Some amazing cosplayers got together to show support for Hong Kong after the Blizzard controversy. For those who didnât know, Blizzard banned pro Hearthstone winner for supporting Hong Kong and took away his prize money. So many American companies, Blizzard, NBA, Hollywood, and countless more are censoring free speech in fear of angering China and losing out on Chinese money. Itâs ironic when Blizzardâs slogan is âEvery Voice Mattersâ and their games features heros fighting for justice. Letâs show them such hypocrisy wonât be tolerated!Â
Meanwhile the people of Hong Kong are fighting hard for their own freedom and democracy against the totalitarian regime of China. I was born and raised in China myself and I saw first hand the extreme level of censorship and nationalist propaganda people are subject to. If you speak out in China, you will get disappeared. Donât let this happen to the people of Hong Kong, stand for what is just. Donât let greed for money speak louder than freedom.
I donât use this page much anymore, but I want this to be the post everyone sees at the top of my page when they come to check out Overwatch art.
This thread (which you can read on twitter here) does a good job of summing up everything that is wrong with Blizzardâs decision and why it necessitates a powerful response by Blizzardâs customers. Blizzard has made a strong statement that they do not support the rights of their staff or competitors to openly express their views. This basic human right is more important than the profits of any company or any individual, and must be defended at every level of society. Any company that cannot support the basic freedoms of their community does not deserve to remain viable. Until Blizzard reverses their decision and issues a formal apology, they will not be seeing another cent from me on any of their products or services. I expect that such an apology will never be issued, but if it is, I will be here.
tl;dr Blizz kowtows to China so Overwatch is kaput.
Widowmaker doesnât know why she likes to come to Mercy for her first aid problems, and Mercy doesnât know why she continues to have the patience to treat this stubborn Talon assassin.Â
She tells herself to stop questioning her morals and instead berates Widowmaker for sustaining so many injuries once again.
 Widow remains silent and seems content to watch the doctorâs unperturbed face as she works.
Iâm a pretty small creator without much of an income. That being said, I want badly to do something about the injustices that are taking place in my country, my country that unfortunately doesnât want to address the horrific nature of its actions.
That being said, I am hosting a Giveaway and Donation Pool on Patreon and Twitter. New pledges will be donated IN THEIR ENTIRETY to The Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project.
I want to make this a regular thing on Patreon, with new pledges going to charities, but I think this is a good step to that.Â
Aside from the donation, youâll also be entered in the giveaway to get ALL the goodies listed above! This is another thing I hope to make regular on my Patreon.
There is also a smaller Sticker giveaway on Twitter in case you wanna win some Widowmaker and Misc stickers without having to spend anything! Just retweet/ follow me on Twitter. Hereâs the link! Â
Whether you join Patreon or donate directly to them, it would make me feel very happy. I hope I can do something to help someoe, however small.
Read more about ASAP, the Urban Justice Center, and their mission statement to provide legal representation and resources for families at the border.Â
Join Patreon at any tier to enter the giveaway and the donation pool!
RT and follow on Twitter for a chance to get some stickers~
Annemunition, a variety streamer who plays games like Rainbow Six, PUBG, God of War, and Overwatch, was playing Rainbow Six in her off time last week, away from the sometimes pressurized environment of her Twitch channel. The people she was playing with had no idea who she was, but they knew she was a woman, and thatâs all they needed to know. Over the course of several rounds, they laid into her with a series of increasingly vile insults, calling her everything from âgamer girlâ to âtranny bitch.â She continued to play like normal, dying in some rounds and clutching others for her team. When she did well, one guy said she stole his kill. When she did poorly, they used that to justify their attacks. âWeâre not being like this because we donât like women,â said one of the men. âWeâre being like this because youâre shit, by the way.â
âAre you playing the right video game, miss?â the same man said later. âThis isnât like League Of Legends where you can just flash your titties on stream. It takes skill.â
âI hope you die,â another man said immediately afterward.
Annemunition kept her cool and finished the game. Then she decided to make an example of the people involved. She posted a video of the incident to her Twitter.
ââWhy donât you use voice chat?â âWhy canât I find a girlfriend who plays video games?â âWhy do you mute people who ask you if youâre a girl?â Gee, I dunno,â she wrote.
The response was huge. As of now, the video has over half a million views and nearly 2,000 comments, some of which share similar online horror stories. Annemunition told Kotaku in an email that she posted the video to make a point. This is hardly the first time this kind of thing has happened to her, she said, and if itâd been during a stream, she wouldâve just muted them. Since she was on her own, though, she decided to see how the situation would play out if she did nothing except make useful comments and help her team.
âAs you saw in the video, thatâs all it took for them to devolve into toxicity,â she said. âWhile I understand everyone, of all genders and backgrounds, can often be the subject of toxicity online, I really feel like people underestimate just how bad it can be for women or people who are recognized as âotherâ over voice comms.â
She added that streamers often feel a pressure to just roll with the punches when it comes to verbal harassment or other serious issues, but she worries about the kind of example that sets.
âI feel like there are a lot of expectations for streamers not to complain about anything ever and that we should just be positive and âgood vibesâ only,â she said. âWhen these types of things happen, I just think about all the young people (boys and girls) who experience this type of abuse online and donât have the tools to stand up for themselves other than to mute people and pretend everything is fine.â
After Annemunition posted the video, one of the players whoâd given her gallons of shit tried to apologize. In a sense. âI am extremely sorry for the way you feel, â he wrote in a tweet from an account thatâs since been deleted. â[K]now that the words I used were meaningless and have no substance.âAnnemunition, a popular Twitch streamer with over 300,000 followers, was just trying to be a decent teammate and call shots in Rainbow Six Siege. Then, over voice chat, came the questions: âAre you a man or a female?â And the accusations: âYou stole my fucking content. Youâre shit at the game. Get out.â
âI appreciate that you want to apologize,â Annemunition wrote back. âBut man, you went HARD just because you heard a womanâs voice⊠You called me a âfucking tranny bitchâ and told me to kill myself. Over nothing. All I did was exist.â However, she went on to write that she sincerely hopes the guy learns from this and wants to better himself.
âI donât necessarily want to crucify people when I feel like thereâs the potential for them to walk away from the situation thinking âWow, I messed up. I said something really awful and it came back to bite me. I wonât do that again,ââ she told Kotaku, explaining why she chose to respond so kindly to an apology that was dodgy at best. âI wanted him to understand the gravity of his actions and the fact that words can be hurtful and that your actions have consequences.â
In online games, she continued, people can tell others to kill themselves and face no real repercussionsâor at least, not the sort of repercussions thatâd convince them to cork it for more than a handful of matches. Meanwhile, the people being harassed are encouragedâboth by their peers and the way many gamesâ reporting systems workâto just shrug it off in the moment, no matter how much itâs worming under their skin and writhing around.
âGamers have learned that they can do these things without blowback because the solution so many people suggest is just to mute them and move on,â Annemunition said.
Thatâs why she decided to post the video, risking even more harassment from eager-to-pounce internet mobs in the process. If nobody creates consequences for this sort of thing that are immediate and consistent, yet also impactful in a way thatâll encourage them to learn rather than doubling down, nothing will change.
âIâm just sick of sweeping this behavior under the rug and pretending itâs all fine and dandy,â she said. âItâs easy to sweep things under the rug; itâs hard to ask people to be better. Especially when so many people are just resigned to accepting the fact that online gaming and toxicity go hand-in-hand.â
âMaybe that makes me a naive fool,â she added, âbut I refuse to accept that we canât treat each other with a little more kindness.â
