Remember my last post? From like…two years ago? Maaaaaybe? Yeah so…
With Twitter crashing and burning before our very eyes, and before I can even start to build up an art following there (thank god-), I’m back over here. Hopefully with a fresh start. I work an early shift so I may not be fully set up tonight but….
Here we go. Here I am again. Fresh account now at @wolfsoulstudios with a new and improved moi!
It’s been so long! Come say hi if you’re still around. I miss my Tumblr peeps ;—;
Every time I start wanting to come back on Tumblr it takes approximately 0.23 seconds of scrolling through my feed to get reminded why I left in the first place and I can FEEL the mental health decline start all over again. Never thought it would be impossible to block topics from the social media I used to think of as an escape, but there’s just way too much of it. Maybe one day I can give it a shot with an entirely fresh account so there’s no guilt about unfollowing people I used to be close with 🤷🏼♀️🤷🏼♀️
Crazy things that haven’t made major news solely because 2020 has been so wild
- UFOs are all but confirmed
- The Krakatoa volcano went off in Indonesia. From what I can find, this has only really affected air quality and whatever travel there was
- Floods in Indonesia (RIP Indonesia) left 66 dead and 400,000 fleeing homes
- Another volcano went off in the Philippines
- Hong Kong riots have been rekindled. Yeah, looks like they’re planning on breaking the Tiananmen Vigil ban. I’m praying for them more than DC protestors to not try to to get into the White House vicinity tonight
- Delhi riots that killed 53 people. Yes, they’re unrelated to the BLM protests. Entire buildings were destroyed
- Large scale earthquakes (6.7 and 7.7) in Turkey and the Caribbean. 41 dead, over a thousand in the hospital
- Locusts are the worst they’ve been in East Africa in the last quarter century. Estimates are 25 million people will be going with little to no food reservoirs because of this
- North Macedonia became the 30th country to join NATO, and there wasn’t even a five second “yippe kai yay we hit 30” on major news
- The Trump administration declared a Russian white supremacist group as terrorists. Looks like he’s not all stupid after all
- Mumbai about to be hit with the first severe (cat 1 atm) tropical storm since 1891
- Iran shot down a Ukrainian civilian plane while those tensions were at their peak, killing ~120 people, mostly Canadians and Iranians trying to go home. It was major news where I am, but I know from talking to internet friends it wasn’t even mentioned elsewhere, sooo
- EU leaders are apparently starting to call Britain a bunch of liars about Brexit, and you’d think if anything the media would at least wanna cover European political drama, but naaaaaaah guess not 🤷🏼♀️
So in summary, the Canadian Snowbirds came out on a tour to spread some motivation across the country because it’s sorely needed, then one of the planes hit a bird and crashed, with one death and one in the hospital with critical injuries. And yeah, that’s...that’s 2020 summed up in a single, slightly-less-tragic-than-seemingly-everything-else event.
ALRIGHT Y’ALL. I came to Tumblr to get away from the sh!tshow that’s my Facebook right now because 80% of my dash involves Blizzard at the best of times, but really honestly I should’ve known better than to trust this hellsite to not rage about politics. Y’all may not know what I’m talking about, so long story short: Blizzard recently suspended a pro Hearthstone player for a year because mid-stream he donned a gas mask and spoke about the protests in Hong Kong. There’s more than enough articles about it, so you can find more at your own time, but I’m gonna shed some light on WHY they suspended blitzchung (the player). And yes, it all comes down to the mutually agreed upon, legally-binding contract that ALL tournament players are in.
And here’s the contract, so nobody yells about a source. You guys can follow along with me! Without further adieu, let’s just dive straight into this:
Section 5 covers prize money, and 5.1a clearly states that, “Prizes for Season 1 are not earned until the conclusion of the Season 1 Grandmasters Seasonal Playoff, and are subject to the deductions set forth in Section 6.” The exact same wording for season 2 repeats in 5.1b. In simpler terms, players don’t receive their prize money until AFTER the the tournament is 100% over, and if Blizzard finds a specific player has breached the code of conduct of Section 6, they hold the right to withhold any prize money from said player regardless of the amount.
Now, moving on to the famed code of conduct. Section 6.1 goes on to further account for the exact amount that will be deducted from any player’s winnings for any sort of breach, from equipment/resident property damage to hacking. 6.1o is the area Blizzard primarily called attention to over this whole issue, and so follows,
“Engaging in any act that, in Blizzard’s sole discretion, brings you into public disrepute, offends a portion or group of the public, or otherwise damage’s Blizzard image will result in removal from Grandmasters and reduction of the player’s prize total to $0 USD, in addition to other remedies which may be provided for under the Handbook and Blizzard’s Website Terms.”
This citation shouldn’t be any surprise to anyone who’s actually done their research - any semi credible news outlet has it quoted in their coverings too. So I kinda feel like that one has been ripped apart enough and for the sake of I wanna get something to eat fairly soon I’ll leave it be.
Section 3.2 also opens with, “You may only participate in Grandmasters so long as your participation does not violate your applicable local laws.” Now assuming this part of the code isn’t about the age of participants or that sort of stuff I don’t know where in the world blitzchung comes from - I don’t personally follow the personal lives of celebrities but going by how much he cares about these events it’s somewhere in China, and clearly supporting Hong Kong is illegal in China or none of this would even be happening. So there’s that section also breached. I found a good, neutral article that specifically and swiftly focuses on his side of the story, so here.
GUYS. He EXPECTED the punishment from Blizzard. He knew EXACTLY what he was doing, EXACTLY what parts of the contract he was breaching, EXACTLY what the punishments for said breaches were. He just felt that getting more awareness for the protests was worth the sacrifice (even possibly coming down to his real life safety), which I personally find very honourable. But hey, you guys can run around ignoring his side and continue screaming corporate greed all you wish, I won’t stop you.
And, away from the contract, let’s not forget that if Blizzard hadn’t reacted how they did the Chinese government could’ve very easily turned on Blizzard in the sense of “they’re a safe space to harbour anti-government propaganda for all these terrorists” and outlawed them. With that, they would’ve been in a perfect spot to charge all the employees at the Blizzard HQ in China with treason and who knows what else. I don’t know enough about China or their law to know what the exact punishment would be, but treason is treason is treason and I think I’m safe to say it would not be pretty for any of them. Doing what they did saved maaaany people who were involved from being hurt (and no, I respectfully don’t account for the protestors/police/bystanders involved in the protests, because blitzchung’s actions are far from directly impacting how dangerous their situation is). That goes for any other company with an HQ in China who are “bending the knee” too - they all have employees and, by extension, their families to protect.
This all being said, do I feel for blitzchung? Yes, as a gamer I can’t imagine being forced out of games I love to play, and nobody likes to lose money even if they jump onboard willingly. Do I support China? No, but for the most part due to the ways they’re going about dealing with the protests; I have zero place to comment on the social situation and independence of Hong Kong, and thus will keep my thoughts to myself (and will ignore anyone who tries dragging me into a debate over this post). But the points that everyone is paying attention to about what happened to blitzchung is DRASTICALLY taking away from what he was trying to accomplish - people aren’t in uproar over the protests or what said protests are trying to accomplish, they’re in uproar over #BoycottBlizzard aka “most recent anti-capitalism hashtag of corporate greed and freedom of speech,” which focuses on the situation in America, NOT China/Hong Kong. And I personally? Am not just gonna stand by and let everyone trash a company who’s given me so much on false claims.
Say whatever you want about Washington but that man had every tool in the world to turn baby USA into another tyrannical monarchy but had the maturity to say no and take himself out of power
YALL TUMBLR JUST ASKED ME FOR PERMISSION TO ACCESS MY PHOTOS ON THE SAME DEVICE IVE BEEN USING IT FOR FOR THE PAST FOUR YEARS AND IM NOW HAVING AN EXISTENTIAL CRISIS LIKE HAVE I REALLY NOT ONCE SAVED SOMETHING FROM THIS HELLSITE
Todays doodles are Myras personal Horse Acting Guide! 🐴
DISCLAIMER: im not a horse expert, but i’ve been hobby riding for 13 years and read some books through the years, so it’s just my personal experience. I dont know everything and people have different ways!
