#or at least a major contributor to the problem

[slotheyes]

There is no worse feeling than being really angry about something and then realizing that you're actually the one in the wrong

[anthurak]

"I'd like to hear him out..."

(credit to @phuezo for the awesome art XD)

So here’s a fun little AU concept for the past couple months since Mastermind aired and people started throwing around ‘What if Charlie (or Lucifer) was at Blitzo’s trial?’ ideas:

What if Vaggie didn’t (entirely) lose her wings to Lute’s attack? Meaning that Charlie actually KNOWS that Vaggie is an angel from the beginning. And leading to Vaggie not hiding her identity by pretending to be a sinner and instead be generally open about her past as an angel and exorcist. Which I think could have some rather interesting ripple effects.

Now I realize it might be a bit headscratching how ‘Vaggie doesn’t lose her wings’ leads to ‘Charlie (and Vaggie) showing up at Blitzo’s trial’, but hear me out.

First off, I think the ‘How’ of this divergence is actually pretty easy to imagine; instead of ripping her wings off, Lute decides to inflict a different kind of sadistic torture on Vaggie. Terribly maiming her wings to prevent her from flying, but still leaving her wings to make it clear just what she is. Basically, Lute and Adam fully expect Vaggie to be torn apart by vengeful demons.

But in true dramatically ironic fashion, Vaggie is NOT found by the ‘evil, terrible demons’ that Lute and Adam (and even Vaggie herself) were expecting, but by Charlie Morningstar. And I think we can all agree that Vaggie happening to have a pair of angel wings would NOT meaningfully change Charlie’s reaction to finding her in the slightest.*

Charlie still basically falls for Vaggie at first sight, takes her in and patches her up and gives her a home. And in this version, after it becomes clear that Vaggie’s wings aren’t healing, Charlie also calls in a favor from Uncle Ozzie to design some cool cybernetics/prosthetics to give Vaggie full wing-functionality back. And after a while, Charlie and Vaggie fall in love and start dating just like they did in canon, possibly even sooner/stronger given that Vaggie doesn’t have the specter of hiding who she is from Charlie hanging over her in this version.

And this is where we get to one of those interesting ripple-effects of this change.

Because I think it is VERY likely (as in, I imagine we’ll actually see this come up in the actual show) that Charlie’s belief in sinner-redemption and drive to help sinners in large part came from Vaggie. Specifically in that Charlie believed that Vaggie was a sinner. As in, Charlie falling in love with someone who she thought was a sinner was a MAJOR factor in Charlie believing that sinners could be redeemed and general drive to help them.

Now obviously I’m not suggesting that Vaggie was the only reason or that Charlie wouldn’t care about the sinners otherwise. At the same time, I think it’s a bit ridiculous to assume that Charlie believing the woman she loves was a sinner all that time wasn’t a major contributor to her motivation in ‘making a hotel to redeem sinners’. Or that Charlie knowing Vaggie WASN’T a sinner from the beginning couldn’t put her on a different path…

Basically, this version of events with Charlie falling in love with ‘Vaggie the fallen angel/former exorcist’ instead of ‘Vaggie the human sinner’ ends up rippling out to lead Charlie to focus not on the problems of the human sinners, but rather the problems faced by the hellborn demons.

Say for example; because Charlie knows that Vaggie is an angel, and thus almost certainly NOT bound to the Pride Ring, the pair end up taking a few trips/dates to see the other rings. Particularly given that Vaggie already know Asmodeus.

But in the process of these trips, Charlie starts noticing many of the issues faced by the hellborn demons. Many of which she doesn’t remember from back when her father was running things…

Basically this ties into another theory I’ve had since Mastermind that a lot of the societal issues we see in Helluva Boss are the result of, or at least have been heavily exacerbated by, Lucifer’s long ABSENCE from ruling thanks to his centuries-long depressed isolation. Something that I think Mastermind pretty heavily hints at given everything we see from Satan in that episode. And that at some point, Hazbin Hotel is going to show Charlie having to DEAL with many of these issues as part of her arc of growing into a leader and future ruler of Hell.

And in this version of events, instead of being drawn to wanting to help the human sinners, Charlie is drawn to wanting to help the hellborn demons. Basically, since her father clearly isn’t doing his job, perhaps SHE should step up and try doing it instead?

And of course, Vaggie is right at her side through ALL of this. In fact, she may even be a bit more gung-ho about it, given that it probably feels to her a bit more feasible than ‘redeeming sinners’.

This all leads to Charlie pushing herself not so much into ‘replacing’ her father outright as ‘ruler’ of Hell, but rather starting to assume a kind of regency position. Not full-on ‘ruling’ (yet), but still starting to assume some of the roles and duties that her father has been neglecting for a couple hundred years.

And the fun thing is that nobody is really able to stop Charlie from doing any of this. After all, she IS the princess and heir apparent of the Morningstars, meaning she is well within her rights to assume a number of roles of her father. Particularly as Charlie makes it very clear that she is not trying to outright supplant her father, but is simply assuming duties that he’s been neglecting. To the point of keeping the title of ‘Princess’, or maybe ‘Princess Regent’.

Sure, some/most/all of the Goetia/other nobility might not like a lot of the ideas and goals Charlie is talking about, such as ‘Maybe the Imps, Hellhounds, etc AREN’T actually lesser and born to serve the nobility and shouldn’t be treated as such’, but there also isn’t really anything they can do to STOP her or remove her from her new position. After all, the only one with the authority truly above Charlie’s is Lucifer himself.**

And the nobles who do make a scene and/or pitch a hissy fit about Charlie’s ‘radical ideas’ tend to find themselves at the business-end of her girlfriend’s spear, sword or divinely-mailed fist. Really, in this situation Vaggie is a pretty big fucking deal all on her own, being a fallen angel and all. Certainly NOBODY is going to be judging Charlie on her choice of romantic partner. Well, maybe some sinners might judge her for dating a former exorcist, but any Hellborn demons, even the Goetia? No fucking way. Really, people would probably be making comments on how Charlie is taking after her mother.

Heck, even in the short time since Charlie started this endeavor, Vaggie’s probably earned her own title or two. ‘Blade of the Morningstar’? ‘Wings of the Princess’?

Of course it’s also worth noting that there are still some pretty hard limits to what Charlie can accomplish in terms of fixing/reforming the issues of hellish society, at least in the short term. She can’t just snap her fingers and fix classism or completely wipe out the Goetia’s authority (or the Goetia themselves). Particularly as Charlie doesn’t have the ultimate overriding authority of her father. Realistically, Charlie’s authority as Princess/Regent only just supersedes that of any of the Sins, and while that might put her above effectively ANY other one person in Hell, it also doesn’t give her absolute ‘do anything I want’ authority either. Not to mention that this is still Charlie we’re talking about, who in this timeline is still only JUST getting use to throwing her authorial weight around.

But at the same time, again there really isn’t anything anyone can do to fully STOP Charlie from doing anything either. Meaning that in the short time since assuming her new role as regent, say about a year or two, Charlie has already started making small but noticeable changes and ripples to Hell’s society.

Which brings us to this new version of Mastermind, with Charlie and Vaggie making a surprise appearance at Blitzo’s trial and Charlie actually wanting to hear the imp out. This leads to a number of other fun changes including but not limited to:

Charlie invoking both ‘Princess Regent Authority’ and ‘Favorite Niece Privileges’ to get all of the Sins voting on her side to hear Blitzo out and override literally all of the Goetia royalty.

Andy-the-not-actually-a-sister-fucker pitching a hissy fit over this and getting choke-slammed and almost speared by Vaggie.

Blitzo still finding a way to fuck up this golden opportunity by running his mouth. Because this is still Blitzo we’re talking about, and giving him a chance to talk is ALSO giving him a chance to dig himself into a deeper hole.

Stolas choosing the exact worst (and funniest) moment to dramatically burst in with his big, dramatic ‘sacrifice myself for the man I love via song number’ gambit, which actually only makes things worse/wackier when Charlie starts asking pertinent questions.

Andy pitching more hissy fits as his plans continue to unravel and getting repeatedly chokeslammed and/or kicked in the dick by Vaggie.

Striker getting dragged back in when it becomes clear there are a LOT of holes in his story, only to constantly flip-flop on his story because he can’t figure out which authority figure(s) he should be selling-out-to/kissing-up-to in order to save his own skin.

Charlie, Vaggie and even Satan becoming ever more flabbergasted as it becomes clear that the suspect (Blitzo), prosecution (Andre), defense (Stolas) and witness (Striker) in this trial are in fact ALL complete fucking idiots.

--

*Admittedly I do have one other possible change in mind to help reinforce this: rather than a sinner child, Vaggie actually spares an imp kid, or perhaps a sinner child and their imp kid best friend. Which leads to the imp kid actually leading Charlie to the injured Vaggie and also telling her that this angel actually helped them and got hurt doing so.*** Which again serves to reinforce just how wrong Adam and Lute and much of heaven are about demons.

** And if you’re going to ask ‘Why doesn’t Charlie just go to her dad directly and get him to do his job?’, remember that Charlie had to be practically dragged kicking and screaming by her girlfriend into calling up Lucifer for help in Hazbin. I think it’s pretty clear that pre-Hazbin, if Charlie can get what she’s after without getting her dad involved, she is ABSOLUTELY going to do it.

*** Also this hypothetical imp kid doesn’t actually show up again and DOES in fact have a living family, meaning that NO, Charlie and Vaggie DON’T ADOPT THEM. Because I KNOW that is exactly what some of you started thinking when I mentioned an unattended child in relative proximity to our heroines.

--

And of course, once again HUGE thanks to @phuezo for the awesome art of Charlie and Vaggie XD

[soulfulazrael]

Stella being Beatrice of Helluva Boss is pure idiocy at this point in the show.

Hello there. I am posting something. That's a new. Reminded myself "Oh yeah this site exists" and decided to post some shait about HB. Why not?

Drawn by wholetthemonst1

There was something I came across some time ago in Helluva Boss community and that is the idea that Viv wants to make Stella into a character reminiscent of Beatrice Horseman from Bojack Horseman. And as someone who loves Bojack and respects Bojack and I can probably say now HB is my Becker (wink, wink, nudge nudge WATCH BOJACK IF YOU HAVEN'T) I have to say my piece about it.

But first let's start with Beatrice Horseman herself (careful, there will be spoilers for the 4th and 5th season of Bojack Horseman if you are still going through it). So... Beatrice Horseman. Who was she? What was her deal? Well she was a horse born in 193- okay, okay I am not doing that whole bit. Sorry. Let's get into it. Beatrice Horseman. She is probably one of the most despicable and yet complex characters in the whole of Bojack Horseman. A show known for complex characters and stories. It's a show that many people would say is unfair to compare to Helluva Boss, but given that apparently Viv wants to compare one of her characters to the ones from that then it's free game, wild west baby so let's get on with it already.

Again. Beatrice. Despicable, abusive, terrible, terrible person that is contributor to the kind of man Bojack is in the show. There is no beating around the bush that she was a horrid person that one could say at first glance is not too disimilar to the Stella we know and boy isn't that just the perfect test for who watched that show and who didn't. Because I did and I can say for certain if they were doing that from the start, it's already a complete failure for two reasons.

First off. The photo from The Circus. If there is something Beatrice wasn't, it was being terrible from the start. She was not, everyone who watched the show will tell you with 100% certainty that she never begun as this terrible person. She went through a lot, doesn't excuse the abuse she put her own child through, but we know for certain she did not start like that and this is a big problem with the photo shown in the Circus.

Because nothing speaks sweet and nice than a complete psycho strangling puppies. Yeah I am not going to sugar coat. This photo single handedly made me about 90% done with Helluva Boss. I could see everything that was going to happen the moment I saw and so far I was not too far off. And this is a major failure on HB's part. Making Stella a psychopath who strangles puppies from early childhood. And I get that it's supposed to be funny, but Bojack itself never sacrificed narrative coherency for some dumb unfunny comedy. Especially did not sacrifice depth of the character that Beatrice was.

And one may say "Well the first times we saw Beatrice she was a despicable one note villain as well" and to that I say... no. First time we see her is where she is clearly dissatisfied with her marriage with Butterstoch who seems to be even more terrible than she is at that point and nothing points towards her being some terrible Satan like figure. We do see pieces of abuse she put Bojack through, but she never enters the realm of being so horrid that it becomes too cartoony. Aside from some obvious things like the argument of hers with Butterstoch (I still have I'M EXITATING live rent free in my head). But those moments never made Beatrice into someone who is just evil for the sake of being so. At least there was always this lingering feeling that she is the way she is not just because this is simply how she is. There were already reasons for it given to us in the very first season.

And you know what. They actually started it okay. In first season we saw Stella being more passively dismissive if not just uncaring about Octavia's crying, but it was not something that got across her being some terrible monster, just someone very tired and someone who probably is not there of their own volition. Makes her still terrible, but you can work up from there, but HB never did. I say what they gave her in Season 1 while cartoony in many ways like her screaming so much and hiring hitman did not kill the potential for her to be complex as much as that photo of hers did in Season 2 which again, I think already sank any potential for her to be complex.

But some other people will say "Well we do not know the context of that photo". What context? You want to add context to a girl strangling and beating puppies? Really? Because let me tell you no matter what you do, it will NEVER work. Adding any sort of context to make this kind of photo feel like it makes sense for any sort of complex character will result in laughable at best results that will make it feel like this show doesn't know what the hell it's doing.

Because you do not make this kind of photo for a character you want to be perceived as complex. It just doesn't work.

And there is a second issue beyond that photo. Her motivations, big part of which we saw in Western Energy. Because as far as we see she only wants to bring torment to Stolas, she keeps saying that, she keeps being shown to be too dumb to think of any other reason or how that can screw her over and that also destroys any semblance of chance that this character could be complex. Because Beatrice while terrible had a very good reason for why she was like this. Having your lobotomized mother at such young age telling you to not love anyone will definitely screw you in the head and even then what we see in the show despite such morbid origins is nowhere near as stupidly 1 dimensional as Stella was for 2 seasons already and in Season 2 of Bojack we already saw her being more complex too. Something this show only destroyed further with Stella. Kind of going in the opposite direction of starting in more complex manner and gradually destroying those illusions of depth Stella could have had.

And honestly I do not know if I have to add anything beyond those two reasons. No matter how you look at it Stella doesn't feel remotely as a character designed to be complex. And just so you all know before you start typing essays comparable in length to this horse shait. No, complex doesn't mean redeemable, doesn't mean a character is good or worthy of redemption. It means they can feel like actual PEOPLE! Not some caricatures. Because so far Stella is just that, a caricature. A hate sink. And NO, it is NOT challenging at all to make a character like that and her being so easy to hate is not sign of good writing, it is LAZY.

And this makes me really feel like Stella was NOT planned to be this complex Beatrice like character and in fact I feel like what is going on now is a response of Viv (one of many) to the criticism (at least she listens to them this time I guess... progress?). Basically I think she saw people dunk on Stella's character for being pretty much equivalent of a wall with some mean things sprayed on it, she now starts to go in completely different direction without any semblance of idea of how to make this work. Purely reactionary action.

And to me that reflects another issue I see when compared to Bojack. Here is the clip from it that I think describes this issue I have. This one being from Free Churro. My favorite Bojack episode.

This I think is what ticks me off about the writing of HB as a whole. They think big gestures in writing like giving this one character a le sad backstory will make them sympathetic and complex and oh so well written. That this one act of non douchebaggery makes that POS already well on the path of being better despite them doing the same garbage all over again. That one moment of complexity that you repeat over and over again is enough to make the show complex. That this small piece of text or scene makes a relationship great or make sense. No. Writing doesn't work like that. Stories don't work like that. You need to be consistent, you cannot just throw one scene and immediately expect that people will eat up that this character or this story is more than it is. You need to put in the effort for more than one minute or one episode. You need to try your damn hardest to make your story complex if you want it to be so. It is not something you get participation trophy for. It is something you need to commit to. Or hire a better writer. That helps as well.

Okay. That got a bit derailed. Sorry for that. It was pretty long rant and yet somehow I feel like it wasn't long enough. Stella Goetia. Who is she? What is her deal? She is a victim of terrible writing that made her into a hate sink when she had so much more potential and now that this ship is well on it's way to Davy Jones's locker only NOW this crew of misfits and not very good writers try to salvage what I will say is already unsalvageable. Stella is not Beatrice, she will never be Beatrice. She could have been. She really could have been, but the direction they went with in Season 2 was equivalent of dropping a bomb on a baby and trying to see if it's alive... The best you will find is ashes. But I guess they will be of some reminder of what could have been.

Honestly I don't know why I wrote so much for it. I don't even want to watch this show anymore. I watch shorts, but... they are short. I write my own version of this universe as well, but it's something I do now because like Bojack once said in this clip

And I feel the same thing. This show had all the right pieces right there, but it can never put them together and it bums me out to see and leaves me only with passion for what it could have been. It really depresses me. Because I want to love this show and I already spent around 5 years watching it and pouring my heart into work about it, but now... Now I feel empty. And it feels bad.

I don't like Helluva Boss and everything is worse now.

[thydungeongal]

Part of me wants to ask "are these D&D players that don't learn the rules of the game they play in the room with us now?", but then people come out of the woodwork in the notes of these posts to peoudly proclaim that they are, in fact, the exact type of person I had assumed was a strawman or at least mild exaggeration.

To be fair I didn't used to think they were real either until I made a post many moons ago about how learning the rules of the game shouldn't be seen as a chore or something that only nasty power gamers do (the latter sentiment has always been around but I feel it has become amplified since the release of 5e!) because actually knowing the rules well enough to make informed systemic choices can actually enhance the gaming experience!

And that post was met with a surprising amount of resistance and then I became aware that, no, some D&D 5e players expecting to be able to play the game without knowing the rules and having the GM carry the entirety of the game for them is an actual phenomenon and apparently a not insignificant contributor to GM burnout!

I genuinely don't believe it's a majority of 5e players but like there are clearly enough of these players that it's a recognized issue, which I think is sad. But you know it's not my problem since I'm getting off of the 5e boat and only exist at the periphery of the 5e space as a hater and polemicist.

[bycmykae]

🐕 Puppy Love; a canine exclusive genshin impact zine

Content Restrictions and Requirements Rating: SFW, PG Shipping: No Canon Compliant: No Characters: Wriothesley, Razor, Cyno, and Gorou only.

Schedule:

Interest Check: November 23 - December 14

Contributor Sign Ups: December 16 - January 9, 9PM CT

Last day to Join Server :January 13 9:00PM CT

Check in 1: February 9

Check In 2: March 9

Finals Due: April 9, 9:00PM CT

What is a zine?

New to zines? Check out https://zinebaby.carrd.co for some general information. For this project, a zine is a digital PDF that consist of art and fics.

What is the theme?

Your work must include at least one of the following characters: Wriothesley, Razor, Cyno, and Gorou. You can draw them as they are canonically, put them in an AU, or draw them as doggos.

Characters that are in theme that can be featured in your piece alongside Wriothesley, Razor, Cyno, and Gorou without problem:

Andrius

Razor's wolf spirit

In game dogs like: Kageroumaru and Taroumaru

Generic dogs and wolves

Other Character Inclusion Restrictions:

In writing: other characters can be mentioned in passing, but should not be main or secondary character. In art: Only Wriothesley, Razor, Cyno, and Gorou are allowed to be depicted as humans. Other characters can be depicted as a dog (like. a doggo dog. just adding dog ears do not count). Example 1: Razor with a Pomeranian that's representing klee. Example 1: Razor with a scruffy dog with an orange bandana. Why is this a specification? We will not be curating pitches. So this is an easy way for us to ensure that any of our main characters (Wriothesley, Razor, Cyno, and Gorou) are not overshadowed by an associating secondary character related to our canine characters. Example: If Wriothesley twice as popular then Gorou—and a majority wants to include Neuvillette as a secondary character. This would lead to Gorou being overshadowed by Neuvillete

Who can participate?

Anyone who applies during the application period. No previous experience. No portfolio necessary. Unless you want to be the cover artist.

What types of mediums are allowed?

Anything that can be put into a PDF, which means no music or animation. (Although contributors are encouraged to turn their pieces into animations if they choose to outside of this project).

Contributor Expectations:

English speaking: mandatory.

Discord attendance: mandatory.

Check-ins: optional.

Let a mod know you need to drop: required.

Final deadline: non-negotiable. (No extensions)

Portfolio Requirements

Only cover artists need a portfolio. For our cover we're looking for an artist with a color palette that complements our graphic colors and is willing to draw ALL FOUR boys. Experience drawing Genshin Impact characters (and dogs?) not required but preferred.

Additional Questions?

Feel free to reach out through tumblr ask or email (cmykae+by@gmail.com)

Bycmykae's extensive FAQ: bycmykae.tumblr.com/about

[blubberquark]

Worse than Trolls: Engagement Optimisers, Tourists, Socialisers, and Enablers

As I previously explained, most online content moderation falls under I-know-it-when-I-see-it. There is very little else to say. People know spam when they see it, and I don't need to define what spam is. Spammers know they are spamming, and are unable and thankfully unwilling to argue your moderation decisions.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are ever so slightly corrosive behaviours than can destabilise an online community in the long term, often without the perpetrators knowing it, or at least without bad faith, without ill intent.

Engagement Optimisers

Users naturally optimise engagement by responding to feedback. When posting memes and cat pictures is rewarded, users post more cat pictures. When posting memes is rewarded, users post more memes.

If your users start to do this on purpose, you might have a problem. For example, somebody might notice that clickbait titles lead to more click-through in forum threads. The people who give their threads vague and mysterious titles get more replies. The people who add a call to action to their OP get more replies: Please share your opinions in the comments below. The people who ask broad, open-ended and opinion-based questions are more likely to get more replies: What programming language should I learn?

If somebody says something contentious or inflammatory by accident, that's fine. You morally can't fault them for sincerely held beliefs or misconceptions, or for soliciting a broader base of opinion. Only when done on purpose, and systematically, it becomes dangerous.

You may end up with a situation where power users learn to play the game and play it better and better, at least better than most users. This can give the people who learned to game the system outsized influence, even when there is no algorithm or karma or no way to spend the karma, because they gain more mindshare and notoriety.

You may also experience a systemic change, because many or most users catch on, and start modifying their behaviour and post different content in order to get noticed.

Still there is the possibility that your users, through group dynamics nobody is consciously exploiting, reward and promote mostly cat pictures and stupid puns, even though no individual user comes to your forum for stupid puns and cat pictures.

Early on in the history of Reddit, this was recognised as a major problem. You could farm upvotes by posting something like "DAE eat chocolate ice cream?", "Upvote if you're going to vote for Ron Paul", or "Linux sucks! There are no good text editors!"

Reddit tried to curb this, somewhat unsuccessfully at first, then more successfully, but in the long run, they lost the battle against their own user base and entropy itself.

Compare this with YouTube, where a call to action is not just allowed, but encouraged by YouTube itself. It's regularly part of the latest set of official tips for creators to grow their audiences. YouTubers thus say "What are your opinions on this topic? Let me know in the comments below!" or "Please like and subscribe".

Tourists

Tourists come in to make drive-by comments in flame war threads. Tourists google a question, find your forum, post a single question, and leave forever when they get the right answer. Tourists come in from Reddit. Tourists don't play the game. Tourists don't read the forum. Tourists don't read the FAQ.

You can't really punish people for coming to your site or channel and making their first comment. I mean, you can, but then they will definitely not come back.

Churn is bad. Tourists are churn personified. If most content comes from tourists, then your community culture is defined by tourists. You lose the ability to shape the culture of your site. It's easy to deter tourists, but it's hard to do so without also deterring people who would otherwise have become proper contributors or community members.

If somebody joins your web site, doesn't read the rules, doesn't read the FAQ, creates more work for the moderators, and is a minor annoyance to the established users without ever rising to the level of a serious rule violation, it's easy for that person to say "We all have to start somewhere" or "You'll never attract new people if you keep enforcing the rules like that."

If you have rules about cross-posting or proper spelling and punctuation, you have to be firm. You cannot retreat every time somebody who hasn't read the rules asks "Why are you so mean to me?"

On the other hand, I remember multiple times when I hopped in an IRC to ask a question like "Is this a known bug? Should I wait for the next release?" or "Does anybody want to collaborate on a game jam next month? Is anybody considering joining Ludum Dare?" only to be told "We don't accept bug reports in here. Bug reports need to be entered into bugzilla in the proper format." or "Please post job postings in the jobs channel only!"

Socialisers

Socialisers talk about off-topic stuff only. They hang out in the off-topic board or channel, and they tell everybody about their youngest child, their morning commute, or the story of how they met their spouse. Socialisers rarely engage with the actual main topic of the community, but everybody knows them, because they post a lot of off-topic content.

As long as socialisers know that the forum is about, and know their stuff, it's fine. The guy whose youngest son just got into middle school and who met his wife when they both reached for the last bottle of herbal shampoo at the supermarket isn't really disrupting your anime forum as long as he watches anime. If he could comment about the different animation studios that worked on Sailor Moon, but chooses not to, he's fine. The problem with socialisers only becomes noticeable when they attract socialisers who do not know or care anything about the on-topic content. If that happens, your forum is no longer a forum where some Haskell programmers post their lunch, it's a forum to post pictures of your lunch.

Enablers

Enablers are one step worse than socialisers. They don't just don't contribute on-topic content, they make the discussion actively worse. If you have a rule such as "do no post a maths homework question" or "do not answer personal questions" or "do not ask other people to answer your question in a DM", the enabler will happily comply anyway. "It's no skin off my back" he says, as he answers the homework question. "It's no skin off my back" he says, as he paraphrases the FAQ again. The enabler will make a good-faith effort to answer bad-faith questions, and he will enable people who just can't be bothered to read the FAQ and follow the rules.

Now there may be multiple reasons why you're not allowed to answer personal questions, ranging from OPSEC about pet names and the colour of your car to professionalism, and depending on those, this may be a big deal or not. When it comes to homework or answering in a DM, the reasoning should be straightforward.

The worst kind of enabling is probably taking abuse in stride, and continuing the conversation. If somebody starts insulting the other people in the conversation, the least you could do is disengage. If somebody calls people names because they can't solve his problem, you should not enable him and try to help him, too.

The most subtle kind of enabling behaviour is a response to Cunningham-style trolling. When somebody posts "Linux sucks, there are no good text editors", then the last thing you should do is reward this kind of behaviour. When somebody posts "I can't solve this in Python, I guess C++ is just a better language. I think I should go back and use C++", then you should say "Good riddance, and may the gods have mercy on the C++ forum."

The most common kind of enabling is when people ask a question and can't be bothered to Google it first, and somebody copies the question into Google it and pastes the answer. The long-term consequence of such behaviour is not only a degraded quality of the conversation, but a forum culture where people regularly Google answers (or worse, ask ChatGPT) and paste the result without checking.

Maybe in the future, something like "I asked ChatGPT this, is this true" or "Copilot wrote this code, can you help debug it" will become more common, and humouring these kinds of people will become the most common toxic enabling behaviour.

Drama Magnets/Troll Feeders

Finally, there is a kind of person who enables trolls and harassers by being thin-skinned, very easy to make fun of, and by boosting every insult. There is a certain kind of person who will just endlessly complain about being wronged in small ways, and will take offence to small perceived slights. This allows a malicious actor to get out much more in terms of reactions than he puts in. If a troll can poke somebody once, and get dozens of "Ow ow" and "he poked me" and "woe is me, I have been poked" out of a target, that will only motivate him.

If somebody freely volunteers his weak spots, things he is self-conscious about, ways to rile him up in the form of a profile, carrd, or bio, then trolls will have it even easier.

So What?

Over time, too many enablers, tourists, or drama magnets may or may not ruin your online community. Over time, engagement optimisers can slowly but steadily ruin your community. Socialisers may not notice or care either way.

A code of conduct may protect your community against bad actors, but it can't protect your forum culture from clueless actors. It's incredibly hard to create a good set of punitive rules against this. As a moderator, it's emotionally difficult to enforce rules against this. You don't want to kick people while they are down, and you don't want to punish them for making popular content, even if it's just pictures of kittens and pictures of their lunch.

The only way you can achieve anything is by educating your users, and hoping they give a damn about forum culture.

[vintagegeekculture]

RIP John Jakes, Pulp and Fantasy Author

A man who’s career began in pulp scifi, then was one of the greatest group of fantasy fans turned authors, and who finally ended it as one of the most commercially successful “men’s adventure” paperback novels of the 1970s, John Jakes died at 90 last week. What a life! He started his career in scifi pulp of the 1950s, switching to sword and sorcery action in the 60s, and finally, ending the 70s as one of the top selling authors of the decade. In one guy’s life, you can see the ebb and flow of trends in men’s adventure fiction over the decades.

Let’s start the John Jakes story at the end, and then work our way back. Does this book series above look familiar to you at all? 

If you have grandparents and they live in America, I 100% guarantee the Kent Family Chronicles (also called the Bicentennial Series) are in your Mee Maw and Pep Pep’s house right now. You probably handled them while visiting their house and went through their bookshelves as a child, right next to their Reader’s Digest condensed books, Tai-Pan and Shogun by James Clavell, copies of the endless sequels to Lonesome Dove, and old TV Guides they still have for some reason next to the backgammon set. If your grandparents are no longer with us, you probably found this series when selling their possessions after death. That’s because these things sold in the millions, back when the surest way to make money in writing was to write melodramatic, intergenerational family sagas of grandiose sweep set around historical events. Weighty family sagas, ones critics call bloated and self important instead of “epic,” were a major part of 70s fiction as they were four quadrant hits: men liked them for war, action, and history (every guy at some point must choose between being a civil war guy, or World War II guy) and ladies loved them for their romance and melodramatic love triangles (after all, the Ur-example of this kind of book is Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind). This was the kind of thing turned into TV event miniseries, and ably lampooned in the hilarious “Spoils of Babylon” series with Kristen Wiig and Toby McGwire, which, decades after the fact, did to this genre what Airplane! did for the formerly prolific airport disaster movie: it torpedoed it forever by making it impossible to take seriously.

This genre eventually went away because men stopped being reliable book buyers and book readers in the 1990s (or at least, were no longer marketed to as an audience), Lonesome Dove’s insane popularity was the last gasp of this audience. I’ve said this before, but men and boys no longer reading is the single most under remarked on social problem we have. “YA books” now basically mean “Girl Books.” 

John Jakes did not suddenly come out of nowhere to write smash hit bestsellers set around a family during the American Revolution. He came from one of the weirdest places imaginable: a crony of L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter in fantasy and weird tales fanzines like Amra, he was one of the original “Gang of Eight,” people drawn from fantasy and horror fandom to become pro-writers now that fantasy fiction had a home at Ballantine Publishing, just before the rise of Lord of the Rings and the paperback pulp boom, which is an incredible case of being in the right place at the right time. There, John Jakes, a fanzine contributor and ERB fan, wrote “Brak the Barbarian,” which is amazing as L. Sprague de Camp and Ballantine hadn’t even reprinted the Conan stories yet and Conan was as well known as Jirel of Joiry or Jules de Grandin. Only superfans of pulp knew who that guy was at all, there was no audience for it. He wrote Brak the Barbarian as a superfan, and was lucky the paperback market found him. 

The tireless work John Jakes, Lin Carter, L. Sprague de Camp, and the Gang of Eight did in preserving fantasy novelists of the pulp age into the 50s-60s is one of the great historic feats of preservation and keeping fandom flames alive. It’s no exaggeration to say that you know who Conan the Barbarian and HP Lovecraft are right now because of them, fans who kept the flame alive tirelessly and thanklessly in the ultra-rational 50s that had no place for dark horrific fantasy. 

Like his friend in fantasy and pulp fandom, L. Sprague de Camp, John Jakes started as a scifi guy in the endless scifi pulp magazines of the 1950s. Unlike his friend de Camp or Hugh B. Cave, who were full of humor, characterization, and satire, Jakes was often pessimistic, dour, and downbeat, and he disliked to laugh.  

It’s shocking to lose someone with a connection to, in one lifetime, the first great group of fantasy fandom, 50s scifi pulp, and 70s men’s adventure. John Jakes’ life spanned all of them. 

[kineticpenguin]

I've seen some hemming and hawing when it comes to people like Andrew Tate and how they attract an audience, and a lot of people seem to be really comfortable coming to the conclusion that "yeah man there's millions of 12 year olds who are born shitty."

And well, maybe. But I don't think that's likely. See, back when I was a kid, before everyone had the internet, the big worry everyone had was about "using the TV as a babysitter." (I was young enough to miss out on most of the "latchkey kid" years). Kids missing out on being guided in their media consumption by their parents was seen as a contributor to all manner of social ills, especially violent crime. Y'know, these kids come home to an empty house and Mom and Dad are still out working, so they turn on the TV and watch Death Wish 48 and the next thing you know they're throwing pipe bombs at each other.

So there was a time when we at least acknowledged, albeit with much exaggeration, that impressionable kids watching video unsupervised was not really great.

We all know that the major websites all use algorithms designed to "drive engagement," which turns out to mostly mean pissing everyone off by showing them far-right and other whackadoodle bullshit. It's normal for toddlers to play with tablets and for grade schoolers to have smartphones now.

I don't think the problem is the kids are born wrong. I think the problem is that we've decided that the best way to get them to shut up and color is let them watch the Joe Goebbels Podcast and then act shocked when they do a mass shooting

[doofusschweetz]

Genuine question, but why do you support trump if you know he's not...the best dude but you also support lgbtq and know the whole reason behind the punk movement, etc? I'm just asking out of curiosity because you say you like old school punk and that you are open to lgbtq, plus you listen to Yungblud. Who im pretty sure has said he doesn't support trump once or twice

Warning: Might trigger some people :) I'm friendly. Just politically active. Q: why do you support trump if you know he's not...the best dude?

A: Ever Heard of Jean-Peul Sartre? He's a really nice guy, but his political views might as well make him seem like satan himself. Quick background, Jean-Paul Sartre's philosophy is basically supporting fascism, racism, killing, war, practically anything wrong. Why is he an important person I respect? He shows us what's wrong. Basically, what I'm trying to say is I'm Your Jean-Paul Sartre. I respect your opinions but I am also entitled to my own beliefs and opinions--which is supporting Trump. I support trump for the following reasons:

Ending birthright citizenship for children born to illegal immigrants - By doing this, he's weeding out illegal immigrants. What are the chances of non-tax paying parents, probably do crime? What's the statistics? I do not know and that's beside my point. Back in the ol' america days of George Washington, immigrants came to America because it is the Land of Opportunity™. You go there to make a life, thank America for giving you Opportunities™. Ma'am, Sir, DO YOU SEE OPPORTUNITIES IN AMERICA? I live in a third world country and we only gotta work one job to live. Yall gotta have three jobs to eat a meal! That's how bad poverty is in America! By ending birthright citizenship, he cleans the slate of the U.S.

Declaring only two SEXES - (This is why education is important). The definition of sex is your BIOLOGY™. GENDER is A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT THAT CAME FROM THE CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT. Just because DJT did this means he's a homophobe. You can identify as a lesbian, be in a homosexual relationship, get a sperm donor, and be pregnant. You can also identify as trans if that's what you are, or whatever GENDER you wanna BE. Next, you go to the hospital bc you aint gonna give birth to your baby in a cave or in a manger, right? So, you go tell the nurse, MY SEX IS FEMALE. Why, do you ask? There is no medical innovation YET that says you can change your sex. No surgery can reassign your gender. (Via Clevland clinic, which is continually prepared for survey in compliance with the highest levels of quality care and patient safety standards as set by The Joint Commission, CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services), the Ohio Department of Health and many other regulatory, licensing and accrediting agencies. PS - I put the link so you can verify the resources yourself.)

Separating from the World Health Organization - By making the U.S. independent from this "Organization", the country will be independent and free from RELYING on this. I've researched about world renowned organizations like WHO and they have A LOT of problems and there tends to be more under the table transactions within these, especially those who have semi-high power positions. Some problems like slow response time for medical emergencies, too much guidelines for legal purposes limiting their capabilities from ACTUALLY HELPING, voluntary contributions from other countries (which is so unfair, right? Imagine if the U.S. Government is the major contributor to WHO, or at least, it's U.S. citizens contributing to WHO but do Americans who need medical support actually receive such support? Moreover, if US stays affiliated to WHO, they're too tied to each other, limiting both of their potential. Additionally, there are things like "anonymous donors" or again, under the table transactions that don't get shown. WHERE DOES THAT MONEY GO???!?!?!?

Q: you also support lgbtq and know the whole reason behind the punk movement, etc? Yes, I do. What about it?

Q: I'm just asking out of curiosity because you say you like old school punk and that you are open to lgbtq, plus you listen to Yungblud. Who im pretty sure has said he doesn't support trump once or twice

If the old school punk and yungblud is anti semitic, am I also required and expected to be as such too?

Hope this answers your ask!! Also, Why do you seek my political view😅I'm surprised you're updated to doof stuff😅😅

[badaxefamily]

I have a very rare disease, hooray! Under a cut in case I ramble, not for content warning. I won't be talking about anything explicit.

It's official: I have hypophosphatasia, which is a genetic mutation that causes a deficiency of alkaline phosphatase (ALP) which is used for building bones and metabolizing vitamin B6 into energy, among other things.

Ever since I started getting my lab results mailed to me as an adult, I've had low ALP. But most doctors either only know about the more severe infantile form of HPP, or they don't know about it at all. So it's understandable that they always wrote something like "Low ALP isn't a concern", because most doctors only look for high ALP (which indicates liver problems). I'm accustomed to doing research into medical things, but even I didn't have reason to suspect HPP because most of the information (at least in the past) focused on the severe form.

I didn't look hard enough. Childhood-onset HPP is a thing and it isn't fatal, just painful and annoying. And that's what I have. The signs were there as a kid: disliking standing, finding it easier to walk than stand, difficulty with stairs, "growing pains", less energy and muscle strength than my peers. But none severe enough to catch the attention of teachers or pediatricians. In the US you can only get treatment if symptoms presented before 18 (adult-onset is also a thing but the FDA doesn't care about those people*), so when I was gathering data for the endocrinologist I thought back to my childhood for anything out of the ordinary. One memory that stood out to the doctor and my case managers was the time my classmate broke his leg in fourth grade. He had crutches, and - as our rural school somehow managed to be fairly progressive and inclusive in 1993 - he chose to allow the rest of us to try them, so we could have empathy for him. When I tried them, I remember feeling relief. I though this was cool, there was less weight on my legs but I could still move! It did not occur to me that that isn't a normal thing for a ten-year-old to think. I think it was the pharmacy case manager that went "OH" at this memory.

So HPP is at least a major contributor to my ongoing struggles with chronic fatigue and weakness. It may not be the only one, but it needs to be treated even if only to protect my bones as I get older. ALP is needed to metabolize vitamin B6 as well as make bones though, and Strensiq (a lab-created form of ALP) is known to break down B6. It's so good at it in fact that you can't really get a B6 blood test to be accurate if you're on Strensiq, because the drug will keep eating the B6 in the vial! So we're hopeful that Strensiq will make me feel better, even though it's really made with people with soft bones in mind. The fact that I haven't broken a bone going up the stairs like many people do may make it difficult to get Medicare to approve the prescription. Thankfully, not only am I perfectly willing to fight about it, I have a team to fight alongside me. HPP is so rare that the manufacturer and pharmacy for Strensiq have enough resources to assign each patient case managers to assist with everything from insurance to learning about the drug and how to take it (it's a subcutaneous injection), and also there's Soft Bones, the largest patient advocacy group for HPP in the US. I've already touched base with them and they're standing ready to assist if needed.

Also Alexion sent me this frickin adorable kids' book with the information packet:

*Forgot the note I was going to add about this. The reason the FDA doesn't authorize Strensiq for adult-onset is probably because studies didn't show as dramatic an improvement for adults compared to kids. But I think that's stupid. For one thing the disease is rare so studies are always small and there aren't very many of them. For another, of course the improvement in kids is more dramatic, their disease is more severe. Japan is the only country that allows Strensiq for adult-onset, as far as I'm aware.

[spearxwind]

been thinking a lot about my different oc worlds recently. ive said before ive got four, but technically it's five if you count extinction.

im gonna put all my thoughts under a readmore bc once again this got insanely long jkllkjjkf. i be rambling

most of my attention has definitely been going into challenger deep the past year (and will likely continue), recently i refurbished hollowridge as well and have had a lot of fun with it (even if i havent drawn much to show for it...)

the other two of the set of four i originally posted about are my agony drive and broken horizon settings. Broken horizon is more of a personal headworld where ive set my dragon ocs, but I have not really been successful with it in terms of like. worldbuilding and crafting a story for it, mostly because there are very few characters in it currently and i struggle with it. But it's the world where cercerion and my sona dima (as an oc) exist. i would love to actually do a better job with it sometime but it currently isnt a huge priority because ive been focused on the other two main ones (but again since its just a personal headworld it literally is just some place i like to mentally hang out and fly around in, im not super bothered by it being undeveloped.)

However we have the two troublemaker worlds now

the agony drive setting has been driving me more than a little nuts because of its whole situation with it. i absolutely adore the characters i have in it, but i have no idea what to do with the world itself. it used to be a joint project so i was extremely limited in the way i could develop it bc i depended on the other individual enjoying the ideas and i did my best to keep it afloat almost being the sole contributor to it, so now that its liberated i just didnt know what to do with it. i do like a bunch of the lore bits i came up with but some part of me is like 'idk if i enjoy this as a world' bc it still feels limited in some way? Another issue is that while hollowridge (previously my horror and slapstick gore setting with demons/angels/magic vibes) was dead in the water, i channeled that violence slapstick demon/magic vibe through TAD, but getting a focus back on hollowridge has kinda just. straight up deleted a bunch of TAD's reason to exist? i dont know if that makes sense

HR isnt really that much slapstick violence because death is final, and TAD is more cartoony in that sense bc death ISNT final which is its main reason to exist (unlimited violent major character death for the funnies), but theres a weird overlap that is keeping me from focusing correctly because it makes my brain go 'you are doing the same thing twice'

I would really really love to actually turn it into something fun and unique (separate from my other worlds) but i really havent been sure how to go about it because of that overlap. i genuinely think its just a problem of 'you have to actually develop the setting to have fun in it' and i just havent been able to do that yet bc i cant decide what i want it to BE. TAD has also never really had a lot of story to begin with so it makes things harder bc the story is the vehicle to explore the world with. its pretty frustrating bc midas set and david are some of my fav ocs ive made and i miss them but god dammit if it isnt hard to actually work with the whole thing....

and last but not least... the fifth one. extinction. a lot of you probably know this one from my comic. if youve been here since like... 2014-2015 (which would be insane) you might remember me beginning to develop that story until it eventually became the comic that is currently sitting unfinished and feels like a huge weight on my shoulders just out of sheer shame

the issue with extinction is that it was a lot of characters that i deeply loved (and still i still deeply love!!) all with fun plotlines, backstories, and a lot of fun tidbits to em that i ended up bending and breaking dozens of times just for the purpose of fitting them into a relatively short story that i could draw out and finish. and more importantly into something i hoped would be handleable instead of spiralling out of control like it had happened before

but what i didnt realize is that by doing so, i "locked" their lore in place into these very small boxes that would fit into a story, and thus i would remove what i had loved about those characters and their interactions that i had come up with years and years ago and a lot of my very very cool ideas for them simply went out the window in favor of .... well i dont. know. but off it went

i live in complete shame for not being able to finish the comic. it genuinely is a huge and extremely heavy weight on my shoulders and this whole thing has prevented me from even thinking of said ocs for years now even though they are some of my oldest and most beloved. saying all of this is not something i take lightly in the least as well

so recently I have been thinking about bringing them back as well... maybe (to the extent that i can... i have a lot of ocs and you guys know i have a lot of bias when drawing faves. so i cant guarantee content but at least i would be able to think about them again).

essentially the same way that i rewrote and got back my old concepts for hollowridge that slapped hard i want to get back my original ideas for extinction that i thought were really cool and just wasnt able to fit into a comic narrative

obviously this would come with a lot of retconning and i know a lot of people will probably not like it if i do it and i think thats something i have to face and learn to live with

but yeah anyways. TLDR is i really want to actually do something proper for TAD but have been having a lot of trouble with it unfortunately, but im working on it. and ive also been feeling rly nostalgic about extinction so you might see the characters again, albeit different in terms of story from what you probably know

[rjzimmerman]

One of the World’s Biggest Health Risks Is a Philanthropic Blind Spot. (New York Times)

Excerpt from this New York Times Op-Ed:

The Air Quality Life Index at the University of Chicago, which measures the impact of air pollution on life expectancy, shows that people living in the most polluted places on Earth breathe air that has six times as much pollution as the air breathed by people in the least polluted places — and those in the most polluted places are seeing their lives cut short by more than two years because of it. An estimated 8.1 million people globally died in 2021 from the health impacts of breathing dirty air, according to a 2024 report by Health Effects Institute and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

Private philanthropy could do much to turn the corner on this problem in some of the most polluted parts of the planet. But just an average $41.3 million in known philanthropic funds are devoted to air pollution each year, according to a recent report by the Clean Air Fund, a philanthropic group based in London. That is less than 1 percent of the more than $5 billion spent annually by one major funder, the Global Fund, to combat malaria, H.I.V./AIDS and tuberculosis.

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This is especially disconcerting because particulate matter in air pollution has become the world’s largest contributor to the global disease burden — a metric quantifying premature death and sickness — and one of the greatest threats to life expectancy, outstripping the impacts of malaria, H.I.V./AIDS and transportation injuries combined. Polluted air does not just cut off a few years at the end of a long life. It is the second highest risk of death for children 5 and under.

Europe, the United States and Canada are barely affected by the health impacts of air pollution when compared with the rest of the world. But they receive roughly 60 percent of the philanthropic funds devoted to combating it. Africa is home to five of the top 10 most polluted countries. From 2015 through 2022, the entire continent received an average of $238,000 per year in philanthropic grants aimed at reducing air pollution.

Data — or, more precisely, a lack of data — is the most immediate problem. The paucity of data makes it difficult to stir public opinion, develop policy or measure progress. It also makes it hard to attract funding. But when air quality data is available, pollution declines. And when air quality improves, decades of research make clear that people live longer, healthier lives. Yet, 39 percent of the world’s countries aren’t producing air quality data for their citizens. Those countries are also some of the most polluted.

A recent study showed that when American embassies installed air pollution monitors at some of their locations and began sharing the real-time air quality data publicly, pollution declined and led to decreases in premature mortality, suggesting that local governments and perhaps residents took steps to reduce pollution once they learned of it.

[catflowerqueen]

Well it looks like the threat of Eclipse is finally dealt with, so long as he didn’t stash more backups somewhere. I feel bad that Solar Flare had to die as well, but, in a way, he did get what he wanted in the end. I also really like that Moon protected Nice Eclipse as well, and stopped him from attempting to be self-sacrificial. There has been too much of that going around on the show lately! Hopefully Sun survived using the star power and also that Moon comes back to fulfill his end of the deal with Nice Eclipse to try and help him fix his Sun and Moon. …After he takes a bit of a break first. They all need it, and no one has really gotten a chance to rest or properly mourn everything that went down after the magic explosion, and I’m sure that is a major contributor to why things have been so tense lately. Of course, that might have to take a bit of a back seat depending on how Lunar takes the update on what went down while they gone, especially the fact that, while Moon does consider them family and already cares for them a great deal, he doesn’t actually personally remember them at all.

Speaking of Lunar, I kind of both hope for and dread the possibility of them meeting Ruin, for a multitude of reasons. But based on some of the stuff we saw on the Monty and Foxy channel today, it seems like Ruin’s situation might be one more easily resolved? Or at least resolved in a way that gives them a slightly happier ending. Because it seems like at least part of them doesn’t want to be doing the things they are doing. And Foxy, at least, is aware of it. Though it is unclear how many bad feelings he would hold toward them in the aftermath. He’s honestly pretty chill over all, and I was laughing today both at Ruin’s antics (especially when they kept jumping off the ship) and how Foxy was just rolling with everything. I do hope they can fix him up again, though. And also that he gets along with Lunar.

Also that whatever Eclipse seemed so panicked about regarding Lunar doesn’t end up happening. And, like, there are some possibilities for Lunar coming back possibly leading to trouble—though inadvertently on Lunar’s part, I’m sure, and possibly just with their presence being some sort of catalyst for someone to start paying more attention. First and foremost is the fact that Lunar probably still has their magic, and so might cause some sort of chaos if they start experimenting with that unsupervised. Another possibility is that the Creator does something, since he seems to pay them both more and less attention that the others. Like. Lunar was able to scare him off that one time (unless he was just pretending), and does seem to be an unexpected variable for his group… and we do know that Eclipse was at least not lying about there being monitors for the star power, since that is definitely something that the Creator has been keeping an eye on. So it wouldn’t surprise me if he decided to make a move if Lunar does indeed become more involved with the Daycare attendants again.

Oh, and another thing they all need to consider is the fact that a lot of peoples’ memories of the Daycare Attendants are still mixed up, and that might become a problem if any of the ones still under the star’s influence realize that Moon killed him. I really hope they address that soon. Especially since most of them also don’t know Lunar even existed in the first place or that Moon lost his memories. Which kind of does provide some angst potential, especially with the short list that Moon gave Eclipse for who he could consider his allies, but I’m pretty sure that the nature of the show means it isn’t going to be addressed too deeply, if at all.

Though that invitation for Nice Eclipse to come visit does open some interesting possibilities in that he actually does act and have the personality that the usual Eclipse tried to make everyone think he had.

Anyway. The next arcs should prove exciting. I’m looking forward to them.

…And still hoping that Sun and Moon, and possibly Earth, play one of the Kindergarten games, or at least Pineapple on Pizza.

[samiesramen]

Random thought just had:

Piers has a ton of unchecked trauma: like super unchecked.

Like he’s conically been with the BSAA for years, I think since he was 19. He’s lost a lot of friends, probably family too, over the years. Not to mention the physical trauma. I feel like there has been very little thought to it from everyone he knows.

I feel like the only people who would know or care, even just a little bit, would be Helena, Sherry, and Jake. In terms of his superiors, Jill, Leon and Sheba would be a concerned.

Nonetheless, he’s gotten so used to being the lieutenant, an amazing BSAA soldier, the person everyone probably went to, that he’s just gotten used being someone who people fall to and rang to he’s just ignored it. I don’t ever really remember Piers every really talking about what he felt or seeing that man catch a break.

I honestly like to think that that reason was one of the biggest contributors to him staying in the underwater base in RE6. (SPOILERS but he did not deserve to die, Chris and Piers had already been though a lot c’mon man. >:[ )

Like, there is no way Piers wasn’t absolutely tired, and done with everything.Constantly trying to keep Chris focused while stuck in country literally being destroyed with a virus they have no cure too, all with the weight of the world. Not to mention he’s was probably STILL dealing with trauma from the events tags happened before the 6 month time skip. Man’s was definitely going though it.

I know this is pretty random and long for a character I feel like isn’t very popular in the Resident Evil series, but I like Piers a lot, he’s a pretty interesting dude when you get tk learn more about him. Especially since his first time in the series was before re6. If Piers never took that virus, the world probably would have ended or at least the problem in re6 would’ve taken much longer to solve.

Also, Piers was kinda carrying Chris’s campaign??? Why isn’t anybody talking about that???? Like even if the other two campaigns went well, the would’ve been fucked a little bit if Piers didn’t take the virus, right??

Leon, Jake, and Piers had the final blows to their final bosses. For two new characters to do something like that is awesome.

Again, I know this is super random and you can clearly see how much I like this character. But I never do this. Also it’s my autism and I can chose whoever I get to hyper-fixate on, loser >:]

Point being:

Piers Nivans deserved a hug and free therapy (along with majority of RE characters of course :] )

He’s underrated and deadass is one of the reasons the world is saved in his game

He’s underrated

Puppy :3

[anonymusbosch]

so. first of all I don't know anything. take everything with a massive grain of salt

second - this is talking about housing in a very capital-y framework which is not necessarily reflective of viewpoints I hold

I don't want to engage directly with the original post I'm responding to here, but re: private construction vs gvt-owned construction of housing - when it comes to affordable housing in California in particular (where around half of homeless people in the US live), there's an obvious(?) contributor - zoning laws that prevent housing from being built in sufficient quantity to keep prices low, market-style. some people respond to this with "if we relax zoning and incentivize private construction, the problem will fix itself". Then there's the "por que no los dos" approach to public vs private investment in housing, which seems kind of a no-brainer on its face (have state-sponsored construction alongside private construction) - but I think there's a major piece missing to that, which is that - even accepting the premise of that framing - scarcity, like, exists? And particularly in construction labor, particularly in California, supply is slow to respond to demand. For years there's been an diminishing number of construction workers (and in many cases plumbers, electricians, etc) as the pace of construction has been kept slow and things like computer labs have supplanted wood shop/metal shop in schools - AND as the cost of living has increased, it's been harder to get by on manual labor wages, pushing people already in the field out of it. Part of the reason housing is more expensive to build in CA, even when it's allowed, is that labor and materials are scarce. (This is ofc in addition to addl regulations, environmental review hurdles, etc.)

The other side of public v private construction that I don't think is acknowledged as much (among people already gung-ho about building more housing) is that when there's such a tight market, the first thing to be built with private capital is the thing which sells for the most money. Okay, that people talk about. But if the response is "but let them keep building and it will eventually get to an equilibrium/drive prices down" - I don't think that's very reassuring? The problem is present now. And say housing prices drop from $3000/month for a one bedroom apartment in SF to $2000/month - that's a significant enough drop to open the market to people who previously didn't move there because it's too expensive but not nearly enough to make the prevailing wage for, e.g., a city janitor ($17.29/hr) or a construction worker hauling material at a site ($22.50/hr) super tenable. More people move in, but the low end of the market doesn't budge until all the upper tiers have been satisfied - and meanwhile, the people building and taking care of those buildings still can't afford to live in them. This seems like it will keep the cost of construction fairly high for a fairly extended period of time, right?

one answer is to increase pay for construction workers - with the consequence of increasing the cost of construction and making the cheaper units even more unfavorable to build (for investors). this is already happening to some degree.

So it seems, especially with the time it takes to get additional people into the construction industry, like the #1 priority should be public funding for the type of housing least attractive to investors and most consequential for the people who need it most - low-cost affordable housing. other priorities should absolutely be re-incentivizing the trades, rezoning to allow much denser housing in the sprawl, etc. but in terms of the massive deficit of housing and homelessness crisis, it really seems like priority one should be building cheap now. b/c the longer it takes to get housing, the more expensive it'll get.

(sidebar: gvt-owned housing also may allow the government to avoid some funding/paperwork issues like what's happened with the Cecil Hotel, though given how much of a trainwreck they made of it, I don't know how much hope I can have)

(sidebar 2: don't have the links handy but I'm reminded of two studies - one that showed that median rents in an area increased when rent control was implemented, one that found that rents increased when rent control was removed.)

@triviallytrue I don't know if any of this is of interest - thoughts?

[herobrinna]

Well, considering im still mildly pissed about the toh finale, wanting a distraction from it, and considering todays date, I think its the perfect time to infodump my toh x homestuck au.

I hope whoever reads this suffers <3

Ok, starting chronologically (or attempting to at least) with the collectors' backstory, or as I've so creatively renamed them to "star people", to not confuse the species with The Collector (the character).

So, the star people's species originated very early since the universe's creation, some might even argue that they are the first sapient species to ever exist, although verifying that would be impossible, for the universe was a very chaotic place back then, with all the destruction happening let and right, pockets for life to emerge were very small and far between. But the star people got initially lucky, and got a very quiet space in the newborn universe.

Of course, relatively speaking, that quiet didn't last long (it lasted quite a few million years but like). The star people were just about discovering technology that would let them expand into the stars as tragedy struck, and for one reason or another their home world was destroyed.

With there being so few viable planets at that time they could settle on, they decided to adapt their bodies to survive in space. With a mixture of mechanical and genetic engineering the species redefined themselves. And with rapid improvements in technology they became almost immortal beings, who could change their bodies however they wanted to suit them.

And thus, they started expanding into space. First, only on the outskirts of galaxies, where things have already mostly calmed down, but with their pseudo-immortality they "soon" saw the rest of the universe reach an equilibrium.

And so began their empire. Though the star people didn't need planets to survive, and they could very much acquire materials from inhospitable worlds; they quickly gained a sort of obsession with discovering and cataloguing any new life form they found. And most of all using the lifeforms' genetics to change their appearances, a sort of fashion statement.

But there was a problem, see despite all their progress they never managed to figure out how to travel faster than light. This isn't that much of a problem for an immortal species of course, they are used to waiting, but the longer they lived the greedier they became, wanting to catalogue everything there ever was, and change their looks to be based of what they considered the coolest creatures.

But oh sweet luck came to them! As they discovered a species they called the titans.

The titans come from a highly oxygenated but also high gravity world, that ended up giving birth to buff ass giants lol. The titans might not have been the largest or strongest species that planet had, but they had 2 things unique about them, 1) they were sapient, and this was the first time the star people encountered another sapient species, and 2) their blood had magical properties.

Soon the star people discovered, that whatever magic, for a lack of better explanation, the titans had in their blood, it was a major ingredient in creating wormholes.

With that, the star people driven with greed, decided to attempt enslaving the titans to harvest their blood.

The titans of course didn't like that, and although they were a tribal species, it turned out their magic is really fucking good at fucking with technology. Thus a war broke out. Blah blah blah, too many details later that'll take me ages to write, the star people lost.

One of the main contributors to their demise was due to editing themselves so much they could only be "born" through artificial means, and due to their semi-immortal lifespans, children took thousands of years to mature to adulthood. So during their prime this species ended up having a very small population (relatively speaking) that was spread all over the place, then during the war they just weren't able to replenish their species in time.

Tho this war has rendered them technically extinct, as the few that remained weren't able to upkeep all the technology required to "birth" new members of their species, and thus the few remnants left decided to live the last of their life exploring the stars.

Overtime, even though their technology was literally designed to last millions of years, it, like them isn't truly immortal, and so with no one to upkeep it, they were slowly dying out one by one.

Some star people, in their final moments of existence decided to make a name for themselves, these are:

Caliborn and Calliope were the last of the species to ever be born. Due to an error they ended up sharing a body and the lab they were born in was long abandoned anyways, so they fended for themselves in their shared body, until they managed to figure out how to make separate bodies for each other. At which point they separated, both absolutely despising each other, with each having different outlooks on what they should do with their newfound freedom.

Caliborn hated everything and went out to destroy as much as possible. Calliope treasured all life and went out to protect as much as possible.

Both of them died way before either humanity or trollanity came into existence, yet they each had an affect on the respective species planets that ended up being factors in their developments.

Calliope found earth when the tragedy that extincted the dinosaurs happened, she used her last bits of life to help restore the planet. Caliborn, when he found Beforus¹, he used his last bits of powers to make the sun as harsh and hostile as possible, he did so to any nearby solar system as well, no longer able to completely destroy shit.

The Sufferer/Jesus were the same person, just a funky ass star person that decided to go around finding sapient species, disguising themselves as one of their own and fucking around.

Most other star people kept to themselves until they died, although 2 still remain:

Hooty was actually the star people's last resort, an attempt at making a weapon that will be effective against the titans. Sadly, he couldnt care less about the war and ended up just vibing on the titan's planet.

The Collector was a kid that was put in stasis, in hopes that he could be raised after the war was over, but forgotten cuz, well everyone died, and Belos found him later, so yh.

Now skipping a bunch of time forward.

Of course everyone know the Alternians manage to find a cheatcode to faster than light travel through the use of the slave labour of their own kind. Thus, with the rapidly expanding into space it wasn't long until they found the Titans as well.

And sadly there wasn't much the titans could do to protect themselves this time. Not only did their magic not do much against the trolls' biotech, but also the trolls greatly outnumbered the titans and could just throw a bunch of lowbloods to be canon fodder.

Thus with the titans enslaved the Alternians now had the much more efficient travel tech of wormholes.

This actually had one nice thing to it tho; giving lowbloods more rights²

With, as close to straight up teleportation as you can get, Alternians set out to conquer the galaxy now faster than ever.

This brings us to humanity.

The year is 2648³ and humanity has started its own space exploration age, having discovered their own way of efficiently traveling the galaxy, that I can't be bothered to make up.

Two brothers-

Actually this is way too long already, I'll do the Wittebrothers' backstory later.

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1 - So basically this au is actually an au of au, which is just a generic no-sgrub au were i re-did troll history. To summarise, trolls originated on Beforus but due to the industrial revolution and its consequences they had to relocate to what is now known as Alternia. Later all history on their origins and Beforus itself was erased.

2 - The Empress at the time⁴ didnt care much for anything other than conquering new planets, and Alternian owned space was already split into regions with sort of their own local governments, kinda like American states, quite a few of which had ...nicer treatment of lowbloods. But with wormholes goldbloods weren't needed as batteries anymore so they managed to protest for more rights.

3 - Yh, I'm just being lazy and setting their story a 1000 years from canon. "Oh but shouldn't it be in 2613 then?" you might ask, and I'm going to tell you that the show is wrong.

4 - The Alternian Empire had many leaders in the past, but the Condesce was the best at erasing history.

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Wow did anyone actually read all that?

Well if someone did, heres a shitty sketch of Belos' "redesign" as an apology for not actually getting to his backstory:

Uhhh, I need to really rework the colours, but it is what it is for the time being.