"Humans help other humans. Good."

50% the most annoying and queerphobic queers on this entire site going "the ONLY reason there's so much m/f content in MY queer fandom is because DISGUSTING CIS HETERO WOMEN are writing HETSLOP PORN and that's SO CRINGE. The creators of this m/f fic could not possibly be queer. And when I'm right, and they're cis straight women, it's not misogynistic at all for me to shit all over them for writing and reading their own smut. I'm queer so I'm incapable of being a bigot to women or other queers - or, heaven forfend, women of color"

25% of "I know we played the same game and it talked a lot about Legionaries being the enslaved survivors of tribes the Legion conquered and about how the Legion went about breaking their spirits and it SHOWED US child soldiers in tiny legion armor sets running drills at the Fort, but if you make a Legion OC to explore those themes in the game we both played where that's an option, I am forced to assume you're a fascist, because condemning fictional fascists is the only activism I do"

Preston Garvey

Concept art for Fallout 4

Wanted to snap a few pics of the Lustron homes near me!

They're really cool and it sucks that a lot got torn down in the past few decades, mostly because they can't really be updated/remodeled very well and people wanted to put different houses there, vs them actually deteriorating.

They used this house design in Fallout 4 ☺️

it's rubbed me the wrong way for some time now. i think there's a lot that's faulty with the ideology underlying it, but not everything about it is bad, which has made it difficult to figure out what, specifically, i take issue with

the good:

media literacy

an ability to perceive things that might be harmful

an ability to understand why they might be harmful, and to who

these are all good, useful skills, certainly

and the bad:

individualistic ideology

a deep misunderstanding of how impactful fandom is

ignoring the systemic source(s)

absolutist thinking

a demand for public performance of awareness, ongoing

analyzing shows, games, books, movies, etc. in public can be useful, certainly. it can highlight things that people might have missed, due to differing experiences and contexts. but it has to remain optional, it has to remain framed as optional, and its absence cannot be interpreted as bigotry itself

to frame it as mandatory is to participate in purity culture, end of

individualistic ideology -> prioritizing individual actions (one's own or that of others) as decisive factors in addressing systemic issues

a deep misunderstanding of how impactful fandom is -> the above + an over-emphasis on the range and potential impact tumblr posts have

ignoring the systemic source(s) -> prioritization of critiquing a symptom (aka, a single story) over critiquing the system through which that symptom is codified

absolutist thinking -> x thing that is/may be seen as y form of bigotry is bad; anyone engaging with it is, thus, y form of bigot; the only way for someone to be "spared" this accusation is to repeatedly reiterate their awareness of the issue, leading to...

Source.

Unfortunately, this is nothing new in the industry. A few days ago we received this communication from ZA/UM:

Source.

ZA/UM, yes, the same company that stole the company and intellectual property of its original developers and creators and now they're "sharing the difficult news" with the next blow to its workers.

People need to always keep in mind that a company doesn't equal the workers nor the art. They're the ones who need the workers, not the other way around, but it's easy to forget the power of collective action. Time and time again we see it in the videogame industry, how companies will shamelessly subtract value from the workers and then dispose of them. Despite the all time hype the Fallout franchise is experiencing Microsoft still has no issues in getting rid of its workers. It has happened before with other companies, like Ubisoft announcing layoffs across multiple studios, and announcing even more in Ubisoft Barcelona even after the record sales of Assassin's Creed Resynced.