#class impressions

[honourablejester]

Heart: The City Beneath - Quick Class Impressions

Cleaver: This place is a world of eldritch flesh and eldritch blood, and you’re the sort of person who learns by eating. Quite literally. A methodology that can, if you choose, also be applied to people. Taste the flesh, taste the world. This is a delightfully tactile survivalist class that gains skills and power by getting squishy about it.

Deadwalker: What more perfect dance partner could there be for a thief and a killer than the sentient shadow of their own delayed death? Heaven and hell are mere vaults before the right fingers, and your death loves you, so why not? If you want to play a metaphysical sort of rogue, this is the class for you.

Deep Apiarist: The chaos of this world is a sensory hell, so you drowned it out by allowing eldritch bees to make a living hive of your body. Because that’s a thing sane people do. But you are now glitteringly sane, owing to the order-inducing abilities of said eldritch bees, so … a successful experiment? Honestly, this is my second favourite class.

Heretic: Yours is a heretic faith, a faith that would get you killed in places that are not here, a faith not in the moon above but the moon below, but her silver light guides your hands regardless. There’s a definite inquisitorial, Bloodborne-type hunter sort of vibe to these priests. The damnic virtues are a little bit on the intense side. But I can vibe with that.

Hound: Once upon a time, an unlucky few, three hundred, were sent to die so others wouldn’t have to, and did something dreadful to survive. Now, they can never die, and their curse echoes down to all who bear their standards. But you were always unlucky anyway, and someone still needs to do it so others don’t have to. Do you want to play a cursed WWI soldier possessed by the genius loci of the trenches, forever standing your ground for the sake of others? I love the lore here.

Incarnadine: You were so fucking good at being perpetually in debt that you drew the attention of the god of being in debt, and they wiped your old life clean in psychic balance. Now you bear their mark, and your life is a razored game of balancing costs, but it’s not without its rewards. I’m not entirely sure of the lure of playing a rank on the totem pole of metaphysical loan sharks myself, but you do get to buy and trade in reality while you’re at it?

Junk Mage: You’re a high energy junkie on the bleeding edge of magic, stealing slivers of power from the many eldritch beings that live in the City Beneath. You’re mad, of course, but what’s life without a little madness? I get a lot of PF2e’s thaumaturge from these guys. Also warlocks, obviously. Junkyard magic, begged, borrowed and stolen, but it’ll burn you out eventually. They’re itchy and I like them.

Vermissian Knight: The train system was plugged into the heart of the eldritch beating thing that is this place, and immediately broke reality, and now you, armoured in scraps of eldritch train steel, must explore and stand guard over what remains. Far and away my favourite class. I love them.

Witch: The Heart gets in your blood, oh, so very literally, and courses its power through your body like a disease. Exactly like a disease. But oh, you are a blood-red, beautiful thing in the process. Something between a witch and a werewolf, if you want a class that lets you plug yourself directly and physically into the eldritch vibes of the setting, the witch might be the choice for you!

Overall, the Incarnadine is the one that pings for me the least. My personal top three are Vermissian Knight, the Deep Apiarist, and the Cleaver.

Also, side note, there is so much body horror in this game. I’m vibing with it, but my sister was quite distressed by the Deep Apiarist in general, and a couple of the Cleaver’s abilities as well. This is a squishy, squelching, writhing sort of game. (Or, well, it can be. If you have a party of Heretics, Vermissian Knights and Deadwalkers, it might lean more grey and desolate and technological. But if you’ve got Witches, Apiarists and Cleavers, it’s gonna get messy).

[fellthemarvelous]

Deny. Defend. Depose.

It is clear to those of us that live in America, the only people we truly have on our side are ourselves. The ruling class has made it clear we don't matter to them.

Luigi Mangione was arrested and happened to have every single piece of evidence on him that law enforcement was looking for, including the parts for the ghost gun, inside his backpack (that he also got rid of in Central Park containing the Monopoly money???). Either he was trying to get caught or that evidence was planted. And when he was being forcefully pushed into the jail, he hollered back to the press about "injustice" and "being an insult to the intelligence of American citizens and our lived experiences."

The people have now turned against corporate America and the CEOs and billionaires are fucking terrified. Nothing the news stations are saying to us are changing our minds. The American people have finally united over this issue and there is no going back for us. Whoever did kill Brian Thompson (and theories abound on the game The Adjuster is playing because no one plays Monopoly alone) exposed the very real divide that exists between every day citizens and the extremely wealthy. Things were easier for them to control when they were able to divide us, but now that we are aware of how uncertain our future is in America and seeing just how little we matter to the people who take our money, we have realized that we have more in common with each other than the people who control every aspect of our lives. We are waking up.

There isn't one person in this country who hasn't been a victim to the predatory scam that is private health insurance. Medical debt is the leading cause of bankruptcy in America, and many of us are one ambulance ride or hospital stay away from homelessness. We all know people who have died because the insurance company denied them the treatment they needed or waited until it was too late for an approval of a medical claim to matter anymore.

Recently, I decided to be tested for autism and ADHD. Not life-threatening or anything, but my life is still in shambles and I want to know if I'm going untreated for something else. Before being tested though, I was informed that the insurance company (Aetna) has said that they were going to cover the full cost of the testing I was having (which was six hours of testing by the way). She even made sure several times that they were, in fact, going to cover it in full and they said yes.

The same day that Brian Thompson, CEO of another horrible healthcare company, was murdered in broad daylight, I received a call from that doctor's office with the woman telling me that Aetna was now telling her they never agreed to cover my testing and that they are going to bill me for $1600 (where the hell am I supposed to get that?) and she is fighting them, but considering our lives don't matter to the people who tell us what healthcare we are and are not allowed to receive, I don't think they will feel compelled to change their minds because they are bloodsucking parasites who only care about lining their pockets while I don't even have $6 lying around, let alone $1600!!

Corporate America leeches off our taxes. They take and take and take and we see nothing in return. They raise prices on insurance coverage and then deny us the very coverage that we pay for. They poison our food, price gouge our poisoned food, and then force us to pay for the treatment we get when the food makes us sick. Corporate America profits off of our hard work, our taxes, our health, our lives, our deaths.

I don't know if this will reach a larger audience or not, but I wanted to talk about it on Tumblr because this platform seems to be a crossroads for every type of creative soul. I initially brought up this idea on TikTok earlier, but I want to see if it can get traction in other places as well since I have fewer than 3,000 followers on TikTok (and I have seen a small few express interest in my idea in the hours since I posted the video.)

We're busy being lectured by politicians and the news media because while they are clutching their pearls at what happened to Brian Thompson, the rest of us do not give one single flying fuck about what happened to him. As CEO of a for-profit health insurance company, he signed off on denied claims and death for those of us who struggle to make it from one day to the next. The sicker you are, the poorer you are, the more they force you to struggle and pay. The love to deny coverage because regardless of whether we live or die, they already have the money we are forced to pay them.

I don't condone murder at all, but I also don't care that he was murdered because he was guilty of murdering so many more people in this country through legal means because it's profitable. The CEOs are scared and there are wanted posters with their names and faces popping up in places. Every CEO of every healthcare company is guilty of murdering Americans and they continue to go unpunished for it because "it's just business".

So (if you've read this far) all of this previous rambling is to say that I keep thinking about how I want to make an impression. I want to continue upsetting the billionaires and the CEOs because corporate America is full of murderers who are legally allowed to decide whether we live or die based on which outcome will give them more money.

I have thought about the idea of creating a wall/constructing a wall somewhere as an art piece or something (making a statement) that will somehow honor the memory of people who died because insurance denied them care.

I know I definitely want it to say something along the lines of "In memory of those murdered by for-profit healthcare systems in corporate America". Something blatant. Loud. Something they are forced to look at every single day. Somehow. The wall could have images of those who are gone, or names of the person who died with the name of the insurance company responsible for their death underneath. Just something to make it clear that we see them for what they are. Something to avenge those who were sacrificed so billionaires and CEOS and shareholders could brag about record profits. Something that shows the whole world that American citizens are waking up to who the real monsters are.

The Adjuster (whoever he is or is not) has fanned the flames of revolution in America. He managed to unite us in a way I can't even recall before. It's not over. We know what happened to Brian Thompson was just the beginning, and corporate America only just now realized how much we actually hate them. A single shooter has sparked an awakening in America that is starting to snowball into something much bigger.

So if there is anyone out there who might be interested in collaborating on something like this, please let me know. I know we are all tired and demoralized and we have no money. I want to make a statement though, and I love doing that through art or writing. Collaborating with other people who have been through this same shit will also probably help us unite even more.

This is a watershed moment in American history.

In the words of Kanan Jarrus, Jedi Knight,

"There is a future for us. One where we're all free. But it's up to us to make it happen."

[aalyre]

one thing about the foxes that will always make me giddy is the team taking shots at their own goals knowing that andrew’s gonna catch the ball

[calkestis]

YUKI ISHIKAWA scored 32 points for Japan in the game against Italy, becoming the first male player to score over 30 points in a single game at the 2024 Olympics. 

[wishchip106]

why is he smirking like that 😭

stop making bedroom eyes. calm down ✋😾

he wants to get in that man’s pant so bad wtf

[fluentisonus]

rambling here (& a little drunk) but it's so interesting coming to les mis from a preexisting maritime/age of sail interest background because like the whole historical situation (well. wrt toulon at least) it's discussing is like. it's very much a side of things you don't think about so much I guess when you're focused on life on board the ships themselves & particularly ships at sea. which -- like tbc my knowledge of this stuff is mostly to do with the royal navy during the same period, which can be very different re: how it functioned, so I don't necessarily know much about the french navy or how obvious this stuff would be if I was reading books about the french navy -- but just the whole existence of the bagne & the prisoners being the ones to help with the ships while they're in port (amongst other things) really makes one think about like idk. how casually you might get someone on the ship referring to 'putting in for repairs' or something in a way you wouldn't think twice about what that might imply. meanwhile then you read this & read the historical background & there's a whole different angle that's absolutely full of horrors. idk idk like I keep thinking about how in post captain (aubrey-maturin series, so written well after les mis & probably deliberately conscious of it while doing this) when they go into the harbor in toulon to meet with christy-palliere during the peace of amiens & there's like half a sentence mention of the convicts on the far side of the harbor unloading stuff from the ships before they go on with their lives (& this is 1802, jvj would literally be over there right then), and it's just background description. and how like every battle you read about, in fiction or non fiction, every time they talk about french ships taking damage or needing supplies etc etc it that it's often toulon (or similar) they'd be limping back to. it's just such a crazy shift in perspective & new consideration of some of the actual sources of this historical labor & how damaging it was beyond what's on the actual ships

[botanyshitposts]

Opinion on the US's Cogs damn obsession with corn?

don't know what you're talking about specifically but my understanding of US agricultural policy in general is that being a farmer in capitalism sucks and has since colonization and for a long time the US government tried to make it suck less with subsidies which sometimes work (because people get paid predictably regardless of demand and its less like gambling with crops) but sometimes go over really badly (because then too many people grow it and the price per bushel goes down and then government has too much corn) and then a couple times they got rid of all the subsides and related regulations and that REALLY didnt work (because then the price just crashed hard and with nothing to compensate them a bunch of farmers, many of whom were in debt for other farming-related reasons, couldnt get paid and actually had to foreclose their farms, which accelerated the long-standing trend of farms getting foreclosed on and then being bought out by bigger farms that then ended up running INSANE multi million dollar operations, sometimes even on farms in other states where the owners do not live, in communities they do not contribute to) and they had to backpedal on it and then eventually they just started on the current system where you simply pass a farm bill every 10-12 years instead of yearly or biyearly and that way you simply dont have to think about it, and then when it is election time you go stand by a cornfield for a while for tv. it does not fix the huge enormous farms buying out smaller farms problem or any of the complicated related problems but it DOES put it off for longer which is more important.

sometimes also you (USAID for instance) can give the too-much-corn you have from farm subsidies to a foreign country as a 'gift' and say youre just being a helpful little guy, but in the process of doing so undercut the local farmers in that country because they cant compete with free stuff but that's cool because then the foreign country can't really survive as well without US agricultural aid and you can manipulate them to do imperialism better AND you have more demand for the corn which might raise the price per bushel in the US. also sometimes the corn is fed to livestock en masse because the meat is worth more and sometimes its made into gas or high fructose corn syrup, and sometimes the price is so low per bushel that the insurance on the field is worth more than the actual corn.

but. i CANNOT stress enough that the most important thing about corn is that you can stand next to it on tv and if you cant do that, maybe you can stand next to a guy who is around it a lot and say you are helping him.

in my relatively uneducated opinion the most epic way to solve this complex multi-century interdisciplinary push and pull of supply and demand would be to just pay farmers a salary through the state since youre already paying out massive state subsidies for crops you dont need anyway and the farmers are performing a vital service and that way you can guarantee people a consistent salary AND control how much of each thing gets planted so you dont have a massive stockpile at all times AND you reward individual people instead of paying out large amounts of money to whatever massive operation sells the most corn by virtue of being big, but if you dont want to do that then the second best thing is to just pass another mediocre farm bill whos inflexible 10-ish year lifespan makes it impossible for it to respond well to changes in market demand and that way you can just put off making tough decisions and instead stand next to a guy and a cornfield on tv again. which as we have covered is the most important part of american agriculture

[kissingarthurclaus]

And who says scientists aren't passionate! 😉💖 here's a little comic based off an ACTUAL moment I shared with my irl partner @cherry-bomb-ships last night 😂

Taglist♡: @crushes-georg @changeling-selfship @me-myself-and-my-fos @sunstar-of-the-north @tiny-cloud-of-flowers @adoredbyalatus @dearly-beeloved @squips-ship @sunflawyer @miutonium

[lunarharp]

shirahama-sensei reminded me she has a thing for the teacher from pokemon s/v so i randomly went off on an au where qifrey is the professor. etc

[healpimp]

im gonna level w you, fellow medic mains. you are a lot worse at the game than you think

[mumblesplash]

every so often my cat will casually obliterate a zippy little flying insect that’s been annoying me for hours and in that moment i understand why the ancient egyptians worshipped them

[immediatebreakfast]

Sorry to the person who sent me the ask about the use of those specific adjectives by Mr. Hawkins in his recomendation letter, and how that relates to the newfound abuse that Dracula is starting to subject onto Jonathan. I was writing the response, and tumblr ate the ask when I tried to save it ;-;

But I still want to talk about it :)

It has been said a lot of times, but the adjectives that Mr. Hawkins chose, and used in the letter to describe why Jonathan was the perfect lawyer for Dracula's properties were very... Subjective.

All of those adjectives can be read as compliments since they paint Jonathan as a first time worker who may be new to solicitor stuff in practice, but he will do a very good job thanks to these qualities. However, for someone like Dracula, for someone who has malicious intent in mind. Adjectives like discreet, and silent, along with "shall take your instructions in all matters" paint a different picture of Jonathan.

That letter, at the eyes of Dracula, paints Jonathan as the perfect victim who will not scream, complain, nor try to defy him if he tries to do something to him.

And, that is what exactly Dracula does in the course of three days, three horrible days.

The Count manipulates, and abuses Jonathan in the most realistic manner that one can put on paper. There is no magic, no supernatural powers, nor vampirical events in these three days, just Dracula slowlyyyy tearing apart Jonathan's mind by playing a horrible game of take, and give.

Dracula gives Jonathan amazing food, cultural knowledge, amazing attitude, a smooth legal process regarding the properties, interesting conversations... basic companionship in an isolated castle with no other human around. The perfect host that maybe is a little too familiar with touch.

And in return, what Dracula takes from Jonathan? His boundaries, his sleep schedule, his privacy, his safety, small stuff like the mirror that gives him a sense of routine. Everything that could give Jonathan a sense of relief, anything that could make him stop being on edge since he got in the castle

YET STILL, if you notice, STILL, the narrative itself doesn't infer that Jonathan is lesser, or in the wrong for not fighting back in a traditional masculine way. Neither on the text, nor the subtext. Hell, Jonathan can even compare his situation to the heroine Scheherezade, and it weights in the narrative because it's an actual theme of his character!

[bookwyrminspiration]

[shelfperson]

gabriel is horrible stinky etc but i do support gay wrongs. i do support gay wrongs.

[meet-the-net]

🎣 - @meet-the-courier (tho i suppose they already had 1st impressions....maybe 2nd?)

"... because, uh, because you are not wearing your uniform, you know? ...And where in the WORLD did you get that T-shirt?!" he chuckles again. Internally, he philosophizes about this new friend he barely knows; 'He truly is two G's. Grumpy AND goofy, at the same time, somehow....I wonder if he has a cigarette for me..'.

[fictionadventurer]

Why is this book about 1880s London Jews so relatable to the 2020s American Roman Catholic experience?

In Amy Levy's Reuben Sachs, you've got:

The community that is at once fully part of the modern world while having an insular nature (and the amount of modern vs. insular varies based on the person and family)

The people who ignore their religion 99% of the year, but wouldn't even consider skipping services on the important holidays

The ultra-traditionalists who go so intense on holding to traditions that a lot of other members of their religion side-eye them

The kids who go to services only because their parents force them to, or who rebel and refuse to go because they don't see the point or don't believe in God

The new convert who is more zealous than, like, 90% of the people who were born into this religion

A family with its very specific blend of religious opinions and inside jokes that's fully aware that they're baffling to outsiders

This book was apparently meant to be a realistic portrait of Jewish life (in response to Daniel Deronda and its (according to Levy) highly unrealistic and over-idealized portrayal of Jews), and my goodness, did she succeed in capturing what it's like to live in a culturally religious community in a rapidly secularizing world.