#Then the creator double-downed on it on Twitter and was an all around asshole about it

[royalarchivist]

Quackity: Lately, I have been participating in events and projects, and unfortunately it's become clear to me that my presence and name have only been used to attract the attention of my national and international community with the objective, as I see it, of generating more attention towards controversies - destructive controversies, and a rupture that is very clear in the community. [...] In advance, I ask the organizers of any type of events and projects like this to please show more respect to me and my community, because I've shown lots of sympathy and cooperation in these various projects and events, but it's become clear to me that their only interest is in using my name. My name and my community have been used to attract all this attention for distorted purposes, and I will no longer allow that to happen. That is not what my content is about - not me nor my content nor anything I’ve done.

Here's Quackity's commentary on respect and his reasoning for distancing himself and his projects from future events and awards shows.

[ Full Transcript ↓ ]

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Quackity: Before I leave, I would like to talk about something that is very serious for me and something that I would like to tell you about. Because for me it is a very serious topic and it is a topic that- well, I had my mind on and I want to express it- [reading Chat] yes, thank you. Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas.

Anyways, lately I have been participating in events and projects, and in these events and projects, unfortunately it's become clear to me that my presence and name have only been used to attract the attention of my national and international community with the objective, as I see it, of generating more attention towards controversies - destructive controversies, and a rupture that is very clear in the community, and this is what I want to say: I'm NOT ok with these types of dynamics or stuff like this, and I want to make it very clear to my stream, my community, and everyone that, for this exact reason that I just mentioned, I want to make it clear that I want to distance myself and any of my projects from the Esland Awards, which you all know is coming up.

Sadly, the Esland Awards have been an event with a history of much controversy, a lot of division, and a lot of divisions within the community, and as you guys know, as you know, my content has never been characterized by seeking controversy or divisions or anything like that. It's for this exact reason that I don't want to be involved with these awards.

In advance, I ask the organizers of any type of events and projects like this to please show more respect to me and my community, because I've shown lots of sympathy and cooperation in these various projects and events, but it's become clear to me that their only interest is in using my name. My name and my community have been used to attract all this attention for distorted purposes, and I will no longer allow that to happen. I don't want it to happen. That is not what my content is about - not me nor my content nor anything I've done. That's what I want to make very clear here.

That's about it. I'm going to continue with the projects I'm doing and I want to thank my community so much for the support and love. I appreciate it very much, but I wanted to make this clear - I wanted to make this clear. This is just a topic I wanted to address quickly.

Thank you for all the love and support, I love you all so much.

#Quackity #QSMP #December 23 2023 #Translated #I tried my best but as always; if you have any suggestions or corrections please let me know #For context: Quackity and the QSMP have been repeatedly snubbed and undermined but very recently (as in like. the last 48 hours) #the ''Hispanic rewind'' aired and they were VERY rude to Quackity and his project #like straight up in the video itself they were rude about his project (and many other projects). It was basically a Spain-centric video #Then the creator double-downed on it on Twitter and was an all around asshole about it #I don't like sharing ''drama'' here but this is a matter of respect and communities so I think it's important to share #Especially since I know some people will ask ''hey why isn't Quackity / the QSMP nominated at this award show?'' #The Esland awards are a whole 'nother can of worms but the dude who did the Rewind is tied to that too #The Eslands have had a lot of problems though so frankly I can't blame him #I wasn't planning on posting this but I wasn't seeing any translations or clips floating around on here #despite the discussions people were having #so here it is for folks if they want / need to reference it #Anyways. Good for Quackity #He never speaks up about this kind of stuff but this was long overdue #k I just updated the wording on this I didn't like how I phrased a few things

[davidmann95]

So... Crossover #1: any thoughts?

Anonymous said: You seemed not to think much of Crossover #1 on Twitter. Your full thoughts?

wcwit said: So Cates' Crossover #1, best bad comic of the year or just regular pretentious trash?

An incidental note upfront: What you’re seeing there is the apparently SUPER-RARE SECRET VARIANT COVER I unwittingly picked up at the store - at first glance indistinguishable from the standard cover, the kid getting four-color-fucked by mysterious comic book rays is in fact themselves reading a variant cover of the book, rather than the main cover again in an infinite painting-within-a-painting sort of deal that’s the standard.

So I wasn’t gonna get this: my initial post on the comic and what an obviously awful idea it was back when we only knew half the premise and it was known as Pray The Capes Away actually got some out-of-nowhere traction recently, and I’ve grown rapidly tired of Cates’ Marvel work. Even learning that it was going to be Image’s biggest debut in decades - Jesus fuck, how and why - mostly just made me wish it was Commanders in Crisis getting those kinds of numbers. But Sean Dillon/@deathchrist2000 and Ritesh Babu both got early looks at it and assured me that I, specifically, needed to see the last page, so in I dove. I’ll be posting my reaction to the last page below because I recorded it for their amusement, and below that I’ll talk about said last page. It may surprise you, however, that that wasn’t my main takeaway from the issue.

Let’s accentuate the positive first! This book is gorgeous. Geoff Shaw was terrific back with Thanos Wins, but this is an incredible stylistic level-up aided and abetted by Dee Cunniffe’s colors: it’s rote as hell to say “They mix the elevated and the mundane so well!”, but even beyond the obvious ben-day dots stuff there’s such a tangible sense that the comic book beings don’t belong here, that they’re of higher, misty, platonic stuff and we squishy non-paper-people inevitably crumble and break and bleed in their wake, communicating that big idea so much more powerfully than the actual loads of text on the subject. And if we’re talking good things, I’ll concede it’s possible that there could be subtleties that play out in more interesting ways as it goes on, and that not everything is meant to be taken at face value: a smart friend who actually did like it mentioned being interested in it as clumsy but potentially effective exploration of ‘what if the fun hobby you had inadvertently became contaminated and stigmatized by forces beyond your control?’ In a post-Comicsgate world where we recently ended up inches away from the Superman logo almost certainly becoming a fascist propaganda symbol ala the Punisher skull for at least a generation, that’s a defensible lens to view this book through.

For all Donny Cates’ legitimate talents however, I don’t think an expectation of subtlety is gonna work out with this one.

Okay first off getting into the rest of it the main characters’ name is Ellipsis because “Those three little dots...they can become anything”, so there’s that. More importantly, in the world of this story where comic fans face social oppression after superpeople materialize and fuck up Colorado, they face EVERY KIND OF OPPRESSION: there are clear parallels drawn in here to the violence and harassment faced by people persecuted for their religion, people seeking abortions, queer people, and people of color; this motherfucker even drops a “hates and fears” to let us know comic collecting basically makes you one of the goddamn X-Men. Which in theory could be a purely misjudged allegory rather than stemming from actual, obscenely inflated to the point of disgusting fears of ‘nerd oppression’, except that the book literally opens with a quote from Wertham. If Cates didn’t want to make the message “Hating comics? That’s bad. Like, racism bad”, he utterly, grotesquely failed by inextricably intermingling imagery of real-world bigotry with systemic, deluded fanboy paranoia, at least as of this first issue that’s supposed to meaningfully convey the premise. As a queer dude I think I’m somewhat in my lane to say it’s too blunt and broad and dopey to be particularly offensive, but the co-opting of oppression is what this is rooted in.

The idea of ‘comics good no matter what people think, ain’t it?’ extends to the last traditional local comic store standing in this world: much as superheroes are the primary cause of suffering in this world but the point of the story is still supposed to reveal the beauty in them, part of this is that the comics community isn’t perfect but it sure is great. Which is expressed here via Ellie’s boss Otto, a loveable asshole who yells at people coming in trying to sell the wrong kind of comics to fuck off, but at heart is we’re supposed to understand a good enough dude that the shop he runs is “the only home a lot of (the benighted nerds) have left” (because I guess in this alternate universe the physical stores are still the main hub through which comics fans talk with one another?).

So here’s a story of my very own! That’s me in 2013, it must’ve been some kind of special day because I’m wearing a shirt with a button. I’d at that point only frequented one of what would be my thus far four regular comic shops. The first was a great place, and while to say I had a sense of community there would be overstating it a bit, I was on really good terms with the owner and we regularly chatted when we had the time. When I left for college my store there wasn’t as well-stocked, and for some damn reason all variant covers were double-price, but I got along really well with the owner there too. The third I wasn’t so lucky; the guy regularly behind the desk was never overtly hostile, but clearly wanted to wring my neck every time I asked when a missing comic might get in or if I could update my pull list, and given I’m in the ‘ideal’ demographic for being a comic book store regular and was dropping a solid lump of money there every week, I wonder how others were treated there (the store nearly went under, was saved on the last day of operation by another store that wanted to incorporate it as part of its franchise, then shortly afterwards DID go under and is now I believe a beef jerky place). My current store is fine, I didn’t chat much with the folks behind the counter even before we all had medical incentive to get in and out of places fairly quickly but it almost always has what I’m looking for.

Just because those were my regular stores of course doesn’t mean those are the only ones I’ve ever gone to. About a year before that picture was taken - it’s the closest I could find - when I was 17 my store didn’t have something or another I was looking for, so I head across town to see if another place I had looked up had it. This other place didn’t have what I was looking for either, though I distinctly remember picking up a few issues of Hickman’s FF while I was there since I had foolishly fallen off, hence my remembering the year. I bought a couple issues, but hung around for a bit looking to see if I might grab something else out of a dollar box, setting my comics down. Without realizing it, I’d set my books down on top of another issue, and when I decided I wasn’t getting anything else, I just picked that up along with the rest of the pile and was about to walk out before the owner stopped me. He explained what I had done though assumed it had been deliberate, and because I was a good-hearted little geek I even recall thinking “Well, he’s gonna chew me out, but I guess I deserve it. I’ll try and take this to heart as a learning experience.”

Then he pulled up his shirt a little to show me the gun on his belt. He pointed at the security camera monitors at his desk, and explained to me that if I ever did something like that again, he would have it on tape, and he would pull that gun on me and hold me there while he called the cops.

As it turned out, the comic was free.

The whole thing was so sudden and bizarre and unexpected I didn’t actually freak out until the drive home. It wasn’t until weeks or maybe months later that I managed to tell my dad about the experience, because I *had* nearly stolen a (free) comic and my guilt was mixed in with my nerves and I guess I was somehow too close to register just how disproportionate his response was. It wasn’t until now, nearly a decade later and thinking about it for the first time in a long time as I write this, that I wondered if that might have gone differently - especially living in the midwest - if I hadn’t been a white, squeaky-voiced 17-year-old.

So, minor spoiler, when our cantankerous but well-meaning LCS owner yells to call the cops and grabs and yells at a small kid for pocketing a comic (and later displays fantasy racism towards said kid), I am not filled with nostalgic love for the brotherly safe space that is comic book stores, where this guy while not meant to be seen as perfect is still framed in part as a charming, witty representation of Why We Love These Places, And This Community, And This Genre, And This Medium. Cates is clearly drawing on real time at his local stores, but he equally clearly has a very different takeaway from those experiences than me. And I am, again, in a demographic - white, cis-male, abled, bi but more interested in women, disposable income, a lifelong collector - that the industry and a lot of the guys who sell it to us contort themselves around catering to, even if I had a single very negative experience and later an ongoing low-key uncomfortable one to help disabuse me of any notions of the purity of the dork community. In the world of Crossover as of #1, toxicity is intertwined, deliberately or not on the part of the creators, with what we love on the cosmic and small business scales alike, but at least in the latter case it’s the whole picture that’s beautiful, not any single kernel that needs to be worked on to be dug up.

So underneath is my video reaction to the last page of Crossover #1. Very minor spoilers because I mutter the last two words of the comic to myself, but under the video I discuss said final page and some other scattered thoughts. Whether you read that or not, my takeaway is this: I’m fascinated with wherever the hell this thing is going, I’m glad my dad liked it well enough to want to keep getting it because now I’ll get to see where it heads, but my first impression is that this is at heart meant as cheapass Oscar-bait for people who only read Batman. It’s big and high-concept but also small and intimate! It’s meta and about how great you, the reader are for your consumption, especially the consumption of this! It’s going to be in large part about a forbidden love between a couple divided across impermeable social lines (a couple where they’re a seemingly straight white man and woman, but one likes comics)! Maybe it’ll become Not That, and I’m sure it’ll do at least something interesting along the way because Cates has done good stuff before and there are some inherently interesting big ideas for him to play with here, but for the love of god if you’re thinking about getting this buy Commanders in Crisis too or instead, it’s another new book out of Image about superheroes dealing with the collapse of the multiverse but that one is really fucking good.

So the final page splash reveal is that when the comic book child discovered in here got out of Colorado, which has had an impenetrable energy shield erected around it by one of the heroes for years, she and others were ferried out of there...by Superman, as the narration declares that “This is a story...about hope.” They don’t say the word, but she sketches her savior, Ellie and Otto freak out and go “Is that---” when they see it, and on that last page we see that while a crude drawing it isn’t a rough analogue character, it’s a guy with a cape and trunks with an S on his chest. Surprisingly, I don’t have much to say: it’s just another blunt signifier that superheroes rule and are the best, paired with the most utterly devalued notion as of late of what makes Superman special in ‘hope’. I mean, I’m perversely excited to see whether this is building the entire series on a hook it can never deliver on, or if Cates actually has talked DC into an intercompany crossover; believable given they’ve done a bunch of those over the last several years, and why else would Mark Waid be supervising as ‘story editor’ on this? I guess it’ll shake out one way or another with #6 given Cates has said it “has one of the more epic and — I would argue historic — sequences in comic book history in it.” But I’m far less convinced this is gonna truly go into the meaty question of “What does Superman mean and what makes him unique in this world where superheroes in general are indisputably either failures or monstrous bastards given the scale of destruction their presence has brought about, and he himself failed to stop that?” than as some kind of holy grail of how great superheroes are despite how dang violent they’ve gotten these days for the crew to chase after, whatever additional twist will surely be placed upon it. At least he’s kinda helping an immigrant kid get over a wall, if that’s deliberate?

Random final thoughts:

* If I wrote the opening essay and turned it in in a college course, I would be expelled for plagiarizing Grant Morrison. This is not a joke.

* If mainstream American superhero comics ended January 2017 in this universe, its own last ‘crossover’ was Civil War II, which is hilarious.

* God, please tell me if it takes the dive after all that this isn’t somehow tied into whatever Waid’s Superman project is.

* I wouldn’t normally crap on issues with the finer details of worldbuilding, but A. This is rooted in a nominally ‘real’ world playing by recognizable rules, B. I’m ragging on this anyway so what’s the harm, and C. It’s really obvious. So: Why is one of the racists against the superheroes the guy who loves superheroes so much he’s the last holdout in the entire world still selling comic books about them? How does this modestly-sized shop exist long-term with apparently a significant regular customer base if there are no new comics or even reprints to restock with, ever? Who’s buying the serialized cop/cowboy comics that the U.S. government apparently created pretty much overnight (nobody, it’s just another Wertham dig)?

* The solicit for issue #3 proclaims “Don't miss this one, folks. If you do, it just might drive you...mad.”, so now I fear some kind of Ultra Comics riff.

* “Kids love chains” is the most metal-ass quote of all time and I hate that it’s being wasted as an arc title on this book.

#Donny Cates #Geoff Shaw #Dee Cunniffe #John J. Hill #Mark Waid #Me #Superman #Opinion

[duhragonball]

I’m posting this video as a reminder to myself to sit down and watch it when I’ve got an hour and forty-five minutes to spare.   My understanding is that it explains the “pro vs. anti” thing that I’ve seen people talk about, but never in enough detail that I could figure out what the thing was that people were supposed to be for or against.  

I’ve been a huge nerd for over thirty years now, and it always feels like I’m just close enough to some big argument that I hear about it, but I’m never close enough to actually know what the hell it’s about.  I will hear people say, “Oh, the fandom is so toxic”, and I have no idea what they’re talking about, because it’s usually a bunch of stuff that went down where I never would have been able to see it.    I don’t know if that makes me smart for staying out of these controversies, or clueless for being so unaware of them.  

This has always been my approach: if I like a thing enough, I might devote some of my internet presence to that thing.   I don’t really see myself as part of the “Dragon Ball fandom” any more than I’m a part of the “wrestling fandom” or the “chemistry fandom.”  If I ever started a Star Wars blog, that would only mean I was bored enough to do it.   It would not mean that I had entered the “Star Wars fandom,” something I presumably did in 1980.

The “wrestling fandom” has this shibboleth called “the IWC”.   I think it dates back to the 90s, when fans using the internet could talk about backstage politics and openly acknowledge that the matches were fake.  This led to terms like “internet wrestling community”, to distinguish these kinds of fans from the mainstream.   It’s 2021, and everyone and their mother is on the internet now, but for some reason people still talk about “the IWC”, and blaming “them” for everything that’s wrong and toxic in professional wrestling.   If only those keyboard warriors would go outside and touch some grass, and let the real wrestling fans enjoy the product.  

I think there’s a similar phenomenon in other "fandoms” , where the public perception of it is shaped by vocal minorities: the most toxic fans, the most well-known fans, or the most communal fans, the ones who make an active effort to band together under a common banner, for better or worse.   They just don’t have a name for their boogeyman, like “the IWC”, a name that falls apart under scrutiny.   If everyone’s using the internet, then it’s silly to blame an “internet community” for making things worse.  

So maybe the term “fandom” has reached a similar obsolescence.   In theory, it should only mean “people who like (x)”, but in practice it seems to mean “people who make it their business to be part of the fandom.”   But it seems like the only way to be that big a contributor is to be really popular, or tribalist, or toxic, or some combination of the three. 

I remember writing a thing about Dashcon after it happened, and I was mostly like “What the hell was that supposed to be?”  I don’t think I even knew about Dashcon until it happened, and I was like “Oh, I could have gone to this,” and then I realized I had no idea what it was trying to be.   I always thought of my online presence as a way to share hobbies, talk about favorite TV shows, that sort of thing.   The Dashcon crowd seemed to think they were making “Tumblr University” a real thing, like they were trying to start a cult and not enough people showed up.   Not everyone who watches Xena is qualified or inclined to organize XenaCon ‘97.  

Maybe I should have just started watching Sarah Z’s video in the time it’s taken me to write this, but I’m kind of in the groove so I’m going to keep going.   I want to follow this line of thought.   “Popular, toxic, and tribalist” seems to work well as three categories of fandom problems, as I’ve seen them.

1) A “big name fan” goes too far, or gets too big for their britches, and people turn on them en masse.   Think Logan Paul filming a dead body in Japan.  There’s smaller versions of that all the time.  

2) Entitled assholes harass someone over one thing or another. Twitter has really opened my eyes regarding the sheer gall of some people when it comes to art theft, reposting without credit, etc.   They will not only double down on their perceived right to screw over content creators, but they will then turn on the same creators for daring to stand up for themselves.  This also extends to professionals as well, like when Vic Mignogna’s fanbase decided to turn into his personal army against Funimation and the voice actors listed in his ill-advised defamation lawsuit.  

3) Us versus them mentality.  I think “pro vs. anti” has something to do with shipping characters below a certain age range.   I got that impression once, but something tells me it’s kind of an amorphous argument, and I’ve seen people expand “age of consent” into all sorts of things.   Is it okay to “age up” a character?  What about two adults with a big age-gap?   What if a character just “looks” younger than they are?   What if some people?   Write creepy shit?   To cope?  I’m pretty sure a lot of this is just trying to find a hill to die on, a hill popular enough and noble enough to make it worth their while.  

Loyalty has been on my mind for a while.    This idea that if you support someone hard enough, long enough, they will reciprocate that support when you need it.   But it doesn’t always work that way.   You can put all this time and energy into a relationship and then it turns out the other person was taking you for granted the whole time.  For you, it might be a big deal, but they can take it or leave it.   It’s an imbalance, and it’s not a healthy one.

And all three of the above are examples of that imbalance.  These toxic movements always seem to center around some cult-of-personality, like an artist or a voice actor.   They might be a good person, and a group of people try to take them down out of spite, or for sport.   Or they might be a jerk, and they throw their weight around and people will defend them out of social inertia, or a misplaced sense of loyalty.   Or there might not be a BNF involved at all, and it’s just groups of people rallying around whatever flags they’ve made up for themselves.   They each try to demonize the other side to make themselves feel noble, a mutual admiration society.   But I think it always comes down to loyalty, this idea that if I just stick with this person or cause long enough, it’ll pay off later.   That’s why so many of those Capitol rioters thought Trump would pardon them, even though he didn’t even know their names.

That’s not a “fandom” issue.  That’s a human issue, and I’m not sure there’s a fix for that.  I’ll see people lament how terrible a particular fandom is, and I always think “I never hear about the good ones.”  I think that’s because there are no good or bad fandoms, only good or bad experiences.

In any event, I think I’ve reached the conclusion that loyalty isn’t something to be given lightly, since it isn’t always returned.   The hill you’re dying on can’t love you back, and sometimes the people dying on it with you aren’t that into you either.   

#to do

[moonelf19]

I had to close my twitter tab again.

I used to think reddit made me run out of patience the fastest, and like, it does that. It does.

But something about a group of people being assholes and straw manning the hell out of someone, only to turn around and play victim when it gets pointed out... people who were gate keeping what is “gay enough” just moments before?

God damn it makes me lose interest in my hobbies. I really was living in a bubble where DnD and TTRPGS was/is enjoyed by a diverse group of people, and CR encoureged that groups diverse nature and the queer rep you can find, and while they are human and fuck up they are a pretty good example of people trying to do something the right way.

But now I realize that it isn’t just the CR chat that gets shitty. It’s creators. It’s fellow queer people. I was hopping along hoping we all could come together over our shared enjoyment of if not the same game then the same genre, but no. Apparently we gotta draw lines in the sand and throw elbows. I’m a fool. Where’s the clown paint. Get me the big red shoes.

What’s the point? Was someone having a bad day? I can relate, sometimes the world kicks my ass and I get salty AF about everything. But that doesn’t explain why there’s a dozen people still trying to dogpile while flying under the radar. The one who got addressed directly kind of backpedaled today, but the rest are just doubling down and playing victim. “I’m just a widdle content creator, I should be able to be shitty on the internet without anyone noticing or doing something about it, and since a famous person responded to me talking shit about them it’s their fault my words are biting me in the ass” aka when they repeatedly say that Matt is super famous and therefore somehow shouldn’t interact with people who are, you know, talking about him publicly? And it so happens that when they revealed their opinions on this person with a huge following, they simultaneously were revealing some other gross opinions, so now that it’s not only public but BEING SEEN it’s suddenly Not OK for people to interact with them. They deliberately posted inflammatory statements and then claimed they were the victim. That’s not a straw man, that really happened.

Yikes. They should probably get a group chat together so they can echo chamber to themselves.

If it isn’t clear, I think being shitty on the internet is, well, bad. That includes those people talking down about someone playing a game for the first time, that includes gate keeping assholes, that includes people who harass strangers because they insulted someone. Don’t be that person that jumps at someone at the drop of a hat. It’s just adding to the crap we don’t need. It’s probably not your place.

If you will excuse me I’m gonna ignore social media for a bit to watch dimension 20 because I need more Ally B on my screen and in my life. Might try that new Minecraft snapshot to zone out.

#critical role #drama #i mean like right now #where ive basically been parked in the bathroom with a stomach bug #im rallying enough to escape to my computer though #this is one of thise times my patience is low #because really i cant go a week without getting sick #yeehaw comprimised immune system

[heyitssmim]

Here’s Some YT Tea

This was all done on twitter, sorry about the format.

Tweet 1: https://youtu.be/pWaz7ofl5wQ Markiplier's video makes me so sad. Automation is ok when someone's google account/possible livelyhood isnt at stake. Many live off of YT rev or have gmail's for work and school, yet that can be taken because some asshole robot said so. #StopYTAutomation

Tweet 2:  The worst part is, people are losing their entire google account just for commenting on a YT stream - Many that they had memberships on, meaning that they put actual money into the account. People are wanting repeals, and YT thinks it's cute to deny them.

Tweet 3:  I've been using google/YT for a LONG time. It was just fine for a long time, too. But, now that YT has loyalty from us - Including personal info, our money, and our faces (Pixel by pixel tracking AI from Google that can identify facial expressions) they want to flip it on its ass

Tweet 4:  Google is not only screwing over casuals, but big YTbers that keep the platform alive. Every week, I hear stories about how YT has lost another creator because of their ridiculous polices and their lack of communication with said creators.

Tweet 5:  Back when YT wasn't an absolute shit show, they had a tagline. You remember what it was? It was "Broadcast Yourself". However, now it seems more like "Broadcast Yourself for Our Personal Gain, and Don't Expect Us to Care About You".

Tweet 6:  They can't be bothered to accommodate their biggest money makers, and can't be bothered to have *real people* help the fans of said money makers. It's an unprofessional 'Fuck You' that YT needs to fix if it wants to stick around for much longer. #StopYTAutomation

Tweet 7:  Oh fuck boys, it's been brought to my attention that the appeals ARE ran by real people! However, that just makes this case EVEN WORSE. That means YT is INTENTIONALLY screwing over fans and big YTbers on their own accord When I was 12, I wanted to be a YTber.. Good thing I'm not.

Basically, to sum up what I had tweeted is this: Youtube started suspending entire google accounts (Gmail, YT, anything else run through google) because people spammed emojis at Markiplier’s request during a livestream where he had asked them to do so. This is not Mark’s fault. This is Youtube’s fault.

They are lying, saying they they carefully reviewed the suspensions. If that were true, these poor people would not have lost their google and youtube accounts. People who put money into YT and Mark’s channel were suspended, losing the money and time they had put in. 

One girl had her suspension appealed, only for her account to be re-suspended 30 minutes later out of the blue.

Every week, there’s a new story on twitter, on tumblr, on reddit, on youtube. Each about different youtubers leaving, not only for sites with better policies, but with better stability in general. One explained that he was making double what he made on YT for a quarter of he watch time.

My fear is that if youtube doesn’t get off of their ass and do something about all of these bans and the anger of the big youtubers and fans, they may lose their most valuable assets.

Remember when Ninja left Twitch? 

Now, remember when Markiplier and Jacksepticeye and Pewdiepie left Youtube? No? You’re gonna remember it a few years down when they decide to stop taking youtube’s shit.

Please, just.. If your account was suspended during the Markiplier stream, contact him. He is doing his best to help those who were wronged on that night, and who are still being wronged now.

All of this, because people wanted to participate in an interactive stream.

Please Reblog This To Help Those Effected Recover Their Accounts, And To Spread The Tyranny At Youtube.

#markiplier #streaming #stream #youtube #markimoo #jacksepticeye #pewdiepie #pewds #spread this

[potentiality-26]

11 questions meme

rules:

1. always post the rules. 2. answer the questions given by the person who tagged you. 3. write 11 questions of your own and tag 11 (or however many) people to answer them.

I was tagged by @futuredescending!

1. What is the nicest thing someone has done for you?

At my high school the seniors were taken on a trip to Disneyland at the end of the year.  The idea was that all these graduating seniors would spend the whole night there and go back to graduate the next day.  Anyway, I ended up really sick.  I can’t really explain it further without getting into TMI, but I was a mess.  The girl who had been my roommate freshman year (I was in boarding school, for those who haven’t picked up on that yet), and who I had grown apart from especially when we were seniors, spent like every minute of that night with me while everyone else was off having fun.  I’m not sure how I would have made it through if she hadn’t, and I’ve never forgotten. 

2. Do you have NOTPs? If so, why are they NOTPs for you?

This answer is going to be less nice than the one I gave earlier, but I get salty late in the day.

In the Kingsman fandom, I don’t really like Eggsy paired with anyone but Harry (OT3s are fine as long as he is involved, but otherwise... no).  Merwin is the one I most dislike, but not because of anything in canon.  When I first realized Merwin was a thing and looked into it, every single fic or headcanon I saw doubled as the author’s dissertation on why Hartwin was a bad ship and/or Harry was an asshole.  That would have turned me off Merwin even if I didn’t like Hartwin better, and I do like Hartwin better, so... yeah.  No. 

There are lots of lovely people that I know, who I follow, and who don’t hate Harry/Hartwin that write and ship Merwin, and I’m sure their fics are lovely too.  I just have this immediate visceral Nope reaction now that I can neither contain nor control.  So usually when I have a NOTP it’s less about the characters themselves and more about what the fandom does or doesn’t do with them.  Otherwise I just don’t think about the ship.   

3. Summarize the worst film/book/song/story you’ve ever read/watched.

Ahhh that’s hard.  If I hate something enough for it to be the worst, I usually stop reading/watching pretty well.  But... They Came Together is an extremely bad romantic comedy that’s difficult to accurately summarize because it’s... basically every rom-com trope that exists?  Like, these two characters are telling the story of how they fell in love to this other couple, and they explain that she worked in a cute little shop while he was part of the corporation shutting her down, and then they meet while they were in the same outfit for a party, and then he has a girlfriend who just cheated on him and she has a deadbeat ex and a son the love interest must impress, and then she’s with someone else but she tells him (the love interest) what she would do if she ever ran away from her wedding, and it just goes on and on in this way.  And the dialogue is very stilted because they’re kind of purposefully saying stuff like, “Hello, I’m your friend who gives you pep talk that’s full of character exposition.” 

Anyway, I absolutely understood what the movie was trying to do, and it could have worked but it just really, really didn’t. 

4. What are some fandom/fic things that irrationally annoy you?

In fandom, it’s the general black and white thinking that is very common in some areas of it.  Too many people seem to have lost touch with the idea that you can like a story or a character that is (dare I say the word?) Problematic without like... losing your grip on morality?  It’s crazy.

In fic, there will be plot tropes/fanon concepts that I’ll get tired of, but I’m not that bothered about it.  Like I said, I usually stop reading things I don’t enjoy. 

5. Write a summary for the fic you want to write but never will.

I don’t think there’s a fic I want to write but never will.  I mainly just prioritize when the stars are not right for the tribute.  I mean, if I summarized one of my more long shot fics right now, I would be working on it by the weekend. 

6. Someone writes a story that perfectly hits all your buttons. That story includes: _____, ______, and _________.

Pining, smut, some angst but with a tooth-rottingly happy ending.  I am simple soul. 

7. I’m stealing @colinfilth’s question once asked on twitter bc it was SO GOOD: what is the fic one would write that clued your readers in that your identity had been stolen?

A fic with no happy ending?  (I do actually have this one spite-fic that would have an unhappy ending, but I only work on it when I’m in a terrible mood and I’ll probably never finish, let alone publish, it)

8. Most embarrassing celebrity crush, past or present?

Around when Pirates of the Caribbean was new my friend got obsessed with Johnny Depp and kind of dragged me in with her, but I would never have called it a crush.  Still, I did see a ton of his movies and the whole thing just hasn’t aged well, both because he’s clearly not a great person and because he genuinely hasn’t given an original performance since those days.     

9. How much research will you do for a fic? Wing it? Get lost in a wikipedia hole? Read actual books on a topic? Google translate? Get consulting with native speakers?

I mostly wing it.  Sometimes I’ll look up something here or there, but that’s about it.

10. The one thing the creator of your current fandom could do to kill your fandom love.

If Eggsy ends up in a relationship at the end of the movie I will most likely contribute less to the Kingsman fandom.  I like a lot of ships, so I may still be into it (I particularly like the look of Whisky, and I’m sure I’ll find someone to ship him with), but Hartwin is my main love and I almost never handwave canon relationships for fanfic.  I’ve done it like... once?  I don’t know why a marriage/engagement is harder for me to ignore than a death, but it definitely is.  It would depend on how this hypothetical romance was handled, obviously- they might give a really strong amicable breakup vibe, or I might genuinely love them together and write a ton of OT3 fics- but in general the lack of romantic subplot was one of the things that drew me to Kingsman, so it would bother me if that changed.   

Also, if I just generally don’t like it that would kill my fandom love too.  S3 of The Musketeers definitely had that effect on me.  Sometimes the canon just goes in a direction that drops everything you love and jumps into everything you don’t.  It doesn’t seem like that will happen, but... Who knows, right?

ETA: Ooops, forgot that 11th one. (I’ve had a lot of gin). Um. What are the songs that absolutely fit your faves to a T?

I actually made a Hartwin fanmix a while ago, if anyone wants to check it out.  The Grace by Neverending White Lights in particular is a favorite Hartwin song IMO. 

I just did this so I’m not tagging anyone new, but check out my questions here if you’re interested!

#meme

[nettvnow-blog]

Joe Menconi | Blurred

Kyle Anderson and Joe Menconi are changing the way men do comedy, especially in the web series world. While the community is flooded with your typical bromance or asshole characters, Joe and Kyle bring humor in their flaws as they take on more exaggerated versions of themselves in Blurred. With season two premiering tonight, jump down below and see what co-creator Menconi has to say in our exclusive chat.

netTVnow: Where did the concept for Blurred come from?

Joe Menconi: Well Kyle and I are roommates. We have been wanting to make something together for a while and had a running Google doc full of bits and situations that kept coming up or that we simply thought were funny. We were going to just try and shoot a few sketches but said screw it and wound up going for the web series. On paper it was over ambitious and we were probably quite stupid for thinking we could pull it off. But we just wanted to make something we liked and that we thought was funny. It’s really just a heightened version of us in the show. We weren’t trying to change the game we just wanted to get out quality content and look to build on it. And also to have a link to send our parents so they knew what the hell we were doing out here.

netTVnow: What led you two, to working together?

JM: We actually both went to the same college (Indiana University) but didn’t know each other too well. I left after two years to do improv in Chicago while Kyle had been making comedy videos. Once I made the move to LA we had a lot of mutual friends telling us to connect. Like I said, we wound up becoming roommates and are basically brothers now. Like Ryan Seacrest and Carson Daly. But we found we had a similar voice comedically. Maybe it was delusional confidence but we felt like we had good chemistry that would hopefully read on camera. 

netTVnow: Is this your first web series, if so what were you surprised to find about working in that medium?

JM: I was in a small web series about a year and a half ago when I first moved to LA and again, Kyle had made digital content as well. I think we were surprised by how many web series were out there. It’s been cool finding this indie film and web series community. People are doing really cool stuff. It’s awesome that anyone can make something and it can be seen at any time. That of course can work the other way because it’s pretty diluted and hard to get your stuff seen. There’s a lot of bad content and a lot of good content. Which I guess is the internet in a nutshell.

netTVnow: All the episodes are great, do you guys have a favorite one? Mine’s definitely the first one when you do the handshake from Parent Trap!

JM: Thanks Michelle we appreciate that. Yeah ‘Double Date’ seemed to be the favorite. I think the first few and the last one were our favorites. But yeah the handshake was kind of an improvised thing on that day of shooting. We had just written down “montage” and when we got to it we felt like we had to do the hand shake. So two grown adult males tried to perfect it in their apartment in about ten minutes. But yeah we both grew up on the Parent Trap, Lohan version of course. Quaid is unbeatable in that.

netTVnow: I love that you guys can poke fun at the stereotypical guys that we often see on television, what was it like writing the script and putting this together?

JM: It probably looks slightly more intentional than it appears. I feel like for whatever reason that is a trend for guys in shows. Especially around our age. The idea that they have to look cool and always get girls. Which is absurd to me because that doesn’t happen ever. It comes off fake and dishonest when you see that stuff on TV. Unless you’re one of those hot LA guys with the jaw line and the dumb angled face, I don’t know who is that cool.

Neither of us play instruments we're not that dope. The thing I do like is we always are the ones that lose. We’re the butt of the jokes. It’s more fun to live in that space as dudes and also is more relatable. When we write, especially more in season two, we had fun trying to push us into looking more lame and failing harder. We really are two giant, harmless, dumb idiots. We’re always in our heads in real life. So we just tried to heighten that and call it out in the show.

netTVnow: If you don’t mind discussing budget, many web series often work with little to no budget, what was it like for you guys and how did that play a role into filming?

JM: We’re an open book, Michelle. See. That was a dumb thing to say right there. Sorry. But I think the biggest thing it does is force you to wear multiple hats and learn quickly. I think we both learned so much about how things are made from the two seasons we’ve done. We often change jokes on the fly and have to be cool with losing scenes or bits but have to know which ones we can afford to lose.

Problems always pop up. No matter what, it’s inevitable. It was a crash course in indie film making. And as stressful as it was at times it’s so cool to figure out how to work like that. We’re all friends. Our small crew is all friends too, so we enjoy that kind of collaborative process and all of us just trying to figure it out. We were working with a much bigger budget on season two. In fact, we had no budget for the first season, which was great but brought on a whole new bag of anxiety.

netTVnow: What’s your favorite part about web series?

JM: Being able to do your own thing and trying to make the type of show you want to see. There are no rules. It’s like recess in grade school. A lot of people think they know what you “should do” or say “this is how you make a web series,” which is kind of bullshit to be honest. Nobody knows exactly what they’re doing and it has to be true to the people making it.

We personally tried to not listen to that stuff. We really only have one rule - if we both think it’s funny, we do it. Again, it’s cool we live in a time where we can do this thing. We don’t have to just audition next to a bunch of people that are better looking, went to a better acting school than us. We can make stuff happen for ourselves. We trust what we’re doing and have a lot of fun trying to make people laugh.

netTVnow: What can audiences expect in the second season?

JM: For the ‘Joe’ character to be heavier. It wasn’t done on purpose but it’s just the truth. We’re very excited for this season. Working with a bigger budget this time around allowed us to shoot at some really cool locations. There’s a lot more meat to the episodes. They’re significantly longer and it allowed us to tell more of a story in each episode. You still get us being stupid we just were able to add cooler stories over that relationship. We also have some really awesome actors/actresses and comedians this season. People that we’re genuinely fans of comedically. In the first episode alone, you’ll see a lot of really talented human beings. And better looking people than us. So if you don’t like looking at our faces there’s more appealing people to watch. 

netTVnow: Will Kyle and Joe finally get girlfriends?

JM: Wow, we have so many threads to our show I don’t know if we can give it away! No, that’s of course not true. But I think you could guess most likely not. Kyle and Joe are still not ready for girlfriends I don’t think. We were able to show a few realer moments relationship wise which was cool. There’s also a lot more stuff about our relationship this season. We get in a confrontation in one of the episodes and it’s really hard hitting dramatic stuff. TNT type stuff. Blurred knows drama. And you can pull quote that.

netTVnow: Do you guys have any upcoming projects you can share?

JM: I am in a really cool short film that I should be able to see by February - March. I’m excited for it. It’s a very sweet and funny story called One More Thing: A Hoard Alone Story. I got to work with an incredibly talented writer/director named Amanda Kinchen. She’s awesome.

Kyle's currently in production on some hilarious sketches that he's been working on with another comedian. They'll be putting content out throughout the upcoming months. Additionally, Kyle and I are also doing a video series for a new nutrition/lifestyle brand called hustle up. We’ll be going into production on those after season two of Blurred is locked. And we have a couple things we’re working on and are hopeful for. But those are ‘maybes’ which of course means absolutely nothing in this industry.

netTVnow: Is there anything else you guys would like to add?

JM: Thanks for this, Michelle. I don’t think I swore once which I’m proud of and will make my mom happy. But yeah, no just watch our show. Please. Validate us. Season two premieres Thursday, February 16th on our YouTube channel, with a new episode every Thursday following that date with five total this season. I think people will really enjoy where we went with it. @blurredseries on all the socials. We will be continuing to put content on that channel following season two so please continue to check that out and subscribe or whatever we’re suppose to say. Alright, I’m done. Did I do okay? I feel like I talked way too much. Thank you again, Michelle!

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