I think this image is fitting for the opener. I’ll be talking about two types of pendulums here. There’s the one featured in the photo above and then there’s this one, which is one of mine, thanks again to Mootz for this one, it does amazing work that we’ll need to discuss. For this article, I won’t be focusing on Zak Smith, this will be all about the people involved …and how they’ve responded since.
First, Grim Jim has given a couple of updates but I’ll hit you with the last one because I want everyone here to rest assured that I did, indeed, use a YouTube Downloader and download the videos Jim talks about in this one and I do have them saved. If anything happens to them, I will do reuploads on my own channel and here so let’s get into that.
I hope you all watched that and I hope you’re archiving it yourself.
As Jim points out, Reddit, Facebook, Discord, ENWorld and many others are shutting down any and all discussion because of Zak. This type of content is actively being suppressed on some major platforms. So far, Twitter, Minds, CloutHub and MeWe have not actively suppressed this type of information. This is primarily why I’ve asked you to share, not just these articles but Grim Jim’s videos as far and wide as you can. Let your friends, family and everyone else who plays RPGs, reads comics, watches movies and TV, etc know that this is actively going on even in what they love.
What I’m not asking anyone to do is make this their entire life. Not at all.
I have been told that the best way to deal with these people is to ignore them and they’ll go away, they thrive on attention.
The question I have is when the bullies do whatever they can do to ruin people’s lives and then get away with it? That’s not something that can be ignored. Careers stalled, Blackballed, Blacklisted, Collusion, dare I say, Conspiracy by a group of vindictive and awful people with dogshit for souls has been committed. People have been ruined and driven to the edge of their sanity checks. It wasn’t enough to shuffle them off the internet, it was more than that. That can’t go ignored because, in this case, it grants them license to continue doing it.
Sometimes, the bully just needs to lose some teeth, get a black eye or a bloody nose before they figure out how stupid they were to keep fucking with the wrong people. It’s time the exiler figure out that those they’ve exiled outnumber them and now, in the words of the wise Dave Mustaine…
“Don’t want no revenge…
Ain’t no payback time…
It ain’t called getting even…
Here comes The Reckoning Day…”
-Megadeth “Reckoning Day”
It’s high time that these people had their reckoning.
The good news is that my original strategy still stands. Buy from companies that do not hire these people. Buy from companies and creators that just make games for the sake of gaming, no more and certainly, no less. See, we don’t need to bully or harass. They have set the precedent; they love the idea of starving people out. I say turnabout is fair play here. Starve them of your funds.
They’re all actually lucky that no one unalived themselves because, had that happened, there is legal precedent for them being charged with being complicit at the very least.
If you want your alternatives, head back to my previous article and look at the two lists by Ocule and Diversity & Dragons. They detail a list of ethical companies and creators making games that you and they will enjoy. If you’ve read the comments, you’ll see that I regularly talk to two people here that are among the best in TTRPGs,
and respectively, just to name two. Check out Dystopian Dawn 2526 and Tales From Trinity City, I think you might enjoy them.In the meantime, getting back to things, it seems that those that have had light shed on them are being called out and they’re crying foul about it. My apologies for taking this long to get this far but I needed to get this banged out before heading out for another long shift at work.
I’m going to share something, a thread that I managed to snag from Twitter that has emerged from Olivia (neé David) Hill that I’ll come back to in just a moment after you’ve read it:
First, calling out Dr. Weisman on journalistic integrity is rich coming from the people who’ve acted so petty and vindictive and spread vicious lies and rumors. Rules for thee, not for me, all over again. Just another day ending in the letter y, I guess.
Second, I know that there are some speculating on the reasons that the article was almost immediately taken down. See, the facts of the article can’t be disputed and those like Olivia crying foul have only gone as far as confirming many of the facts of Dr. Weisman’s article.
Third, no, Dr. Weisman did not need a release form to record her own phone calls. From my own experience in internet radio, I didn’t need anyone’s permission to record phone calls as the state in which I used to live was a one-party state. That means I knew I was being recorded, I consented to being recorded and every single phone call that came through the setup I called The Studio was recorded as it was being streamed live for everyone listening worldwide. New York State is such a state.
Fourth, when you talk to a journalist or a cop, everything you say is on the record. There are differences, though. In journalism, there are things that can be said that can’t be recorded and/or reported. Read here for more information because, it is your responsibility to know this well before talking to any journalist for any reason. If Olivia and her lot didn’t know this, then they fucked up royally and are now on the hook for what they have, confirmably, stated which is now on the record.
Let’s go back to the pendulum analogy. With this pendulum, this is the blade while the person is chained to the table, unable to move with the existential dread that they will be slowly sliced open and eventually, in half. It’s a long, slow, painful process of execution used by Inquisitors in literature. Whether real or not, the point is the long, slow, painful process combined with that sense of existential dread that makes the process all that much worse. That’s the kind of pain that these people have visited upon the undeserving, including each other with threats of the same should their colleagues open their mouths in any way. While history does not look kindly upon the inquisitions or other moral panics, it is the downplaying and dismissal of these very moral panics that have allowed them to keep giving rise to them time and again.
At present, they’re not denying what it is they’ve done wrong. They’re caught. They know they’ve been caught but now they’re attempting to be dismissive.
Here’s the thing, I’m not concerned with these people eating their own. Not at all. If they want to destroy themselves, I’m alright with it, personally. It means that their little reign of terror will eventually (if my readings have been correct, sooner than we think) end but we need to talk about that other pendulum.
That nice little Tiger-Eye Pendulum is one that does quite a bit of work and has done and, thus, given a rest on my altar for the time being for regenerative purposes while the opalite one that I have accompanies me. I want to go into it’s basic function though. It swings in one direction and then another. Eventually, it hits an extreme point to where it can go no more and begins it’s swing in the opposite direction. That’s both great and terrible at the same time when applied to this situation. We’ve seen the (figurative) pendulum swing so far in one direction that it threatens to swing to the extreme of the other and that’s why I write these articles, not to expose, because that’s already been done, but to keep the spotlight on these scrambling, scattering cockroaches. At present, they’re being buried under the rubble as their illusory sense of authority falls apart and that’s all well and good but now we need to pay attention.
As the pendulum swings in the opposite direction, it’s going to be up to us to stop it at it’s zero point. The point where gravity just allows it to hang, pointing to the floor and remember to be reasonable, enjoy successes and learn from failures and mistakes.
12:41 am. I tried to get this completed before work and failed. There was just too much in here to pack into an hour which is how much time I gave myself.
Still, this is the “I Told You So” moment where none of us really wanted to say so.
These people have tried to cancel Gygax, both Gary and Ernie. They’ve tried to get Grim Jim booted smooth off of Drive-Thru RPG. They ruined Zak Smith for saying the very things Brianna Wu is now saying…
Careful, there, Brianna. If you keep talking sense, these people will hunt you down like a rabid dog. Ask Zak Smith.
If only someone were there to warn against all this. I mean, perhaps some of this could have been avoided…
Seems the pendulum is swinging in the opposite direction. The chickens are coming home to roost. Disaster awaits for them all.
Hold the line and spread the word far and wide. Boycott them all until the feel the swing of the first pendulum I mentioned.
I’m just an uppity white dude though…
In the meantime, here’s another video talking about it.
The gall of these people.
Karma is coming for these people and about time too. The only thing to do now is watch them reap what they themselves have sown.