#minimum-effort

[quotelr]

If you know the art of being happy with simple things, then you know the art of having maximum happiness with minimum effort!

Mehmet Murat ildan

[authenticity2025]

If you know the art of being happy with simple things, then you know the art of having maximum happiness with minimum effort! Mehmet Murat ildan

[beaft]

thinking about bg3 astarion introduction. something very funny about meeting a weird guy on the road and he's like "hey, sorry for trying to stab you. i'm a lawyer btw" and you're like well that seems true. and you click on his picture and see that his character class is just Professional Liar

[thebramblewood]

In which Helena attempts to remind Lilith of a little thing called childlike whimsy.

Previous / Next

Lilith: What are they doing out there? Behaving like children, no doubt.

-

Helena: Hey! We said no vampire powers.

Caleb: You’re only upset you didn’t think to use them first.

-

Lilith: Keep your juvenile shrieking down, won’t you? Some of us would simply like to enjoy a peaceful evening.

Helena: Come on, Lilith! You’re snow fun!

Lilith: Ugh, that stuff is filthy with cat piss! You’re not funny.

Caleb: I don’t know, Lil. It looked pretty funny from over here.

[unpretty]

i am once again seeking recommendations for some kind of gift box or basket suitable for coworkers that don't know that i hate them

[genericpuff]

Hi, So one of my Characters was inspired by two goddess: Meilone and Despoina (Another Daughter of Demeter) and I've been trying to get more information on Despoina, I've used a Greek mythology site that I'm familiar with I even had some help from A.I search. Any tips?

Aahh, first tip, don't use AI ! At least in its current state, there's literally nothing it can factually offer you that normal Google searches can't. I know for some folks it's tempting because it kind of "summarizes" everything and makes the process of research a lot less intimidating, but the drawback to summarizing - especially through AI - is that it picks and chooses what information it thinks is helpful to you, not information that actually is accurate or true. And a lot of that information it presents to you is skimmed from other pre-existing sources that aren't necessarily accurate or true either - it skims from Reddit, Wikipedia, and other popular discussion sources to come up with an approximation of information, but approximations can and often are still made up of weak parts. Plus, at the end of the day, the AI is still pulling from things that exist, so even if it's telling you stuff that's factually true, it isn't anything you couldn't have found on your own.

The reason you're struggling to pull up anything on Despoina is because "Despoina" doesn't really exist, at least not as some concrete deity the same way Zeus and Demeter do. "Despoina" only has a handful of sources mentioning her, and a good chunk of them refer to her not as Demeter's daughter, but as an epithet.

Understand that sometimes not finding enough information isn't a fault of our own for "not looking hard enough" - sometimes it's because that information just currently does not exist, especially when it comes to the matter of ancient cultural studies, where what's available is strictly limited to what we've discovered and what's been made publicly accessible. In those situations, you really just gotta work with what you've got, and do your best in digging up information outside of the most popular sources, because you never know what you could be missing out on simply because Google decided not to show you.

I'm gonna go on one of my classic tangents here but it's a topic that's very interesting to me! So I'm just gonna dive into it, but I'll include a jump for those who don't want this clogging up their feed :>

-----

When you really get into the meat of studying Greek mythology - or really any cultural mythology - it's unfortunately not as cut and dry as reading up on lore or skimming a Wikipedia page. There are thousands of years of cultural interaction, trading of oral stories, re-interpretations through cultural adoption and/or colonization, political satirizing and/or re-tooling to suit specific sociopolitical views, and religious influence at play (among MANY other influences) which make up what we now understand as "Greek mythology" in its simplest terms.

Much of what we still study today is debatable as to what is truly "Greek", because of all the cultural mixing that was happening between the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Africans, etc. that resulted not only in its adopters creating new versions of older Greek stories, but "Greek myth" in and of itself being influenced by the societies that came before it. I've mentioned this before, but even Homer is a hot topic of debate, mostly discussing whether or not he was a real person, or if - like Despoina - the name "Homer" is just an epithet to refer to one or more poets whose works were preserved as culturally relevant interpretations of the stories and beliefs that were being passed around at that time. These are what make up the Homeric Hymns, but think about this - those hymns were in and of themselves retellings. Homer - whether one tangible person or many ambiguous voices as a collective - was simply putting stories that were already being told orally to paper, from their own perspective, which we managed to uncover and preserve over the course of thousands of years, during which we would continue to re-interpret it based on new translations and discoveries that would shift our context of knowledge.

With all that in mind, now think of all the stories that were lost, either because modern scholars haven't uncovered them, or because Homer just never thought to include them, or possibly didn't know of them himself. Think of all the stories that we assume to be true which could have had entirely different meanings when told as bedtime stories over the fire, or as epics of war to inspire soldiers, or as romantic poems sung to an audience.

I know everything I just said is a lot and is, in and of itself, wholly interpretive and subjective. But think about all that, and then understand why I'm so wary about using AI to do the work of the analysis for you. Not only does it remove so much necessary context from discussion that's already missing context in many areas, it undercuts the joy of discovery.

All that said, Despoina is, as far as we currently know, theorized to be one of two things:

1.) A daughter of Demeter who may or may not have been born during The Hymn to Demeter, who was worshipped as a deity within the Eleusinian Mysteries but - due to her nature as a deity of a secretive cult - does not have much evidence to support what she could have been specifically worshipped for, as her worshippers were sworn to secrecy. "Despoina" may not have even been her real name, just a name used to refer to her among cultists or anyone who wasn't a part of the congregation to ensure her true name was protected (similarly to Kore and Persephone, she could be a deity with "two names" that serve two different purposes and interpretations).

2.) An epithet, meaning "mistress", to refer to one or several different women, usually fertility goddesses, including Demeter, Persephone, and even Aphrodite and Hecate. This doesn't necessarily mean that "Despoina" as a goddess didn't exist, just that the word "Despoina" can also be used to refer to goddesses within the cult to keep their names a secret. And if Despoina did exist as her own deity... again, we don't know her true name, just the title that was used to refer to her, whoever "she" was.

The thing is, there is tangible material that supports either or both arguments. And even if more evidence came out to support one over the other, it doesn't invalidate either of them - this is just how it is with mythologies and religion, different cultures and tribes and groups would hold different beliefs, and the beliefs that reign supreme are often determined by the highest power. This is obviously why so many Roman interpretations of the Greek gods are now the "default" interpretations, because Rome was a very powerful empire that had the ability to absorb other mythologies, create their own adaptions of them, and then enforce them as the natural order. The popularity of Catholicism as an organized religion is owed to the Roman Empire, and even it still has its divided subgroups who have separated from the main doctrines of Catholicism due to having different beliefs.

Even think of the Bible, which many people hold up as the "gold standard" despite never having even read it. They subsequently don't understand that what we know as "the Bible" is a curated library of works that were preserved over hundreds of years, first documenting the trials and tribulations of the Jews and the building of Israel, and eventually leading to Jesus Christ and his fellow fandom mutuals (the apostles) coming in and deciding "nah that Old Testament blows, let's make a new one! No more circumcisions! Bread and wine and bacon for everyone!" (<<< I am obviously paraphrasing here for the sake of efficiency and a little bit of levity lmao) This is why, to this day, we get so many people still arguing over whether or not Jesus hated gay people, because some point to specific scriptures written by apostles like Paul and Matthew, while others point to scriptures from the Old Testament which pre-existed Jesus by centuries.

As much as we may refer to a "canon" within Greek mythology, those commonly known facts are still based on previous interpretations that in and of themselves were constantly debated and fought over. People even went to literal war over this shit, because it turns out, human beings haven't really changed all that much - we're loyal to our most favorite fandoms, and crucify anyone who disagrees with our established canons. And none of that is to patronize the cultural, spiritual, and political importance of these stories - more so just to point out why it's so hard to track down clear cut information for certain myths, because how legitimate those myths even were within their own context and time is unsubstantiated and debatable.

-----

TL ; DR: If you're making characters inspired by an ambiguous deity who doesn't have a lot of evidence to support them, just do what you can to find the evidence that exists, and maintain your own level of understanding and transparency that you can't possibly accurately depict a character who's either directly based off a Greek myth deity or simply inspired by one when what is and isn't accurate is still often up for debate by people who are actually trained and paid to debate these things. On the one hand, it means someone will likely be bound to argue with your interpretation and it may leave you searching for ways to improve upon any misrepresentations; on the other, know that this is just passing on the torch of a tradition that has been practiced by humans ever since the first cave drawing and we are all, by and large, doing what we've always been naturals at doing - expressing our views and perspectives of the world that make sense to ourselves, and then getting yelled at when it doesn't make sense to others LMAO

Be earnest and humble in your attempts to tell a story that feels true to you, and remember that the process of discovery - the research - is half the journey, and half the fun :> Even if you get things wrong, be willing to take ownership of it and view it as an opportunity to learn even more. Therein lies the true joy of creating - the endless potential for discovery.

[maximumeffort-minimumscale]

My boy!

[kev-smell-my-fart]

sneak peak. maybe. Idk but do you guys see the vision…?

[its-roachii]

Unicorn noodle boy sniffing flowers please?

the goober is snorfin

[lil-gingerbread-queen]

Bruce: The most Nepo Baby of the Nepo Babies

Type of day when he pretends he has a hangover to not deal with their bs. The peace inside the company is all Lucius works.

He does not accept criticism.

The Gotham Knights' hoodie is Dick's or Jason's, and was in the kitchen that morning when Bruce ran late for the meeting.

Rip to the (paid) intern that was terrified to bring documents to THE Bruce Wayne and found themselves stuck in his office, listening to him telling stories about his kids for hours.

"I don't understand why we need to make more money, we're already rich." (he's talking about the highers up)

Just a bunch of doodled memes of how I believe Bruce Wayne acts with his company. He is not a capitalist, he doesn't care about making more profit and doesn't understand finance.

If you think Brucie Wayne is just an act, talk to Lucius Fox, who has to endure Bruce' antics at WE. The man whines like a child about having to speak to any shareholders, he has to be dragged to meetings. In Bruce's eyes, his job is "using the company's money to improve the people's life", "talking about his kids" and "being a pain in the ass of the highers up". If someone is trying to kill Bruce Wayne, 50% of chances some WE shareholder or board member ordered the kill because they are tired of him stopping them from playing the game of capitalism. His other employees love him, tho. There aren't janitors as well treated than the ones working for Wayne.

[authenticity2025]

If you know the art of being happy with simple things, then you know the art of having maximum happiness with minimum effort! Mehmet Murat ildan

[clownsnake]

dumb idiot jokes fill my heart with joy

[jakeperalta]

I'm sorry I just cannot get over how BORING the eras tour book cover is. not only is it the same photo we've seen a million times as the tour movie poster but there's zero design elements to it?? I'd hoped that midnights + ttpd signalled taylor moving away from the recent album art trend of "just take a photo and leave it at that, who cares about incorporating the title or anything" but that's exactly what we're getting here 🥲 and it's even worse when it's a $40 coffee table book like those are meant to look good!!!!! bring back graphic designers we're in a pop culture crisis

[donothello]

starvetober day 12, formal

[healpimp]

While the bot banwave is all well and good, do not forget that this happened after we endured 5 years of nothing but lootboxes with community-made cosmetics and maps and a boatload of cheaters and bots. Valve profited off of the community both in labor and purchases while they left the game to rot. The banwave is GOOD; we can finally enjoy playing the game without having to deal with aimbotting, mic and text chat spam and we don't have to risk our private information either.

But this is the bare minimum and this wasn't the case for five years. FIVE YEARS.

Valve is LATE; this should NOT have taken five years nor should the playerbase have had to force Valve's hand through protesting. And we didn't protest once, we did it TWICE. There is still no line of communication with Valve either, there are still no official statements, nothing.

It frustrates me because why did it take 5 years? Why did we have to scream at Valve TWICE? Why did we have to give them bad publicity to give them a reason to move? Why did we have to consider a boycott for one of the few things that still gets new content added to the game and gives community creators revenue for their hard work?

We can celebrate this change. The game is playable again. This is what we wanted.

But do NOT get complacent; Valve have every reason to do this as a publicity stunt. Between their new multiplayer PvP game Deadlock coming out, both TF2's AND CS2's extensive bot/cheater problem and Artifact (a Dota 2 based card game AND their last big flop), their reputation and profits are at stake. They have garnered a reputation for harboring cheaters in their multiplayer games, and if they didn't fix that before releasing Deadlock, this new game would automatically flop. Not to mention the very concept of Deadlock is rather unpromising in itself (MOBA 6v6 3rd person Hero Shooter... Okay.)

What I'm saying is these recent news of the ban waves and the confirmation that yes, the TF2 comic is going to be released eventually (no actual date or even year has been confirmed, mind you), it's easy to forget why we were so frustrated to begin with. This happened last time, and Valve saw it fit to start slacking again.

Do not forget. Do not let up until we know Valve isn't just trying to make us settle down to earn more money. We were promised a functional game, and it needs to remain functional.

[cybersixed]

Hey I haven't used this account in a while but I got something for u

I made a horrible uquiz that assigns you a random Postal Dude based on even more horrible questions, enjoy

Let me know what you get and also how bad the quiz is