#and fuck poorly designed research

[magratpudifoot]

Just read an article about a study concluding there was no link between the covid vaccine and changes in menstruation.

The metric they used was the number of people who went to the hospital because of heavy menstruation.

Now, I am not going to claim that this entire study was conducted by folks who have never menstruated, because I have no data on the study designers.

But I am going to strongly imply that anyone who thinks anything short of actually bleeding out would get a menstruating person to go to the hospital during an airborne pandemic, and when almost all concerns about menstruation UP TO AND INCLUDING "I BLEED INTO MY ABDOMINAL CAVITY EVERY MONTH" ARE SHRUGGED OFF BY THE MEDICAL COMMUNITY isn't listening to people who menstruate and probably shouldn't be publishing studies that will absolutely be used as the basis for future medical decisions.

[facts-i-just-made-up]

How do I fact-check to make sure I'm always getting true facts from quality sources? Other than just reading everything on here of course

How To Tell If A Fact Is True

by facts-i-just-made-up

Read the fact and make sure you understand what it's actually saying. Many false facts are just user error. EXAMPLE: Bobby misreads a headline that says "Sama-Gai Palace Takes In Donations" and thinks it said "Smegma Penis Tastes Of Donuts," resulting in a very bad blow-job that he blames on the newspaper.

Consider the source of the fact. EXAMPLE: Sarah reads that Jake Paul bought a 7 billion dollar yacht just to burn it down for laughs. Sarah believes it, having failed to notice that it was posted by a blog called lies-about-jake-paul on tumblr, resulting in her hating Jake Paul for the wrong reason, at the cost of all the many right reasons she should hate Jake Paul.

See if the fact has been confirmed by other reliable sources. EXAMPLE: Jacques reads that yeast can grow in human lungs resulting in the ability to spew acidic yogurt like some sort of messed up superpower. He checks several other medical sites to see if this is true and learns that while yeast can sometimes cause a lung infection, it will not give him superpowers. He spends the rest of his evening reconsidering his plans for the future, and goes into architecture and interior design instead.

Research the fact independently from the internet. EXAMPLE: Thnorg, Slayer of The Snail People is emailed a link to a video about how greasing your club with the blood of executed murderers will make it more deadly. Thnorg heads to the library, reads books about club-grease, and visits his local greaseteria to ask experts on grease. He thus learns that the blood of the damned will not make his club more deadly, and he coats the dance floor of his club in their blood knowing it will not harm his customers coming in for vampire night.

Check for possible biases from the writer of the fact. EXAMPLE: Scrotus reads a note passed to him in class that says that Jennifer is totally into Claire, and bought her a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles backpack. Scrotus knows however that the note came from Herman, who totally got stood up by Jennifer when they went to see Cannibal Holocaust at a midnight screening. Thus Scrotus distrusts the note, and relaxes in the knowledge that Jennifer really did but the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles backpack for him, and goes forward with his plans to invite her to see the Human Centipede marathon with him on Friday. He also avenged Herman by befouling Herman's lunch donut with termites. Scrotus will never be caught, and will marry Jennifer after college.

Develop your senses to be a good judge of the likeliness of a false fact. EXAMPLE: Luke is told that Darth Vader is his father. He says that that can't be true, and that it's impossible. This is because Luke is a poor judge of factual veracity. Luke later searches his feelings and knows it to be true. He asks Obi-Wan's force ghost and Yoda about how to discern the truth, and completes his Jedi training to confront Vader and help return balance to the force. You can see this example in greater detail in George Lucas's masterpiece film, "American Graffiti."

Ask a Magic-8-Ball or other novelty divination tool. EXAMPLE: Roy is informed by a post on Reddit that women are evil and he should treat them poorly. Roy asks his Magic-8-Ball if that is true. It doesn't matter what the ball tells him because it's literally still a better source for morals and ethics than red-pill posts on Reddit. Seriously fuck that shit.

Thank you for reading this guide to fact checking by someone who has flooded tumblr with lies and nonsense for over a decade, and once posted that Texas had just executed a baby and had to delete it after an hour because half of the 10,000 notes actually fucking believed it.

[changelingsandothernonsense]

Sarru Rabu the Great Khan of the Ashlands - Circa 4E 212

Hello Uncaring Silent Void, look, I finished a thing that goes with other things I've also done. Explination under the cut for those interested.

I keep coming back to Joshi's Post Dragon Crisis design. He's pretty much done with any active combat at this point (something about being ripped open by a dragon added on top of all his other poorly healed breaks, particularly in his hip and right leg, that makes it hard to move the way he used to.) However, that doesn't mean what's left of the Ashclans have forgotten the power he once commanded 200 years prior. There's a reverence given to the kind of mer who conquers all of Vvardenfell and then rids it of the Sixth House that doesn't go away. Not even when the guy that did it needs help getting around now. Josh by 4E 212 has settled down somewhat, partially from injury and partially because he wants to set a better example for his kid (the one he's actually around for). He spends all his time on Solstheim moving between Raven Rock and the Ashlander camp to its north. He focuses on his position as Ashkhan, as well as his research on the Chimer-Dwemeri strongholds that dot Solstheim's landscape. He'll eventually take a job at the Collage of Winterhold as their Head of Dwemeri Studies, and later accept the position of Chair of Dwemer Studies in Morrowind (which I HC has broken from the Empire under Nerevarine endorsed Redoran rule and has been renamed to Resdayn.) Then his daughter starts fucking about with the Dawnguard and he has to drag his broken ass out of retirement to find his wife and kid. Something something Vampires, something something ya boi wants to sleep.

Josh will never give the Skaal back their old chief's skin. He holds onto Heart-Fang's Woe like it's the greatest coat on Tamriel and maybe it is.

[olderthannetfic]

Unpopular (?) opinion: online hobby communities are in DESPERATE need of some fucking gatekeeping. Otherwise every other post WILL be an absolute noob who couldn't be bothered to spend 5 mins looking at recent posts, either asking the same question that has already been answered five times in the past day, or demanding that Hobby 101 be taught to them by commenters rather than, like, watching one single youtube tutorial.

But if you dare to complain about this, you're an ev0l gatekeeper who hates beginners. Like, ok, fair enough! At this point I kinda do hate low-effort, lazy beginners who can't be assed to do 5 mins of research before demanding more experienced hobbyists spoonfeed them.

This is a gripe ask but also a legit question: how does one find and connect with communities of fellow non-beginner hobbyists to chat and discuss issues beyond the standard entry-level problems?

--

Subreddits that are explicitly for non-n00bs, often. Possibly some ancient-ass forum that n00bs find unpleasant to use. Maybe offline meetups. It depends on the hobby.

If it's knitting, just talk to the Europeans. They tend to be hostile to the whole "Everything needs 75 video tutorials, 24/7 pattern support from the designer, and to come in sizes xxxxxxs to xxxxxxxxxxxxl" thing, believing instead that you should know how to fucking adapt a pattern to work for you and not expect to get all that for like $5. I find them so much more tolerable than all the newbie vloggers bleating about ~inclusivity~ without a single thought about the kind of financial burden that puts on indie pattern designers and how that stops new people from entering the field or restricts them to only socks or at least shapeless sack sweaters with no shaping. Hell, if they'd even advocate for sweater patterns and the like to cost $15+ as the norm, I'd have more respect. Or if they taught people how to re-grade all the poorly-graded patterns so they actually work. As it is, it just sounds like lip service.

Anyway, anything with mods, like a subreddit, can work fine. It just needs rules about where the more 101 questions are and aren't allowed.

[alternis]

"why arent british people rewilding their country" bc the agricultural lobby objects to rewilding projects such as predator re-introduction, and this fucking island is so entrenched in historical classism that the literal landed fucking gentry drove 6-figure tractors to pose outside parliament in designer clothing bc the government was closing a loophole that allowed millionaires to dodge taxes.

despite this, rewilding projects are being carried out across the country—by people who care about the land they live on and who are willing to risk opposition from wealthy and influential lobbyist groups—which have successfully reintroduced species like the eurasian beaver (opposed by landowners who claimed the beavers would 'damage' their land through altering water courses) and white-tailed eagles (opposed and persecuted by landowners who claimed that they were dangers to livestock).

its almost like the eco-political situation of an entire country cannot be neatly summarised in a smug, poorly researched tumblr post.

[genericpuff]

Hey I have tattoo question. Really want to get a tattoo of this dog from the cover of my favorite book. But think it might be too photo realistic and wouldn't transfer well into a tattoo design. What are the ways tattoo artists handle photorealistic designs?

So you can never achieve perfect photorealism in a tattoo, as obviously it's a different medium that is applied differently and also ages differently.

That said, there are definitely tattoo artists who specialize in photorealism so the key thing is research, research, research! Here are some key things to keep in mind when searching for an artist:

Do they have a wide variety of photorealism work that's consistent in quality across every piece?

Are the photos authentic? (i.e. do they appear genuine or do they have a lot of filters applied over them?)

Do they share photos of their healed works? How do the healed works compare to the original pieces?

Do they have positive reviews of their business? What do the negative reviews have to say?

I know we might often feel pressured or just overly enthusiastic to go with the first artist we check out, but photorealism is a very high-skill style that is very easy to fuck up. Think of all the things that can go wrong in a bad portrait drawing, but with the added stakes of it being permanent on your skin and expensive to cover-up / remove if it turns out poorly.

As for how the designs are handled, it largely depends on whether you're going black and grey or color. If you're doing a pet, black and grey is typically the best way to go, but it will, again, depend on various other factors like what color and fur pattern the dog has.

The key to finding a good photorealistic tattoo artist is patience. There are a lot of folks out there who will say "yeah I can do that!" to any request without any proof to back up their credibility. The real ones will actually discuss with you what's possible and what isn't to ensure you get a piece that you're happy with.

You should also prepare to pay a pretty penny for this kind of work, I'm talking at minimum $500-$800 and even that's low-balling it because IDK how big you want it. Needless to say, tattoos are not compatible with bargain-hunting. Good work isn't cheap and cheap work isn't good.

All that said, find peace in the discovery process, remember that every artist you research and consult is part of the process. Sometimes it can take a while to find "the one", but it's worth it so you can get a high-quality tattoo that looks beautiful for life.

Good luck! :)

[rippleclan]

I absolutely do want to hear about your guidelines when it comes to writing about suicide. Especially as someone who has been suicidal before in my life, I really want to address the subject in my own writing, but I'm afraid of stepping over some line given that I know my own experiences aren't the classic kind. I am kinda scared of fucking something up and offending others who have been in similar situations haha 😅

Opening with a personal note; I think it is so important to write about suicide in fiction, and not as a shock value thing. When I was in middle school, I loved the angst of it (like how other people love reading about their favs getting tortured in fanfic), but I knew it was a serious and often poorly portrayed topic. I started doing research into proper suicide depiction in the media and grew to understand how it can play an effective role in a story while not demeaning it or, God forbid, endangering others. I’ll try to add links to stuff when I can.

I’m not going to add trigger tags to this post, just be careful with reading it if this stuff is overwhelming.

First things first, let’s dive into the intention and purpose of the suicide, just as we would any other plot point. This is not the sort of topic you want to add in for shock value. It would be insulting to the trauma of it all and could actually hurt people. The big thing to consider with writing about suicide is suicide contagion. This is the phenomenon where, after learning about a recent suicide, others are driven to kill themselves as well. It's also called the Werther effect due to the number of copycat suicides following the publication of a popular 1774 novel called The Sorrows of Young Werther. Treating suicide as something to be highly publicized and dramatized incentivizes people to commit suicide as well. It's our responsibility as writers, and really as people, to not contribute to this.

It wouldn't be right to perpetually ignore suicide in literature and media, though. It's real and life-changing and personally, I just love stories that include it. So when should we include it in our stories?

You'll need to be analytical as you design this plot point so you can be careful in your approach. Forgive me for blunt and technical language here, but this is for the sake of education. Suicide can prove an interesting plot development for characters with deep-seated mental health issues or crises. You need to consider the character's mindset and situation, and how this would alter the rest of the story. When Trumpetspore died in-game, after these moons of chaos, I considered her character. Her trait was "nervous", she grieved deeply, she likely inherited depressive tendencies from her grandmother and the trauma of her youth. Changing her death from rogue attack to suicide made sense thematically, especially compared to upcoming plot points.

For another example, look at Anya from Mouthwashing (amazing game, would not recommend to those with lots of triggers tho). Her suicide was an excellent choice from a narrative perspective. She's trapped on the ship, she's pregnant, trapped with her rapist, she's trying to care for a dying man and it is traumatizing. Her choice to die by suicide supports her story and the themes of the game. All in all, if a character is going to make that choice, you as a writer should at understand it, even if your characters/audience are left in the dark.

Now onto the actual suicide. I learned about the intriciacies of writing about the event via recommendations on reporting on suicide. This advice is geared toward the discussion of real life suicide, so not all of the information here applies to fiction. However, I've taken this advice and shaped it for my own use in suicide fiction.

If you can, try to avoid bringing up the suicide method. This can vary depending on the circumstances of the story and what you're trying to accomplish, but if there's no need to know the method, it's better not to say anything. This helped me with Trumpetspore, because TBH I was very stumped on how I wanted her suicide to occur. In the end, though, not telling anyone heightened the intensity and serves to protect readers.

If you let the audience know how the victim died, don't show the moment of death. Sometimes knowing how someone died is important for the story! In The Politician, it is narratively important that River uses a gun so that we can see the emotional toll it has on Payton, but you never show someone actually shooting themselves or swallowing pills or landing on the ground from a dozen stories up. In writing, you can do this with a bland, non-descriptive statement, like "And then he shot himself." In a visual medium, if you actually show the moment of death, you are risking an increase in actual suicide rates. Do not do that.

Add links to suicide prevention resources at the end of your work. I've seen multiple TV shows do this whenever suicide is brought up, and its becoming good form.

Answer important questions, but don’t explore the preparation. Let’s say you want your character to try hanging. In a modern setting, there’s no need to explore where they got the rope or the knots they tied, those sort of answers are usually simple. But let’s say it’s a child; how would a child get rope? Or let’s say in Warriors, a character eats deathberries. Did they come from the forest or the medicine den? The answer changes the story. Still, don’t dive into the character’s quest to obtain the right items and prepare for their attempt.

Ask yourself, does it need to be a completed suicide, or can it be an attempt? Attempts naturally offer a more hopeful story with the promise of recovery. Does the character need to die for the sake of the plot? Or does making it just an attempt fulfill the same goals?

From there, it’s mostly about treating the incident with respect. Explore the reactions, explore the recovery after the fact, don’t be afraid to let a character or two screw up in handling the situation, and don’t be afraid that your own experiences aren’t universal. They’ll make your story better because they’re your own.

[noodledesk]

my goals for the year :)

This will most definitely change. But directionally, here's what we've got:

🌻 Create a garden on my balcony: I've been thinking of growing tomato plants on my south-facing balcony for a couple years now. I've been aspiring towards working with plants. Now I need to go beyond watering a houseplant and wringing my hands when they start killing themselves and dying.

🎨 Paint my coffee table and decorate it: I really enjoyed painting my "community chairs" with my friends last year and they've become one of my favourite things in the apartment. Let's keep going; I got a coffee table off Facebook Marketplace for $25.

📖 Start and finish the Artist's Way: I'd like to get to a point where drawing and writing feel very natural, very joyful, and feels more honest. I'm very used to trying to operationalize my creative process. This probably needs the sort of spiritual healing that people seem to get from Julia Cameron's Artist's Way.

🫂 Make intergenerational friends: I don't hang out with enough babies and I don't hang out with enough grannies. That's a lot of joy and wisdom I'm missing out on! Not to mention delicious food. Plus my skill in being able to connect devices to Wi-Fi is most appreciated by this demographic.

🧘 Find better ways to release stress that actually release stress: I do a lot of activities that are supposed to release stress. But I am still a very stressed person, so I think I'm probably not doing the right things.

✌️Maintain my emotional vibe: Basically regulating my emotions better. Get in tune with urge surfing. But also if I'm feeling joyful, to share it with other people and worry less about its appropriateness.

🦜 Talk to more people whose work I find interesting: I'm shy to talk to people about their work but I want to know what possibilities are out there beyond making slide decks that are marginally interesting and poorly researched lol.

🎹 Pick up music again with guitar or with jamming with my band: I miss that spiky, focused feeling of jamming with other people. I'd also like to do some structured learning of an instrument. Probably piano or guitar.

✏️ Write my blog posts with less polish, more curiosity: More rigor on research, more googling, more interesting examples. Spend more time digging around instead of stuck wondering how to phrase something. Focus less on voice and style. This will come naturally with reading more and taking walks and talking to interesting people.

📚 Study more: I need to read up. I am foolish and not proud of it! I'd like to read more, engage with what I'm reading more, and take some classes. Probably about data analysis and design.

💡Try new things in my career: Writing this blog has been really fun and rewarding, but I think experimenting with other mediums will also be fruitful. Maybe trying out YouTube again or reviving the poetry podcast, or drawing on greeting cards; I just want to try something that I can fuck up and then learn from. I'm also thinking about how my 9-5 job shapes all of this exploration.

🥕 Figure out a food system: Get better at managing the admin / planning side of cooking: groceries, ingredient prep, meal planning, nutrition planning. I feel like I can reduce a lot of my food-related stress by planning more effectively.

I wrote more about this on my substack. And if you'd like to see how I'm keeping track you can check out my Notion template :)

[vinhteer]

So in the end, I actually want to bring back this reinterpretation series because I get a lot of dopamine from researching and glueing shit together to make something semi comprehensible. (also deeply sorry for the botched Evan drawing, I wasn't looking when I was lasso-ing some of the other drawings LMAO)

When it comes to my designs for YHS, I'm not sure if I already wrote this, but for each of them, I like having a real person + other fictional characters (if needed) in mind whenever I'm designing them.

For Funneh, it was Itsfunneh (as in the youtuber) and Riley from Inside Out.

For Gold, it was Goldenglare and another classmate from last year.

With Alec, originally it was the Christian Slater who played JD from Heathers (1988), but then when I finished drawing him in the concept art, he reminded me more of a classmate of that same year + a childhood friend that I used to fight for the player 1 wii remote controller. They both had that snarky, blunt personality. One had the boldness and the other one was more mischevious, which I feel like Alec both has.

For Kyran, I wasn't thinking of someone CONCRETE, I was thinking more about yk, the vague geek archetype that was rlly prevalent back in the 90s - 2000s (Kyran gives off Big Bang Theory vibes which is a not compliment by the way). I also knew that Kyran would probably give off that "I try to look presentable and cool like in those fantasy medias I consume, I try to look like my escapism, except I only end up reinforcing the things that I don't like about myself" so he just looks like he's in a poorly made cosplay and shifts uncomfortably as he tries to navigate the weird feeling of not liking himself... Even though he clearly has something really cool with him going on, except he's too scared to embrace it because it doesn't fit into typical, acceptable standards... Anyway, so I ended up with that, and as I squinted my eyes looking at him, he reminded me of someone of last year that I lowkey despised. LISTEN, he perfectly fitted into those weird incel criterias as well.

For Evan, BASICALLY this friend of a friend acted exactly like him and it was scary as fuck. So it was him and random members from boy bands of the 2010s. Except I wanted him to also look pretty young, just not fitting ENOUGH yet to look like a 20 year old like these boy groups. I wanted him to look like he was LEANING onto that style. I wanted baby fat (to show that he's still a little young and also design wise it just made more sense si

For Celeste, she is someone that is completely off from the norm compared to Funneh's friend group-- which makes sense given that she looks like she barely speaks to anyone and is off to her own world. I was very inspired by Fern Mayo's character (who is played by Judy Greer btw) from Jawbreaker (1999) (also I very much enjoy that the only 2 movies I've mentioned yet are both about high school and killing people. OKAY that was poor wording, trust me I am not obsessed with high school NOR killing people, it's just that they both fit into the slightly cynical and "I don't know what this story is about" type beat that YHS has.) She also reminded me of one of my classmates, reminded me of my teacher... And they all share the same quality of being eccentric.

For Yumi, I decided to sorta break that rule of only trying to find real people within my character designs because she stands more like a mysterious, 'alluring' shadow. She almost doesn't feel real. It almost feels like not giving her any concrete humans to work with is like stripping her humanity, BECAUSE she is devoid of humanity. I wanted to only get references of DRAWINGS depicting people based on their vibe or their social utilities. I got inspired by Perfect Blue (1997), bijinga paintings (which are depictions of beautiful women that were especially common back in the 17th-19th century, which references Yumi's ethnic roots as well. Also their culture back then, depicting these women in such a way was because that's what they wanted to strive for. They're more like beauty concepts than tangible people, which is perfect for Yumi). The reason why I've been struggling to draw her since then is because I had a specific way of seeing her; compared to the others, she should look perfect, so perfect that they don't look human. I wanted her to look like a painting (hashtag The Picture of Dorian Gray) , sharp on the edges but also smooth at times, can bend from disgustingly menacing to ethereal.

[morsrattus]

The Big Pent Collection Post: Secret History of the Horse Sun

It has been pointed out to me that I haven't actually ever written a post explaining what the hell Secret History of the Horse Sun is. So, uh, doing that now!

The Fuck's A Glorantha

Glorantha is a TTRPG setting attached to one of several rulesets for the games Runequest, HeroQuest, QuestWorlds or other names which I've probably forgotten. It is a vaguely Bronze Age-ish world focused around religious fantasy and spiritual power rather than traditional medieval stuff, as it was designed by anthropologist and practicing shaman Greg Stafford. I think it's pretty cool! But it is largely focused on an area named Dragon Pass, where a bunch of guys called the Orlanthi live. They're a mix of Vedic, Celtic and Norse ideas thrown into a stewpot, and they're cool and all...but there's other regions, and not all of them are particularly well written.

Like Pent

Pent is a very large steppes plain - somewhat larger than the entire nation of France, maybe five or six times bigger than Dragon Pass - which goes criminally underused by Glorantha. It exists solely as a place for horse nomads to rampage out of and threaten the people the game actually cares about, and as an origin point for historic figure Sheng Seleris, mighty warlord who conquered the Celestial Empire of Kralorela (read: Not China, generally poorly written) and almost destroyed the Lunar Empire (the primary villain nation of mainline Glorantha these days) before the Lunars defeated him and imprisoned him alive in the depths of Tax Hell.

Pent is a grassland steppe vaguely based on Mongolia and Sheng Seleris is vaguely based on Temujin, the Chinggis Khan. This is an area of IRL history and culture that deeply fascinates me and which I love reading and talking about. So I looked at Pent and its generally boring or outright bad writing and decided it needed to be done better.

As such, I started Secret History of the Horse Sun, a total rewrite of Pent as a location and culture. It is heavily based on Mongolian, Tibetan and Central Asian Turkic cultures, backed by my academic research on these areas but very much fictionalized and changed to fit the world of Glorantha and its preexisting mythos. This work is not an accurate representation of real world Mongolia, Tibet, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, ancient Scythia or anywhere else on Earth, though it is my goal to be as respectful of these real world places and peoples as I can be in my portrayal of a fictional culture similar to them.

This post is intended to collect my work on the project into a way that is easy to understand, read, and link to. Below, posts will be divided up into categories based on what they're about. If anything confuses you, please feel free to comment or send an ask or whatever - I love talking about my work and am happy to explain stuff.

The actual work is set shortly before the rise of Sheng Seleris, as I think this is the most interesting time for Pent; it has retconned a number of details to make things more interesting for me, though, like the Winds being gods despite it being pre-Sheng. I will eventually be writing a guide to adventuring before and during Sheng's rise.

Eventually.

The Pentan Gods

The first part of the project was a writeup of the Pentan pantheon, a group collectively known to the Pentans as the First Herd. These are writeups in the HeroQuest 2e/QuestWorlds system, and are mechanically usable in that system, but because the mechanics are highly narrative and descriptive, each writeup is also a description of the god and their cult within Pentan society; in Glorantha, religious cults form much of the bedrock of all societies.

Yu-Kargzant, the Sun Khan, God Above Gods

Basko, the God of the Bad Death, Lord of the Dark Shamans

Dostal, the God of Bow Hunting

DuTukhos and Arcos, the Gods of the Arcos River

East Sting Wind, the God of Bandits and Crime

Erissa, the Goddess of Healing

Eyritha, the Herd Mother, Goddess of Herd Animals That Aren't Horses or Sheep

Galana, the Chooser of Khans, Goddess of Horses

Golden Bow, the God of the Good Death, Lord of the Bright Shamans

Gor Gorma, the Goddess of Terror, the Malign Earth, and Vengeance

Hurfor, the God of Secrets and Law

Hyalor and Gamari, Man and Horse, the Good Ancestors

Issaries, the God of Trade and Mules

Kargzant, the Light Khan

Lozarl, the God of Impure Fires, Mining, Labor and Asses

Manurl, the God of Cats and Trapping

North War Wind, the God of Death

Oria, the Goddess of Earth

Pole Star, the God of Strategy and Warfare

Samnal, the Bad Ancestor, God of What Not To Do

South Rage Wind, the Storm Bull and Chaos Killer

Sirdaryo, Goddess of Wrestling and the River Sirdaryo

Tarhel and Heltar, the Gods of Sheep, Clouds and Weaving

Tepekos, the God of Smiths

Tholm, the God of Falconry

West King Wind, the Storm Khan

Whirlwind Fool, Raven, and other Tricksters

Elyu-Ene, the Emissary of the Winter Gods

Pentan Cultural Overview

This collection of posts was written to try and provide a broader understanding of Pentan culture as it exists without wholly being about the religion. While religion permeates every aspect of Pentan life (and Gloranthan existence in general), there is life outside of the gods, after all.

Horses

Age

The Ancestral Peoples of Pent

Food and Daily Life

Fashion

Law

Love and Hatred

Slavery (CW, uh, Slavery)

Sports

Warfare

Non-Pentan Peoples

The Khuruldan

Life from the Pure Horse Perspective

Life from the Kargzanti Perspective

Life from the Four Winds Perspective

The Pentan Tribe Creation Questionnaire

The Children of the Dragon: On the Wildlife of Pent

I decided to write an in character guide to the animals that live within Pent, because I make good decisions.

Part One: Animals, People, and Classification

Hsunchen and Qa Ying

After I finished the above, I decided I needed to properly detail the non-Pentan cultures in and immediately around Pent. The first grouping I began to work on were the Hsunchen of the Shan Shan mountain range east of the Pentan plains. The Hsunchen are a type of person in Glorantha - "beast people," human beings who are able to transform into animals due to their worship of ancestral beast gods and spirits. Within the Pentan area they are not considered to be human, either by themselves or their neighbors, and could broadly be compared to werewolves, werebears, etc. They are largely non-agricultural, often viewing intensive agriculture as a violent assault on the living earth, and have societies roughly based on the animals they consider to be their kin. The Qa Ying are winged people also called the Wind Children, and are potentially descended from literal winds or are possibly eagle Hsunchen, or a mix of both in the past who became one thing.

The Qa Ying

King Violent Wind, God of Rulership and Storms

Merciful Rain Consort, God of Clouds and Water

Inner Wind Sage, Spirit King of the Wind Spirits

Blazing Wings Hunter, God of Hunting and Ancestral Raptor God

The Lo Fak Yak Folk

Lo Fa, Ancestral Yak Goddess of the Lo Fak

Undrung, God of Draconic Mysticism and Seeker of Mystic Truths

Yi Da, Spirit Yak and God of Shamans

The Lo Fak also worship their own version of Storm Bull but I didn't do a full writeup because he's very similar.

The Chen Ga Snow Leopard Folk

Chen Gar, Ancestral Snow Leopard God of the Chen Ga

Freezing Wind, God of Winter

Snow Woman, Goddess of Mountain Peaks

The Hsa Tiger Folk

Hsa Black Stripe, Ancestral Tiger God of the Hsa

Yumaryu, the God of Light and the Sun Spear Man

Gods of the Cat Brothers, Shared by the Hsa and Chen Ga

Bieti, the Mountain Witch and Patron of Shamans

Sakkar Swordtooth, God of Fear and Hunger

The Ri Si Woodpecker Folk

Ri-si, Ancestral Woodpecker Goddess of the Ri Si

Cucul, Cuckoo God of Shamans

The Damali Deer, Antelope and Gazelle Folk

Damal, the Ancestral Deer, Antelope and Gazelle God of the Damali

The Gord-Un Marmot and Gopher Folk

Gord, Ancestral Marmot and Gopher God of the Gord-Un

Spala, Spirit Zokor and Patron of Shamans

The Orathorn

The Orathorn are the only real sorcerous group in Pent - a small order of necromancers led by the immortal sage Orathorn, granted an imitation of immortality by his magic. They seek the conquest of Death, hoping to grant immortality to all humanity, that they might be free to pursue their true power and goals rather than be bound to what the Orathorn see as slavery-in-afterlife to gods in exchange for power within a paltry mortal lifespan. Most Pentans consider them horrible monsters for, among other things, their casual use of undead, their casual blasphemy, and their terrifying power...insofar as most Pentans ever deal with them, anyway. They are still sometimes hired as mercenaries by those Pentans who are less concerned by prohibitions on the use of sorcery, and they believe their selflessness will be vindicated...eventually.

Orathorn Overview

Principles of Sorcery and the Sorcery of the Zaburi

Sorcery of the Talari, Horali and Dromali

The Rise of Sheng Seleris

Jolaty, the Awakening Eye, God of Draconic Liberation

[puffyducks]

DCRC Week #20 (Part 1)

Guys how has it already been 20 whole weeks time isn't real. Anyways speaking of, we're reading PKNA #16: Extraordinary Repairs which is a huge deal cause it means that after waiting 20 whole weeks I CAN FINALLY DOXX CAMERA 9'S FULL LEGAL NAME AND ADDRESS!!! IT'S S-

Okay FINE I guess I'll wait to say his name until we actually get to the right part in this post. And idk why I've even prevented myself from saying his real name in front of my friends that are going through this series for the first time cause it's not even like a secret or revelation, they literally tell you his name at the end of Day of the Cold Sun in his character sheet, but nobody reading the English fan translations would know that because nobody has uploaded translated versions of the character sheets (yet...) ANYWAYS

Just as a heads up to anyone who is reading this comic for the first time, the English translating here is a little scuffed (I assume whoever translated this chapter wasn't a native English speaker) so there are occasional grammatical mistakes but nothing too severe that it limits the effect of the story!

Angus I can PROMISE you do not want to start doing research into Everett Ducklair, do you know how many fuckin doomsday weapons he kept "accidentally" making??? You don't want the smoke.

What kind of fucking idiot steps into an elevator shaft without stopping to see if the elevator is ACTUALLY THERE omfg I hope he hits the bottom and dies

GUYS HE SAID THE- HE SAID THE TITLE OF THE CHAPTER!!!

ALSO HDL MENTION 🔥🔥🔥

guys.... there he is.... the man of the hour

shoutout to the way the other guy is drawn in this panel btw (his ears fell off I guess)

OHOHOHO TRENCHCOAT REVEAL!!! GUYS I AM GIDDY AND I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHY I JUST THINK HE'S NEAT

HE SAID THE THING

why he ourple

OHHH YEAHHH IT'S YA BOI STEFAN MOTHAFUCKIN VLADUCK!!! Who appears to be constantly having a series of PTSD-related war flashbacks but ummm let's not worry about that right now

It's really interesting to me that Donald is a fan of Stefan's work. I mean media was obviously different in the 90s but still, when's the last time you heard someone bring up their favorite photographer? Either Stefan is FAMOUS famous or Donald is one of like 10 people that like to read the credits under newspaper photos.

This panel makes me laugh cause out of context it looks like Stefan is running away from PK (on account of his huge torn up fucking evil looking cape) bro is literally FNAF 2 jumpscaring at him

I FUCKING TOLD YOU

Coolest character design of all time (literally just a duck in a trenchcoat)

What have you seen WHAT HAVE YOU SEEN. 200 page comic docuseries covering all of Stefan's horrifying past experiences NOW!!!!!

You're telling me Ducklair was in his basement building fuckin DINOSAURS??.... ok I can't lie that's cool as fuck good for him

So close except actually not close at all. Granted PK does hang out in Ducklair Tower all the time, but it's not like Angus knows that 😭

Love how much this laser gun just looks like a regular pistol

Me reading poorly written analysis posts of DT17 sorry

I love evil fucked up PK can we keep him like this actually

PAPERINIK MURDERS ANGUS FANGUS IN COLD BLOOD (REAL)

Nvm we just gave him a concussion. also hi Stefan 👋

Also we drugged him. Y'know just for good measure!

NO FUCKING WAY YOU GUYS EYEBALL REVEAL 🔥🔥🔥 HE HAS GREEN EYES. or at least one green eye... I guess he could have heterochromia or something whatever

btw this is the most we'll ever see of his face so SOAK IT IN FOLKS (at least, the most we'll see in PKNA, there's like one singular comic from 2016 that shows his entire face if you're curious. You can just google his name and the photos will come up.)

SHOUTOUT TO THE LITTLE CAMERA 9 END HERE IT'S SO SILLY.

I love this issue, Camera 9/Stefan is probably one of my favorite characters. He's just fuckin cool man idk what to tell you. He's fairly inconsequential in the grand scheme of things but I like having him around, he's a fun character to add as a little bit of flavor to a series with so many ongoing narratives. I do wanna highlight this bit of text from the bottom of his Paperpedia page (which has been auto-translated from Italian and might be a bit off):

I'm so incredibly intrigued by the analysis here because, if true, I wanna know whose idea it was to start referencing classical Luigi Pirandello literature in a Donald Duck comic. I'm not saying I don't want my duck comics to have commentary on media sensationalism and alienation, but I am saying that it's certainly unexpected. Still a welcome topic!

I used most of my image limit covering the main comic so I won't be able to add a lot about the bonus comic but I will say: WAHHH WAHHHH THIS IS THE LAST TRIP COMIC 😭😭😭 at least for a while anyways. There are the Trip's Strip comics but I haven't seen anyone translate those into English and they also start at like chapter 40 so

Is the Raider just fucking allergic to dressing normally like what's going on here. Also HAHA TRIP THOUGHT HIS DAD DIDN'T COME TO THE GAME BUT HE WAS ACTUALLY WATCHING THE WHOLE TIME, EVERYONE POINT AND LAUGH 🫵 YOUR DAD LOVES YOU HAHAHA LOSER

Goodbye Trip, my sweet summer child... my child who sucks so fucking bad. He's the worst I'm gonna miss him. And ummm see you later with more spooky Carl Barks!

[xiii-e]

XIII▸So. This is the brief I promised. Lets talk about the Projects

◂▸ We'll go through the basics first, yeah? Go over what we have clearance to share in loose terms, this probably isn't a totally unfamiliar concept to most people. A lot of the Corps have a division for any research they don't want a name put to.

XIII▸ It's understandable enough as a practise. Protection of company interests is a priority for any major opperation, especially regarding any work that could be done concerningly poorly by a less well-staffed or well-funded team.

◂▸ ... yeah, that's sure the company line. So, the Projects- not the most specific name in the world, covers a lot of things. It's the catchall for anything secrative, and I won't be going into stuff that's not relevent to us, but what's useful to know for our correspondence is that if you hear us talk about Projects when refering to people? Those people are clones, like us. The Project series in particular is what we fall under.

XIII▸ Project Soldiers are designed with specifications of service in mind; the first series, Project One: Talos, was your generic super soldier gene profile, but they've honed in on various tasks and traits over the decades. Take myself, for instance, as the prototype for Series Thirteen- when I describe myself as specialised medical and engineering personnel for field opperations, I mean it down to the dna. I'm wholly intended for the purpose I serve :}

◂▸ mhm... so, that's where our names come from too. Prototypes serve as the root genetic profile for Series, and they'll be named after the project as a whole. After that, it's usually some kind of proper noun and your series number. Hence, Helios-8; proper noun, series number. My line was meant for techie stuff, so we're not exactly hench but have trigger reflexes. Bastard annoying sometimes...

XIII▸ You're flinchy

◂▸ :[ yeah. But- as I have to stress (contractually) a lot of strides have been made in the cloning field since the seccom days. Any major hinks are worked out of the system, as far as either of us are aware we opperate at normal human capacity, if not better in our specialised ways. Any... flaws of production are strictly aesthetic these days.

XIII▸ And we do good work, when deployed well. My line for instance, is intended to save lives on the battlefield- I'm sturdy, stable and evoke a sense of trust :} not to mention capable of expedited healing, so I can get back out there into the thick of things on short notice. I'm even a universal blood donor, in cases of emergency-

◂▸ We're not giving the sales pitch here, cmon leave that to corporate. But to round off my little speech, and to assuage any concerns our general existance may have raised, the FC Project series is a limited scope, highly speculative investment intended to reduce friction caused by Purview expansion, by ensuring the best possible people are in the roles that matter. Superior by Design, and all that.

XIII▸ Harrison Armory takes its commitments seriously. Every Project soldier that comes out of production is created for purpose, with every consideration made to the weight of that decision; each one of us fulfils our role to the fullest extent, and we make Purview space a more stable place doing it.

◂▸ ... so, that's the basic rundown. Projects, as people, are specialist genetic profiles put together through painstaking research and all that stuff about commitments or whatever. We're pretty much all soldiers of some description at some point in our lives but, so are most HA citizens.

XIII▸ If you have any further questions I'm sure we would both be happy to field them, to the extent we have clearence too. I hope this was informative!

// loading echo.exe ... //... //... // now running echo.exe

XIII▸ ... you look sick.

◂▸ That might be because I feel sick. Fuck I hate having to say all that litigation warding, covering their asses type of shit-

XIII▸ It's a bit much in places, maybe.

◂▸ It's straight out lies in some places and you know it.

XIII▸ ... my migraines are- they're manageable. So long as I take my medication on the field, it's like they're not even there.

◂▸ >:[

XIII▸ Well... thank you, for sticking to the script anyway. You know I don't want to see you get in any more trouble for my sake.

◂▸ [sigh] yeah, yeah I know. Sorry for springing all this legal, half-assed whistleblower crap on you in the first place, I just-

XIII▸ You don't have to explain yourself to me, Lio. You're doing what you think is right, even if I don't really get it.

◂▸... I hope one day, you will.

XIII▸ I am as the company wants me to be, Lio. You know that. It's how I'm programmed.

◂▸ I-

XIII▸ Don't try to start that argument again.

◂▸ People aren't programmed, Turtie-

XIII▸ And I'm not a person, Lio.

[silence]

XIII▸ ...and please, call me by my name? I know you don't like it but again, I don't-

◂▸ -want me to get in trouble, for your sake. Yeah, I know.

XIII▸ I am trying, you know. To learn, how to bend the rules. But I can't break them.

◂▸ No, I- I know... Thirteen-E.

XIII▸ :}

◂▸ ... ack, we logged all of that didn't we. Welp. I'm not rerecording it so, posted it is. Did mention this thing would be kind of like a diary.

◂▸ Signing off.

//

[tyrantisterror]

Which Ultraman kaiju are your personal favorites and why?

The only Ultraman series I've seen in full is the original - I've seen, like, a third of Ultraseven, several episodes of Ultraman Cosmos, the first season of Ultra Galaxy Mega Monster Battle, and scattered episodes from some of the others - so this is a very skewed/poorly researched answer that's likely to change. But also there's hundreds of these fuckers to choose from so narrowing it down would always be difficult.

Gomora is my absolute favorite Ultra monster. His debut two-parter is one of the best in the original series, and he really pushed Ultraman to his limit. He's got a killer design that has that beautiful simplicity you get from the best kaiju out there - that Showa Tsuburaya house style. And he got to be a hero more than a few times! Gomora fucking rules.

Red King is my second favorite. I love his distinct scales, pin-headed body, and the gleeful malice he exudes. There's even a great aspect to his name - you can't help but wonder why this bone-white monster is called "Red King" until he starts tearing lesser monsters limb from limb. He's "Red King" because he's a king bathed in cherry red blood. A wonderful heel who, like Gomora, had enough star power to get some sympathetic moments later in the franchise.

The Baltans had me when, in their debut episode, they were asked why they couldn't colonize Mars instead of Earth, and answered, "We don't like Mars! We don't want to live there! We'll take Earth!" Maybe it was just a silly translation, but it felt so petty and irrational, this civilization of bug people who could easily avoid conflict by just taking an empty planet, but decide they want to fight humanity instead because they think Earth looks more fun. And another killer design to boot!

...I don't need to explain why Camearra is on this list, right? We all know why she's here, right? Right. Moving on.

I feel the original Mephilas design is kind of at odds with his characterization - he's too cute and cuddly looking! But Shin Mephilas really hits a good spot for me, still recognizable but a bit more sinister for a faustian tempter figure.

Jamilla is one of the most tragic kaiju in all of Ultra canon, and has a suitably messed up design to match. It's like if Belial from Basket Case was built to play basketball.

Finally, let's end with Veron, the alcoholic kaiju who is defeated in part by what I think might be a 1960's Japanese meme?

[jbirdoftheriverlands]

Thoughts on AI?

I've written at least a grimoire and a half in the last two years in the form of a dataset to make my grimoire into a bot that talks without the need for retrieval augmented generation. Also falcon4 3b is more impressive than deepseekr1 for the way it infers against complex logic more accurately than some 7b+ param models (looking at you, gemma 9b) but no one listens to witches. Also if you decide to finetune one don't overlook gradient accumulation as a tunable hyperparameter, and don't assume a higher learning rate is always better, with a 2b parameter SLM and ~22,000,000 tuneable neurons in peft, I get better fits from 2e-5 than anything, training for 3 epochs. lowering the learning rate a bit and boosting gradient accumulation if you have none of it can sometimes mean the difference between a run that won't converge at all and one that more or less slides over the curves like a goddamn silk nighty. Also dataset design and function engineering is actually everything but no one listens to witches. Prune and heal is *also* everything but no one listens to witches. Chatgpt has never been state of the art in optimization or resource usage, and does not represent the entire field of machine learning as such, name a problem with AI, there's an open model somewhere that's already fixed it, but no one listens to witches. Biggest problem with people is they're afraid of anything they don't already perfectly understand, and they're too freaked out to engage the part of the brain that reads documentation, but no one. listens. to witches.

Mostly I just wish people that burn a hole through the planet lipsyncing in their kitchens on tiktok would stop showing up to tell people programming machine learning models we're destroying the ecosystem when we've had single gpu, zero gpu training for like... two years now? We can literally finetune on desktops. or a single gpu. They think programming an AI means giving their fanfic to chatgpt. Meanwhile they act like puritans walking in on a fisting orgy if you so much as mention a language model cuz they think "AI" means openai and base all their opinions (on what the fuck *I'm* doing? For some reason?) on poorly researched headlines from 2 years ago. 30 gallons of water per question, they'll say. Doesn't matter that that was never accurate, and even if it was for chatgpt, (wasnt tho) it sure as fuck isn't for an SLM.

I really wish I was a bastard,tbh, they're so dumb. somebody should really be scamming them. I don't have time, but, someone should. I would like for them to suffer in exchange for making the discourse about ai 99% superstitious virtue signaling autofellatio and 0.0001 percent things that are actually true because some of us are nerds and we program for fun and that means when a system drops we fingerbang that. they're posting on tiktok literally heating entire server farms for algorithmically assured likes. I'll tell you one thing, my carbon footprint is a damn sight smaller than these mfkrs that buzz around piling on to spit long disproven "facts" about a technology they fear too much to correct themselves about. "watch the video to the end" they say. "it helps the algorithm" they say. "AI is destroying the planet" they say, like their aren't levels to the shit. Cuz we all know high definition video streaming doesn't even require a gpu, you can totally encode 4k with like two stanley cups and a pair of entangled photons. or so they seem to think. dumbasses.

[aquillis-main]

XDAmz, this shit is why I keep on calling you a 'IDW Stan'. You constantly act like the people who don't like the comic that have OCs are absolute trash, and never go beyond the surface level in order to make your narrative the 'true' narrative. You lie, mock, and deride people while hiding on your Twitter account, praising the IDW cast for their poorly thought-out and derivative designs.

Then again, you and your 'buddy' mocked my oc, when 1) he looks nothing like Eggman, 2) I actually changed his entire character to be as away as Eggman as much as possible, and 3) Ovi isn't his birth name. It's Julian.

Then again, that would require you to do research. And you HATE research.

Also, in that particular ask, I didn't even claim that Ovi was 'better' you absolute dumbass. You made that shit up.

Stop fucking lying, and delete your account. You creepy stalker.

[thetruearchmagos]

To Any Dutch Readers...

or anyone interested in the Cold War era make up of the dutch military, I just found this nifty little resource while doing some entirely disconnected research! Damn, the shit you find on weird, poorly designed websites from fuck knows when...

I feel like I should tag people???

@thatndginger @athenswrites @caxycreations @theprissythumbelina