the paying customers through all sorts of hoops.

They might have to always tag a security server on startup.

They might have monitoring software running routine checks.

The processes in the background might sap precious PC resources that the end-users don't want taken up.

Depending on how the anti-piracy was implemented, it could cause stability issues for the software.

The only true benefit I've seen for 3rd-party anti-piracy is the guarantee that the devs and publishers will be making their sales during the first 2 weeks of a product's life. Even then, people have managed to crack certain anti-piracy within the first 2 days. So it's not even a full guarantee. This type of anti-piracy is completely one-sided on benefits. The customer doesn't get anything out of these security measures at all. If anything, the customer would benefit greatly from NOT having them.

----------------------------------------

I've said it several times in this rant, but I really do want to see devs and publishers get their money. Especially when they've done a great job. I've just bought 2 games that just recently ditched their anti-piracy. But that's a privilege that I rarely give.

We live in an age where new experiences and tools are being made and released every single day. And thanks to this, I have a bounty of buying options available. I can easily pass on someone's product if I don't appreciate a company's distribution tactics. And I am more than happy to miss out on a fun experience if it means dealing with less bullcrap. And the more time that passes, the less relevant your product is.

I believe adding extra anti-piracy measures will only ruin your reputation. If you don't want to be consumer-friendly, I can easily find someone else that will. And don't you DARE be surprised when an up-and-coming developer blows past you, lacking all those shareholder-appeasing anti-piracy measures that you love so dearly.

[jesuistresjolie]

Idk if you're new to fandom, or perhaps have been around long and have always just engaged in fandom in this way but: criticizing a fanfic with such meanness is just against basic fandom etiquette. Someone has spent hours upon hours of their time for free writing something to bring themselves and others joy. If it's not your thing, just move on. Why bash not only the product of the writer's hard work, but also the taste of people who liked reading the fic? Why bash it on a public platform where both the writer is present as well as readers who hold the fic dear. If you need to complain, find a small private group of people you can do that with. I have no doubt that if you were a writer, you'd understand just how terrifying it can be to put yourself out there, no matter how popular of a writer you become. Your post also further deters aspiring fic writers, those who want to share their writing but know that there are people like you out there who will tear them down when they didn't ask for criticism. Fic writing is not commercial. Don't treat it like you're the consumer who is owed an opinion. Fanfic, both reading and writing, is for fun. Allow it to be.

I 100% disagree with this. Art is consumed and criticised and if you come out with something you need to know that not everyone is going to praise you and tell you it’s amazing. People can dislike stuff and say it. It is NOT my responsibility to shelter others from negative feedback and my opinion.

No one should expect universal praise and if you are kept from publishing or releasing anything because ppl might not like it? Then you better keep it to yourself.

The world shouldn’t just keep quiet about their opinions just because it might hurt your feelings. Unless it’s offensive or down right calling for harm? One can say they dislike something. Especially if it literally gives them pause and it’s strong. I’ve been reading fics since like 2003 (holy crap) And I’ve walked away quietly from many many of them. Several fandoms, but this one made me speak out. It got so much praise I looked for it. And all I kept thinking about was… this is terrible. I want to know why people like it. Which is why I posted as a question.

I can ask. And I can come out and say something sucks to me.

[countzeroor]

Except, no, there's a reason why the OGL exists. John Nephew of Atlas Games got into it on Mastodon:

However, I'll summarize.

Yes, you don't have to have a license like the OGL to use game mechanics. Theoretically it doesn't need to exist. However, if you have bad actors in the roleplay field, they'll get litigious, and if you're a small company or sole proprietorship, it doesn't matter if the law is actually on your side, you can't fight long enough to win.

Take, for example, Mayfair Games. They put out a series of add-on modules for AD&D 2nd Edition called "Role-Aids". TSR sued them. Mayfair had the law on their side. TSR had more money, outlasted them, and ultimately forced them out of business and took ownership of the last Role Aids products.

A little later, Wizards of the Coast, then a brand new company, put out a product called "The Primal Order". It was meant to fit into a whole bunch of roleplaying systems, one of them being Palladium Fantasy Roleplaying. Palladium sued based on bad legal advice that said if people were allowed to make game materials that were interoperable with theirs, Palladium would lose ownership of their games and settings.

At that time, Palladium was, no joke, tied to be number 3 major RPG publisher with Steve Jackson Games (White Wolf was number 1, TSR number 2). Palladium nearly drove WotC to bankruptcy, forcing them to spin an upcoming game to a company called Garfield Games to protect it. Only the intervention of then-GAMA president Mike Pondsmith (the one whose name is in the opening credits of Cyberpunk Edgerunners), lead to a settlement that kept WotC alive and able to publish that game - Magic: the Gathering (and now you know... the rest of the story)

So all of that was very fresh in the minds of everyone who wrote the OGL, and agreed to use it.

Painting the people who made games with the OGL as suckers is, at it's most generous, ignorant of the history of tabletop gaming. At worst, it's condescendingly insulting.

I urge people to please read the Designers and Dragons books before saying crap like this. And yes, Mr. Doctorow, with all due respect, this is crap.

Good riddance to the Open Gaming License

Last week, Gizmodo’s Linda Codega caught a fantastic scoop — a leaked report of Hasbro’s plan to revoke the decades-old Open Gaming License, which subsidiary Wizards Of the Coast promulgated as an allegedly open sandbox for people seeking to extend, remix or improve Dungeons and Dragons:

https://gizmodo.com/dnd-wizards-of-the-coast-ogl-1-1-open-gaming-license-1849950634

The report set off a shitstorm among D&D fans and the broader TTRPG community — not just because it was evidence of yet more enshittification of D&D by a faceless corporate monopolist, but because Hasbro was seemingly poised to take back the commons that RPG players and designers had built over decades, having taken WOTC and the OGL at their word.

Gamers were right to be worried. Giant companies love to rugpull their fans, tempting them into a commons with lofty promises of a system that we will all have a stake in, using the fans for unpaid creative labor, then enclosing the fans’ work and selling it back to them. It’s a tale as old as CDDB and Disgracenote:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDDB#History

(Disclosure: I am a long-serving volunteer board-member for MetaBrainz, which maintains MusicBrainz, a free, open, community-managed and transparent alternative to Gracenote, explicitly designed to resist the kind of commons-stealing enclosure that led to the CDDB debacle.)

https://musicbrainz.org/

Free/open licenses were invented specifically to prevent this kind of fuckery. First there was the GPL and its successor software licenses, then Creative Commons and its own successors. One important factor in these licenses: they contain the word “irrevocable.” That means that if you build on licensed content, you don’t have to worry about having the license yanked out from under you later. It’s rugproof.

Now, the OGL does not contain the word “irrevocable.” Rather, the OGL is “perpetual.” To a layperson, these two terms may seem interchangeable, but this is one of those fine lawerly distinctions that trip up normies all the time. In lawyerspeak, a “perpetual” license is one whose revocation doesn’t come automatically after a certain time (unlike, say, a one-year car-lease, which automatically terminates at the end of the year). Unless a license is “irrevocable,” the licensor can terminate it whenever they want to.

This is exactly the kind of thing that trips up people who roll their own licenses, and people who trust those licenses. The OGL predates the Creative Commons licenses, but it neatly illustrates the problem with letting corporate lawyers — rather than public-interest nonprofits — unleash “open” licenses on an unsuspecting, legally unsophisticated audience.

The perpetual/irrevocable switcheroo is the least of the problems with the OGL. As Rob Bodine— an actual lawyer, as well as a dice lawyer — wrote back in 2019, the OGL is a grossly defective instrument that is significantly worse than useless.

https://gsllcblog.com/2019/08/26/part3ogl/

The issue lies with what the OGL actually licenses. Decades of copyright maximalism has convinced millions of people that anything you can imagine is “intellectual property,” and that this is indistinguishable from real property, which means that no one can use it without your permission.

The copyrightpilling of the world sets people up for all kinds of scams, because copyright just doesn’t work like that. This wholly erroneous view of copyright grooms normies to be suckers for every sharp grifter who comes along promising that everything imaginable is property-in-waiting (remember SpiceDAO?):

https://onezero.medium.com/crypto-copyright-bdf24f48bf99

Copyright is a lot more complex than “anything you can imagine is your property and that means no one else can use it.” For starters, copyright draws a fundamental distinction between ideas and expression. Copyright does not apply to ideas — the idea, say, of elves and dwarves and such running around a dungeon, killing monsters. That is emphatically not copyrightable.

Copyright also doesn’t cover abstract systems or methods — like, say, a game whose dice-tables follow well-established mathematical formulae to create a “balanced” system for combat and adventuring. Anyone can make one of these, including by copying, improving or modifying an existing one that someone else made. That’s what “uncopyrightable” means.

Finally, there are the exceptions and limitations to copyright — things that you are allowed to do with copyrighted work, without first seeking permission from the creator or copyright’s proprietor. The best-known exception is US law is fair use, a complex doctrine that is often incorrectly characterized as turning on “four factors” that determine whether a use is fair or not.

In reality, the four factors are a starting point that courts are allowed and encouraged to consider when determining the fairness of a use, but some of the most consequential fair use cases in Supreme Court history flunk one, several, or even all of the four factors (for example, the Betamax decision that legalized VCRs in 1984, which fails all four).

Beyond fair use, there are other exceptions and limitations, like the di minimis exemption that allows for incidental uses of tiny fragments of copyrighted work without permission, even if those uses are not fair use. Copyright, in other words, is “fact-intensive,” and there are many ways you can legally use a copyrighted work without a license.

Which brings me back to the OGL, and what, specifically, it licenses. The OGL is a license that only grants you permission to use the things that WOTC can’t copyright — “the game mechanic [including] the methods, procedures, processes and routines.” In other words, the OGL gives you permission to use things you don’t need permission to use.

But maybe the OGL grants you permission to use more things, beyond those things you’re allowed to use anyway? Nope. The OGL specifically exempts:

Product and product line names, logos and identifying marks including trade dress; artifacts; creatures characters; stories, storylines, plots, thematic elements, dialogue, incidents, language, artwork, symbols, designs, depictions, likenesses, formats, poses, concepts, themes and graphic, photographic and other visual or audio representations; names and descriptions of characters, spells, enchantments, personalities, teams, personas, likenesses and special abilities; places, locations, environments, creatures, equipment, magical or supernatural abilities or effects, logos, symbols, or graphic designs; and any other trademark or registered trademark…

Now, there are places where the uncopyrightable parts of D&D mingle with the copyrightable parts, and there’s a legal term for this: merger. Merger came up for gamers in 2018, when the provocateur Robert Hovden got the US Copyright Office to certify copyright in a Magic: The Gathering deck:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/14/angels-and-demons/#owning-culture

If you want to learn more about merger, you need to study up on Kregos and Eckes, which are beautifully explained in the “Open Intellectual Property Casebook,” a free resource created by Jennifer Jenkins and James Boyle:

https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/openip/#q01

Jenkins and Boyle explicitly created their open casebook as an answer to another act of enclosure: a greedy textbook publisher cornered the market on IP textbook and charged every law student — and everyone curious about the law — $200 to learn about merger and other doctrines.

As EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kit Walsh writes in her must-read analysis of the OGL, this means “the only benefit that OGL offers, legally, is that you can copy verbatim some descriptions of some elements that otherwise might arguably rise to the level of copyrightability.”

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/01/beware-gifts-dragons-how-dds-open-gaming-license-may-have-become-trap-creators

But like I said, it’s not just that the OGL fails to give you rights — it actually takes away rights you already have to D&D. That’s because — as Walsh points out — fair use and the other copyright limitations and exceptions give you rights to use D&D content, but the OGL is a contract whereby you surrender those rights, promising only to use D&D stuff according to WOTC’s explicit wishes.

“For example, absent this agreement, you have a legal right to create a work using noncopyrightable elements of D&D or making fair use of copyrightable elements and to say that that work is compatible with Dungeons and Dragons. In many contexts you also have the right to use the logo to name the game (something called “nominative fair use” in trademark law). You can certainly use some of the language, concepts, themes, descriptions, and so forth. Accepting this license almost certainly means signing away rights to use these elements. Like Sauron’s rings of power, the gift of the OGL came with strings attached.”

And here’s where it starts to get interesting. Since the OGL launched in 2000, a huge proportion of game designers have agreed to its terms, tricked into signing away their rights. If Hasbro does go through with canceling the OGL, it will release those game designers from the shitty, deceptive OGL.

According to the leaks, the new OGL is even worse than the original versions — but you don’t have to take those terms! Notwithstanding the fact that the OGL says that “using…Open Game Content” means that you accede to the license terms, that is just not how contracts work.

Walsh: “Contracts require an offer, acceptance, and some kind of value in exchange, called ‘consideration.’ If you sell a game, you are inviting the reader to play it, full stop. Any additional obligations require more than a rote assertion.”

“For someone who wants to make a game that is similar mechanically to Dungeons and Dragons, and even announce that the game is compatible with Dungeons and Dragons, it has always been more advantageous as a matter of law to ignore the OGL.”

Walsh finishes her analysis by pointing to some good licenses, like the GPL and Creative Commons, “written to serve the interests of creative communities, rather than a corporation.” Many open communities — like the programmers who created GNU/Linux, or the music fans who created Musicbrainz, were formed after outrageous acts of enclosure by greedy corporations.

If you’re a game designer who was pissed off because the OGL was getting ganked — and if you’re even more pissed off now that you’ve discovered that the OGL was a piece of shit all along — there’s a lesson there. The OGL tricked a generation of designers into thinking they were building on a commons. They weren’t — but they could.

This is a great moment to start — or contribute to — real open gaming content, licensed under standard, universal licenses like Creative Commons. Rolling your own license has always been a bad idea, comparable to rolling your own encryption in the annals of ways-to-fuck-up-your-own-life-and-the-lives-of-many-others. There is an opportunity here — Hasbro unintentionally proved that gamers want to collaborate on shared gaming systems.

That’s the true lesson here: if you want a commons, you’re not alone. You’ve got company, like Kit Walsh herself, who happens to be a brilliant game-designer who won a Nebula Award for her game “Thirsty Sword Lesbians”:

https://evilhat.com/product/thirsty-sword-lesbians/

[Image ID: A remixed version of David Trampier’s ‘Eye of Moloch,’ the cover of the first edition of the AD&D Player’s Handbook. It has been altered so the title reads ‘Advanced Copyright Fuckery. Unclear on the Concept. That’s Just Not How Licenses Work. No, Seriously.’ The eyes of the idol have been replaced by D20s displaying a critical fail '1.’ Its chest bears another D20 whose showing face is a copyright symbol.]