I Feel It In My Bones, I’m On F I R E

i feel it in my bones, i’m on F I R E

FUCK

If you’re European, in a couple of weeks you will be denied any and all access to fandom contents on Tumblr and everywhere else on the internet. Here’s why.

On June, 20th the JURI of European Parliament approved of the articles 11 and 13 of the new Copyright Law. These articles are also known as the “Link Tax” and the “Censorship Machines” articles.

Articles 13 in particular forces every internet platform to filter all the contents we upload online, ending once and for all the fandom culture. Which means you won’t be able to upload any type of fandom works like fan arts, fan fictions, gif sets from your favourite films and series, edits, because it’s all copyrighted material. And you won’t also be able to share, enjoy or download other’s contents, because the use of links will be completely restricted.

But not everything’s lost yet. There’s another round of voting scheduled for the early days of July.

If You’re European, In A Couple Of Weeks You Will Be Denied Any And All Access To Fandom Contents On

What you can do now to save our internet, is to share these informations with all of your family members and friends, and to ask to your MEP (the members of the European Parliament from your country) to vote NO at the next round, to vote against articles 11 and 13.

Here you can find more news and all the details to contact your MEP:

https://saveyourinternet.eu

Also, sign and share this petition:

https://www.change.org/p/european-parliament-stop-the-censorship-machinery-save-the-internet?recruiter=50668942&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_initial

We have just a couple of weeks to stop this complete madness, don’t let them dictating the way we enjoy our internet.

#SaveYourInternet now!

289K notes View Post

brotherjaybird

6 years ago

Fandom sucks.

More than normal, I mean.

While fandom has always been a little bit crazy, it’s hard to deny that it has gotten exponentially worse in the past few years.

From the simple toxicity in fandom discourse increasing, to death threats made towards creators if they don’t toe the line the fandom wants, to groups of fans creating little brigades to ‘protect’ their fandom (see: harassing anyone they don’t like under the guise of morality), it’s gotten pretty bad.

The question is, why?

Well, if you read that headline up there, you’ll know I’m about to tell you why.

The answer is religion, or specifically, the lack of religion in the lives of millennials and the new generation.

Now, before you close this tab, lemme clarify: this isn’t about how the downswing of religion has corroded the moral fiber, or anything. It’s more interesting than that. And complex.

Religion has a function in society. It serves a purpose. This is true regardless of ones own beliefs. Unlike the existence or non-existence of any sort of supreme deity, the functions of religion have been thoroughly documented and studied. If you want a more thorough breakdown beyond the summary I’m about to give, go read Émile Durkheim’s The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life.

Religion acts as a support system and a shared moral system. As a result, religion is something of a ‘cultural shorthand’. Finding out someone’s religion quickly tells you a great many things about them. This is useful in social interactions, as it quickly tells you who you’re more likely to get along with. To put it in a bit of a primitive way, it makes it easy to find one’s ‘allies’.

If one is Catholic, and meets another Catholic, they instantly know they share a great many beliefs about life, justice, morality and the like. If one is in an entirely new place, finding the local congregation of their own religion is a fast way to build a support network from zero. These are important functions.

And with religion out of vogue, especially among the youth, something had to fulfill that function. It’s important and necessary. One of the things that has usurped this function is incredibly specific political labels. While highly specific terms for one’s political beliefs have always existed, they broke into the mainstream far more than they ever had before in the recent decade. They usurped that function of cultural shorthand, one’s own specific political identifier essentially became a flag one waved while attempting to find like minded people. That’s fine.

What isn’t fine is that fandom has also usurped the function of religion for a large amount of people. Fandom is, frankly, not capable of acting in this manner, and the result is the explosion of atrocious fandoms full of toxicity and at times outright criminality and violence. Most works of fiction have something to say, but few if any present an entire system of morality. Yet despite this, many treat it as such. Therein lies the problem.

Religion inherently has a barrier to entry. It’s (often, not always, it varies by religion) a simple barrier, but a barrier nonetheless. You have to live by the religion’s rules and moral system. In a way, this can be considered payment for the support system the religion offers. If you’re not a believer, you don’t get in. Pretty simple. That’s how it retains it’s usefulness as an identifier. Knowing someone was a Catholic wouldn’t matter if they didn’t have to follow the rules.

(And yes, many religions do charitable work even for those outside their faith, I’m well aware, this is all in the abstract.)

Fandom doesn’t have any such barrier. You like the thing, you’re in. It ultimately has no use whatsoever as a cultural/societal identifier. If you like the same TV show, or anime, or video game as someone else it means….well. Basically nothing. There’s no guarantee you share anything else with them at all.

As a result, people who attempt to use fandom in this way ultimately get a rude awakening, and end up encountering someone they dislike. Or hate, even. And that’s where the problem starts.

The revelation that their fandom do not uniformly believe the same things is not often taken well. Rather than realizing that one’s choice in media is no guarantee of anything else about them, they develop the belief that this person they dislike is not a real fan. They’re fake. They’re seeking to harm the fandom. They’re the enemy. And if it’s the creator? Oh boy, does shit go off then.

Ultimately, these people project their own personal beliefs and morality onto a work of fiction that doesn’t, and never did, support them. They adopt the completely ludicrous expectation that any other fan they meet must be just like them, and believe all the same things as them. Anyone who doesn’t is a real fan, and has to be destroyed. And that person is now a toxic fan, the kind that’ll harass, send death threats, and blackmail or threaten the creators.

And the problem is only going to get worse. Online communication and support is only going to become a bigger and bigger part of people’s lives going forward. That’s why there’s a clear level of escalation in ‘bad’ fandoms. People who are more and more ‘online’ are making up the majority of these fandoms, and lacking any other traditional support network or thing to identify as, become these toxic fans.

So the question becomes; how to fix it?

Well, like any widespread sociological problem, there isn’t an easy answer. Lord knows I’m not smart enough to figure one out.

But most of these people are children.

Adults reading this do have some degree of responsibility to try and guide them into more responsible and healthy behavior, and criticize them when they fall into toxicity. Will all of them listen? Of course not. God knows I never listened to adults when I was a teenager.

But some of them will, and if the toxic cesspool that is modern fandom can be even slightly purified, it’s worth it to try.

267 notes View Post

brotherjaybird

7 years ago

Worldbuilding Practice Sample

So, a while ago I wrote some sample dialog for Injustice 2 interactions that will never happen, and I happen to have a great affection for DC characters in general. Unsatisfied as I am with the current state of affairs in DC, I got in the habit of writing little plots and ideas on the side, and after several years basically wound up composing my own version of the DC cosmos, an Earth-J, if you will.

This is a sample of the work I've done so far.

The Living Kingdoms

The Red -- Fauna Parliament: Limbs Representatives: Animal Masters, who can use either the physical or metaphysical aspects of animals as super powers. Much to the Red's chagrin, however, they can't manage to keep a champion like the Green's Swamp-Thing; their main choice, Bernhard Baker, doesn't really care.

Bernhard "Buddy, Animal Man" Baker Supposed Champion of the Red, much to his chagrin. Also much to the Red's chagrin, since he keeps not observing his duties. His power is to trade metaphysical qualities with animals via homologous and analogous structures. (i.e. he can give his arms the power of flight, because that's what birds do with those parts). Notes: He occasionally has jam sessions with Garfield. Quotes: "You are a Champion of the Red! You bring fruition to thousands of years of prophecies!" "I AM A FAMILY MAN, FIRST!" -P.o.L. & Buddy Maxine Baker Even more powerful than Buddy, even less interested. She just likes her pretty animals. She thinks Tefé is awesome. Garfield “(Various)” Logan The Orphan, and Evolution-Master. Unloved by the Red and the Parliament of Limbs (individual members notwithstanding), Gar nonetheless wields impressive power and serves with the Doom Patrol (formerly with the Titans). Ironically, he gets along the best with the Green and its masters; there is some speculation that he may not even be totally wedded to the Red, given he has instantiated microscopic life, a distinctly Blue power. What significance this has remains currently unexplored. Mari "Vixen" McCabe The trickster. An Animal Master who received the Tantu Totem originally created by the malicious trickster god Ogo, and won it from him in a contest of wits.

Barbara Ann "Cheetah" Minerva Slave of Mafdet and enemy of Wonder Woman. Barbara lived a charmed life, born with a silver spoon in her mouth, charismatic, beautiful, enterprising, astonishingly lucky, but in her dissatisfaction grew to covet more. Inspired by Wonder Woman's godly power, she tried to steal Mafdet's Claw from an ancient pyramid to experiment on it and see if it had any divine power, which infuriated the goddess Mafdet, who punished her -- upon hearing the punishments for thievery was mutilation, flogging, or death by staking, Barbara chose the fourth option, penal servitude, and became Mafdet's executioner, the Cheetah, by having a portion of the Red injected into her. Now Barbara spends her time alternating between punishing the guilty for her goddess and conspiring to free herself. Notes: She has tried previously to rewrite her own body to shed her cheetah form, but analysis of her cells indicated she was still physiologically human, all evidence to the contrary.

Michael Payson "B'wana Beast" Maxwell

Dominic "Freedom Beast" Mndawe

Robert "Man-Bat" Langstrom

Ogo, Mafdet, and all other animal and animal-aspect gods like have connections to the Red.

The Green -- Flora Parliament: Trees Representatives: Plant Masters, who have authority over the growth and behavior of vegetation. The usage of their power is often accompanied by the bodily manifestation of plant life.

Dr. Alec Holland, the Swamp Thing Appointed champion of The Green. Due to his appointment by the Green, he is also possessed of some authority over the earth.

Tefe Holland, the Sprout. Beyond her powers as the second instance of the Swamp Thing, she also has magic due to her mother and celestial powers due to inheriting Constantine's blood. Despite terrible family issues, she eventually warms up to Maxine as a surrogate big sister. Notes: Has been considered for the Doom Patrol, though her current relationship with them is unknown.

Solomon Grundy The death of a gangster in Slaughter Swamp created an "incomplete" Swamp Thing, with limited, wild power over the wood and earth. Poison Ivy & The Floronic Man, Shadows of the Champion. Drs. Pamela Isley and Jason Woodrue, who gained access to The Green and its powers through mad science, which transformed them both into plant-humanoids. Woodrue, descended from dryads, taught Isley and the Hollands as their Professor ("Professor Plant-Master"), and sought to escape "the meat". Woodrue seeks to make the world less-frail by experimenting on them (as he constantly augments himself for their qualities and powers). Isley, who runs "Lily n' Rose" flower shop, was at one point his partner in crime, covets beautiful things and despises "the meat" for its ugliness, a "toxic" ugliness that ruins the beauty around it; in a perverse sense she considers herself a "defender of the innocent", much like her historic enemy Batman.

Yggdrasil, the first Wood elemental.

The Blue - Microbes (bacteria, protozoa, fungi, etc.) Parliament: Germs Representatives: Microbe Masters, who can both control all such life remotely and transform into huge masses of microbial life at will.

Samuel "Zookeeper" Register Obtained his access to the powers of the Kingdom by stealing from Garfield Logan's charged DNA, but while he initially dealt in animals like Garfield Logan, Register has been increasingly fascinated with transforming into infectious and disease-carrying life forms, which he uses to various purposes, including taking control of animal life. He's also been looking with increasing fascination to the Grey.

The Grey -- Viruses Parliament: None. While the Grey is no one's friend, it is generally closest to the Blue. Lacking any Parliament to manage it, responsibility is generally shared by the other three. Representatives: Plague Masters, who seed and control all viruses remotely. Anton Arcane A German field doctor from the Great War who did mad science on his patients. Helped convince Adolf Hitler to go to war so he'd have more dead to work with. He uses black magic for purposes of necromancy.

Note on All Kingdoms: The Kingdoms all traffic with each other in various ways, but generally maintain a balance of some kind. However, there are periods of violent imbalance in their history, where one color will consume too much of the others (typically but not always the Grey, due to poor management) and the whole system collapses in on itself, creating the Black.

It’s officially Thanksgiving in the USA

Time to smell the gravy, marvel at your auntie’s pretty place-settings, and listen to the 5edgy9me once-a-year intellectuals crawling out of their local Starbucks like zombies from the damn grave, moaning

C̪̹͉͔͔̳̕h͈̼̯̥̭̗̍̒ͧ͟ṙ̠͍̹̈̄̈́͗ͥ̅͟i͎s̸̭̣̬̼͚͊̊ͨͬ̈́̅̚t͍͌̏̏͐͞o͈̐̉̓͐̅p̮̞͟h̦e̶͌ͪr̬̻̩͕̱̎̌ͩ͗ ̐̔͏͕̲͉̺͕Ċ͉̰͕̹́̊ͯ͆̓̾ͅo͇l̮̟͡ů̱͖̬͙ͣ̓͋̆̎m̧ͫb̵̠̲̗͂u͎͗s̟̤̭̼͕͈̃̉̒̔ ̖̹̗͔̮̱̯ͭ̅̋̆ͯ̽̍w̱̰͈̰̔̃͆́͋͌a͚̮̬ͮͨͤͬs̩͖͙̬̟̦ͫ̓̀ ̝̰̼͇̹̲͑̉̿̽͒͞a͔̬̮͠ͅ ͙͙͇̖͇͛͞m̠̲͖ͯͫ́̿ͤ͜u̪̪͖̮͂ͪ̎̽̚r̰̜ͪͩ̀ͫ̅d̬̹̲ͯè͖͇̦̖r̝̀è̯͙͈̻͖͓̪͌ͤ͑r̵̭͖̖̋ͥ̂ͅr̸̭͎͈͑r̞̫̀̔̅r͎̖̿̑̒͠r̬ͬ̄ͫ

@sixpenceee has already joined in the festivities of hilariously bad revisionist history with this little gem:

‘Cept Christopher Columbus never actually set foot on American soil – And Thanksgiving has nothing to do with him.

Thanksgiving in the USA was officially adopted as a holiday during the Civil War, though it had been off-again-on-again celebrated since 1621 – This is thought to be the famous ‘Pilgrims at Plymouth’ Thanksgiving.

Originally, it was celebrated because of a particularly successful harvest was managed less than a year after the Pilgrims first settled the Plymouth colony with the few surviving members of the journey from Europe. This sort of feast wouldn’t happen again until a bountiful rainfall broke a treacherous drought in 1623.

Only one or two other colonies celebrated similar days of thanks, and all of them were related to farming practices. Natives frequently attended these meals. Indeed, the first Thanksgiving saw about 90 Natives join in on the festivities.

That might not sound like a lot initially, but keep in mind that there were only 50 Pilgrims there, so the feast was almost 2:1 Native.

Now, with respect to ‘Genocide’, lemme learn you some knowledge..

Claims of Native genocide by the Pilgrims mostly originate from happenings during the 1637 Pequot War – Also known as the Mystic Massacre.

Essentially, in the area the Plymouth Pilgrims had settled, there were a few major warring Native bands. Specifically, the Pequot, the Mohegan, the Narragansett, the Wampanoag, and the Algonquians.

Basically, the Pequot sucked. They were the most powerful tribe, and were constantly trying to expand their territory – Even before the Pilgrims had come. They regularly raided the Wampanoag and the Algonquians, and bullied the Mohegan and Narragansett. When the fur trade started up, they tried to scare all the other tribes out of competition.

This led pretty much all of the tribes in the area, with emphasis of the Mohegan and Narragansett, to ally with the Pilgrims when shit started to go down.

The Pequot seemed to have the least resistance to the foreign bacteria the Pilgrims brought in, and it weakened them a lot, leaving the other tribes and Pilgrims the ability to reclaim or take over a lot of their land.

About 700 Pequot died during the war. A great deal of them were also taken/given to the other tribes as slaves.

A great deal of the bullshittery surrounding the settlement and colonization of North America comes from people who are unwilling to admit that Natives were brutal with each other… That they were just these awesome, no-socialist hippies that just sang songs and ate berries all day.

I don’t just think that’s dishonest, I think it’s pretty derogatory.

I remember vividly a time I was on a long busride in my home of British Columbia, which has a very high Native population. I was seated next to an Aboriginal man from a Kwakwaka'wakw band and he told me, very proudly, about his tribe’s impressive archive of ancient weave records depicting a great victory over neighboring tribes leaving 600,000 of them killed by the Kwakwaka'wakw warriors, who were greatly outnumbered. I would find out later that Kwakwaka'wakw were known headhunters and cannibals.

Once again, Thanksgiving was celebrated very sporadically, and certainly not as a consistent holiday, until the Civil War.

Thanksgiving never had anything to do with the Natives, other than their participation in a mutually-beneficial relationship with people who genuinely appreciated their help, and thus were willing to share what little food they had with them. It was about farming and harvesting, and later about peace and reconciliation.

We here in Canada celebrated Thanksgiving back in October, but I’ve always liked the story of American Thanksgiving better. To me, all of it’s incarnations have represented unity in one way or another – Different people working together to make everyone’s life better. Whether that be the Natives and the Pilgrims, or the Northern and Southern States.

People just being good to each other, if only for a little bit.