#The Campaign Company

[inkskinned]

one of the things that's the most fucking frustrating for me about arguing with climate change deniers is the sheer fucking scope of how much it matters. sweating in my father's car, thinking about how it's the "hottest summer so far," every summer. and there's this deep, roiling rage that comes over me, every time.

the stakes are wrong, is the thing. that's part of what makes it not an actual debate: the other side isn't coming to the table with anything to fucking lose.

like okay. i am obviously pro gun control. but there is a basic human part of me that can understand and empathize with someone who says, "i'm worried that would lead to the law-abiding citizens being punished while criminals now essentially have a superpower." i don't agree, but i can tell the stakes for them are also very high.

but let's say the science is wrong and i'm wrong and the visible reality is wrong and every climate disaster refugee is wrong. let's say you're right, humans aren't causing it or it's not happening or whatever else. let's just say that, for fun.

so we spend hundreds of millions of dollars making the earth cleaner, and then it turns out we didn't need to do that. oops! we cleaned the earth. our children grow up with skies full of more butterflies and bees. lawns are taken over with rich local biodiversity. we don't cry over our electric bills anymore. and, if you're staunchly capitalist and i need to speak ROI with you - we've created so many jobs in developing sectors and we have exciting new investment opportunities.

i am reminded of kodak, and how they did not make "the switch" to digital photography; how within 20 years kodak was no longer a household brand. do we, as a nation, feel comfortable watching as the world makes "the switch" while we ride the laurels of oil? this boggles me. i have heard so much propaganda about how america cannot "fall behind" other countries, but in this crucial sector - the one that could actually influence our own monopolies - suddenly we turn the other cheek. but maybe you're right! maybe it will collapse like just another silicone valley dream. but isn't that the crux of capitalism? that some economies will peter out eventually?

but let's say you're right, and i'm wrong, and we stopped fracking for no good reason. that they re-seed quarries. that we tear down unused corporate-owned buildings or at least repurpose them for communities. that we make an effort, and that effort doesn't really help. what happens then? what are the stakes. what have we lost, and what have we gained?

sometimes we take our cars through a car wash and then later, it rains. "oh," we laugh to ourselves. we gripe about it over coffee with our coworkers. what a shame! but we are also aware: the car is cleaner. is that what you are worried about? that you'll make the effort but things will resolve naturally? that it will just be "a waste"?

and what i'm right. what if we're already seeing people lose their houses and their lives. what if it is happening everywhere, not just in coastal towns or equatorial countries you don't care about. what if i'm right and you're wrong but you're yelling and rich and powerful. so we ignore all of the bellwethers and all of the indicators and all of the sirens. what if we say - well, if it happens, it's fate.

nevermind. you wouldn't even wear a mask, anyway. i know what happens when you see disaster. you think the disaster will flinch if you just shout louder. that you can toss enough lives into the storm for the storm to recognize your sacrifice and balk. you argue because it feels good to stand up against "the liberals" even when the situation should not be political. you are busy crying for jesus with a bullhorn while i am trying to usher people into a shelter. you've already locked the doors, even on the church.

the stakes are skewed. you think this is some intellectual "debate" to win, some funny banter. you fuel up your huge unmuddied truck and say suck it to every citizen of that shitbird state california. serves them right for voting blue!

and the rest of us are terrified of the entire fucking environment collapsing.

[sizzlingsandwichperfection-blog]

Do I Have Any Advice for You

Yes. Life is long if you're lucky and full of struggles. There are many downsides that accompany personhood, but also much joy. We are here to love and be loved, to know and be known, and to pay attention. The gift of our attention is unprecedented in the history of Earth life, and a power to wield with care and attention.

But that is not my advice. My advice is to--if it is at all possible--shed your human skin entirely and become a corporation. Ideally, become a coffee company that donates all its profit to charity. But any kind of corporation will do in a pinch.

According to the U.S. Supreme Court, as a corporation you will still be a person, but you will no longer be confined to the decaying bacterial colony known as your body. You will ascend to Corporate Personhood, the highest form of Personhood available to late stage capitalist societies, where you enjoy all the benefits of person status with none of the biological trials and tribulations.

[insidecroydon]

Company founded by Labour's Evans under threat of strike off

While the quality of the management of the Labour Party by its General Secretary David Evans remains hotly disputed among those on the left, the public relations consultancy he established just more than 20 years ago, The Campaign Company, looks to be in deep trouble. Not so good Evans: the Labour Party’s General Secretary The Campaign Company – motto: “Values First” (we don’t think it’s meant…

[deramin2]

Fate really does not work correctly around Critical Role.

So many things happened that weren't really supposed to that lined up events so that the last episode Sam played in before cancer surgery was the fight with Otohan and the most logical last move was FCG self-destructing.

FCG was a reflection of where Sam was & what he wanted to explore in 2021 when he was healthy & joking he liked exploring other people's damage because he had none of his own.

As someone who also had a serious illness, there's a huge wall between who I am now & who I was before.

Somehow things lined up such that getting near the end of Sam's last episode for a while, he had a chance to express everything FCG had learned and experienced through their journey about themselves and the gods while neatly ending their story in a really meaningful way.

It wasn't planned that way, but it really was probably the best possible scenario for the story overall.

I know I probably could not play my pre-illness characters again. They'd be different people because I'm a different person. I think a hard permanent demarcation is good.

Just another wildly improbable series of events that end up having a bizarrely fitting narrative structure in a real world that isn't supposed to have narrative structures. I've joked for years that Avandra has their backs, but she really did have a place for her little robit.

I'm immensely glad the outcome is we get to see Sam back at the table exploring things he was missing out on with FCG like being horny and charismatic and lying. Life is short, play a sinking hot evil Minotaur Tragedy Bard/Oath Breaker Paladin propositioning everyone.

[saintmalosunsets]

Band of Brothers but it's just Gene checking on people

[elbiotipo]

The most absurd thing about all this bullshit is that all my data is going towards selling me things I don't want or I can't buy. Tech companies have built the world's most sophisticated and complex surveillance system, effectively trapping billions of people into a panopticon and consuming wasteful amounts of resources, technology and human work and talent, all just to sell ads. It's incredibly absurd.

[aldercaps]

sipping some tea in the Xorhaus

[daftpatience]

I've moved my dice to a bigger bin and sorted them all out by set so that I can cycle through them during my DND campaign because I feel it's a tragedy that most of them havent seen use

my dices my treasures my little objects trinkets

[babyb1ues]

the fact that xavier has twitter warriors and trolls and haters online and he probably has no idea his fans break their backs clearing and spamming his searches and debunking lies….. he needs to get on fanservice at least cause these ppl are doing unpaid labor and running free PR campaigns out of love for him

[primmsfairytale]

do you like video games and want to help an overachieving college student put way too much effort into their semester project?

well, do i have the opportunity for you! i'm trying to get more responses for this survey i made for my marketing class so i have a sample size that's actually, you know, useful. if you have a spare minute, i'd love if you could fill it out!

[lafaiette]

Also, can we talk about magic? i suppose they wanted to make the game more luring to new players, but magic used to be rare, closed under the lock and feared. Mages were feared and cosidered dangerous. Tevinter was an execption, not a general rule. How come people forgot only ten years ealier there was a regular war between mages and chantry, the very reason Inquisition was formed? Why is there magic, anciet elven magic behin every corner? It feels like reboot.

"It feels like reboot"

Because it is a reboot 💀 Or at least, it's the first step towards one.

Explaining how magic is seen in Thedas, all the different opinions and fears and hopes people have about it, would have been impossible in a single game clearly aimed at luring new players in. They put all the major pieces of explanation in the codex (one part of it is filled and complete since from the start of the game, because it's basically a catalogue detailing everything about Thedas), and let you play as a mage to your heart's content, with no strings, no responsibilities attached.

They tried to preserve some logic in Minrathous - there's mention of how Tevinter's families try to breed the perfect mages to rise in power and influence, so that's good. But you also see a "Noble" mingling with a "Civilian" among the fishermen, and telling her she shouldn't waste time and money on making things better for the poor people. What the hell is she doing there, then? Why isn't she in Minrathous proper, drinking wine and looking down on the poor districts?

Just around every corner, a few feet away from the closest tavern, Venatori are constantly putting up blood magic barriers. The same in the Necropolis, with the Venatori making camp just one door behind the main hub where the Mourn Watch is stationed. Everyone performs rituals, the Circles are barely mentioned, a Forbidden One is hiding behind a door in the Necropolis' main hall and no one ever noticed it before, not even Emmrich.

Statues of Fen'Harel and the Evanuris, elven relics and elven contraptions are hidden everywhere - everywhere. To show how vast and influential the elven empire was? That was probably the devs' intent. Does it always make sense? No. Is it for gameplay purposes, to fill the map with puzzles and stuff to find like in the 2000s? Obviously.

In Inquisition, there was an entire area of the Hinterlands ravaged by the Templars and rebel mages. The refugees were scared of walking the roads to find food because there was wild magic flying around. Rabid templars crazy on lyrium roamed the woods, and the Chantry was powerless.

Elven ruins were scattered around with sense, with a purpose, barely visible among the vegetation, forgotten and avoided, or almost forced to fuse with Chantry's buildings (just look at the Emerald Graves). There was a logic behind the NPCs' and props' locations in the world.

Here, there is simply no logic or consequence to anything ever. The Black Divine is never addressed, as far as I remember. Dalish clans have lost any distinction - the only elven faction you meet is that of the Veil Jumpers, which is a weird cocktail of elves who all know how bad the Evanuris are and random humans and Qunari. Yes, there are humans being allowed to guard ancient elven artifacts in a Dragon Age game. No, they are not called shem. Yes, they all get along swimmingly.

The Crows are not slavers and dangerous figures anymore - they're actually the heroes of Treviso! They treat their fledgling Crows with care and respect, no torture involved. Where did you hear such a preposterous idea? Zevran? Who's Zevran?

Taash says the Qun isn't a prison. How is that possible? They sent assassins after Bull when he defected. They hunt Vashoth and Tal-Vashoth if they dare leave, and if a sten loses his sword, he cannot return home, because his brethren would kill him, as "to a Qunari warrior, the sword is the soul."

So yeah, this was definitely supposed to be a reboot for Dragon Age, just like Andromeda was supposed to be one for Mass Effect. That's why everything falls flat.

[notwhatiam]

(Forgive me for being a dick and blazing a promotional campaign. I know we all come here for motiveless fandom-based shitposts, but I am but a mere independent creator and I must obnoxiously spread my word wherever the blue light shines. 😔)

Hey, folks! My company, Cotton Candy Flavor Media, and I are currently working on our first ever animated film. It’s called “Get Yeast To It”, and it’s a surreal existential dark comedy about a version of the afterlife where humans are judged by cells of yeast based on whether or not they ever ate bread. We’re currently running a crowdfunding campaign for the project so that we can raise the money we need to achieve our yeasty dreams, which is no small feat for indie artists in the midst of this truly shitty time for the animation industry as a whole. If you all could like, share, and donate to the campaign at the link below, it would go a long way in helping us plucky creators succeed— and you could have the opportunity to receive an unpackaged potato in the mail, which I know is really tempting for a lot of you. Thanks, everybody, and let’s get bread-y to rumbleeeeeeee!!

[insidecroydon]

Grey man's appointment places Gray with Croydon clique

Political editor WALTER CRONXITE delves into the shadowy south London connections that Sue Gray will encounter when she starts work as the Labour leader’s Chief of Staff Hot line: Sue Gray is moving from the Civil Service to the Labour Party The grey man of British politics, the terminally boring Keir Starmer, now has a Gray Chief of Staff, former senior civil servant Sue Gray. It will place Gray…

[deramin2]

I get that people mean well when they say some variant of "Critical Role shouldn't tell people they can watch Campaign 3 without watching other campaigns because they can't understand XYZ reference."

But that's actually gatekeeping. Functionally that ends up communicating that people can't possibly enjoy a piece of media if they aren't enjoying it exactly like you do after doing over a thousand hours of homework first. It just keeps people from being new fans without because they see their experience being looked down on.

I do think there's value in seeing it all and that it does deepen understanding of the material, but it's also likes studying history. You don't have to study absolutely everything in order to get an understanding of what came after. It certainly helps, but it's not always necessary.

If a character is important, Critical Role actually do give enough information to get the gist. Especially from the current party's point of view. They don't know all these people and their exact histories either. As long as the audience knows what the party knows it's fine. It's enough. Even when the cast's excitement shows this is someone they're excited to see again. The wikis are there if new viewers are curious.

It's vital in fandom to understand that everybody's not going to have our want the same experience with the material and that's fine. Even the thing that makes watching the show the most enjoyable to you. It may not be interesting or achievable for other people and that's fine.

A company that encourages completionist gatekeeping is undermining their own audience growth and the accessibility of their material. Critical Role is just recognizing that not everyone is going to have the same path in and they don't need to. Fans need to learn to do the same.

[tw1nkee28]

Doodles from today

Plus a zoom in on Felix because he's my beloved

I'm gonna tweak out

[tiktaalic]

If I ran for office all I would do is read off upton Sinclair quotes from the jungle from 100 years ago side by side with boarshead factory inspection reports