#what does a structural design engineer do

[pinnacleinfotech]

10 Things You Should Know About Structural Engineering and Design

Discover 10 essential facts about structural engineering and design – Pinnacle Infotech. Learn what structural engineers do and understand the difference from architecture. Explore top tools and gain career insights. Find out how Pinnacle Infotech leads in innovative structural engineering services. Civil engineer and construction worker manager holding digital tablet and blueprints , talking and…

[ploverbear]

unforutinely had a dogshit day and the dude im training at work came up to me and said something innocuous about how he found out how i trained him is probably slightly incorrect and he found the REAL way to do it and all i could do was go "okay! that is so awesome. you could do that and its fine to do" and give him a big thumbs up and he could smell that i was hiding something that was leaking out of my skull and he was like "im just sayin..."

and he is right but i dont know how to convey to him that i dont care at all about what im doing and dont care about proper ways of technically doing shit and he's always finding dumb little inconsistencies or asking me about processes that i know genuinely dont fucking matter/care about from the more experienced people who trained me who didnt get in trouble/care either and i wish i could grip the dude by the shoulders and say like "hey man you could rub what we're installing in mud and oil and dirt and then put it in the machine and i do nooooot care i dont care about it" and chuck him across the building

[thewriteadviceforwriters]

🧃 How to Develop a Vibe AND a Plot (aesthetic doesn’t cancel arcs. let’s balance them.)

hey you. yes, you. the one with the moody playlists, the 73-tab Pinterest board, and a half-written draft that just keeps…vibing in circles.

if you’ve ever written 10k of immaculate vibes but couldn’t tell anyone what your story is about, this post is for you. because here’s the thing: ✨ aesthetic is not a substitute for stakes. ✨

let’s talk about how to keep your ✨vibes✨ and actually have a plot that moves. no ✧ fluff ✧ just structure, character arcs, and some lovingly blunt advice from your local writeblr gremlin (me).

🌊 1. aesthetic is a result, not a premise

the most common mistake i see is starting with a vibe as the story. like:

“sad girls on the beach in 1996”

“a cursed forest full of dead gods”

“a pastel academic rivalry with secrets and sexual tension”

cool. great. love that for you. but… what’s the story? what’s happening?

✨vibes = setting + mood + tone. ✨plot = choices + consequences + change.

your aesthetic can inspire the story (please keep making playlists. i love them). but don’t confuse the feel of your world with the function of your plot. start with tension. stakes. character flaws. emotional damage. that’s the engine. the aesthetic is the paint job.

🎯 2. define your “emotional throughline”

okay, so you’ve got an aesthetic. what’s the emotional core of it? your plot should orbit a single emotional question, like:

will this character ever let themselves be known?

what does it take to unlearn loyalty?

is love worth destroying something sacred?

start with that. then attach aesthetic scenes to it.

🧩 pro tip: aesthetic scenes are more powerful when they contradict or complicate your emotional throughline.

ex: your story’s about loneliness? show them at the loudest, busiest party. story’s about grief? show them smiling in photos while everything breaks behind the lens.

aesthetic is stronger with irony. contrast. juxtapositions. don’t just bathe the reader in vibes. weaponize them.

💥 3. let your aesthetic hurt your characters

whatever your aesthetic is--soft academia, vaporwave horror, regency witchcore, don’t make it just a backdrop. make it an obstacle.

your setting should create problems. friction. conflict.

if it’s a sleepy coastal town: what’s festering beneath the quiet?

if it’s a hauntingly beautiful forest: what does it take from people?

if it’s a cursed mansion: what happens to the girls who stay too long?

every time you design a pretty place or moody visual, ask: ❓ how does this setting test my characters’ beliefs or desires?

because then your aesthetic drives the story forward instead of just decorating it.

📚 4. develop plot like a playlist: structure the escalation

your aesthetic playlist has structure, right? (don’t lie. i know you’ve got a specific song for act 3 heartbreak.)

plot works the same way. it’s not a mystery. it’s escalation.

you want a structure? here’s a dead-simple one:

give your main character a desire (internal & external)

give them a reason they can’t have it (flaw, fear, lie)

make them try anyway (rising stakes)

make it cost them something (midpoint shift)

force them to change or break (climax)

let that change play out (falling action / resolution)

that’s it. apply that structure to your vibey little story and suddenly it’s a book.

👁‍🗨 5. plot is what they do - vibe is how it feels

don’t choose one. you can have both.

you can have a soft lighting scene on a rooftop and the secret betrayal reveal. you can have dreamy prose and broken character dynamics. you can give me worldbuilding so lush it smells like petrichor and rot and still give me a plot twist that leaves me feral.

you just need to be intentional.

every scene = a purpose. every aesthetic = an angle. every image = tied to stakes, desire, or change.

✨ that’s the difference between “ooh pretty” and “oh my god i can’t stop thinking about this story.” ✨

💌 so in conclusion:

start with an emotional arc

let your aesthetic scenes earn their place

make your world fight your characters

escalate, escalate, escalate

and stop hiding a lack of plot under “vibe” like a glittery throw blanket over a broken chair

you’ve got this. now go write the beautifully messy, aesthetic and emotionally devastating story you were meant to.

i believe in you.

🧃rin t.

P.S. I made a free mini eBook about the 5 biggest mistakes writers make in the first 10 pages 👀 you can grab it here for FREE:

[charmedreincarnation]

MOAB subliminal challenge

(Click links)

The Mother of All Boosters, commonly known as MOAB, is a high-potency subliminal booster originally created by the user ItsaKid (also known as Synergeticboy). Developed over the course of nine months and upgraded in three, MOAB is engineered to serve as the foundational accelerator for any subliminal system, built with both speed and complexity in mind. While multiple versions exist, MOAB 1.0 remains the go-to for those prioritizing rapid, concentrated results. It activates deep neural, energetic, and subconscious layers, effectively removing resistance, integrating affirmations faster, and collapsing the delay between intention and manifestation.

MOAB is structured around a modular design system—each formula is written in code-like expressions, such as {B} = {Topic} or {S} = {Topic[Submaker (Formula)] × Topic[Submaker (Formula)]}. These modules allow users to target specific goals (like confidence, wealth, or void state access) and fuse them together to multiply their effects. The booster works in tandem with these scripts, interpreting them like psychic commands. MOAB 1.0 is optimized for velocity: it initiates a kind of subliminal combustion that prioritizes speed over subtlety, making it ideal for users who are mentally stable and spiritually prepared for rapid transformations.

We will be using 1.0 rather than 2.0 because it focuses on speed. In essence, MOAB 1.0 acts like a raw psychic amplifier. It does not hold back. It is especially compatible with other generative subliminals, morphic fields, or void-based systems. When paired with clean scripting and a clear mental field, MOAB doesn’t just boost results—it warps time around them, often collapsing what would take weeks into hours or days. Due to its sheer intensity, scripting clarity, hydration, and intentionality are strongly recommended. This is not a casual track—it is the Paragon Core for speedrunners of the subconscious realm.

If you’d rather use your own subliminals instead of the ones I picked, you’ll need to learn and research how the module system works on your own. Direct any specific questions to the original creator on Reddit or to ishteham. I just don’t have time to build individual module setups for everyone. :)

The challenge

This challenge is extremely simple and honestly, you don’t even need to overthink it or do deep research unless you want to. I’ve already done the work for you. Everything is set up. The subs are chosen, the formula is written. All you have to do is follow the steps below and stay consistent.

1. Every morning, listen to the MOAB Booster. (Download here)

It’s about 45 minutes long. If you’re short on time, just set an alarm for an hour before you need to wake up, play it, and go back to sleep. That’s it. One listen per day.

Then, throughout the day (and overnight if you’d like), listen to the two subliminals I’ve assigned for this challenge. You can loop them while you work, study, sleep—whatever works for you.

2. Make a playlist called: MOAB Challenge

Add these two subliminals to it:

Infinite abundance by moza mroph

Problem solving by slade

These are your daily subs. Listen whenever you feel called, or just keep them looping gently in the background during the day or while you sleep.

3.important (!!!)

Save this in your Notes, Google Docs, or wherever you track subliminals. DO NOT CHANGE ANYTHING. This is your energetic formula. Just copy and paste it lol.

{S}= {infinite abundance[Moza morph (C.O.D)]} X{Problem solving[Submaker (Formula)]}

{S}= {infinite abundance[Moza morph (C.O.D)]} X{Problem solving[slade (thestral wings)]}

{B} = {Lucid Dreaming}

{B} = {Manifesting}

{B} = {Reality Shifting}

{B} = {Self Concept}

{B} = {Luck}

{B} = {Wealth Building}

{B} = {Mental Health}

{B} = {Void State}

{B} = {Lucid Dreaming(G)}

{B} = {Manifesting(G)}

{B} = {Reality Shifting(G)}

{B} = {Self Concept(G)}

{B} = {Luck(G)}

{B} = {Wealth Building(G)}

{B} = {Mental Health(G)}

{B} = {Void State(G)}

{R}= {Infinite Abundance [Moza Morph (C.O.D)]}

{R}= {Problem Solving [Slade (Thestral Wings)]}

{C} = {MOAB Challenge}

{H} = {Lucid Dreaming}

{H} = {Manifesting}

{H} = {Reality Shifting}

{H} = {Self Concept}

{H} = {Luck}

{H} = {Wealth Building}

{H} = {Mental Health}

{H} = {Void State}

If you’re using your own subliminals instead of the ones I provided, you’ll need to create your own formula and module sheet. If you have questions about how to structure them, I recommend reaching out to the creator directly—@Itsakid has a Reddit community and can explain everything way better than I can. He built the system, so you’ll get the most accurate answers there. But here’s the module explanation.

Final words

The subliminals used in this challenge also work perfectly with the Lucid Dreaming Challenge so if you want to combine both, go for it.

That’s it. I lucid dreamt immediately using this method. It’s simple but powerful especially if you’ve struggled with manifestation, resistance, or stagnancy. The booster handles integration.

[physalian]

Lateral vs Vertical Magic Systems

I… think I’m the only one to use these terms? What I mean by this is different than hard and soft magic, slightly.

Quick recap:

Hard magic systems have rules and strict definition for what can and can’t be done

Soft magic systems go more off vibes, magic exists but the exact mechanics are not important or don’t exist

—

I think you can have a lateral or vertical magic system that’s either hard or soft, and what I mean by this is:

Vertical magic is where everyone has magic of wildly different flavors but hones them all for the same specific purpose.

Lateral magic is where everyone has magic of the same flavor but uses it for wildly different purposes.

Here’s some vertical magic examples:

Percy Jackson: Nobody uses their demigod powers for anything other than staying alive, by and large, and there’s a huge variety of demigod power possibilities and very little overlap. Whether it’s physical combat or mental, these kids’ powers exist so they can fight gods and monsters.

Naruto: I have not seen most of this show so correct me if I’m wrong but, this is a world where ninjitsu is almost exclusively for combat. While there’s core principles, the heaviest hitters in the show all have wild and exclusive powers or special moves that only they can use that go far beyond skill in martial arts (except for Rock Lee).

X-Men: By nature of it being a comic book, the premise of the world is built in heroes versus villains and how they use their powers to beat the snot out of each other. In X-men specifically, mutants are persecuted and can’t use their powers legally, and have little choice beyond using their mutation to stay alive and “do good”.

Lateral magic systems might be something like:

Tinker Bell: You’re a nature fairy, by and large, and everyone gets their power from the same source, pixie dust, each using their flavor of magic to suit their niche purpose in the environment

Danny Phantom: Yes, he’s a superhero and must have fights, but all of Danny’s super-powered rogues are ghosts, with no exceptions, and everyone is limited to how creatively and uniquely they use the same basic ghost principles of possession, telekinesis, invisibility, and intangibility, + their special trait, but all also suffer the same issue that unites them more than once: They are dead, and good or bad, the living fear them.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Alchemy isn’t limitless, and its practitioners typically focus on one very specific kind of alchemy of their choice with the hard rule that everyone must follow of construct, deconstruct, and reconstruct, and get really, really good at honing it mostly for combat, but also in fields of science, engineering, etc. There is alchemy and only alchemy, and it has rules.

—

Last Airbender is both! Its bending rules are strictly limited to the four elements and how creative you can get with your element… but it is also a show that heavily features martial arts and how that bending can be used in combat, but it also built a world where bending factors into other jobs, arts, and the very fabric of society.

Why does lateral vs vertical magic matter?

When you’re designing your magic system, you have to think about how this magic would integrate into a world as if its always existed there. Is it hidden magic, like in most urban fantasy? Or is it baked into the fabric of society, like with bending? Does everyone start with the same basic tools and go wild, or does everyone start wild, and all chase the same aspirations?

Whichever you pick does depend on the story you’re telling. A lot of the media I mentioned is action-adventure, which means that all magic, lateral, vertical, soft, or hard, leans toward one thing in the end: Combat.

But beyond combat, how can your magic be used? Are people allowed to practice it without regulations or is it heavily structured by their fantasy society? If it has always existed, how would their would be fundamentally different than ours?

[felassan]

David Gaider: "It occurs to me, after reading posts getting it spectacularly wrong, that there are a lot of misconceptions over how game studios organize and, in particular, who makes the actual decisions about what ends up in your game. Much of it is by folks who don't *try* to get it... but not all, surely. I'll explain it a bit, but a big caveat: I'm going to talk in generalities and roles. Actual titles vary (a lot) from studio and studio, and the bigger a studio is the more segmented their departments (and thus management) is going to be. Even so, most studios, big and small, kind of work the same. To start, you're going to break your devs up into at least three groups: design (what is the game? how does it work?), art (what will it look like?), and engineering (making it go). There can be a lot of cross-over and some departments that don't fit into a project structure (QA, Marketing, etc.)"

Rest of post under cut due to length.

"There's going to be someone in charge of these groups - these are usually called "leads" or "senior leads". The actual title varies. The Design Lead could be a Lead Designer, for instance, or it could be a Creative Director and a Lead Designer is what they call someone further down the chain."

"These leads all report to a Project Director, someone who's job it is to manage the project as a whole. Now, this part gets a little dicey. Depending on the studio, this role can be anything from more production-oriented (they control the schedule) to an outright auteur who micro-manages everything."

"More importantly, it's the PD who hands down the project goals to the Leads: the strategic goals, the needed features, the shape of it all, etc. The Leads then figure out how their department is going to tackle those, and work with each other. If the Leads conflict, it's the PD's role to solve it. How much autonomy or ownership those Leads have is, like I said, really up to the individual PD and that studio's culture. Even in the case of a PD who has a lot of authority over the project, however, they still report to the studio leadership (unless it's the same person, like in a small studio)."

"The studio leadership is going to be giving the PD their marching orders, often in the form of those strategic goals. If there's a publisher involved, that's where the studio leadership is likely getting those goals. The PD, then, ends up being the person who has to negotiate with everyone above."

"What does this mean? If the studio or publisher has concerns about the project, they're calling in the PD to explain. If the project needs more time or resources, it's on the PD to explain to them why and how and when. If there are a lot of layers above the PD... yes, it's a looot of meetings. So while the PD is managing up, the Leads are managing down. With big projects, that means managing the "sub-leads"... those in charge of the individual sections of their department. It'd be unmanageable otherwise, and the bigger the project the more of these there are going to be."

"What does this mean? Well, let's look at the way BioWare broke up Design (as of 8 years ago, anyhow). Design consisted of Narrative Design, Level Design, Systems Design, Gameplay Design, and Cinematic Design (who worked in tandem with Cinematic Animation, which actually fell under the Art Lead)."

"The sub-leads are handed their goals by the lead, and work out how they're going to produce their particular corner of the game and also, more importantly, how they're going to work with each other. Conflicts between sub-leads are handled by the lead, as are ANY conflicts with other departments. What conflicts could there be, you ask? Dependencies, for one. "I can't do X until Y is done, but Y is someone else's job". Or scope. "We need 20 doodads but the sub-lead said they only have time to make 10, what now?". Even outright differences in vision. Big projects means room for a LOT of egos. If you think this is easier with a smaller (or indie) project, the answer is "yes, but not really". The roles are still necessary but often get combined into one person. Or outsourced, and someone still needs to manage the outsourcing. Things fall off over-full plates. It's a different kind of hard. Anyhow, the point of all this is: the further you go down the chain, the smaller the box you can play in is. The less you have actual say over, and even then that say is subject to being overridden by ANYONE above... and must still play nicely with the needs and goals of the other departments. You also need to keep in mind that projects are constantly in flux. Problems that were thought solved need re-solving. The team falls behind schedule and scope needs to change. You are constantly in a dance, within your tiny box, trying to figure out sub-optimal solutions that cause the least pain. And there will be pain. Shit rolls downhill, as they say, and when the project encounters big issues that means those high up have the sad job of figuring out how to spread it out and who can afford to take the hardest hit. If you're that one, you take it on the chin and you deal. This is the job. Lastly, I'll re-iterate: not every studio works this way, exactly. The roles exist, sure, but are not divided up so neatly or as easily identifiable. Even so, this should give you an idea what "lead" and "sub-lead" mean... and perhaps help you imagine what it's like existing further down the chain."

[source thread]

[sophie-frm-mars]

Revolt of the Surplus

The American state is cutting off countless people from healthcare right now while ramping up its anti-immigrant policies and its already heavily militarised police forces. The overlap between these is a naked attempt to reduce surplus population.

Capitalism designates a certain amount of the population to be "surplus" because they don't fit inside the parameters that make someone a productive worker. This is why racist stereotypes constantly paint immigrants as lazy and parasitic - they can't be allowed in OUR country if all they're here to do is LIVE. The maintenance of the surplus population is one way that capitalism manufactures our consent - this is why the French had a massive riot when Macron raised the retirement age by two years - you are working until you can't and then the system will take care of you. That's the rationale anyway. The material incentive is what people have recently been calling "extractive abandonment" where a state is able to squeeze value out of the processes of classifying, diagnosing, treating, housing, and "caring for" the surplus population to the minimum viable level.

Fascism has no interest in maintaining a surplus population. Yes those are concentration camps. Yes a tonne of rural hospitals kept afloat by medicaid are going to shut down. Yes they would prefer trans people kill themselves than live happy lives. Why does your analysis end there?

We have to center the surplus in our organising against what the state is doing. I'm saying this as a British trans woman but you barely have to squint to see that the UK is playing the part of 51st state right now, moving in lock step with America. We have to center the surplus population and that means both the people whose lives are considered completely "luxury" or "unnecessary" by the state (queers, elderly, disabled) and those whose lives are going to have the "unnecessary" parts, the parts where they get to live, legislated out until it becomes clear that they have been turned into a new class of slaves (migrant labourers, prisoners, "unskilled" labourers, communities of colour). Centering the surplus means organising a parallel structure for these populations to exist within at some distance from the state in as self-sufficient a manner as possible.

To make this possible, we need democratic structures so that the social organisms of these populations can understand themselves and have something close to a decision making faculty. The model I've been proposing for a long time now is assemblies. I think that getting people together for a structured discussion can achieve a lot very fast, and as I've written before, it escapes the invisibles traps of the "activist class" thinking. That is to say there are lots of issues and solutions that occur to non-activist members of communities that aren't apparent in the frameworks of thinking that we, as activists, think have made us superior and therefore in a position to dictate strategy to others. Getting together the community to talk about what their issues are and how to solve them is an incredibly powerful engine for change. Also, some people will find it too slow and frustrating, and that's great too! Those people will find each other in that meeting and get together to organise the more rapid and radical things that they feel frustrated the assembly isn't doing already. If done correctly, an assembly model could have frequent local or smaller assemblies tackling immediate community specifics while feeding back to larger regional assemblies and maybe even into something national. It is possible for us to create a structure that gives us a truer freer democracy than bourgeois electoralism ever could.

As an aside here, I am sick of seeing neoliberal propaganda and attitudes infect the thought processes of well-meaning leftists in the imperial core. Your mutual aid structure isn't a startup, your affinity group isn't a podcast, you don't need to find your USP and your niche and compete to be the best at communism. When I see people saying that big structures inherently corrupt and oppress, and therefore we must never have any centralisation, any large scale organising, it feels less like an anarchist perspective and more like McCarthyism wearing a red and black pin. Please stop being scared of Big Organising, we are going to need to do some Big Organising in order to win. Decentralised horizontal structures, federations and coalitions and so on can get really big, but we have to have the impulse to actually work together, to coalition build, to distinguish between minor ideological or interpersonal differences in order to actually make something happen.

The example I'm most familiar with is trans people, being a trans woman myself, so I'll outline my idea for trans assemblies that I've talked about in a few places now:

Meet regularly with a venue open for a couple of hours before the start of the assembly for a volunteer group to cook food for everyone. With the venue open, people can come in and socialise, get ready for the meeting, help with the food if they want, or use the space for anything else (perhaps they have legal or medical admin they've been putting off). Then, when the assembly begins, start with a rundown of the agenda by the facilitators (the agenda should have been available to everyone before the meeting and the facilitators should have volunteered at the end of the last assembly). After this, floor speeches. Allocate a number of slots for fixed length speeches for any attendees to give their perspectives on whatever they'd like. If they want to use this time to talk about community mess, that's just fine, if they want to use their time to talk about the assembly itself, great, if they wanna just let their feelings out, that's vital, if they wanna promote their surgery fundraiser, literally why not. After this move into the agenda items. Create working groups to achieve goals - you want to phone blockade the office of a transphobic politician so you're creating a working group to plan it while taking hands in the room for potential participants; you want to start a regular letter writing program to trans prisoners so you create a working group who will find a venue and regular time to convene to write together; you want to make a community HRT production process, start a working group with volunteers to make it based on the estimated size of the need for supply, discuss in the assembly what people's concerns are and how best to satisfy them; you have a lot of trans people with precarious housing, so you have a housing working group who are working closely with renters unions while putting together queer houseshares who need a flatmate with trannies about to be evicted. (All these working group examples are based on organising I have seen, to be clear, but through an assembly they could be plugged into each other more effectively and benefit from each other's and the community's resources better) Consider having a fund for working groups that anyone can donate into - there are a lot of tech trannies and cis allies with comfy salaries who would love to contribute money rather than time. After the main discussion consider having something like a "member solidarity" section like renters union branches will do where people with specific issues bring them to the group and the room splits into volunteer bunches to help those people. After this, do your AOBs, get people to volunteer for next time to facilitate, take hands, take minutes & keep time, and make sure everyone knows who to speak to concerning the operations of each working group.

This local assembly could have representatives feed back to a city or regional assembly, ideally with representatives changing each time - this is sometimes called using "spokes" - but the regional or city assembly should still be open to everyone. The same on a level above to a national assembly. A regional assembly can make projects like housing bigger, or put more funds towards HRT production that enables higher level safety & sterilisation than any small group could afford for their startup costs. It could also coordinate large marches or actions very effectively. A national assembly could mobilise enormous mass demonstrations, deliver political demands to the government and work in concert with trade unions to make sure that trans issues are taken seriously by organised labour.

The organised structure that makes the assmblies happen can be very small and isn't the same as the assembly itself. It isn't even the same as the facilitators, except maybe in the first meeting of each assembly. People aren't joining an org by coming to any assembly, and the volunteer facilitators come from the community by design. This is similar to how some orgs will have paid staff organisers who aren't the same as their chair, treasurer, secretary, comms officer and so on. The people who get together to organise the assembly are in an obvious position where they could hold power over the community, so getting the assembly out of their hands and into the hands of the community asap is an important part of this. It's also worth saying that no trans person should be excluded from these - community conflicts aren't the job of the assembly to resolve and the situation is too critical to be locking people out of the room. For these reasons I suggest that the people getting together to organise an assembly make consitutional and protocol documents right away to figure out how they get from organising the logistics of the first assembly to sitting back and letting it carry itself on its own momentum.

This all is a rough outline of my idea for trans assemblies, but the same model could be applied to various populations considered surplus to create a democratic voice that can turn your population from a political football into a political bloc. If there were trans assemblies at every level and disabled people's assemblies and migrant community assemblies, the surplus population could start to intentionally build in a direction away from these states that are currently transitioning into fascism. Their whole plan revolves around cutting off the surplus population, killing us outright or letting us die, while trapping the productive workers into a perfect machine that will get the maximum value out of their labour with no possiblity for revolt. If the surplus population can constitute a movement that is self sustaining, then the "productive workers" can simply start jumping ship, joining on to our parallel structure and leaving their fascist world behind.

A friend of mine has been getting super into potlucks and community food sovereignty, and she sent me this amazing stoner text at 3am the other day - the gist was that every meal you eat that was provided by your community instead of capitalism is a meal you're eating in the future, and if you have one potluck a week then once a week you're eating in the future, and if you can keep increasing the number of community meals around you pretty soon you can be eating in the future all the time. The steps from where we are to interdependent self-sufficiency without the state are smaller and less scary than they want us to think. The state is saying "if you walk out that door you'll die! you'll never survive without me!" to the people it considers valuable units of labour. To us, it has already made it clear we should die either way. So let's leave, and take them with us

[thydungeongal]

D&D 5e is in a weird position where the game design itself is held hostage to nostalgia, where it has to pass a certain taste test of having that nebulous shape of a D&D but that actually doesn't commit to any of the D&D stuff.

It can't just be a dungeon game. That would scare away the theater kids. So the designers kind of have to worry about presenting the game as something that supports more lofty, story-driven gameplay when the game still mostly runs on a dungeon game engine. But an important part of those nebulous vibes of D&D is an adherence to a certain type of rules structure and a resistance to game design that's more focused towards producing a conventional narrative. Otherwise people say it's "not D&D" (as a rule: people who say this often can't articulate what D&D actually is).

Many D&D players clearly run the game as a heroic fantasy genre emulator despite the fact that D&D does very little to support that type of gameplay, because D&D can't actually, as written, be a game where a character reduced to 0 HP is just "taken out" or where losing a combat scene doesn't spell character death but has actual narrative consequences as written in the rules. And a lot of players treat them being able to do game design around a game that doesn't natively support the type of narrative they want out of it as a favor the game is doing for them. It's not that the game has a very specific playstyle that has to be patched out to support a type of gameplay that you want, it's that the game is infinitely flexible and actually the game itself enabled us to fix it.

Anyway, I think someone in a Discord group said it pretty well: D&D 5e isn't really a game about anything. It's, at most, a game about playing D&D.

[yoghurtsgirl]

If I held that wish baby, I would wish that Russell T Davies never returned to Doctor Who

RTD2 has been a colossal mess. Last season was maybe the worst series the show has ever had, with the only truly good episode being Rogue. After The Empire of Death, I thought I was done with the show. Then I killed time by watching Joy to the World on Boxing Day and I thought I was done with the show. But on my quest to show my girlfriend Doctor Who, I thought hey it might be an idea to do the new stuff just so she knows why I don't like it. And guess what we found?

We both really liked this series. The Robot Revolution was a super fun camp introduction to the season, with Belinda instantly being ten times more of a character than Ruby Bloody Sunday was. Lux was creatively unique and even though I wasn't a huge fan of it, it was a big swing which I really enjoyed it taking. The Well was a surprisingly great base-under-siege sequel to Midnight, something I never thought could happen. Lucky Day touched on really interesting themes and emotional beats even if it didn't stick the landing. The Story and the Engine was absolutely fantastic, pure joy and the most original episode in all of Doctor Who. And then we got the Interstellar Song Contest - an episode with incredible production values but god awful internal politics.

And here we are. Wish World, a story has some real interesting meta commentary of conservative power-structures that suppress people who don't fit in with the patriarchal worldview, how the world the right-wing strive to get back never really existed, and they have to ignore literal holes in their philosophy for their fiction to make sense. The production design is superb and it does look lush, with redressings of sets in super clever ways. On a production design and on a commentary level it is better than last year’s first part of the finale, but it left me feeling nothing. It left me feeling very little hope for The Reality War. I've been let down before by this show, and been let down by you, Russell. Surely you won't do that again.

Well Russell, fool me once shame on me, fool me twice? Fuck you.

The Reality War. What a heap of absolute piss. There's something truly incestous about the show now. This god-damn boys club that's had its claws in the show since the 90's is still here, and it refuses to progress. When the show returned in 2005, Russell was on record saying the kids watching the show in twenty years would be running it, they would be Doctor Who. 20 years later the old bugger is still here. And I have to wonder, was it worth it? Is all this worth it?

The MCU-ification of the show - and all media, let's be honest - is a plague. I don't mind the deal with Disney, I don't mind the lil mid-credit scenes I guess. What I do mind is how the show is being made as content and that's it. It's jangly keys tv. It's not a show, it's not made as a production. It's made out of legal obligation. This show is being made for ten year olds who have been watching the show for forty five years. It's made so broadly and yet so fucking niche it's for nobody. I enjoy lil cameos here and there, I enjoy lil references to silly little lore. What I hate is building entire episodes - nay, seasons - off references to decade old plot points that haven't been referenced since 1983. Oh, speaking of which...

Susan Foreman. Hi Susan. I love Susan. Why were you here? Or specifically, why weren't you here? If I had a nickel for each series of Doctor Who which built up the big return of The Doctor's first companion, only for her to not actually appear, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot but it's weird it not only happened twice, but in back to back seasons no less. Her cameo in Interstellar Song Contest was nice, but it amounted to nothing. Why was she here? Who was she for? The Fugitive Doctor's cameo in Story and the Engine was nice, but amounted to nothing more than jangly keys. The Thirteenth Doctor's cameo here amounted to nothing because she pops in, and it's lovely to see her again, but her whole cameo only existed for one reason - to give me vindication on how good her era actually was and how no one fucking believed me. We had it so good, man

The Rani - why? She's a character that exists only to be The Master-lite. I do like her, but she's often just a less interesting villain archetype. She's camp, she's silly, but that's kinda about it. I'm glad her grand return happened so we can stop with the "oooh the Rani is coming back" speculation every damn year, but god almighty what was this? Mrs Flood is the epitome of making it up as you go along. There's no arc, there's no actual thinking things through. Go back and watch her first appearances in Season One - she's clearly not The Rani. She just exists to be a buzzword so people can make lore videos about. "Ooh, are you not excited this character who hasn't appeared since The Doctor was Scottish five times ago is coming back??"

No. Because I care about writing. I care about plotting. I care about this show. Well, fuck me. Because if I had a nickel for each time a season finale brought back a legacy character who aspired to be a God, reduced his character to just being another boring God, with a CGI body of a dog, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot but it's weird it's happened twice... two seasons in a row. Why is Omega here and why is he like this? He got Sutekh'd. Holy fuck. How was this allowed to happen.

Why is there no story? Why is it all fluff and waffle. And when there is a story, about the Doctor having a daughter and how if they fix the world she disappears from time, why does it not matter? They pretend it does, but it not only is obviously a reshoot but it clearly lacks all the emotional weight of times long gone. You cannot tell me RTD2 was made to be accessible for new fans, and at the same time mention Looms in the same sentence. Because Looms are canon now. LOOMS. FUCKING LOOMS. The most insane and worst part of 90's Who Lore. Hey, remember that time the Time Lords got cursed by a witch and made them sterile? No? Well that's canon now. Oh, and bi-generation was explained as something Time Lords can do to reproduce, and not actually a one off magical event based on a Time Lord myth. WHAT THE FUCK REASONING IS THAT FOR THAT ALREADY AWFUL IDEA???? The Doctor having children was such a huge part of the show in RTD1, and how he lost them (in the Time War or not) was super impactful. But now he's retconned his own era - the Doctor never had kids because he's sterile but Susan... exists...?

Susan is a real weird part of the show because she existed pre-all this lore about The Doctor and the Time Lords and regeneration came about. He left her on an alien world to live a life of her own, and said he would come back for her. He never did. His granddaughter. But because of all the new lore over the years, her place in the show was left super unclear. Was she a Time Lord? Could she regenerate? Would she age like a human or a Gallifreyan? Well fuck you, because now she's not even the Doctor's grandkid. I don't want those answers to be explored really, because exploring too much of the Doctor's past could be damaging, and damning in Susan's case. But the answer is now no, she's not even his grandkid, is fucking insane to me.

And look, nostalgia is a dangerous thing. Nostalgia is a really powerful tool but it's remembering a past that never truly existed, it's the memories of past events that should stay that. And it's always good to remember. But that same boys club running the show for the past 20+ years refuse to let go of nostalgia. Because Ncuti is gone. And Billie Piper is the next Doctor Who

I fucking mean this, that is the single choice that has forever broken the show. Hey, Doctor Who is Rose Tyler now. Rose Tyler, his ex, who he last saw hundreds and thousands of years ago and six regenerations ago. We've had five Doctor Who's since David Tennant (first) left the TARDIS. And Rose has not been relevant in the show since 2009. Why are we still doing this? Beyond the optics of regenerating into his ex, beyond the nostalgia-baiting, I have to ask. Does anyone even care about Rose Tyler like this anymore? I have no hope for the future of the show, because it refuses to let go of the past.

And poor Ncuti. I feel so bad for him. He was so hard-done by. Two seasons of poor scripts, awful plotting, negative character arc. He came in with nat-20 charisma and I love him for that, and in this season he got to pull back the layers a little more and have him be a more complex character. All for it to come undone here. The best Doctor who deserved better; he's joined that pantheon alongside Colin Baker, Paul McGann, Peter Capaldi, and Jo Martin. The only Dalek appearance in his era was a reused clip from Day of the Daleks (which, by the way, was a clip from the special edition that featured new Dalek voices by Nicholas Briggs, which means the original serial isn't canon but the special edition is? Oh my god, Russell T Davies is the George Lucas of Doctor Who...) The only Cyberman appearance in his era was in a comic strip. No, we're not doing old baddies unless we're turning them into big dogs. No, we have whole new baddies and monsters! Like... a Nazi, a victim of a genocide who is villainised to the extent the Doctor joins the cause to kill him, and a monster made of snot. WOW, SO INCREDIBLE THERE

There is no sauce here. Nothing special. The directing and blocking in this episode was truly awful. The lighting flat as a pancake. Insane uses of characters. Anita from that god awful Christmas special stands there as a doorstop and says nothing for the entire episode. They throw the main companion into a literal fucking box for half the episode and she does nothing. Rose, Donna's transgender daughter is also here. And again, she does nothing (at least this time she did more than only look at a bloody iPad though). Like,,, wow, go girlies!! Give us NOTHING!!! 

Also it's insane that the optics of the story where a fascist creates an alt-timeline where the men go to work and the women stay at homes to look after the babies, only for the resolution of the story to have the main female character stay in the sci-fi cube. Now that's what I call feminism. Reducing a female character to just being a mother. Belinda wanted to get home all this time because she was an independent woman who had a life of her own to lead, with zero set up of her wanting to start a family. She even hated the idea of being Mrs, of being seen as incomplete if she didn’t adhere to a family unit. But no, the Doctor commits suicide to change time and make her a single mother and rewrite her entire life. What the fuck. Also insane that Anita is a pregnant woman, yet her whole function in saving the day is to stay standing for uncomfortably long. It’s not like pregnant women need major physical support or anything. Fuck off. The gender politics of this episode Jesus fucking Christ. 

It’s truly fucked up. Why did no one stop this? Poppy getting erased from time, The Doctor awkwardly giving up his life to save his and Belinda's daughter, only for her to come back and re-write Belinda's entire timestream so she was a single mother. Because in this story, women are just for breeding or something?? Wtf is that about. It's insane that the Doctor died like this even. On paper I love the Doctor giving up his life to save one person. That's so so good and something that has been done before, and even in this era the idea of one person being missing is so heartbreaking and the Doctor would do anything to remedy that. But the emotional and thematic beat of the Doctor finally having a biological child (which is a heap of piss but let's go along with it for a moment) is completely gone because no, he doesn't have a kid. Poppy doesn’t matter because her life got completely rewritten too. We don’t even meet her dad. Fuck you.

This has been a whole ramble of a review, and I have so so many more thoughts on it. This is entirely unstructured, but I'm disappointed. My girlfriend Jane is disappointed. She's a pathological enjoyer of media, she's somebody who will find the good in anything and love it for that (is that why she's dating me, chat?) and she hated it. I hated it. And you should hate this too.

If 1980's Doctor Who was not worth saving, this shit isn't either. I said the same last year, and I'll say it again. I hope Disney pulls out. Doctor Who deserves better than Bad Wolf and Russell T Davies.

Sack Russell T Davies, sack Jane Tranter, sack Phil Collinson, sack Julie Gardner, sack Murray Gold. And then I'll come back to the show...

[the-most-humble-blog]

<!-- BEGIN TRANSMISSION // BLACKSITE LITERATURE™ PUBLIC BRIEFING -->

<div style="white-space:pre-wrap">

<meta audience-profile="general_public">

<script>

ARCHIVE_TAG="BLACKSITE_SCROLLTRAP_METHOD::GENERAL_ACCESS_PROTOCOL"

EFFECT: creative activation, rhythm cognition, viral structure imprint

TRIGGER_WARNING="reality disruption, emotional recall, artistic confrontation"

</script>

🧠 BLACKSITE LITERATURE™ — “THEY READ IT, THEN SHARED IT EVERYWHERE”

Let’s be honest. Most people aren’t tired of reading.

They’re tired of *not feeling anything* when they do.

Because we’ve all read a post, a paragraph, even a full book—

and walked away untouched. Unchanged.

Blacksite Literature™ is the opposite.

It’s not writing for applause.

It’s writing that *leaves a mark.*

Writing you don’t just “like”—

you remember it days later,

in the shower,

at 3 a.m.,

in the middle of an argument.

It’s writing that *doesn’t need to go viral*

to become unforgettable.

---

📚 WHAT IS BLACKSITE LITERATURE™?

Blacksite Literature™ is writing engineered to bypass resistance.

It’s literary form meets emotional sabotage.

It’s scrolltrap structure fused with cadence precision.

It’s the kind of writing that makes people pause,

feel things they didn’t expect,

and often—share it without even knowing why.

It reads like poetry.

Hits like a sermon.

Sticks like a song lyric.

It makes people gasp in silence.

Scroll back up.

Bookmark it “for later”

because it hit a nerve

they didn’t want to admit they still had.

---

🕳️ WHAT’S A SCROLLTRAP?

A scrolltrap is a pattern-interrupt.

It’s a visual *and* emotional break

in a landscape designed for speed and skimming.

You’ve seen it without realizing.

A post that didn’t look like the rest.

Had weird spacing.

Sharp phrasing.

You stopped. You read it.

Then you read it again.

Scrolltraps are:

- Built in cadence

- Structured in stanzas

- Designed for screenshot virality

- Written to break autopilot

A good scrolltrap doesn’t *tell* you to feel something.

It presses the part of your psyche

that already does.

---

🛠️ THE FORMULA (CLEAN VERSION)

We won’t give away the psychosexual variants here—

but the clean formula is powerful in its own right.

Here’s a sample contrast:

🧂 Standard writing:

> “Breakups are hard. Sometimes people grow apart.”

🧠 Blacksite cadence:

> “Some people weren’t meant to stay.

> They were meant to trigger the version of you that could.”

---

🧂 Standard:

> “You miss them even though they hurt you.”

🧠 Scrolltrap version:

> “You didn’t miss *them.*

> You missed the version of you

> that believed love couldn’t bruise.”

See the difference?

The structure.

The rhythm.

The emphasis.

This is not random.

This is *designed.*

---

📈 WHY IT PERFORMS EVERYWHERE

It performs across platforms—Tumblr, Reddit, X, Threads, IG, even TikTok voiceovers—

because it transcends formatting.

It’s *human-language.*

It’s story + emotion + structure = involuntary attention.

- On **Tumblr**, it spreads by reblog like an outbreak.

- On **Reddit**, people screenshot and treat it like forbidden gospel.

- On **Instagram**, it gets posted over selfies like emotional armor.

- On **TikTok**, it gets read out loud by crying strangers.

You don’t need ads.

You don’t need a fanbase.

You need resonance.

Scrolltrap cadence achieves that.

---

📎 EXAMPLES FROM GENERAL POSTS

These aren’t “hooks.”

These are viral anchors:

- “The love of your life might not be the one you marry. They might just be the one you had to survive.”

- “We didn’t drift apart. We just stopped pretending we were heading the same direction.”

- “He never lied to you. He just spoke in a tone that made his silence feel holy.”

- “She left you like she was late for something. That was the truth.”

Every line is layered with emotional residue.

Every stanza is a trapdoor.

No fluff. No filler.

Just direct-to-core impact.

---

📜 BLACKSITE WRITING EXERCISE: “CADENCE FIRST, MEANING SECOND”

Here’s the first technique:

Don’t start with an idea.

Start with the *feeling.*

Then build the *cadence*—

**before** you explain it.

Example prompt:

**Emotion: Regret**

Now try writing three lines where regret *echoes* in the silence.

❌ DON’T DO THIS:

> “I regret not telling her I loved her.”

✅ DO THIS:

> “I never said it.

> She never asked.

> We called that peace.”

See the difference?

You don’t need the word “regret.”

You *feel* it anyway.

Now you try.

✍️ **WRITING TASK:**

Choose *one* emotion (e.g., longing, anger, closure, pride).

Write 3 lines in the scrolltrap format.

Each line must function alone.

All 3 must land like a punch.

Bonus constraint:

**Do not name the emotion.**

This is how we train cadence-first writers.

---

🔗 WHERE TO GO NEXT

You don’t need to pay.

You don’t need to prove anything.

But if this felt different—

if your body paused somewhere during this scroll,

if your fingers hovered a second longer over the copy button—

Then you’ve already started the process.

And you know where to go next:

👉 https://linktr.ee/ObeyMyCadence

That’s the archive.

That’s where it gets deeper, darker, sharper.

That’s where Blacksite Literature™ becomes undeniable.

---

🧘‍♂️ MENTAL ARMOR FOR CREATORS

Here’s your shield.

Your creator’s creed.

Your scrolltrap spine when doubt hits:

**“I’m not here to be understood.

I’m here to be *remembered.*”**

Write that on your mirror.

Say it when you post something no one likes—

and *still know it’s the best thing you’ve ever written.*

Say it when they mock your format,

your spacing,

your metaphors,

your silence.

Because you’re not just a writer anymore.

You’re a *voice print.*

A resonance.

An emotional event.

And events don’t ask for permission.

They change the weather and leave.

---

💬 READER REACTIONS (REAL EXAMPLES)

You’ll see things like:

> “This post ruined me. I’m sending it to my ex.”

> “I didn’t expect to cry at 8:45AM in the breakroom.”

> “Whoever wrote this: I hope you sleep well tonight. You earned it.”

> “I bookmarked this. I don't know why. But I keep coming back to it.”

That’s Blacksite Literature™.

That’s scrolltrap psychology.

That’s cadence warfare done clean.

---

🧠 FINAL THOUGHT:

This is not a genre.

This is not a phase.

This is not “cool writing.”

This is **Blacksite Literature™.**

It isn’t meant to be popular.

It’s meant to be **permanent.**

Welcome to the scrolltrap.

🧠 Read more signal warfare, algorithm resistance, and scrollproof creative doctrine at: 👉 https://linktr.ee/ObeyMyCadence 🛰️ Edge over echo. Truth over trend. Direct signal only.

</div>

<!-- END TRANSMISSION [INTRO COMPLETE. ENGAGEMENT IMMINENT.] -->

[samflir]

Similarities between Toki Pona and Lojban

Toki Pona and Lojban are two engineered constructed languages with speaking communities and very different goals. Toki Pona is a minimalist language based on simplifying your thoughts to fit the vocabulary of 140 words. Its grammar is similarly minimalistic. It has a simple sentence structure, not many particles and no affixes at all. Lojban is a logical language, one designed to express logical statements in its grammar and lack structural ambiguity. It is not at all minimalist, having over 3.5 times more particles than Toki Pona has words in total. It has particles for just about any grammatical function or marking you can think of.

So you may be surprised to learn that, having learned both languages, I consider them to be strikingly similar. They both have traits in common that English lacks for what I think are similar reasons.

Overall character

These are the big picture similarities. They are the cause of the specific similarities discussed later.

One class of root words

Both languages throw root words into one class, with usage determining their interpretation as a noun, verb or modifier. Both achieve this slightly differently.

Toki Pona's contentives

Most Toki Pona words cover broad semantic categories and have interpretations as nouns, verbs and modifiers relating to these categories in some way. For example, the definition of "moku" is:

eat, drink, consume, swallow, ingest; food, edible thing

These all relate to food and eating in some way. A very frequently cited example of Toki Pona's ambiguity is "mi moku" meaning "I eat" or "I am food", as Toki Pona doesn't have a copula. Note that it's not possible to predict how the meaning of a word changes between noun and verb usage and this must be memorised with each word.

Lojban's verbs

Lojban's only class of root word is verbs. These are defined in an unusual way, resembling sentences with blank spots given numbered Xs for nouns. For example, klama means:

x1 goes to x2 from x3 by route x4 with means/vehicle x5

"klama" is about as complex as verbs get, having 5 blank spots (arguments). Most have fewer than this! The blank spots are how Lojban creates nouns. The articles (lo/le) in Lojban select the first place of a verb and turn it into a noun. This avoids the need to memorise unpredictable changes in meaning for different words. For example, "lo citka" can only ever mean "an eater", it cannot mean "a food", which would be "lo cidja".

Concepts that are nouns in English are verbs in Lojban that include their copula. For example "cidja" means:

x1 is food for x2

This is as much as a verb to Lojban's grammar as the entire rest of its root word dictionary. The exact same grammar that works with "klama" works with "cidja". In other words, Lojban makes no distinction between being and doing. This also means that while Lojban does have a copula, it is barely ever used. Verbs contain "to be" in their definition.

Greedy phrases

In English you mostly know where a noun phrase ends because a lexically defined noun appears at the end of a string of lexically defined adjectives. Context and word order alone are usually sufficient to know how an English sentence is structured. Toki Pona and Lojban both take a different approach, because zero-deriving modifiers from contentives and verbs means that phrases are "greedy", they keep expanding unless explicitly separated.

Toki Pona phrases

Modifier phrases are the main way that Toki Pona stays expressive with only 140 words. Toki Pona has noun-modifier order. "jan pona" literally means "person good" but actually translates as "good person", since English is an adjective-noun language. You can keep adding root words onto phrases indefinitely and every following word modifies the whole phrase to its left:

small red car tomo tawa lili loje ((room move) small) red

Lojban tanru

Lojban's "tanru" are phrases just like Toki Pona's, where one word modifies another through juxtaposition. Lojban's order is backwards from Toki Pona, with the verb determining the place structure (and therefore most of the meaning) occurring last rather than first. However, Lojban still groups modifiers to the left. Just like in Toki Pona, root words can be added onto the end indefinitely since all are in the same category and they cannot, on their own, indicate the end of a noun phrase or start of a predicate.

intensely-red type of car kandi xunre karce ((intense) red) car

Keeping open question words in place

English fronts question words. This means that when asking a question, the syntax of the sentence is shuffled in some way that brings the wh-word to the start of the sentence. "You want what?" becomes "What do you want?". This is not the case in Toki Pona or Lojban, which prefer to keep question words unmoved.

Toki Pona's seme

The question word in Toki Pona is "seme" and it can go in the noun or verb positions of a sentence.

This is/does what? ni li seme?

This is good for who/what? ni li pona tawa seme?

Lojban's ma and mo

Lojban has different question words for every possible type of question. It has many more than just "ma" and "mo" which are noun and verb questions respectively. But those are the question words that most directly correspond with "seme" and just like it, don't require any change in word order.

This is/does what? .i ti mo

This is good for who/what? .i ti xamgu ma

Word order

Both Toki Pona and Lojban are similar to each other but also English in word order. Toki Pona has subject-verb-object word order and also tends to move preposition phrases to the end of sentences. While Lojban's word order is flexible, it defaults to a very Englishy order of putting the verb second, after a single noun and then putting all other nouns after the verb.

I give a book to you at the library.

mi pana e lipu, tawa sina, lon tomo lipu. I give a book, to you, at building book.

.i mi dunda lo cukta do bu'u le ckusro I give a book you at the library.

Specific similarities

As a result of the similarities in overall character, Lojban and Toki Pona have some very similar grammar.

Predicate markers

English doesn't have a predicate marker because it doesn't need one, not usually anyway. A predicate marker tells you where the verb in a sentence starts. This seemed like such an obviously artificial feature to me (having only seen it in Toki Pona and Lojban) that I assumed it was something that only existed in conlangs for a good while. I've since learned that Tok Pisin has a predicate marker. Natural languages are always stranger than I expect!

Toki Pona's li

The word "li" in Toki Pona separates third-person subjects from their predicates. It is essential to Toki Pona's grammar to allow for speakers to stop adding description to the subject and start the verb.

A big cat wants a fish. soweli suli li wile e kala.

Toki Pona allows for a subject to have multiple predicates attached to it by repeating "li".

A hunter sells food and goes to a house. jan alasa li esun e moku li kama, tawa tomo.

Lojban's cu

The word "cu" in Lojban terminates any nouns before the predicate of a sentence or clause. This is very similar to "li" and when Toki Pona speakers learn Lojban, it's very useful to be able to say "remember 'li'? it works like that".

A fish eats a person. .i lo finpe cu citka lo prenu

However, it is never actually obligatory in Lojban. It is usually used when the noun before the verb is one that uses an article, as opposed to a single-word pronoun. This is because pronouns self-terminate and don't start a greedy tanru phrase.

I run. .i mi bajra

Lojban only permits one "cu" per clause. This is a very helpful rule for certain deeply-nested sentence structures. Attaching multiple predicates to a single subject is still possible, but requires conjunctions.

A hunter sells a food and goes to a house. .i lo kalte cu vecnu lo cidja gi'e klama lo zdani

Phrase bracket particles

The default way that both languages group together modifiers in phrases means that it's impossible for multi-word phrases on the right to modify single words to the left. A phrase with the structure "A B C D" will always group together as "((A B) C) D" when what you want may be "(A B) (C D)". Both languages have words for this exact purpose of regrouping modifiers, a type of particle that has no direct counterpart in English.

Toki Pona's pi

Toki Pona's particle "pi" is used to override Toki Pona's default left grouping. An example is "tomo telo nasa", which translates to "crazy restroom" because "tomo telo" groups together and is finally modified by "nasa".

crazy restroom (tomo telo) nasa (room water) crazy

Putting a "pi" after "tomo" allows for "telo nasa" (alcohol) to modify "tomo", creating the meaning of "bar". These two very different meanings are only distinguished by the grouping of modifiers.

bar tomo pi (telo nasa) room (water crazy)

Using multiple "pi" in one phrase is ambiguous and considered bad style. It is unclear whether both pi phrases apply equally to the head of the phrase (flat pi) or the second pi phrase applies only to the contents of the pi phrase it follows (nested pi). The example given in sona pona is "lipu pi sona mute pi toki Inli". Is it a book of much knowledge of English, or a book of much knowledge and English?

Lojban's ke-ke'e

Lojban's particle "ke" does pretty much the exact same thing as "pi", but appears in opposite situations from "pi" due to the opposite word order of tanru compared to Toki Pona phrases.

catcher of big dogs barda gerku kavbu (big dog) catcher

The meaning of the phrase without pi in Toki Pona has to use "ke" to get the brackets on the right of the phrase.

a catcher of dogs, who is big barda ke gerku kavbu big (dog catcher)

Unlike Toki Pona, mulitple "ke" particles unambiguously nest into each other. Conjunctions are needed to achieve the "flat pi" meaning from Toki Pona.

small school for girls which is beautiful melbi ke cmalu ke nixli ckule pretty (small (girl school))

Unlike Toki Pona, a terminating particle "ke'e" closes the opening bracket created by "ke". Sometimes, the entire "ke-ke'e" structure may be replaced with "bo" as this marks a gap between two verbs to be interpreted as grouping together first before the usual left-grouping rule is applied.

small catcher of big dogs cmalu ke barda gerku ke'e kavbu cmalu barda bo gerku kavbu small (big dog) catcher

Analysis

Toki Pona is vague, not ambiguous

With a few small exceptions such as preverbs, prepositions and nested pi, the structure of a Toki Pona sentence is usually not ambiguous because of very un-englishy particles tagging parts of sentences such as "li" and "e". Most of Toki Pona's multiple interpretations come from its words covering board "semantic spaces", fuzzy clouds of meaning that are clarified through the addition of modifiers and context.

Toki Pona and Lojban both solve ambiguity in similar ways

Both being SVO isolating languages with greedy phrases, both languages use similar very obvious solutions for terminating phrases. Lojban has terminators, articles, prepositions and the predicate marker "cu". Toki Pona has "en", "li", "e" and prepositions marking the starts of phrases in sentences. The biggest overlap is predicate marking, but both languages also have particles exclusively for regrouping modifiers.

[raccoon-crown]

DREAM LAND AU: The Bots

This one has a ton of notes (Sorry for that) about this two emblem Bots 'made' by Haltmann Company!

Ya all know how Meta Sonic ended like this (protected his little bro just to get robotized) but It was time I also showed you the Omega Armor one!

More info on those two under the cut!

Mecha Knight, Robotized Meta Sonic, is still slightly conscious to the degree of barely perceive what's going on. Too bad that the robotization triggered his dark powers at the same time, so we have a Sonic that is in like two cages like those Russian Dolls: His Anger triggered and the Mechanization.

Sonic Hands can turn into laser that can either shoot o turn into laser blades similar to his Galaxia Sword

Since the sword is usually keep in Sonic Bracelets just like his armor and cape, the Mechanization also altered the Blade composition.

Meta Sonic wings work with engines at the back, not like his wings usually do.

He can't take the mask out, even in his little half lucid moments.

Now About Omega:

He originally was a simple Invader Armor that crossed Kirby Amy and Bandana Tails way, Tails hacked it and when he got the pilot out Amy got in.

The thing is... Amy's power may have affected the armor a little too much, even if Tails was the one who helped design the structure, Kirby's powers... Brought the armor to live?

Yeah After a long journey Omega does become sentient, even if he can't use a lot of powers when Amy is not on, he still got his own way to solve problems without a driver.

[midala-of-the-valley]

Your Heart Pulling Against Mine - pt 4

David 8 x reader Words: 819 Part 3 is here Crossposted on Ao3 a/n: A bit less David centric because the other characters also need their time to shine - before disaster will struck <3

“David, why are you wearing a suit, man, you don’t breathe.”

Fiddling with the fabric of your suit, you clutched the edge of your helmet tightly, knuckles turning white with tension as you listened to the exchange between David and Holloway.

“I was designed like this because people like you are more comfortable interacting with your own kind. If I didn’t wear the suit, it would defeat the purpose.”

David had told you not to interfere, not to spark any conflict, but you were so damn close to doing just that.

Of course, the doctor kept pushing, prodding at the fact that David wasn’t human, as if he found amusement in belittling him for something beyond his control.

“They make you guys pretty close, huh?” Holloway said with a smug undertone, adjusting his own suit.

“Not too close, I hope.” David’s voice was calm, his expression betraying nothing.

Holloway responded with a small, condescending laugh.

What must it be like to stay that composed, even when others treat you like this? A blessing and a curse, you thought, as quiet anger simmered in your chest.

You adjusted your own helmet and prepared to jump into the vehicle.

Watching the spectacle of Millburn plopping down right in front of Fifield, only for Fifield to immediately shift a seat further away, helmets knocking awkwardly in the process, had made you huff out a small laugh. You just couldn’t help it.

The sound drew their attention, both of them looking up at you like kids caught in the act. They were a bit like a puppy and a cat, you thought, amused.

You scooted closer, leaving one seat empty between you and casually propped your legs up on the opposite bench, mirroring Millburn’s posture.

“It’s sweet, really,” you said with a grin, your eyes on Fifield, pointing over to the other man “how you act like you don’t enjoy his company.”

The redhead scowled immediately. “Oh, shut it, Lady,” he huffed, crossing his arms defensively.

“Nah, come on,” you teased, leaning back.

“We don’t know how long we’ll be stuck on this mission, and sweet Mr. Biology over here is trying his best to befriend you. Honestly, it’s kind of adorable to watch.”

The man in question cleared his throat and looked away, was there a slight tint on his cheeks? The helmet concealed it a bit too good.

But Karma didn’t waste any time.

Before you knew it, Charlie Holloway had plopped down beside you.

“Come on! You’re ready for this, aren’t you? I know you are!”

he announced to the group, the enthusiasm practically radiating off him.

You fought to keep your smile intact, though your patience was already thinning with him.

Fifield caught your eye with a sly grin, clearly enjoying your predicament.

In return, you rolled your eyes at him and made a strategic retreat, standing up and sliding into the seat opposite Dr. Shaw instead.

She glanced at you with an apologetic smile, which you returned.

Out of everyone in this group, Shaw had been the most sincere and compassionate.

Even if you had been skeptical at first, there was undeniable proof supporting her Engineer theory, and you admired the faith she poured into this mission.

“What do you think we’ll find inside that building?” you asked, gesturing toward the pyramid taking shape on the horizon.

“There’s no sign of flora anywhere. This place doesn’t exactly scream ‘homeworld,’ does it?”

She paused, chewing on her bottom lip as her gaze drifted to the barren terrain beyond the window. “Proof that life exists beyond ours,” she said at last, her tone quiet but resolute.

“For now, that would be enough.”

Behind you, the others gathered. Millburn stared at the growing pyramid with wide eyes and an open mouth, a look of awe plastered across his face.

“Fifield, I want a spectrograph of that structure. I need to know whether it’s natural or if someone put it there,” Holloway instructed, his focus locked on the massive stone formation.

Craning your neck, you looked back at Fifield, who was busy with his device.

“I can’t tell you if it’s natural or not,” he replied, glancing up briefly, “but what I can tell you is - it’s hollow.”

Gripping Shaw’s hand, you gave it a squeeze before jumping to your feet as the vehicle came to a stop.

“Hollow. That means someone must have built it, things like this don’t appear naturally. Someone was here!”

Your hopeful enthusiasm was mirrored by Shaw, and together, you squeezed past Millburn and Fifield, giving each of them a quick clap on the shoulder before hopping out. Your boots landed on the dark sand, and a mix of excitement and anticipation swelled in your chest.

But then, a moment later, a sudden chill coursed through you.

A fleeting, inexplicable sense of foreboding that lingered just long enough to unsettle you.

If they were here..what happened?

[multiheadcanons]

BLU STREETWEAR

scout: a long sleeve shirt with thumb holes chewed into them, and a solid t shirt over that. occasionally he will put a jacket or a hoodie over this if it is cold. a pair of joggers, long crew socks, and a pair of platform high top sneakers, the shoelaces wrapped around his ankle three times, and the ends tucked into the shoes themselves. if it’s sunny, he will add a brimmed hat. doesn’t like beanies, so he rarely wears them.

soldier: a simple white t shirt and a pair of neutral colored pants, slacks, or jeans. black or brown leather jacket with an interior faux fur lining over the shirt, and his work boots. he doesn’t own any other shoes than his work boots. they are molded to his feet, and at this point are some of the most comfortable things he owns. helmet stays on unless the team begs him to leave it at home. they think he’s cuter without it.

pyro: their fire suit, but with a ring on every finger. pyro is a big accessorizer. lots of hats, lots of jewelry, lots of purses and bags, lots of stick on gems. they are usually running around with gems glued to the gas mask where their ears assumedly are. those are their earrings. pyro also has a lot of coverups. robes, sweaters, jackets, coats. pyro doesn’t like to take the suit off, but they do like the variety in their looks! it works for them.

demo: black cropped short sleeved turtleneck with an undershirt of various colors and textures. leather jacket, and a pair of sneakers, or a pair of combat boots. the undershirt normally will match his pants, which are usually cargo joggers. he’s got undershirts and this particular style of pants in every color and pattern imaginable, and there is a match for each article of clothing. styled with a thick, structured trench coat in various neutrals and a kooky beanie that doesn’t match anything.

heavy: white, thin long sleeve shirt. a solid shirt, normally blue, placed above it. sleeves left alone regardless of the temperature outside. the pants change, but are usually thick, or freshly pressed denim. he once wore overalls and that freaked everyone out, so those got taken out of the wardrobe. denim jackets that do not get above a cerulean in tone and saturation and leather fingerless gloves, usually left unbuttoned unless it’s cold. if he’s wearing jeans, he will switch to a leather jacket. thick platformed boots. he likes the extra inches. makes his existence funnier. sometimes, he will wear a cap.

engineer: this man goes pretty much everywhere in the same hoodie and jeans he’s owned for the past ten years. it’s the shoes that change. sometimes it’s his work boots. sometimes a ratty pair of sneakers. sometimes a pair of well cared for loafers. sometimes fuzzy dog slippers and socks. underneath the hoodie is normally a short sleeved collared shirt, patterned with odd and silly, almost eye watering designs. or flannel in a variety of colors. has a large sherpa olive green coat for the colder days. his actual outfit rarely, if ever changes, what does is how he wears it. there is a notable difference of him wearing this hoodie slouched, covered in crumbs versus his shoulders rolled back and his characteristic uncaring charisma.

medic: it really depends on the weather. on hotter days, he will opt for a white cotton three quarter sleeve shirt, and a pair of pressed slacks with leather dress shoes. his forearms are usually busting out of the sleeves, and he is already complaining of the heat. in the colder months, he is much more put together, and less bitchy. a dark brown turtleneck, a vest of a complementing color, and wool blend slacks. a thick woolen trench coat above that, and occasionally a cap. has many odd pairs of shoes for the winter. loafers with cutouts, infeasibly fitted boots that look crafted around his legs, none truly made for snow. this has never posed a problem.

sniper: snipes will eat up a little v neck henley and a pair of casual slacks. and you know those buttons are never done and those sleeves are cuffed, come on. he might cuff his pants comically high, even. really just depends on what he’s doing for the day. normally in some sandals. “thongs”, even. he learned very quickly he could not call them thongs around the americans. or any of the team, really. though when he found out what a thong was in america he was quite humored! if it’s cold he’s just wearing his regular shoes, and a vest.

spy: stay with me on this journey, okay? because he’s gonna eat this up, promise. a powder blue crewneck, comically oversized. like 5xl men’s powder blue crewneck layered on top of a silk white button up shirt. he belts it with a wide cognac belt, allowing the rest of the belt to flap however it will. if he’s feeling particularly queer, under this will be a powder blue dominant plaid pleated skirt. he tops this with loafers of his choice. and you know the balaclava stays on.

[zedecksiew]

How To Play The Revolution

So: I do not like the idea of TTRPGs making formal mechanics designed to incentivise ethical play.

But, to be honest, I do not like the idea of any single game pushing any particular formal mechanics about ethical play at all.

So here I am, trying to think through the reasons why, and proposing a solution. (Sort of. A procedure, really.)

+

Assumptions:

1.

Some genres of game resist ethical play. A grand strategy game dehumanises people into census data. The fun of a shooter is violence. This is truest in videogames, but applies to tabletop games also.

Games can question their own ethics, to an extent. Terra Nil is an anti-city-builder. But it is a management game at heart, so may elide critiques of "efficiency = virtue".

Not all games should try to design for ethical play. I believe games that incentivise "bad" behaviour have a lot to teach us about those behaviours, if you approach them with eyes open.

2.

The systems that currently govern our real lives are terrible: oligarchy, profit motive; patriarchy, nation-states, ethno-centrisms. They fuel our problems: class and sectarian strife, destruction of climate and people, spiritual desertification.

They are so total that the aspiration to ethical behaviour is subsumed by their logics. See: social enterprise; corpos and occupying forces flying rainbow flags; etc.

Nowadays, when I hear "ethical", I don't hear "we remember to be decent". I hear "we must work to be better". Good ethics is radical transformation.

3.

If a videogame shooter crosses a line for you, your only real response is to stop playing. This is true for other mechanically-bounded games, like CCGs or boardgames.

In TTRPGs, players have the innate capability to act as their own referees. (even in GM-ed games adjudications are / should be by consensus.) If you don't like certain aspects of a game, you could avoid it---but also you could change it.

Only in TTRPGs can you ditch basic rules of the game and keep playing.

+

So:

D&D's rules are an engine for accumulation: more levels, more power, more stuff, more numbers going up.

If you build a subsystem in D&D for egalitarian action, but have to quantify it in ways legible to the game's other mechanical parts---what does that mean? Is your radical aspiration feeding into / providing cover for the game's underlying logics of accumulation?

At the very least it feels unsatisfactory---"non-representative of what critique / revolution entails as a rupture," to quote Marcia, in conversations we've been having around this subject, over on Discord.

How do we imagine and represent rupture, to the extent that the word "revolution" evokes?

My proposal: we rupture the game.

+++

How To Play The Revolution

Over the course of play, your player-characters have decided to begin a revolution:

An armed struggle against an invader; overturning a feudal hierarchy; a community-wide decision to abandon the silver standard.

So:

Toss out your rule book and sheets.

And then:

Keep playing.

You already know who your characters are: how they prefer to act; what they are capable of; how well they might do at certain tasks; what their context is. You and your group are quite capable of improv-ing what happens next.

Of course, this might be unsatisfactory; you are here to play a TTRPG, after all. Structures are fun. Therefore:

Decide what the rules of your game will be, going forward.

Which rules you want to keep. Which you want to discard. Jury-rig different bits from different games. Shoe-horn a tarot deck into a map-making game---play that. Be as comprehensive or as freeform as you like. Patchwork and house-rule the mechanics of your new reality.

The god designer will not lead you to the revolution. You broke the tyranny of their design. You will lead yourself. You, as a group, together. The revolution is DIY.

+++

Notes:

This is mostly a thought experiment into a personal obsession. I am genuinely tempted to write a ruleset just so I can stick the above bit into it as a codified procedure.

I am tickled to imagine how the way this works may mirror the ways revolutions have played out in history.

A group might already have alternative ruleset in mind, that they want to replace the old ruleset with wholesale. A vanguard for their preferred system.

Things could happen piecemeal, progressively. Abandon fiat currency and a game's equipment price list. Adopt pacifism and replace the combat system with an alternative resolution mechanic. As contradictions pile up, do you continue, or revert?

Discover that the shift is too uncomfortable, too unpredictable, and default back to more familiar rules. The old order reacting, reasserting itself.

+

I keep returning to this damn idea, of players crossing thresholds between rulesets through the course of play. The Revolution is a rupture of ethical reality like Faerie or the Zone is a rupture in geography.

But writing all this down is primarily spurred by this post from Sofinho talking about his game PARIAH and the idea that "switching games/systems mid-session" is an opportunity to explore different lives and ethics:

Granted this is not an original conceit (I'm not claiming to have done anything not already explored by Plato or Zhuangzi) but I think it's a fun possibility to present to your players: dropping into a parallel nightmare realm where their characters can lead different lives and chase different goals.

+

Jay Dragon tells me she is already exploring this idea in a new game, Seven Part Pact:

"the game mechanics are downright oppressive but also present the capacity to sunder them utterly, so the only way to behave ethically is to reject the rules of the game and build something new."

VINDICATION! If other designers are also thinking along these lines this means the idea isn't dumb and I'm not alone!

+++

( Images:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/victoria-3-dev-diary-23-fronts-and-generals.1497106/

https://www.thestranger.com/race/2017/04/05/25059127/if-you-give-a-cop-a-pepsi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WarGames

https://nobonzo.com/

https://pangroksulap.com/about/ )

[tg-headcanons]

Frothing at the mouth (positive) over the fact you're the only person aside from myself to put their whole ass into the fact the CCG is largely propaganda-based and they barely know shit about ghouls, and only publicly share twisted "facts" about ghouls to get further government money for their ghoul-genocide activities. Whats some CCG propaganda you think they push most aside from "ghouls wre animals and can't think/feel like humans can?"

YOU UNDERSTAND ME

The CCG does a lot more propaganda work than the general public, and even most investigators, realize. It’s human nature to want to bond and relate to one another and even things that aren’t human, and if people tend to humanize animals, plants, and even machines, a big part of what the CCG does is work to ensure they don’t try to humanize things that look human

Within the CCG there are rules policing language. Ghouls are to be referred to as “it,” and described as male or female rather than using man or woman. Reports referring to them with “he” or “she” are corrected to remove human language from them, and if a superior wants to they can easily use “humanizing language” as an excuse to punish an underling

Because the higher ups rely on their employees not understanding ghoul minds and social structure, they withhold information and most investigators don’t understand how intelligent they are. A study was done on particularly unwell ghouls in cochlea in order to engineer the conclusion that ghouls have the base intelligence of a nine year old child, and that their skills and language ability are mostly mimicry of humans. Because of this, a lot of ghouls have gone under the radar because they’re simply too complex or intelligent to be suspected. When some measurably intelligent ghouls are discovered, the higher ups take over quickly and the ghoul is either declared an odd outlier, or some cover up is utilized to deny their accomplishments

Because the only ghoul research happens in cochlea, a place designed to be as distressing and unhealthy as possible, the results are incredibly skewed. They do not understand social behaviors because the only captive interactions are between stressed and doomed ghouls. They do not fully understand kagune usage because they’re all drugged with rc suppressants. They do not know about ghoul hormonal cycles because the rc suppressants tend to make them fatal. As far as there doves know, ghoul are all erratic, mindlessly violent, and prone to unexplainable deaths in captivity. What little research there that is a good representation of ghoul complexity is often destroyed and falsified

The CCG makes an effort to locate people with violent tendencies or struggle with connection for their academy. Staff there knows that if a student is suffering socially or gets in fights, they are to be fast tracked to training. Many of them could have gotten help and thrived elsewhere, but the CCG training program encourages and enables these behaviors so long as it’s directed towards ghouls. They engineer investigators who are taught to cope with otherwise treatable issues by taking them out on something that looks human, but is okay for them to harm. These people are quickly promoted so when there are “complex cases,” they have someone they can trust not to humanize the ghouls and kill them as quickly as possible. They end up struggling to acclimate to anywhere else, more or less trapping them there to be attack dogs

A lot of news about ghouls has to be run through the CCG for approval. There’s a law on the books prohibiting the spread of dangerous misinformation regarding ghouls, which requires “professional input” on any officially released pieces about them. There are some public personalities and so called Ghoul Experts who absolutely don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about, but the CCG allows them to speak on it because they parrot the dehumanizing propaganda they feed the public and it helps to have supposedly independent researchers confirm it. They all know Hisashi Ogura is full of shit, but his fearmongering makes their job much easier

Many investigators die every year because they were not allowed to know what the higher ups know. Countless employees were killed by ghouls they didn’t know how to locate due to misinformation about ghoul psychology or were killed with fighting techniques that were kept confidential for use by the washuu family. A good amount of deaths are preventable, but the CCG will never tell the lower ranks the things that would have saved them. Besides, having a brutal, fatal ghoul attack in the news every day is good for image