GFerrell

wilwheaton: theremina: teratocybernetics: geth-metal: frostba...

Thu, 20 Jun 2013 00:17:57 -0400

theremina:

teratocybernetics:

geth-metal:

frostbackscat:

Oh my god if you’re going to judge someone’s cosplay you better learn your fucking shit because this is Duela Dent you goddamn assholes.

AHAHAHA

Perpetually laughing over the fact that “real gamer/comic book nerd” males keep insulting women for cosplaying things they’ve never even heard of

who’s the “fake geek” now, fuckers?

Fuck haters, this kicks so much ass even before I knew it was a character.

Admission: I can be a snarky, embittered asshole about formulaic steampunk trendiness.

HOWEVER.

Anyone who wants to diss this absolutely amazing Duela Dent cosplay is heartily welcome to eat the hotglueycoppery gears out of my shit.

Oh stupid people, you are so very very stupid. This cosplay is amazing.

School’d <3

caseymalone: Hey everyone, If you’re here, it’s probably...

Thu, 20 Jun 2013 00:14:55 -0400

caseymalone:

Hey everyone,

If you’re here, it’s probably because of this post I wrote about the Kickstarter “Above The Game.” “Above The Game” was successfully funded this morning, raising 800% of its target goal. Unfortunately, the product it’s funding, I think, was pretty repugnant.

Basically styled as a book on “how to meet women,” what the content really did was tell men how to exploit some the awful systemic pressures we put on women, to take an overly aggressive role, and never take no for an answer in order to get sex. Some of the excerpts were pretty disgusting, even in their proper context - context the original author removed when I had linked to it - and it forwards a rape culture, no matter what its proponents might tell you. Even the section which the author, Ken Hoinsky, stresses the importance of obtaining consent ends with the phrase, “wait a few minutes and try again.”

So, yeah.

I was upset because this is a really grotesque, upsetting thing being funded on a platform I am bonkers for. So I posted that thing calling for people on the internet to speak to Kickstarter and ask asked for it to be taken down, and holy crap when I woke up and my post was everywhere. Currently at around 7K notes, my second most popular post has 8 Notes, and is a man in a Food Court wearing a Batman t-shirt, seen below:

So all day people have been reaching out to me for comments and questions and telling me to link this thing or that thing and do I have screenshots and telling me I’m overreacting and giving me some degree of either praise or harassment.

One of the groups of that reached out to me was, in fact, Kickstarter.

I e-mailed them earlier in the day, expecting fully for that e-mail to hit some poor community manager who had no idea this was what they were waking up to, and for a simple thanks for your input we’ll look into it or to not hear anything back at all. Instead they got back to me. And after a long day of “one second, we’re still discussing this,” they sent me a statement, the relevant bits I’ve pasted here -

This morning, material that a project creator posted on Reddit earlier this year was brought to our and the public’s attention just hours before the project’s deadline. Some of this material is abhorrent and inconsistent with our values as people and as an organization. Based on our current guidelines, however, the material on Reddit did not warrant the irreversible action of canceling the project.

As stewards of Kickstarter we sometimes have to make difficult decisions. We followed the discussion around the web today very closely. It led to a lot of internal discussion and will lead to a further review of our policies.

So, yeah.

This is a huge bummer, it’s a bummer that they allowed this project to be funded, and it’s especially a bummer in light of this statement. Because the statement, “Based on our current guidelines, however, the material on Reddit did not warrant the irreversible action of canceling the project.” is intensely problematic when you look at the guideline I’ve posted above. Because given what the author said, and given that this material was advertised as part of the final product - the author’s Kickstarter was to provide a published and expanded version of the material on Reddit - and they find it “abhorrent and inconsistent with your values as people and as an organization,” how is this not offensive? And then, how does it not violate that guideline?

I suspect that, had the material on Reddit been part of the initial Kickstarter pitch and video, it never would have even been approved. While the material on Reddit ostensibly was what was being Kickstarted, it is admittedly unreasonable to expect for whoever vets these projects to read what amounts to a manuscript for every book that wants a Kickstarter. It’s not feasible for them to approve all content that could POTENTIALLY flow through this channel - to say nothing of books that are unwritten. So we can’t expect Kickstarter to be proactive on everything except from every piece of writing that might appear in something funded through their site.

But we all pointed it out to them, at which point, they chose to allow it to be funded.

Hoinsky - knowingly or unknowingly - found a loophole in Kickstarter’s guidelines. By hosting the truly offensive material outside of his pitch, people were unaware that it existed until it was too late, and it was too complicated an issue for a multi-million dollar business to do anything about. And I am completely disappointed, because while Kickstarter is a huge company concerned about maintaining policies and setting precedent, I am just a dude concerned about someone getting $16k for creating a manual on how to sexually assault women and concerned about, jeeze, I don’t know, the nobility of crowd funding?

So I understand that this was probably not an easy decision for Kickstarter to come to in a short periord of time (I discovered the content 10 hours before the Kickstarter ended, 6 hours of which were sleeping time for reasonable people). And to me, the result we ended up with was not the moral one.

Here are kind of my final thoughts on this -

1. Don’t let anyone fool you, This Book Is A Rape Manual

I heard a lot of people telling me that I was taking some of those quotes out of context or that “JEEZE when he said take your dick out she was already making out with you!” Well, fuck you. Because acquaintence rape is a real thing. Because a girl kissing you or letting you do SOMETHING does not mean you get to do ANYTHING. And by creating a book whose leitmotif (YEAH FUCK YOU PRETENSION I WENT TO FILM SCHOOL FOR A FEW MONTHS) is “be aggressive, and do what you want because women like that,” you are telling people to rape. Not everyone who’s going to read the book is going to be a rapist, but I promise you - someone who read this book will rape someone. And they might not even know they did it, because you told them the woman wanted it that way, you human nightmare. The whole thing is a boiling cauldron of rape culture, and you are not going to convince me otherwise any more than you could convince me the sun has been replaced by a bran muffin.

2. People are way more amazing than awful.

I got tons and tons of e-mails and tweets and Tumblr messages of support and all the reblogs and all of this shit basically saying that women should not be treated this way and people who say otherwise are assholes. And saying good on me for speaking out. And that felt great, to know that the internet - which I find is most often represented by shit like Penny-Arcade and Reddit - is not as bad as I thought. Also, please consider that the VAST MAJORITY of “Thank you for saying this” messages I got were from women the next time you think that maybe this shit isn’t real.

3. This is probably in HUGE PART because I am a man.

All of my photos are pictures of me, and I have a awful (just awful) beard and am clearly not a woman. I think this curbed the abuse I got from the internet EXPONENTIALLY. A few of the awesome women in my life IMMEDIATELY messaged me about blowback this morning, because they had ALREADY RECEIVED HARASSMENT JUST FROM RETWEETING ME, where at that point in the day I had received NONE. They asked me first thing if I was being harassed because that is what the world does to them if they talk about this stuff, and this awful book furthers that attitude. The worst harassment I got - and one nice message, to be fair - was clearly because I have a gender neutral name and they thought I was a woman.

4. I still love Kickstarter, and will keep using it.

They made a really bad call. Straight up, this was a bad call to allow this to be funded. But it’s undeniable that they had not a lot of time to make that call in, and a weird confluences of loopholes in their policies. Big companies move very slowly, and they had to act fast, so you know. They made a bad call. That does not mean it’s a bad platform, or they’re bad people - in fact, they seem pretty upset about the whole thing, and I hope that they re-examine some of the policies that led to that call now that they have more than a few hours to breathe.

I still think crowdfunding in general is the internet’s way of fighting back against the monopolies on entertainment, and Kickstarter specifically is a pretty special tool. My friends have followed dreams because of this, they’ve made games and prank apps and children’s books and burnt giant guitars. It’s awesome. And I find it inevitable that I’ll launch one of my own one day. I hope that more projects like this being funded doesn’t cause that inevitability to fall away.

This project is funded, but make your voice heard by signing this petition someone started over at Do Something - http://www.dosomething.org/petition/kickstarter - Hopefully they’ll know that if projects like this that forward a culture of violence against women or any oppressed group continue to be funded, we’ll stop just stop using it. And as I’ve made clear, I would like to continue using it!

Finally…

5. Fuck Not Saying Something

I am super burnt out on everything in my life being about rape. I’m a video game designer - so I have to deal with people like Penny-Arcade, or the people that harass the outstanding Anita Sarkeesian. I’m a stand-up comic - so I have to deal with the endless hordes of angry white dudes telling me it okay for them to talk about how funny it is for them to be raping a girl on stage, and how if I say otherwise then I am censoring them. And I love the internet - and here we are. I am sick. and tired. of rape.

But I probably have no capacity to even understand how sick and tired women are of it.

I have an amazing friend who I go to whenever I’m totally lost of this stuff and once I said, “I just am so frustrated with talking about this shit, I am going to just NOT THINK ABOUT IT FOR A WHILE.” and he replied, “Okay, but just so you know, being able to not think about it for a while is the definition of privilege.” Oops.

I don’t want to deal with this shit. I have a ton of amazing women in my life - the funniest comedians I know are women, the strongest writers I know are women - and I don’t want them to have to deal with this shit. But I guess the only want for people to not have to deal with it anymore is by dealing with it as loudly as I can and hoping you guys signal boost some more. So that hopefully people like fucking Ken Hoinsky and his nightmare kingdom of sub-Reddits will shut the fuck up.

And then, finally, when no one has to deal with these morons being the dominant voice in the culture, we can all stop talking about rape.

thefingerfuckingfemalefury: ^ Some more reasons why Bones is...

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 21:29:41 -0400

thefingerfuckingfemalefury:

^ Some more reasons why Bones is actually awesome :D

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Wed, 19 Jun 2013 19:03:50 -0400

okaysizedbangtheory: aquaman that is bullshit and you know it

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 19:03:36 -0400

okaysizedbangtheory:

aquaman that is bullshit and you know it

stepchildofthesun: Amazing WWII Wonder Woman cosplay by Jessica...

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 19:03:16 -0400

stepchildofthesun:

Amazing WWII Wonder Woman cosplay by Jessica LG

Exclamation: yourname@yahoo.com Can Be Yours!

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 17:18:47 -0400

Exclamation: yourname@yahoo.com Can Be Yours!:

yahoo:

By Jay Rossiter, SVP, Platforms

Over the last few months, we’ve made exciting changes to some of your favorite Yahoo! products, like Flickr, Mail, Weather, the Homepage and Search. Today, I’m excited to share with you our next big push: we want to give our loyal users and new folks the…

“Hahahah good one… oh, you were serious?”

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Wed, 19 Jun 2013 14:22:28 -0400

androidsdungeon: heaven is that you

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 13:03:04 -0400

androidsdungeon:

heaven is that you

cloudfactorycomics: Dame Vera Bellefleur Dame Bellefleur is the...

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 12:03:48 -0400

cloudfactorycomics:

Dame Vera Bellefleur

Dame Bellefleur is the older sister of Molly’s mother, Vivian Millbrooke. Like all Bellfleurs, the Dame has a natural talent for magic, and has harnessed that talent for her career. While her younger sister became an arcane apothecary, Vera took the unconventional (and lucrative) approach of employing alchemy to enhance perfumes and other high end toiletries.

Although she was born and raised in the cultured metropolis of Delta City, she currently lives in the small valley village where Molly & Théo grew up, and there are few in the town who understand why.

Rufus Laforge

In spite of his valley home’s bleak and gloomy atmosphere, Rufus is about as cheerful and good natured as he is barrel chested and broad shouldered. Since most skilled tradesmen leave the valley for greener pastures as soon as they’re of age, this hardy blacksmith is never short on work and takes pride in supplying the southern settlements with most of their tools and weapons.

As the only living parent, he’s taught Théo everything he can, but has no idea where his son’s natural affinity for mechanical tinkering came from.

fuckyeablackart: Theia by *CaptainHawkins

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 10:17:49 -0400

fuckyeablackart:

Theia by *CaptainHawkins

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Wed, 19 Jun 2013 10:14:59 -0400

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Wed, 19 Jun 2013 10:14:37 -0400

don't be a dick

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 10:12:40 -0400

wilwheaton:

If a big part of your enjoyment of a thing on TV or movies is nitpicking it to death, that’s cool.

… but shitting all over the people who enjoyed the same thing without nitpicking it to death is really not cool.

nyawn im cat: This Is Not Fucking Harmless

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 10:10:39 -0400

nyawn im cat: This Is Not Fucking Harmless:

caseymalone:

I love Kickstarter. I think that’s clear to people who know me by now? I love it. There’s a dude named Brad Muir and he works at Double Fine and I love the games they make, so much. But before Kickstarter, every time a Double Fine game came out I was a little worried it…

"It sucks when someone you have feelings for doesn’t share those feelings; it happens to women all..."

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 10:05:20 -0400

“

It sucks when someone you have feelings for doesn’t share those feelings; it happens to women all the time, too. We hear “I just want to be friends” and “you’re like one of the guys” and “you’re like a sister to me” just as often. But you’ll never hear a woman complain that guys just don’t appreciate a Nice Girl because we’re taught it’s our own fucking fault when we’re rejected—we aren’t pretty enough or thin enough or sexy enough, we weren’t sexual enough or were too sexual, we put out too much or too little or too soon or not soon enough, we didn’t wear our hair the right way or our skirt the right length, we’re “too tomboyish” or “too butch” or “too feminine”, or we’re “not their type”, or we’re otherwise not good enough in various ways to entice the man to grace us with his affection.

But when we’re not interested in someone, we’re vilified. We’re the bitch that lead them on, the bitch who let them buy us dinner but didn’t want to date them, the bitch who doesn’t appreciate a nice guy, the bitch they were nice to and then got nothing in return from.

And, frankly, fuck those people. Showing interest in me, being friendly with me, getting close to me, or eating a meal with me (even if they paid for it) doesn’t obligate me to open my heart or my legs. And anyone who doesn’t appreciate my friendship sure as hell doesn’t deserve my love or my pussy.

”

- -delacroix

(via plainviews)

"If we can’t write diversity into sci-fi, then what’s the point? You don’t create new worlds to give..."

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 18:03:19 -0400

““If we can’t write diversity into sci-fi, then what’s the point? You don’t create new worlds to give them all the same limits of the old ones.””

- Jane Espenson (from interview with Advocate.com)

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Tue, 18 Jun 2013 18:02:48 -0400

giddy-stratospheres: war kills people from the inside out...

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 15:48:32 -0400

giddy-stratospheres:

war kills people from the inside out sometimes

“In war, there are no unwounded soldiers.”

i think i’ve posted this before but it’s so powerful

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Tue, 18 Jun 2013 15:47:45 -0400