thetalesalchemist

[thetalesalchemist]

Popped back in on Tumblr cus I know you love some AC suuuper hype.

Almost here.

My friend code is SW-7937-1182-6991

My brother Jermaine's is SW-8262-0861-5715

#animal crossing #friend code #Nintendo switch #hey y'all #missed ya

[thetalesalchemist]

Thanks, fam 🥳 (at Mom's Basement) https://www.instagram.com/p/B7i0gBJBkUP/?igshid=uganh5qw99j6

[thetalesalchemist]

Super grateful to have great friends to make these trips around the sun so dope. Shout out to good homies and bad pictures in 2019 as a 27 year old. Here's to poorly recorded great memories of 28 in 2020. #Thnksfrthemmrs https://www.instagram.com/p/B7gMQ3SBL4m/?igshid=1a35dpgimvgib

#thnksfrthemmrs

[thetalesalchemist]

Hi Tumblr. It's been a while. If you're playing Pokemon let's be friends.

#pokemon #sobble squad

[thetalesalchemist]

Y'all ready to be Wizards?

#wizardsunite #hpgo

[thetalesalchemist]

The show last night was super dope. Definitely seeing @wearenotsales and @varsitytunes again if they're in the area. Swipe to see me as a drunk, happy, goofy looking trashboi (at Saturn Birmingham) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bvt4UoBnpgl/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=dpz9t6y6qw0d

[thetalesalchemist]

For the past two International Women's Days I've pledged to support more women creators. I was to watch more movies by women directors and/or with women leads (look up the 4% challenge), listen to more women, play games with women leads and women creators, support more women in comics and wrestling, etc. I did do some of that but not to a decent level. So when @karakryger asked for recommendations at the beginning of the year I asked for some myself to really get behind working on my pledge. So here's a list of the artists I'll give a listen to for the next little while. I planning on checking out an artist/project every couple of days. I'm going back to the gym soon so I'll have plenty to listen to while I'm on the bike. I have 50+ records and only two have women leads (Lily Allen and Solange) so in music I can literally see the disparity in the artists I support. I've been to a fair amount of shows but it was just last year when I saw Chvrches and Lily in the same month that I paid to see women perform. And my calendar this year isn't looking much more diverse than last. I am seeing SALES at Saturn on 3/31 and a big if of seeing Mitski in Tallahassee in April so slowly but surely I'm becoming more inclusive of who I give that bagel money to. I used the same pledge two years in a row and it'll be an ongoing effort, of course, but if I make a sincere effort this next month I'll have a new project to work on for 3/8. I'm thinking of writing 'How to Make America Great for (Working) Women' and supporting/highlighting the service of female journalists too like Pelin Unker (arrested in Turkey for paradise papers) or Marie Colvin (killed in Syria in 2012). #workonbeinganally https://www.instagram.com/p/BtfP8hAHQ2E/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=cxqztlxdyqrk

#workonbeinganally

[thetalesalchemist]

Thanks to everyone who showed me love for my birthday this weekend. I got cool gifts, had a good time with some family, and got to party with the homies around town. I appreciate all of the texts, snaps, and fb posts. Stay gold, fam (at Queen's Park Birmingham) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bs8lSZRnVyh/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=y5ry1d1of5jh

[thetalesalchemist]

Let's play y'all

SW-7937-1182-6991

#smash #pokemon let's go #pokemon #super smash bros ultimate #switch

[thetalesalchemist]

How to Backup your Tumblr

I was just semi-complaining that I was still looking for a decent way to backup my +6k posts without having to use paid services or even just wordpress (which has an import from tumblr tool that asks for permission to access your blog and also make posts), when I decided to actually put some effort into my google search. 

Results were positive: I have successfully backed up my blog* 

*By which I mean: everything that I have ever posted.  Not included: drafts, queue, likes, followers, following, comments, notes, chat. 

I followed this method (word by word), and now have a 450 MB folder on my computer with the name of my blog on it containing: 

1. Folder “Archive” (contains .html files listed by month) 2. Folder “Media” (contains gifs and images, mine has +1k files in it; might contain also audios but I have no way of confirming that because I’ve never reblogged an audio post from this blog) 3. Folder “Posts” (contains single .html files, each one a post; I have +4k files in it) 4. Folder “Theme” (contains only my avatar, but it might be a matter of if you have personalized themes or not) 5. .html file “Index” (by opening it it will give you the archive of your blog organized by month; clicking on a month will open up the archive for that month, and you’ll be able to read all the posts for that month as if you were on your blog**, except sans your theme graphic, with each page containing 50 posts)

**I can see gifs, links, embedded videos, tags, number of notes (but I can’t open up the notes, clearly), text is also correctly formatted. 

So yeah, in case anyone wants a very quick way to back up their blog, it took me less than 10 minutes. 

P.S. I didn’t have any issue, but to be on the safe side always check for spyware and virus threats before and after downloading anything. 

[thetalesalchemist]

Lemme know where to find you guys if you decide to jump ship

Unfortunately the higherups at tumblr (and Yahoo/Verizon) don’t think that sex work is work or that the workers should be treated like professionals and adults. This is a poor decision that might result in an exodus of many of its users. It is a tone deaf solution to a real problem that they ran into. The buyout of the company has resulted in censorship and hurdles for many of our friends to overcome that weren’t there originally. While I have to respect the decisions made by executives it is hella lame to see a platform change to suit the interests of people who aren’t a part of the community. There is a need for censorship, but generally I found this community to be good a policing itself. It’s wack that an incident caused (or hastened) the decision to deplatform sex workers and people just happy to be open about their bodies and sexuality. Tumblr was a valuable resource for many people because it provided people with communities and opportunities that they can’t find on most social media sites. There is shelter that was found here from the relatively unpoliced networks like reddit and now that is gone. I wish all of you the best as you adjust to the new normal on tumblr. 

 I don’t use tumblr as much as I used to but I pop in every now and then to check on you guys. This site means a lot to me. I’ve made several irl friends and online ones as well so I’d hope that you guys still use the service, but if not I’d like to follow you  on ig or twitter. If you’re a gamer, I’d like to play Smash, Pokemon, Fortnite, etc. with you guys. 

Thanks for all the memories and good luck with all that you do,

Jermichal

Fell free to add me on anything

Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, PSN, and Xbox live @talesalchemist

I’m on Switch, Battlenet, and Fortnite as Jermichal 

Switch friend code SW-7937-1182-6991

Pokemon go 5381 0623 0864

My number is 2058210855

#tumblr

[thetalesalchemist]

Let's be friends in Pokémon GO! My Trainer Code is 5381 0623 0864!

I haven't used this app in forever but I might now that I have the game

#pokemon #pokemon go #let's go

[thetalesalchemist]

I finished the story in Red Dead so now I'm going to play this as much as possible until Smash drops.

#let's go #pokemon #switch #smash #eevee

[thetalesalchemist]

Definitely worth the drive from Birmingham to Nashville (then back) to see @lilyallen I'm glad I got to see my boy @smokinpun92 working @themocknash to pregame too (at Cannery Ballroom) https://www.instagram.com/p/BpHuR6wH480/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1f9ykjpj7jofl

[thetalesalchemist]

I worked. Napped. Drove to Nashville to see @smokinpun92 at his job, @themocknash. Then saw these fellas with my homie @buttflames yesterday was a decent Monday (at Ascend Amphitheater)

[thetalesalchemist]

You guys should look up #KanyeMadness. I just filled out my bracket and it gave me a better appreciation of him. Could you make a chart like this for any other artist? 64 songs and it's still missing hits. Yeezy isn't my fav but he's a national treasure

#kanyemadness

[thetalesalchemist]

Still working on this....

The media, feminism, and me. A post for International Women’s Day 2017

While I consider myself a supporter of feminism and an ally to its cause, I find that virtually none of my favorite creators, authors, artists, scientists, etc. are female or, more importantly, identify as women. I believe that I can be an ally despite that fact but I have to ask myself if I am truly a supporter for the cause of gender equality.

If I don’t support a woman singer her songs and her albums am I a feminist? If I don’t watch women led films or television can I be a feminist? If the anime I like has weak female leads used primarily for fan service or has an overwhelmingly male cast am I supporting the feminist cause?

I find that few of the games I play have female playable characters. Even fewer with female leads. I watch several hours of wrestling a week and rarely, if ever, pay attention to women wrestlers. I watch several all male promotions: ROH, NJPW, and NOAH and I could not care less that there are no women on the roster. I used to be a sports guy but have since fallen out of watching SportsCenter every morning years ago. Still none of the athletes that I care about are women. I don’t watch any sports for them. As if women’s sports are for women.

In every genre of entertainment and in any expressive medium, I seem to avoid anything that has women in a central role. So, perhaps, my claim that I am a feminist is just that, a claim.

The question I must ask myself is “Do I avoid female-centric art?” If I think that I don’t and that I only am predisposed to liking male-centric things or that male focused art is better, does it matter?

I find that rappers like Killer Mike, Jay Z, Slug, etc. are better than Trina, Remy Ma, and Nicki. I prefer singers like Julian Casablancas, Chris Cornell, R. Kelly to Beyonce, Alicia Keys, and Lily Allen (who is my fav woman singer), There is no female directer that I follow or whose style I recognize like Snyder, Tarantino, Abrams, Nolan. The Ava DuVernay’s and Katheryn Bigelow’s of the world are award winning visionaries but I couldn’t describe their style or bodies of work. I had to Google other women directors because I’m simply not familair with any who wasn’t an actor first. There’s no actress that I prefer to my favorite actors. Amy Adams is in a few of my favorite recent films but she wouldn’t crack my top 20 for on screen performers. I’ve seen the majority of several actresses’ entire bodies of work and it doesn’t seem to matter to me. I find it hard to fathom that I would see a movie because an actress was in it. For some actors, I would.

In this scenario I’d have to ask myself why is this? Is it because of the subject matter or their work? Or is it something like the quality or my perception of it? Do I believe that their works are inferior to their male colleagues? Perhaps, the roles women are given in Hollywood and the music industry are typecast. Or I just avoid these women’s work because I am sexist? Idk.

In games I think my issue with supporting women and female leads has definite room for improvement. I never create a woman as my avatar. I’m male, identify as a man, so I’ve never, when given an option, chose to play as a woman over in a man when you could create a character. In Dishonored 2 I did choose to play as Emily instead of Corvo but you don’t create either character. I don’t think I know any game creators, directors, art leads, writers, etc. other than Amy Hennig (the writer and director of the first few Uncharted games) and Jade Raymond (of Assassin’s Creed). I will play a game with a female protagonist but I’m not sure if I avoided a game because it had a woman.

Thinking critically of myself I don’t think I would play Final Fantasy XV, my favorite game of last year, if it had a cast of four women. I’m not sure the marketing would capture me in that case. I would hope that having a female lead cast would not have prevented me from playing FFXV. I like Nathan Drake more than Lara Croft. I can’t tell if that’s because of the writing, Nolan North’s performance, or sexism. In Resident Evil 6 there were four campaigns with only one with a woman as the lead. Some campaigns had women characters but the driving focus of the narrative was on the men in them. Ada’s campaign was my favorite but that may be due to the execution and style of the others. In Overwatch my mains are split 50/50 which is a credit to Blizzard for diversifying its cast and the roles they play to encourage its players to be a different hero. In gaming I can’t tell with certainty why I seemingly don’t play games with women playable characters. It could be the style of the game-indie title skew more towards equality (not yet equal though) of female leads than AAA games. Maybe the genre of game is part of it. I prefer action oriented games and those overwhelmingly have guys as the protagonist.

In anime, none of my favorites have a woman lead. In some cases, like Bleach, the girls are there as fan service or damsels in distress. While they all have characters and motivations, their purpose within the story isn’t as important as the fellas that move the story along. I especially love Shonen style battle anime and there will seemingly always be a focus on men as it’s target audience in Japan is young boys. My favorite anime series is Full Metal Alchemist, a series with male leads yet is written by Hiromu Arakawa, a woman (Arakawa’s name is Hiromi but she uses a male pen name).

When it comes to wrestling and (real) sports I, simply, prefer watching the men. When I was a teenager I would watch women’s tennis cus upskirts hehe now that I’m (less im)mature I know now how silly and wrong that was. When I was that age professional wrestling in the US overly sexualized women and that’s the reason why I would watch it then. I would outgrow that behavior too because promotions focused on aesthetics and the women that they hired were trash performers. It’s only recently with NXT generation of women wrestlers (and Natalya too) that I care about women’s wrestling in the US. I love the Japanese style of wrestling, puroresu, but I don’t watch Joshi (female) promotions. I will seek out Joshi matches but at the time, I haven’t yet done the research and the promotions aren’t as easily available as New Japan Pro Wrestling. Back to real sports, now that I, more or less, know what I like. I do not watch any competition between women when there is a male alternative. With MMA I kind of luck into watching women fight as they’re on the same card as the men. I watch only World Cup for women’s soccer. I don’t think I’ve seen a high level soccer game on television other than WC. When I attended UAB, I never watched women’s basketball but went to a few men’s, I only went to one women’s soccer game and I didn’t support any other women’s sport on campus at all. I don’t follow the WNBA at all. I can only name a few players and can’t name a champion team. In women’s NCAA I only know about UConn because they’ve been so dominant. But even without watching ESPN regularly, I can tell you who’s hot and what the teams are doing in the NBA and men’s NCAA.

TLDR:

The crux of my problem is that I don’t know how much fault I bear in having an aversion to women’s artistic pursuits. While I feel like I am a feminist and am all for equal rights and pay, I do not seem to care much or at all about the creative work that women produce. I think it has to do with the exposure of their work. There are very few works of art that have a female lead that are marketed towards me. But I recognize that I should seek these things out as well. I should support women’s work because that, presumably, would help get more women hired in the fields and mediums that I enjoy consuming. In sports I can see clearly that I’m biased toward male competition and I don’t know how to fix that issue. Watching women’s sports would help a bit, sure, but I’m not a huge sports guy and so I’ll generally watch only the “major” events. Those events are, of course, overwhelmingly male. For the arts, literature (which I didn’t touch), film, music, tv, anime, games, etc. I need to consume more works by women featuring women to send a messages to labels, publishers, channels, and studios that there is a demand for their products. The thing is I’ve done things like this before every summer I look for new artists and try to find their work and I regularly seek out new anime. So I think I need to try to find new news sources as well and, perhaps, that would help alleviate the problem I have of not being exposed to what’s popular, critically acclaimed, and highlights women. There’s a lot of work that I have to do to be more inclusive in my hobbies. I’ve tried to do so in the past and while I think I tried to do so sincerely there was little to no impact on diversifying the types of art and its creators that I consume. In order to call myself a feminist and mean it, I NEED to try more works by women. What do you recommend?