Sidetracks - March 18, 2022

[helloladies]

Sidetracks is a collaborative project featuring various essays, videos, reviews, or other Internet content that we want to share with each other. All past and current links for the Sidetracks project can be found in our Sidetracks tag. For more links and commentary you can follow us on Twitter. You can also support us on Patreon.

Anna

1. "Calligraphers Bring Regulations to a Font Fight" — This article about debates within the Chinese font and calligraphy world about fonts used by the entertainment industry is fascinating. I don’t approved at all of banning fonts, but I was tickled to learn that the dramatic fonts used for wuxia dramas and such are called jianghu fonts.

KJ

2. Square Enix has launched a new YouTube channel featuring music from its games, including the Final Fantasy, NiER, and Chrono series. You can search by game or composer, and they've also made album playlists. Is the decision and timing an intentional tweaking of the nose at Nintendo, which famously provides no legal way to listen to its game music and is notorious for hitting anyone who uploads it with copyright strikes? I suspect probably yes.

3. Author and editor May Peterson shares thoughts on how cis folks can better support the trans community, including both general advice and specific action items.

4. Madison Durham on how well The Legend of Vox Machina serves the character Keyleth, and brings a greater appreciation of her to the audience. (Contains spoilers for both the animated series and the original stream.) Keyleth, and by extension Marisha Ray, who created her, was probably the Campaign One character most loudly and harshly criticized by the fandom, and it's been great to see them both get more positive recognition. I particularly enjoyed William SRD's video essay The Vindication of One Marisha Ray, in which he explains how his thinking on the character and her creator has evolved.

5. Presenting what may be the funniest and most wholesome AITA of all time.

Susan

6. I loved discovering that "buttering the cat" is now a metaphor for "helping" disabled people in ways that aren't actually helpful, and as such this piece going into Jean and Jorts as a metaphor for workplace accommodations pleases me greatly.

7. Some of my friends have set up a pay-what-you-want bundle of blogging resources with all profits going to Ukrainians With Disabilities, the Red Cross, and Project Hope.

Comments

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Thank you So Much for the AITA tweet. Gusts of Laughter escaped me.

[owlmoose]

It pretty much made my week! I'm glad you enjoyed it :)