#probably not a solution

[egophiliac]

bring your son to work day

[kathaynesart]

Cowboy Omega.

Because he felt left out.

[vodid]

zero's pressure

[ultimateinferno]

In today's Adventuring Party it's mentioned that Fabian's first experience with the other dance bards was basically a sink or swim acceptance of their Thespian Energy™. The only way to survive was to embrace the shameless absurdity of the situation or be destroyed. Fabian succeeded.

As I thought about the Gorgug's talk with Porter , it might be a similar situation, but with Barbarians. Porter outright told Gorgug that he doesn't embrace his own rage, and it's self evident throughout their conversation. No well worded argument as to why Gorgug should multiclass would have ever convinced him, I think. When Porter mishandles Cloaca, Gorgug tries to politely correct him before simply giving up.

In this instance, Porter has made himself a massive wall blocking Gorgug's desires, and is being incredibly unfair to Gorgug. What does Gorgug do? He simply accepts it. Gorgug will rage and put his blood on the line for his friends, but has some issues with standing up for himself. I can think of two, maybe three instances where he has. 1) The first fight with Fabian. 2) When he slams Ragh into the lockers. And 3) when he tries to correct Telemaine on how to pronounce his name and that one was a purely verbal conversation that went nowhere.

In short, I think the correct answer to the conversation was for Gorgug to get mad. To respond to the clear unfairness and go "Hey fuck you!!" To punch through that wall and go "This isn't a fucking question, I'm going to multiclass." In the end, Gorgug still has yet to embrace being a barbarian.

[the-clintster]

[kaidatheghostdragon]

"You must be Ra's," Tucker stated, careful to keep on a poker face while he frantically assessed the situation - tied down to a chair, in what was probably the heart of this particular fruitloop's lair.

And there was a frankly disturbing number of similarities to the OG fruitloop: the way he stood, the style of his hair, the perpetual sneer.

The way he sent a shiver down Tucker's spine like Vlad used to be able to way back when he was still intimidating.

"Gotta say," Tucker continued, shoving his emotions down like only a human-born liminal that dealt with empathic rogues on the daily could ever manage, "not that impressed. For starters, your vibes are rancid, dude. Like, what do you do, bathe in corruption all day?"

That earned him a slap on the face, "You will speak when spoken to," Ra's ordered.

Tucker witheld a smirk. This guy seemed like the type to order subordinates around to do absolutely everything. The fact that he personally slapped Tucker with his own hand? It could only mean that Tucker was already under the guy's skin.

"Well, that just means I can keep talking since you just spoke to me," Tucker retorted, unafraid of another slap. Really, compared to the abuse he put himself through helping Danny, and the way his liminality skyrocketed in the last couple of years, it was barely even a love-tap. It didn't even sting.

Ra's raised a brow, giving the distinct impression that he was absolutely livid, though that may have been the liminal empathy cluing Tucker in. He'd never been great at reading emotions until that particular ability developed.

"Who do you work for?" Ra's began the interrogation.

Tucker returned with his best affronted glare, "Frankly, I'm offended that you don't believe I could do all this entirely on my own."

"Kill him," Ra's stated as he turned to leave, sounding so unimpressed that it almost seemed bored.

Out of the shadows, an arrow flew straight at Tucker, who slipped his restraints (thank you liminality for giving him limited ghost powers) and caught the arrow before it pierced his chest, "Yeah, no. Imma veto that."

Ra's turned back around, looking almost impressed.

It made Tucker feel way slimier than Vlad could ever hope to achieve. He repressed a shudder. After all, his job here was to keep Ra's distracted while the others invisibly raided the place, destroyed the pits, and planted explosives.

Tucker, being the technopath, would normally stay behind in the chair, but the League of Assassins was well defended against cyber attacks, forcing them to pivot somewhat in order to successfully infiltrate the place. He ended up creating a digital duplicate of himself (a literal duplicate, like Danny could do, but Tucker's duplicate could only ever exist inside of a computer, by all appearances a true AI) that the others could upload to the servers once they found them.

Beyond that, there wasn't much Tucker could do beyond providing a distraction. Sure, the LoA's technology was absolutely worth drooling over, but they didn't rely on it like most of the modern world did. There was no internet connection, electronic locks, or surveillance for Tucker to hack into and make his own. This place was all stone doors and medieval fortifications.

"Impressive," Ra's complimented after a moment of silent appraisal, "perhaps you are worthy of my attention after all."

Tucker scoffed, getting the clear impression that this guy fully expected the ground he walked on to be worshipped after admitting such small praise, "You're not the first megalomaniac I've had to deal with, and you won't be the last." (Team Phantom had an entire list of fruitloops to work through once their LoA financial backing was removed, after all) "I'll give you props for the sweet ninja cult you got going on, though. Gotta say, that's a first for me."

"Assassins," Ra's corrected.

"Same diff," Tucker retorted with a handwave, knowing full well that a guy like Ra's would be miffed by such a dismissal. He further feigned disinterest by examining the arrow he was still holding. Tucker had taken a few archery lessons when he was younger and picked it back up by training a bit under Princess Dora's royal guard. He was... decent, with a bow. He could reliably hit his target as long as he had a couple of seconds to aim - or used something laced in technology that allowed his technopathy to steady it.

The arrow was expertly crafted and perfectly balanced. His heightened liminal senses smelled a substance on the arrowhead - probably a paralytic, not that it would have kept Tucker down for very long, even if it had breached his heart, which would have been a quick death for any baseline human. He tossed it from hand to hand a few times, feeling the weight, the threw it like a dart into one of the nearest shadows. A soft thud echoed through the room when the arrowhead bonked the chestplate of the assassin standing there, then a clatter when it fell to the ground.

"If I had a bow, he'd be dead," Tucker needlessly commented, thumb pointing to the hidden guard. He was somewhat surprised the dude didn't catch the arrow like Tucker had. But then again, if the shadows were meant to fully conceal him, catching the arrow would have given him away from the arrow not making noise or falling to the ground.

"You knew he was there," Ra's stated more than asked.

"And the eleven others," Tucker easily replied, "A full dozen to guard the King of the Cult. Not that it'll make any difference. I've already won."

Tucker didn't have any misconcieved notion that his liminality would give him an edge over a dozen trained assassins. It doesn't really matter how good your senses are or how fast your reflexes when you have to dodge a dozen attacks simultaneously. But what he could do was turn intangible during those first few seconds of adrenaline-fueled panic, more than long enough for either of the Phantoms, neither of which were currently more than a few hundred yards distant, to reach him and drag him away from immediate danger.

So Tucker latched onto that confidence borne of complete trust in his team, and radiated it as much as he could, daring Ra's to call his bluff with nothing more than a knowing smirk.

[freyadragonlord]

The thing about Han Yoojin is...

I don't think he would be more dangerous if he were an S-Class. He is dangerous specifically because he is F-Class.

That's because all of Yoojin's abilities, as well as his behaviours, are a direct consequence of him being a lower rank hunter in a world made to favour higher ranks. Yoojin's strenght comes from his determination, his knowledge, and his anger towards those who oppress the weak and vulnerable.

Lacking physical strenght and strong magical powers, he started studying hard everything there was to know about Dungeons, and he became an incredible strategist. Unable to protect himself from the criminals who took advantage of lower class hunters - and a society that did close to nothing to protect those lower classes -, he became a skilled liar, a manipulator, and he learned how to kill his enemies after tricking then into lowering their guards. He became ruthless, because if he wasn't, he wouldn't have survived, or he would have had to give up on his goal to try and protect his younger brother.

If Yoojin had been an S-Class, Yoohyun wouldn't have had as strong a reason to push him away in order to protect him. Yoojin wouldn't need to lie, manipulate, steal as much, because most things he could possibly want would simply be handed to him.

Even imagining a Yoojin that is both powerful AND as clever and ruthless as he is.... well, he'd be like Sung Hyunje. And even amazing Sung Hyunje is not as determined or imaginative as F-Class hunter Han Yoojin is.

[taffywabbit]

"why not just make your own website?"

with the announcement of cohost's death and amidst all the other tumultuous shit currently going on with social media as a concept (i am AMAZED twitter has survived this long given the circumstances), one suggestion that i've been hearing a lot is "we should just go back to the good old days of personal websites. let's all just make neocities pages!!"

(this is gonna be a long one sorry)

and like. idk! it's certainly something i've considered, i think it would be a fun thing to have, but it also feels like the equivalent of "capitalism sucks so let's all just run off into the woods and live in a cabin outside of society" to me. like it would be nice, it would be fun, but it doesn't ultimately solve the actual problems that are present with the modern internet, it just evades them. more importantly in my case and many others, it does not really help people who rely on the modern internet and the connections they're able to make there for their income. sure i can make a website and host my art and blog posts there, but who's going to see it? i can't build a consistent audience and make a living off of random passersby who peek at my website once, say "huh, neat!" and MAYBE add it to an RSS feed or whatever if they really like it. there's minimal potential for meeting and impressing new people outside my existing circles if i don't ALSO still have some manner of social media platform to promote the website on.

a lot of the "solutions" i see people proposing for the slow, painful decline of social media as a user experience keep coming back to old-fashioned, more isolated/insular systems. we miss forums, we miss personal webpages, we miss newsletters, etc etc. but like... those things were ideal in the "old web" because the old web was more about sharing hobbies and interests with whoever happened to pass by and check them out, and even just USING the internet was a niche hobby in and of itself for a lot of people. if you wanna be kinda cynical about it (and not unjustifiably so), web 2.0 is much more blatantly business-oriented, and its algorithms and carefully crafted UX's are primarily meant to funnel you towards viewing ads and spending money on products. looking at it that way, it sure does suck and Everything Was Better Before! but the modern web is ALSO more powerful than anything before it for just like. connecting people. spreading information and news. showing your art/music/writing/thoughts/etc to strangers who never knew you existed an hour ago. putting the tools to reach out to someone and tell them you think they're cool right there on the same website where their art is hosted, just a comment or a message away.

if you're able to avoid patterns of engagement-bait and obsessing over follower counts as a measure of self-worth (a big "if", i realize, but i view it like installing an adblocker - it's just kind of a basic prerequisite for modern internet safety and survival), a lot of these systems can genuinely be really positive and life-changing in ways that were simply not possible 20 years ago! almost all of my current closest friends are people I met through sharing our art on platforms like Twitter who were complete strangers at the time. all of the art clients that regularly pay my bills and support my work came from places like that too! the "social" part of "social media" is really what makes it ultimately worth keeping around in any form, and makes the pursuit of a Good social media platform still valuable.

there's a lot to love about the old web - its aesthetics, simplicity and freedom for personal expression - but every time someone says "just delete your socials and make a personal website" i am forced to confront the fact that i could never do what i currently do or be the person i am on the old web. if i was stuck hanging out in my own little space and only ever interacting with people who openly and loudly share my interests, i couldn't support myself with art full-time, i probably would never have met the kind and quiet strangers who are now my best friends and have made me who i am, and i'd just generally get a lot less insight into the vast range of experiences and perspectives that exist outside of my own. my life would be on a fundamentally different trajectory in countless ways without the advent of web 2.0.

and that's not to say "well twitter and facebook and tumblr all suck but you kinda still have to hand it to them" cuz you don't, obviously. they're corporations, and their job is to take the personalities and thoughts and art of the people who use their products and try to scrunch it all into something uninform and marketable that generates profit and pleases their shareholders. but like, you CAN still make a good thing out of them! these websites are tools just as much as geocities or myspace or IRC used to be. and the one thing these newer tools are pretty much all REALLY good at is discoverability. if you're just a hobbyist at the things you wanna share on the internet, then you likely don't have a lot of use for those tools, and perhaps you WOULD genuinely be happier just keeping a personal blog site or hanging out in private groupchats or sticking to specialized federated Mastodon instances or whatever. it just isn't feasible for me, and there are a LOT of people in my same situation. my entire industry of online freelance artists barely existed 20 years ago, and the web culture of that era is largely incompatible with my continued survival in the mid-2020s. i would LOVE to run off and live in the woods in concept, but all my survival skills are adapted for city living and i would just eat the wrong berry and die out there. i want- i NEED people to try and improve the spaces we're in, and support better forms of social media (like what cohost was trying and largely succeeding to do!) instead of just complaining that it all sucks, everything was better when we were kids, and digging ourselves little holes to hide in. much like all the other problems and frustrations and systemic issues of the world we live in, the modern web isn't going to go away if you just ignore it, so we may as well try to make it better for everyone.

anyways tl;dr i probably WILL make a neocities at some point. it could be fun, even if it doesn't help my career stability or whatever. but i do also need ALL THE SOCIAL PLATFORMS I USE FOR MY JOB TO STOP EXPLODING PRETTY PLEASE, and failing that, some actual half-decent alternatives that aren't going to fizzle out in a month would also be great thanks ✌

[tobisaw]

Charms I’m making for myself!! I’ll reblog once they arrive :)

[lady-raziel]

hilarious that with each new day that passes a new bit of dirt from JD Vance's past gets discovered and plastered over the internet...it's almost as if this is why presidential campaigns have always announced their running mates well before the convention...so that if glaring issues with a candidate came to light quickly there would be time to replace them on the ticket before they were officially locked in...it's almost as if certain things in political campaigns were done for a reason, donald...because the very same critical failures had happened before...but no i'm sure you and your guys attempt to recreate a fantasy version of history while ignoring all the reasons that history was a disaster will work this time...because you are built different and the 10000th time trying fascism will work like a charm...

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

There's this website I like using with my students sometimes that has a bunch of simple lil virtual models on it to teach various aspects of ecology, like this one that shows how two species of bacteria compete in a petri dish to illustrate niches, and this one that shows both how to estimate field vole populations using mark-recapture but also how their trap preferences affect the results, and this much fancier one showing how barnacles are affected by sea level rise. They are simple and fun and pedagogically useful. I like them.

I also want to make one of my own to teach climate proxies; sediment cores using foraminifera and their temperature-induced spiralling shells, for example, or pollen or beetle casings or what have you. Tree rings. Ice cores. Shit like that. So, the student would have an image of a layered sediment core, the model would generate random-but-within-parameters numbers of clockwise or anti-clockwise spiral foraminifera, in each layer, boom. Past climate record generated.

THE PROBLEM: I am a fucking moron when it comes to coding. I have tried so many times. It just absolutely resists my ability to understand. It's my Achilles heel. I'm an imbecile. A cretin. A joke.

THE POSSIBLE SOLUTION: my friend Dan who knows how to code.

THE NEW PROBLEM: there has been an XKCD-style assumption about baseline knowledge

[aroaceleovaldez]

i still think a lot about how technically, it's implied Anubis and Walt started dating each other before they asked out Sadie, and if Sadie had said she wasn't interested they would have gone "Entirely fair have a nice day" and proceed to just go continue to date each other.

Cause like, that was the entire thing. They decided that themselves. That things would work best if they were together (as in both physically sharing a body and also relationship-wise). The "asking Sadie about it" part was secondary. If she had said no, they would have stayed together, because among other things Walt would kind of die if they didn't. Walt and Anubis are technically the first gay couple in the Riordanverse. AND they're in a polyamorous relationship with Sadie. Why does no one talk about them ever.

[shrews-art]

Pain reminds us that we are alive or something I guess

[mareastrorum]

Ludinus’s argument is going to be “the Prime Deities chose the Betrayers over us,” isn’t it? He’s going to focus on all the horrible things the Betrayer Gods did during this mission, that the Prime Deities refuse to end this war by killing them, and that they let the Betrayers destroy Aeor so the Factorum Malleus couldn’t be used against the Betrayers.

It’s going to boil down to, “the Prime Deities will watch millions of us die for hundreds of years so long as all of their siblings survive.” The Betrayers broke out of their prisons before; they could certainly figure it out again. How long before the next Calamity? How long before the next disagreement between the gods kills a majority of life on Exandria?

I don’t agree with that reasoning, but I can see that argument taking shape. I’m curious if we’re going to see something weaken it other than that Predathos won’t stop with the gods. (Ludinus is not stupid, but he is arrogant; I bet he has a plan to deal with Predathos, and—looking at what Aeor achieved—that may not be impossible.)

[sysig]

Twin skeletons need twin carriers (Patreon)

[mollysunder]

The one thing I don't understand about the theory where Piltover and Zaun are teaming up to fight Noxus in the end, is why are Vi and Ekko flying towards Jinx's supposed airship if they're on the same team? Why does Vi NEED to confront Jinx in the middle of a warzone?

We see Ekko in garb that looks like he's on Jinx's side, but we mostly see him with the Firelights in those scenes, and they not decorated in Jinx's colors. Even minor background characters that are on Jinx/Sevika's side have a pink X on the right side of their chest. The Firelights are completely free of any graffiti or markers that would identify them with Jinx, and Vi is in an enforcer uniform. We don't see any other Zaunites in the crowd, but for some reason Vi and Ekko are centering their concentration on Jinx.

I think what's happening is that Ambessa's forces are fighting against Piltover's enforcers, but Jinx isn't helping, she's taking advantage of the chaos. Jinx is probably in Piltover to do something big that Piltover can't defend against since they're preoccupied with Noxus. Jinx will probably think the fight between Noxus and Piltover is the best opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. Vi and Ekko will probably object, they'll say her plan goes too far, and it'll get people killed. The whole scenario will probably be a more extreme mirror to whatever the Silco flashback will reveal about what went down on the Day of Ash and why Vander tried to kill Silco, except this time with magic.