#implausibly average

[implausiblyjosh]

LATE NIGHT TACKLE ALL OF POKEMON MARATHON

IN 2 HOURS (10PM CST)

It's time for a Pokemon Marathon! We'll be playing our Randomized Nuzlocke of Silver until we win or lose, but you can change our odds. Who knows, we'll maybe even do our Tournament of Champions...

For $5 you can name our next Pokemon, and for $10 you can generate a Pokemon for me to use! Additionally, for every $10 tipped, we will play a round of Pokemon Pinball on the GBC! Get a name/Pokemon in the queue before the stream here: streamelements.com/implausiblyaverage/tip

The Tournament of Champions will see us play Pokemon Stadium 2 with our Pokemon we've used in Gen 1 and Gen 2, across all our let's plays so far. Win or lose, we'll be having fun online!

My job really screwed me over, changing my pay schedule with a week's notice and giving me a paycheck that only covers ~8 hours of work and some misc back pay. Any tips you provide today will help me not only keep the lights on with Implausibly Average, but with bills and groceries.

I'm excited to play games for y'all later! I'll see you soon!

[implausiblyaverage]

AWF - In Your Browser is out now!

[homunculus-argument]

Fantasy story idea:

Everything is pretty standard epic fantasy, great battle about The Fate Of The World between two warring nations, there's a wizard who is The Wisest There Is, there's a great hunt for some infamous outlaw that spans the entire known world, the protagonist becomes one of the top elite archers of the kingdom implausibly fast, there's a Helen of Troy -level Great Beauty going about who is the subject of at least one Greatest War In History because two kings keep fighting over her (she wants neither of them), and one of them gifted her the almost-as-famous-as-herself Fastest Horse In The World (which she rode to escape from him, a song was written about this incident.)

Everything seems to be a mishmash of The Most Over The Top Implausibly Grand Mighty Things and occurrences that one wouldn't think should be such a big deal being blown out of proportion. And then you may start doing the math on how far an average horse and rider could realistically travel in the time that it took the protagonists to journey from one end of the world to the opposite side, and come to realise that The Entire Known World (as far as any of these people are aware) is an island the size of Belgium.

[icantbelieveitsnotbutler]

Polaris Identity Theory

Manga spoilers under the cut.

Because Toboso conceals his face, Polaris is probably a character who readers would recognize.

Polaris has claimed on multiple occasions to be a butler, and said that he lost his previous master. This might lead one to assume he was a butler in Vincent Phantomhive's household. However, Polaris appears to have a different chin shape compared to any of the previous butlers.

Polaris' first physical appearance is when r!Ciel comes to the townhouse. Soma opens the door, let's r!Ciel in, and offers him food because he believes him to be o!Ciel. R!Ciel shoots Soma with a small handgun, which is o!Ciel's signature weapon. When Agni tries to protect Soma, Polaris appears and stabs him with a knife, of which he has many. In this scene we see that Polaris is tall, but not as tall as Agni.

He is also incredibly strong and fast, performing maneuvers that would be impossible for a human, and as a result, impossible for a bizarre doll created from a human, as the bizarre dolls we've seen so far seem to retain the physical limitations of their human bodies.

Sebastian even remarks that killing Agni would have required more than 5 average humans.

The rest of the information we have about Polaris is very limited. In Japanese, he refers to himself using 私 (watashi) and uses uses polite sentence endings (desu and masu).

However, Polaris' most distinguishing characteristic is his devotion to his master. When confronted with the possibility of running out of blood and losing r!Ciel, he loses control, yells, stops using polite speech in Japanese, destroys his surroundings, and falls to his knees.

If Toboso were introducing a new character, she wouldn't need to hide his face. The only existing character who fits the profile of a butler, exceedingly devoted to his master, almost as tall as Angi, wielding an absurd amount of knives, and with strength and speed way beyond those of humans, is Sebastian.

When Polaris first stabs Agni in the townhouse, he seems to appear suddenly and unnoticed by Soma and Agni. The reader might assume that he came into the room or out of hiding at this moment to defend r!Ciel. However, I believe it to be more likely that he walked in with r!Ciel, unremarked-upon because if Ciel walks in, Sebastian would be expected to follow. In fact, it would be strange if the 13-year-old came in alone, without an adult, and especially without his near-constant companion.

At this point I will mention what originally made me think of this theory: Sebastian's catchphrase. I will do my best, with my extremely limited knowledge of Japanese, to explain.

The phrase Sebastian is so fond of saying is "私は[悪魔で]執事ですから." He's literally saying "For I am a devil and a butler," but doesn't blow his cover as a demon because it sounds identical to "For I am a butler to the end/persistently." (私は[飽くまで]執事ですから)

After freaking out over the possibility of losing r!Ciel, Polaris tells him and Undertaker that if r!Ciel died, "I wouldn't be able to rest, even if I died. I can't imagine where else I could be... for I am a butler, even in death."

私は[死んでも]執事ですから。

This is nearly identical to Sebastian's catchphrase, both saying "For I am a butler," with a single word (and its attached particle) swapped out:

私は(I)[ ]執事(butler)です(am)から(for)。

An obvious problem with this theory is that Polaris is loyal to r!Ciel, while Sebastian is loyal to o!Ciel. An even more obvious problem is that while Polaris is murdering Agni, Sebastian is with o!Ciel elsewhere. This is the point where my implausible theory reaches its peak of absurdity: I believe Polaris is a bizarre doll of Sebastian, specifically Sebastian the butler.

When Undertaker impaled Sebastian on the Campania, he obtained his cinematic record. Like when Grelle cut him with her death-scythe in the Red Butler Arc, Sebastian's record only shows memories of his current body and nothing before it manifested. The sole purpose of the body named Sebastian is to be the best butler and to serve his master. This could also explain the previous master Polaris lost and his insanity over losing another: the last memory of the body the cinematic record was taken from is seeing o!Ciel thrown over a railing and out of reach; Undertaker captured Sebastian's desperation in that moment and used it to create a bizarre doll.

[myrskytuuli]

I've seen few dreamling Star Trek AUs, but I keep thinking about canon dreamling in the Starfleet era future.

The moment humanity makes first contact, Hob Gadling obvioulsy makes it his next goal to get up there and start exploring as soon as possible. New Frontiers! New species! New experiences!

Which great. He's good enough at being just the most normal (surprisingly lucky and durable) red shirt, just there, doing his job. Nothing weird to see here, no sir. Too bad that he managed to get a job at the Enterprise, the galaxy's most ridiculous incident prone ship. And as the Enterprise incidents(TM) keep happening, so does the niggling feeling that there's something fucking funky going on with Ensign Gadling. he has....a very surprising range of skills and knowledge. And that boyfriend of his...is always there when they have shore-leave, no matter how implausible it would be for him to travel the distances with the speed he does with Federation spacecraft. Nobody can sus out what his job is, but it has to be some very high level federation one for his and Gadling's shore-leave's always to align.

But the most disturbing thing about the boyfriend(TM) is how the first glimpse any of the crew gets of him is always always just a bit fucked up.

For a second, before he blinks and realises that that is just Gadling and his partner sitting down on a spaceport café, Spock could have sworn that sitting across the man was Run S'haile made flesh, appearance just like the statues now gathering dust in Vulcan ancient history museums. And the andorian officer could have sworn that for a blink there she saw the Sparkling King of All Fantasies walking hand in hand with Ensign Gadling, before the image settled to two humans walking side by side. And one calm night a tellarite engineer spots ensign Gadling snuggling and star-gazing by one of the ship windows with The Great Nightmare Beast of Sleeping Terrors and decides to get the fuck back to her own quarters and try to never think of it again.

And it really doesn't help that while your average sentients aren't anymore impressed by Gadling than the agressively boring and normal man warrants, it has been more than once that the Cosmic Entity With Unimaginable Powers of the week has gotten suspiciously polite when Gadling enters the scene.

In a normal Starfleet ship Gadling might be able to fly under radar, but USS Enterprise is not a normal ship and the crew is starting to get the heebie jeebies...

[semi-imaginary-place]

the problems with krogan biology

Krogan reproduction suffers the problem of narratively needing to be both a threat and a sympathy generator. So thousands of children a year but also each still birth is a massive emotional loss according to Bakara. the reproductive rate needed to be high enough to give in universe reasons for the wars and genophage and make the salarians and turians sound somewhat reasonable. but bioware once again wanted to both sides it so eve was given a bunch of lines to humanize the krogan and make their losses personal. I could try to wrangle the lore into something coherent, something bioware failed to do, but it's not my job to fix bad writing. but i'll do it anyways. the 1000/year could be a theoretical maximum just like how humans irl could potentially make 40 in a lifetime but in practice that never happens and would kill someone (look up europeans nobles who had so many pregnancies their teeth fell out and they died), the highest ever average birthrate was like 10-15 births in a lifetime. and then there's also the cultural difference between expected deathrate and knowing it's because of something specific (I vaguely remember genophage affecting neurological development??).

Krogan break the standards of r/K selection theory where r strategists tend to be short lived with high fertility and low individual offspring investment and K strategists tend to be long lived with low fertility and high individual offspring investment. Krogan are extremely long lived yet also have one of the highest fertility rates. Confusing this more is Bakara claiming even a single fetus's loss is devastating when it's hard to form emotional attachments to thousands. Then there's the carefully swaddled baby krogan in the ending. While r/K selection theory has a lot of flaws and fails to account for many species (like irl humans for example are both relatively long lived and have relatively high fertility which makes keogan all the more bizarre), it still has it's uses in biology. Krogan are plausible but unlikely. What I think is actually going on is the writers don't know what they're talking about.

Krogan metabolism doesn't make sense either. The devs wanted krogan to be super tough and unkillable so that they can be intimidating mercenaries so the devs make it a big point about the keogan redundant organs. (Let's ignore how in game you can take down krogan in 1 hit. Were they terminal cancer patients 2 days away from dying??? Is shepard (and ashley) magic?). There's a reason most organs irl aren't redundant and those that are evolved as a part of bilateral symmetry. Every extra organ is more living tissue that needs continual food and water to be maintained and having double or every triple of the same organ that might never be used is the sort of inefficiency evolution selects against. You would go extinct so fast. The primary challenge for any animal species is finding food and maintaining life (long enough to reproduce anyways), that's why it's so difficult to starve. The devs sort of addressed this by saying the hump is full of water and calorie storage like a camels which would add to their survivability but this creates an additional problem. Eve/Bakara's lines in me3 were a mistake, they just cause so many lore inconsistencies and implausibilities. If krogan are so tough and hard to kill, how can they starve in a week with food even when locked in a cave. Nothing dies immediately after not having food for a day. It takes like a month without food to kill a human irl and humans don't have storage humps. Not having water kills a humans like 10 times faster. There are species adapted to less water but the fact that the writers made Bakara focus on food over water in a survival situation is telling that they don't know what they're talking about.

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

i dont send asks often and am kinda nervous but i discovered this blog after starting a fantasy worldbuilding thing ive been doing and i want to ask, should i be considering like, physics and the square cube law? it feels silly but i want my designs to feel plausible and biologically accurate, with my own twists on fantastical creatures.

dragons, specifically, are usually very large creatures, they also often fly. these are traits i want to keep, and have it still feel fantastical, but here are obvious issues here. there is magic, and it is connected to the world, and i could do something like changing gravity or atmosphere, but just saying it's magic feels like lazy cop-out, and changing the laws of physics is too drastic not to be explored, which feels to extreme for one creature. am i overthinking things? can i just handwave this sort of thing? i often don't see fantasy settings explore that sort of thing so idk im kinda lost here

You can hand wave a great deal of things and still also make fantasy creatures that feel plausible. My centaurs have the unusual biology of being born with extra limbs and ribs because they're all chimeric twins. I'm pretty sure it's genetically implausible for an entire species to be born with such remarkably consistent fused anatomy like that. But it's just enough of an explanation to make it feel a little more believable.

For dragons, I like to remind myself that humans have created airplanes at least as big as the average dragon and they work just fine. So maybe you can research how planes work. There are engines, certainly, but planes stay in the air despite being giant heavy metal tubes because of the way their shape interacts with air currents, essentially. So instead of flqpping a lot like a smaller animal, maybe your dragons are more like long distance soaring animals. Albatrosses come to mind. Getting off the ground is another problem, which can be solved by having the dragons soar from high places like cliffs and mountains.

You can also look to prehistory! The quetzalcoatlus was a pterosaur roughly as big as a giraffe and as far as science has determined, it could fly and even launch itself into the air from flat ground.

Here are a few more tips for making large dragons believable:

- bird bones. Contrary to popular belief, they're not completely hollow and they're not actually much lighter than mammal bones. But the open spaces and the mesh-like structure inside them give them a different sort of density and strength that helps them fly, as well as providing more space for internal air sacs that actually help them breathe more efficiently. (I'm on my phone right now, I'll add a source for that later) and we have evidence that this sort of air sac also existed in large dinosaurs like the diplodocus. Dragons probably would need similar structures in their bones.

- hot air balloons. Hot air rises and dragons breathe fire. Make use of those extensive air sacs and fill them with hot air! How dragons manage to have so much heat inside as reptiles is something you can hand wave with magic or find various science-type explanations for doeending on your mood. I like the idea in dungeon meshi where the dragon has a second stomach-like sac for the indigestible parts of its prey and uses that for fire fuel! It's very clever. Dragons may not be as thin and soft as a balloon, but having a body full of air sacs that carry hot air is a reasonable explanation for how dragons fly despite their size.

- wing shape and body shape! Long distance fliers that soar more than they flap usually have very long, narrow wings. And most flying animals also have shorter, rounded bodies. The dragon wing membrane should cover their whole side, from the shoulder to the hip, with a really big wingspan. Their tails probably shouldn't be all long and whippy and full of dense muscle, but maybe they can be flat and broad to catch air or maybe the wing membrane extends to the tail. Maybe you have tailless dragons! Just don't let the tails add too much weight or they'll make flying a lot harder.

- propulsion. One magic explanation I think would be interesting is if dragons used magic like airplane engines. Trying to work out magical gravity fields and atmospheric magic is cool and fun. But it seems like it would be easier for dragons to just have magic jet engines if you want to use magic to explain their flight. And it's fun!

I hope those are all helpful ideas! Dragons are cool and I love to see people messing around to make them more believable. There is nothing wrong with using a little magic fudge in fantasy worldbuilding either! It wouldn't be very fantasy if it always had to follow a hard science system. You can leave that to the scifi genre haha. But if you're going to dive into realism in fantasy, it is more fun to see people really dive deep and get weird with it and explore all sorts of interesting extra details, rather than just dipping a toe in and hand waving the rest. Maybe it's just the neurodivergence in me, but I always have more fun with fantasy stories if it feels like the creator had a real passion for the weird details and didn't just follow a standard fantasy template.

[siph-by-induction]

Spiders Georg is wrong: my evidence

In the original post, Spiders Georg is assumed to be real. He is a real man that lives in a cave, and he really eats that many spiders.

This means that while Spiders Georg is an OUTLIER, he is not an ANOMALY. He is a perfectly valid data point he is just a really unusual data point.

As he is an OUTLIER and not an ANOMALY, the proper practice would be to include Georg in any summary measures. He is a perfectly valid data point after all.

However, I appreciate that using a mean with such a significant outlier would be a bit ridiculous.

My proposal: we use a MODE as our measure of central tendency instead

This would answer the implied question of “How many spiders am I, the person reading this data, probably eating annually?” better than a mean would

And it doesn’t exclude Mr Georg

The factual inaccuracies of Spiders Georg part II: THE NUMBERS ARE ALL WRONG AS WELL!!!!!

Let’s assume that the survey was conducted in 2013, when the post was made. The world has 7.2 million people.

Let’s assume every single non-Georg person eats 0 spiders a year. (This would make the mean 0 if you exclude Georg.)

Therefore, the mean spiders eaten per year are [number of spiders Georg eats] / 7.2 billion

For this figure to be three Georg must eat over 20 billion spiders a year, or 56 million spiders a day!

THAT IS A LOT MORE THAN 10000!!!!

Also, eating that many spiders is like, physically implausible. Say they’re reaaaally tiny spiders. Spiders of genus Patu can weigh like, 0.0001 grams.

That still makes 6 tons of spiders a day. I am assuming Georg to be some sort of hominid, and so I do not see it can be feasible that he weigh more than, let’s say, 500kg. Look, even a GORILLA won’t weigh more than 250.

I also do not see it can be feasible that he eat more than half his bodyweight in tiny Patu spiders. So, maximum 250kg of spiders in one day.

This makes 2.5 million Patu spiders a day, and 900 million Patu spiders a year, which gives a mean of 0.125 spiders per person per year!

The numbers don’t workkkkk!!!!!!

CORRECTED POST:

“average person eats ~0.125 spiders a year” factoid actualy just statistical error. average person eats 0 spiders per year. Spiders Georg, who lives in cave & eats over 2 million each day, is an outlier adn the average used should have been mode rather than mean

Disclaimer !!!! I don’t know high level stats. If you know high level stats and can correct me feel free to do so because I wanna learn high level stats

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

out of curiosity, do you have any preferred headcanons for how tall the members of the Batfam are? who's the tallest to shortest?

listen I don't have exact measurements but I do have vibes. I'm going to say right out of the gate that I simply do not hold with DC artists and their habit of Russian nesting dolling the Robins so they're each a little bit shorter with age, it's a useful visual shorthand but it's also not my truth even if I sometimes agree with portions.

for instance: I do have to concede that Bruce needs to be the tallest of the Batboys in order to enable a lot of his whole schtick, especially your modern era Batmans who are built to be tanks as opposed to the sleeker, more acrobatically-oriented Batman of earlier ages. Batfleck honestly had a great build for it, 6'4 and built to loom.

on the other hand, I Know what male gymnasts look like and Dick came from a whole family of them; he doesn't need to be SHORT short but brother he is not the tallest Robin by any stretch. he's 5'8 if he's Lucky, likely shorter. and he's fine with it! he isn't insecure about being a compact king!

I strongly dislike the recent development towards drawing adult Jason as a brute, but I have long enjoyed the headcanon that he would have had a hard growth spurt after Bruce took him in and he didn't have to worry about food insecurity. he is absolutely taller than Dick but, HOT TAKE, I don't think he's a Lot taller. as Red Hood he's definitely exaggerating the difference with chunky boots + his stupid full-face mask for extra height, + his jacket and all his gear make him look taller and broader than Nightwing in his little skintight getup. out of costume they physically look much more similar.

I also super hate when Tim is drawn as a skinny short little waif, genuinely there's no reason for that. that's a little American rich boy who grew up on milk and white bread, there's no reason for him to look like he has Victorian urchin wasting disease. fuck this, Tim is taller than both Dick and Jason. same energy as the improv kid I went to high school with who was 5'11 but cool about it.

completing the circle and fully reversing the Robins, I know that other fans have pointed out that Damian's Asian heritage conspires against him being hugelarge as an adult, but genetics are a grab bag and I think he deserves to be Bruce-sized. adult Damian can pick Dick up and put him in the fridge if he wants. at present though his growth spurt is really taking its sweet time and he's hovering around Cass-height (see below).

Duke is hovering in a zone right between Jason and Tim but everyone forgets that and imagines him being taller because the little bat ears on his helmet give him a couple extra inches.

a lot of older comics, especially the Dixon run, frequently have Selina drawn like she's tall as all hell, and I honestly love that for her. 5'11, Megan Thee Stallion kind of build for her.

Cass is frequently drawn as tiny to an extent that is, frankly, implausible and borderline upsetting (if memory serves she literally got folded up and carried in a backpack once?) but listen: she's certainly not tall. I'm willing to offer her 5'3 as an absolute maximum. also literally no one asked but Michelle Yeoh is the Lady Shiva of my heart and shes 5'4, so that's canon To Me.

however tall Dick is in your head I want you to add one (1) inch and that's Barbara. this is so crucial to me.

Steph is like a deeply average 5'4 and a half, and I realize this Does mean that I've Russian nesting dolled the Batgirls (at least in order of appearance in comics, not the actual order they Batgirls) and I am Fine with that. throw Harper Row in here too, she and Steph are just chilling being average height gal pals.

Helena is freakishly tall by Italian woman standards, by which I mean like 5'7.

this is vile and I'm sorry to the Robins but unfortunately Jean Paul is a genetically engineered freak bred to kill so he's probably taller than all of them save for an adult Damian. 6'2 to my miserable boy. beginning to think I was lying when I said I didn't have exact numbers.

so I think in descending order the lineup I've created is Bruce, JP, Selina and Tim, Duke, Jason and Babs, Dick, Helena, Steph and Harper, Damian, Cass.

did I skip anyone vital you want to know about?

[slowd1ving]

[KILLER] SNIPPET ゜・MOZE

average moze brain moment

HONKAI STAR RAIL MASTERLIST

MASTERLIST ・゜・NAVIGATION

“What’s got you sighing?” Jiaoqiu eyes him from where he’s pulling noodles: sleeves rolled back to avoid dusting the salmon hues with flour. Fragrant red wafts from the pot on the stove, and he’s suddenly reminded of the crimson shirt you wore just this morning—rippling around the taut lines of sinew and muscle as you worked diligently on decrypting ancient alchemical texts. “I thought you found yourself a place to stay, so why the long face?”

Moze keeps his silence. Well, tries to—but it’s not like a singular word will make him any less laconic. Tapping his chopsticks against the rim of the blue-toned porcelain, he evades the question and focuses right on the middle of Jiaoqiu’s sentence. “Somehow.” 

“Right! Your dearest partner—” Jiaoqiu drags the word out, characters stretched tight until they wind right against Moze’s eardrums. He glares: visibly annoyed, yet this only makes the man in his peripherals close his own eyes in satisfaction. “—took pity on you, didn’t he?”

“Maybe.” The assassin slams down the rest of the piquant broth: lips dripping with sanguine. His response is a question in itself—because why the hell did you agree to Feixiao’s request?

“Curious?” Of course he’s curious. 

“It’s not much of a surprise, really,” the foxian sighs, twisting the strands into a neat circle and letting it drop into the boiling water. “Poor thing’s probably still in shock from his breakup. I think he would’ve agreed to pretty much anything coming out of Feixiao’s mouth at that point.”

The man can only stare incredulously. Every part of that sentence is laden with a bombshell. 

“Wow, I thought you would’ve known. Guess what’s said at Qiu’er’s stays there too.” Jiaoqiu’s golden eyes gleam slightly at the mention of the downtown bar. No, Moze didn’t know. No, Moze isn’t currently outright staring at the man no longer in his peripherals. No, Moze cannot hear his chopsticks creaking beneath his grasp. “Woah, don’t break those.”

The fox eyes the crow warily. “Seriously. Cool it.”

Eight: you’re still not over your boyfriend cheating on you. In the drizzle beneath the canopy, this is how your new roommate diligently listens to how his work partner and resident cryptologist really can’t catch a break from bad men. 

“That includes you, you know,” Jiaoqiu squints at an unusually contemplative Moze. Flickering amber lights and the buzz of cicadas makes the assassin seem even more shady than usual. “You don’t have a chance, so don’t even try.”

“The hell are you talking about?” For someone like Moze, his piece of good fortune is that his voice remains steady in almost any sort of situation. This means that anyone hearing this man speak right now would naturally presume he’s affronted at Jiaoqiu’s response out of its complete implausibility. But on the flip side, those who’ve known Moze longer have learnt to watch for other irritated tells of his rather than a wavering voice. The subconscious flex of long fingers. Minute shifts in the elbows propped up on the bar. Biting the inside of his lip, just enough that it’s unnoticeable. But these aren’t things the assassin really takes stock of. 

For a brief moment, Jiaoqiu’s friendly smile drops and he peers at the man askance. Is he brain dead? “...Okay.”

And that is how the tall man—hunched over in the downpour to not let his noodles get too cold—first learns of matters of a more personal note of yours. In the rare grey skies that cast over the Yaoqing, it’s a chance to digest this information he’s learnt. 

But he doesn’t care. 

He doesn’t. 

[425599167]

Two weeks later, I worry Barriss's half of Tales of the Empire lacks staying power. It's something after eleven years, but not enough.

It confirmed what Barriss fans knew the whole time, that Barriss cherished the ideals of the Jedi and is not irredeemably evil, especially when compared to other servants of the Empire. But it didn't do much to convince casual fans, it's too short to explore her thoroughly and didn't build interest in her character. I've been picking apart her brain for a decade, I don't expect average viewers to know what I know and TotE didn't show them.

It also doesn't leave much room for future appearances. Considering Lyn's desertion and Ahsoka's implied involvement, Ep 6 takes place anywhere between the Kenobi show and Twilight of the Apprentice, 9-3 BBY. Maybe ANH at the latest since we don't know exactly when Ahsoka left Malachor or what she did after. Since Lyn looks exactly the same, the shorter time skip seems more probable, but that's not conclusive. Barriss presumably lived in that snowy area for a few years to become known locally, and went unnoticed by the inquisitors since her escape. She isn't actively involved with the Rebellion.

Then there's her ambiguous death. I know it's Star Wars, nothing is unsurvivable and Barriss could return Somehow, but this is getting absurd. Barriss sent away her attendants and told them not to come back, implying she didn't expect to survive, she seems accepting as Lyn holds her, and her breathing stops. Animation isn't easy, they could've picked any environment for this episode, they chose a snowy area where breath becomes visible so it could be seen stopping. This franchise should not rely on its audience expecting increasingly implausible fake-outs.

If she's dead, there's nothing left to do. If she's alive, she's also unusually aged, possibly due to sacrificing her lifespan for healing purposes. That's not confirmed or textually supported, it's just people guessing about a visibly extreme change, and I don't have any better explanation. Her unnamed attendants call her "wise mother", fans are saying she's a milf now. Guys, she's in her late-20s to mid-30s depending on what year this is. Barriss looks older than Luminara, and Mirialans can live ~3x longer than humans, aging so much from stress seems unlikely. She's not just aging worse than Obi-Wan, she's aging worse than the clones. She'll probably keep sacrificing herself to death in a decade at this rate, limiting what can be done with her.

For another thing, I've only seen one person make fanart with Barriss's latest look. I know people generally like the haircut, but the outfit sure didn't leave much impression. A new hood & robes reconnecting her to her culture would've been more appropriate. She didn't get any more tattoos suggestive of later adventures, either.

Looking around at the fan response, the interest in Barriss plummeted within a week of the premiere, nobody new got invested. Barriss fans won the battle and lost the war.

[implausiblyjosh]

I got a RimWorld crowd control mod working (I think), so…

IN 12 HOURS (2pm CST)

YOU will guide my density. YOU will control the Storyteller. YOU could be niceys to me. YOU can be a real stinker to me. How will you Drive my Destiny?

See you there!

[implausiblyaverage]

Behind The Scenes: Halloween 2023 TV Bumper

(Context for Implausibly Average & Halloween for Implausibly Average: I treat Halloween like our April Fools, so the video that goes up on Halloween is usually a joke or silly gimmick video of some sort. In Implausibly Average lore I, Josh Average, am trapped on an office/TV studio on The Moon.)

The plan for this year's Halloween video is, loosely, "what if Implausibly Average (the YouTube channel) existed as a pre-HD TV channel of nebulous time/origin?" The upload will say that I found this VHS tape in the office of a past broadcast from the TV station, and I don't know when it's from or where it came from. The video itself will be anywhere from an hour to two hours of uninterrupted "broadcast", so commercials, credits, bumpers, shows, everything.

This will require 3 things: homemade pre-HD TV-style bumpers, Let's Play footage of pre-HD consoles, and a collection of period-appropriate commercials. This is a proof of concept for the bumpers.

Awhile ago, when I started the semi-reboot of Implausibly Average, I commissioned a friend to do some TV voice over lines. Just some "coming up next" stuff, as I was making a TV bumper as a trailer for some new Pokemon Let's Play stuff. I didn't end up using much of it, as Brain Problems put me on hiatus with Implausibly Average.

However, with this video idea, I was able to both tie in the "lore" of Implausibly Average with our yearly Halloween gimmick video and use some of that old audio I commissioned for the bumper! Additionally, I've been able to to use a theme song I commissioned from my dear friend Darling Demon Eclipse.

I think the bumper works alright! It can use a few extra passes for sure, and I need to make a lot more of them, but it's a really solid start. Along with these types of schedule bumpers, I'm going to try and put together "generic" bumpers, using local affiliates from the pre-HD era as inspiration. I need to make a lot more, but I've got until Halloween, so I have time to find the style and make more of these.

Anyways, what do you think? I'd love feedback!

[tentacleteapot]

this is going to sound like I’m vagueing about somebody or being snarky and mean but for once I’m not, I actually haven’t seen a post like the one I’m about to describe for a little while, but—I’m always fascinated by the inconsistency of where people draw their personal lines of “this is just too implausible for me”.

like, I remember a lot of posts reacting to the uptick of Lady Knight art and posts about same by basically going “you know knights were basically just cops, right?” and “yeah well your sapphic romance isn’t gonna feel so cute when you think about how many orphaned peasant children were dying of dysentery just offscreen” and stuff like that, but it’s like—as soon as you look into the average people’s interests I guarantee you’ll find at least two or three things about which they’re willing to say “I know this isn’t realistic but I think it’s really cool” or something similar. speaking for myself, I know I’ve fallen prey to “this is popular on tumblr right now and that makes me never want to hear about it again” before and will do so again, but I’ll freely admit that I also do give other media and genres slack and credit that I don’t extend to the media and genres I’m not as interested in. I just think it’s interesting to see where people draw that boundary even if I often don’t agree with it.

[edennill-archived]

Something that really strikes me is how if you look at the lifespans of the First Age Edain that died naturally and that we have dates for, you end up with an average of 89¹...For comparison, the average life expectancy in the UK today is "just" 82. The implications are insane, you'd have thought their standard of life was medieval-like.

And it doesn't feel like an overlooked detail that makes little sense—admittedly, Tolkien described Bëor dying at 93 as 'at a very old age for men in that time' (a source most familiar with Númenóreans, perhaps?)—but it doesn't seem implausible. We don't have impossibly skilled and knowledgeable magical neighbours, so to say.

But insane? Yes.

¹(I excluded from my calculations two women who died young "from grief" and Beren, who oddly enough died the second time at only 71. His inclusion would bring the average down to 87, however I think his circumstances are specific, and it is implied that maybe prolonged proximity to a Silmaril isn't very good for mortals in the text)

[annamariehamilton-unofficial]

Dostoevsky x Ghoulposting: Furuta is kind of a Dostoevsky villain tho...

As I was writing up last week's Hot Take post, I realized that Furuta of Tokyo Ghoul :re is a lot like a Dostoevsky villain in some ways.

Nikolai Stavrogin, Demons, brought to life by the INCREDIBLE Artemyon of @creantzy. He even kinda LOOKS like Furuta lol.

Furuta shortly after being defeated by Kaneki, Tokyo Ghoul :re chapter 175

Like Stavrogin and Svidrigailov, Furuta is a nihilist who sees no real meaning in life beyond the search for power and pleasure.

"Eventually everything will come to naught. I ever since I was a child, I have know. Living, dying, creating, consuming. Valueless, meaningless, it's all pointless. You, your wife, you child, your friends and your enemies. They'll all die anyway. It's all be gone, one day. This world is just a toy chest. You can play with it while you can, but when the time comes, it's all over. The chest is shut, and there's no reopening it" Nimura Furuta, Tokyo Ghoul :re, Chapter 176

"Life is pain, life is fear, and man is unhappy. Now all is pain and fear. Now man loves life because he loves pain and fear. That's how they've made it. Life now is given in exchange for pain and fear, and that is the whole deceit. Man now is not yet the right man. There will be a new man, happy and proud. He for whom it will make no difference whether he lives or does not live, he will be the new man. He who overcomes pain and fear will himself be God. And this God will not be." Nikolai Stavrogin, Demons

***

Like Nikolai Stavrogin, he plays fast and loose with the idea of truth and morality in order to gain power for himself.

"My friend, the truth is always implausible, did you know that? To make the truth more plausible, it's absolutely necessary to mix a bit of falsehood with it. People have always done so." Nikolai Stavrogin, Demons

"My predecessors have contemplated long and hard. What is the best way to control the masses? It turns out that it is to focus their gazes on one thing. And then your average group of idiots walking in step can easily be coerced to even end their own lives." Nimura Furuta, Tokyo Ghoul :re chapter 66

***

Like Svidrigailov, he is ultimately a sentimentalist who is doing everything for the girl he loves, but he expresses this "love" mostly through creepy stalking.

"Me and Rize are going to have a lot of babies...like the 101 Dalmatians" Tokyo Ghoul :re, chapter 101

"Hey Rize ... I hope things can stay like this forever. Even when we're grandma and grandpa... it'll be fun. I just know it will." Tokyo Ghoul chapter 177

"And once a girl’s heart is moved to pity, it’s more dangerous than anything. She is bound to want to ‘save him,’ to bring him to his senses, and life him up and draw him to nobler aims, and restore him to new life and usefulness—well, we all know how far such dreams can go." Crime and Punishment, Part VI chapter IV

[to Dunya] "And you can't [love me]? Never?" he whispered in despair. Crime and Punishment, Part VI chapter V

***

And one more quote, from Svidrigailov of Crime and Punishment, that I think applies equally well to Furuta

The question is, am I a monster, or am I myself a victim? And what if I am a victim? 

(Crime and Punishment, Part VI Chapter IV)