Category: Uncategorized

dear critical role fandom

amazonqueendianaprince:

cowboybootsandhuntershelper:

amazonqueendianaprince:

cowboybootsandhuntershelper:

shadowedhills:

I noticed recently that I’ve passed what is, to me, a ridiculous number of followers, approximately ¾ of which have come since I got into Critical Role. I’m overwhelmed, and I love you all. Which is one of the reasons why I’m going to signal boost this.

I’ve recently heard that a fan who goes by the name Andy Thanfiction has gotten into CR fandom. If this is someone you’ve seen on Tumblr or Twitter, and his name is not familiar to you, I very, very, very highly encourage you to read at least one of the links below.

5 Incredible Sagas of Fandom Scams & Deceptions

Fandom History, Epic Wankers Edition: Victoria Bitter/Jordan Wood/Andy Blake

Thanfiction – Fanlore entry

I’ve been in online fandom for more than 20 years, and while I was never in contact with Andy, I watched both the LOTR and HP messes go down in real time. I’m a person who generally doesn’t do public callouts for fannish reasons – I can count the number of people I’d make a post like this about on one hand, and still have fingers left over. But we have a lot of younger fans in CR fandom, both in actual age and in terms of people who weren’t around for Andy’s greatest hits. So if you don’t already know him, please read about him, and be careful.

I do, in fact, know this man. I have for several years now. I have not deleted the information above, because everybody does have a right to be cautious. I can’t try and make your perception of a person for you.

But it is very upsetting to watch a fandom that has been so active and uplifting about battling mental illness hop right on the same train as the other communities who i have watched shut him out.

Andy has admitted everything he’s done. He has apologized. Not the bullshit kind of apology where he blames it on things being his control, or even his severe mental illness, but the kind where he accepts that he hurt people, is genuinely sorry, then as he changes his behavior away from what he did he /steps back from those people/ he hurt, because he knows they have a right to be hurt, and even as they continue lashing out he accepts it, doesn’t argue it anymore, because he honestly just wants to move on.

And I have watched him try to move on. I have watched him /continuously/ try to do better, and every time his past Big Fuckup is brought back up, it blows way the fuck up, and instead of railing against it he grits his teeth and steps willfully back from the something new that he had hoped he might be able to find a place in now that he’s got the mental stability to enjoy it as just a regular fan.

I have no right to speak for him, nor does anyone have the right to know how particular medical and psychological treatment program, nor which medications he’s talking Why would you ask that of /anyone,/ demand that they prove exactly how they’re “fit” to be part of society, ask them to reveal information that by all right should be kept between them and their doctor?

But I can say that he’s doing /everything/ we ask people who have hurt others in their mental illness to do. I can say that I have seen progress even just from where he was when we met four years to the man I know today. I can say that I am steadily watching him grow and learn and change and become a person who is learning that it’s /okay/ to proud himself and his admittedly incredible talent in spite of how badly his psychosis fucked both himself and many others over before.

I am by no means trying to invalidate the pain of the people who got hurt. They have every right to be upset, I understand that the impression he left them with is going to be with them forever. When I was younger and foolish I would argue with them about that, but I know better now.

I’m only saying that I hope at it’s core, this fandom doesn’t prove to have a double-standard in the way it treats mental illness. That it doesn’t prove to be one of those groups that talks a big game about providing support to overcome and change and battle mental illness, until said mental illness is too scary or presents in a way that you don’t like.

It’s hard. I know. There are some scary afflictions out there that make it difficult to grasp or understand people. But when we say that people are not defined by their mental illness, when we encourage people to fight it and change and get /better,/ we CAN NOT just apply that to the “easy ones.”

So in the end, all I’m asking is that you treat my friend – who had struggled and overcome and is /still/ fighting an uphill battle – with the same level of respect and trust you would address any stranger you’ve met so far who likes the same show you do. He’s excitable, he’s fascinated, and he wants to enjoy this Cool New Thing My Friend showed me.

I’m tired of watching him get shunted out of places where he belongs. I understand the fear though. Mental illness, especially those that affect others /is/ frightening. I had just hoped that if there was any group that could accept his changing, break the stigma fan communities have held over severe mental illness, and honestly just /enjoy/ the amazing creative content this boy churns out like butter at a state fair, it would’ve be Critical Role.

Oh my god, shut the fuck up. He’s not amazing and I don’t care what “amends” he’s trying to make. How DARE you try to guilt trip people into accepting a dangerous predator into fandom by pulling the mental illness card?

You want to talk respect? How about respect for his victims? No creative output can ever be so amazing that people should willingly accept someone like him in fandom. And nobody is entitled to be accepted in fandom. Not him. Not you. Not me. Not anyone. If he really wanted to make amends, he would stay AWAY from fandom, not keep participating in it.

You should be ashamed of yourself for writing this ridiculous bullshit defense.

He is my friend. He does cool stuff I can’t, which I just think it’s pretty amazing. We each have to decide whether we believe someone has suffered mental illness, or whether they are willfully malicious and masquerading as such. The behavior I’ve seen and the boy I know now leads me to believe what I believe. I can’t fault anyone else for believing otherwise, I only ask that each person listen to all of the information and make their own decision.

I can’t speak to the before, but in the for years I’ve know him he /has/ stopped engaging in every fandom that’s asked him to. I’m just asking that people in this one give some thought to it before they ask him.

No, we don’t have to decide anything. We don’t have to listen to his side of the story. We’ve done that quite enough already, and not enough listening to the people he’s hurt.

We have 20 years of history, delineating all the ways in which this man has psychologically and sexually abused countless people and preyed on the vulnerable. All the mealy-mouthed “but I’ve changed, you guys!” deflecting in the world does not change that, especially because he hasn’t changed. He hasn’t made actual amends to the people he hurt aside from blanket apologies and vague promises of recompense. He continues to join fandoms and latch onto the characters that young women and girls care about the most, so that he can get close to them and suck them into his cult of personality.

You think he should get accolades because he leaves fandom when he’s asked to? Really? It hasn’t occurred to you that he should stay the fuck out of fandom in the first place?

He is not a boy. He is over 30 years old. He is an adult.

How can you sleep at night, knowing you’re close friends with a sexual predator and serial abuser? You’re almost as much of a disgusting piece of shit as he is.

Former HP person here – this is nothing about ‘second chances’ or mental illness, this is about a legitimate threat. This person is a predator. He draws susceptible and vulnerable people in, convinces them that he is misunderstood, and starts the cycle of cultish recruitment all over again. He has not changed, he will not change, and he has a long track record of destroying those he dislikes or no longer has any use for. He is a con artist who scams people for money. He is a scorpion in a human skin suit who is only ever out for himself. Stay the fuck away.

WHAT

WHY DID NOBODY TELL ME THEY MADE A MOVIE OF THE CHANGEOVER AND ACTUALLY CAST A MAORI/EUROPEAN NZ GIRL TO PLAY LAURA????

OMG, the casting in general is FUCKING AMAZING – Lucy Lawless, Timothy Spall, Melanie Lynskey, etc etc, and I never even knew it existed take my money

uh, i guess this is an emergency. please read this.

cloudyjohn:

i’m homeless now i think. i dunno. my mom told me i could leave so i did. i’m, uh. kind of in shock i guess? i don’t know if this is real.

but uh. hi, my name’s john. i’m a seventeen year old transgender minor who has schizophrenia, autism, and dissociative identity disorder. i can’t drive, i don’t have a bank account, or a car, or a place to stay. i didn’t get kicked out, i’d probably be welcome if i went back home, but…i dunno. i’m trying to come to terms with things. i don’t know what i should really be asking for here. there’s three issues i’m worried about, i guess.

a) medication. i’m on a lot of really important medication that keeps me functioning (makes me less prone to unreality issues like hallucinations or delusions and the likes), one for my hypothyroidism that keeps me from gaining weight rapidly, antidepressants, and adderall. i’m a little bit worried about how i’ll do without them, but i don’t really know how anyone could help with that. 

b) money. i have a paypal account, and i recently got a bank account under my mother’s name, but. considering everything i’m sure she’s disabled my card by now, not that it matters considering i only had twenty dollars on it, but like, fuck. i guess i’ll put a donations link at the end of this post or something, and then see what i can do about getting a debit card.

c) shelter. i don’t have anyone in town who doesn’t know my mom/that wouldn’t take me back to her right away if i told them what happened, so i’m kind of pressed on that for now. i literally have no idea how to resolve this. the closest person to me that i trust is in WA, and the person i trust the most is in OH. i’m in UT, so i don’t know how to resolve that either. i don’t have any way of buying a bus ticket or anything until i get a bank account, which i don’t know how to do, because i’m underage.

i have my laptop, a cell phone that my mother has already disabled, my drawing tablet, a nintendo switch, a 3ds, two jackets, one sweatshirt, two pairs of pants, one pair of socks, one pair of shoes that need to be replaced, $2.12, and three pairs of glasses. i dunno why i picked up the things i did. i was kind of freaking out. i have no fucking idea what i’m going to do. 

if anyone has advice, or money to spare, i’d appreciate that. 

this is my paypal. anything you can give me will help somehow, i hope.

even if you can’t donate, please reblog this.

amatalefay:

spaceisprettycool:

wildestranger:

sashayed:

lierdumoa:

sashayed:

sashayed:

sashayed:

lierdumoa:

sashayed:

sashayed:

My name is Calfe
& Im too young
to know yet what do 
with my Toung!

So till my Mom say
“Dont Do That!”
Ill stick it out
And lik this cat.

My little Calfe,
Im proud of yu–
yur living like
the Big Cows do.
Yur doing just
what Mom have said–
for yu lik cat,
and cat 

lik bred.

Bad meme execution. 0/5 stars.

These poems are supposed to be imitative of 17th/18th century middle English poetry (pre-dating dictionaries and formalized spelling conventions) not early 2000s chatspeak, not babytalk.

These poems are also supposed to be in iambic diameter, giving them a pleasing songlike rhythm. The above has inconsistent syllabic structure from line to line.

These attributes are clearly illustrated in the prime:

image

So tired of people on this website and their flagrant disregard for syllabic structure.

No respect for the craft.

1. first of all, how dare you. i would never, N E V E R, put forth a cow poem with inconsistent syllabic structure. these may not be my finest work, but the iambic dimeter is IMPECCABLE. check my scansion again and come back to me. I guess “know what do yet” is not ideal, but it falls within the constraints of the form. i’m genuinely appalled by this. i have SEEN inconsistent scansion in this meme, i do NOT approve of it and i have NOT done it. how dare you. HOW DAR EYOU!!!

Secondly: it is not absurd to suppose that the linguistic constraints of a Cow Poem would depend on the figure to whom Cow speaks. In the original (and perfect) “i lik the bred,” the narrative cow, like a Chaucerian non-characterized narrator, directs her speech to an imagined and unspecific listener; not to “the men,” who are characters within the poem, but to some more general audience. (See the Canterbury Tales prologue for an example of this voice in action.) 

Later, poem_for_your_sprog has Cow address contemporaries like “dog.” You will notice that the voice of Cow varies slightly, in speaking to Dog, from her voice in the original “I lik the bred.” WHY, then, can we not extrapolate that Calfe – who is, after all, a narrator of limited capacity, being only a Baby Cow with a Baby Cow’s simplicity – would have its own variant voice? And why, too, would Cow not speak differently to her own Calfe than she does to an animal peer, or to reverent imaginary auditors? These are experiments within an emerging form – flawed experiments, certainly, but not mistakes ipso facto. Again: HOW DARE YOU!!!!!!!!

image

my name is Cow,
and as yu see,
its worth yor tiyme
to studye me.
but if yu dont
like what yu red,

take 2 deep breths

and lik the bred.

I am willing to concede on second reading that the syllabic structure is passable, and in that regard I’ve wrongly impugned the integrity of your work, however I maintain that your Frankenstinian amalgam of fake middle English with fake modern American baby talk is thoroughly unconvincing as either middle English or as modern American baby talk.

It’s an aesthetic failure, IMH(inh)O*

You’ve created the linguistic equivalent of a spork — vitiating two perfectly serviceable tools by attempting to fuse them.

Writing ‘till mothere says / do not do that,’ would have conveyed roughly the same idea without feeling quite so awkwardly anachronistic.

My name is Rave,
and I can see
you’re bent on pa-
tronizing me!
”Anachronistic”
frankly seems 
a misplaced word 
to use of memes.
But since you want
to start that fight,
let’s step outside
and do this right.

Dude: if you want 
to not get wrecked
you’d better get 
your facts correct.

Like, “Mothere,” friend,
is not a word
that Geoffrey Chau-
cer ever heard.*

(*”Mooder” would be period-accurate, and also a good cow word.)

What’s more, the “eight-
teenth century”
has zip to do 
with, um, “M.E.”
And it’s not spelled
“diameter.”
What are you, pal,
an amateur?

I am not Chaucer
or John Donne
but if you try
to spoil my fun
with words you learned
in English class –

don’t come for me. 
I’ll kik yur ass.

I don’t think someone who thinks Middle English happened in the seventeenth century ought to be schooling others.

“17th/18th century middle English”

My name is Geoff,
John Chaucer’s sonne,
and I my lyfe’s
cours have runne.
Engelish tonges
are now divers,
so pedants, kis

my naked ers

billpottz:

sussexbound:

sussexbound:

“Miss Sherlock,” 8-part Japanese-language drama series, made as a joint venture with Hulu Japan.

“Miss Sherlock,” now in post-production, stars Yuko Takeguchi in the title role and is a modern interpretation of the classic Sherlock Holmes tales, solving bizarre and extraordinary cases. Shihori Kanjiya plays Dr Wato Tachibana, a reinterpretation of Holmes’ sidekick, Doctor Watson.

The series will air from April 2018, simultaneously on Hulu in Japan, and HBO’s streaming platform, HBO GO, and HBO on Demand. (X) (X)

oh my fucking god

Manic pixie dream girl says, ‘have you heard this record?’ Manic pixie dream girl says let me save you with this record. Let me put the headphones on for you, and smile, while you listen; cut to your point of view, watch me smile while you listen. Hear that? That’s the sound of you becoming a better person.

I’m gonna paint a picture of a bird on your beige wall without your permission and you’re gonna love it. And you thought you hated birds. See me? Encouraging you to take risks? Manic pixie dream girl wants you to do something you’ve never done before. Like go swing-dancing, or smile. You wanna know my name? You never call me by it anyway. If I had to guess, it would probably be a season, or after a dead actress who you loved as a child.

But this isn’t about me! This is about you, and your cubicle job, your white bedroom, your white Honda, your white mother. Manic pixie dream girl says I’m going to save you. Says, don’t worry, you are still the lead role. This is your love story about the way I teach you to live. Everything they know about me they will learn when it is projected onto you, watch the way you pick up my bad habits and make them look good. Manic pixie dream girl talks too much. Says bad words out loud and cries at the commercials. That makes me a funny woman, right? The kind people like to laugh at? It’s easy to root for you when I act like this, so disagreeable, such a manic dream, dream girl, your almost broken accessory.

Manic pixie dream girls says let’s play make believe with my body. I’ll be a vintage dress in an empty prescription bottle, good girl, just bad enough, a burp and a curtsy. Let me be not too pretty, hair fried from all that pink dye, sex when you need it, puppet when you’re bored. Let me build myself smaller than you, let me apologize when I get caught acting bigger than you. Let me always wait for this, let me work for this.

The convenient thing about being a magical woman is that I can be gone as quickly as I came. And when you are a whole person for the first time, the movie is over. Manic pixie dream girl doesn’t go on; there’s no need for her anymore. Manic pixie dream girl is too dream girl, and you just woke up. Once, I told you I was afraid of my father, and for a moment, I looked so human, the audience lost interest. You saw the crow’s feet at the sides of my eyes and a small chip on my front tooth. I looked just like everyone else.

Olivia Gatwood, “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” (a transcript)

nerdykeppie

vaspider:

Today I added a RedBubble store, specifically to begin offering stickers of my designs. It’s the most commonly-requested item that I couldn’t yet offer.

Of course, it also means I can now offer laptop cases, tablet cases, etc. So go check it out – I’ll be adding not only a lot of new products with familiar designs, but new designs as well, like the brand new Loud Hands design (available in all ya Pride colors – if yours isn’t up, ask!)

nerdykeppie