#scout value

[vaxxman]

"Do you miss the time when you used to do no harm?"

Old habits.

Merc behaviour is based on a nice little comment @up-in-flames-writing left on one of my comics :)

Rambling and more silly drawings below.

Loosely based on the Solemn Vow's public blurb:

Art lovers will cherish the bust of Hippocrates, commemorating a time when the Medic still thought doing no harm was a good idea.

I am absolutely convinced that Medic carries dextrose drops with him. German pharmacies throw these after you when you buy anything at all. I went to check if this one specific brand I know of had been around since the 60s and 70s and yes, it was.

Small acts of kindness I can see Medic doing is giving everyone one of these if they are tired. I'm talking about Engineer mostly.

Or they snack on them when solving practical problems together, like during the teleporter bread tumor incident.

[crystalelemental]

Scout Value - Halloween Spotlight Scout

Time for my yearly propaganda about how Halloween Caitlin is actually the best! Hey kids, you like 0.33% odds?! Then boy do we have a spotlight for you! All the previous Halloween alts crammed in one! This is a terrible value, do not let me deceive you in this way, but also listen to me about Caitlin.

Halloween Acerola Let's start with the poster child for "Seasonal alts should get grid expansions now." Acerola is bad. Ghost Tech, decent enough nuke, but not exactly strong with it. Her focus is confusion, she's got pretty poor DPS and no real MPR on her limited traits, it's an entire mess. I'm still so tempted to get it. I don't know why, I've come around to not even liking Acerola all that much, and I've never been as attached to Mimikyu as others, so I couldn't even say what draws me in. I think it's my tendency to champion garbage.

Halloween Hilbert Hilbert spent a long time being talked about as one of the best Dark pairs. When I started around second anniversary, he was still considered respectable. Now he is laughable. If you need Dark, go get Akari, that'll fix it. Hilbert just has so much trouble with survival. Even with 2/5, the recoil is so severe that he tends to knock himself out before you want him to. And if you needed high DPS with recoil, BP Karen can do that by now. I don't respect H!Hilbert.

Halloween Morty Morty's one of those pairs I really wish were better. Spread burn, potential debuffs to attack per hit, infinite MP replenishment. Morty has actual skills. But. Morty's damage is also pretty bad, and his support as a Tech doesn't offer enough to really compete. Burn is still a fairly middling status, to the point I consider it worst in the game. And just attack debuffs, single-target even, does not cut it. He's fairly disappointing overall, which is sad because Mega Banette is so cool.

Halloween Caitlin "Oh boy, I can't wait to get Poison Zone, or maybe Ghost Rebuff!" No shut up you're getting Caitlin. Okay look, I'm biased, Caitlin is my favorite character, and this alt is my everything. But listen. She's actually exceptional, and over time, the value of Caitlin Stocks has only gone up.

Initially, Caitlin was considered a niche pick, because she couldn't buff crit, in the era of "crit is the most important stat." Instead, she only buffed every other relevant stat for a physical attacker, down to the accuracy. The compression of Atk/Spd/Acc on one button is especially tremendous. As the meta shifted, and grid expansions came about, and suddenly everything up to Lodge units could cap crit at the push of a button, suddenly Caitlin finds herself in a hilarious position, as a pair able to boost everything else they could want. With fairly respectable defenses, a metric ton of shields on mega evolution, built-in Vigilance, and options like Stalwart/Unbending, Caitlin has been a long-time staple of teambuilding for me. I will acknowledge yes, she's not a top dog at this point. Especially with SS Acerola and Argenta running around and supplying constant PMUN stacks. But the Atk/Spd combo on the same button is still, somehow, a rare trait. And accuracy buffing remains exceptionally rare. Caitlin offers a metric ton, and has always been severely underrated as a threat.

Halloween Allister Comparatively, I will shit on this kid all day. "But Ghost rebuffs-" no listen to me. Ghost types tend to be slow. Agatha, Shauntal, and SS Korrina are the only exceptions. Allister is slow as dirt. He compounds the issues within the type, and his value outside of Ghost types is being a kind of okay physical wall. He dishonors the Gourgeist name. Allister sucks, I use him sometimes for Gauntlet because 3/5 Allister can paralyze, but I do not respect him in the slightest.

Halloween Iris Iris, as a Poison type with DPS and a Zone, should stand out as a pick. Unfortunately, Iris is pretty poor as a Zone setter, and a nuke. Iris struggles to achieve her nuke independently due to slow debuffing that requires a specific grid node that's hard to afford around her damage nodes. And at present, all of the top Poison damage meta is physical. Her best special partners are Petrel, who few will have, and Drasna, who isn't even Poison. As a result, Iris is...fairly poor at present. I was really banking on Lusamine/Nihilego this year, it would've been the perfect complement, but instead...nothing. To be honest, Oleana is a better team supporter for damage thanks to her AoE rebuff and physical designation than Iris is. Which is. Sad.

Final Thoughts Get Caitlin. I say this shit every year, but if you're looking at this, get Caitlin. She is so goddamn good. Halloween, as a whole, tends to be fairly...middling. Like, even the picks from last year aged like milk. Morty doesn't get to do much, and Acerola and Hilbert are effectively without value in the modern meta. Only Caitlin has withstood the test of time, and if I'm being honest? I don't expect Phoebe or Roxanne to do better. Phoebe's already walking the same "niche support that doesn't do enough" line that many other seasonals have, while Roxanne has a strong nuke, but pretty poor DPS and slow buffing/debuffing support for a team. Even her Topsy Turvy effect is locked to sync, and thus a lot more difficult to manage. Caitlin is the supreme Halloween unit. The one that withstood the curse. And I think she should be rewarded for that. Maybe with your credit card information. So she can buy more costumed alts for herself.

[kotdish]

[missinglaterals]

Ethel Nol

Redesigned a kinda old character design of an arsonist with a funny name. Thought she could look a lot more chaotic

Initial design under the cut cause this is getting long lol

[fictional-men-enthusiast]

Saxton is the type of guy to say “his pronouns are they/them” about Pyro 100% genuinely.

[its-yashas-strong-arms]

how do people have full-time jobs and lives? how do you balance it all?

between 40 hours of work, several dnd campaigns, working out 2-3 times a week, weekly date nights with my partner, volunteering as scouts leader (+ I'm team lead and treasurer) I have barely any time to rest, nevermind doing the housework or incidentals like seeing other friends or family.

i always feel rushed. i perform poorly at my job. i have random crying fits and i can't get any rest even if i cancel something bc i feel so guilty about cancelling. i barely sleep and then can't wake up. seriously, how are we meant to live?

[oxygenbefore1775]

Imagine the level of stress Jean must've had during the raid on Liberio

As a leader of a squad, not only did he have to look after his subordinates and make sure that everyone just does their job, he also had to deal with someone like Floch deliberately harming the civilians picking fights with Titans and encouraging others to do the same even when it was against the plan

[none-tadashi-left-hiro]

hi what is wrong with me

[saenora]

recently i have seen too many takes on itoshis having unhealthy parents... or their parents were neglectful of them... or pressurizing and i just wanna take a hot minute BEC WHAT ARE PEOPLE ON?!?

[commoncoel]

i have GOT to stop messing with my art after i post it. lest the despair creeps in

[bklynmusicnerd]

Too many stories going on right now rest on the assumption that we care about Drew's wellbeing and that's why a lot of them are doomed to fail.

[sburbian-sage]

Any tips and/or tricks for taking down a god tier Ward of Flow? The clouds showed me a vision of him seemingly doing his very best to kill me (Scout of Breath, not GT yet but I had the jammies in the vision). I’m hoping it was just a very intense sparring session or something but like… I’m not betting my life on sburb being nicer than anticipated.

Most specifically, is it true that Flow players are immune to heat-based damage? Like, the vision had us RIGHT next to the Forge, and I'm not sure whether to consider chucking him in there a non-lethal option or an everything's-gone-to-shit option.

I think Flow Players are immune to their own heat-based abilities, but not fire in general. Then again, Doom players can drink poison and come out fine, and there was that one Sand player report I got (but he might have just been built different). In any case, I think lava hurts, and you might want to live by the ancient words of wisdom, "don't throw anything into a volcano that you aren't willing to destroy".

As far as the combat capabilities of a Ward of Flow, obviously expect Fire. Your Breath abilities should be equal to his in terms of destructive capability, and you might have the edge in terms of elemental rock-paper-scissors "wind extinguishes fire". Not to imply that SBURB actually has an element system, just that magic wind will probably beat magic fire unless you do something stupid and fan the flames. His being a Ward is a huge advantage, seeing as how his Aspect more or less is going to try and directly protect him, and because Inheritors generally have success handed to them. At the same time, as a Breath Player but especially as a Scout, your movement abilities are unparalleled. The prophecy seems to indicate that you're going to take a bit of a beating, but escaping with your life is entirely possible. Basically, prioritize speed and magic over physical offense/defense and you might be able to wing this one. In addition to such other gems as "alchemize better equipment and gadgets" and "have more people on your side".

We should never forget the most simple advice, which is "consider maybe talking about this". Prophecies are prophecies, but the "why" is just as important as the "what". If he genuinely is planning on killing you, then he probably won't immediately try (or at least can't succeed) until the confrontation on the Forge. If he doesn't, and you voice your concern, then maybe it will indeed just be a rough sparring session, and you get your ass kicked but survive (the good ending). Maybe it's something more stupid, like you have a fashionista player who makes replica versions of your god hoodies before you actually god tier, and you undergo an Apocryphal Antithesis so now your evil dreamself wearing a disguise tries to kill the Ward of Flow, and it's a good thing if the guy-that-looks-like-you gets killed or beaten. You can laugh at that last bit, but shit stupider than that has happened before. You can't break a prophecy, but it sure as hell can be bent into looking like some wacky out-of-context stuff. If you've seen JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, you'll understand.

[pantestudines]

"American Civil Religion" is grossly fascinating as a concept to me. Its shitty. It's fascist. I was raised in it. It still holds power over me in ways I hate. But It's inherently goofy... the only people really inducted Into it are like boy scouts and kids who were made to do student government in elementary school. Despite being obviously Christian the adherence to the first ammendment has turned it almost secular and, I think I could say, nontrinitarian? Like there's really only the One God in American Civil religion and as long as you are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or otherwise Very Monotheistic its okay to worship him however you want. "jesus" isn't really a factor in it, just "God". Being an Athiest, however, even a culturally Christian one, is less acceptable. The flag is a holy icon, one with an intricate series of Rituals only rrally enforced by the initiated. Native Americans are treated like wise sages whose wisdom was passed on directly to the founding fathers (and I should note my absolute distaste in this practice here-- American Civil Religion really is awful in most cases but this one always makes my skin crawl). The military might as well be priests, because all of the "rituals" in American Civil Religion are directly tied to military practice. But that only really extends to officers and the ones in ritual... out of costume soldiers or those in normal combat gear aren't sanctified in the same way. Any career path is lauded, however, at least as Long as you are both upper middle class and providing a direct service to the country. Weirdly it almost sees businessmen as outsiders-- sometimes trustworthy, but the private citizen who isn't involved in the Scouts or VFWs or something are taught to be almost like sheep that one must protect. That's the point of the religion, to protect and serve "America's citizens". Or, more accurately, the state itself, but thats obvious. Actual conservatives and especially rural ones have a much different idea of Patriotism, I think. They don't trust the state, only the soldiers and the land they stole. They also want everyone to be conservatives. They value individual freedoms (as long as you use them to be an evangelical gun toting farmer). Meanwhile in American Civil Religion... you can be a Democrat, you can live in cities. They don't mind, and often do, appeal to the capital L "Liberals". They just want you to respect and revere the senate and capital buildings as places of worship. A different kind of patriotism. The only laws or religious observances seem to be the laws of the federal government itself, and perhaps whatever someone who outranks you tells you to do. I wonder how many people even really grew up with it as their only religious Influence, like I did? Is this what the elite politicians are raised to believe by their elite politician parents? Or do they just grimly control the strings, donating to ROTC programs and performing flag burnings for 90 year old veterans to boost vote numbers? Or is this religion purely for shitheads named Eric whose parents were rich and who could never understand why his attitudes towards money and race and politics were off-putting to his poorer friends? (And the friends who in turn didn't realize yet why Eric's money and spoiledness off-put them so much?) Hopefully the whole damn thing gets dismantled soon enough I will never have to find out, but until that day I will remain distantly intrigued.

[daylerogers]

What Does It Mean To Remember?

photo courtesy of Justin Casey on Unsplash When we were young, my two sisters and I were part of Girl Scouts. It was the thing to do in our neighborhood and it kept us occupied a night a week. Back then, there was value in the pledge and promise we were taught to keep, something we memorized the first meeting we had. We were encouraged to live responsibly in light of being part of a greater…

[rubys-domain]

it kinda sucks that my scout coins are literally just gonna disappear after the current scout ends. i wish they'd be converted into something else once they expire at the very least.

[heritageposts]

Harris has been a staunch supporter of Israel for years. In 2017 she addressed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) annual conference and reminded attendees that the first resolution she co-sponsored as a senator was aimed at combating “anti-Israel bias” at the United Nations. “Let me be clear about what I believe. I stand with Israel because of our shared values, which are so fundamental to the founding of both our nations,” she told the crowd. In 2018 she gave an off-the-record speech to the organization, but eventually released her comments. In that speech she claimed that she raised money for the Jewish National Fund as a Girl Scout. “Having grown up in the Bay area, I fondly remember those Jewish National Fund boxes that we would use to collect donations to plant trees for Israel,” she told the audience. “Years later, when I visited Israel for the first time, I saw the fruits of that effort and the Israeli ingenuity that has truly made a desert bloom.”

For those unfamiliar with the Jewish National Fund (JNF), they're a Zionist organization that has been instrumental in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

See Stop the JNF for more information on their history, the way they operate, and their decades-long campaign of greenwashing (i.e. destroying native plants, crops, and agriculture under the banner of 'making the desert bloom').

Continuing, the Mondoweiss article goes:

“The vast majority of people understand the importance of the State of Israel,” she added later. “Both in terms of its history and its present in terms of being a source of inspiration on so many issues, which I hope we will talk about, and also what it means in terms of the values of the United States and those values that are shared values with Israel, and the importance of fighting to make sure that we protect and respect a friend, one of the best friends we could possibly have.” While running for President in 2019, Harris was praised by the lobbying group Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) for running to the right of Obama on the Iran deal. On the campaign trail Harris told Kat Wellman, a voter affiliated with DMFI, that she would reenter the agreement but “strengthen it” by “extending the sunset provisions, including ballistic missile testing, and also increasing oversight.” “I was very impressed with her. I thought she gave an excellent speech, she gave a very detailed, responsive answer to my question,” Wellman told a local paper after the exchange. “I’m pro-Israel, so I was I was very concerned and all about making sure we limit nuclear missiles in any country that could possibly destroy us all. I thought her answer was very good.” Harris has condemned the BDS movement and claimed that is “based on the mistaken assumption that Israel is solely to blame for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” However, she voted against an anti-BDS bill in 2019 citing First Amendment concerns.

For the full article, which includes Kamala's response to Israel post Al-Aqsa Flood, see Mondoweiss (July 22, 2024)