#assessing progress

[seveneyesoup]

can i just say. i’m sick of showrunner discourse. like every few months it seems like people draw their lines and dig their trenches and every time it’s the same handful of points and episodes brought up to prove that their favorite showrunner is Good And Progressive and that their least favorite is Wrong And Bigoted and like. all of those episodes exist. they’re all real episodes of doctor who, and the sooner we can look at the good and the bad in doctor who, the sooner we can get somewhere actually worth being regarding discussion of politics on the show

[vaxxman]

Do you actually use the vacc all the time? Stock is better for taking out sentries, or no? (genuinely asking)

Please don't learn from my wannabe strategies, they are really not good and very beginner-ish. Actually good medic mains would probably cry at some things that I do. In short, no. It's the same for any other medic weapon, really.

(Really) long answer, which is based on an unreliable "2 months of playing medic nearly every day" is below.

All mediguns are situational, but I follow some personal rule of thumb that goes:

If on attacking team: Stock Medigun If on defending team: Kritzkrieg

(Depicted is the ideal situation shortly before your Kritzkrieg reaches 100%)

I'm not an asshole who denies a good team potential killstreaks with a Kritzkrieg. A good team deserves a good uber. But if that medigun set up doesn't seem to work out with my team (eg. my team is only Demoknights and Market Gardeners / the enemy team has a god-like sniper and is killing everyone at the same spawn door) and the flanking classes are more fit to actually do the objective, I will switch to a different set up.

If on attacking team: Vaccinator If on defending team: Quickfix

(Depicted is what Vaxx encounters 70% of matches on payload maps)

My reason for this is that both of these mediguns focus more on survival, rather than making sudden pushes for ground; ground that the entire team might not be able to keep. I strongly follow the credo of "Don't pocket", so these two fast charging mediguns are perfect for switching around patients during building and uber pop to make sure many people as possible profit from them. They are also much more hectic to play, so most of the time I will switch from Crossbow to Overdose, and from ubersaw to solemn vow, because I am much more vulnerable to spies and flanks from hyper focusing on everyone's healthbars and jumping across the map, trying to keep the team together. Vaccing scouts is incredibly fun, you couldn't imagine until you tried ("Hello Doc, this is Jeremy, your Uber driver to pick you up").

On payload, when my team is pushing, I generally use Vacc and am part of the cart pushing team, unless I see that the team work and positioning is good enough. Upon death I'll respawn with stock to help the power classes who are pushing at the frontline instead, because the cart heals, too, and I trust my team to not die. Sometimes, all it takes for your team to successfully move out and gain ground is some popped bullet resistances on the first person who is leaving spawn to make sure the snipers don't delete them before you even get to the cart.

When I say "play more aggressive as medic" I really just mean being able to stand in the crossfire more often and actively encouraging your patients to go into situations, because they can trust that your 75% resistance will let them survive it (also you just pop the bubble and stress them into GOING IN BEFORE THE EFFECT WEARS OFF). If you run into a sniper sightline and manage to get him to snipe at you while a bullet resistance bubble is popped, the rest of your team can follow you until the sniper has reloaded, and that alone may already have caused enough pressure for the sniper to leave his position. I like to think of Vacc and Stock as the fight-or-flight-reflex triggering mediguns, with Vacc being the medigun that seemingly locks people into battle with you, as people attempt to take you down with focus fire, while Stock causes everyone to flee. Dying with Vacc isn't too bad for your uber charge, and no healing for some seconds is a risk I am willing to take sometimes, if it means I'm drawing the enemies' attention away from my other team mates and wasting their ammo for the last push.

So tldr: Since I'm playing casual mostly, eventually I will use Vaccinator a lot because my alternative is to gamble that one or two players are competent enough to perform extremely well during an 8 second long uber. Yes Stock uber is the best for taking out sentries, but sometimes your team might not be the best for the job.

Whatever people say about medic gameplay being boring, I don't see it, it's super engaging, and extremely strategy heavy to me.

(Depicted are reasons why normal and sane medic mains use Stock vs why Vaxx uses Vaccinator)

[tybaltsjuliet]

Noah was a charity-boy, but not a workhouse orphan. No chance-child was he, for he could trace his genealogy all the way back to his parents, who lived hard by; his mother being a washerwoman, and his father a drunken soldier, discharged with a wooden leg, and a diurnal pension of twopence-halfpenny and an unstateable fraction. The shop-boys in the neighbourhood had long been in the habit of branding Noah in the public streets, with the ignominious epithets of “leathers,” “charity,” and the like; and Noah had borne them without reply. But, now that fortune had cast in his way a nameless orphan, at whom even the meanest could point the finger of scorn, he retorted on him with interest. This affords charming food for contemplation. It shows us what a beautiful thing human nature may be made to be; and how impartially the same amiable qualities are developed in the finest lord and the dirtiest charity-boy.

[river-demon-slayer]

Study Diary #5

Not exactly a great score - Back into the 'Pass' section but there is nothing that I can do. I just wanted to put this up to track my progress - it is 2 points higher than my previous submission for this module but I am not that happy with this. As I was seeing the comments put in by my professor I could see the stupid places where I made mistakes. But there is nothing that can be done to change it😶.

[lazy-toad]

Argh no-one here would happen to have experience with ADHD and having to memorize large chunks of text would they? Because at the moment it's so painfully understimulating that I cannot physically force myself to sit down and learn this damn speech

[rock-me-amadeus-epic-remix]

i'm not feeling great and I have to be at the job center again tomorrow morning to register for a civil service course

[sophianightdreamer]

If you have two conflicting design elements in one place, try moving one slightly.

Or: I was grafting and fitting Armada! Megatron's distinctive stag-beetle-mandible-helmet-antlers off from the helmet (and classic bucket silhouette) and onto the back of the neck/upper back for a bit of fun. I guess they ended kind of small, but the shape and position work. And they can move.

When I sat down for this I was thinking that those mandibles are for digging/are some sort of mining equipment kibble (Armada! Megs' tank mode retains those mandibles under the barrel), but with the size they ended up at I guess they can be sensors of some kind. Perhaps they are collapsible or foldable? Although, it won't be a first time a transformer has some weird pointy bits sticking up from the back - Arcee's kibble backpack has pretty sharp incarnations.

[mariocki]

New Scotland Yard: Reunion (1.12, LWT, 1972)

"It's not his style!"

"And Clifford's not a very pleasant character."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Just I think he's being getting under your skin."

"Well, he'd get under anybody's skin."

"Because he got away with it, before?"

"There are no facts to prove that Clifford wasn't there. Just as there were no facts to prove that he wasn't a party to the bank job, but you and I and every man in this force know that he was."

"And there's damn all we can do about it. Look, I'm not stitching him up just because he happens to have made idiots of us in the past; we have to prove, conclusively, without supposition, who killed Gemmell."

[anetherealpoetess]

really interesting development in glen powell's conservative dog-whistling which i highlighted on this tumblr a week or so ago now. the new york times has just covered twisters among other films pandering to conservatives (article is behind a paywall here):

and why is this happening? the article states:

"Ticket buyers in red states were the fastest to return to theaters after the pandemic, while those in coastal cities were the slowest. Some large markets, including San Francisco, have not fully recovered, according to studio distribution executives."

so. twisters is a conservative film. this is really evident in both its star and its director dog-whistling to republicans in interviews, but also in the film itself: the female star of the original not being invited back even for a tiny cameo, the hero of this film being republican-coded, no climate change mentioned even in passing, a character outright stating the heroine in this film "cannot be trusted" because she is from new york, the anti-intellectualism, the rodeo scene, a male character mansplaining to a female character, a meteorologist, basic facts about tornadoes, etc. i could go on.

and why is this a problem besides the really obvious? well, GLAAD's broadcast findings reported a dramatic decrease in LGBTQ+ representation last year. this trend is going to get worse. storytelling is regressing politically. less LGBTQ+ characters, less female characters, less any-characters besides straight white christian men. (yeah. religion is a big one also. look at the meltdown over the harmless paris olympics opener.)

we're going backwards, and they'll disguise it as "we don't want to preach a message. we just want to entertain." but we all know what their real intention is: making as much money as possible, even if it means shafting anyone who is not a conservative straight white christian man. (hollywood really saw women flock to the barbie movie and said, "we need more movies about toys!" and not, "we need more movies about women.")

twisters is a sub-par film. that's not the issue here. the issue is it's a canary in a coal mine. it is one of the first big blockbusters post-pandemic to brazenly cater to conservative audiences. i mentioned in my last post olivia culpo's soft-launch as a trad-wife was immediately highlighted and called out on tiktok. powell did not face this immediate backlash because he's a man. he has more room to play. i'm actually shocked the new york times called twisters out. i respect it though.

[lavenderleahy]

planting stupid fake trees is the only thing keeping me focused rn

[dontwanderoff]

im very much not dealing with or even fully observing the fact its report writing season again tbh

[boyslugs]

hrt assessment: booked

mullet: growing out so i can get it professionally done in late may

new swim trunks: have shipped

its officially about to be hot tboy summer for me. my fratboy-sona is thawing out and i'm ready to give some people a gay awakening.

[riggedbones]

theyre always making me do this shit

[loneliii-aura]

This has probably been said before, but the final scene of Glass Onion was really interesting in terms of how much of a pointed commentary about liberalism it is.

First no one helps Helen - they just look away and close their eyes. But then Helen gets going, and people start rallying and joining in on the destruction - until Miles Bron starts getting irate, and they realize she's actually going for it in the face of potential repercussions from the one who holds power currently. Then they try to stop the violence, but she refuses to stop in the face of their shouting.

It's only after she's burned the place down and told Bron exactly how she'll sink him that they start rallying again, after a solution has been found and presented. But Helen didn't need them, she already had what she needed to sink Bron. Sure, it was better than them, like, killing her on Bron's behalf - but they didn't help. They performatively danced around and then tried to maintain the status quo, only ingratiating themselves to the winning side after all was said and done. If you can't see the allegory about liberals, I don't know what to tell you.

[kndll-art]

black & orange salad 🫒

4 x 4 in/ alcohol ink on paper

instagram

progress under the cut 🍊

[orbmanson7]

My therapist: so have you ever been diagnosed with ADHD?

Me: I mean.... technically no but that's because I don't want a diagnosis on my record because I always get my health insurance through my employer, but...it's been suggested by nearly every therapist and psychiatrist I've ever seen, yeah

My therapist: what about autism?

Me: ... technically no but it's been suggested by a lot of them, too.

My therapist: and OCD?

Me: .......technically no but--

My therapist: you should probably look at getting diagnosed for those. If you want to. Might help a lot.

Me: