#this got really popular on twitter even though there's no context for anything including why she's in a closet

[dirkification]

I posted 789 times in 2022

That's 473 more posts than 2021!

72 posts created (9%)

717 posts reblogged (91%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@the-meat-machine

@a-polite-melody

@dirkification

@sociallyanxiousdragon

I tagged 140 of my posts in 2022

#jax yacks - 88 posts

#hstwt 2019 - 10 posts

#homestuck discourse - 9 posts

#ask jax - 6 posts

#egbert discourse - 5 posts

#ask meme - 5 posts

#stridercest - 5 posts

#june discourse - 4 posts

#anon - 4 posts

#anonymous - 4 posts

Longest Tag: 115 characters

#and rose was an obvious like idk parallel or whatever of vriska im the way kanaya was attracted to dangerous people

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Someone once said something about how scary and isolating it must have been for bro to be a gay kid in the 80s and I am Thinking

Like what if the isolation was the point

What if sburb made sure the guardians turned out certain ways so they would make the kids ready in specific ways

What if bro is that weird because he was a gay kid in the 80s and the universe was literally conspiring against him making close connections so he could raise the knight of time as is wanted him to be raised

10 notes - Posted July 5, 2022

#4

Would you be comfortable explaining your dislike of June here? I don't like the retcon people treat it as that John no longer exists and that calling him John in any context is now suddenly transphobic, but idk I might be blessed that my corner of the hs fandom doesn't really have maniacs like that in it?

The farther we get away from 2019 hstwt the more blessed y'all will be with not knowing (positive) lol

(and yes unfortunately I am ready to word dump about this at the drop of a hat lol)

But basically being trans masc on Twitter when June was first popularized then "made canon" was the worst. No one was allowed to have John anymore or we were transphobic. We were laughed at for having trans masc John hcs. Servers were raided. People were harassed. I, personally, was humiliated on a popular podcast because I expressed some dislike of the way June became canon and everyone's reaction to it. Friendships were ended over it. People were afraid to post anything about John for fear of retaliation. If you had a voice project that included John and put anyone besides a trans fem as the Egbert voice, your project was called out.

This lasted through 2020 and I saw people talking about John server raids still happening last year, even though I don't pay attention to hstwt nearly as much.

I honestly wish I could enjoy June. I think trans fem Egbert has a lot of potential! But from my experience, June was no longer a goofy kid who liked pranks and was kinda dumb (positive), and instead Vriska Lite with all the girlfriends (which I think that's another thing is Egbert liking boys (Dave and Karkat and Nic Cage etc) is extremely important to their character to me, but "obviously" June could only be a lesbian)

Tl;dr

Homestuck Twitter in 2019 and 2020 was a toxic pile of shit and if you didn't fall in line to the right opinions you got harassed either to agreeing or put of the community. ESPECIALLY if you were trans masc and/or "a boy liker." And I was personally traumatized by it, primarily because I expressed I wasn't super jazzed about June being "canon"

Does that make sense? Lmk if I need to clarify anything

15 notes - Posted April 26, 2022

#3

Look at my boyssss

18 notes - Posted December 7, 2022

#2

y'all remember

after the epilogues came out

so many people were like "actually you're right dirk IS trans masc which is why he's transphobic about Roxy, breaks up the lesbians, and is generally just all around shitty. Classic shitty trans masc!"

And like we weren't allowed to say shit against it lmao

27 notes - Posted June 16, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Reminder i have a uquiz to assign you a dirk!

44 notes - Posted June 13, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #false #Jax yacks #Two of my top reblogged from are just me lmao

[nvexe]

little self-indulgent catrouble comic

#spop #catra #catrouble #she-ra and the princesses of power #comic #double trouble #copycat #this got really popular on twitter even though there's no context for anything including why she's in a closet #still not gonna give any though #nvexe #nvpng

[chem-24]

some thoughts on one of the datamined/leaked characters and Inazuma

Specifically, about this funky Aetherface-looking dude + some stuff about the Electro Archon got in too, somehow :/

(watch as this gets debunked into the ground when the Inazuma update is released)

What are the scraps that we know of him so far? Well, his name is “Kazuha”, and he’s going to be an Anemo Sword!

Yeah there’s been some prior misinformation about him being a pyro polearm (even I thought he was going to be pyro sword), but that was more just him getting confused with this other guy called “Tohama” (who’s also supposed to be Ayaka’s (arranged) fiancée? No idea how that’s going to turn out). Plus, you can see Kazuha’s Anemo Vision on the second pic here:

It appears to be an autumn motif instead, which is also pretty cool and can still tie into the wind theme

The second thing I did notice though (first being ooooo new pyro character) was that he looked like a samurai. It’s also why I had doubts about him being a polearm user.

*[Yes I know historical samurais have used bows and spears in the past. But even Japanese media pushes the “samurai = katanas” angle, and Kazuha strikes me as more of a “pop culture-style Japanese swordsman” than a historically-accurate one if you get what I’m saying.]

To digress a little; how’s Inazuma looking? Well, according to Zhongli: the Electro Archon, also known as “Baal” or “Raiden”, has issued a “Vision Hunt Decree” to confiscate her people’s visions and decorate them on the hands of a “thousand-armed statue”, as well as closing off the country. Furthermore, it is said that no one has received an Electro Vision in a year in-story by “the will of the Electro Archon”.

There is a runaway NPC from Inazuma to Liyue called “Atsuko”, who provides a tangible picture of Inazuma’s current state of affairs:

As pointed out in this reddit post, Baal’s actions are a parallel to other real life Japanese rulers such as Toyotomi Hideyoshi & Tokugawa Ieyasu; from closing the country and confiscating swords (visions) from the populace, up to melting all the swords to create a giant metal statue (that one didn’t work, but it’s the thought that counts).

**[my personal thoughts on this is that someone or something else has either succeeded or stole Baal’s position as the Electro Archon, which would explain the sudden extreme personality change.

Like, try to think of this in terms of the in-story timeline - the lockdown specifically happened a year ago; no one knows what’s going on inside Inazuma, nor does Inazuma know anything about the outside world. Thus, the Electro Archon shouldn’t know about ‘recent events’ like Venti getting his gnosis stolen or Zhongli’s “”death””, so her/their(?) current actions are definitely not influenced by what’s happening to the other Archons - this was something the Electro Archon decided to do on their own, independently of the Tsaritsa’s/Fatui’s plans.

Venti has explained before that anybody with a vision is capable of becoming a god, so the possibility is there. Hell, they may even be posing as Baal and hiding the truth of their ascension for some reason.

If you’re familiar with Japanese history, then think about how Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa came to power in the first place.

To summarize briefly: Hideyoshi was originally a vassal of another warlord called “Oda Nobunaga”, who united most of Japan. However, Nobu was betrayed and killed by another one of his vassals known as “Akechi Mitsuhide”, so Hideyoshi stepped up and finished the rest of the job.

After Hideyoshi’s death, Tokugawa (and 4 other men) was supposed to look over his son until he was of age to rule. But Tokugawa was growing in popularity at the time, so he stepped to take power himself.

So in the context of the Genshin story, perhaps the “Toyotomi Hideyoshi” and “Akechi Mitsuhide” figures are being fused together (aka: this person killed the previous Electro Archon and took her place). Or it’s a Stanley/Venti’s friend situation 2.0

Plus, it’s added dramatic irony to the whole ‘God of Eternity’ also being the god of lightning; something fundamentally transient and brief. Their so-called ‘eternity’ is as fleeting as a lightning bolt, or something.]

~

Anyways, back to Kazuha.

If we’re going with the implication that the Archons are responsible for giving out their respective elemental Visions (others have theorized about this too); then what does that say about Kazuha, who has an Anemo Vision (proudly displayed in full view too!) given by the God of Freedom?

I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that Kazuha may turn out to be a “wandering vagrant” or “ronin”-archetype character; kinda like what Miyamoto Musashi does. A vagabond that wanders the land and maybe hides in a village once in a while, but never having an established home.

Of course, there’s still plenty of unknowns such as what his actual personality is like - but I think that with this, we can narrow down one part of his character concept at least.

Take another look at his character design: Kazuha is associated with “autumn”, which invokes the imagery “falling leaves in the wind from a tree” and “the passing of something”; possibly exemplifying Kazuha’s nature as a ‘wanderer’ who never stays in one place for too long, and perhaps the presence of a former/deceased master or organization(?).

Furthermore, Kazuha has very albino-esque features with white hair and red eyes, which could further indicate him being a “outcast”. Razor is another character with white hair and red eyes, and he’s very much an “outcast” from ‘normal’ human civilization too - what with being raised by wolves and all. (there’s also some people who think Kazuha and Razor could be long-lost brothers, which is kinda eeeeehhhhhhh 🤷 for me)

Combining that with the historical context of “confiscating swords = confiscating visions”, that would make Kazuha either:

A: a wanderer from the start, and thus far enough away from Inazuma’s capital to avoid the initial Vision Hunt order when it started

B: went on the run after the “Vision Hunt Decree” was issued

Either way, by refusing to give away his “sword” (vision), it would most likely make Kazuha a high-profile criminal and wanted target in Inazuma. Possibly with a bounty included too.

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

By the way, as some have already pointed out: some significant characters (interestingly, most of the gods) in Genshin share design similarities with other Honkai Impact characters (another Mihoyo-made game). For more examples, here’s official art of Fu Hua (a Honkai character) that makes her look suspiciously like Zhongli.

I’m bringing this up because some twitter users have pointed out that Kazuha seemingly looks like Fu Hua in her [Phoenix] battlesuit:

Is this just a coincidence, or does it really hold some deeper meaning? Personally speaking, I’d prefer that Kazuha stays human, but I guess another god isn’t too bad either :X

and with that design significance, my dreams of obtaining Kazuha as a 4* are flushed down the drain

#genshin impact #genshin impact theory #genshin theory #inazuma #genshin baal #genshin kazuha #kazuha #tohama #genshin razor #I accidentally brushed a finger past Post on mobile while it was unfinished #so I had to delete and rewrite this all over again from memory urkjrerjehrejhfyslfir

[yeonchi]

The state of tokusatsu in the West in 2021

The events of the past few weeks have taken the Western toku fanbase by storm. Amidst the shitstorm of spergs and a-logs who think they’re being rational but are really low-key spergs, unexpected turns in events are heralding the death knell for tokusatsu fansubs (that was going to be the name of this post initially). In addition, these events have also exposed the state of tokusatsu in the West in 2021, whether it be in regards to fansubs and streaming or Shirakura and the fanbase.

An update on the current situation

This is an update to the two posts I made in the past few weeks regarding the subject.

So some Indonesian wrote a Twitter thread about tokusatsu in general and in one of those tweets, he mentions Shirakura and the recent fansub scandal in a passing manner. Another Indonesian quote retweets him and tags Shirakura and this is what he got:

A few hours later, Shirakura wrote a few tweets about the situation (which are after the break):

(Tweets 1 and 3 translated by killadelfo, tweets 2, 4 and 5 translated by me because Shirakura and other a-logs won’t do it)

Some context:

Tweet 1 - 「雉も鳴かずば打たれまい」 directly translates to "If the pheasant didn't ring, then it wouldn't have been hit". At a stretch, it sounds like victim-blaming in rape culture. Also, the “semi-official streaming site” Shirakura is referring to is TokuHD, who are currently streaming Kamen Rider Agito and 555 with abysmal subtitle translation quality (Honshin and Olfenok) and were apparently licenced by an unknown third-party (if anyone knows, please tell me and I’ll update this).

Tweet 2 - The North Wind and the Sun, one of Aesop’s fables that teaches the superiority of persuasion over force. You can read the story here if you’re too infantile to read Wikipedia.

Later on, TV-Nihon officially announced that they have decided to stop subbing Saber and Zenkaiger, softsubs or hardsubs alike, with Takenoko stating that he doesn’t want to worry about legal trouble on their team. Whether or not they will sub future series is still unknown at the moment. Nothing has come back regarding the apparent C&D from Toei, particularly as NewZect and KRDL haven’t received anything else from them apart from one email (and KRDL received theirs in 2019 apparently).

Despite this, Shirakura has expressed his gratitude for fans across the world who watch Toei’s shows, no matter how they watch them. It’s a far cry from “I believe there’s no fanbase of Kamen Rider in the west practically.”

So now, let’s dissect the whole situation, from fansubbing, streaming and official releases to Shirakura and the Western fanbase.

Fansubbing, streaming and official releases: le Happy Merchant intensifies

There was a time when TV-Nihon held a monopoly in tokusatsu fansubbing, subbing series that other people normally wouldn’t have cared about, including the Chouseishin and Tomica Hero series. They were known for their mistakes in translation and extensive use of different fonts and effects, which led to groups like Over-Time springing up over the past decade in an effort to diversify the fansubbing scene and break up TV-Nihon’s monopoly. (It’s time to #ReleaseTheFonts, TV-Nihon. Get that hashtag trending.) Though TV-Nihon seem to have this unspoken rule to not mention other sub groups on their forums, the recent C&D debacle has resulted in a truce of sorts between them.

Many tokusatsu fans outside of Japan will have known of the genre through fansubs and I am no exception. It’s very likely that for a long time, Japanese executives thought the only toku Westerners liked was Power Rangers, but in recent years, the increasing popularity of tokusatsu in the West has led to companies like Toei and Tsuburaya drawing up plans to release their series in the West. Presumably due to the two companies’ different attitudes to copyright, their IPs are being treated differently, as I will detail.

Tsuburaya - Based and redpilled For some reason, Ultraman is a franchise that very few fansub groups have cared about over the years, which makes Tsuburaya’s Western expansion that much more special.

Before 2018, Crunchyroll streamed Leo, 80, Gaia, Nexus, Max, Mebius, Ginga (S), X, Orb and Geed, but they have now been removed from the platform as Mill Creek Blu-rays, TokuHD, TokuSHOUTsu and Tsuburaya’s YouTube channel became more prolific.

Tsuburaya has been streaming the newest episodes of Ultraman weekly on their YouTube channel since 2012, presumably because their coverage on TV Tokyo and their affiliates don’t cover all of Japan. They have added Chinese subtitles to their episodes since either Geed or R/B and even though their translations of some names can be a bit autistic, they have added English subtitles to their episodes since Z following the release of Ultra Galaxy Fight: New Generation Heroes with dual audio and multi-language subtitles (including English). Alongside reruns of older series, Tsuburaya releases episodes on YouTube every week, which are then available for two weeks. In addition, they also have separate channels where they publish dubs for Ultraman episodes in Mandarin, Korean and even Cantonese (official TVB Tiga-Mebius dub release when), which is pretty based if you ask me.

Tsuburaya doesn’t seem to do takedowns of their materials on YouTube, though they do claim ownership of the material posted by other channels so that ad revenue goes to them. It’s the reason why whole series of Ultraman and various compilations using footage from various episodes are still surviving on YouTube today. Cynically though, I suspect that the main reason they don’t do takedowns is because they can’t afford to following years of financial problems and their decades-long conflict with Chaiyo Productions. They probably thought that it wouldn’t be worth it.

Toei - Cringe and bluepilled Is it any wonder that the one company with the more popular series amongst a niche fanbase would be so Jewish with their copyrights? While entire series and various compilations have been taken down by Toei over the years (which they technically have the right to do), they don’t give fans (particularly outside of the US) a lot of options to support them officially, so they only dug this hole for themselves. It’s also very naive of people to presume that Toei doesn’t know about fansubs; it would be fair to say that it’s an open secret that neither Toei nor fansub groups can acknowledge for fear of legal retribution.

From 2015 to 2019, Shout! Factory have released Super Sentai series from Jetman (the first pre-Mighty Morphin series to be released in the West) to Hurricaneger, but since Power Rangers was sold from Saban to Hasbro, Shout! Factory have not regained the rights to distribute any further series and Toei hasn’t done much lobbying in that regard. However, Shout! Factory have begun streaming some Kamen Rider series from 2020 on TokuSHOUTsu (Shout! Factory TV) and Tubi (in addition to the Super Sentai series they had already licenced), namely the original series, Kuuga, Ryuki, Zero-One and the Heisei Generations FOREVER movie. Agito and 555 are streaming on TokuHD (as I mentioned before) and Amazons is streaming on Amazon Prime.

While Toei does have an official tokusatsu YouTube channel, where they stream their library of series similar to how Tsuburaya does with their YouTube channel, it is only available in Japan. In April 2020, Toei began uploading their series on Toei Tokusatsu World, a separate YouTube channel created specifically for their Western fans that immediately got taken down by copyright strikes on their own content. Aside from streaming Metal Hero series and other toku series nobody cares about, they’ve only bothered to upload the first two episodes of every Kamen Rider series on there, with no plans to follow through with the rest of the episodes (Super Sentai is only available in Asia because of the last paragraph). Apparently, the official subtitled release of the first two Kamen Rider episodes was funded by the J-LOD scheme (Japan Content LOcalisation and Distribution) established by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and that they hope that fans would provide subtitles for the rest of the episodes. The only problem is that YouTube discontinued its community captions feature last year and I have been unable to find any evidence of Toei suggesting such a thing from their fans, so I can only assume that they either weren’t transparent about it or had no intention of doing so at all. You can see why I prefer Tsuburaya’s approach better. Frankly, I think Toei should have just uploaded TV-Nihon’s releases and called it a day.

There’s a Europoor sperg on Twitter (and the TV-Nihon forums) by the name of HowlingSnail who always complains about tokusatsu series only being licensed in the US. Like him or not, you’ve got to admit that he does have a point. Even in the age of VPNs and multi-region DVD players, the entire world has to be considered when it comes to international licencing and expansion because believe it or not, the “West” isn’t made up of just the US alone. Things shouldn’t have to be like this, and yet, things are the way they are.

Around the time that TV-Nihon (apparently) got C&D’d, Western fans were pissed that The Tokusatsu Network posted news of Toei streaming Kamen Rider Drive on their Japanese-exclusive channel, rubbing salt into their wounds, while also not saying anything about the current situation with fansubs. In TokuNet’s defence, I can understand why they wouldn’t do that; on top of being based in Japan, they’ve done interviews with various actors and producers on their YouTube channel, plus their senior editor, Tom Constantine, has made cameo appearances on a few episodes and movies. So if anything, TokuNet are closer to Toei than any other news site covering tokusatsu.

In summary, Toei are complicit in enabling this shitstorm that could have been preventable if they weren’t so incompetent and out-of-touch with their Western fanbase. If more scrutiny was exercised during the negotiation of Western licencing, we probably wouldn’t have had the TokuHD disaster. If Toei were more transparent with their intentions for streaming their toku series in the West, fansub groups would be more than happy to contribute to the official subtitles and/or take their (unofficial) releases down (though I don’t necessarily agree with this practice entirely). Or maybe if Toei actually made a media release saying that it was actually them who sent the C&D’s to KRDL, NewZect and TV-Nihon, we wouldn’t have had this debacle and this post would just be me talking about the death knell for tokusatsu fansubs (which would probably be just this section of the post).

In the lack of free and easily accessible means to access media protected behind paywalls and geoblocks, people will always turn to things like “illegal” streaming sites and torrenting, particularly when they believe that multi-million dollar companies don’t deserve their hard-earned money just because they keep bugging everyone to give it all to them.

(Also, I know someone called me out in one of my linked posts where I described Toei’s attitude to copyright as “Jewish”, but fuck you, my stance doesn’t change just because a few people got their fee-fees hurt from poking their noses into other people’s business. If Toei changes their attitude and gives us a plan for international distribution, then I might soften my stance.)

Shirakura and the Western fanbase: lolcows in their own right

So it’s been established that it’s a bad idea to tag Shirakura or anyone affiliated with Toei regarding this situation with the TV-Nihon C&D (or fansubs or leaks or whatever in general) because we don’t have the full details and they probably have no idea of what’s going on. Look, I know Shirakura is worthy of criticism for some things, but this is not one of them because he is the director of planning and production at Toei - he’s not responsible for international distribution or copyright takedowns. All that these spergs on TokuTwitter have done is prove that Shirakura has no idea what is going on and made Japanese fans aware (to some extent) that spergs like them exist. The irony behind Shirakura’s actions as the producer of some Kamen Rider series and his interactions with Western fans is the reason why I lovingly coin “The Shirakura Paradox” as a phrase to describe it.

I’ve noticed that a lot of people on TokuTwitter are very paranoid and reactionary. They believe in conspiracy theories like “TV-Nihon actually got C&D’d” and “Over-Time got C&D’d as well” when 1) the notice they got wasn’t a C&D per se or even a DMCA and 2) Over-Time never got C&D’d, though they did help TV-Nihon analyse the email and decided to stop posting about their releases when they were convinced that the email was somewhat legit (because a Toei email can’t be faked due to the Sender Policy Framework, or SPF).

With regards to the “reactionary” part, the main example relating to this is twt_tokusatsu, who has been blamed for causing this debacle with fansubs because Shirakura replied to her tweets (that did NOT mention fansubs) with a joke. However, another big example is WeiWenn and Ichi of the Castranger podcast. “What?”, I hear you ask in a surprised tone, “What do they have to do with all this?” If you want to know the story behind them, take a look at my Shirakura Paradox post under “You are supposed not to know about Trinity”.

I know this debacle was two years ago and that Ichi has deserved enough blame (and apologised) for posting scans from a toy catalog targeted at distributors and not consumers, but why the hell is WeiWenn being blamed when he only mentioned “Trinity” (in verbatim) possibly referring to Agito Trinity and not Zi-O Trinity? WeiWenn has been sent death threats because entitled manbabies with gunts can never read the latest leaks about new toys. As a result, WeiWenn has deleted his Twitter account, claiming that Shirakura’s joke was the last straw (Ichi has also deleted his Twitter account as well). Anyone who blames WeiWenn (or Ichi) for somehow causing the TV-Nihon C&D’s is just as retarded, if not more, than the people who still blame twt_tokusatsu, especially when the damage has already been done and the debacle is already two years old. As such, I stand behind #RespectWeiWenn and #RespectIchi. For more information, check out this Twitter thread and the below video.

Things like this are the reason why the tokusatsu fanbase in the West is seemingly on thin ice with Toei. If you ask me, TokuTwitter as a whole deserves to be discussed and mocked on sites like 4chan and Kiwi Farms, because some individuals seem to act in a manner resembling lolcows. On top of that, I wish that tokusatsu fans in Japan would talk more about this retardation and join in the circlejerking with their Western counterparts who are more sophisticated and logical.

In conclusion, the whole debacle with Toei and TV-Nihon has been a ticking time bomb fuelled by Toei’s incompetence and lack of awareness of their Western fanbase, who are no saints either with their lolcow attitudes. Tsuburaya is pretty based with their international distribution and TV-Nihon’s typesetters should #ReleaseTheFonts.

#tokusatsu #kamen rider #super sentai #ultraman #tv-nihon #releasethefonts #respectweiwenn #respectichi

[razanartuk]

about me tag game thing

i was tagged by the wonderful @nothingunrealistic! thank you very much ily <3

under read more bc i was not capable of keeping my answers brief this time around

why did you choose your url?

this...was supposed to be a short explanation but it turned into quite a tale so strap in i guess because we are going on a ride. back in 2017 i was just getting into musical theatre rp and i was still feeling too shy to really talk to anyone ooc so i would just wait for people i wanted to interact with to post starter calls so i could just do things in character with them the easy way. So i did this with my friend cam, who posted a starter for me using a lyric from If I Could Tell Her. she linked the song so i could listen to it, so i did and i went ‘wait a minute, is that Ben Platt from Pitch Perfect?? (and other things too, but i only recognized his voice at the time bc of the acappella girl movies)’ and yes it certainly was.

i had zero idea what the plot of Dear Evan Hansen was about at that point, and for some reason based off Just That One Song and the poster art of who i assumed was Some Guy in a Polo Shirt i started to think it was about some jock guy who broke his arm and had an emo/goth friend who had either died or gone missing under mysterious circumstances. also i intuited that Evan had a crush on his friend’s sister but he couldn’t tell her that directly or his emo friend would kick his ass. so i was like mostly wrong, but a little bit right.

oh and i knew jared and alana were characters from the show bc cam said that they were i think?? but i had no idea what their role was. so after listening to if i could tell her, i listened to good for you and all i really got out of that was that evan the apparently not-jock guy had done...something... that really hurt jared and alana. and at that point i finally decided to go look up a plot synopsis and i found out i was waaay off base. but honestly this is why cast recordings should include scene dialogue in the songs bc otherwise you just get soundtracks like dear evan hansen where the songs have like. zero context. we really just go from waving through a window to for forever to sincerely me without like. any reason as to what is happening huh. It’s honestly not a surprise anymore that all those people on twitter had no idea the plot isn’t about gay teenagers.

anyways. cam was writing jared and she made a post at one point about wishing somebody would write alana and i was like ‘oh i could do that!’ (after i had actually Seen a bootleg and finally knew what the whole story was, of course) so i made a multimuse rp blog featuring alana beck, nabulungi hatimbi, chloe valentine and some other characters, and cam started sharing her headcanons with me that alana is trans, jared and alana were close friends when they were little kids but they sort of drifted apart as they got older and their priorities in life changed, jared was the first person alana came out to when she realized she’s trans, etc.

one night i started talking about wanting to pick a more theatre-relevant url for my blog and trans-[character name] urls were getting pretty popular, and at least 3 of the friends i made through rp had changed theirs to coordinating trans-[character name] and i think it was cam suggested i should make mine be trans-alana so i did. eventually i realized the unhyphenated version was available so i changed it to transalana with no hyphen and i have lived here ever since. sometimes i think about changing it but i feel like transalana has become a part of My Brand and i am not so great with coming up with cool names for things.

any side blogs? if you have them, name them and why you have them

in theory, i have sideblogs... i don’t really use them, but of the ones i do have, there is:

emsbookblog - this was supposed to be where i would post excerpts of the book that i’m working on, but i think i did that maybe one time roughly 2 years ago and then promptly forgot about it/got nervous about my writing and was scared to share anything else. the rest of the stuff that is there is assorted writing tips. i don’t really know what to do with it now. i probably should post all my little thoughts about em and anita and caleb there instead of infodumping on my main from time to time, but if i do that then i have to promo a sideblog and direct people over to it which is always annoying to me when i could just do it on this blog which is much easier

dearnovelhansen - this is basically no longer used, but was a sideblog i made specifically to talk/complain about the novel adaptation of Dear Evan Hansen which was about 3 years ago?? maybe? i can’t be trusted to understand the passage of time. but to summarize: i thought it was an honor just to have the story be made more accessible since many of us couldn’t see the stage performance, but i hated a lot of the creative liberties that were taken. my main grumbles are that everyone who isn’t evan or connor is done so dirty in the novel. connor’s still kind of done dirty in the book, but not as much as like. heidi, alana, jared, and zoe are.

horseisle3 - this one was meant to be a place where i could just enthusiastically post screenshots from hi3, but instead it turned into a blog where i occasionally reblog other players’ hi3 content and bitch about how bad the game admins are bc hi3 is the tumblr famous (infamous?) homophobic horse game. the game where it was once okay to call your club store the gulag bc according to their head of hr, ‘it’s just a russian word for prison’ but you can’t say ‘im gay’ without somebody accusing you of corrupting young children who play the game. unfortunately there aren’t very many good interactive horse games out there, so this one is still about as good as it gets. it’s either that or star stable and i don’t care about star stable.

mlaenie - i’ve had this url saved for i don’t even know how long. way way way back in the day when i wanted to escape from the clutches of the onceler fandom i abandoned my first blog where i basically had an alter ego i guess?? and i decided to just be myself on the new blog. i don’t fully remember who came up with it, but one of my sister’s mutuals suggested that if you scrambled the letters in your name you could come up with aesthetic-looking urls. so lauren’s url became lrauen, and to match with her mine became mlaenie, which i abandoned on tumblr after about a year or so? but have continued to use as my main username on twitter, reddit, youtube, xbox, steam, and discord. i barely ever use any of these accounts aside from twitter, steam, and xbox, but yeah. so i’ve decided to try and turn this empty sideblog into a place for video game thoughts maybe. we’ll see how long it lasts this time around.

how long have you been on tumblr?

i made my first tumblr account in december of 2010, but i didn’t understand how to use it at all or how to customize my theme to look cool and unique so i quickly abandoned it. i made a new account in september of 2011 after some kids at school and my sister told me i should and i have been trapped here with varying degrees of activity/inactivity ever since. i have witnessed the rise and fall of the lorax/onceler fandom, hyperfocused on lord of the rings, star wars and back to the future all at the same time, and for the past 4 years i’ve mostly been a musical theatre blog with assorted other fandom stuff mixed in. i feel i have seen everything and nothing, but mostly i’m just tired and bored.

do you have a queue tag?

no bc i don’t use a queue. i’ve tried using it in the past but i irrationally feel pressured to sustain a coherent theme to queued posts and my brain simply does not vibe with that so i just don’t use it at all anymore. Instead i instantly reblog or post several unrelated thoughts in succession and then don’t post again at all for 3 days. the way god intended

why did you start your blog in the first place?

my very first blog was intended to be a place for me to post all of my petz 5 animals’ profile info, but i didn’t have any understanding of how coding worked at all and i don’t think i really wanted to learn, either. so it just sat there, unused. my second attempt at blogging was as a classic rock fandom person, so as you can probably imagine i was pretty pretentious about ‘modern pop’ vs the beatles, the rolling stones, the who, the monkees, and so on. and then i slowly devolved into a lorax fandom blog and everything went to shit so i made a new blog for lord of the rings/the hobbit which later evolved to include star wars and back to the future blogging. and then for the past 4 years i’ve been mainly a musical theatre blog with other random stuff i like thrown haphazardly into the pot. wonderful.

why did you choose your icon/pfp?

because my url is transalana and two of my most prominent lgbt headcanons are that alana beck is trans and a lesbian. i gotta be shouting out @kinqmike though bc she’s the one i adopted the trans alana beck headcanon from in the first place!

why did you choose your header?

in 2017 i was hyperfixating on Dear Evan Hansen (and Be More Chill, but there weren’t many gif-able videos then considering it ran for a month in New Jersey in 2015 and there was only one yet-to-resurface 35 minute bootleg) so i just grabbed a random gif off of google. i really should get to replacing it with a new header of my own though. i just don’t know what i should do for it.

what’s your post with the most notes?

i have lost track of how many notes it has (i think it’s somewhere around 200 now?) but when Will Roland and George Salazar performed Two Player Game on Good Morning America, i posted a screencap of their Jeremy and Michael along with that one quiz answer meme that says stuff like ‘i want to see it grow up healthy’. i didn’t tag it with any ship names or anything because i was anxious about having it show up in the tags, but somebody who reblogged it from me did tag it as boyf riends and i firmly believe it took off because of that. i don’t think i make posts that are relevant enough to amass thousands of notes, even by accident. which is probably a good thing bc if i did i would have to block so many of them.

how many followers do you have?

on this blog? 175 according to the counter. how many of those are still real people and how many are bots and abandoned accounts? i have no idea.

how many people do you follow?

i try to keep it somewhere around 200. i think i’m sitting at 180 right now but i kind of need to go through and clear out the really inactive blogs.

have you made a shitpost?

let’s think about this for a second. i’ve been on tumblr for nearly 10 years. you might even be able to say i’ve made more than one. they’re just not what you would call...popular shitposts.

how do you feel about ‘you need to reblog this’ post?

that stuff makes me so incredibly anxious that i have to fight the urge to want to yeet my laptop or mobile device through the closest window whenever i read it, so i try very hard to avoid any sort of ‘if you don’t reblog this, i’m judging you’ posts. i find them very manipulative and not particularly helpful

do you like tag games?

yeah babey!! i just frequently forget to do them, but please know that if you have ever tagged me in a tag game i felt incredibly touched by the gesture and the @mention even if i completely forgot to do the thing afterward

do you like ask games?

i do! but also rip to literally anyone who has ever sent me an ask meme bc it takes me so long to answer them. i’m still working on a micro fic prompt from a few weeks ago. also, horrified to realized that it has in fact been a few weeks and not 3 days anymore.

which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

i don’t know that any are tumblr famous as a whole. but probably @neverheardnothing

do you have a crush on a mutual?

in any sort of romantic connotation? no. not that i’m aware of. there are mutuals that i have friend crushes on where i want to be friends with them but i get so anxious when it comes to meeting new people that usually nothing ever comes of it. i’m really not good at small talk or other casual conversation either which, as you may or may not be able to imagine, sucks. i just wanna skip over all of the awkward introductions and ‘hey how are you, how is life, what are you doing with yourself?’ stuff. not because i don’t care about it. i do, but i think most of my friends/the people i want to be my friends are also depressed and anxious so asking these basic questions about life tends to uh. make us all nervous. and i don’t do much with my life so i always have the most boring answers anyways.

i’m not tagging anyone officially bc the @ thing has just completely given up on me at this point, but if you want to do it, go for it. and then say i tagged you so i can read it c:

#mel.rtf #abt me #tag games

[unpopularly-opinionated]

RE: My post earlier about the Ooblets Epic Games Exclusive backlash.

I’m not going to show the Twitter user, if you follow the indie game development scene on Twitter it’s likely you’ll recognize this tweet, either way that’s not who I am. The Ooblet’s account on the other hand is fair-game since it’s basically a product placement.

I feel it needs reiterating how utterly dense this kind of tweet is, and how completely skewed the narrative for this issue has gotten, so let me reiterate in obnoxiously large and emboldened font to try and get the point across:

THE GAMING COMMUNITY IS NOT TOXIC

“Honesty” and “transparency” are all well and good, but unless you’re honestly trying to drive away your own community, perhaps you should try being a little less honest and a little less transparent. No one (or I guess no one but this guy and the few who agree with him) is going to thank you for honestly throwing them under the proverbial bus after they’ve spent months, if not years, supporting your project; your dream.

I’ve heard from others that “this is just how they write” and “it’s meant to be funny”, and to an extent, I can understand that. But let me just include some screenshots from the post in question to reiterate my point, because I feel like my previous post didn’t quite get the point across:

(Context: What the Epic Games Exclusivity Deal means for you, the fan and/or financial backer of Ooblets).

I get that the Fortnite bit is the joke, ha ha, Fortnite used to be wildly popular, I get it, good meme. What isn’t the joke, and what was part of why people got upset was the first bit, specifically the “download the Epic Games Launcher and make an Epic Games account” bit, that bit.

Now, I personally have no qualms about having the Epic Games Launcher on my PC. I have long since looked beyond the ‘scandal’ of tech companies saving and selling my data to distant lands to be used for nefarious moneymaking schemes. Is it bad? Sure, maybe. Would I prevent it had I the chance? Of course. Do I have that chance? Not a chance in the world, so I decide to live with it.

That said, many others have not reached that point of fuck it, and understandably so. I hit that point because of my negative outlook on society as a whole but, praise be, there are in fact still some optimists out there who look at these shitty corporate tactics and say no to them, and good on them for that.

That is what I would say is the bulk of the primary issues people have with the Epic Games Store. The missing features bits aren’t terribly important, as even this post says, if you have a social life on Steam, then use Steam. The EGS does not need to be your do-all replacement.

This is where the post should have stopped. Here and now, had this post ended, any and all issues with this decision would have been but a whisper in the wind. As I said in my previous post, yes they undoubtedly would have received plenty of critical, and non-critical backlash for the decision regardless, but ending the post here would’ve 100% put the developers on the right side in this situation and I’d be right up there agreeing with that tweet.

(Context: Are you angry at Epic and/or us for this decision?)

Referring to earlier when I said that playful tone and humour are all fine and dandy, I understand that this is probably meant to sound playful and humourous, but it comes across as largely self-important and ignorant, and the bits that follow do in no way dissuade from that appearance.

While my response to this complaint was similar to their own, in that you should just use Steam for the features that the Epic Games Store lacks, they go on to essentially say that this is just baby EGS and that Steam used to be just like it and look at it now.

While they aren’t technically wrong, from a development point of view, the big thing they need to understand is how web standards have dramatically changed since 2003 when the Steam store launched. Launching a store, of any variety, without a shopping cart is a big no-no.

As far as missing features go, that’s not like missing a friends list or a IM feature, that’s missing a crucial part of a web-based storefront. Imagine going to a store and only be allowed to purchase one thing at a time, that would be ridiculous.

Their response to this was as corporate as any triple-A publisher, or really any corporation at all, from any industry. Just a complete disconnect from society that frankly is unwarranted from what is quite literally a two person operation. Not to mention, their response is quite literally what every parent warns their kids about at a young age. “But mooooooooooooom, everyone is doing it!!!!” Yes sweetie, but if everyone jumps off a bridge, are you going to?

Apparently, yes.

And not to discount the idea of making money, by all means make money, but let me put it this way, had they left this post exactly where I said they should have previously, all of the blame would be at Epic’s feet. Because at the end of the day, having your game be exclusive to one service does not make you money, it makes them money. So this whole “everyone is doing it” schtick doesn’t fly when coming from the developers. Had this been a post by Epic (and frankly with all the shilling I could be convinced it was from them) then this argument might have made just a tiny bit more sense.

Underlined in yellow are the jokes; the “playful” and “humourous” attitude I’ve heard so much about. Underlined in red however, are what the developers are actually genuinely saying with complete and utter seriousness.

“There are worse things in the world to be upset about.” I kid you not, that’s their argument.

Now, all of that reiterated, to get to the actual point of this post (wish Tumblr let you do multiple “Keep Reading” lines but I digress), the article linked in the tweet here is about the previous “non-critical” backlash I mentioned they’d receive, though multiplied exponentially by their horrendous blog post, and further community responses to said blog post.

I’d like to refer to a completely unrelated post I made quite a while ago that really needs to spread like wildfire if you ask me:

RECEIVING INSULTS, UNCRITICAL FEEDBACK, AND/OR DEATH THREATS DOES NOT INVALIDATE THE CRITICAL FEEDBACK NOR THE ISSUE AT HAND.

I am by no means wiping away death threats or mean words as things to scoff at, by all means take them as seriously as you will, but under no circumstances should 20+ people telling you to kill yourself invalidate the hundreds of fans and financial backers who are upset with your recent financial decision, or your response to criticisms to those decisions.

This happens time and time and time again. Someone of note does something bad, for one reason or another, and instead of responding to the completely warranted and justified criticism and feedback they instead play up the 15+ people who IM’d them to drink bleach and throw it up as “an example of the ever present toxic gaming community”.

More or less, the substance to this article is their “apology”, and I use that term very loosely but I’ll get to that, to the community at large for the recent events. The post summarizes the issue from their (biased) perspective, posts some screenshots of the colourful responses they’ve received, the usual woe-is-me schtick.

I’d like to highlight a few bits from it to further exemplify the continued mindset of these people:

I have given the full context to this next statement with these screenshots so that I can now take parts of these statements out of their context to, at least to my belief, succinctly identify the mindset of these folks:

“I understand the relationship people think they might be owed when they exchanged money for goods or services, but...we’ve never actually sold them anything and don’t owe them anything at all.”

I don’t want to get off-topic any more than necessary, but this, this right here is why fundraisers, Kickstarters, GoFundMes, Patreon subscriptions, or any other form of crowdsourcing platforms need to be handled with extreme care. I hesitate to say regulated legally, but I am by no means opposed to that idea.

I want to express this carefully and plainly: LEGALLY, yes they are absolutely right that they do not owe anyone anything. At least to my knowledge, they didn’t have a formal Kickstarter, their financial backing came primarily from whatever it is they do for a living AND the support of their Patreon backers.

And while I do not feel that it needs addressing, for the sake of consistency I will address it: MORALLY they owe the game to anyone who financially supported them with the express purpose of developing the game.

“We definitely owe all of you who supported us, but also fuck off you entitled cunts because we don’t owe you shit.”

When in the face of well-deserved criticism, deflect deflect deflect. As if a broken record, I’d like to again emphasize that yes, legally they owe no one anything. Morally, they do. Legally, they don’t. Morally, yes. Legally, no.

This, in essence, is a response to the majority of people who are like me, who aren’t screaming vitriolic personable attacks, telling them to drink bleach, long jog off a short pier, the works. Essentially: “If you aren’t with us, then you’re against us.”

Because apparently pointing out your blatant mischaracterisation of the gaming community, your outrageously awful personal relations skills, and most especially your morally bankrupt understanding of the relationship between you and the people financially supporting your passion project means we are, by their logic, on a level equivalent in nature to the 10+ people telling them to drink bleach.

Fixed for typos:

Remember how I said this was an “apology” in the loosest form, well what I was referring to was how in the beginning during their (totally unbiased) summary of the events, they more or less said “Sorry you didn’t respond the way we wanted you to.” Beyond that, yeah, it’s not an apology.

And why would we expect one? Nothing they have spat out in the face of their fans so far has even a hint of self-realization or self-reflection in it. Even their acknowledgement of their (horrendously under exaggerated) bad PR skills comes across as a hollow acknowledgement, if it can even be referred to as an acknowledgement at all, because if you truly truly acknowledged it, then this post wouldn’t exist.

As to this anti-Semitic fabrication making the rounds, I have not seen it so I will take their word for it that they did not make one, especially since I have seen fabricated evidence involving Discord messages rearranged out of order. What I feel needs addressing specifically in this chunk though is his reference to “my messages taken out of context to insinuate I don’t care about our patrons/fans”, because if you’ve seen my previous post then you’ll know no amount of context makes this statement look good:

Sure, it’s a true statement of fact now that they have Epic’s money, but it’s fairly obvious that it reads “We have Epic’s money now, we don’t need you anymore.” I’m sure they didn’t mean that, but that when combined with their other statements regarding how they don’t owe their patrons anything, what they are saying is clear as day.

But hey, credit where credit is due, at least with this we can agree:

But of course, as these people are now infamously known for not ending their posts where they reasonably should...

Now I know how much money goodwill, faith, and morals make, and again I would fully expect this kind of response from the likes of EA, Ubisoft, Bethesda, or fuck even Amazon or Facebook to show that corporate greed has no industry bounds, but this is a two person team whose passion project is to make this game which is being financially supported by loyal fans and future customers.

And that’s just it, that is the mind-boggling part to me, that this is all just the self-important, mischaracterising, morally bankrupt, and childishly ignorant ramblings of a small little husband and wife duo.

In summary...

As was said in the blog post, I’m sure that looking from the outside in we don’t get to see the full scope of the vitriolic comments they’re receiving, so to that I give them credit, and the most sincerest of apologies. I’ve received a few death threats and vitriolic hate-filed messages in my time on the internet, and while personally I am unphase by them, I can fully understand that it can be damaging to one’s self-esteem and self-confidence, especially when it comes in relation to your passion project. I am sorry.

But unwarranted, hate-filled, vitriolic, suicide-baiting messages do not invalid those of us criticizing you for the things that you did do, the words that you did say, and the actions that you did take. I mentioned this in my previous post, but as it stands, the centerpiece to this issue isn’t even about the Epic Exclusivity Deal anymore, it’s about you. You and your treatment, of not just the community at large (for which, might I add, is your primary customer base), but of your treatment towards your loyal fans and financial supporters along the way.

You, for whatever reason, act as most of us have come to expect a soulless and faceless triple-A publisher would, when in fact you are just a two person team with public faces. You’re taking the shots that the likes of EA, Activision, or Bethesda would and have taken, but you’re forgetting that it is above and beyond easier to find you then it is to find them.

All we, but more importantly your fans want from you is for you to make the best game that we all know you’re capable of. And for those who supported you this far along the way to be given even an ounce of respect, despite you not needing their support anymore.

#long post #seriously don't click keep reading unless you really want to read this #it's stupid long #ooblets #indie games #indie developers #video game development #random rant

[adventuresingamingville]

Dororo is a girl (with evidence)

I didn’t really want to step foot into this terrible debate on Tumblr, but this issue has been eating away at me for so long, because I felt guilty for not saying anything. I disliked people disregarding creator intent and pushing Western POVs on Asian media, so I eventually couldn’t stay quiet anymore.

Honestly, Tumblr is pretty much the only popular site that vehemently thinks Dororo was written as a trans boy, and had spread the toxicity to the Wiki. The echo chamber of Tumblr is getting out of hand with misinformation. Sometimes I would even hear people saying that Dororo uses male pronouns which they heard from Tumblr, but there is no male/female pronoun that you use to refer to yourself in Japanese, only pronouns genders more commonly use. When the show first started I checked the wikis and they all said Dororo was a girl (I got spoiled by this), but after the “discourse” happened here I noticed the wikis were all changed into Dororo being trans. People really wanted to control the narrative.

As well, I know there are others that agree with me but are afraid to use “she”, or think of Dororo as a girl out of fear of being bullied off the site. So I’ll say it for you. Dororo was intended to be a girl most likely by Tezuka, and definitely by Mappa.

Part 1) THE MANGA (1967)

First of all, we have to acknowledge that this series is Japanese. The Eurocentrism is very strong in the Dororo Tumblr debate. There is a common trope in Japanese series of women living as men, or being raised as men. Especially in that time period. I think anyone who has read a lot of manga will be familiar with this trope. Rose of Versailles is a good example of an old one.

Tezuka is also very fond of this trope, but he will always insist that in the end that no matter how masculine the female character is, the characters “want to live femininely” or whatnot. There’s a semi misogynistic undercurrent that in the end, a girl should be girlly. This is a series from the 1960s, so while disappointing it’s not surprising.

In the Dororo manga, this is prominent from Hyakkimaru’s commentary. While from a Western modern POV he’s kinda being a dick, in 1960s Japan Tezuka was writing him as the hero and voice of reason to the childish Dororo.

Similarly, Hyakkimaru’s comment “Could it be you don’t really know yourself?” on Dororo being raised as a boy was Tezuka giving an explanation for why Dororo was raised the way that she was. The idea was that Dororo was raised by her parents as a boy so she would become tough during such cruel times. However, hiding the truth from their daughter caused Dororo to not understand her actual gender.

However, due to the manga being cut short, these plot points weren’t truly handled well or brought to a close. Judging by how he wrote other gender bender stories like Princess Knight, most likely Dororo would have “grown up” and lived as a girl like Hyakkimaru was saying. This of course is pure speculation, but these tropes are usually handled in this manner in anime. The PS2 “Blood Will Tell” Dororo (officially by Tezuka Productions) ended the series in this way.

Part 2) THE ANIME (2019)

The anime wrote Dororo much more mature and thoughtful than the manga, and is the main series I wanted to talk about regarding this. Dororo in the anime, unlike the manga, is actually aware of being a girl.

The reason it’s important in this context, is because the 2019 Dororo is not only about demons and fighting, but also about human suffering during the warring periods. And very notably, the difficulties of women in the past.

This is highlighted through the contrast of several prominent women in the series. The most notable is Mio and Dororo’s mother. They are women put into similar circumstances, that had to find ways to survive on their own. Dororo’s mother was too proud to go into prostitution and ended up starving as a result. Mio was able to survive because she put aside her pride.

Other women include Hyakkimaru’s mother and Mutsu. Hyakki’s mother was the lords wife who had to listen to his orders, even though she did not agree with them. She is also sometimes “put into her place” by misogynistic phases like “What do women know about politics?” by her husband. Mutsu on the other hand, is in a similar situation as Dororo. To serve as Tahomaru’s retainer, she had to dress and live as a male. The historical context makes the reason obvious, women were simply not taken seriously in those times. It doesn’t need to be spelled out to be understood.

Mappa was purposely highlighting that scene between Mio and Dororo talking about her job, because Dororo understood the choices that women had to make to survive. The added layer to that scene was Dororo understanding that if she had lived as a lone girl, she would also be faced with the same choices that her mother, as well as Mio were. This was one of the implicit themes in the scene between Dororo and Mio, and is also why Dororo was quick to understand Mio’s situation and not pass judgement.

This is why it bothered me that this entire narrative of women’s hardships that centered around Dororo hiding her gender was being erased by the 2019 Dororo fandom.

But hard evidence always speaks louder, so I will show official tweets by Mappa just to dispel any doubts.

In the first screenshot they explicitly say “Dororo is actually a girl.” In the second, “with the map on her back, how will she use it for the battles to come” they use 彼女 “kanojo” to refer to Dororo, which is the same as “she” Or referring to someone as a girl. I already knew about this word in Japanese but double checked these translations with my friend who could read Japanese and she confirmed this.

The tweets explicitly refer to Dororo as a female, they did not have to add “kanojo” to refer to her and use ways around it, but they did. It is purposeful. This is from official twitter accounts, even retweeted by the official Dororo anime twitter, so there is no mistake.

CLOSING STATEMENTS

I’ve never had a problem with people having headcanons in ways that they found meaningful, but I had a problem with the way the word “transphobic” was being weaponized to quash opposing views, the toxicity, and the misinformation being spread about one of my favorite anime series. Mappa truly was trying to create something artistic with the new anime, full of symbolism and subtlety. The out of context black and white views of this series did not do it justice.

#dororo #hyakkimaru #mappa #text #thisisatesttag

[militant-holy-knight]

Benioff and Weiss Were Always Hacks: You Only Noticed Now

Or why you should be worried for the future Star Wars movies made by them

(Disclaimer: this blogpost contains spoilers for Game of Thrones)

With only two episodes left for the series to reach it’s conclusion and the announcement for future Star Wars movies in the horizon made by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss (henceforth referred to as D&D for simplicity sake), not many fans seem to be excited about it as they should due to the creative choices taken in regards to the final season of Game of Thrones. Speaking as a GoT fan, I used to enjoy the show a lot and I believe it reached it’s peak on Season 4 and started to go went downhill on Season 5. If D&D were in charge from the beginning what happened?

D&D’s job was always to adapt the book series by George R. R. Martin, which means any merit to the show’s writing can be attributed largely to Martin while D&D were only fit for it to make it work into a tv show - which is still laudable in it’s own right because there are things in the books that still wouldn’t translate too well into the show. In any case, they did their job well from Season 1 to Season 4 which adapted the first trilogy in the series. Even though there are still five books in total released at the time, Season 5 is where they started to run out of material to adapt because some storylines didn’t find their proper conclusion and they needed to come up with their own unique deviations.

Season 5 is considered by many fans to be the low point in the series because of it’s extremely low pacing and controversial liberties taken: the biggest ones have to be the Dorne subplot because that meant axing popular book character Arianne Martell, Stannis Baratheon turning irredeemable evil and paying with his life and Sansa’s marriage to Ramsay Snow leading to her rape, which is still a very hot button among the fandom to this day (and understandably so). Season 5 did have some moments like Hardhome which showed the strength of the true villain of the series, the Night King, the leader of the White Walker invasion who brings winter with him. He is the Thanos-like menace who is teased since the very start of the show with the very first scene opening with a White Walker killing some Night Watch’s rangers and warning us about the danger he represents.

Season 6 fixed some of these problems by giving a more dynamic pacing and build it up with the Battle of the Bastards as the climatic encounter instead of something completely anti-climatic like Season 5′s finale where Stannis Baratheon’s forces were liquidated by the Boltons offscreen. But still, it was an entire season wasted to fix another one’s problems and it still had some individual problems. 

And then Season 7 came along and it all went to waste. I wouldn’t say it was as bad as Season 5 because at least shit happened and it wasn’t boring, but it was still full of groan-worthy moments like trying to force some romance between Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen which doesn’t work because they have no chemistry and they are related by blood, curing Jorah Mormont who has been infected with a dangerous disease that will turn him into a snow zombie by simply cutting out the infected area, and of course lest we forget the Wight Hunt in Episode 6 “Beyond the Wall” which broke all suspension of disbelief. Lemme sum it up for you what happens in that episode so you can get the idea and let me put up a map so you can get it from reference.

The heroes come up with the idea to capture an Wight and bring it South to convince Cersei to from a truce.

The travel by boat to the Wall from their base on Dragonstone.

After reaching the Wall, they walk into the land beyond it to find a wight.

They find one and send one of their members back to ask reinforcements having to sprint a indeterminate distance.

The team gets surrounded by the Night King’s army in a frozen lake for a indeterminate amount of time.

The allies at the Wall send a raven back to Dragonstone requesting help.

Daenerys summons her dragons to fly to the land beyond the Wall to rescue the heroes.

They are fighting to the last against the advancing horde of the Night King just before Daenerys arrives in a triumphant moment to save them.

And all of this happens like... Within a hour apparently. Several days should have taken place between this exchange but time moves at the speed of the plot, but D&D seem to be relying on emotional torque to get viewers to ignore all internal logic and be mindblown by the crowning moments of awesome. And this is the core issue with their writing.

D&D write their scenes the same way they film sex scenes apparently, hoping that the emotional moments will make the audience be carried over. Thing is... I realized this after thinking up about many moments in the past. Hardhome was one such example in Season 5 to make up for its abhorrent dullness and even Season 6 wasn’t safe from this. For example, remember how Rickon Stark died just so he could provoke Jon Snow to act irrationally and spur him into conflict? Why didn’t Rickon run in zig-zag when Ramsay began firing arrows at him? Why did he run into a straight line? Did these writers not watch Prometheus to learn their lessons from it’s mistakes? This problem was carried over in Season 8 and amplified a lot in the Long Night. Many people pointed out the several military blunders made by the protagonists when fighting against the Night King’s army.

I could talk about the moronic choice to film everything in absolute darkness and make it impossible to see shit.

I could talk about how idiotic it was to waste your cavalry against the enemy bulwark.

I could talk about how they didn’t create trenches with tar or use fire for more effective manner against the undead.

But I’d rather talk about that moment.

Arya killing the Night King.

You know at first I was okay with that because:

I wasn’t being a fan of Jon Snow in a long time.

Arya wasn’t a Mary Sue, had skills that justified her, so I could buy it better.

But the more I thought about it, more I came to the realization that it was a wrong choice all along.

Arya never had any investment in killing the Night King. She was a character defined by a list of people she wanted to kill including the Freys, Cersei, Joffrey and others.

Arya was trained as an assassin yes... But her training in Season 5 and 6 was very lackluster. She spent some time doing menial works, impersonating some people and trying to spill some poison on someone’s drink. She never learned invisibility, teleportation or any other cool shit.

And most importantly... Melisandre predicting that Arya would shut down “blue eyes” way back when they met in Season 3. If she sensed she was always destined to kill the Night King why did she ever support Stannis? Why did she even support Jon Snow? She even referred to him as the Prince that was Promised. Some fans can try to spin this as much as they want, but it breaks the plot retroactively very hard.

The actress herself didn’t think she deserved it

Of course all of these things were ignored by a large part of the fanbase, more specifically the “woke” crowd because YAS QUEEN SLAY. Little did they know that the very next episode would force them to eat a real shit sandwich when “The Last of the Starks” seemed to turn the narrative against Daenerys Targaryen by turning her into the Mad Queen, killing her handmaiden Missandei and setting up Jon to be the next King of Westeros. Not helping matters is that a series of leaks not yet confirmed as of the time of writing were released prior to the episode (but I personally feel they were legitimate due to some specific things but that is not the point) which sent many Daenerys fans into panic mode.

Speaking as someone who really doesn’t like Daenerys Targaryen, I can actually sympathize with them at some level because this shift appears to be very sudden specially now that the authors favored her more until this very moment. Some viewers can argue that there were always signs like her burning the Tarlys for refusing to bend the knee, which I personally took issue with before but it never really came across as the sign of an insane ruler since she offered very valid rebuttals. It all seemed like the plot was tailored to take her side no matter what and I considered Dany a Mary Sue. But just because they seem to be turning her into a villain now, it doesn’t make me hate the story any less.

Now... I spent an inordinate amount of time bitching about Game of Thrones and if you are an Star Wars fan that doesn’t know anything about it, you might be lost to anything I am writing. Well I needed to give an proper context to both GoT and SW fans since those seem to overlap now and give you a warning because Star Wars seems to be more lost now than ever. D&D were never particularly good writers, they were incoherent about continuity, care more about spectacle over substance and seem to share a thing about subverting the audience’s expectations like a certain Ruin Johnson who succeeded in completely ruining a franchise like there was no tomorrow. The key difference between D&D and Ruin is that the duo doesn’t share the same flippant attitude or picking up fights with fans on Twitter - on the contrary, D&D understand the power of fanservice even if it means daggling the metaphorical shining keys in front of the audience. 

As we come close to Game of Thrones conclusion, I have a feeling that nobody will truly come out satisfied with it should the story take the direction that we are really dreading. I’ve seen interviews about how Emilia Clarke sounds really sad and deflated, seemed like she was really disappointed with how the show ended. Whatever happens, the blame can be laid on the feet of Benioff and Weiss for their frankly baffling creative decisions. This season has been disappointing through and through with two or three episodes being needlessly long and filler to booth and to make matters worse, it was supposed to end earlier than 10 episodes. Why did they need to rush it and yet fill the series with so much dead air?

Now can you imagine a Star Wars movie made by them? With all these things I listed? The next trilogy is already dated, we don't know if it's D&D or Ruin Johnson yet. We are talking about a couple of writers that have no sense of realistic scale, continuity or logic, but rely on cheap emotional tricks to have the audience invested until they begin thinking about it. I would laugh until I was sick if this season turns everyone against those two fuckwads that Disney changes their mind about putting them in charge. If the world was a just place, this is what would happen at least.

#star wars #game of thrones #rants

[sinterblackwell]

mid-year book freak out tag 🤍

this annual book tag is really popular in the booktube community and through watching my favorite booktubers, i always get to hear about the books they’ve read so far in the year so i thought it’d be fun to join in!!

i don’t have a booktube channel myself but i do think it’d still be cool to get to talk about books on here so that anyone who does stumble upon this tag could enjoy this experience as much as i’ve had.

hopefully maybe some of these books could catch your eye if you’re looking for some recommendations and if not, you still get to learn a little more about my reading tastes.

all the books i mention below the cut have links so that you can check them out if any of them peak your interest!!

1. best book you’ve read so far in 2021

- fifty words for rain by asha lemmie

this is one of the very few books where i felt such immeasurable grief over a fictional character. the main character nori goes through so much pain that when she does receive the love she deserves, it’s enough to bowl you over. this book has one of the strongest sibling relationships that i’ve ever seen and deals with such difficult topics being that nori herself is a mixed race child dropped off on her own in japan in the late 1940s.

2. best sequel you’ve read so far in 2021

- our dark duet (book two in the monsters of verity duology) by victoria schwab

i haven’t read that many sequels this year, although there are some new & anticipated releases that will change that (ex: cazadora [book two in the wolves of no world series] by romina garber)

our dark duet is one of two sequels that i have read and it’s the one that stands out to me the most because new monsters, new perspectives, and really surprising writing choices towards the end made this book an absolutely iconic and memorable finale of the monsters of verity duology.

i feel like this author is the best example as to the kind of writing i love based on the books they’ve written, even though the endings to some of their works seem to always leave me a bit unsatisfied. with that aside, the way v.e. schwab crafts these characters and depicts different relationships in dire settings makes for darkly intriguing premises and i’m really glad that i got to stumble upon their books through this duology first.

3. new release you haven’t read yet but want to

- the chosen and the beautiful by nghi vo

a great gatsby retelling with a queer asian protagonist and magical realism (from what i read of the first couple of pages) !!

this book seems to include a lot of things that i love in fiction, which always leaves me a bit hesitant because even with that, it might just lead me down a road of disappointment, key word: might. i have read a bit of the beginning before buying a physical copy just to be careful but from what i have read, i’m really excited to get to this!!

4. most anticipated release for the second half of the year

- the taking of jake livingston by ryan douglass

i just recently found out that this book is pretty short so based on the premise alone, i’m really interested to see how the author handles these sensitive topics broached in the summary and subverts them to fit the horror genre.

i follow the author on twitter and love everything they’ve had to say so far about this debut (and it comes out in my birth month!!) so i can’t wait to support them after the release.

5. biggest disappointment

- the gilded wolves (book one in the gilded wolves trilogy) by roshani chokshi 

fun fact: i actually really enjoyed this one (i didn’t give it four stars on goodreads for nothing) but i did change my rating in my review to a 3.5 because as much as i loved the setting, characters, and fantastical elements that this story has (+ the writing was beautiful), i didn’t care about any of the romance between the characters, which i think for a lot of readers made their reading experience better but for me, it ruined mine.

personally, i feel like this book would’ve done well without any romance and so i could’ve absolutely given this a five-star. but then if there was no romance, the ending might be a bit different but even then, i just didn’t care about any of the romantic tension or angst that was going on between these characters. and from what i heard of the sequel, the silvered serpents, there’s even more angst and i feel bad that that just repulses me because i don’t experience romance repulsion much, i actually do like romance a lot of the time, but there’s some cases where i either just don’t care about the romance or something about it sets me off. in the case of the series, well ……yeah.

it makes me so mad, though. because again, everything else about this first book was amazing!! it is absolutely rich with history and its characters all have such distinct roles in the story that i enjoyed being in each and every one of their perspectives. enrique is the historian of the bunch so being in his eyes made all these different clues they would find so interesting as we learned about their backgrounds. and same with zofia!! who is beyond skilled when it comes to math, and i love how her mathematical skills transfer so well in her ability to understand certain things that the other characters might’ve glossed over.

all of that and……the romance just wasn’t for me. it wasn’t the main focus, per say, but it did drive certain things that would inevitably happen in the story and that irritated me way more than i care to admit.

6. biggest surprise

- happily ever afters by elise bryant

this book had a lot of things that i usually don’t enjoy as much in other stories and the main character, tessa, herself makes some decisions that are so naïve and seem so selfish that you would think i’d dislike her.

however, there was a lot charm and empathy in this book that made our protagonist feel more endearing to me and if anything, i could understand why she makes the choices that she does and how that affects the other characters. i loved how much care the author obviously had for her main character and there were just a lot of other aspects to this novel that compelled me to love it more than i expected.

the romance, too, the way the author handled it, was absolutely phenomenal (see: i do like romance sometimes), and as someone who cares about friendship a lot in stories, in this one, how the author portrayed the importance of having your friend’s back made the story even more top-notch to me

7. favorite new author (debut or new to you)

- olivie blake

i’ve only read her latest novel, the atlas six, but from just the writing in that book alone and how the author constructs the characters so well, there’s already this undeniable trust i have when it comes to her writing—when it comes to knowing how sincere and perceptive she is in the direction that she has and will take in her stories, in the fates of her characters.

every writer has their own story to tell but with this one, there’s something about how she’s already laid out the pieces on the board in the atlas six that makes me think she already knows what story she’s drawing up now, more than her readers will be able to expect.

i follow her here on tumblr and so i’ve seen her responses to inquiries about these same characters or just general themes she explores in all of her works and her insight and way of thinking absolutely blows my mind, so much that its made me want to read everything she writes. i just recently bought the e-book copy of masters of death and i’m really excited for that one, just the same with her upcoming release, my mechanical romance

8. newest fictional crush squish

- noah from meet cute diary by emery lee

i don’t have fictional crushes, much less crushes in general, but i do have squishes, which is basically like platonic attraction. and in the context of this question, i genuinely do like noah’s character enough that i’d love to be his friend

noah is a pretty interesting character as far as how readers perceive him goes. some readers absolutely despise him while others may see themselves in him and then again with the few who just generally like/love his character. in my case, i really like him, and for all these different readers, it all centers around one thing.

it’s the fact that noah is a bit of an asshole

he’s an asshole who’s sometimes selfish and makes judgements pretty quickly, even when those judgements are actually right. he has a bit of an attitude that makes him seem stand-off ish and it’s that attitude that throughout the course of this novel develops so that he becomes more endearing. there’s so much more i can say about it, but i feel like i’ve said enough in this review, so if you want to learn more him on that front, you can read it if you want

besides the reasons already stated well enough in my goodreads review, another reason why i’d want him to be my friend is that i feel like it would just be really fun to hang out with him since in this novel, he notes down a lot of potential settings for his meet cute diary submissions on his blog. these settings are more for romantic dates and to have the chance to flirt and be with your crush but it’d be nice to think how good of a time we would have as friends. friends can have as many dates, just as much as any other couple, and so with noah i feel like it’d be nice to get to hang out with someone and be out of the house

he’s also a big manga reader (it’s not fully explored in this book but it is briefly mentioned) and as someone who wants to get into reading more manga, i think it’d be cool to not only get some good recommendations from him but just in general get to talk with him about it and have cool discussions about the different plots and characters.

9. newest favorite character

- sinter blackwell from all the better part of me by molly ringle (no surprise there)

sinter’s just a character who’s really charming and has a heart of gold. his love for theatre and how he expresses himself in fashion and music, along with getting to see how he became more comfortable in his sexuality and learned what being bi meant for him meant a lot to me.

the twist in the middle of this book where we see him come to fit into this new role that neither he nor me as the reader could’ve expected made the journey throughout this book feel even more heartfelt and i love how much by the end, he becomes a better version of himself than he was in the beginning. and by better, i mean that he knows more about himself and what he wants and he grows even more confident than he’s always already been.

i just love him, that’s….yeah

10. book that made you cry

- the cost of knowing by brittney morris

i cried at what was one of the happiest moments in these two characters’ lives because i knew what would happen after, so you can imagine how much harder i cried when what happened actually….happened.

this book just made me feel really sad

11. book that made you happy

- anxious people by fredrik backman

for a book that i now consider one of my new favorite comfort reads, it’s really fucking sad. as sad as i just mentioned the cost of knowing was right above, this one is just the same except it’s in those sad moments that i got a lot of reassurance and felt this warmth from seeing how these different characters who were complete strangers to each other interacted with one another.

this story is absurdly funny and has some interesting twists but the root of it all left me feeling near the end so appreciative of having given it a chance since it did take me months to finally get to reading it. highly recommend 💛

12. most beautiful book you’ve bought / received this year

- night. sleep. death. the stars. by joyce carol oates

this book was at least $35 and you know what? it was worth it.

i don’t buy a book unless i’ve read it already and really liked it but there are cases where i do take a chance on some and take out my wallet—either because the book isn’t available at my local library or on libby/scribd. either way, even then i do try to be really careful because i don’t want my money to just go to waste like that

with this book, it isn’t just the cover that pulled me in nor the title (they’re both really beautiful, i mean), but i did read bits and pieces of the first couple of pages when i came across this hardcover copy during my visit at barnes & noble and the writing was stunning so i’m hopeful that the book as a whole can leave me with a nice reading experience.

13. books you need to read by the end of the year

- the messengers (book three in the greystone secrets series) by margaret peterson haddix

- infinity reaper (book two in the infinity cycle trilogy) by adam silvera

+ a lot more but my fingers are getting tired so here are just two i do want to get to in the near future. i pre-ordered a copy of infinity reaper over a year ago and have owned it since the beginning of march of this year and yet i still haven’t read it, i can’t believe myself sometimes.

to be fair though, i am just really terrified about what i’ll read in this second book after the events in infinity son, the first book. plus, the author is known for a lot of angst and pain in his stories when it comes to the fates of his characters, which yes, i absolutely adore. he’s my favorite author for a reason, but……i don’t think i can handle it rn :/

#❣️ #this was fun :’) #booklr

[kierongillen]

As i’ve seen this happen more than once, what goes through your mind when a big plot twist or piece of the puzzle gets unintentionally spoiled by the fans theorizing the future of the book? Does the rest of the story gets put on temporary hold to try to figure out how to write something new or is the story set in stone no matter what may happen? If someone were to spoil the ending of the entire book completely unintentionally and you were able to experience the reaction, will it change a thing?

Oh, god, no. Never change anything if someone’s guessed something. Nothing good lies in that direction.

Why?

Okay, let’s talk - with no specifics - Game of Thrones. If you go into the depths of fandom, Game of Thrones is - to some degree, in some areas - a solved problem. There’s a good selection of fan theories (some of which have come to fruition) which have so much meat on them it was clear they have to happen, or the book would break its structure and become unsatisfying.

These twists are available to anyone who wishes to google for them.

The vast majority of people don’t. So… why change the direction of the story? What’s the point of fucking over the enjoyment of the vast majority of people (i.e. making your story make less sense, as you’re abandoning the already existent thread) for playing gotcha on a tiny fraction of your audience?

(As a quick aside - compare and contrast theorising in a fanbase with actual events in the text that’s being adapted. Clearly, anyone who is watching GoT could have googled the synopsis of the book. Equally, anyone who’s read the books knows the big beats. Does the adaptation change the big beats? If surprise to everyone in your audience is all that mattered, you would. We don’t.)

It’s also worth noting that, while obviously some complain on the nature of the adaptation, most fans of a book generally complain that they wish it was more like the book. In other words, things that surprised them (i.e. differed from their knowledge of the text) were less satisfying. They wanted to see the big dramatic beats, even if they’re stripped of their surprise.

Surprise only matters the first time you read something. For me, any worthwhile piece of literature exists to be re-read, and will open up more upon re-reading. In other words, knowing the twist should add to the re-reading of the book. If it doesn’t, and renders the story less than it was, it’s probably a bad twist - which is one reason why I don’t tend to call them “Plot twists” to myself. I call them reveals. The plot doesn’t contort. It’s merely revealing something in the nature of the world the reader was unaware of. 

(As an aside, this means that someone who has guessed successful the direction of the plot is actually effectively skipping to their second read of the book earlier.)

There’s the other side of this as well - not just whether a plot beat has been guessed, but the almost inevitability of a plot beat being guessed. GoT fans have had twenty years to puzzle this out. In that period, a mass communication device emerged which allowed fans to talk to one another and share ideas. This machine would have torn apart any plot. 

No one individual needs to guess anything. People can make one step in a chain, and then that step is exposed to thousands of minds. If even one of them can make the intuitive leap to the next step, then it continues. No one person needs to be clever enough to see the whole thing. The internet hivemind is Miss Marple, seeing through the most contorted of machinations. 

(In passing, this is one reason why Alternate Reality Games are hard to do, because the mass hive mind will figure almost anything out, almost instantly. Equally in passing, the failure to understand this is another reason why Ready Player One is bad, but that’s irrelevant.)

In other words, the reason why twists are guessable is the same reason they are satisfying. A twist that isn’t foreshadowed sufficiently to give the possibility of being guessed by someone is not a satisfying twist, as it - by definition - came out of nowhere. 

To make this specific to my own work. In the case of the biggest and most intricate of my current books, WicDiv, we sell about 18k in monthlies and sell 18k in trades (in the first month of release). That’s our hardcore devoted readership. How many people of them actually read the essays in the WicDiv tags? I’d say 500 at the absolute maximum, and likely a lot less. So for a maximum of 1.3% of our readership, we’d derail a still effective twist for everyone else? No, that would be a bad call.

Especially - and this is key - the people who have chosen to engage with a fandom are aware that they may figure something out. They are trying to figure something out. Why take that pleasure away from them?

In a real way, I think, in long form narrative, pure plot twists which no-one in the world guesses are dead in the Internet age, at least when dealing with any even vaguely popular work of art. You can do them in short form narratives (like a single novel, a single movie and perhaps a streaming TV show they drop in one go) but for anything where you give a fanbase the chance to think, it’s just not going to happen. A creator should be glad their work is popular enough to have enough fans to figure it out.

Yes, I may have overthought this.

But that’s only half the question. 

How do I actually feel when someone guesses something that’s going to happen? Well, this is long enough already. Let’s put the personal stuff beneath a cut…

I’d say you sigh “Oh, poop”and shrug.

And then you get over your ass, because you know all the above is true. Writers are often meglomaniacs who think they can control everyone’s response to their work. We don’t. We can’t control everything. We can barely control anything. We really have to let go. I’ve said WicDiv is a device to help me improve as a person? It would include in this area. I have to learn to let it go, and internalise all of the above. If I can make most of my readership have the vague emotional response I’m looking for, I’m winning.

I’ve mostly succeeded at this. I’m certainly better than I was 2 years ago.

(’ll probably write more about spoilers and twists and stuff down the line. I’d note that setting up twists that *are* easily guessable by the hardcore is part of the methodology. Having a nice big twist foreshadowed heavily is a good way to hide another twist behind it. “Hey - pay attention to this less subtle sleight of hand while I perform the actual sleight of hand over here.”In which case, there’s far less of an Oh Poop response and more of a cackling evil mastermind response.)

The sigh can occasionally be accompanied with a “Hmm. I wouldn’t have posted that” or - more likely - “I wouldn’t have posted that THERE.” 

To stress, what follows, isn’t about my work per se, but culture generally, and very much personal. This is stuff which good friends disagree with me on.

As a fan, I never tweet my own fan theories. I only tweet joke ones. Even my crack theories I don’t tweet, as they’re normally so bizarre that if they actually DO happen, I wouldn’t want to take the thrill away from people. Even in person in conversation I make sure we’re going into a deep fan hole before sharing them, aware that they may be true.

In a real way, the more likely I think something is true, the less likely I’ll say it. As this is my job, I tend to see basic structural ways stories are heading way in advance of most people. I’m a composer. I know how music works. You have a vague sense of what way they’ll go.

(One day I’ll write down my crack theory for the end of the previous Game of Thrones season. Maybe after next season, as it’s not impossible that they may end up doing it, though it’s increasingly unlikely.)

If I had a really good theory I’ve gathered evidence for? You can guarantee I’d put it beneath a cut. That’s the stuff which bemuses me. It’s a cousin of posting major spoilers about any piece of culture the day it comes. The worst is one regular twitter  trope - I’m always bemused when people do a “Calling it! XYZ will happen” tweet. Which strikes me a little like standing up in the cinema 20 minutes into a film and shouting out that you’ve guessed the ending. This ties back to the stuff I wrote above about twists being less effective in the modern age, except in a place you can control the context and conversation. People may message in movies, but they rarely message everyone in the room.

(In passing, as it’s vaguely on topic - you may remember the research from a few years ago saying people who know a twist enjoy the story more than people who don’t know a twist. Even this is true - and a single study should always get an eye-brow raise - but it strikes me as a confusion over what “enjoy” means. All pleasure isn’t equivalent, and you can only have surprise on your first time through a work of art. That’s novelty. You can have that and then gain the “Not surprise” experience second time through. If you spoil a work, it means the “novelty” experience is something you will never have. You may enjoy something more if you know the twist but you can always rewatch it to get that pleasure. If you’re spoiled, the individual specific pleasure of that first watch has been stolen.)

But that’s conversation of social mores. Really, it doesn’t change anything in terms of how we act… and sometimes, I even grin when someone gets a twist in advance. If someone gets it, great. The machine is working as intended. It’s actually kind of worrying if no-one is thinking something is up in an area you’ve set up to be iffy.  And… the alternative is worse - hell, there’s buried twists and details in Young Avengers that no-one’s managed to figure out yet.

Twist ending: oh, no, I was a ghost all along.

#writer advice #WicDiv #Journey Into Mystery #young avengers

[el-shai]

The Fatal Hiring Mistake Reddit Made, Making them Lose Millions!

With 52 million daily active users and worth $6 billion, Reddit has got to be one of the most important, if not the most important, websites on the internet. While it might not be as popular here in Egypt, Reddit is often called "The front page of the internet" since it's usually the source of all new things on the internet. From news to memes! With the concept of staying anonymous at all times (except if a user chooses not to), the website was never shy of stirring up the virtual pot on the internet.  However, these last couple of days, the website's drama seemed to be more than usual. Hundreds of Reddit communities have locked down to protest Reddit's handling of a controversy surrounding hiring former UK politician Aimee Knight.  More than 200 subreddits have set their status to private in the past day, leading the website to lose millions of users' interactions. Moderators demanded a statement from Reddit about Knight's hiring and the action the platform will be taking. But why are people so angry about Reddit hiring Knight? Well, she's an overall tool, but let us get into details.

What did Amiee Knight do to lead to all the users' hate?

Knight has been suspended from the Green Party after selecting her father as her election agent in a 2017 political campaign. Her father is a convicted pedophile who was accused of raping and torturing a 10 years old girl in their own house, in which Aimee lived in. Yikes...

After being arrested and charged for the crime, Aimee hired her father to be her campaign manager for elections with the Green party before being tried and sentenced.  She gave him a false name to the party on the paperwork. When the Green Party found out he's her father, she claimed she was unaware of the extent of his crimes.  Subsequently, she was removed from the party for safeguarding failures. Her father is not the only pedophile in her life, though, no, no, no! Her husband is also an open pedophile who posts erotic fiction about children.  After being removed from the Green Party, Aimee had joined the Lib Dem party and was fired when her husband tweeted that he "Fantasized about children having sex, sometimes with adults, sometimes kidnapped and forced into bad situations."  Both Aimee and her husband claim that the Twitter account was hacked at that time. Of course, it was... So even if she uses the "I can't choose my father," you can at least pick a husband who doesn't want to rape kids!

What led to users losing it over her hiring?

You see, Knight is a transgender woman who was targeted for harassment by anti-trans activists and the right-wing. Not because of the pedophilia, but because she's trans. She was a volunteer moderator on subreddits like r/lgbt, and she helped write an open letter to the site's administrators about anti-LGBT harassment last year. This led Reddit to secretly enabling protections that all Reddit posts would be automatically scanned. If it was detected to be doxxing Aimee, it would result in an automatic ban. Reddit ended up banning a UK politics subreddit moderator for linking to an article that mentioned Knight.  Reddit reversed the ban and posted an explanatory statement, saying it was fighting a harassment campaign against an employee.

According to the Statment:

Earlier this month, a Reddit employee was the target of harassment and doxxing (sharing personal or confidential information). Reddit activated standard processes to protect the employee from such harassment, including initiating an automated moderation rule to prevent personal data from being shared. The moderation rule was too broad, and this week it incorrectly suspended a moderator who posted the content that included personal information. After investigating the situation, we reinstated the moderator the same day. We are continuing to review all the details of the case to ensure that we protect users and employees from doxxing -- including those who may have a public profile -- without mistakenly taking action on non-violating content.Content that mentions an employee does not violate our rules and is not subject to removal a priori. However, posts or comments that break Rule 1 or Rule 3 or link to the content will be removed. While there are still plenty of stories to tell about Amiee Knight and the hate she's been getting on Reddit, this article's main intent is to take a good look at Reddit's statement about the scandal. 

Reddit's Full Statment:

We would like to give you all an update on the recent issues that have transpired concerning a specific Reddit employee and provide you with context into actions that we took to prevent doxxing and harassment. As of today, the employee in question is no longer employed by Reddit. We built a relationship with her first as a mod and then through her contractor work on RPAN. We did not adequately vet her background before formally hiring her. We've put significant effort into improving how we handle doxxing and harassment, and this employee was the subject of both. In this case, we over-indexed on protection, which had serious consequences in terms of enforcement actions. - On March 9th, we added extra protections for this employee, including actioning content that mentioned the employee's name or shared personal information on third-party sites, which we reserve for serious cases of harassment and doxxing. - On March 22nd, a news article about this employee was posted by a mod of r/ukpolitics. The article was removed and the submitter banned by the aforementioned rules. When contacted by the moderators of r/ukpolitics, we reviewed the actions and reversed the ban on the moderator, and we informed the r/ukpolitics moderation team that we had restored the mod. - We updated our rules to flag potential harassment for human review. Debate and criticism have always been and always will be central to a conversation on Reddit—including discussion about public figures and Reddit itself—as long as they are not used as vehicles for harassment. Mentioning a public figure's name should not get you banned. We care deeply for Reddit and appreciate that you do too. We understand the anger and confusion about these issues and their bigger implications. The employee is no longer with Reddit, and we'll be evolving a number of relevant internal policies. We did not operate to our own standards here. We will do our best to do better for you.

The part we really need to talk about here:

"We did not adequately vet her background before formally hiring her." Let us remind you again, Reddit is worth $6 billion.  That is 94,786,200,000.00 Egyptian Pound. They can afford HR, we're sure of that! Yet, they chose to hire someone who volunteered for them without making a background check.   This is a fatal error many companies, honestly, including ourselves, always make.  If anyone helped us out with our business, this means we owe them a place in the company, and this should never be the case! Voluntary work is a choice the volunteer makes, and companies should never owe them anything.  Additionally, companies should not take the easy route and hire someone who's easier for them to hire.  Even if a person is your best friend, regular hiring processing must be made! So remember, HR people. Whenever you're hiring someone "bel7ob", remember that Reddit incident. Read the full article

#HR

[kane-and-griffin]

I'm really sad about something I don't understand and was hoping you could explain. Why do people block without giving a reason to? I don't why it first seems like it's all going so well then the next you're blocked and you don't know why or what you did or said wrong? It's happened twice now and to say it hurts is an understatement.

Oh, my precious Kabby babies.  Circle up, it’s time for some firm butgentle life advice from Mom. 

First of all, unless I personally am the person who blocked you (whichI’m obviously not since we’re having this conversation!), in a very real sensethe short answer to this question is that you know I can’t actually answer thisquestion.  You’re asking me to tell youwhy a person I don’t know did a thing for which I have no context, and forwhich there could be a thousand reasons. So in a concrete, specific sense, my answer is: I do not know.

However.

(You knew there was going to be a however.)

Social media is a deeply personal avenue for self-expression and it’s also aworld where many of us spend a great deal of our time, which means that we havethe full and free right to customize it into exactly what we want it tobe.  The things that you post are personal reflections of you, which is  why it bums you out when someone mutes or blocks or doesn’t followback; it feels on some level like a personalrejection.  But the space you curate is also a personal reflection of you.  You have the rightto post anything you want and other people have the right to choose not to seeit.  Both of those rights are equal, eventhough you’re only on one side so naturally the other one feels like it’s insome way “wrong.”  

I’m speaking with zero context for what your preexisting relationship withthese people was beforehand (like obviously if it was a close friend and theyblocked you out of nowhere, you’re going to have to sort that out with themdirectly, I can’t advise you there), but it’s important to remember that theremay be no “right” and wrong” in this scenario.  It’s fully possible forboth of these things to peacefully coexist at the same time:

1) your absolute right to feel a little bit rejected and hurt that astranger on the internet made the choice that they didn’t want your socialmedia sphere to overlap with their social media sphere,

and

2) that other person’s absolute right to say “if something or someone makesme feel even the tiniest bit ‘nope’ I am purging it out of this space so it isexactly what I want and need it to be.” 

They don’t need to have a reason.  That sucks, when you’re on the receiving end of it, which all of us have been - it truly and genuinely sucks - but it’s also reality.  One of the hard truths that incidents like this make us sometimes have toface - and we don’t want to face these things, because they can feel reallyicky and vulnerable and ping all the little gremlins in our brain  - is this:

nobody on the internet owes you their time or attention foranything you do or say.

This sounds mean and brutal, and I don’t mean it to be, because you know mom loves you, but it’s incrediblyimportant, so I’m going to say it again to make sure that if nothing else, thisgets through:

nobody on the internet owes you their time or attention foranything you do or say.

The celebs you stan don’t owe you a response to your tweet, justbecause you want one.  The people you tag in meta don’t owe you rebloggingit to continue having that conversation with you forever, just because you wantto prove you’re right.  The fans of the fic you write for your mostpopular ship don’t owe you crossing over to give you hits on yourrare-pair fic if they don’t feel like it.  Nobody owes you a certainnumber of followers, nobody owes you a response to every anon you send them,nobody owes you finishing that fic you like in time for them to read it whenthey feel like reading it.  We owe each other one thing and one thingonly: basic human decency.  That’s it.  Everything else is freelyoffered to the world, and freely taken by the people who want it.  It’snot a transactional exchange.  If you make art or write fic and you put itout there into the world, you’ve done a cool thing, and whether it gets tenhits or thousands it was still worth doing.  There will be people whoaren’t interested, but if you get hung up on feeling rejected by that, it willparalyze you.

Social media is personal. That’s unavoidable.  It’s an extension of ourselves.  When someone is cruel to you or to one ofyour friends on the internet, even if it’s an anonymous stranger, it feelsshitty.  When you express an opinionabout something and a ton of people reblog it and the tags are full of “OMG YESTHISSSSS”, it feels great.  We all experiencethat in different ways.  Society has always selected arbitrary measures for young girls and women tolive up to in order to feel like they’re popular or they’re approved by thecool kids, and right now it’s things like “how many followers do you have” and “didyou get an RT from a celebrity” and “how many likes on your posts”.  So ona primal level, maybe having someone you thought was a friend block you on Twitter or Tumblr hits you in the same deep coreplace as having the cool kids not come to your birthday party.  That feeling is super real!  It brings upalllllll that deep stuff we try to hide and pretend that we’re aboveexperiencing, but we all have those squishy vulnerable inner selves that justneed the cool kids to like us and we feel bad when they don’t.  

I had this exact conversation with my therapist a few weeks ago when she wasgiving me a hard time because my book has 60 reviews on Amazon, of which likethe majority are 5 stars with two negative ones, and I have both the negativeones like memorized.  And she was like “CLAIRE.  WHAT THE HELL.  WHY DO YOU DO THIS?  58 POSITIVE AND YOU CANNOT QUOTE A SINGLEONE.  TWO SHITTY ONES AND YOU KNOW THEMVERBATIM.  THAT IS NOT HEALTHY BEHAVIOR.”  And I was like “… . okay fine when youput it that way, yes I do sound like a crazy person.”  So like my advice to you – advice which I havejust proven I am absolute garbage at taking myself, so like I may have justeroded my own credibility in my efforts to help – is to remember that you probablyhave a lot more than two followers so honestly this is probably not a badcollective ratio, and there may be lots of people who are very interested inwhat you have to say but you’ve focused a lot of your energy on these two people andit’s worth giving some thought as to why that is.

My question for you is this: what is the net negative impact of having thesetwo people block you on social media? Like in an actual, concrete way, separate from those sort of core gut “Ifeel unloved in this moment” feelings, what is the effect on your life?  You might be surprised.  It might be zero.  In which case, let yourself feel thosefeelings, experience them as valid, and then breathe through them and move onand keep on doin’ you. 

I’m pushing backon you a little bit here very gently because it feels, reading this anon, likeyou’ve made a determination of hurtful intent on the part of the person whoblocked you, or at the very least a certainty that this choice that made wasabout you and not about them.  That the fact that things seemed to be going fine and then they blocked you means you were somehow intentionally misled or mistreated.  Be really, really, really carefulabout deciding the cool girl didn’t come to your birthday party because she’s abitch who wanted to make you feel terrible and is sitting somewhere cackling atthe thought of your sad lil’ face waiting by the front door; maybe she didn’tcome to your birthday party because she has depression and it’s hard for her toleave the house sometimes and she knew your party would be loud and wild and crazyand too much for her brain to handle right now. Be careful about presuming negative intent with no proof it exists.  The internet makes this so easy, the internetconditions us for this, and itconditions us to respond in kind. The worst thing you could do here is to, like,make a callout post or subtweet in the hopes that it will get back to them andthey’ll feel bad, or to sic your other followers onto them, because that turnsthis into a situation that really doeshave a right and wrong; and since you don’t know if they were trying to makeyou feel shitty, or just went on a big block/mute purge to whittle their listdown for mental health reasons that are totally their own, once things escalateyou can’t put the horse back in the barn. It’s too late.  Now it’s A Thing,when maybe it never really needed to be A Thing.  And in almost all situations for almost allpeople in almost all ways, Kabby Mom’s advice is going to be, “please thinkcarefully before you make this A Thing.”

This got long, I’ve been having a lot of thoughts lately about theconversations I’m always having with fandom folks the way we let social mediapermeate and shape our sense of self, in good ways and bad, so I apologize formy verbosity but also not really because that’s how things roll over in KabbyMom’s Advice Corner.  But I will sum upin bullet points for those of you who have been skimming, to bring you up tospeed:

Everyone has the right to curate their own social media spacehowever they see fit, and they don’t have to explain their reasons.

They aren’t obligated to include you in that space even if you want themto.

None of that is an objective measure of your worth as a person or a signthat you should stop being you on the internet.

Your feelings of rejection come from a real place and you get to feelthem, as long as

You are striving to move through them without permitting them to paralyzeyou, and finally

You never use someone else’s choice to curate their social media sphere as ajustification for treating them like crap.

Focus on your positive interactions instead of negative ones – your friends,creating stuff and putting it out into the universe – whether it be art, fic,opinions, a podcast, gifsets, crackposts, whatever – and your social mediaworld will be a better place.

In the immortal words of the great Michael J. Fox, “What other people thinkof me is none of my business.”

#Anonymous #From the Inbox #kabby mom's advice corner #kabby mom gets anons #Social media #fandom #advice

[that-sweet-little-posh-thing]

Sherlock S4: A Study in Failure

I saw a lot of people in here making their own lists of all the inconsistencies of TFP, so I decided to make my own and to cover not only the final episode but also to take a look at everything since TST. Also I included some stuff from panels & interviews but didn’t mention anything about setlock, otherwise this list would be much longer. I tried to make it as detailed as possible so be prepared for 2.5k words. Fasten your seatbelts, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride!

Things we were promised to get: 1.”Every clue and red herring will be paid off” 2. “Making TV history” 3. “Insane wish fulfillment” 4. “Groundbreaking” 5. “Shattering climax” 6. Culmination of everything TPTB have been working on for six (6) years. 7. “Everybody got it wrong – we want to get it right” 8. “They were made for each other” 9. “Love conquers all” 10. “Sherlock Holmes is in love – but who with?” I’m sure there are loads more, these are the ones I recall. What we’ve actually got: TST 1. Mary’s death has an only explanation – a story about an appointment with Death. 2. Somehow everyone knows this story even though it’s not that popular for practically everyone to not only know it, but even to QUOTE . 3. Why make Mary a villain in HLV and then give her a redemption arc in TST? 4. The outstanding transition from dangerous assassin to exemplary mother and vice versa throughout whole episode. 5. John’s blog is a jpg. picture, but he somehow manages to post there a heartwarming story about fatherhood even though the child isn’t born yet. 6. John and Mary have an ability to grow their hair at a horrifying speed in a few days, that’s the only reasonable explanation of their haircuts changes. 7. The whole TST case has already taken place in the past – still no one mentions this fact experiencing massive amnesia. 8. “It’s never twins” – never addressed  or resolved. 9. THE SCULL which sometimes glows like a Christmas tree and sometimes turns into Malevich’s Black Square. (and it’s completely different from the one that is present in s3) 10. What was the point of Eurus flirting and sexting with John? 11. Charlie Welsborough dying under the fake car seat (no comments). 12. Water dream sequence for some reason trigged by Margaret Thatcher. 13. One of the plaster busts Ajay was looking for is conveniently owned by Welsborough family. (this happens in the same show which claims that universe is rarely lazy to create coincidences). 14. Mycroft knows about every single one of crimes Moriarty was involved in but never tries to arrest him. 15. Why introduce a new character (DI Hopkins) for a scene a few minutes long? 16. That odd words exchange about devil and Antichrist repeated twice. About their own baby. We need context. 17. By the time 4 out of 5 plaster busts are smashed the police should have known that a criminal would target the last one that remains left – still no one bothers to lay an ambush near the house. 18. Mycroft has worked with AGRA and certainly known who Mary really is – but doesn’t reveal anything neither to Sherlock, nor to John. 19. Fucking camera man in the shot. 20. Someone points at John with a laser aiming rifle– but Ajay makes an appearance with usual gun. 21. Mary catching a bullet: - before she actually catches it a bullet makes a half way to its destination, leaving no possibility to do anything in milliseconds. - Mary’s ‘getting shot’ scene happens exactly like it CAN’T happen in real life (which was explicitly explained in HLV) 22. John does nothing to help Mary apart from shashing her. 23. Mary’s death scene - ??? 24. What reccuring dream does Ella talk about? 25. The note stuck to Mycroft’s fridge – “13th” – never addressed. 26. Ella’s room making no sense. 27. Mary calling Sherlock “dragon slayer”. 28. WHAT WAS IN JOHN’S LETTER??? 29. Mycroft saying ‘”There’s no place we can keep Sherlock Holmes in without having a riot on the everyday basis” – did he forget about Sherrinford that’s specifically built for “uncontainables”? TLD: 30. What was the point of Eurus becoming John’s therapist? She’s written as a character who’s incapable of human emotions but still she doesn’t fail to perform a therapist session? 31. Where did she take money to buy clothes/wigs/contacts? 32. Why did she shoot John with tranquilizer from an ordinary gun? 33. What friends does Rosie stay with the whole season? Considering the fact that all John’s friends hate him even I become a bit worried about her. 33. Why attract so much attention to TD-12 and then never use it again? 34. Why did Culverton keep that note and even give it to Eurus? 35. What mutual friend put them in touch? She’s been kept in Sherrinford for  her whole life and Moriarty is already dead at that point. 36. How did Eurus know that Culverton said exactly one word/ not a name – she wasn’t participating in that meeting? 37. Sherlock can deduce what circumstances the note was kept in but can’t tell the difference between the woman in front of him and the woman on the photo. 38. What if the window opposite kitchen note board would have blinds? 39. Why does the word “anyone” trigger memories about Redbeard? 40. Why is John surprised that Sherlock’s on Twitter when he was using it constantly in TST? 41.How did Sherlock steal Culverton’s phone when there were more than 10 people directly looking at them? I’m afraid to assume what pocket the phone was in. 42. Nobody knows that it’s actually John’s blog. 43. John beating Sherlock to a pulp – what the hell was that??? 44. John knows that Smith’s favorite room is a mortuary, he hears Culverton saying that he might move Sherlock to his favorite room – but ignores it completely??? 45. Police officer visibly tries to enter a ward, he makes quite a bit of noise – no doubt Culverton hears it but he doesn’t even try to rush. 46. Lestrade somehow knows not only about Mary’s past but even about Sherlock killing Magnussen. 47. “Romantic entanglement would fulfill you as a person” – what is the point of including it if you never going to use it again? 48. It’s obvious that John visits Eurus quite in a while (not once for sure) – still no one tries to find missing therapist whose body would already be quite stinky. 49. Smallcroft - ???? 50. WHY DID EUROS GO IN SUCH TROUBLES TO GET IN TOUCH WITH BOTH SHERLOCK AND JOHN??? 51. Why return back to Sherrinford after a successful escape? Is it the only place where Eurus can take a revenge? TFP: 52. The whole thing with that girl on the plane: did Eurus deliver her lines? If so, how?? Was it somebody else? Guess we will never know. 53. Mark GaHttis’ playing. Number one Emmy’s nominee. 54. Hybrid of umbrella/sword/gun (literally no comments) 55. Fucking clown???? 56. Portraits crying blood tears. I wonder how Sherlock managed to do that. 57. “HEY BRO” 58. Sherlock wearing a deerstalker. He has just forgotten that he hates it. 59. Why does Mycroft still lie about Victor Trevor? He should have known that Eurus would tell Sherlock about it. 60. Fake graveyard? Not a really healthy way to entertain your children. 61. REDBEARD - Where were Victor’s parents? - Why nobody had a clue where to look for a missing child even though Eurus explicitly named him “drowned Redbeard”? - Why Sherlock’s parents never mentioned his sister? Did they just get over it like nothing happened? - FUCKING DOG BOWL??? The dog was not real! - Did Sherlock forget about his dad’s allergy? - Redbeard was licking Sherlock’s face in his MP. And the dog has never existed. But Sherlock remembers someone licking his face. I’ll leave it to your deductions. - Whole Sherlock’s life is deep, deep waters – his suppressed memories about drowned friend. But Sherlock didn’t know he drowned, he, in fact, didn’t know at all how he died. So where do these water memories come from? - Why did Mycroft write all those numbers in his notebook on the same page with “Redbeard” written? What was the point of “vernet”? What was it all for? 62. Fucking drone! Smashing the window! Isn’t it a bit dangerous doing that with a grenade taped to it? Why did Eurus even try to kill them if she wants to play the game? 63. John, an army man, doesn’t know what grenade looks like. 64. Mycroft knows exactly what type of grenade it is but still waits for motion sensor to activate. Well, I think they just had to justify the need to jump out of the window. 65. What phone call Sherlock talks about? John’s daughter is a toddler. 66. Mycroft asks if café below is opened, because grenade is that powerful that it can make a hole in the floor but SOMEHOW it doesn’t even cause any damages to the furniture in the room & flame just goes through things without burning them to a crisp. 67. DAT EXPLOSION aka Adobe Premiere in its finest. 68. After jumping out of the first floor window on the concrete and rolling head over heels down the stairs no one has a scratch. 69. How did they even get on a boat??? Did they use Dr. Strange’s cape? 70. So they know that the safety of Sherrinford is probably compromised, and if Eurus has indeed left the island there should have been definitely more than one person helping her. Knowing that they come there with no back up, no security, and no one knowing that they are making a visit. Very smart. 71. Why dress up as a fisherman? Why go in such troubles if they could just arrive there with trained people and detain everyone? 72. Where did the glass go??? And why Sherlock doesn’t see it’s missing? Did Eurus hypnotize everyone to ignore this fact? 73. If she is capable of enslaving people why didn’t she make somebody to be her friend in childhood? For example Sherlock? 74. All this concept of Eurus’ superpowers is kinda automatically fucked up if it doesn’t work all the time. 75. Sherlock ignoring Vatican Cameos - WHAT???? 76. The moment she jumped on Sherlock and tried to suffocate him, what was it all about??? 77. Who edited all those Moriarty videos & sounds? 78. 5 minutes was enough for Euros to tell the whole story about Redbeard, instruct what videos Moriarty has to record and come up with an evil plan how to play Sherlock and Mycroft. So we may consider that Moriarty worked for/with her? The perfect example of how to ruin character’s story. 79. And then Jim never uses Redbeard against Sherlock??? 80. What was those convulsions in front of the glass about? Can somebody explain their purpose? They had only 5 minutes and I have a feeling that biggest part of that time was spent on those movements. 81. Mycroft purchases grenades, tries to kill a clown but out of sudden he refuses to kill a man because he doesn’t want blood on his hands. 82. So they just try to save the girl by killing other people. What a concept. 83. After they are all trapped in the cell why did every prison worker disappear? Did Euros talk to every single one of them and programmed all the necessary actions in advance? 84. THAT PUKE. 85. Who builds secret doors in cells????? 86. Who painted the room and put a rifle in it? 87. FUCKING GARRIDEBS. 88. Does Sherrinford naturally have this mechanism to hang people? 89. During Euros’ game they have a motivation to play in form of the  girl on the plane but the moment comes and it just stops working. They kill people, solve cases to save the plane and suddenly stop caring about it at all. 90. Who delivers a coffin to a secret island? 91. Why nobody outside this island controls it or knows what’s happening there? No one comes with inspection? No one watches camera’s tapes? No one notices missing glass? 92. John cares about girl and other people on the plane but doesn’t care if his daughter becomes an orphan. 93. A coffin is small and Sherlock suggests it is for woman. Tall women and short men? Never seen one. 94. How did Euros get to know that Molly’s in love with Sherlock? Did she pretend to be her therapist as well? 95. Who put cameras in Molly’s house? 96. Molly talking to a lock screen – pfff why bother indeed. 97. Even if the girl would be real how the hell they planned to help her to land a plane? 98. Tranquilizer darts coming out of the walls. Because secret doors weren’t enough. 99. John and Mycroft don’t care if Sherlock shoots himself, they only care about the girl on the plane. 100. That black goo. 101. FAKE ROOM   - Who built it? - How did Euros bring it there alone? If she wasn’t alone where were her assistants? - Why even do this? What’s the point? 102. How did she bring Sherlock and John there? 103. Who and why put Sherlock’s coat on him? The last time we saw Sherlock he was in a suit. 104. Somebody has to go down the well with John to chain him up and then climb back up – it takes at least two men to do this and still Eurus is the only one arrested after all this mess. 105. John, the same man who can break every bone in human body while naming them can’t tell apart dog’s bones and human bones. 106. Who set up all those cameras and projectors? 107. “Try as long as possible not to drown”. Sherlock just stops caring about John and a girl on the plane AT ALL with NO REASON WHATSOEVER. His sisters’ riddle is much more important. 108. John climbing up a rope with his feet chained to the bottom of the well. This never fails to make me laugh. 109. Lestrade is the only one police officer in the world – wherever Sherlock gets in troubles he is always going to be there. 110. “He is a good one” – What exactly made him say this? For sure there must be a good reason to complete Sherlock’s character arc, but all he does is … hugging his sister? 111. Btw Eurus just HAPPENS to give up her game and tell Sherlock where’s John. So in the end, all she needed was a hug. And we are supposed to feel compassion. Never mind that she killed lots of people, she turns out to be not as bad as everybody thought. 112. They put her back in Sherrinford. In the place she has already successfully escaped from. 113.”She had passed beyond our view. No words can reach her now.” What does it mean and how did this happen? 114. Molly visiting 221B St. like nothing happened. She probably shagged someone and simply got over it. No need to go in depth because she’s just a plot device. 115. Mary’s DVD and voiceover – was it so necessary? Why her? Why do we keep seeing her after her death? When these DVDs will end? And who sends them at the right moments? 116. “Who you really are doesn’t matter”. (drops mic)

I want to finish this with a quote of Steven Moffat who’s 100% sure that “There isn’t something we have to come back to address.” If you ever hear this man saying that, laugh him in the face because he’s both a liar and a overconfident queerbaiter who elects to ignore the facts, but still considers his audience to be dumber than he is. Sorry for my English ^^ Johnlock is real. Tagging my all-time favourites:

@weeesi @thepineapplering @221boylove @wellthengameover @waitedforgarridebs @redpeacoat3 @the-7-percent-solution @221bmeta @astudyinsnoggy @bug-catcher-in-viridian-forest @cheuwing @deducingbbcsherlock @finalproblem @freebatchhell @hubblegleeflower @inevitably-johnlocked @kirkallalong @loudest-subtext-in-tv @notagarroter @opttoremember @pearlrebs @maryray1895

#sherlock #tfp #meta #s4

[enharmonious]

Here's a compilation of all the clips I managed to record during Anime Impulse 2017 during the panel with Jonny Cruz, Christian Howard, and Gaku Space. I recorded mostly talks about Overwatch, although the panel did cover a bit about Street Fighter: Assassin's Fist, in which both Gaku Space and Christian Howard play significant roles. 

These are in clips because I was running out of space on my phone and was concerned if I wouldn't be able to catch something good that could came up later. orz This is also why some questions are not recorded in these clips. It’s not much unfortunately (panel was ~1 hour long I believe).

It can be extremely hard to hear at times, even with a headset, so I've done my best to transcribe what they've said. (Warning: I'm bad at it.) Also, hope it helps for those who can't listen to the video!

The transcription under the cut also includes one other recording (to fill in some of the things I missed), but is not in my compiled video above, so be sure to read it. It’ll be bolded to easily spot it!

These clips are in chronological order.

Contents: 0:00 - Gaku Space’s experience with voice acting (esp. Overwatch) 3:34 - Jonny Cruz’s experience with voice acting (esp. Overwatch too) 8:11 - Gaku and Jonny discussing new Overwatch events; ult voice line requests 10:08 - Q&A - “Jonny Cruz, can you do the longest ‘aw yeah’ possible?” 10:25 - Q&A - “Who is your OTP?” 11:15 - Q&A - “Can you sing the pineapple pen song?”

Key: DP = D-Piddy, the host. GS = Gaku Space. CH = Christian Howard. JC = Jonny Cruz. [?] means I'm unsure of what was said. Otherwise, everything in brackets are just notes by me, usually giving context about the video clips.

As usual, if you find errors and can give clarification, please do let me know and I'll fix them!

-----

[The beginning, which I did not record, is mostly Christian Howard talking about Street Fighter. If I remember correctly, Gaku Space didn't speak at all and never chimed in.]

Clip 1 (0:00) DP: How is doing something from live action to voice acting Overwatch - how do you prepare differently for the roles, for Genji or Gouki? GS: Towards the beginning, I got the audition - I didn't know what it is. So they have fake title, and a fake name, and fake everything. So only the description says that, "Looking for the voice"...is like a younger version of Ken Watanabe in Last Samurai. And then I just try that and then they booked[?] it. [?], they revealed that, "Oh, this is Overwatch" and now it's like...huge, so I don't know... DP: Yeah, Overwatch is huge. I mean, is there any Overwatch fans here? [small audience cheer] DP: Have you personally played the game at all? GS: Uhh, no. DP: I know there's two Japanese characters named Genji and there's Hanzo, did you cast for both or did they particularly pick you... [incoherent, they're talking over each other] GS: In the beginning, yeah, I just voiced over Genji. And then...I didn't...I haven't met Paul [Hanzo's voice actor]. DP: You haven't met him? GS: No. So, animated short, just - I only did my part. So I did not [see him?] DP: Oh, I see. It's just like that I'm unfamiliar with voice actor stuff - do you go to the studio, they have you read a bunch of lines, and you're done? GS: [Yeah, that's it?] Yeah, because I voiced Akuma, the older version of [?] but I have to match the lip sync so [it was awkward?]...it was Joey... CH: Yes, so Gaku had actually...even though Joey was playing Akuma as the older version, and he was speaking Japanese on the day, just because of Akuma's voice... DP: He's the one who did his voice. CH: He's augmented[?], so Gaku actually filled in and did a lot of the voice for older Akuma as well. Which is, again, this is a serial thing because you're in the studio on your own, and you're technically interacting with other people like...for Overwatch, right? You said you’ve never interacted with Paul, but you have to dialogue[?] when you see the final thing. So you gotta bring the intensity and [?] to the lines, it's gonna reach out. DP: Ooh, cool. For Genji's character, did you do any research and like...[?] in live action you try not to get into the character's head, right? For Genji - I mean, for Gouki, for example? But for Genji, do you have to learn the backstory? Does that help at all, or do you just go there and read the lines? GS: The thing is only the director's and writer's right there while I'm recording it. So I asked right on the spot, "So what's the character's...what's the subtext for this line and everything?" And then I recorded probably like 4-5 times. By then, I'll be done with that so they don't have to tell me specific stuff that I already knew. And when I recorded the animated short, [I went ahead ____ video game?], so I already knew the characters. DP: Genji's voice is a little distorted because of his helmet. Is that imposed, or do they have a little filter thing to speak over? GS: That was post-production. DP: Oh, it was post-production. CH: Did you know what Genji looked like before you did the voice? GS: Yeah, yeah, I knew. I saw on the sketches and stuff. DP: What do you think of the large popularity and growth of the game?

[At this point, the questions were not answered because a staff member had stepped up on stage and stopped D-Piddy to talk to him privately.]

Clip 2 (3:34) [Pre-recording: D-Piddy has announced that there is another guest, in fact a second Overwatch voice actor, at Anime Impulse. The audience has already yelled "let's break it down" twice. However, D-Piddy instructs that on the count of 3...] DP: "Let's break it down," okay? 1, 2, 3! [audience yells "let's break it down;" as Jonny Cruz pops up behind the wall, the crowd cheers] DP: Jonny Cruz, Lucio himself, is in the house! JC: Whoa, look at this crowd. [?] DP: [?] How's it going? JC: Good, good. I went here, so it's great. Audience. Never been to one of these guys in my life. But now I'm here. First time with you guys. [The lack of loud cheering here is very upsetting and saddening to me. I'm used to big, big cheers if a special guest announces that they're here for the fans, especially if it's their first time at an anime convention. That aside--] DP: So how do you take this perception of Overwatch's overwhelming growth of popularity in the game? JC: I had no idea it would turn into what it turned into. The game itself, you know...I've been actor for 15 years, right? Grinding away for many years, and the one thing that really shoots me to popularity is a video game, which is like...mind blowing to me! I'm like...this is a whole new world. And just the fanbase is amazing, the people that play the game, the vibe has just been so overwhelming. I'm a huge fan of you guys. DP: Do you play video games? JC: I did extensively growing up. I've been [?] until I had to get a job. [?] DP: You played Overwatch before right? JC: I have played Overwatch before. DP: I think I've seen a video of you playing your own character? JC: I was watching somebody else play me terribly. DP: Weren't you just commentating on it? JC: Yeah, I had a...it was a fart gun and that looked like Lucio's gun and every time I would be like, "Oh let's break it down! [raspberry-fart noise]" If you watched the video, it was all my idea. DP: Wow, that's really cool. Do you interact with some of the cast members? I've seen a video of Jonny going around...BlizzCon or...? JC: Yeah, it was BlizzCon. DP: It was at Blizzcon; interacting with all the other voice actors was pretty amazing. Do you keep in touch with them at a regular basis at all, or some of them? JC: Oh yeah, we're friends online. On Facebook. We've got a little group chat, we've got a little group chat. But the one I mostly interacted with before that was Darin de Paul [Reinhardt's voice actor]. We did some voiceover work together in the past. But that day at BlizzCon was the first time I actually met Gaku and a couple of the other people. They're all just wonderful human beings that we really just have fun and make a little dumb video of it, so that was uh...[looking at Gaku] I thank you! CH: That was when I knew - Gaku's still alive as well. Because this guy has NO social media presence. He doesn't have Facebook or anything. So we're seeing his video with Jonny and we're like, "Oh, Gaku's alive." JC: "He's alive!" DP: What - is there a reason why you don't? You just like keeping it private? Gaku? JC: What was that? DP: Oh no, uh, Gaku. I mean, does he - you don't have a Twitter or Facebook page? GS: Nothing. Nothing. JC: Why's that? CH: Keep it private.[?] DP: Keeping it private? JC: Why's that? GS: I don't like it. JC: He doesn't like it. That's the reason why. DP: Jonny, I follow you on Twitter, so you're great. You said you like riding the wave around and you've done video game voiceovers before, or...? JC: I was a voice in Prototype 2, and I was all the Hispanic characters in Prototype 2. And that was kinda my foray into video games - it was never something I had thought about really - but I had a great time at the booth, because at the end you do all the weird like...you know, okay, this is the sound of you getting your head ripped off, and then you have to figure out what that is. And there you're just like, "Alright...'GWAGHGHDGAAA!!'" and that to me is the [laughs] fun stuff of it. All of those weird sounds. DP: How about the grunts? JC: Oh grunts...I've never had my head ripped off or my arm ripped off. But how does that sound?! DP: Do you have any other video games that you're working on or any more voice work that you're possibly doing? JC: I have done a few more video games after Overwatch, but I cannot tell you what they are. Which is the WORST. [Post-recording: I managed to find the continuation of this conversation in another video (https://www.facebook.com/borei.kang/videos/vb.650113324/10154299562193325/?type=2&theater).] JC: IT'S THE WORST. DP [to Gaku]: You too? JC: You too? [?] GS: Actually, I have [?] next week, Genji again, but I cannot tell what it is. [crowd goes ooOooOoOo] DP: Here's another question for Gaku and Jonny. So you know how they release holiday specials and stuff? Have you recorded all that stuff previous, like months and months ago, or...

Clip 3 (8:11) DP: Do they bring you in periodically for updates and stuff, or how does that work? JC: Yeah, they bring us in periodically, way in advance, they're planning it out. So they test it out, we see their works. So it's always usually a while. DP: Can you tell us what the holiday event is going to be? JC: I have no idea. [looking at Gaku] Do you know what it is? The next holiday event? Do you know what it is? GS: I know. JC: Oh you know? Why are they telling...Gaku? But they don't tell me nothing? GS: Because it's not important! DP: Is it Valentine's? You don't have to say anything, but I'm going to guess it's Valentine's. GS: Yeah. DP: Yeah apparently, there's some Genji and Mercy shipping going on. [scattered cheering among the audience] GS: I can tell - I recorded my lines about Angela. JC: About? GS: Genji and Angela. DP: Wuh - Angela? JC: The voice actor. [Her name is actually Lucie Pohl.] GS: Mercy. DP: Ahh, okay okay. Well that's a hint. You guys know who he's shipped with.[?] Can I get a request from all of you guys? JC: Sure. DP: Jonny, can you do one of the ults? Can you... JC: [adjusting the mic] Here we go, here we go. [pause] Oh let's break it DOWN! [audience cheers] DP: Christian Howard, can you do one of Ken Master's special attacks? CH: ...I'll try. DP: Here we go, here we go. CH: Shouryuken! ["Rising Dragon Fist", I believe?] [audience cheers] DP: Gaku? Genji? Can you do a little Genji ult? GS: What should I do? Which one? Which one do you want? DP: Dragonblade? GS: Ultimate? DP: Ultimate, ultimate. GS: Ryuujin no ken o kurae! [audience cheers] DP: That is so awesome! Cool!

Clip 4 (10:08) [Pre-recording: Q&A session. Someone requested Jonny Cruz to do his longest "aw yeah." I noticed that the person requesting it drawled out the "aw" rather than the "yeah," but did not appear to be conveyed to Jonny. It’s still great though!] [...Do I even need to transcribe this?]

Clip 5 (10:25) [Pre-recording: During Q&A session, the three were asked who their OTP was. D-Piddy took some time initially to explain it since they didn't understand the term lol. For those who don't know: OTP means one true pairing. It's basically another way of indicating two characters that you wish would be paired up with each other as a significant others/partners.] JC: ...Yeah yeah yeah. Everybody here always asks me about D.va. Uh...and I'm about it! I'm about it! DP: Lucio is down with Lucio and D.va! JC: I think everybody should just be shipped together! A big ol' pile! DP: One big Overwatch... JC: One big Overwatch shipping. Haha! DP: How about -- I already know, you -- you like Mercy, right? Genji and Mercy? [Gaku nods and makes this...hand motion. He points out to the crowd at a witch!Mercy cosplayer.] DP: Genji's pointing at you, yeah! [witch!Mercy makes a heart symbol with her hands. She told me that Gaku returned the heart symbol, but was not recorded in the video.] DP: True love in the air! How about you, Christian? I mean, do you ship any particular Street Fighter characters? CH: ...I'm not sure if I understand the question.

Clip 6 (11:15) [Pre-recording: The three were asked if they knew about the pineapple pen song. Only Jonny Cruz knew about it (a little) and was requested to sing it.] JC: You have a pineapple...pineapple pen! Is that - is that how it goes?! Is that how it [?]? [looking out at the crowd] DP [to the person requesting this]: Was that alright for you? What was that? JC: It was okay?! DP: It was alright, it was alright. You go like this. JC: You have a pen. You have a pineapple...[muffled mic sound] Pineapple pen! Yeah? Yeah alright! DP: You were missing the [muffled mic sound].

Random tidbit I remember, but isn't recorded by me: Q&A - “Who is your favorite Overwatch hero?” JC loves playing Junkrat; GS responded with Mercy.

#overwatch #anime impulse #anime impulse 2017 #gaku space #christian howard #jonny cruz #video

[stop-him]

People Don't Change, Rules Change.

If you saw my last reblog of, and answer to, the poll by @supersoftly - this is further musings on the theme of my response, comparing old and new incidents. I may go on for a while. There may be a cut.

Anyhow, as I mentioned, I was once a moderator on the site Gaia Online. As such, I got to witness some of the worst behaviors that cropped up from time to time. An example: once a user named Cigarette announced that she had terminal brain cancer. This prompted a massive outpouring of support and well-wishing, including the "1000 cranes for Cigarette" community event based around the bit about folding up multiple little paper cranes for loved ones - and it all turned out to be a hoax. Some people noticed that nobody could get any real-life information about the hospital where she was supposedly being treated, and somewhere along the line Cigarette confessed to making everything up.

Most everyone thought that was pretty awful when the news hit. I don't even remember what, if anything, the admins of the site did to Cigarette herself - technically it wasn't against the TOS to lie about one's personal health. But I was involved in a related incident, where another user posted a Flash animation depicting his character, enraged by the news of Cigarette's deception, pulling a gun and (to the theme of the Mentos commercials) shooting her to death. It was actually more funny than my description makes it, and it would be understandable that anyone investing any emotion into Cigarette's purported illness would be legitimately angry and frustrated. But, after some discussion, we Mods decided to remove it from the site, because regardless of the circumstances, it was essentially a personal attack on another user, which was definitely against the TOS.

That was the standard we operated under at the time. You could say, "I think that is a stupid viewpoint to have, that idea is dumb," but you could not say, "you are stupid and dumb for having that opinion". You could not just call anyone a Nazi without direct evidence that they were literally part of a self-identified Nazi group, because it was well understood that calling someone a Nazi was a personal insult, and intended as such. "I feel that this person is like a Nazi" wasn't an excuse.

One's opinion was not a justification.

The teeth of Gaia Online's enforcement was their avatar system - for those unaware, GO's big attraction was that a user had a little anime-styled avatar that appeared by their posts. You gained currency by doing things in and around the forums, and you used that currency to buy clothes and other items for your avatar. Part of the outcry over Cigarette's stunt was that sympathetic users had donated high-value items for her avatar under false pretenses.

As Mods, we had the ability to not only ban users for infractions, but also monitor and undo trades and transfers of items between users. So if a user feared that a post they were going to make was going to break the TOS, they might want to stash their items with friends or in alternate accounts - only the Mods could see these actions and know they were attempts to avoid the consequences of their behavior, so often the items got confiscated anyway. What happened was that many users created a cache of "junk" accounts - no items, not much history, built up around the mass of free email accounts one could get. They would use these accounts to break the TOS, because they risked little if those empty accounts got banned. Some Mods had access to IP address info, so that wasn't a guarantee of safety, but it was a common practice among the more contentious users.

I explain all that for the sake of context in the following tale. After a few years of being a Mod, Gaia Online began to grow in popularity, and its userbase expanded, and after a while the Admins decided to outsource much of their Mod duties just to handle the load. I retired from being a Mod at that point, so no longer had access to any of those investigatory tools. I stayed on the site for a little while longer, but it's one thing to be in your 30s when the bulk of the site is 20-somethings, it's another to be pushing 40 when the bulk of the site is in their mid-teens.

But before I eventually left, i spent a bit of time hanging around in the forum's creator-oriented areas, notably in art, writing and comics-centered sub-forums.

There was a clique in those days of what I call "art snots", people who not only had ideas on what was the proper way to go around making art but who would aggressively advocate for their way as being the best way and anyone who didn't toe their line was not only wrong, but a fool. Many of them were products of formal art schooling, and many of them had open contempt for the trend of art styles emulating "that shiny animu shit".

One thing that could be done in the art community was to "give critique". Ostensibly, if you posted your art on the forum, you were making it available to be commented on, and were expected to be able to withstand a certain amount of unfavorable criticism. This (naturally) led to conflicts between very sensitive beginning artists who did not really want any criticism on one hand versus many of the aforementioned "art snots" who took the opportunity for "critique" as license to utterly verbally savage every tiny aspect of the poster's art, especially if it had any hint of anime influence. And so Mods were often called in to keep the peace, and when it was apparent that outright abuse would be disciplined, the "art snots" would, like many others, gather a collection of throwaway accounts to take the bans, using them as one-shot insult delivery systems. (Though, a few became masters at playing the TOS, making posts that were just within the boundaries of what was acceptable, and never needed alternate accounts...)

Near the end of my stay at GO, there was one user who was "art-snot-adjacent". They were a webcomic creator, whose webcomic at the time was garnering some popularity (as those things go) and critical acclaim. Obviously talented and well-spoken, it was apparent that they were sympathetic to the stances of the "art snots", but without nearly the same amount of vitriol. If they spoke on those matters, they spoke in civil, measured tones. Many of the "art snots" circled in their orbit, possibly due to friendships outside Gaia, or possibly due to simple sycophancy.

I took up reading this person's webcomic - it was pretty good - and while I didn't always agree with the opinions they stated on Gaia, I appreciated the way they kept their tone nominally respectful.

The front page of this webcomic had a few widgets installed, one of which was a feed of the author's Twitter account, back when Twitter was a lot newer and less ubiquitous. So there was a little sub-window on the page that displayed, say, the last five Tweets the author made.

One day I went to the webcomic to check if there were updates, and saw that one of the recent tweets mentioned Gaia, so I looked more closely. It has been ages at this point, but the general thrust of the message was:

"Looks like I'm going to have to burn another Gaia account so I can set this other user straight about how stupid they are."

And now immediately I knew that this webcomic creator that I had somewhat respected up until now was not any different than so many others, they were simply better at putting up a polished public face. They were just as eager to hide their true feelings in order to keep all the little virtual clothes on their Gaia account, until they could let fly with an alternate sockpuppet, and be abusive to their heart's content.

[As an aside: I think this was one of the only times I've ever been unable to separate the artist from their art. For a little while I still kept up with the webcomic, but one day, I found myself about to click the bookmark for the page and I just didn't feel like reading the story anymore. Just - "meh", and I didn't click to it, and never went back. It wasn't like seeing that Tweet enraged me, I wasn't scandalized, I just... didn't respect the creator anymore. I'm not sure why that killed my interest in the story, when I have few problems engaging with art by artists who I know have done far, far worse in their lives. But there it is.]

These Gaia anecdotes establish something I think is true: people were just as nasty then as they are now. But a site like Gaia - at least at the time - enforced a code of behavior that said, "as long as you're on our site, you'll behave with a minimum of respect towards other users."

And now, let's come to the present day. As I write this, YouTube has been sending me recommendations for videos about a bit of drama. Of course, YouTube has no shortage of drama. But in this case, it reminds me of Gaia in some ways, because it's an artist-related drama.

At one point, YouTube proposed I watch an artist draw a picture as they told a story about the worst commission they ever drew, and I did, and so of course YouTube then bombarded me with a thousand similar videos. Some I watched, if they had interesting subjects. Many I didn't. And one type I stayed away from was the callout videos, where while drawing some pic, the artists would detail the various sins of some other YouTuber and make the case for them being an irredeemably awful person.

But, I've been floating around the edges of this drama, because for a while I was watching the videos from Girl Artist 1 (actual name/account redacted - probably if you're actually an active part of that community you can guess who it is, and if you don't have any idea, well, count yourself fortunate). Only now I no longer get videos by her recommended to me, now I'm getting videos about her.

First it came to light that she was sockpuppeting on some site, pretending to not be herself in order to stir up drama/make herself look good/whatever. Then it seems she was involved in a harassment campaign, and even more serious charges involving downright illegal shenanigans are being leveled.

I'll make it clear that I don't know all the details, or whether any of this is true or not. I watched some of Girl Artist 1's videos when the subject interested me, but ignored many when it was clear she was calling out other artists, YouTubers and the like. I noted the name of Girl Artist 2 come up a few times, and even in the titles of other videos by other people. Apparently Girl Artist 2 had her own moment of being condemned. But now she's back, with her own video to speak out against Girl Artist 1, along with a host of others all dogpiling on the current object of ire.

Is Girl Artist 2 forgiven now? Will Girl Artist 1 undergo her own journey of redemption? Will that be possible? Who knows, and outside of the community, who cares?

YouTube doesn't. And finally I come to my point: This is the difference between an older site like Gaia Online and newer platforms like YouTube and Twitter - the incentives.

Gaia had its own economy based around its avatar system, and its own motivation to promote an even keel and keep drama to a minimum. The latter was achieved by using the former as both carrot and stick. The reward for good behavior was getting to keep your virtual items, punishment was their loss.

Twitter's reward is internet fame, reinforcement of things you say with likes and retweets and new followers. Drama is a path to this - sometimes a much easier path than actually creating a work of art to attract attention. YouTube is much the same, only with the added incentive of real money for select users. YouTube does not mind controversy in and of itself, because controversy drives views, and views pay off for advertisers, who pay YouTube.

Therefore, there is often little incentive to not be an asshole. Every judgemental soul can freely pontificate about the sins of others, and condemn them in the most explicit terms. In a practical sense, the accusations don't even have to be true. My example of calling people Nazis as an insult? Go ahead! It gets clicks. YouTube and Twitter like the clicks. Not only do you not have to show anyone any respect, it's almost expected to be actively disrespectful to anyone who annoys you in the slightest.

That's my thesis: the overall nastiness of the human race is, I think, much the same as it's always been. A lot of people have always been judgemental pricks. It's just that the rules have shifted just so, and now the nastiness is being rewarded instead of discouraged.

[jeremystrele]

Podcasting, Politics + Pop Culture, With Journalist Osman Faruqi

Podcasting, Politics + Pop Culture, With Journalist Osman Faruqi

Dream Job

by Sasha Gattermayr

Osman has been the editor of the 7am podcast since January last year, coming from ABC’s Background Briefing before then. Now, he is the host of The Culture, a new weekly podcast from Schwartz Media. Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

His job requires him to ben constantly on top of the news! Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

Podcasting day and night. Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

Os never studied journalism, he was an environmental engineering student who did some volunteer stints on community radio on the side. From there, he realised journalism was his calling! Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

Being in contact with editors across Schwartz’s stable of publications is a key part of producing a daily news show. With The Culture, Os will have to do the same thing with the arts critics – plus staying abreast of everything new in pop culture! Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

Every Friday, Osman will have conversations with critics and creators about the latest books, film, music, TV and the way culture intersects with the social zeitgeist. He’s basically our own Wesley Morris. Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

Hosting an arts podcast is the job Os has been dreaming of since entering journalism. Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

In the Twitter ‘bio’ field where most people put their job descriptions, Osman Faruqi’s simply reads: ‘Australian icon’. But beyond simply being iconic (and ironic), Osman’s paid profession is also his ideal gig: head of audio at Schwartz Media and now, host of the masthead’s new weekly arts podcast, The Culture.

Hosting a podcast about books, film, music and TV is what Osman has wanted to do ever since he accidentally entered the industry as an environmental engineering student with his own local radio show (he never ended up finishing that degree!).

Before he was hired as the editor of 7am at the beginning of last year, Osman was an investigative reporter at the ABC’s award-winning Background Briefing audio program, which he landed after being the news and political editor at Junkee, and the co-host of ‘Backchat’ – a weekly current affairs show on Sydney’s community radio station FBi.

The Culture is the culmination of all this experience across arts, politics and current affairs, aka nearly all of Osman’s interests. Every Friday, he’ll have conversations with critics and creators about the latest books, film, music, TV and the way culture intersects with the social zeitgeist. He’s basically our own Wesley Morris.

Now for the million dollar question: just how did he get there? Os gives us the lowdown.

When I grew up I wanted to be…?

Osman: Honestly…I wanted to be a firefighter. Sadly I didn’t have the build or the stamina. I never thought about journalism which is funny, considering that’s where I’ve spent the bulk of my career and have ended up. I just never saw people with my background telling the stories that I thought were important, so I didn’t think it was a profession for me.

What’s been the most important verb in the ‘get your dream job’ lexicon and why?  

I think it’s ‘listen.’ Landing jobs that you love comes down to a combination of factors, including working hard and persevering, but to be honest, most of it is luck and privilege. Very few (if any!) people are born with the skills that make them successful. Most of the time it comes from learning from those around us. And the most important part of learning is listening. It doesn’t mean you have to replicate exactly what the people around you, or your mentors, are doing, but it does mean learning from what works, and maybe more importantly, what doesn’t work.  

How did you land your current job?

I actually got approached to take on the role as editor of 7am when I was still working at the ABC. I wasn’t really hunting for a new gig, but the idea of being able to work on a show that I had a lot of respect for and could play a role in shaping was pretty tempting. I’d also never lived in Melbourne before and thought that this was a good excuse to give it a go. I don’t regret it (yet).

7am has grown so much over the past year that it made sense for us to start talking about what other audio offerings we should be developing. That’s how my role morphed into what I do now as head of audio: thinking about new projects and managing the pipeline of what we’re all working on. 

You’re the host of the newly launched podcast, The Culture. What’s the show about? 

This is the kind of show I’ve wanted to work on since I got my start in journalism. Some of the first work I did was music and film reviews, and even though I’ve spent the majority of my career working in news and current affairs, I’m always stoked when I have the chance to write or talk about culture, especially TV, film, and music.

Long-form, compelling and engaging cultural criticism is pretty rare these days in Australia, but I think it’s so fundamental in helping us understand the world we live in. A show like The Culture seemed like a no-brainer. The Saturday Paper and The Monthly have such great critics, people like Shaad D’Souza, Anwen Crawford, Christos Tsiolkas and Sarah Krasnostein. Being able to talk to them about the art they love, what’s popular and why, and all the ways culture intersects with society and politics was a really exciting idea. 

Every week we’ll go deep on a particular topic. It could be a show, a film, a record or an artist, and we’ll talk about their work, what we like or don’t like, and how it fits into everything happening around us.

What does a typical work day for you involve?

Most days start with me calling Ruby Jones, the host of 7am, on the way into work. We talk about how we thought that morning’s episode of the show sounded, what worked, and what we could have done differently. I think it’s always important to evaluate your own work. We also chat about what’s in the news, and what we think we should cover next.  

When it comes specifically to 7am, the rest of the day is a pretty hectic combination of planning our episodes, thinking through interview questions, listening in on interviews, and working on edits. I also work pretty closely with the editors of The Saturday Paper and The Monthly to stay across the stories they are working on, and what might work for the show. 

These days, in addition to that, I’m also thinking about what to talk about on The Culture, which is actually pretty fun because it involves a lot of watching TV, film, and listening to great music.

You’re pretty prolific on Twitter – How do you feel about the platform? 

The best thing about Twitter is that it helps people who might not already be established voices express themselves, and if people relate to or appreciate their ideas, they’ll start to develop a following. That definitely helped me early in my career. I remember being commissioned by editors who came across my tweets and asked if I would expand on those for an article. 

The worst thing is how overwhelmingly toxic it can be. I definitely don’t use it the way I used to. It’s really hard to have conversations and step through anything that’s even vaguely complex. Nowadays I just use it to share things. It’s a bit of a shame because I miss when things were slightly more in good faith. 

What do you feel are some of the key challenges facing Australia’s media industry right now? 

I think a huge problem is the trust deficit between journalists and the audiences we profess to serve. I don’t think the industry has really grappled with that seriously enough. Journalism, and in particular, using it to hold powerful people and institutions accountable, has never been more important. But we’re living through a moment where so many people view journalism with scepticism, and in a lot of cases that’s entirely founded. The sad thing is that even good and important reporting is tarnished within this broader context of distrust.

I think it’s going to take a lot of time and hard work to rebuild that trust, but it’s incredibly important to do. I think at least part of it is about making sure the industry looks and sounds like the rest of the country, rather than the white, middle-class bubble that currently dominates the profession.

Do you have any advice for aspiring media professionals or journalists? 

Community radio is where I learned to cut my teeth, and I think it’s a great place to work to learn and practice the craft. It’s also literally never been easier to start your own podcast. One of the best things about the medium is how it has upended the traditional model of relying on a big mainstream publisher to pick you up. Some of the best and most popular podcasts are independently made. Go for it.

The first episode of ‘The Culture’ dropped on Friday. Listen and follow on Apple, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app.

This story was shot on location at The Espy podcasting recording studio, which is available for individual, community or commercial use. Click here to book.