#how to benchmark a game

[wackywatchdotcom]

man, i have to go do something in a minute here, but i am CONSTANTLY think about like... how long DOES the average circus member last before they abstract?

we dont have a lot of information about the passage of time in general in the show (which is infinitely painful to me, who likes to know about technical details very in-depth. but i understand writing wise why its like this) other than that the first 4 episodes take place over the span of 4(? or 5, depending on how you interpret the ending scene of episode 4) (which this also intrigues me that 8-9 days will pass over the course of the show... and also makes me curious about just how eventful the average day truly is in the circus!) days and that everyone in the circus has likely been here for at MINIMUM 2 years

(i say that because jax says "weve been stuck here for years" which implies that all of the people there at the time have been there for more than one year and because of the plural years, a minimum of 2. maybe. he also could just be oversimplifying things but unless given reason to think otherwise im interpretting the line this way)

we know of a at least ~18 people whove been in the circus total, but i frankly think its more than that. we know ribbit abstracted before kaufmo, but we dont know when ribbit joined the circus, or how much time was between these

it also depends on how long you think the circus members have been trapped for. i personally think this has been going on for at minimum 10 years (i have my own hcs abt it being ~16 years, but thats just hc and based on a bunch of my interpretations of random details) but we dont really know this, and how long this has been happening, and how long kingers been here, and whether or not kinger has or hasnt been here the longest of anyone whos ever been in the circus

like if its been like 5 years thatd mean like... 3-4 people join the circus each year (on average). if its 10 years thatd mean 1-2 people join the circus each year (on average). and we dont even know how many people the circus has in it at one time on avg!! like theres the theory it floats around 6, but thats just a theory and not smth we know for sure. point being, we dont even know how often people join the circus and that effects a LOT of things

idk..... i guess the question really is 'how often can a person last in the circus before they literally cannot take it anymore' which is a much sadder question. we dont even know how long ago queenie abstracted, or ribbit abstracted. did zooble know ribbit? did ribbit get here before or after zooble did??

it just haunts me a little

[shroudkeeper]

After ten years of playing this game, it is awesome to see how much they have developed and changed the MMO landscape. Dawntrail is possibly my last expac, but I am glad I have stuck around to see a game that was nearly shelved come back to life - and to be a part of that! I come from FFXI, and if you are a vet of that game you already know how difficult of an MMO that was at times to earn money, to keep from delevel, or even travel from one point to another. It made it super engrossing though despite how much time it took to do things.

That is the reason I sort of stayed away from 1.0 because I wasn't sure if I could devote time to this like I did in my early 20s - but ARR lured me in and I have been playing since. I will miss this game the stories I created and what the dev team has woven for us, and the friends I made throughout my adventures exploring the world and wonderful tales, but I am excited to see these graphic updates, the new stories, and the beautiful music they will provide to us.

[tiredassmage]

you know i had to do it to 'im.

also to publicly immortalize that i've begun reading the viper job shorthand (vpr) as 'veeper' and i cannot be stopped.

[fortune-maiden]

I will be first person to admit I don't know much about game specs or gaming pcs or what makes a game too much for previous gen consoles

but aren't the pc system requirements for Digimon Story Time Stranger kinda low for a current gen game? ':/

[jcmarchi]

Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail Benchmark Software Lets You Test PC Performance And Create A Character Before Launch

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/final-fantasy-xiv-dawntrail-benchmark-software-lets-you-test-pc-performance-and-create-a-character-before-launch/

Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail Benchmark Software Lets You Test PC Performance And Create A Character Before Launch

Final Fantasy XIV’s next expansion, Dawntrail, arrives this summer alongside the game’s first graphical update. As such, Square Enix has released a new benchmark software to let PC players test how well their machines will handle these new bells and whistles while getting a small head start on Dawntrail.

Available as a free download for Windows, the benchmark software uses playable characters and actual maps to assign a performance score to your PC. This will provide a peek at the new graphical update, which spruces up the game with enhanced textures, shadows, material qualities, and other elements. You can download the benchmark here. 

The benchmark includes a character creator for players to craft a fresh hero ahead of Dawntrail’s launch. It also includes access to the new female Hrothgar race. Existing characters can also be imported into the benchmark, and the appearance data from these characters can be imported into the full release of Dawntrail on Windows. 

Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail launches on July 2. You can learn more about the expansion here. The game currently has a crossover event with Final Fantasy XVI that runs until May 8

[livingfandomly]

This is something I’ve seen a lot and I’ve also joked about a lot but after SotR I just need to clarify my actual thoughts on this topic: Snow’s “twink death” and his inability to let go of, what was essentially, a month long relationship.

The thing is, it’s not Lucy Gray that he’s holding a grudge against… it’s her lifestyle. He got to experience first hand, the freedom and self-assurance that groups like the Covey generated for themselves. He saw Lucy Gray run off into the woods, swim in a lake, sing and dance with her peers, all after a game that should’ve destroyed her spirits - because that is the point of the Games. To have a sole surviving reminder of why the Capitol is in control. To send back one “victor” who every district hates because the person standing in front of them is taking their friend/child/sibling/cousin/partner’s spot. To completely dismantle that person’s ability to cope with the world the way they used to and to have them beholden to the Capitol for “awarding” them with riches. They’re supposed to serve only as a reminder, a threat, a shell of a person who is visibly hollow and tarnished, hated by many, feared by some and pitied by few.

Lucy Gray is not that shell. Lucy Gray, therefore, serves as a constant reminder to Snow of what should not be happening to those who get to leave the arena. The more he takes command of the Capitol and the Games, the more the “mistakes” of the Games stand out to him because his benchmark for measuring them is Lucy Gray.

Keep in mind that the 10th Games were also the first time he got to see from the inside out. He saw what pissed off the tributes. He saw how they were transported. He also saw how the public reacted at the home district. Lucy Gray had nightmares, sure, but her ability to re-mingle with her friends was a failure of the Capitol. He saw the need to maintain a constant difference between “victor” and “friend”. He saw the need to put them on tours so that the divide and distance grows. He saw the need to be able to broadcast every aspect of the Games without having to constantly be frantically cutting the feed or very obviously fixing the narrative, because that was yet another failure of the system the Capitol was trying to enforce.

This becomes so clear in SotR when he has his talk with Haymitch and realises that the Lucy Gray spirit he has been trying to squash is still alive. Not only that, it’s infectious. It can take someone like Haymitch, someone who is very well pressed under the Capitol thumb, and spark a fire inside him. The colours of the Covey, the singing, it doesn’t just represent Lucy Gray, it represents aspects of freedom that shouldn’t exist. Even him saying:

“You love her. And oh, how she seems to love you. Except sometimes you wonder because her plans don’t seem to include you at all.”

Is so telling because he can’t fathom that a person in the districts could have the independence of thought to do whatever they want. To him, she should be desperate to go back to the Capitol with Snow to get a chance to live the dream that they’re trying so hard to sell, but obviously failing.

So no, Lucy Gray isn’t just the girl he couldn’t get over. She’s the girl that serves as a warning, as an abomination of the purpose of the Capitol. As his personal blueprint of what should not be repeated ever again.

[prokopetz]

I actually appreciate it when video games with low-fi pixel art pointedly don't provide official refs for what the characters "really" look like, because I like to see exactly how scrungly the fanartists decide to make them without an arbitrary benchmark to skew their sensibilities.

[dilf-hunter-fantasies]

[900 words of fluff and cock worship]

daydreaming about…

Older boyfriend Joel who is so patient and tender with you. He slips out of the bedroom without turning on a light in the mornings, not wanting to disturb your sleep. But he never forgets to press a gentle kiss to your forehead, murmuring something sweet, before he leaves.

And on the weekends it’s the same. Except he comes back in an hour or two, just to leave a coffee on the nightstand for you. Doting without smothering, or risking your morning attitude.

Some days you don’t wake up until you smell the earthy coffee, steam still swirling from the mug. But most of the time he barely makes it to the doorway before you croak out a quiet, “Wait.”

“Come here,” you lilt in your rich timbered morning voice, stretching your arms toward him. It never gets old to him, no, he thinks it’s one of the sweetest sounds he’s ever heard. One of the most heavenly sights.

You can only grin lazily at him. Your gaze drags down, over his handsome smile, over the rippling muscles of his chest and arms under his worn tee, and skimming over the bulge in his loose sweats.

You scoot toward the middle of the bed, hold up the cover, inviting him into the warmth you’ve been nestled in. He climbs in and scoops you onto the broad plane of his chest.

“Morning, pretty girl,” he rumbles beneath you, voice deep as the ocean. It’s so serene to be in his strong arms. Nobody has ever grounded you like this, anchored you, physically and emotionally.

It’s not that being older makes him smarter or wiser than you, rather, he’s the first to brag about your accomplishments or support your goals. It’s the way that time has taught him gratitude.

Joel is present with you. So alive. Flesh and blood, warm and firm. He’s not in a rush, not sacrificing his energy chasing benchmarks or brushing you off to prove something.

He’s there with you.

Sometimes he just holds you in a peaceful quiet. You listen to his breathing and his heartbeat. Until the sun gets higher in the sky and the world comes to life.

But most of the time you can’t resist wiggling your hips against him and biting your lip. Fucking with him, just until you feel his dick start to stir.

Joel’s heart flutters at your breathy giggles, but when your laughter is cut off with a gasp, the heat rushes lower. He likes the game you play, always teasing him and acting surprised at how fiercely he wants you. How badly he needs you. It never takes long before he’s rock hard, straining against his sweats, precum leaving a little dark patch against the soft material between you.

Sometimes everything stays slow and syrupy, just grinding and rubbing against each other until Joel can’t take it anymore. Until he has to roll you over so he can sink into your soft, warm cunt. Sometimes you take turns spoiling each other with greedy hands and mouths until you’re both sweating and sticking to each other.

But sometimes you do this thing that sends him right over the edge. You sit up and perch your ass on the meat of his thighs, far enough down that you can pull at his waistband freeing his throbbing cock. The way you grin just playing with it makes him dizzy.

You’re so fucking hot without even trying.

You’re always fascinated by his dick, hard or soft.

Always amused with the bounce it makes when you let go of his shaft and the weight makes it slap against his lower belly. You like the mess of it, the precum that beads, and rolls from his slit, the string of it connecting to the dark hair on his stomach. You’re easily infatuated by the heat of his length in your palm, the silky smooth skin, the veins and the angry red tip. The lust on your face is unmistakable.

Joel could cum just seeing the ardor in your eyes and the greedy way you wet your lips. But then, matching his gaze and lowering your body, you lick a hot, wet stripe from base to tip. His entire body shudders, overwhelmed with the heavenly bliss.

When you finally envelop him in the wet furnace of your mouth, he’s on another planet, groaning and praising you, encouraging you with a massive palm wrapped around the back of your head. Completely at your mercy, he’ll do anything you want. You get him so blissed out he’s nearly incoherent.

He rarely lasts long enough to fuck you properly on those mornings. But when you finally let him get his hands between your legs he could nearly cum a second time just feeling how wet you are.

Drenched.

So absurdly turned on, he barely gets to sink his thick digits inside of you before you’re gasping and crying out his name. But you love it. Nobody has ever made you burn with such intensity and ache with such desire.

And he’s generous. Joel never stops until you’re tugging at his wrist, pulling his arm away as you tremble and spasm.

And some days when you come back to yourself and find yourself staring into his deep brown eyes you think you’d like to spend your mornings like this for the rest of your life.

🍒 🌸

click here for more of my writing

[ecrivainsolitaire]

A summary of the Chinese AI situation, for the uninitiated.

These are scores on different tests that are designed to see how accurate a Large Language Model is in different areas of knowledge. As you know, OpenAI is partners with Microsoft, so these are the scores for ChatGPT and Copilot. DeepSeek is the Chinese model that got released a week ago. The rest are open source models, which means everyone is free to use them as they please, including the average Tumblr user. You can run them from the servers of the companies that made them for a subscription, or you can download them to install locally on your own computer. However, the computer requirements so far are so high that only a few people currently have the machines at home required to run it.

Yes, this is why AI uses so much electricity. As with any technology, the early models are highly inefficient. Think how a Ford T needed a long chimney to get rid of a ton of black smoke, which was unused petrol. Over the next hundred years combustion engines have become much more efficient, but they still waste a lot of energy, which is why we need to move towards renewable electricity and sustainable battery technology. But that's a topic for another day.

As you can see from the scores, are around the same accuracy. These tests are in constant evolution as well: as soon as they start becoming obsolete, new ones are released to adjust for a more complicated benchmark. The new models are trained using different machine learning techniques, and in theory, the goal is to make them faster and more efficient so they can operate with less power, much like modern cars use way less energy and produce far less pollution than the Ford T.

However, computing power requirements kept scaling up, so you're either tied to the subscription or forced to pay for a latest gen PC, which is why NVIDIA, AMD, Intel and all the other chip companies were investing hard on much more powerful GPUs and NPUs. For now all we need to know about those is that they're expensive, use a lot of electricity, and are required to operate the bots at superhuman speed (literally, all those clickbait posts about how AI was secretly 150 Indian men in a trenchcoat were nonsense).

Because the chip companies have been working hard on making big, bulky, powerful chips with massive fans that are up to the task, their stock value was skyrocketing, and because of that, everyone started to use AI as a marketing trend. See, marketing people are not smart, and they don't understand computers. Furthermore, marketing people think you're stupid, and because of their biased frame of reference, they think you're two snores short of brain-dead. The entire point of their existence is to turn tall tales into capital. So they don't know or care about what AI is or what it's useful for. They just saw Number Go Up for the AI companies and decided "AI is a magic cow we can milk forever". Sometimes it's not even AI, they just use old software and rebrand it, much like convection ovens became air fryers.

Well, now we're up to date. So what did DepSeek release that did a 9/11 on NVIDIA stock prices and popped the AI bubble?

Oh, I would not want to be an OpenAI investor right now either. A token is basically one Unicode character (it's more complicated than that but you can google that on your own time). That cost means you could input the entire works of Stephen King for under a dollar. Yes, including electricity costs. DeepSeek has jumped from a Ford T to a Subaru in terms of pollution and water use.

The issue here is not only input cost, though; all that data needs to be available live, in the RAM; this is why you need powerful, expensive chips in order to-

Holy shit.

I'm not going to detail all the numbers but I'm going to focus on the chip required: an RTX 3090. This is a gaming GPU that came out as the top of the line, the stuff South Korean LoL players buy…

Or they did, in September 2020. We're currently two generations ahead, on the RTX 5090.

What this is telling all those people who just sold their high-end gaming rig to be able to afford a machine that can run the latest ChatGPT locally, is that the person who bought it from them can run something basically just as powerful on their old one.

Which means that all those GPUs and NPUs that are being made, and all those deals Microsoft signed to have control of the AI market, have just lost a lot of their pulling power.

Well, I mean, the ChatGPT subscription is 20 bucks a month, surely the Chinese are charging a fortune for-

Oh. So it's free for everyone and you can use it or modify it however you want, no subscription, no unpayable electric bill, no handing Microsoft all of your private data, you can just run it on a relatively inexpensive PC. You could probably even run it on a phone in a couple years.

Oh, if only China had massive phone manufacturers that have a foot in the market everywhere except the US because the president had a tantrum eight years ago.

So… yeah, China just destabilised the global economy with a torrent file.

[kroosluvr]

present day

if every day will be like this from now on, i'll look forward to every single one.

ok. Sits down. help meeee i tried using csp's comic tools for once (and also gradient maps + coloring w monochrome) to save time bUT I ENDED UP SPENDING THE USUAL AMT ANYWAY SO. . erm. WELL IT WAS FUN ANYWAYS

hiiiiiiiii i wrote this script 4 months ago nd finally did it (had this on the backburner for 20 million yrs bc i wanted to get out other angst bullshit first)

the parallels of goro's back (x3) on the first 2 pgs are kinda not 1:1 as i'd like but REGARDLESS i still like them. goro, who had utmost control over his life, running it like a machine, regardless of how he feels or if he's tired or if he wants to give up.......he was in control. knowing, of course, that his life is on the line at every waking moment, but since he was always on edge, always alert, he was still in control.

but now, surviving the long winter and coming out to the other side, he's lost that control AND that edge. now what is he left with? what is there left?

very speficially in the 2nd page.... i think its so <3 YAY <3 that goro, now, doesn't feel the need to take such spic-and-span clean-cut care of his appearance.., guy who rolls out of bed and throws on a shirt to go hangout w akira and sumire. he decides to tie up his hair and forgoes his gloves... feels more "comfortable" to change his apperance, to let down his guard a little. <- was the rough symbolism JKDSHKFS

sumire getting the choco croissant but letting goro have the first bite YEAHHHH WHATEVER

4th page symbolism is also rough i didnt think abt it too hard LMAO. 3rdsem goro watching his detective prince self leave. he knows acutely well that chapter of his life is over - whether he survives the long winter or dies in it. all that he knew - even though it was miserable and awful and frustrating and dangerous - is gone.

and now there's just this: the present day. whatever that means.

i think something important to me abt royal trio is just the idea of Learning To Just Exist: no need for a "purpose" or a "calling" or some overarching "goal". they just learn to exist.

and of course none of them really have a benchmark for "wow i like this i want to live like this" so they just roll with the punches, as they always have, but yknow. finally getting to live their honest student life as they always deserved

edit: and most importantly for goro, i think, is learning to cut himself some slack. "despite everything" he says, despite all the shit he's endured AND all the shit he's done, he feels like this is "right." whatever that means, he's ready to take it day by day to figure it out. AND THATS THE WHOLE THING Punches wall really hard

edit: I ALSO FORGOT. i think the sentiment of "being waited for" for goro means a lot. since he had to do everything by himself, fight for himself, decide everything for himself frm such a young age, the idea of akira and sumire waiting for him, inviting him out simply for him to be there -> is really meaningful to him, more than they could know.

edit AGAIN: also goro sleeping in means a lot to me. i imagine that guy has pretty terrible insomnia. ALSO HE HAS A BEDFRAME! i like the thought of his apartment being so /r/malelivingspaces throughout the game. he doesn’t deserve a bedframe. BUT HE HAS ONE NOW!

goros expressions in the last page gve me a hard time. sparkly....

also im SO freaking sorry if his voice isnt too well-written... i had a crisis over the wording while draiwng htis so much DSKHASKDASJK AND THE PANELING AND WHATEVERRR IDEK WHAT IM DOINGGG but it was fun!!!! exploratory..... regardless i will keep workign to do him and royaltrio justice. THUMBSUP EMOJI.

[hopelesslyprosaic]

A Different Kind of Queen of Crime- five ways that Dorothy L Sayers changed the way we see Sherlock Holmes

For my first Holmesian post- a crossover with one of my more usual subjects on my other blog! For when one is talking about Sherlock Holmes, in particular Sherlock Holmes scholarship, there are nor many more pivotal names than Dorothy L Sayers. Sure, Christopher Morley may have had a greater impact on Sherlockian culture, and Richard Lancelyn Green on Holmesian scholarship, to name only a few- but Sayers's contributions to scholarship and "the game" were early and underratedly pivotal.

If you're a Sherlock Holmes fan who is unfamiliar with Sayers's influence, or a Sayers fan who had no idea she had any interest in Holmes, keep reading! (And if you're a Sherlock Holmes fan who wants to know what I think about Sayers, check out her tag on my main blog, @o-uncle-newt. Or, more to the point, just read her fantastic books.)

There's a great compilation of Sayers's writing and lecturing on the topic of Holmes called Sayers on Holmes (published by the Mythopoeic Press in 2001), though some of her essays are also available in her collection Unpopular Opinions, which is where I first encountered them. It's not THAT extensive, and it's from an era in which Sherlock Holmes scholarship, such as it was, was still very much nascent. While a lot may have happened since Sayers was writing and talking about Holmes, she got there early and she made an immediate impact- and here's how:

She helped create and define Sherlockian scholarship: Don't take this from me, take it from the legendary Richard Lancelyn Green! At a joint conference of the Sherlock Holmes Society and Dorothy L Sayers Society, he said that "Dorothy L. Sayers understood better than anyone before her the way of playing the game and her Sherlockian scholarship gave credibility and humor to this intellectual pursuit. Her standing as an authority on the art of detective fiction and as a major practitioner invigorated the scholarship, and her...Holmesian research is the benchmark by which other works are judged. It would be fair to say, as Watson said of Irene Adler, that for Sherlockians she is the woman and that …she 'eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex.'" We'll go into a bit more detail on some specific examples below, but one important one is that, as Green notes, Sayers was not only a mystery writer but an acknowledged authority on mystery fiction, whose (magisterial) introduction to The Omnibus of Crime, a then-groundbreaking history of the genre of mystery fiction, included a highly regarded section on the influence of Holmes on mystery fiction. She was able to write not just literate detective stories but literate critiques of others' stories and the genre (as collected in the excellent volume Taking Detective Stories Seriously), and as such, the writing she did on Holmes was well received.

She cofounded the (original iteration of) the Sherlock Holmes Society of London: While the current iteration of the Society lists itself as having been founded in 1951, a previous iteration existed through the 1930s, founded as a response to the creation of the Baker Street Irregulars in New York and run by a similar concept- the meeting of Sherlock Holmes fans every so often for dinner at a restaurant. Sayers, who seems to have been much more clubbable than Mycroft Holmes, helped run the Detection Club on corresponding lines as well. (Fun fact, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was invited to be the first president of the Detection Club! However, he refused on grounds of poor health and, either right before or right after he died, the Detection Club met for the first time with GK Chesterton as president.) While the 1930s society didn't last, and Sayers didn't decide to join the newly reconstituted club in 1951, her presence from the beginning was key to the establishment of Holmesian scholarship.

She helped define The Game: Sayers didn't invent The Game, as the use of Higher Criticism in the study of Sherlock Holmes came to be called. (The Game now often refers to something a bit broader than that, but it's a pretty solid working definition to say that it is the study of Holmes stories as though they took place in, and can be reconciled with, our world.) Her friend Father Ronald Knox largely invented it almost by accident- as Sayers described it, he wrote that first essay "with the aim of showing that, by those methods [Higher Criticism], one could disintegrate a modern classic as speciously as a certain school of critics have endeavoured to disintegrate the Bible." This exercise backfired, as instead of finding this analysis of Holmes stories silly, people found it compelling and engaging- and this style of Sherlockian writing lives on to this day in multiple journals. Sayers, with her interest in religious scholarship as well as Holmes, was well equipped to both understand Knox's original motivations as well as to carry on in the spirit in which further Game players would take his work, as we'll see. She also wrote the line that would come to define the tone used in The Game- that it "must be played as solemnly as a county cricket match at Lord's; the slightest touch of extravagance or burlesque ruins the atmosphere." While comedic takes on The Game would never vanish, her establishment of tone has lingered, and pretty much any in-depth explanation of The Game will include her insightful comment.

Some of Sayers's ideas became definitional: Here's a question- what's John Watson's middle name? If you said "Hamish," guess what- you should be thanking Dorothy L Sayers. (When this middle name was used for Watson in the BBC Sherlock episode The Sign of Three, articles explaining its use generally didn't bother to credit her, instead saying that "some believe" or a variation on that.) She was the one who speculated that the reason why a) Watson's middle initial is H and b) Mary Morstan Watson calls Watson "James" instead of "John" in one story is because Watson's middle name is Hamish, a Scottish variant of James, with Mary's use of James being an intimate pet name based on this nickname. It's as credible as any other explanation for that question, but more than that it became by far the most popular middle name for Watson used in fan media. Others of Sayers's ideas include that Watson only ever married twice, with his comments about experience with women over four continents being just a lot of bluster and him really being a faithful romantic who married the first woman he really fell for (the aim of this essay being to demolish HW Bell's theory of a marriage to an unknown woman between Mary Morstan and the unnamed woman Watson married in 1903, mentioned by Holmes in The Blanched Soldier); that Holmes attended Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge (she denied that he could have attended Oxford, having gone there herself- fascinatingly, Holmesians who went to Cambridge usually assert that he attended Oxford! Conan Doyle of course attended neither school); and reconciling dates in canon (making the case that one cannot base a claim for Watson's mixing up on dates on poor handwriting as demonstrated in canonical documents, as it is clear from the similarity of different handwriting samples from different people/stories that they were written, presumably transcribed for publication purposes, by a copyist).

She wrote one of the only good Holmes pastiches: Okay, fine, I'm unusually anti-pastiche, and genuinely do like very few of them, but this is one that I love- and even more than that, it's even a Wimsey crossover! On January 8 1954, to commemorate the occasion of Holmes's 100th birthday (because, of course, he was born on January 6 1854- Sayers was more in favor of an 1853 birthdate but thought 1854 was acceptable), the BBC commissioned a bunch of pieces for the radio, including one by Sayers. You can read it here (with thanks to @copperbadge for posting it, it's shockingly hard to find online), and I think you'll agree it's adorable. The idea of Holmes and Wimsey living in the same world is wonderful, the way she makes it work is impeccable, and it's clearly done with so much love. Also you get baby Peter, which is just incredibly sweet!

I got into Dorothy L Sayers, in the long run, because I loved Sherlock Holmes from childhood and that later launched me into early and golden age mysteries- but it was discovering Sayers that brought me back full force into the world of Holmes. Just an awesome lady.

[tricitymonsters]

IT'S TCM'S 1 YEAR ANNIVERSARY!

One year ago today, TCM went live on Steam and Itch! Because of your support and enthusiasm, TCM continues to grow and develop, reaching a bigger audience every day. I couldn't do this without you and I want to give a special shout-out to all of the generous and wonderful patrons, itch donors, and soundtrack purchasers for their kindness in supporting the development of this game. I also cannot overstate how grateful I am to have a Discord full of engaged community members and a Tumblr askbox absolutely overflowing with messages that I wish I could spend all day answering. Y'all's excitement is infectious, and it makes all the hard work and uncertainty of indie game development worthwhile.

I'd like to leave you with some general benchmarks to highlight TCM's reach over the past year as a direct result of yall engaging and talking about the game :)

~20k Steam Downloads + ~1k Wishlists

Very Positive rating with 62 (!!!) positive reviews

~30k Itch Downloads

In 5827 user curated Itch collections

275 Ratings with an average Rating of 4.61

Played by multiple Youtubers

TCM Bluesky and Tumblr both broke 1k followers

ANYWAY!! Please enjoy this pinup my pal @majimasleftasscheek did to commemorate the occasion. I think Akello's the only one getting anything done as the concept of Cleaning Things still evades Amir.

[justafewberries]

district 12 is in a population decline by the time we meet Katniss, and I don't think it would have lasted another 100 years.

In the first book, she states the population is "about" 8000.

The square’s quite large, but not enough to hold District 12’s population of about eight thousand.

Let's stick it directly at 8,000. That's a small population, but there are other factors that harm both the life expectancy and fertility of d12 citizens:

Dangers of Coal Mining

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

The rate of fatal injuries in the coal mining industry in 2007 was 24.8 per 100,000 full- time equivalent worker

While some sources claim this number has declined over the past two decades and excludes private company deaths, it still offers a useful benchmark. Coal mining is one of the most dangerous professions in the modern USA. In Panem, it's worse.

We know of two major accidents within about 25 years of each other (mine fire and mine explosion), which leads me to believe the death rate is much higher. We also know that mining accidents occur through Ripper's loss of an arm, and black lung likely still exists.

In a population of 8,000, the risks of mine labor labor would damage the population count a lot more than a population of, say, 100,000.

Coal Mining and Fertility

Studies have found that coal dust pollution can affect both birth weight of babies and sperm count in men, whether they work directly in the mines or not.

In a study done at Sambalpur University, the researchers found "a significant decline in semen volume, seminal viscosity without any significant difference between the ages in the subjects working more than 10 years in coal mines."

Male coal workers were significantly less fertile after working 10 years regardless of age.

In another study in Appalachia, researchers found that births that occurred within 5 km of an active coal mining site often resulted in lower birth weight.

In a study from Brazil, researchers sound that air pollution from coal mines led to low birth weight and even preterm deliveries.

Interestingly, this is canon in the Hunger Games. We know Haymitch's sisters were born pre-term, so this introduces another potential factor of population decline.

By the time people are 18, they are immediately put to work in the mines (as we see with Gale and Wyatt Callow). This means by 28, their fertility has likely greatly reduced. It also puts them at a higher risk for injuries or death. They all also live in the vicinity of an active mine, so their fertility rates may be damaged from the moment they're born, not just when they start working in the mines.

Starvation and Fertility

The overwhelming majority of studies conclude that malnutrition affects fertility. We know that in d12, starvation is one of the number one killers. There simply isn't enough food.

In Catching Fire, we get a general idea of how bad it is:

One day when I dropped by to give Hazelle the game, Vick was home sick with a bad cough. Being part of Gale's family, the kid has to eat better than ninety percent of the rest of District 12. But he still spent about fifteen minutes talking about how they'd opened a can of corn syrup from Parcel Day and each had a spoonful on bread and were going to maybe have more later in the week.

With coal mining being a physical labor, they are likely burning more calories than they are taking in. The government may offer maternity leave, but it wouldn't necessarily provide for the extra calories a woman would need to sustain a healthy weight for the fetus.

Further, accidents, starvation, pollution, and sicknesses remove support systems from people who do plan to have children. Haymitch talks about his Maw, but people may not have family to rely on. With rampant poverty and no discussed childcare, it would be difficult to raise a child under such conditions.

Mortality of Youth & Reproductive Age

The Hunger Games themselves are responsible for two deaths of d12 children per year. This means two children a year will never be able to have kids of their own.

Further, the children starve. We don't know how many die of starvation, but we know it happens, meaning some of the 8,000 people may never even make it to child-bearing age, regardless of if they even want kids of their own.

Social Stigma

Having children outside of a family is never really discussed outside of Haymitch's observation about a peacekeeper baby:

Once in a blue moon a Seam girl falls for a Peacekeeper and ends up with a baby, resulting in plenty of social disapproval in 12 as well.

We don't explicitly know if the disapproval stems from it being out of wedlock or the baby being a peacekeeper's, or both. In either case, it likely contributes to low wedlock birth rates.

We also know that Peeta insisted that they had the toasting before Katniss fell "pregnant". Leading me to believe there is a more conservative view of children and wedlock in Panem.

Modern Medicine and Prenatal Care

There is minimal electricity in d12, meaning there likely isn't technology for ultrasounds or blood work or anything like that. Asterid seems to be the only healer in d12 in the trilogy, and she pretty much closed up shop. There may be midwives, but they wouldn't have the medicine, vitamins, and prenatal care modern medicine provides, which would increase both mother and baby fatalities.

Stability Factors & Gene Pool

In SOTR, it's established there are many distant cousins. Burdock on Lenore Dove's mother's side, the Chances on her father's side, etc. There are large, branching families.

Beyond familial relationships, there is no influx of diverse genes. There is no immigration in Panem, meaning the gene pool they had 74 years ago is the same gene pool they have in the first book. With a declining population, it doesn't bode well for people not having a common ancestor somewhere up the line.

Smaller gene pools mean higher rates of birth defects, chronic diseases, etc.

Potential Growth Factors

The government does provide some incentives to have children.

Katniss equates marriage with kids, claiming she doesn't plan to get married, and often brings up kids in the same thought.

The married couples are given their own houses, likely to encourage alone time, and tesserae may promote people having more kids to bring in more rations, although, they would have to account for another mouth to feed.

Impoverished areas tend to have higher birth rates in modern America. The average birth rate in below poverty areas tends to be about 73 births per 1,000 women.

It's safe to assume about a 50/50 split in d12. Both men and women work in the mines, so accidents would not proportionally take out any more of one gender than the other. This leaves us with 4,000 women in d12. Currently, about 78% of people in the US are over 18. For the sake of available data, we will make the reproductive age 18 (ignoring teen pregnancies). This means of those 4,000 women, approximately 3,120 of them are above 18.

We know it is rare to "grow old" from Katniss's perspective, so to account for that, I will reduce the percentage of people over 50 (49 is the cap for reproductive age according to the WHO), from 34% down to 20%, or 1/5 of the district. This is an arbitrary reduction, but seeing as how Greasy Sae and Clerk Carmine are both indicated to be close to 75, I think it's fair to assume 1/5 of the population could reach 50. Now, this further reduces the "women of birthing age" pool by 800 women, from 3,120 to 2,320.

Effectively, that means approximately 169 births a year.

That sounds like a lot of births for a small district, but not all of those children will live (lower birth rate, premature births, starvation), not all will be able to reproduce (fertility issues, lower gene pool effects, and personal desire), and not all will make it to the age where they could even try (reaping, starvation, etc.).

Conclusion

District 12 has more factors of a population in decline than it does growth or even stability. High mortality rates across demographics, impaired fertility, pollution, malnutrition, and isolationism have all likely decimated any population growth. This doesn't even account for sterilizing illnesses, such as the one encountered in d13.

Without external intervention or a dramatic shift in conditions, I don't think District 12 could have continued for another century.

[hulknussen]

Something that has gone largely unnoticed by the wider community is how absolutely lethal of a combination haas with nico and kevin specifically is. don't get me wrong, haas has been on an amazing upwards trajectory, and ayao has been transforming the team. but that does not mean there are no issues. they have huge holes specifically in strategy and tyre wear that, thankfully, nico and kevin have been able to patch over.

we know that nico is amazing at tyre management and overdriving his cars. we see it every saturday in qualifying, really. but he's what I have filed away as a nervous driver in my head. he qualifies well and then bottles his starts. he runs in p3 and makes stupid, stupid mistakes. he gives up battles too quickly.

kevin on the other hand is really good at defending and overtaking. he doesn't have the most overtakes on the entire grid for the 2024 season for no reason. he didn't pull off jeddah for nothing. and he may not be able to get miracles out of the haas as nico can, but he does still drive it to the max.

nico has pointed out that the difference between them isn't as big as it's sometimes made out to be. that doesn't mean there isn't a difference. I do believe if you are looking for the raw race pace of the car you should look more at kev than nico, because nico feeds his cars crack and snorts a line of cocaine before getting in. he isn't the benchmark we should look at for '25, kevin is. the team is doing well, but there is still work to be done in 2025.

now, you can probably already see where this is going. being shit on the tyres is fine if you have a guy who could drive his tyres to the moon and back. of course, being good on the tyres would mean you could fight for higher positions and even podiums, but the below average performance from the team gets made up by the above average performance from nico to come out at, well, averages. p8's and p9's and so on.

and you can get away with fucking your driver over in strategy if he is just going to keep going, elbows out, and make his spots back up. if kevin will relentlessly continue fighting and driving like it's a win.

kevin is also a very late braker. his driving style looks, still, despite the years, very imprinted from his FR3/FR3.5 days (which as you may know was the series he competed in before making the jump to F1), where he is fast and late in the corners. this means he needs a stable and heavy rear to balance him and not send him flying into the person he is overtaking or the wall. what would cause understeer for others is a good set up for kevin.

here we get back to nico. nico is crazy adaptable. he's a bit older than kevin, and you can also see that in his driving. he went from GP2 to F1. the cars of the 2000s/late 2000s are a lot more aggressive than nowadays--which is why we saw a lot of the older drivers start to fall off around the 2018 mark. not all of them could adapt to this change. smoothness is the name of the game.

if you watch nico's race on boards, you'll find this smoothness, because he needs it to not wear his tyres. but for qualifying, and being quick over one lap pace, you want as much tyre grip as possible, and for that he reverts back to a more aggressive driving style. this isn't the norm. it took the rest of the pack that started around the time nico did or earlier time to adjust to the new car driving style because you don't just snap your fingers and switch that up. or, you know, you aren't supposed to.

apart from that, you will also find that nico tends to brake late, though not as much as kevin. it still means they do well with similar setups.

however, what this lead to, is that nico came into the team in 2023 to a car that was primarily set up after kevin. and they could just keep going with that, because nico can make all of his cars work. he can snap his fingers and feel around a bit and then he's back to his usual strengths and weaknesses. this is one of the parts that tends to go unnoticed, because realistically he doesn't have that many strengths beyond tyres and pace. we dont see this adaptability as the average viewer. beyond both of them being late brakers and carrying lots of speed in the corners, they can iron out the kinks for kevin. it's also a constellation he is used to, with checo also needing this rear in a heavy set up (and max doesn't, which is part of the reason we started seeing such gaps in their performance when the car started being shit. it was, at least, still set up for max, but not for checo).

we already know that their driving styles work together well; that nico is open to experimentation with setups; that kevin does well with the haas car because he has been their driver for six years. he has been with haas for six out of their eight years. they quite literally built this team and their cars around him. they need someone like nico who can deal with that, who doesn't need them to change up everything as they have done their entire time in the sport for him. it makes it comfortable for haas, because they are a small team, and they have budget issues. the more they can focus on upgrades and strategy, the better. they don't need to waste time on figuring out what works, because they know what kevin needs and can trust that nico will manage with it.

that's the car. at the end here I already started getting into it from a team dynamics perspective. kevin is incredibly loyal to them, and we know the team is to him (not talking about gunther, or even ayao/management. talking in the race engineers and mechanics sense). kevin brought them their first and only pole. haas stayed with him when everyone else seemed to have given up on him. we joked over it on this side of tumblr when it happened again in baku, but historically, haas does not do well without kevin. the team seems to basically fall apart. of course we can't know the specifics, how deep this actually runs, how much feedback he actually gives and how much of it is just coincidence and being used to him, so on and so forth. and it's not like this is impossible to fix, with time and effort. but it is something that is real.

there's also strategy. haas is shit at it, there's no better way of putting it. canada's brilliant wet tyre gamble and how badly they fumbled it. how often kevin is running well and then gets demoted to somewhere p13-p18 because someone on the wall fumbled it. but this is okay, because kevin and nico are both incredibly aware of the entire field. they are not as reliant on the team outside of when to pit. listening to their on boards is a steady drip of information, and I do mean both of them. they know the times of the three people behind and three in front, tyres of said people, how well they are doing on said tyres, who is boxing and when, where they are coming out, who they are going to be a threat to. all the stuff about covering someone with a pit stop, or not overworking the tyres now so that you can overtake x person later, kevin and nico do themselves. I know more about the rest of the field listening to haas onboard than to the broadcast. compare that to oscar's radio--which I put up in baku when kevin wasnt racing--there was dead silence. crickets. kevin and nico are incredibly aware of the rest of the field at all times. it is rare that it is ever silent on the radio for long.

haas is an incredibly fragile team, and they need this consistency and austerity to put in performances like we have been seeing over the past season.

but what does this mean for the future? well, it's not completely bleak. esteban seems to also prefer an understeer heavy style of driving, but I will admit to not being as familiar with him. either way, he shouldn't be completely out of familiar waters getting into a car that has been developed and set up around this style. and oliver seems adaptable enough, jumping from F2 to ferrari to haas and at least not dying in the process. he is also in a relearning period regardless of what team he is in, because he is moving up to F1 for the first time proper. he'll be able to learn things the haas way immediately.

the real kickers are going to be if haas will manage to iron out these issues that kevin and nico have been accounting for. yes, they should ideally improve upon their race pace some more, so that they can comfortably and consistency achieve those p10-p8 positions. but they need to figure out how to make their car sustainable on the tyres, and for god's sake fix their strategy.

that is the biggest issue I see at the moment, in strategy. I do not see rookie oliver bearman being able to cope with the overload of information haas is unloading on kevin and nico because it makes things easier for them. I have never listened to esteban's onboard, I don't know what that is like. even if all three of them, esteban and bearman and haas manage to adjust to each other (realistically we'll end somewhere in the middle, haas doing more of the heavy lifting themselves, but bearman and esteban still having to pick up the slack), this will take time. it won't be tomorrow. I don't even know if it will happen within the first half of the season, or the first season altogether.

I think there is a lot of potential in haas as they currently are. I see them doing well with esteban, kind of their new kevin. guy who has been slowly but surely excluded from the rest of the grid (not talking from a drivers POV, talking teams and media) and rubber stamped as aggressive and dangerous. haas has a history of taking on guys who no one else wants anymore. esteban and ayao have history. I can see them going for long, and doing well.

(I personally do not see bearman staying there for long; either making it and moving on to ferrari or breaking and earning himself the same fate as mick schumacher. haas is not a place for rookies in my opinion--and maybe with all the things I mentioned earlier you can tell why--but that isn't the point here.)

and for kevin and nico? well, kevin is leaving. nico is still adjustable, and no matter how shit sauber will be I think we can continue to expect him to outdrive his car. the only question is if that will be enough to put the car into the points or not.

nico didn't ask kevin to come to audi with him for nothing. it's something fun and light hearted to think about initially, but think on it deeper; when has this ever happened? a driver asking for his teammate to follow him? advocating for it with his team principal? I cannot think of it happening before. kevin makes things easy for nico. he works his way through the problems with the car, lets haas fix them; and nico can do the rest himself, the tiny bits that are adjusted to kevin and not to nico. they also get on well off-track, and I do think we have seen them learn from each other. nico seems less nervous, more open to overtaking. that maturity he gained from kevin isn't going to stop him from being a big baby on the radio; but we see it on track. similarly, we have seen kevin put in some amazing tyre management, and his qualifying pace seems to have also improved.

it is an absolutely coked up combination haas managed to have for these past two seasons. and I am grateful it got me (back) into the sport, and that I got to see it.

[fastcardotmp3]

It's hard to pinpoint, for new people, the benchmark that tells when Eddie Munson has started to feel well and truly comfortable around them.

It's hard to pinpoint because he's so amiable and outgoing from the get-go. He's so willing to jump into conversation, to start sharing his thoughts no matter if they're only half baked.

He's personality at a 10 and he's unashamed to be himself and so it's hard, for anyone new, to feel like he's been anything other than totally and utterly at ease around them since day one.

Unless, of course, they stick around long enough for it to actually happen.

Because what becomes clear, but only with time, is that Eddie Munson may be a man of frenetic performance and staccato skipping through every social interaction he encounters, but that's not him at his most relaxed. How could it be? How could it possibly, ever, be when so much of that personality was borne of necessity?

Of survival and taking the heat off of people less capable of handling it and pushing up weirdo walls most people weren't willing to figure out how to climb, and thus ensuring he'd be safe behind them. That's the big hair and big noise and big taking-up of space. That's the Eddie Munson you meet on day one.

It's when he gets quiet that the difference is obvious.

Quiet, not like shrinking or hiding, but like contentedness. Like simplicity and the easing of responsibility off of his shoulders to be anything but present.

He'll sink into a couch at a party with his friends, arm up across the back where he can absentmindedly run strands of Steve's hair between his fingers and just listen to a conversation about the Pacers that he doesn't have anything to add to, but also finds himself happy to hear just from the joy it brings Lucas and Steve.

He'll lay flat on his back in the grass with his hands propped behind his head as the sun beams down on him and listen to the whooping boisterousness of a game of frisbee between Dustin and Erica, listen to Nancy and Robin gossip on the picnic blanket beside him.

He'll come home from a long day at work and shed his shoes, his coat, his voice so strained with offering up distracting commentary to nervous first-time tattoo clients, and lay out across the couch with his head in Steve's lap.

He'll hum along to Steve's recounting of his day.

He'll listen with full attention.

And he'll do it quietly.

Because he spent a lot of years having to be something big, and no matter how much that guy is still him in one way or another, having this? This option to let the other parts of him out for air? This choice in the matter made simply by having people he's comfortable enough to shed his armor around?

Well, god almighty, his gratitude is still plenty loud.

[millermenapologist]

I think that the funniest thing, when it comes to TLOU2 timeframe, is that JJ existing is the best way to quantify how much time has passed since Seattle and the Farm, and yet no one seems to recognize it.

Like, we know that at the beginning of the game, Dina and Jesse have been broken up for ~2 weeks, so let's say she got pregnant one month before the whole shebang. Then, it took Dina and Ellie about a month to get to Seattle, they were there for 3 days, and finally travelled back home. Dina was approx ~2 months pregnant, and then we skip to the Farm chapter, which people treat like exist in an unknown time vortex, but... look at this little guy!

He is teething but not walking nor crawling, which means that he's past the 7 months benchmark for sprouting his first teeth, but not the 9 months one for moving around on his own.

In the Farm chapter, JJ is about 8 months old.

Considering that we do know when Abby got to Joel (March 2nd, 2038), we can say with fair certainty that JJ was born around October 2038 and the Farm chapter takes place around June/July 2039 (which also means that Ellie was 20 for the entirety of the latter part of the story, and not 19).

The real question is: how fucking long did Abby and Lev take to get to Santa Barbara?