#that from me specifically you can just block it

[traineecryptid]

okay so, i hope this isnt a bother but i wanted to get to the root of this so: I contacted Haihe's customer support.

first image: the wechat contacts of said customer support which i got by scanning the company's website so it's not like i got some third hand information off a shady website.

second image: my chat with the customer support, which might i note is so patient with such a non-purchase, non-product issue question?

customer support: hi, how can i help you?

me: im looking for the packaging designs that Haihe had used from past till present. specifically ones used in the 90s and shaped like a pyramid.

customer support: im sorry. i don't have [the information.] we're unable to provide it to you.

me: alright, thank you. sorry for the trouble.

customer support: you're welcome.

me (couldn't bear just giving up and going home): then, may i know when your company had changed their packaging?

customer support: I'm not sure about that.

me: can i at least confirm that there was a past design shaped like a triangle? like the photos attached below?

customer support: [i] have never seen triangle [packaging].

customer support: it's bull horn packaging.

me: could you show me a picture of that so i can be sure how it looks like?

customer support: you can look it up online

me (ive lost braincells and wasnt thinking at the time just googled it and...): the search results are all croissants...

customer support: the official website.

(it took me Too Many minutes to figure out that they meant their company's official website and not like Baidu or sth and lo and behold theres image 3 right on their front page... half blocked by the fact that im on my phone and it loaded weird. so i used a picture i downloaded earlier)

me: is this the bull horn packaging?

customer support: mhm mhm

me: alright, thank you so so much! else i wouldn't be able to sleep with this on my mind.

THUS, here this sidequest ends for me. Of course, there's still the possibility that the customer support has no idea what they're talking about or that the pyramid packaging was a limited run in a specific area and that specific timeframe is niche lore even for employees etc etc. So... perhaps unless someone from Tianjin had childhood photoes of them drinking from a pyramid Haihe milk packet, the case shall remain... unsolved?

(also, i just wanted to say that when i first saw the taobao listing, i immediately thought "oh yeah, thats a triangle for sure, it's wide on the bottom and narrow on top." despite having already seen the korean milk photo, which in hindsight, what *was* my brain on...)

but anyways, thank you for the fun sidequest! now i know what ill be doing if i ever hang by Tianjin: try all 9 flavours of those milk + whatever other crazy new flavours they came up with.

okay google images is giving me nothing but cartons and novelty products,

chinese tumblr

pls tell me i haven't made up this memory

do you remember getting milk in like, these triangular bags? they were shaped kinda like pyramids, you could put straws in em?????

[stealingyourbones]

Zeta Beams are a very finicky and powerful technology that require specific conditions to work properly.

Being shot with an unknown ray from one of Lex Luthors guns mid zeta was not one of those conditions.

Superboy, reappearing out of the zeta beam, now dazed and confused, stumbles and leans against the closest solid object and takes in his surroundings.

He’s in a lab of some sort, and whoever used it knew a wide variety of sciences. Chemistry equipment consolidated to one corner of the room while a mildly cluttered bench of mechanisms, welding equipment, and doohickeys take over another corner of the room. The entire workplace was bathed in a toxic green light coming from…

Kon turned and gawked at the massive swirling green vortex and pushed off the metal edge of the tear in reality that he had been leaning on.

His mind was running miles a minute. He was meant to be at the Watchtower and he’s here in some windowless laboratory and a portal that looks like something straight out of science fiction. He doesn’t know what to do but all of his scrambling thoughts screeched to a halt the moment he heard footsteps and an unknown heartbeat coming down a set of stairs he hadn’t noticed on his quick scan of the room.

He should have flown to the ceiling and hid or used his X-Ray vision to identify the threat but he was reeling so badly he just stood frozen in place, a foot or two away from the portal casting a long shadow that cut through the violently green glow.

A man in an orange jumpsuit barrels down the stairs with- is that a bazooka?

The orange wall of a human man whipped around the barrel to face him. “DIE GHOST!”.

“I’m sorry what?”

Kon didn’t get a verbal answer but he sure as hell got a physical one. The man pulled the trigger and a glowing green bullet of *something* shot towards him. Kon momentarily debated dodging out of the way with his super speed but thought better of it. Robin would tell him to stay still and show the threat that he couldn’t be harmed to shut down the fight before it could escalate any further.

Blocking his face from debris, Kon closes his eyes and lets the projectile make contact.

He expected to be thrown back into the strange vortex portal thing or feel the impact, but to his surprise he felt absolutely nothing. Whatever glowing green and white metallic stuff he was hit with, he was completely invulnerable to as a half Kryptonian.

(It is at this point where I sped the writing along to bullet point outlines)

- Kon goes hey wtf man I’m not a ghost

- Jack doesn’t buy it it might be a ghost trick.

- Jack slowly walks up to Kon with a Fenton bat.

- Kon stares at him arms crossed. He knows now he can’t be hurt

- Jack, making full eye contact with Kon and goes ‘you can’t fool me ghost’ or something and hits him over the head with the bat.

- Bat shatters over Kon’s head as Kon stares at him and does a “are you done?”

- as he says this Jack Fenton slowly raises a lipstick lazer

- Jack turns on lazer and Kon glares at Jack exasperatedly.

- Kon’s patience runs out. He grabs the lazer from jacks hands and crushes it in his palm.

- I’m not a ghost man. I was trying to zeta to the watchtower and now I’m here now can you stop??

- Jack doesn’t understand what those words mean. Mutters that this might be a fascinating new discovery and goes over to the tech corner

- Grabs a tsa metal detector wand looking thing and waves it over Kon, who hasnt moved and is now curious to see what this man will do knowing now that he can’t be hurt. (Later found that this universe boosts his powers a tad which is making him More Invulnerable)

- It beeps and jack looks at it and his face of confusion turns to a massive grin. He turns towards the stairs and shouts to Maddie that they have a extradimensional non ghost guest and to move the ghost gear out of the guest room.

- Kon is like what the shit why did this mans attitude chanhe so much

- kon is then temporarily housed by the Fentons whilst they are delighted to start on a new big project. they plan to make an addition onto the ghost zone portal to find the frequency of other dimensions and make a gateway between them using Kon as the tuning fork to find his dimension.

[kissbyoon]

𖼥ৎ⠀“TRUST ME?” ₍ ⠀𝒌.𝒎𝒈⠀ ₎

── ‘with him by your side, it's gonna be alright’

₍ ... ₎ EXPLORE? ✦ bf.gyu & f!rea ⋆◞ 𝒈. fluff, comfort · 𝒄𝒘. overwork, petnames ⎯⎯ 0.5k ꒱

리자: guys.... I wrote this like in aug 2024 and it's been stored away since then.. SOBS.

Mingyu entered the library near your apartment block, holding onto his breath, looking around.

You had been ignoring his texts for the past four hours, and when Mingyu came by your apartment to ask your roommate about you, she had no idea about your location.

He knew the library was the last place you'd be at, but having checked everywhere else, this was the only other place he could think of.

The library was… empty. And Mingyu's heart dropped at that. But a glimmer of hope spurred him to look further.

Finally coming to a halt, Mingyu breathed a sigh of relief as he noticed a similar tote bag with floral designs—specifically the one he had gifted you for your 3rd year anniversary, while you sat in a chair, your head resting on the desk, making your hair a mess.

He approached you, careful not to make any noise that might wake you up. Slowly brushing your hair away from your face, his hand caressed your cheek. However, when he saw your tear-stained face, his face fell.

“Baby?” His voice was soft as he knelt down, placing a hand on your thigh. You rub your eyes as they slowly open, and when they catch sight of your boyfriend, you gasp.

“Gyu...” you murmur, repositioning yourself on the chair before letting out a grunt from a headache.

“You haven't been responding to my calls or texts, I really—” he said, eyes softening when they met yours. “I got worried.” His gentle words were accompanied by him gently caressing your thigh.

“I'm sorry… I probably dozed off while doing my work.” You sighed, and looked at the paperwork lying on the desk in front of you. Mingyu followed your gaze, noticing the messy paperwork that didn't seem to be an easy task.

“It's just that I—” you groan, and drop your gaze to your hands on your lap. “I don't know why, I just… I just can't get it right.” A tear rolls down your cheek, and Mingyu immediately reaches out to wipe it away.

“I can't even find out what's going wrong, and it's all just a mess—” your voice broke, and you bit your lips to prevent the tears that threatened to fall again.

Before you could say anything else, Mingyu stood up and grabbed a chair to sit beside you. He gently wrapped an arm around your shoulder and rested one on the top of your head as he pulled you against his chest. His fingers gently tapped against your hair as you closed your eyes to relax.

“I know, baby,” he began in a quiet voice. All the softness you craved in this moment, was in his voice and touch. “I know it's not easy, and it's frustrating.” He took one of your hands in his and gently kissed the back of it.

“Do you trust me?” His voice tender as ever, he asked, satisfied upon receiving a nod in response. “Then come on, baby, we can do this.”

You stare at him, taking a deep breath. “You don't have to,”

But he was already looking at the paperwork, figuring out ways to solve it. “Do I look unreadable, because I want to.”

Your smile soon followed with his, and you began working again. But this time, with your love Mingyu helping you with everything.

A pouty, big baby Mingyu always has you smiling brightly—but also a Mingyu who can stand by your side when you're feeling down, makes you grateful for every single moment that you spend with him.

[iiheartarc]

MY TAKE ON THE CAITVI DISCOURSE

total wordcount: 1591

I will say that I've briefly commented on their dynamic in the past, but it was worded really badly so I feel like I need to defend my writing skills a little bit as well with this, but that's just a sidenote. 💀

I think what a lot of people are missing when people do criticise CaitVi is that they aren't necessarily hating on the ship, it's what writing choices have done to it.

I'm not even going to even say I'm a CaitVi hater, I'm not (S1 CaitVi my beloved, you deserved better), but I do think the choices that writers made this season heavily effected how audiences portrayed the ship, even including myself.

Idk I hope this insight might give some people more perspective on why CaitVi became so hated in this season, people rlly need to start looking at both sides and not taking criticism as a personal attack. It really could've been avoided too if the writers had added more time or extended the series onto a third season, but that's another issue on its own.

1. Caitlyn hits Vi

I really don't get why people are so quick to defend Caitlyn on this one, especially considering the amount of hate Vi got when she hit Powder. Are both inexcusable? Yes. But I do think that the situation is a little different when it's a fifteen year old child who had just witnessed the death of her entire family and a twenty something year old woman who took out her anger and grief on the woman she loved because she blocked her shot.

I do think that people also do ignore the immense amount of trauma that Caitlyn suffered at the hand of Jinx, but unlike when Vi 'abandoned' Powder, (again, that's a whole other conversation, we know she was not abandoned), Vi was not that direct source of anguish to Caitlyn the way Powder was to Vi. (Pls lmk if you want me to expand further on this)

Again, not excusing Vi hitting Powder, I'm pointing out the differences.

It's then also incredibly tone deaf when Caitlyn hits her on two more occasions with the same gun, the third time being played off as a joke. It really doesn't come off well, especially when Vi had been a victim of police-brutality even before the abuse she faced at the hands of the enforcers in Stillwater.

And then, even after all this, it's never addressed. It's brushed over, like Vi's entire trauma in the show, the most we get is Caitlyn brushing her hand over Vi's abdomen in the cell scene. Again, can be taken as an apology, but I think that for some very specific things (like hitting your romantic partner), verbal apologies do need to be made in order to communicate healthily and somewhat build a healthier relationship.

I don't really want to talk about the abusive implications of this, because I don't think I'm someone who can talk about it with a full understanding because that's something I've fortunately never been through, but the blatant disregard and shunning of abuse survivors when they pull up the red flags raised because of this is disgusting. In real life, or if it had even been someone else in the show, if the ship had been a heterosexual relationship, people would call Caitlyn an abuser and would be outraged that Vi had been paired with her in the end. But I digress.

1. The cell sex scene

Initially I hadn't been too bothered about this when I had first watched the episode, but when you really think about it, it shouldn't have happened. Hell, they could've had sex in Caitlyn's office and half of the criticism wouldn't have happened, the ship wouldn't be so hated and the fandom wouldn't be half as divided as it is now (from what I've seen).

First and foremost, the cell.

All I can say is wtf. It was such a poor choice it's actually unfathomable to me now. I don't know why the writers thought that it'd be a good idea for Caitlyn and Vi to have their first time in a jail cell, not only the one Jinx had been locked in, but the one Vi had herself been locked in for what we can assume to be hours. The place of her abuse should not be somewhere where the writers could possibly think would be a suitable for a victim to have such an intimate moment with her partner.

Then there's the fact that Vi had looked to have had some sort of breakdown, we see she's sh and there are literal crates in the wall from where she punched it as well as her knuckles bleeding. As soon as she sees Caitlyn, there's a parallel to when they first met, to when Vi is quite literally caged. She's clearly not in the right state of mind, and so when the scene eventually happens it inevitably comes off as wrong because Vi is incredibly emotionally vulnerable in that moment.

"But Vi initiated it!" That still doesn't make it okay. I do think that this also came with an issue of timing, but then again, as I mentioned earlier, it literally could've been in the office as they argued and it would've been recieved so much better then the cell scene was. Vi wasn't breaking down, she wasn't locked in a reminder of the abuse she faced and her sister hadn't just ran off to do goodness knows what (in Vi's POV, us as the audience know exactly what she's about to do). They could've even have it fade to black and cut to the next scene tangled in bed doing whatever they would've been doing in the cell, Vi would assumably have had time to calm down, would be having sex in a warm and safe environment, and guess what? The audience would've been even happier.

Sure there would've been criticism, but Vi could literally save a thousand babies and adopt them all and still face hate, because a lot of the hate is being directed to Vi too because of the situation with Jinx. That, again, is a whole other situation.

3. "Dirt Under Your Nails"

Again, for the love of god, there can be so many takeaways from this sentence but do not be surprised that people didn't like it. I didn't, it made me cringe horribly.

And before people throw 'media literacy is dead', this whole post (practically essay), is analysing a piece of media that I love. To be literate, you can draw different interpretations and conclusions and that's exactly what I'm doing. It's like saying literacy is dead if two people were to disagree on what the meaning of Macbeth's quote 'I am in blood' meant.

I digress.

I think the main issue here is the class difference between Vi and Cait. Caitlyn is from the aristocracy, a direct heir to a position of power in Piltover, while Vi is lower class, effected indefinitely by growing up in poverty. Even though she grew up as Vander's kid, they were still 'scraping for scraps'. The wealth margin between the two is almost immeasurable, and with the difference in money comes a difference in experiences, as we - the audiences - know.

It especially comes off wrong considering the class tensions and political themes heavily focussed on within the first season. The conflict between Piltover and Zaun, the abuse of power and exploitation of Zaunites by both topside and the chembarons, the prevalence of police brutality on the streets of the Undercity. Again, Vi is someone who is directly effected by this, while Caitlyn came into this blissfully naïve. She did learn yes, and in s1 she was so determined to help, but when then this progress reverts into her calling zaunites 'animals' and using the grey as a weapon, it again makes Vi's words feel uncomfortable.

Again, I think this was a massive timing issue, I would've love to see Caitlyn succumb fully to a villain arc. It would've been so interesting to delve into.

I think Vi has always had the image of herself that she'll always be viewed as less by Piltover, that she herself views herself as less. She says it herself to Vander in s1 ep2 while they're on the bridge, "I grew up knowing I'm less than them." So when she then says as her final words in the show, "I'm the dirt under your nails" obviously, that's going to come across as tacky.

People are free to think of romantic connotations for this, I won't stop you, but when you think about how the show was so focussed on class tensions, police brutality, oppression and exploitation, it doesn't come off right. Idk, that's what got me so interested with the show in the first place, the way these themes were explored so deeply but subtly in a way that didn't feel forced, so Vi's words really rubbed me the wrong way.

Conclusion

So I hope everyone that read somewhat gets where I'm coming from, this was my attempt to try and explain what I think needed to be, badly. Again, you can like the ship, I'm not saying I don't, but it also needs to be acknowledged that there is so many things that could've been worked on properly, done properly or addressed properly, and ignoring criticism won't help these issues to be fixed in the future.

Feel free to ask any questions and thanks for reading this long ass rant :)

[unoriginalcontent]

Been thinking a bit about this post; I do believe that to empathize with Trump voters, at least on an intellectual level, is important for purely pragmatic reasons. The idea there is that the right wing propaganda machine is a menace that no one knows how to deal with, and so if we can understand the concerns and anxieties of the conservative voter, we might have an opportunity to demonstrate how Trump is tangibly not addressing their problems and turn them against him. And hell, even if they did vote for him out of bigotry, maybe they'll still be willing to turn on him out of self-interest. However much it sucks, many of these people will not care if you simply point out that his policies harm other people. They've already set the human cost aside as acceptable losses, or else they outright support harming these people, which is why a different strategy is necessary for them. If we can get conservatives to turn on Trump, then even if it's not for the right and morally-correct reasons, that's still a win.

Of course that's all in reference to conservatives who were probably already predisposed towards whoever has an R next to their name on the ballot. When it comes to leftists who refuse to associate with democrats out of protest, I just don't know. I can understand that someone might want to vote out of self-interest and also believe that a Trump presidency is beneficial to them. Obviously they're likely to be wrong, but it's not hypocritical to have believed a lie and acted accordingly. Conversely, I think most leftists are people who will claim that government and voting shouldn't just be about self-interest, and that helping other people is a worthy end unto itself. And yeah, they should have known better.

If you're educated enough on the issues to have known all of Harris's shortcomings, how the hell do you not also know Trump's? If you know them both, how the hell can you conflate the two as equally bad?

We have this idea in the left that our systems are bad, and therefore we can never make progress until we destroy the systems entirely and build something new from the ashes. If you believe that, then please get your head out of the clouds because that's what Trump and Musk are trying to give us, and it turns out to be bad. We live in the system, we depend on the system, if we didn't then it wouldn't matter how many federal programs Trump is trying to abolish. Even if you specifically will be fine, you're writing everyone else off as an acceptable loss. It's not wrong to imagine and strive for a better world than this one, but unless you have viable alternatives ready and waiting, you won't get there by breaking things.

Maybe it's unfair to blame the current situation on people on the left who didn't vote for Harris. I don't even know how much blame matters at this point. And yet I think this is an important thing for all of us to keep in mind. Your moral clarity can be used against you. No matter how good and pure your ideals are, the real world has to come first. And right now that means acknowledging that a huge portion of our democracy chose Trump. And they don't care if you're hurt from his policies, or if I'm hurt, for a lot of these voters your suffering is probably just sugar on top. OP is absolutely right, they probably don't regret wishing leopards onto other people, but that doesn't mean it's not worth convincing them that we should stop the leopards before their faces are eaten. People are going to be poisoned by food which they voted to deregulate, and a part of me wants to think of that as justice. I feel angry. I feel spiteful. These people are taking human rights violations and touting them as victories, fuck them. But anger and spite won't fix anything, even from our side. And no matter how awful some of these people might be, together they're a hell of a voting block. I wish that I could force people to care about the suffering of others, but I can't. And so I hope that it's possible to at least get them to care about themselves.

And if you do think of yourself as progressive, and you still refused to vote for Harris, then I think OP is right, and you really do take a look at yourself. It is true that many of our problems are created and perpetuated by larger institutions beyond our control, but when it comes to democracy, it's not enough blame the system. You're a part of the system. If you don't want to participate, you need to have an alternative that is—crucially—viable, actionable, and realistic in the immediate short term. If you don't have that, which I guarantee you don't, then high-stakes elections are not the time for moral grandstanding.

Sorry for rambling here on your post, I'm probably a bit scattered. I've been having a lot of discussions with people about this sort of thing lately. Whatever strategy the left has for winning hearts and minds, it clearly hasn't worked if someone like that can still win the popular vote. I don't know how to fix that. But I think we all need to be a lot more comfortable ceding the moral high ground if it means making progress in the trenches.

Trump voters owe me financial compensation.

[lizbethborden]

When Elon seig heil'd at the inauguration, I saw bewildered posts #onhere sputtering about "why aren't Jews talking about THIS," in a sort of self-defensive way from those charming antisemites who think it's praxis to reblog blood libel.

Having spoken to a Jewish mutual about this, what I'm wondering is if, well--first, let me get it out of the way: antisemites are not seeing "Jews" talking about things because they have long since been blocked by Jewish people and/or have never or rarely sought out places to find Jewish output, such as the jumblr tag. (Moreover, posts specifically about Jewish issues usually hit a ceiling; from my own experience, I have had several feminist posts go my version of viral here (a couple hundred notes) within the past week-2, while generally speaking people do not interact with my posts about Judaism and antisemitism.)

The other part, the actual insight, is this: this kind mutual (who I will @ if they are comfortable with it, but I don't want to assume) and I chatted about how we could understand our grandparents and great-grandparents having to go on with their lives essentially in the shadow of their own doom, because it's what we've had to do. And frankly, Jewish people have been doing that for significantly longer than the rest of the US population at large. Everybody else is simply calibrating to where Jewish people have been for a long time as we watched pro-Palestinian activists dox hundreds of Jews in Australia, an organized "Jew Hunt" in Amsterdam become rewritten as noble Dutch activists heroically defending Palestine against evil Israeli soccer fans, an American university become plastered with "wanted" posters of Jewish faculty, and people just walk up to random Jews and stab them yelling "Free Palestine."

(And much of this before everyone and their wannabe leftist cynicism, disinformation campaigns, latent and in some case blatant racism, etc and so on voted back in the guy that said of the Charlottesville Neo-Nazi rally, where white men chanted "Jews will not replace us," that there were "fine people on both sides".)

I will repeat my main point. If you are only now feeling bewildered, out of your depth, terrified, confused as to how you can get up each day, put your shoes on and go outside, go to your job, your class, shop for groceries, cook your meals, all the while a massive shadow falls ever more heavily onto you--you are just catching up to where Jewish people have been for a long-ass time. And simply put, you haven't been paying attention. That's your own fault lol sorry bout it

[miss0atae]

Random Thoughts about Gelboys EP1 : The excitement of teen love, nail art and queer identity.

I made the decision to watch this series because it was centered around the turmoil of teen romance with nail art as the basis for the story. If you ask me nowadays if I have any interest for nail art, I would answer with a firm “no”. I have no interest with nail art anymore, but there was a time when I was younger and it was really important to me. I had several nail polishes of so many different colors and I used to change them a lot. I tried to make few designs, but turns out it's far more complicated to draw on your own nails than it is on someone's else nails. I forgot how I liked it back then when I was a teen. This long introduction that has nothing to do with the series, is to show you that I believe the creator of this series made a conscious choice when he decided to put nail art as the basis for the story and that's what I want to talk about in this “random thoughts” about the first episode.

I will make a quick summary of first episode, but you have to know there isn't much happening. This is mostly an introduction of the series' “world” and characters. We get to meet Fou4Mod aka Sakolphat Phlaphithak, a teenager boy who, in the first minutes of the series, discovers that the person he thinks he is dating, is actually seeing someone else too and he ends up blocking them from all his social media and crying from the heartbreak. Then, you'll watch him being a normal teenager: being embarrassed by his mom(‘s old taste in music) as many teens are, going to school, taking the public transport, spending time with friends, being bored in class and socializing. The first day he takes the BTS, he meets Chian and he noticed him because he was wearing nail art. From this point, he became really interested in him and it steers him to try nail art too. Unfortunately, this attraction may cause him some pain too as Chian is described as a “player” by his own friend “Bua”, another character who is a “friend” of Chian and certainly the future “love rival” of Fou4Mod. There is also another important character Baabin Saebal, Fou4Mod's friend.

So as you can see, nail art has its importance in the series. There has always been a social relevance of nail art in our society from a very long time. Unfortunately, I'm not an expert in this, so take everything I say with a grain of salt as my passion from nail art died with me discovering I had allergy to most nail polishes and I stopped caring for this when I entered university. Despite this everyone can agree that nail art is a form of creative expression. It is a way of creating its own identity through fashion because nail art can be seen as just another accessory. The color choices, the length and the shape communicate something about what you like and who you are. It's an easy way to show your individuality, and even if you're not making them yourself, it also shows your taste in art and creativity as you still get to be the one who chooses the design. In the series, the characters' nail art is made with what seems to be gel nail polish technique (I don’t know yet if it’s going to be relevant).

Nail art can be an allegory of queer identity. The fact that you can use different colors and shape to suit your taste, can be seen as letting go of your past self; the one where you couldn't be who you wanted or you had to be the way your parents/caregivers choose for you to be. In choosing some specific design for your nails, you're creating your new self, something that could be more aligned with who you want to be. It's a form of protest too, where you can reject the gender norms. If nail art can be tied to the idea of “femininity” it doesn't mean that it's only meant for this “purpose” (I'm sorry I don't a better word here). In the story of Gelboys, Fou4Mod starts doing nail art because he has developed an instant crush on Chian who was wearing it. It's probably a way of feeling connected to him that steers Fou4Mod to do it. In a way, he is self-expressing by doing nail art that he wants to become closer to Chian. I wonder if in the upcoming episodes, the choice he is going to make in his nail art will be showing the turmoil of his love life. I also want to know if there is going to be a larger discussion of his queer identity. I'm not saying it has to be shown, but I admit I would really like to see it. I feel there is a common pattern with LoveSick 2024 where I felt like young queer love can be mixed with the identity development associated with the transitional stage that is adolescence. Here in Gelboys the identity development could be seen through nail art.

Anyway, I’m pleasantly surprised by this first episode. You can see how I liked the introduction of nail art as I believe it can be queer performativity.

[honourablejester]

I think you’re right, yeah. The healing thing really jarred when we started out talking about setting up a big cool dungeon that your players will want to spend on long time exploring, but talking about having to go back out to heal up at all also sounded odd in that context. I think he is talking about two different types of dungeons/campaigns, without quite realising that he’s done so.

Which is why it is important, I guess, to sit down and examine your proposed mechanics against your stated goals before you start. Because yes, the meshi style dungeon is very much the one I'm looking for as well.

The tiered vs random layout didn’t strike me as that dissonant, on the other hand, given the way he was talking about it. A tiered dungeon where things generally do get weirder and tougher and more fantastical the further down you go can still be randomised somewhat by setting up access points that let you skip levels from where you are. If level 2 has a passage down to level 3, but also a secret one down to level 5 if the party is feeling frisky, that gives them some room to try out more difficult areas out of sequence.

There’s also some randomness that’ll be brought in by things like party composition. A party of all martials might take their chances on sneaking or fighting their way past higher challenge enemies before they’d take the risk of trying to navigate a vast chasm, where a party with an arcane caster or two would be happier with the chasm. So even though a level might be ‘higher tier’ in the sense of higher CR monsters, it might still be easier to access, given the option, than a ��lower tier’ area that requires specific magic or tools to access that the party just doesn’t have yet.

And there’s room to mix things up, then. The arcane party who had fly spells to navigate the chasm might try accessing deeper levels by it, but realise on getting down to the bottom that they definitely need more hitpoints to stay down here, so maybe they should fly back up a level or two, but they also find something shiny on the floor of the chasm to reward them for taking the risk. While the party of martials might find that the tougher inhabitants they took the risk of interacting with have a means to get further down the chasm, such as a magic item or even a rickety lift, and maybe they get an ally out of taking their risk.

I don’t find it dissonant to imagine a dungeon that does, generally speaking, get weirder and more fantastical and more difficult the further down into it you go, but also has multiple different ‘routes’ down through it that present different challenges and access different levels as they go. And if a particular route really doesn’t work for your party composition and tools, then you backtrack to earlier levels to look for other routes down. So long as the party maintains a general downward track where they’re levelling up as they head further in, it’s all good. Maybe they find something like a chasm that allows them to try a foray deeper than they’re technically rated for, and they give it a shot to see if it’s doable or not. So long as they have routes to retreat along if it goes bad, that’s just one more option that they can have fun trying out.

And you can do things like put a flooded level up at level 4, which can be accessed relatively early by a party that has someone with spells or tools to handle that, but you also put a collection of caps of water breathing as loot somewhere around level 7 or so, which a party without spellcasters could find after having used a route that took them from level 2 to 5 since level 4 was blocked, and can decide if they want to head back up to explore level 4 after all, or just continue on.

This also does encourage them to collect tools and items along the way, and gives you options for rewards and loot that act as basically keys to certain areas.

I think that was the general direction he was going for with the randomness? But you can also have like, higher CR monsters just wandering around, like a 5% chance that the purple worm burrows their way up to level 5 while the party is on it, and the party has an absolutely terrifying encounter that they have to basically find a way to run away from, and then the purple worm just disappears again, doing what an animal does, but now there’s a burrow that could potentially lead the party deeper, again, than they’re rated for, if they want to risk climbing into the burrow of a thing that just nearly totalled them to see where it came from.

You can keep an overall tiered, ordered structure, while still allowing the party a good bit of leeway in where they go and how they want to approach things. The trick is just to make sure you have multiple routes into and out of any given area, so the party gets to make decisions on which ones they want to try, and they don’t end up fully bottlenecked somewhere they can’t go forward from but also are somehow blocked from going back.

Which, if all else fails, is where your roving burrowing animals of various CRs might come in very handy. Heh.

I’m watching a (3hr) discussion on megadungeons as a concept for modern d20 games on a youtube channel called Knights of Last Call, and I’m enjoying it a lot, because it does explore a couple of points that I’ve been very much looking for. Namely, the idea that megadungeons should be there to enable and reward exploration. Which means, among other things, there can’t be a time-pressure meta plot (you have to get to the bottom of the dungeon to stop the lich before he destroys the world), and that the game/DM needs to explicitly reward (with xp, magic items, etc) the act of exploration, not the act of killing things while exploring.

Because the thing I always found enchanting about the idea of massive dungeons and complexes was the idea of going in to see what’s down there. Not being forced in for a plot, but just … because I’m curious, and I want to see what’s there. And he discusses how modern d20 games like Pathfinder and 5e can actually be better for that than OSR-type games because characters are more powerful and sturdy and can survive doing that. You can explore, and (most likely) have a decent shot of surviving said exploration. You can take risks because you’ll survive a broader range of risks.

The thing with a megadungeon is that it’s there to be explored, and so to encourage, enable and reward exploration for people who want to play that kind of game in the first place, you have to a) not penalise taking risks and going exploring by making it instantly lethal to try and go anywhere, and b) actively reward going exploring by making it the main way your character gets more cool things, such as magic items and/or new abilities from levelling up.

(And, he’s less explicit about this, but also making the rewards self-contained to the dungeon, things you find and gain in the dungeon, and not things you’d have to bring outside the dungeon to benefit from. So cool items you can keep and use, experience to level up, knowledge that would allow you to access new areas, etc, not things like gold where you’d have to go back outside to spend it, or quests that you have to go to external parties to be rewarded for).

The discussion goes into some detail about potential ways to do this, and potential problems with various methods, but overall I just really like the tone of the discussion. Because that very much is a thing I’ve been looking for for a long, long time. A game that rewards the simple desire to go somewhere and see what’s there. I don’t want to explore a massive underground complex because there’s a bad guy down there and I need to stop him, I want to explore it because there’s rumours that there’s a vast underground sea down there where creatures that haven’t been seen in aeons are rumoured to still live (blame reading Journey to the Centre of the Earth as a kid), or to discover why there’s a massive dungeon down there and learn who built it, or just because it’s a big strange space and I just want to see what it looks like.

He does talk about how you make dungeons interesting enough to justify that, things like thematically-distinct areas (like the underground lake, or the weird sunless forest, or the ghoul town, etc) so that it’s not one endless slog of ‘10ft wide corridors and stone rooms’, and to make it interconnected so that the players have full choice of where they go and what risks they want to take (enabling them to skip ahead difficulty levels, or retreat if need be, or escape areas that they’re not enjoying). And to possibly put in some distinct … not end goals, but capstone events, like a boss monster very deep down, that might feel like an ‘ending’ if the party wants to ‘finish’ the dungeon. Not something that will ‘burst out and destroy the world’, but something contained to the dungeon that a party could triumph over if they want a ‘final challenge’ sort of feeling. But one that’s optional, a challenge they can take up if they want to, not a prerequisite for getting out of the dungeon or completing a large goal, but just a challenge that exists if they want to take it on.

Because, and I do agree, a lot of the problem with exploring in D&D is not necessarily that there’s no mechanical support for it, in terms of things like skills, etc, but because there’s no reward for it, and in terms of structured adventures, there’s often either narrative or mechanical punishment for it (running out of time on the baddie, or running into something too lethal for your party to handle with no option to nope out). A megadungeon as a concept is a cool environment where exploration is the whole point, and the only point, and if you take care not to put an external pressure on it (‘kill the lich or else’), then then party has time to poke around and decide what they want to see and what risks they want to take (or nope out of). Especially in something so big that there’s no real chance of finishing it, so there’s no ‘100% completion’ pressure, just a big buffet of options for people to pick and choose from.  

(There are so many things in 5e that would be excellent for an exploration game, especially in terms of spells and magic items, but because combat is so much the driving force of the standard mode of play, people are reluctant to ‘waste’ spells known/prepared and/or items attuned on things like Alarm or Water Walk or Purify Food & Drink or non-combat items like Candles of the Deep or Foldable Boats or Slippers of Spider Climbing when those slots could be used for combat spells/items instead. But if exploration gets you XP, and if you can nope out of combat as required because there’s no massive stakes/story riding on it, then you’ve got more room for these things).

There’s also an in-depth discussion on ‘game balance’ and CR, and why megadungeons might not necessarily require them, for the simple fact that everything in the dungeon is optional and not required to forward the story/plot, so you can try challenges way above your level if you’re feeling frisky that day, and just nope out and go a different way if it starts really not working for you. Which I feel is a fun point.

There is a point that this is a specific mode of play and not meant to be the point of the game in general. It’s specifically for people (like me) who want exploration as its own point and reward, without needing a quest or storyline attached, and for whom combat is an element/hazard/complication but not the point. But. If you are specifically doing a MEGADUNGEON, it’s an interesting look at things to consider and what people might want out of a massive self-contained dungeon that’s going to be the whole point of the campaign in and of itself.  

Where he loses me is when the discussion moves to how to prevent the '15 Minute Adventuring Day', where people go in, do a room or two, and then go back out to rest and heal and resupply, instead of staying in the dungeon to keep exploring. And for some reason allowing healing is bad for this? If you want them to stay in the dungeon, how is it bad to let them heal in the dungeon? Set up factions to trade with and potential base camp locations in the dungeon to let them heal and resupply and set up safe areas so that they can stay in there potentially infinitely? Though it’s possible that I missed something about his point there.

But yeah. I love the idea of megadungeons, vast areas to explore just because they’re there, and I love the idea of game modes with all the cool abilities and spells and powers of D&D BUT where the thing that’s rewarded is exploration and interacting with the environment rather than combat.

(There’s also … I think this also reminds me of the story arc vs episodic discussion regarding TV, where I genuinely like episodic series equally to story-line driven ones, and I think that in games it also works, where there’s a BIG SETTING and the point is to go out and have episodic adventures in it. A loose sandbox like a megadungeon where there’s no plot, you’re just exploring and seeing what you encounter day to day (and possibly developing plots as you interact with individual areas/factions and then connect them to other ones) is also an excellent way to play a game).

Anyway. Forgive the sidebar ramble.

[tadpoles-and-daydreams]

Y'know sometimes deity work is just them shaking you by the shoulders going "DUDE JUST CHILL."

CUE THE DEATH MENTIONS/GRIEF TW bc I don't usually post about this so I feel like writing it into the post is important

The past few days, I've been completely unable to... witch. Witching is an action now. I've been struggling to get anything from my deities and guides. Tarot- which I usually can use for consistent yes/no answers- is now only giving me "maybe"s no matter what I ask. I feel like my trust in my deities and in my craft has suddenly plummeted despite having witnessed the most dramatic, flashy gift from them to my mom like a week ago. etc. etc. I tried just using the cards as their meanings and it felt... like I could interpret them but they were definitely not the usual "OH DAMN y'all just gotta say it like it is" energy I'm used to. I started to feel bad, like I'm in some sort of slump for no reason, and just generally was salty because I actively had been trying to start readings up again and now I can't until that blows over.

Then today, as I was making my breakfast, I was just thinking about it and admittedly getting a bit frustrated with myself- and suddenly one of my deities (I think Loki or Hades, I can't get a clear answer rn) just slam dunks a realization into my head like "SIR. SIR. You just had your first father's day since your dad died like two days ago. Don't ya think that mayyybe there's some feelings there, even if you're not actively processing them out in the open? That mayyyyybe you might be subconsciously processing a lot that can't be processed consciously?"

I just stood there like O.O for a second. I know I'm not the greatest at connecting emotional dots, but sometimes I forget that if I'm feeling shitty it probably has a 100% logical reason that I'm just not seeing. They brought a couple other things to mind that I'm dealing with that, while I often forget about them consciously, I currently have every reason to be in a slump about. I really am glad I have my guides there to just plonk thoughts that are distinctly not my own into my head sometimes so I stop questioning why I'm in such a weird mood XD

The point of this post is, really, don't beat yourself up guys. Plz. I mostly post happy lil funny things, but I also value transparency and authenticity. So sometimes I'll end up posting some heavier stuff, especially when I someday get more into working with heavier emotions in my craft, because I think it's important to post it. Maybe it'll make someone feel a little less alone. And, if it doesn't, then this post is just for me and that's okay <3

[triangular-static]

look i understand if people just don't like the idea of billford, i think we have a different internal concept of what shipping means (they're not good for each other at all but i need to dissect their dynamic like a bug. you understand. it's fun) but it's fine to avoid things you don't like, good for you genuinely

however people saying they like. don't see it. like. i'm not saying there's no platonic way to read it, i'm aroace spec myself i'm all for reading things in different ways. but i do think saying they weren't partners in any queer sense at all is trying too hard to go against what the narrative is trying to say, or missing it. somehow

anyway media literacy time if a character makes a joke like this

and the previous context of that joke within the show is that it's about an ex wife. what connection do you think the text is trying to get you to make.

and that's just from a writing point of view. not even noting that from an in universe perspective ford likely knows the joke from the same source as stan. and is therefore. placing himself in that role of the joke are you seeing where i'm coming from

(not to mention bill's side of this text which is. extremely manipulative but also does not read very platonic. again, it can technically be read as platonic! bill literally can manipulate ford's feelings. but the specific wording used is very much meant to look like possessive ex partner wording whether the character means it that way or not. it's coding. look again i'm not saying it was good for them i'm just saying there was something there.)

and then there's also the divorce/break up/rock bottom input on the website. like. how else is that supposed to be read. and the corresponding page in the book itself.

the language being used here. like yes he's saying it in a joking way but then there's the other side that isn't joking which is him crying at the bar. it's the both sides (the very coded language on top of the very genuine emotions and dynamic beneath)

i know most of us are on the same page with this i've just seen a couple people saying they don't see it when this is some of the most clear cut coding i've ever seen. and these are just the things that explicitly reference a relationship off the top of my head i'm not even including the general vibes of Everything

tl;dr it's barely even subtext anymore it's all but straight up text. what's not clicking have we forgotten what coding is (lighthearted i just enjoy the phrase what's not clicking. what's not clicking)

[xxplastic-cubexx]

dumbass supreme says 'yeah ill play a quick game of rivals before lunch why not' and gets mvp more at 1

[the-curators-bullshit]

How you feeling today ?

better if I could share why my breakup came about but alas

[solar-nightengale]

@naivesilver | Thousand Problems + Mille

[iratusmus]

fiona fox is the love + light of my life . also no i am not taking any criticism on her questionable tshirt collection i can and will defend all of my choices.

also bonus artist commentary in the alt text

[coockie8]

I hate that I can follow specific posts but I can't block specific posts.

Sometimes I don't have an issue with a person in general but they will occasionally post or reblog takes I truly cannot stand to have to experience regularly and I wish I didn't have to block someone's entire account just to banish a few specific posts to the shadow realm

[sheltershock]

The other day I was rewatching Hollowtone’s vod on Psychonauts 2, which is fun because of the chat overlay. And there’s the part where you can open the powers menu and see all the nice embroidered badges and the nice signatures of the teachers that gave you them…. except Sasha’s. And this makes sense, he wasn’t authorized to teach Raz psi-blast, so it would be really bad if he’s showing off his cool badges on his bag and someone sees Sasha’s signature. So Ford signed off on the marksmanship badge. But the chat in the vod is coming up with hilarious reasons why Sasha didn’t/couldn’t sign off on it, my favorites being:

“He’s only capable of of writing in Times New Roman”

“His handwriting is bad, toddler/doctor level”

“Sasha writes exclusively in latin”

“He actually can’t write”

“He uses telekinesis for everything, if he touches a pen he instantly dies”

And I was thinking about how ridiculous they were, but when I actually think about it… is there ever a proven time he actually writes something down? Like with his hands?

He’s living in a time period where typewriters existed, and in the current time, computers do, and therefore printers… And in one of the promotional comics he’s not even using his hands to eat with a fork, he just uses his powers. He uses telekinesis for most things actually. I don’t find it out of the realm of possibility of just using telekinesis to write things down. And then, I guess he’d never actually have need to learn to do it with his hands…

Maybe Sasha can’t write.