Much Ado About...

welcome to the game, hot boi number two!

(not too mad that Verin's in-game description is vague enough that the two french braids that i've been headcanoning for ages still kinda fit into it 🤭)

Ok I want to say something controversial

But you are responsible for your own safe spaces. You can block tags, block words, block people.

“But i thought fandom was supposed to be a safe space” —yeah you have to curate it.

Unfortunately one persons’s safe space may be another persons’ trigger. That’s ok. Simply block them, block the tag, block the word etc. They can do the same for you.

Maybe I’m just out of touch, but I’ve been around since the days of “don’t like, don’t read” and that’s a good philosophy. If it squicks you, scroll past. If it causes you anxiety or upset, block! Plenty of people are responsive if you ask them to tag an upsetting trigger. And if they’re dicks about it, block em.

Since different people have different needs, one person’s safe space will be another’s Trauma Central.

I don’t know who said it first, but “I need to be able to express my anger without shame” and “I need to be away from yelling and loud noises” are both valid needs people can have for a safe space that really aren’t compatible with each other.

So are “I need to process my trauma” and “I need to not meet any trauma.”

Or “I want a safe space to tell/read the stories that speak to me” and “those stories are distressing to me.”

Insisting that your needs are the only needs anyone should have is not a safe space, it’s its own act of violence.

You don’t get to make others homeless to make the universe your personal safe space.

Read this bit again:

At this point like 90% of my desire to be in a relationship is to have someone to play board games with.

a while back i saw a picture @mllekurtz took in the gardens of Villa Taranto and really wanted to do a little study of it. then inserting everyone's favorite wizards into the potential picture was suggested, so naturally i no longer had any other choice but to go through with it. it truly looked like a dreamy garden somewhere in Exandria and the wizards fit in too well 🤌

tip jar!

people keep comparing the WatcherTV move to Dropout (for obvious reasons) but I cannot emphasize enough how vastly different the circumstances between the companies is. like astronomically different

• Watcher does not have the years of experience that Dropout/CollegeHumor did. CH as a company formed in 1999. They've been doing sketch comedy since the early 2000s. they were a company, like an actual company with offices and departments and everything. Watcher hasn't even existed for 5 years

• Because CH has been established for that long, not only do they have an established connection to the industry, but they have an established fan base already. People that knew about and were fans of CH for over a decade, before Dropout was even a thought in someone's head.

• When Dropout was in its infancy, CH was still under their parent company IAC, they weren't roughing it completely on their own the way that Watcher is. They were later dropped by IAC, but having that connection and funding in the vulnerable start was important

• CH was still posting sketches and skits on YouTube for free while filling out Dropout's catalog. They didn't hard shift into exclusively subscription based, they continued doing both for the first couple years in order to help get Dropout established. Even now, they still occasionally post full episodes for free on YouTube, including whole seasons of Dimension 20

• They have a large rotating cast that they move between multiple shows. They have a variety of content and a variety of entertainers to be guests on shows. Watcher has 3 guys which the occasional guest

• A big part of this transition is because Watcher's episodes have a high production cost. That's what they claim. That it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to film one episode of Ghost Files. but why?? why does it cost that much?? I get cost of travel for talent and crew but hundreds of thousands of dollars per episode?

• When IAC dropped CH and they went bankrupt in 2020, they only had 7 employees. When Sam Reich bought the company, they only had 7 employees. not twenty five. I'm not advocating for laying off people, but maybe they shouldn't be payrolling more people than they can afford

• also. Sam Reich is very vocal about how Dropout surviving and succeeding was nothing short of a miracle. They didn't get that success because the business model works, they got that success from years of networking, hard work, and pure luck

shadowgast kiss meme: hand kiss ✨

i know y'all said to make it spicy, but something happened along the way, and i didn't. hope you will still enjoy some desperate hand kisses!

tip jar!

“I’m almost 50, and here is the best thing I have learned so far: every strange thing you’ve ever been into, every failed hobby or forgotten instrument, everything you have ever learned will come back to you, will serve you when you need it. No love, however brief, is wasted.” @louisethebaker on Twitter

No love, however brief, is wasted.

I also like it when they're like hey what's up or something personal/natural instead of the welcome to wherever how can I serve you bit.

I also like it when they are sitting down or listening to music they clearly enjoy

There is something so nourishing about walking into a place of business and immediately thinking "huh, I wouldn't have guessed this place would be playing this kind of music" only to see an employee absolutely head-banging along because today is their day to pick the CD and they are living

Despite what capitalists might think, I do not want to roleplay being royalty in the presence of slaves when I seek professional assistance in obtaining my basic human needs.

Shoutout to the Elder Millennial at the table next to me at the gaming bar, whose barbarian just charged into battle shouting "LEEEEROYYYY JENKINS!!!!"

and then had to stop and sheepishly explain a World of Warcraft meme to his genZ GM.

remarkably accurate.

dropout tv is like . what if there was an animal shelter but it was for 30 yr olds with BAs in Theater

the "canon isn't real we make our own rules" to "i am begging you people to revisit the source material" pipeline

For me it’s the same idea as the “know the rules before you start breaking them” thing for art and writing-it lets you break them deliberately

sam’s reveal at the end makes this a thousand times funnier

Have you read @ariadne-mouse's shadowgast volcanology AU? It's lovely and poignant, so consider this a rec from me! I reread it just the other day, and it inspired me to touch up this old sketch I had.

Summary:

One of the worst feelings in the world: when you are just desperate, like claw-your-own-skin-off desperate, to create, but the only thing that even vaguely appeals to you to work on is a nebulous half-feeling that might be dreamily related to some half-formed notion of a concept. I must! Make! No thing! Only make!

Everything is boring. All activity is meaningless. I understand why Sherlock Holmes did cocaine.

#i have fics id really lioe to be working on#/i have a fibercraft project i Need to be working on/#ive had a drawing idea sitting in the back of my head for over a month#and yet#there's bees in my brain (via @lollybliz)

YES. That's it. The number of people tagging or replying to this like 'yeah it sucks when you're blocked on your projects' or 'yeah it sucks when you don't have any new ideas' or even 'yeah it sucks when you're too sick/sad/busy to work on the things' no. No. That's close, but no cigar. I have ideas. I have plans. I have projects in progress. I know exactly what the next step on each of them would be. No external or concrete factor is actually stopping me from working on any of them. Except. None of them are engaging or help reduce this feeling.

There's just bees in my brain.

Incredible how Americans are so brainwashed by capitalist realism that a large contingent out our leftists genuinely believe government regulation isn’t physically possible.

There was a time, not that long ago, when regular savings accounts paid you a whole-number-percentage of interest.

There was a time when the federal government forced auto makers to stop putting taillights in bumpers because they got damaged too easily.

There was a time when Chicago Midway Airport wasn’t 85% one god damn airline.

We could have this kind of world again we just have to kill the Ghost of Ronald Reagan.