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#he's also the dm creator and producer of critical role
burr-ell · 11 months
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"the tendency of this fandom to only engage with what THEY want these characters to be#as opposed to what their creators are trying to do and the stories they want to tell" slap this on a bumper sticker, you just summed all cr discourse (about PCs at least) in 2 sentences
It truly is maddening (and it's not by any means exclusive to the CR fandom). The reason why the discourse always goes the way it does is that at the end of the day, the loud fanwanky people only see what they would do, if they were self-inserted into the story, as a valid choice; and they are, more broadly, fundamentally disinterested in what others think or feel. There are several examples of this, and the variety of spaces within the fandom that produce these ideas is an indicator that this isn't endemic to one specific group of people.
-Keyleth is an important character whose feelings and choices are validated by the other PCs and cast even if they still disagree with them, in spite of how she and her preachiness get in the way of the Murderhobo Jubilee? It's not because the cast are all friends and they genuinely believe Keyleth is valid and are interested in how these discussions and choices can guide the story. It's because Marisha is the DM's girlfriend, and also here's my totally unbiased theory that my pet favorite players Sam and Travis secretly hate Marisha and Keyleth.
-Vax's presence is still felt and nodded to in the post-canon VM oneshots? It's not because he was an important character who mattered. It's because Liam wants to make everyone talk about his tragedy because he has Main Character Syndrome. Scanlan Wishes for Vax to appear at the wedding? It's not because he cares about Vex or because Sam and Liam wanted a sweet tribute to Vex and Vax's relationship and by extension Liam and Laura's friendship. It's because Liam thinks Vex's life should always revolve around Vax, and Sam wants to enable him and jerk himself off as the one who facilitated it.
-Beauyasha and Fjorester become canon? It's not because the players wanted it and it happened naturally. It's because there was a secret behind-the-scenes push to "force" those ships to become canon instead, and like, Dani Carr is some sort of shipping puppetmaster who made the players do it, and "they" (whomever "they" is) decided to sink Beaujester or Widojest because it was "obviously" going to become canon before the pandemic hiatus gave them time to "make the corporate-approved ships happen".
-Beau and Caleb try to reform the Empire and dismantle the Cerberus Assembly from within? It's not because it makes sense for their stories or that people who would take this position regarding a corrupt government might have a valid perspective that differs from your own. It's because the people at Critical Role Productions LLC are all spineless neoliberal cowards who won't commit to real activism. The best activism, after all, is violent, and violent revolutions have always resulted in stable aftermaths, and the real world has never demonstrated that this mindset is foolish.
-Relatedly: Caleb doesn't kill Trent personally? It's not because the most poetic justice would be to deny Trent the thing he wants most from Caleb. It's because "Limo Brain" is too obsessed with tragedy to have the stones to do "what needs to be done".
-Asmodeus, DnD Satan, turns out to also be CR Satan? It's not because it fits with the cosmology and the lore; it's because Matt Mercer is too attached to the "establishment", and the Prime Deities should have actually turned out to be the bad guys because of my personal baggage about Western religion and Christianity they're a little mean to my blorbo sometimes.
There's a pattern here: fans had expectations that they'd built up for themselves after projecting and building up fanon and deciding what players meant before they explained themselves fully, and when the players strayed from that, they were derided for all manner of reasons. I think we're seeing that same pattern play out in C3 as the story progresses in a way that fans dislike, and in fact we have seen fanwank spread whenever someone does anything that interferes with personally catering to a) the favored ship and/or b) the favored philosophy. (Orym, Ashton, FCG, Percy, Pelor...all valid when they affirm the Fandom Opinions and all disdained when they don't.)
Don't get me wrong, I think there's a place for comfort stories that deliver a personal catharsis. And I'm not going to dismissively say "well if you want it so bad make your own" because, as an artist, I am very familiar with the fact that creating is hard and draining and sometimes you just need to consume instead. But when you become so wrapped up in yourself and your feelings to the point where your perspective is the only valid one, someone else's feels like a betrayal when it isn't. It's always "They aren't doing what we wanted and here's why they're terrible people because of it" and never "Hmm, why is this what the cast wants? Let's examine that."
This isn't a new phenomenon, but I think it ultimately stems from not assuming that other people can differ from you in major ways in good faith. There are a lot of reasons for that (some more understandable than others), but I think you rob yourself of the potential to enjoy something new when all you do is demand what you already want. No matter what you're doing or where you are in life, you tend to become a better and wiser person when you open your mind to what other people have to say, no matter how mundane the subject matter. Sometimes the stories people have to tell are challenging—and the only healthy way to deal with that is to engage with them on their own terms.
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roll20 · 3 years
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Coming Soon to a Livestream Near You!
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Next month be prepared for the adventure of a lifetime. GM Shareef Jackson is bringing a whole new cast together to explore the world of Kids on Bikes. Come meet them and get hyped alongside them for a collaborative story-telling roleplaying game full of ordinary people grappling with strange, terrifying, and very, very powerful forces. Join them all on February 15 at 8am PT (4pm UTC) as they begin their journey together!
Meet the cast:
Shareef Jackson (Game Master) is a STEM diversity advocate who enjoys video games and TTRPGs! Follow him at shareefjackson.com, http://twitter.com/shareefjackson, or http://twitch.tv/reefjackson for links to his work.
My goal is to use the Kids on Bikes system to build a world that everyone can participate in.  I also want to promote a diverse cast of players, as well as in game characters, to show that tabletop RPGs can be enjoyed by everyone. - Shareef
Markeia McCarty is a geek & gaming host, TTRPG player/DM, improviser (UCB, iO, Second City) and is also a Marketing Manager for Hunters Entertainment. She's played on a variety of TTRPG shows including Critical Role, Geek N Sundry, and HyperRPG. She narrates and story edits the animated horror series, Something Scary, on YouTube (youtube.com/snarled). Tuesdays 6pm PT, she RPGs on Hunters Entertainment Twitch (http://twitch.tv/huntersentertainment ). Twitter/IG: @markeiamccarty, Twitch: DarthMarkeia
One of the things I'm excited about with this upcoming Kids on Bikes campaign is the wonderful diversity representation. Differing ethnicities, gender identities and backgrounds both on & behind the scenes. Not only that, but we'll have the feel good pleasure of having a Kids On Bikes campaign where yes, anything thrilling can happen (like Space Robots, possessed toasters, and aliens that can do the Tango) but also real social commentary can be done with knowledgeable and experienced people co-creating together. The possibilities are pretty beautiful and I'm excited to be a part of it. - Markeia
Xu Mason is a bilingual first generation Asian American actress/writer/comedian. She came up through the Chicago improv scene, where she studied at The Annoyance, iO, and The Second City. She has been on multiple iO Harold Teams, and was a 2019 Second City in conjunction with NBC Universal Bob Curry Fellow. Her writing has been found in Points in Case, Belladonnas, Flexx Mag, and Funny-ish. She currently plays games online with her improv team StirFriday Night, and more. Find her on twitter and instagram at @hellotherexu. 
I love collaborative world building. I think it's so much fun to create and explore a world together, using one tid bit here to fuel another. Setting the mood, and creating something zany, fun, and lovely - or all three. It's almost like improv, but only for my head and shoulders. - Xu
Noir Enigma is a voice actor, streamer, musician and improvisor. He has studied at Chicago's iO, Westside Theater, and Second City. He is the Nerdy host of Critical Misses' Morning Ritual, creator and Game Master for Kobold Presses Into the Southlands, Magpies Second City Saviors and The Lonely Throne a 5th Edition game in his created setting of Gloria on Thursdays on his twitch channel. He is the Social Media Manager for LFM Network and can be found at twitter/twitch/youtube as @TheNoirEnigma.
What I’m most excited about is trying out this new system. Kids on Bikes is something that I’ve heard so much about but never got to get my hands on until now. Plus I get that added benefit of playing this new system with such amazing players, I have not played a single game with any of the cast so this is so terribly exciting that I can’t wait. I know we’re going to bring something special together and I can’t wait for you all to see it! - Noir
Kailey Bray is a Juilliard-trained actor from Ottawa, Canada. She is the creator and Game Master of Damsels, Dice, and Everything Nice, the Princess RPG parody. In addition to Damsels, she’s the Community Manager for AMC's Walking Dead Twitch Channel, and a producer for Hyper RPG and Pixel Circus. (Twitter: @hapabarbarian)
I’ve never gotten to play Kids on Bikes and I’ve always wanted to try! I love the collaborative world building aspect of the system and I can’t wait to see what we all create together! - Kailey
Premieres February 15 | 8am PT (4pm UTC) | twitch.tv/roll20app
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Playing in Full Color: How the TTRPG Community Addresses Its Diversity
Last week i wrote an article/piece about my feelings on some nonsense that was happening surrounding critical role and its kickstarter. read it if you want, consider dropping some money in my kofi if you enjoy it
Nico @thedaedpoets
12.3.19
Over the past week, I, like many other people that exist in the Twittersphere and consider themselves TTRPG (Tabletop Roleplaying Game) fans have been buzzing about one particular topic: Critical Role.
Critical Role is a webshow/podcast featuring a large group of friends who also happen to be well known (voice) actors. It’s been an ongoing game since 2015, with their second campaign on the Geek and Sundry Network beginning in 2018, and is sponsored by/partnered with both Wizards of the Coast, the proprietary owners of DnD, and the Geek and Sundry Network. Recently, the crew announced a Kickstart for an animated 22 minute short, titled The Legend of Vox Machina. The isn’t the first piece of media they’ve produced based off their show before either. Vox Machina: Origins was a 6 part comic book series that ran 2017-2018. Likewise, the characters of Vox Machina (more or less) became playable in Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire via a DLC pack. Two volumes of The Chronicles of Exandria have also been published at this point.
So what exactly has people buzzing this time around?
The Kickstarter had a $750,000 goal when it launched on March 4, 2019. Within an hour, it hit $1 million, and today (March 12, 2019) it’s currently sitting at $7,064,058 and still climbing. This has understandably caused many people, both fans and not, to put a more critical lens on while examining the crew of the show and where all of this money is going.
While that is an undeniably valuable conversation to be having, another topic has been brought up in the wake of the past week’s controversy: Diversity, especially racial diversity, in TTRPGs.
Throughout the 11th, I saw discussion of Critical Role’s lack of racial representation being had, even going so far as to compare it to that of other TTRPG podcasts. What I noticed about this discussion was one glaring fact: Everyone I could see participating in it...was white.
Much of this discussion was fueled by a Polygon article published on the same day. In it, the Kickstarter and the lack of diversity was mentioned. What caught my eye was that out of the five podcasts mentioned, only one of them features more than one person of color on their team. More than that, the article, the website it was published on, and even the sources of the tweets pulled to be used were comparable to an Arctic tundra in the winter.  This isn’t meant to rag on the work that was done or the people doing it. It’s just an observation that I made as a Black person. And I had to wonder.
Why are conversations around and about our inclusion in TTRPGs...not including us?
Something especially interesting I’ve noted about these discussions over the past week have been the beginnings of a debate about two of arguably the most well-known podcasts within the sphere: Critical Role and The Adventure Zone. I’ve seen people argue about how, despite the fact that TAZ is performed by the McElroy family (four white men), it is somehow more diverse than the equally white cast of Critical Role. I was extremely confused by this claim, so I went through a lot (and I mean a lot) of tweets reading this same argument over and over again.  In the past, Critical Role has had all sorts of issues with representing minorities (not just PoC), and in a similar vein, so did TAZ. Commendably, both podcasts accepted these criticisms with relative grace and strove to make both the PCs (Player Characters) and NPCs (Non-Player Characters) feature a wide range of identities in future episodes and campaigns.
This is all well and good (in fact I encourage it), but what I always come back to is the the lack of actual acknowledgement of PoC in these spaces.
Podcasts like Friends at the Table, One Shot Podcast, and Rivals of Waterdeep (to name a few), both affiliated (in the case of RoW) and unaffiliated with WotC, are relatively well-known and well-loved podcasts featuring a variety of players of all sorts of identities and backgrounds. These are the types of podcasts people have been clamoring for for years, yet they receive only a fraction of the attention (or funding) on a good day, despite vast quantity of content they all produce both for free and through their Patreons. What was surprising to me was that none of these creators have been contacted yet about their opinions about racial diversity in games yet.
Another mildly surprising part of this is how there was also no mention in the Polygon article of the Twitter hashtag #FundDiverseGames, founded by Twitter users Riley @jaceaddax and @rpgdesignfrog. The hashtag sprung up in response to the massive financial response to the CR Kickstarter. It’s a veritable treasure trove of TTRPGs of various genres and subjects written for and by marginalized creators, and encourages folks who are able to toss some money into the Kickstarter to also fund smaller game designers.
This isn’t to paint a bleak picture of the situation. While there has been some pushback from fans wrongfully defending Critical Role from this perceived attack, many folks have also taken this opportunity to accept the criticism and push the community to grow. Known voices within the community, like DC @DungeonCommandr have said “CR fans need to actually take the lead from Matt and accept that criticism is okay…” Matthew Mercer himself (the DM of Critical Role) has acknowledged the work that needs to be done by both creators and fans alike. Both he and other members of the Geek and Sundry team have taken the time to point focus towards the content in #FundDiverseGames. This is admirable, and begins to chip away at the massive question of “How do we direct the spotlight?” Both #FundDiverseGames and non-profits like I Need Diverse Games have been hard at work pushing for this, and I can’t wait to see more people and organizations with this energy pop up in the future.
None of this is being said to villainize “Big Name TTRPG Podcasts” or to shame their fans. This problem of the lack of racial diversity permeates everything from workplaces to video games to film and so on. What I’m advocating for is not only the expansion of our attention to include racial minorities in these discussion, but to center our voices while we have them. We have valuable, nuanced opinions, and I’d love for 2019 to be the year the conversation is had with us, not just over our heads.
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shirlleycoyle · 5 years
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India’s Best TV Shows Have Emerged From Uncensored Streaming Platforms
A few months ago there was a whisper through the brown girl network. I got texts, DMs, and Snapchats, and they all asked the same thing: have you seen Made in Heaven? Have you seen Four More Shots? In the South Asian diaspora, news travels quickly, and these shows—both on Amazon Prime—were the latest.
When I watched them—a few hours at a time, often late into the night—I immediately understood the significance. Handfuls of other Indian dramas on streaming platforms released in the past two years, are not Bollywood, nor are they the Hindi serials on my aunties’ television sets. Their ability to show the genitalia of a transgender woman, surveillance of a gay man by his oppressed neighbor, or a pseudo-woke groom demanding dowry of his bride at the altar is a reality that had, for many years, remained on the cutting room floor because of the Central Board of Film Certification, an Indian government authority which censors media with a conservative lens.
Now, since streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon (as well as homegrown platforms like Hotstar) remain outside of the central board’s regulatory grasp, they are capitalizing on their ability to remain out of the censor board’s reach in a way that allows creators to remain true to their story. In order to circumvent the heavy hand of censorship, some platforms, such as Netflix and Hotstar, have pledged to self censor based on their own interpretation of the law, while others, such as Amazon, are following their own rules.
“We are as compliant with the laws of the land as we are required to be,” said Vijay Subramaniam, director and head of content for Amazon Prime Video in India. “At the same time, we have an internal code. It is important to be authentic, allowing our creators to think unconstrained.”
Made in Heaven, based off the trope of the complex Indian wedding in Delhi’s high society, deftly navigates patriarchy, homophobia, and the caste system with a tenor somewhere between Gossip Girl and HBO’s Divorce. Four More Shots, meanwhile, was described to me as a brown Sex and the City. But with gut-wrenching scenes of a mother separated from her kid, or a bisexual Punjabi woman having a behind-doors relationship with a movie star. is far closer to the reality of a middle class Indian woman eeking out an existance in Mumbai.
“These girls had to be real, had to bleed, had to have flaws and yet had to rise above it all to be their own little un-superheroes,” said Rangita Pritish Nandy, the showrunner and creator of Four More Shots, who also grew up in Mumbai. “Amazon let us tell their story honestly, without being prudish and puritanical.”
The comparison is even more stark if you watch the Bollywood movies that have attempted to tackle similar topics. Earlier this year, established Bollywood producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra, debuted Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga (translation: I looked at a girl and felt something), the story of a girl, also in Punjab, who tries to come out to her family. Throughout the course of the two hour film, however, the main character, Sweety, and her girlfriend, Kuhu, never kiss, nor does anyone say anything outright about sexual identity except for a quirky playwright who tries to use his script as a tool to teach her family about equality, likely to avoid censorship.
It’s not necessarily Bollywood’s fault that its storylines remain far removed from the conversations happening in actual Indian society. The censorship board most recently threatened the release of the epic story Padmavat because some Hindu sensibilities were offended by the Muslim character trying to steal away a Rajput queen. The board also repeatedly refused to allow the release of Gulabi Aaina, an award-winning film about transsexuals in India, that is now (after 14 years) on Netflix in India and otherwise. Recently, a censorship board member also attacked Karan Johar, a gay entertainment personality and movie maker, with a weird, now removed tweet about him having sex with his mother.
Some of this censorship has been reined in after India’s Supreme Court struck down Section 377, a British-era law that criminalized homosexuality, last September. But the censorship board, and other conservative voices, can still rely on draconian laws such as Section 292, which bans imagery that is deemed overtly sexual or lascivious, if they want to crack down.
Even with the advent of streaming platforms attempting to win over the Indian market, creators are often careful. “We self censor. It’s not like we don’t show kissing—we swear in the show, but we won’t write a story that’s explicitly sexual or raunchy.” said Ashwin Suresh, founder of Dice Media, Pocket Aces, and the creator of the Netflix show, Little Things, about a young unmarried couple navigating work and social life in Mumbai.
While shows like Netflix’s Sacred Games, about the Mumbai underworld, and Made in Heaven, might not shy away from nudity and explicit violence or sexuality, the creators of Little Things took the route of sitcoms like Friends, employing a mix of comedy and quirk factor. And Suresh, whose shows first became popular on YouTube, said that while he supports the lack of censorship on platforms like Netflix and Amazon, he also tries not to stir up controversy in his shows. “Indian culture is wired not to change. I expect to see some censorship,” he said.
This might seem overly cautious, but Indian censorship can influence global companies as well, even if there’s no clear and consistent way of cracking down on them. Last year Amazon pulled a number of products from its marketplace in India when they were deemed offensive. And it’s not absurd to think that companies like Netflix trying hard to court and profit from the massive, young population in India will end up following any rules that allow it to keep its foothold in the country.
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Actors Mithila Phadke and Dhruv Sehgal behind the scenes of Little Things. Image: courtesy Pocket Aces
Ironically, though, it’s the India-based online streaming platforms run by media groups like Star and Zee that are taking the most risks, and critics say it’s not always for the sake of quality. “There’s a lot of exploitation, because there’s no censorship,” said Maanvi Gagroo, an actress who plays the leading role of Siddhi Patel on Four More Shots, in addition to starring on the YouTube series, Tripling. “They put in an intimate scene because they can, even if its not part of the narrative.” Other creators and actors also described these homegrown streamed shows to me as soft porn, or unnecessarily provocative.
Even with some platforms peddling cheap thrills, the massive shift in progressive storytelling has pushed the entire industry one step forward, even on an individual level. “We’re used to watching a lot of intimate scenes but I had personally never done that as an actor,” said Gagroo, whose character Siddhi starts as a virgin dabbling in an online dominatrix persona on Four More Shots. “But my director told me this show would end up liberating me as a person. And it did happen.”
For Nandy, who created the show based on her own life and those of her friends, the important this is to continue making shows that don’t shy away from the grit and complexity of Indian life, especially for women. “The truth is that Amazon just told us to make a great show, they didn’t stick us with any shackles and therefore every track, character,” she said. “And the storyline was not only special but also challenging because we had zero excuses—we had to crack a sticky, genuine and memorable show.”
And for the millions of Indians in and outside the country, it is both a thing of intrigue and relief that the stories we know to be true are no longer diluted by bureaucracy, allowing the evolution of culture, politics and society to live both on screen, and off.
India’s Best TV Shows Have Emerged From Uncensored Streaming Platforms syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/
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rollingrevews · 5 years
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Session four: Dice Carma Action season 1
Watch here episode 1
   31 episodes, averaging 2 hours and 10 minutes. About 58 hours and 24 minutes total. It started on  Mar 16, 2016, and the final episodes came out on Dec 9, 2016.
Dice Carma Action is a D&D 5e game set in the Forgotten Realms. They play the official published modules from Wizards of the Coast, for season one they played Curse of Strahd, with some character story integrated. It stars Chris Perkins as the DM, Jared Knabenbauer as the human rogue Diath Woodrow. Anna Prosser Robinson as Evelyn Marthain, a human paladin of Lathander. Holly Conrad playing a Tiefling sorcerer named Strix Skizziks. Then Nathan Sharp is playing Paultin Seppa a human bard.
I was really excited when I first heard about Dice Camera Action because I have been a big fan of Projared since his early Normal Boots days. So when he announced made the announcement video on his channel, I was stoked.  Not only was I a major fan of the content creators that were going to be involved, but I was also just getting into Critical Role the same time. Then when I learned that the DM was a writer for Wizards of the coast, and most likely knew the module from cover to cover better than anyone, made me even more excited.
Though with all of this going for it, I have to say Dice Camera Action is not a show I watch every week, nor have I seen all of the episodes. It isn’t a bad show by any means, it just does not catch my attention like some other shows do.   In most aspects, it is just painfully average.
Gameplay: 4.5
With this show being produced by Wizards of the Coast, and shown on the official D&D Twitch and youtube it follows the rules very strictly. While I do not feel like the rules get in the way of the gameplay, it is on the very cusp of having that happen.  If you are a rules freak, you might enjoy how strictly they follow the 5e books, though there still is some player input into the story. (some spoilers ahead skip to the next section if you do not want to see them) Really the only thing that is not taken strictly from the book is how some of the NPCs that interact with the PCs have been changed slightly. Both Strix and Paultin have family in barovia they did not know about beforehand, and some of the NPCs are actually played by guests rather than the DM.
Pre/postproduction:3
Not great and not awful production value. The live stream on Twitch, and the only additional visuals, beyond the player’s faces, are illustrations out of the curs of Curse of Strahd, book. The later seasons have animated intros and on-screen stats for the characters, but for season one it is just their faces and illustrations of monsters. The audio is not perfect, but it is not offensive in any way, everyone is just using a headset with a microphone rather than higher end recording equipment. They do sometimes peek and the audio crackles and pops some, but nothing worse than say the average video game streamer uses.
Story/RP:  3.5
It’s Curse of Strahd, with moderately exciting characters.  I only find about half of the pcs interesting, and truthfully, I struggle to remember Paulten when talking about the show. There are a few excellent moments that make up for midcore PCs. (spoilers start) The whole storyline of Diath dyeing and coming back is super compelling, and as a DM myself I have taken a lot of notes from this side story (end spoilers). If you want to watch a good stream of Strahd, or indeed any of the modules that Dice Camera Action covers this may be the show for you.  It is also an excellent way to see how the module plays before you buy or run it yourself.
Representation: 2.5
I cannot think of anything outstandingly good or bad about the representation in the show.  The DM does not go out of his way to add any minorities to the game, nor can I think of any major representation with the pcs.  I guess I could count the vistani people as analogs for the Romani people in our world, though they were already found in the module before the people of Dice Camera Action played it.
I could be wrong with this, it could be stated in a later episode that a PC is LGBT+ or disabled in some way. I believe that some of the characters may have PTSD or some mental disorder, but it is played for laughs. It is no worse than most tv shows, but along with some fantasy racism that just comes with the setting of the forgotten realms, this is defiantly something that could be done better.
Overall:
While not an offensive show in any way Dice Camera Action is not precisely the most interesting D&D 5e show out there. It is just average, defiantly worth looking at if you are interested in the modules they are playing, but beyond that, it isn’t exactly super unique and original. It is not a bad show in any way, and I still watch it from time to time, but that’s generally if I don’t have anything else to watch, or if I find the guest interesting.  Still, you may like it, and I like specific parts of the show, but overall it is painfully average.
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kintailscape · 7 years
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Awesome Con 2017- Day 1
Friday, Day 1: I woke up about an hour later than usual and had a leisurely but efficient breakfast before heading off to the Metro. I began reading Pack Animals (Torchwood #7) by Peter Anghelides on the long ride to the Library of Congress. While walking from the metro station to the LOC building, I passed two women around my age taking photos of a group of people walking across the street, escorted by the police. I have been watching news nonstop for the past two weeks, but I didn’t recognize anyone in the group (and I’ve been watching a lot of news). Looked like it might have been a representative and her congressional aides, but I’ve no clue. Anyway, I got to the Thomas Jefferson Library of Congress Building a little before 11.
The Library of Congress put together a really neat pop-up exhibit only available for a few days, called Library of Awesome. It was filled with parts of the LOC collection, grouped by themes. It was a great reminder that the LOC preserves these parts of culture that are important to fans. The people behind me as we went through the different exhibit rooms were in the most AMAZING Wonder Woman and Black Panther outfits ever. There was also a brave young man in an amazing Fantastic Four outfit. There were so many great comics on display, I couldn’t begin to list them all. But I did take photos of some of my favorites. In one room they had clips from TV shows playing and I walked in just as Buffy was sacrificing herself (feels!), following by a clip of Doctor Who with the Tenth Doctor. It was a surreal to be standing in the largest library in the entire world, watching Buffy and Doctor Who and looking at first appearances of comic book characters in print! There was also a neat letter from Gene Roddenbery to Carl Sagan.
Milestone issues including X-Men #1 from 1963, Fantastic Four #1 from 1961, and Watchmen #1 from 1986   First appearances of Batwoman and Dick Grayson aka Robin! Kyle Jinadu & Northstar get married! Buffy on screen, popular recent media series on display Ralph Ellison collection lends its room to this exhibit Library shop even had some geeky things for purchase… including some March graphic novels
After fully enjoying the exhibit, I went out in search of food. Google said there was a Subway in a nearby building. So I headed to the James Madison Library of Congress Building. I found my way up to the cafeteria on the 6th floor. I wasn’t entirely sure I should be there, among the congressional aides and LOC staff. But the security guard seemed to have no problem with it and a very nice woman in the elevator who worked in the building gave me exact directions there. The view was wonderful, and the sushi was delicious. I read while I ate. I got a little lost trying to find my way back to the elevator, but I made it in the end. Then I headed back to the Metro to get to the Convention Center.
It was strange being back in the Convention Center only a few months after #AWP17. It was all arranged differently–our registration hall had been turned into a cool, dark, moody video gaming center! And our bookfair space was where I knew I needed to head for Awesome Con registration. I already had my badge, so I just picked up a program and headed down three floors to the exhibit hall. I had one mission for Friday: find Andrew Aydin and have him sign my copy of March. But when I got to Q1 in the Artist’s Alley, there was a woman selling lovely jewelry in his space instead. Confused, I checked the program and the signs; no changes there. I ran into a friend and chatted for a bit. Then I checked social media; apparently Mr. Aydin was not going to be able to attend due to a personal matter. Well, darn! But these things happen. Hope his family’s okay.
So I found myself with a few hours of free time before the first panel I wanted to attend. I wandered around the exhibit hall, sticking mostly to the Artist’s Alley and spending much of that time in Pride Alley, which was new to the con this year. It was a nice little LGBTQ+-friendly space with all sorts of things I wanted to buy. I ended up buying way too much fanart and a graphic novel that is just my kind of thing that I can’t wait to read. I stumbled upon Karen Hallion’s exhibit space and bought a few postcards; it was wonderful to meet her and be able to tell her how fantastic her art is, because I’ve loved it for years and have some of it on t-shirts. I also bought an Outlander book necklace with a dragonfly and a Celtic charm on it. I have ZERO free wall space at home, yet I bought at least 10 prints for myself (and a few as gifts). I even bought an original art piece (done by an artist in from South Africa) that was creative and adorable and unintentionally sexy; I NEVER see my favorite kink portrayed in art, let alone fanart, so I absolutely had to buy it. #NoRegrets!
I had some tough choices to make as far as panels. I ended up choosing so that I’d get a good variety and pack in as many as possible (lots of panel times overlapped) while still hitting the evening Stucky one I knew I definitely wanted to attend.
3:30 PM-4:15 PM Nerdiquette/Anerdomy: Geekdom in Theory & Practice A nice way to start out the con, talking about geek culture. We began with Felicia Day’s definition of a geek as someone who dares to love something unconventional and moved on to topics like marketing’s role, the nerd culture stigma, the differences between sports fans and the sorts of fans we are, and if it stops being a subculture if it gets too big. The moderator kept diving into much more critical analysis of it all, including ways of testing geekdom’s coherence. I didn’t follow every philosophical reference he was throwing out there, but I enjoyed it anyway. I found the discussion regarding reactionary exclusionism to be especially interesting, as I’d not considered the idea of geeks feeling the need to covet and protect what we are passionate about and keep it as our own because we were excluded/outsiders.
4:30 PM -5:15 PM YA Literature Today I wish I’d done more prep, because I had two of the presenting authors’ books at home and didn’t bring them! Panelists discussed a lot about the things they like about writing YA (really interesting characters with really interesting problems, can work in any genre, we have all been teenagers but we still wonder who we are) and how to increase diversity in books and creators of books. The best part: they shared info about their own works and shared book recommendations. The worst part: so many good recommendations! I feel like I need to quit my job and just read YA full-time now. For recs & notes from this panel, see my book blog.
5:30 PM-6:15 PM Following Your Bliss: How the Stories We Love Can Help Us Succeed This wasn’t exactly what I’d been looking for. Attending this felt a little like listening to a motivational speaker. Using himself as a case study and tapping heavily into Joeseph Conrad’s “Hero’s Journey,” Russell Walks attempted to inspire us to follow our bliss to find success. “Storytelling is more than just guns and bullets. It’s what we have in here,” he told us, patting his chest above his heart. I was hoping for useful, specific tips rather than inspirational sayings. But I do like the concept that we’re all on our own hero’s journeys and our friends are our goofy, supporting characters. And I can’t disagree with things like “Tell yourself this is what you’re meant to do and don’t give up!”
Afterward, I was going to stick around in the room to attend Whose Roll is it Anyway? (a sort of interactive RPG where the audience controlled the twists and turns instead of the DM), but that was cancelled. This made me shuffle my slots around a bit again. I ended up being able to snag a seat in room 144BC and staying put there for the next three panels! That was both convenient and due to the fact that that room’s programming all aligned with my interests.
6:00 PM-6:45 PM Full Spectrum: Why color in comics matters This panel had a nice balance of identifying current problems and looking at current trends/solutions. I liked the observations that, throughout history, most trendsetters in the comic industry have been indie. I also loved the helpful tip of don’t just yell when there’s something bad, start yelling about the stuff you like! Other discussion topics include: recent reaction to Marvel news (putting out Black Panther trailer then cancelling Black Panther: World Of Wakanda), the difference between making a cast diverse organically and changing characters (reskinning) to make them diverse, how the binging culture changes the way we consume comics (monthly issues vs. TPBs), and how Check Please is an awesome fan-interaction model (it is!). I also loved this comment from one of the panelists (slightly paraphrased because I was writing so quickly) “Lately, people over-complicate things. Just write human beings. Give everyone a chance and diversity automatically comes about.”
7:00 PM-7:45 PM Stop Queerbaiting, It’s Time to Be Brave One of my friends magically appeared beside me just as the panel was about to start, which was a lovely surprise. Another lovely surprise was the panel starting out with a mention of one of my favorite pairings: Wolfcrawler! The panelists were brilliant, passionate, and prepared. But they were also largely preaching to the choir. Sure, an explanation of queerbaiting was a great place to start, and explaining in detail why it’s hurtful, not brave, and insulting was important. But the majority of the presentation consisted of examples and explanations of why it’s horrible. At the very end they did manage to squeeze in a little bit about what we can do (which was mostly, consume the content of the people doing it right). So, by the end of the panel, I mostly felt frustrated and mad at some of those content creators who do this to us.
A few things I wrote down include: are the creators/producers really blind to what they’re doing?, they might think they’re doing something nice for us but they’re not, you shouldn’t have the freedom to jerk us around, we need real bravery from our allies, we deserve better, we’re desperate to see ourselves represented as a living main character, makes being gay into a joke, makes gay into a gimmick, there are no repercussions, you can’t be what you can’t see, Netflix and Chill could be Netflix and Educate. My three favorite quotes from the panel were:
“Prancing is very intimidating to the straights”
Regarding fandoms that have “invisible queers” (creators say that there are totally some queer characters in the world/universe, we just haven’t seen them yet) “SHOW US! Specifically I’m talking to J.J. Abrams about the cute one in the jacket and the cute one that gave him the jacket.”
“Albus Dumbledore is the very definition of a peekaboo queer.”
8:00 PM-8:45 PM Not Without You: Discussions and Reading from the Stucky Anthology This was easily my favorite part of the whole day. First, there was a great conversation about what makes Steve/Bucky so appealing and how each of the panelists fell in love with the pairing. It was interesting to hear that so many of them came to it because of Bucky. Second, panelists that came from all over the world specifically to be on the panel. Third, hearing slash fanfic read out loud by the writers themselves at a general con was amazing. Fourth, amazing Bucky and Cap cosplayers sitting in the front row (sorry, I don’t mean to objectify you, but you were sweet and really helped set the mood for those of us seated behind you). Also, someone mentioned a His Dark Materials AU with Stucky that I now I have to track down. I was able to buy a copy of the absolutely beautiful anthology at the end of the panel. I really wanted to stick around and have all the writers autograph it, but I knew that would take a long time and there was kind of a jumble as we reconvened in the hallway. So I ended up just heading to the next panel.
9:00 PM-9:45 PM Trekoff LIVE! -The NSFW Star Trek Comedy Show!/>I was a few minutes late, but I don’t think I missed much. This is only my second time attending a live taping of a podcast at a con, and this one was much more lively than the first. The game we played as a group was to figure out how to staff a ship of the most fuckable Star Trek villains. The hosts took us through every entry in the Star Trek franchise, pulling up both well-known and obscure villains and having the audience choose between two at a time to determine who was more fuckable. Some were easy choices and others were more difficult. There were also some pretty convincing creative arguments for and against some of the characters. I was surprised to find characters like the Borg Queen and Evil!Hoshi beating a lot of others. I was surprised characters like Q and the three-some of Kor, Koloth, and Kang didn’t go further. Benedict Cumberbatch’s Khan made it pretty far but didn’t ultimately win! Who won? I can’t even remember. You’ll have to track down the episode!
I headed home after a long, tiring day and made more progress on my book. When I had to switch trains, it took almost half an hour for the right color train to arrive. So I did get a lot read but I didn’t get home until nearly midnight (at which point I still had a load of laundry to do before bed).
Awesome Con 2017- Day 1 was originally published on The Fangirl Project
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