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@anxietyproblem​

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HE’S GETTING THE BRUSHIES!!

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One of the things that really gets to me about Tumblr fandom’s view of relationships is the idea (sometimes stated outright, often implied) that there’s some kind of clear dividing line between healthy and not-healthy, between abusive and not-abusive, that people never slide back and forth between those things or slip over the line, and that’s just … not how human relationships work. And it’s one thing when you’re holding fictional characters to an absurdly high standard, but it makes me worry that a lot of people are internalizing the idea that human relationships aren’t messy and complicated and sometimes painful, and that’s really going to make life hard for you. You’ll either end up beating yourself up way too much for doing utterly normal things, or beating up on other people for doing utterly normal things, and you’ll let a lot of things that could have been good slip through your fingers because they aren’t perfect.

Look, I’m not saying anybody should stay in a relationship that’s toxic for them, and ideally we should all be in happy supportive relationships with people who make us happy all the time, but human emotions are a mess.

You WILL do terrible, awful things. You’ll be selfish. You’ll hurt people. Sometimes they’ll forgive you and sometimes they won’t. Every long-term relationship you have will end up being littered with the memories of times you were both awful to each other.

You’ll fall in love with people who don’t love you, and be loved by people you don’t love. Sometimes you might try to make a relationship (or a friendship) work anyway. Sometimes it’ll even work out.

You’ll end up loving some people you never in a million years thought you’d feel that way about, because you got a terrible first impression and misjudged them. You’ll look back and think, How could I not have known how awesome they were? But you didn’t, then. And you’ll walk away from other people who could have been just as beloved and never know it.

A lot of times you won’t be able to tell how other people feel about you at all, and you’ll just have to keep going anyway.

You’ll break up friendships by doing stupid, selfish things.

You’ll put your trust in the wrong people, and the wrong places, and have it broken.

You’ll do some things thinking you’re the good guy at the time, and realize in retrospect that you weren’t.

You’ll change your mind about a lot of stuff. You’ll realize that some of the things you used to believe were kind of messed up. Sometimes you’ll change your mind because of people around you and then realize that you were right all along. Sometimes you’ll realize that nobody’s right or wrong, but have to make a decision anyway.

You’ll interfere where you shouldn’t and get your ass handed to you. You’ll fail to interfere where you should have, and feel guilty for the rest of your life.

(Not everyone will do all of these things. But it’s humanly impossible not to do at least some of them.)

And none of that makes you an awful person or undeserving of love or bad to be around?! It’s just how people are. It’s how EVERYONE is, even the ones who seem like they have it together. Life is messy and complicated and confusing, and it hurts. People can do awful things and be forgiven. In fact, if that weren’t true, none of us would have any relationships at all.

I don’t know, I’m just thinking about this today, because expecting perfection of fictional characters is one thing (they’re fictional, it doesn’t hurt them) but it’s going to mess you up in all kinds of ways if you think that’s actually how real life works.

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source

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My doggo, Ezri, who rarely barks and mostly borks.

When I got her, she’d been abused and would cower and pee at almost everything, and had been mistreated when she’d barked, so she never would. One day months after I had her she got excited on a walk and borked at a bird, and then immediately cower-peed. I had to re-teach her to bark by gathering her whole human pack and having everyone bark and howl and feed her treats and pet her till she got excited enough to join in, and then got more treats. Took a while but I was able to teach her to bork on command (and she’s gotta be excited or she just stares at me like “Sorry, the bork system needs charging”) and she’ll do it happily when she’s excited to go for a walk or upon seeing a friend, and at birds. I love her croaky borking, especially when she started off terrified of making a joyful noise.

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only real 90s kids remember

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Aivan liian tuttu tunne

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Animals appreciating warmth

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Anarcho-third-graderism for the win

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boring & disrespectful: “oh, i can’t survive without my morning coffee”, “energy drink makes it so that i can get through my boring work”, and so on

living properly: treating caffeinated beverages like very mysterious & powerful magical potions that can give us unforeseen abilities

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I have left Channel Awesome

Sooo my site is having issues after posting that, so here’s the full announcement:

It is with a heavy heart that I must announce that I have left Channel Awesome.

 This was not a decision made lightly, but it has been a decision that has been building for some time. Because this is my show’s tenth anniversary, I think it’s important to talk about my history with the site and why I have been so reluctant to depart despite the growing number of difficulties in working with it and grievances made by other former producers.

 I began Atop the Fourth Wall as text reviews because as far as I knew, that was the way to do recaps and reviews of media – particularly BAD media. If you didn’t have your own TV show, the only way to get your opinions and quips about awful movies, television shows, and indeed comic books was to write out lengthy essays about them. Then one day on a forum I discovered the Nostalgia Critic. I learned of this fantastic place called ThatGuyWithTheGlasses where others did their own videos about the media they hated or enjoyed, with videos uploaded to Youtube, Revver, and eventually Blip. There was just tons and tons of content waiting to be enjoyed by an eager, hungry audience.

 Inspired by this (in particular the Nostalgia Critic videos), I set about turning my rantings about comic books into videos. At the time, ThatGuyWithTheGlasses (TGWTG) had an open submission policy if you wanted to join. Within only a few days, I was accepted and became a part of a larger family. As soon as my videos went up (alongside Phelous and Ed Glaser’s Press Start Adventures cartoon), my views increased in massive numbers. I suddenly had an audience – one that grew larger and larger over time. The videos were popular enough within a year or so that I was able to quit my job at Barnes and Noble and go full time in making them. Being a video producer has been my vocation and career ever since.

 I owe my success to being picked up on TGWTG. Sure, talent is one part of it – people wouldn’t still be watching the show if there wasn’t SOMETHING about it that they enjoyed, but in a world with hundreds if not thousands of channels and shows vying for attention from the public, getting that exposure got me a foot in the door that, it is entirely likely, I never would have enjoyed otherwise. I have been incredibly privileged and lucky since then to have this opportunity.

 Furthermore, joining TGWTG allowed me to meet a plethora of friendly, smart, creative individuals whom I am still proud to call my friends. Despite the problems that have occurred in making them, I still enjoy all of the anniversary movies – as their own works and just for the opportunity they gave me on an annual basis to meet with these people I am still in awe of. They have expanded my interests and my own skills simply by the use of their own – helping me make videos that I hope are not only entertaining but informative about the comic industry and my other passions. In essence, if I have reached wondrous heights, it is only because I stand on the shoulders of giants. I have met incredible fans with wonderful stories of their own, been told that our videos helped them when it seemed like nothing else could. I met my wife thanks to being a part of TGWTG and that is most especially something to be happy about.

 And that has been a thing that has nagged at me over the last several years. In case you are not aware, there has been growing discontentment towards the leadership of Channel Awesome and its CEO Mike Michaud. It is not unfounded. The full list of grievances is still being compiled into a Google Doc for easier reference (and I’ll likely edit this with a link to it when it becomes available), but if you would like a summary – abusive behavior, lies to the contributors, a focus on only the Nostalgia Critic as opposed to the community of talent that was promised, and many, MANY other offenses. A few years ago, a group of contributors left the site at the same time – some leaving for their own reasons, but some left in particular because of those actions. At the time, while I was outraged by what had occurred, I wanted to remain optimistic. I believed I could improve things from within, lend my voice to the higher-ups of the company to inspire them to recapture what had made the site so beloved before. In addition, several new contributors had also then-recently joined – just as eager and enthusiastic about being a part of the site as I had been several years before. They wanted to be a part of this community and work alongside us and I felt that leaving then would have crushed their happiness and even potentially their own chances for success.

 And so I stayed and I tried to do what I could to improve things. I failed. Over time, as I grew more and more dejected by this experience I resolved to simply put out my content, converse with the others on the site to help them directly whenever I could, and collect revenue for my show. Recently, however, it has come to light not just the offenses I was aware of, but even more that I had never been privy to. So many, in fact, that a twitter thread detailing them went on for two days straight of people asking questions and discovering new terrible things that had occurred that had happened even at the earliest days of my presence on the site that I had been completely oblivious of.

 I have struggled since then about how best to handle my presence on Channel Awesome. I originally elected to leave much later, but at some point during this year – especially after a major milestone in order to give things a “clean start” feel, but in talking with other producers who have decided to leave, I feel it’s best to just do it and get it out of the way.

 And so here we are. Perhaps I should have left sooner, but these are the choices I have made and will have to live with. Regardless of anything else, I am still happy for the friendships I have made, the work I have done, and proud of being a part of the site for as long as I have. I simply wish that things could have been better. While many have scoffed about an aggregate site like Channel Awesome working these days, I do still think there is potential there – a community of reviewers working together to promote one another and have plenty of pop culture videos and analyses, in my opinion at least, still holds sway – especially if it promotes the brand as a whole and not just an individual.

 Given my reasons for leaving, please do not take my and others’ departures as a sign that you should harass or question those who do remain. The simple fact is that I have been incredibly fortunate in that I do not require Channel Awesome to survive. Others may not be as fortunate and rely upon the views they get from the site or they may just have their own reasons for staying that they do not wish to share. It is their prerogative. All I will say is that you should support the content you love. Much like with the comics industry itself, it’s a matter of voting with your wallet – or in this case, with your eyeballs. 

Thank you all for your continued support. I couldn’t do this without you all.

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fullmetal alchemist au where ed binds al’s soul to a fursuit 

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cool advice from dark souls