#just make it scale higher and higher the more levels you have. like. how levels work already? hello? hello??

[gnaga37]

minecraft exp that drops if you die being capped at 7 levels is so stupid i hate it so much. what do you mean that from my 600+ levels I only get 7 back? I should at least get to lvl 30 minimum

[arolesbianism]

I am still not over the level cap thing what do you mean level fucking 10

[whereserpentswalk]

Activist burnout isn't a moral failing of a community, it's not people being selfish. It's a natural result of how human minds work, and you can't expect communities to out-moral human psychology.

When people are exposed to the same upsetting thing over and over again, either it fucks with their mental health and makes them more depressed and anxious, or alternatively it makes them apathetic and desensitized. Neither of those things are good for a movement, and those are the ways humans are going to react to constant upsetting messages. You cannot avoid this by telling people to just be better people, you cannot use higher reasoning to make an entire community's emotions work in a fundamentally different way to how human emotions normal work.

Every successful movement account for the fact that people can't be at 100% all the time. Movements that ask for a level of extreme and undying anger, burn bright and die fast, it's a useful way of organizing a very immediate response, but cannot be done for something larger scale. If you give people, the ultimatum of either being at 100% or 0% all the time, they will choose 0% because the alternative isn't possible for most people.

If you're constantly showing the same disturbing images over and over again, they will lose their effectiveness quickly. If I see a post detailing the horrors of the current genocide, I'm probably just going to scroll past it, because it's all things I already know, and I've seen it so many times there's no emotional reaction, and this is how a lot of people are with posts like this, because you can't ask people to have the same emotional reaction to the same information hundreds of times over.

You can't stop activist burnout by being a better person because burnout isn't a choice, it's a psychological response. If your activism doesn't account for the material reality of the community (in this case being humans with human minds), then that's on you for organizing badly.

Also, if you need to hear this: you are not a bad person for experiencing compassion fatigue, it's literally part of being a person. Don't hurt yourself.

[bedazzlecunt]

i get sooo many asks and DMs asking for tips on how to get better at edging so i wanted to make an actual post about how i turned myself into a total edgeslut — and how you can, too! there's really only one main 'rule' to follow while you're learning how to edge, so i promise you can do it! this info should still be applicable regardless of your particular genitalia, but i mostly reference cunts because that's what i've got.

the one rule!

my ultimate suggestion for people who are new to edging and finding it almost impossible is to STOP TRYING TO EDGE. some of you are going like that's crazy edging is all i want to do! but listen to me. listen to me. we are going to get you there.

if horniness is a scale of one to ten, with one being 'not horny at all' and ten being 'orgasming' the ideal edging situation is that you get to a nine and then stop. that's really hard to do, though! but you could probably get to a four and stop, right? pretty easily, even.

that's what you want to do. figure out that highest number on that scale you can go and still stop, and go to that number. do this a lot. i love, love, LOVE touching like this, even now that i am a pro at edging, because there's zero risk of going over and it's still a great tool to keep you horny / submissive / feeling hot as hell / whatever it is you want to get out of edging.

start at bringing yourself to a four and then stop. once you've mastered that, once that feels almost too easy, move up to a five. then a six. seven. i encourage you not to cum at all while you're doing this, but also, i'm not your dom! do what you want! the point is you're touching-without-cumming a lot (which is great practice all on it's own) and you're acclimating your body to getting horny, sometimes even REALLY horny, without actually cumming every time it happens.

doing this regularly also has the pleasant side-effect keeping you aroused more often than not. if you're constantly bringing yourself to level seven horniness and then stopping, you are almost never going to drop below level three. you are going to be turned on a LOT, which feels sooooo good. which leads to...

getting addicted*!

the thing about being always horny, about touching yourself all the time, about never cumming, is that it feels really, really good. people wouldn't do denial if it didn't! and once you've had a month or so of touching-but-not-edging and your body's adjusted to the sense of being constantly turned on and how good it feels, it gets to a point where cumming is a lot less appealing. you know it's going to take away the good, horny, happy feeling that you're getting addicted to! once you've come to really, really enjoy being constantly horny, and come to associate the idea of cumming with losing that good feeling, that makes it a lot easier to keep from going over as you creep up to higher levels like eight and nine. and even when you do go over, the fact that you'll lose the sensation that you've come to enjoy so much will just reinforce for you that it's better not to cum!

*i'm using addicted as a fun little hyperbole word here, but i do want to add the disclaimer that if your edging / horniness / etc. starts to interfere with your life like a real addiction then you gotta stop that before you hurt yourself. do not actually jeopardize your job/relationships/etc. for kink.

edging!

by this point, you'll have lots of practice at masturbating without going over and you'll be addicted to the feeling of being constantly turned on — and you'll dread the thought of losing that feeling. those things combined are the peak edging scenario. this is the point when you can start trying to edge seriously; bringing yourself to a nine on our horny scale and stopping.

you will probably still go over occasionally as you figure out your actual limits — don't be angry at yourself for this, but do refrain from trying to edge again on days you go over. the last thing you want is to reacclimate your body to coming regularly. if you try to edge in the morning but go over by mistake, just bring yourself to a level eight for the rest of the times you masturbate and try again tomorrow. eventually, you'll know your limits, be addicted to the feeling of being edged, and be really practiced at doing it!

if you're still having trouble or just want to play in new ways, then find out what turns you on but you can't orgasm from. your nipples are sensitive enough to break your brain but you can't orgasm just from that? well then get to playing with them, dummy! love penetration but can't come from it without clit stimulation? tape off your clit and get fucking! i can never cum just from humping a pillow or grinding on something, so grinding is a great way for me to edge! try to find stuff that makes you really, really horny but that you can't orgasm from and really lean into those things!

[jinjeriffic]

DCxDP Prophecy Universe Part 5

Part 4

After collecting their bags from the library lockers Jazz led him down the hallway until she found a small, unlocked, empty classroom. The room was barren except for desks and a whiteboard. I guess they don’t bother locking it if there’s nothing worth stealing.

Jazz sat her messenger bag down on the teacher’s desk and pulled a whiteboard marker out of a side pocket.

“Right,” Jazz began, “I don’t know how much you know about ecto-entities and since, as you said, the reports on them tend to be pretty biased, I’m just going to start from scratch. Sounds good?” she rambled.

Tim hopped up onto the front row desk and tried his best to look like an attentive teacher’s pet.

“Yes, Ms Fenton,” he said cheekily.

Jazz gave him an amused look.

“Careful Mr Taylor, or you’ll end up in detention,” she said lightly. She turned to the whiteboard and gathered her thoughts for a moment, then wrote ECTO-ENTITIES in large block letters, “Many people refer to all ecto-entities as ghosts, but this is actually a misnomer. Ghosts as most people think of them, i.e. the restless spirits of the dead, are only a small subset of the ectoplasmic population. There’s plenty of them that were never human to begin with,” higher up on the board, she wrote INFINITE REALMS, “Ecto-entities originate from a parallel dimension to ours, which is called the Infinite Realms by its inhabitants. Though my parents refer to it as the Ghost Zone, that name is woefully inadequate.” Jazz paused and glanced at him.

“Kinda like foreigners renaming places instead of using the one in the native language, gotcha,” Tim nodded. They had dealt with alternate realities before, so this wasn’t completely out of left field. He would go along with it for now. Jazz gave him a small smile.

“That’s right!” she said and tapped the whiteboard, “Now, the Infinite Realms and our dimension are closely interconnected, like two sides of the same coin. Large scale damage to one would cause similar devastation on the opposite side and vice versa,” she gave him a serious look.

“Which makes the hostile attitude of the paranormal research community rather worrying,” Tim mused, “If someone did something stupid the blowback would hit us too,” If he wasn’t trained to read people he would have missed the slight tightening around Jazz’s eyes.

“That’s the theory anyway. And it’s not like the US government ever dropped bombs on people just to see what would happen,” she chirped with false cheeriness.

There’s a story there, Tim thought, and not the kind you would find in a history book. What the hell has been going on?

“I’m guessing getting access to the Infinite Realms isn’t as easy as calling an Uber though,” he joked.

“You’d be surprised,” Jazz said wryly, receiving a raised eyebrow in response, “there are places where the barrier between worlds is naturally thin, allowing temporary rifts to form more easily, but they can pop up pretty much anywhere in the world. It’s what allows ecto-entities to enter our dimension. It’s also not unheard of for humans to stumble into the Realms either, though they’re lucky to return at all,” she twirled the marker between her fingers, “Time doesn’t seem to work the same way in the Realms as it does here. Just in case you ever come across one, make sure to leave through the same portal you entered. Otherwise you might find yourself stranded in the Middle Ages, or far in the future with everyone you know and love long dead.”

Tim had to fight to keep down a wince. The whole Bruce Lost In Time Debacle was still an emotional scar for the family, they really didn’t need a repeat performance.

“Duly noted.”

“Some entities are able to open and close rifts at will,” Jazz continued, unfazed by Tim’s dry tone, ”though that ability seems to be pretty rare. It probably requires an unusual level of power or incursions would be much more common.”

“That would explain the little disappearing trick Damian’s delivery guy pulled,” Jason murmured through Tim’s earpiece, “But does that mean we’re dealing with a fucking super ghost?”

Tim gave a thoughtful hum and drummed his fingers against the edge of the desk.

“Do you think humans could open a portal to the Realms?”

Jazz gave him a wry smile.

“You just summed up the bulk of my parents’ research over the last two decades. They managed to build a functioning portal about two years ago.”

Tim choked. Jason swore.

“What?! But that’s-! How is that not all over the news?!” Tim sputtered. Jazz just sighed.

“My parents have been ranting about ghosts since they were in college,” she said wearily, ”Most of the scientific community had written them off as crackpots years ago. It doesn’t help that large concentrations of ectoplasm generate some kind of interference that messes with recording equipment. Short of kidnapping the naysayers and shoving them bodily through the Fenton Ghost Portal it’s hard to prove anything. And thankfully even my parents aren’t that crazy,” she finished with an eye roll.

Tim buried his face in his hands. An interdimensional portal. What the fuck. He thought back on everything Jazz had told him so far.

“What’s ectoplasm?”

“You’ve been paying attention!” she smiled and added some notes to the whiteboard, “Ectoplasm is the basic building block of everything in the Infinite Realms, and by extension ecto-entities. Hence the name. It’s the equivalent of matter in our dimension; atoms, protons, quarks, etcetera. I’m not a physicist, so I can’t tell you exactly how it works, but that’s why ecto-entities are able to interact with our physical world in such fascinating ways. Flight, intangibility and invisibility are all common abilities for them.”

“Wow, what a fucking security nightmare. B is gonna freak,” Jason groused. Tim tuned him out to focus on Jazz’s continued explanation.

“My parents have been experimenting with using ectoplasm for power generation, but it’s proven extremely volatile. It seems like it’s affected by things like belief and emotion which is absolutely fascinating,” she said with a gleam in her eye, “not to mention its effects on organic tissue. Have you ever had your dinner come to life and try to eat you?”

Tim had a sudden, horrible suspicion.

“Can’t say that I have,” he managed to squeeze out past the lump in his throat, “Um… Jazz, what does ectoplasm look like?”

“Well that depends on what it’s been affected and shaped by but in its raw form it looks like a bright green, glowing liquid,” she tilted her head, “Why do you ask?”

Over the comms, Jason made a sound like someone had kicked him in the crotch.

“Lazarus water?! Is she talking about the fucking pits?!” he choked out.

Tim made a valiant effort to keep his own reaction in check.

“Oh, just wondering how I’ll recognize a ghost- er, ecto-entity when I see one,” he lied with fake casualness, “You mentioned something about powers?”

“Yes! All the entities we’ve encountered so far have exhibited powers which are common to their species, as well as additional powers that seem to depend on the individual core. I’ve theorized that powers develop as a response to stress related to either their Obsession or death trauma…” Jazz trailed off, “aaaaaand I’ve lost you.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, I know I have a tendency to ramble,” she said sheepishly and considered the bullet points she had written so far, “Let me backtrack a bit. Not all ecto-entities are ghosts. There’s personifications of concepts, which I theorize are formed through the collective consciousness of living beings. They are entities which represent Hope or Justice or-”

“Time?” Tim interjected. Jazz gave him a calculating look.

“...sure. They are among the most powerful entities and have powers related to what they represent. I suspect they may have even been worshipped as gods at some point. You definitely wouldn’t want to mess with them,” at Tim’s nod, she continued, “There’s also the Neverborn, which are formed when ecto-entities choose to reproduce. They are entirely of the Infinite Realms, and thus were never ‘born’ into our world.”

“Ghosts can have children?” he said, surprised.

“Yes, although I’ve never been able to get the details on how it works. They don’t like to discuss it with outsiders. And considering they can look like dragons or disembodied floating eyeballs I’m not sure I’d want to know the exact mechanics,” she joked.

“I’m sure there’s plenty of people who’d disagree with you on that,” Tim muttered, then paused. “Wait, dragons?”

Jazz waved her hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about it. The point is that there’s way more to the other side than most people realize. There’s probably lots of things I’ve never even heard of. It’s quite exciting, really!”

Tim worried about it. A lot. Jason had also gone suspiciously quiet.

“So, ghosts are just the tip of the iceberg?” Tim hedged.

“Exactly. What sets them apart from other ecto-entities is that they are usually created upon the death of someone or something from our dimension, which gives them motivation to come back here,” Jazz added more notes and arrows to the whiteboard. “All entities have something they call a core; think of it as their central organ or brain. It houses their consciousness, and its nature affects what powers they get. There’s all kinds of elemental cores like fire and water, but also more esoteric ones like shadow or technology. An ecto-entity’s body is composed of ectoplasm and moulded by their core. Their physical form is malleable and heavily based on their self-perception. With experience they can change shape to suit their needs.”

Tim mentally added shapeshifting to the growing list of powers to worry about. So far it sounded a lot like a Martian’s.

“So can ecto-entities grow and age?”

“It depends. The Neverborn usually do, but a lot of ghosts have a bit of a Peter Pan thing going on where they don’t want to. They are often ‘stuck’ at the age they were when they died, physically and mentally. Though there’s always exceptions.”

Tim hummed thoughtfully. Something had been bothering him since ghosts had first entered the equation.

“Jazz, if ghosts don’t age or die, why aren’t they all over the place? Even if rifts are rare, shouldn’t there be hundreds of thousands of years worth of dead folks wandering the Earth?”

She gave him a sad smile.

“I never said ghosts couldn’t die, Adam,” she said carefully, ”And not everyone who dies comes back as a ghost. The ones who do typically have some unfinished business holding them back. Like an obsession they never got to fulfill, or a loved one they are watching over. Once they are done, they are free to move on to whatever Afterlife awaits them,” she sighed and crossed her arms, “It also takes a lot of energy for a ghost to do anything in our world. I think a majority of them never hit that level, or can’t keep it up for any significant amount of time. It’s also part of the reason my parents are so biased against them.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“Think about it. Most ecto-entities are just like regular people, going about their business and keeping their heads down. The ones who are both motivated to cross into our world, powerful enough to manifest and tend to make themselves known are the troublemakers. It would be like an alien looking at the population of Belle Reve and concluding that the majority of humans must be super villains! It’s sample bias.”

Tim bit his lip. This all sounded worryingly plausible, which would mean a literal world of trouble about to come down on their heads. Fuck, just what we needed.

“You mentioned that ghosts can die. I assume you don’t mean from old age, right?” he queried. Jazz looked at him wearily.

“You’d be right. If an ecto-entity’s core is too badly damaged, they will cease to exist,” she said cautiously, “It doesn’t help that ghosts tend to maintain a strength based social hierarchy and are fiercely protective of their territory. Ecto-entities usually have a lair within the Infinite Realms, and those who cross over to our dimension often establish a haunt to call their own. Any intruders would be met with violence,” she sighed and rubbed her forehead, “My parents have also been developing weapons to fight ghosts with… varying degrees of success. A lot of their tech runs on ectoplasm which makes it pretty temperamental.”

Seeing Jazz’s obvious discomfort with the topic, Tim decided to switch tracks.

“Is there any way to tell for sure if my brother came back as a ghost?”

Relieved at the change, Jazz made a see-sawing motion with her hand.

“Kind of? My parents tried for ages to build a ghost detector but they never got it to work quite right. Too much ambient ectoplasm in Amity I guess,” she shrugged as if that statement wasn’t extremely worrying. “You could always grab a ouija board or something and try asking. Just… don’t ask a ghost about their death. It’s a major trauma for most of them and there’s no better way to send them into a frothing rage. If they volunteer the information that’s one thing, but to ask about it is like the social faux pas among ecto-entities.”

Tim nodded and made a mental note to get his hands on some Fenton tech. He had a feeling it was going to be a long week for him.

Jason and Tim didn’t speak until they were safely back in the car. Tim was mentally composing the report they would have to make to Bruce. He was not looking forward to his reaction.

“So,” Jason began with fake casualness, “an interdimensional portal in Illinois.”

“Yep.”

“Creatures made of fucking Lazarus Water.”

“Sounds like it.”

“And we still don’t know if our mystery meta is Bruce’s dead kid or not.”

Tim groaned.

“It all adds up though, doesn’t it? The camera glitching, the powers, the portal…”

“And that damned prophecy. The personification of Time, huh?”

Tim pinched his nose to stave off the growing headache. They contemplated the fucked up situation they had stumbled into in silence for a few minutes. Finally, Jason sighed and started up the engine.

“Rock-paper-scissors for who has to tell B?”

Part 6

[youcouldmakealife]

SOTM: Erin/Julius; cosmic vertigo

For the prompt: More Erin and Julius understanding each other on a deep level

“Have you ever thought about the universe?” Julius says.

“I get a headache whenever I do, so I mostly try to avoid it,” Erin says, then, feeling Julius’ eyes on her, “Yeah, I guess. You’ve got to narrow it down a little from ‘literally everything in existence’ for me to figure out what you're getting at, though.”

“How things — change, I guess,” Julius says. “How if something went just a little differently, your life could be completely different too.”

“So like alternate universes,” Erin says, relieved. That’s much less likely to give her a headache. Not unlikely, but thinking about what, exactly, exists past forever? What a constantly expanding universe is expanding into? The last time Erin let herself think about it too long she ended up with a migraine. Possibly a coincidence, but she’s not risking it. That thing lasted two days.

“Yes,” Julius says. “If I was drafted one pick higher, or lower, I would never have come to Edmonton.”

“And you wouldn’t have met Jared, and therefore me, and neither of us would be lying in this bed right now talking about the universe,” Erin says. “Something like that?”

“Something like that,” Julius echoes, then gazes at her for a long moment, not speaking.

“Stop measuring how good a consolation prize I am,” Erin says. Doesn’t matter how great he thinks she is: nobody’s great enough to make up for the pain and suffering of playing for the Edmonton Oilers.

Julius’ mouth quirks, like she’s said it out loud.

“You’re alright,” he says.

“Thanks,” Erin says. “I do my best.”

“Worth coming here,” Julius says.

“Let’s not get too crazy here,” Erin says.

Under the covers, Julius finds where she’s laced her hands on her stomach and prises the nearest away so he can lace his own fingers through it, that hand thief. She likes to sleep like she’s in a coffin and he knows that. Still, she supposes she can lend it to him for a little while.

“Feeling philosophical tonight, are we?” Erin asks.

She doesn’t have to ask why: he’s going back to Finland in two days. Only for a month, before he flies back to Alberta to train with Jared and his buds in Calgary. She doesn’t have to ask why for that either. Dude isn’t going to train in a city he’s never even lived in, a city that hates his guts, just because he misses her brother, though she’s sure Jared would argue otherwise. She won’t make him say it.

“I can come,” Erin says. “If you want me to. I can come.”

Julius blows out a breath. “Next time,” he says.

“Sure,” Erin says. “It’s not — it doesn’t expire or anything. Standing offer. I mean, unless I have something else going on. Then you’re shit out of luck.”

“I will make sure your schedule is clear,” Julius says.

“Thanks,” Erin says. “Thoughtful of you.”

“Would you like your hand back?” Julius says. Erin doesn’t think she’s imagining the reluctance. A month’s not really a long time if the universe is your scale, but if it isn’t, well. It’s long enough.

“That’s okay,” Erin says. “You can have it a bit longer.”

*

So the thing is, when Erin told Julius she’d go to Finland with him, well — it isn’t that she didn’t mean it, because she did, it’s just that she sort of figured that at some point between her saying that and him taking her up on it, she might just spontaneously get past her fear of flying.

Except, fear is such a strong word, isn’t it? She’s fine. She’s been on planes without dying. She even hopped on a plane to see the Canucks host the Oilers — would someone with a lifelong fear of planes do that?

And yeah, sure, it was only ninety minutes, and by the time she quit telling herself that they probably weren't all going to die — but if they did, they better not fuck up and identify her as Bryce’s girlfriend in all the death announcements — they’d pretty much already begun the descent.

Then, once she was done a new recital of how they probably weren't to die — at least they’d better not, because Bryce would feel so guilty about inviting her — they were taxiing to the gate.

And while, like, statistically, that was one of the most dangerous times, like how parking lots and the kilometre around your house are the places you’re most likely to get into an accident, it’s hard to work up the same panic when you’re like, twenty feet in the air instead of twenty thousand.

The flight back wasn’t too bad either, and by the end of the trip, she thought she might have even gotten over that whole fear of flying thing.

She was incorrect.

The thing is, she actually did okay on the flight to Toronto. It helped that it was first thing in the morning, and apparently sleepiness beats out panic, a fact she’s going to be taking advantage of in the future. She genuinely thought she'd reached the other side of it, but the flight to Amsterdam has quickly proven her wrong.

Planes aren’t supposed to shake. And dip! She swears they started to drop out of the sky at one point. Julius said that it was a normal amount of turbulence, but frankly, no turbulence is normal, is it? Sure, it can be a typical amount of turbulence, but normal? They’re in a metal tube in the sky, being thrown around by wind. Erin does not consider any of that to be normal.

“You didn’t tell me you don’t like flying,” Julius says, so quietly Erin can hardly hear him over the almost deafening plane sound nobody else seems to be bothered by. Erin thinks that’s pretty big of him, considering she’s had his hand in a death grip since the turbulence began, and she hasn’t relinquished it even now that it’s finally stopped. In his shoes, she’d probably be going with ‘you know these hands make millions, right?’.

Money that means she’s flying in comfort, if not…comfort. For some reason, Erin thought it’d be easier to deal with things in business class. She doesn’t know why — in a plane crash, the front of the plane is the least likely to survive. But hey, at least Erin got free champagne.

The champagne didn’t help. She hadn’t really thought it would, but she’d been hoping.

“Oh, I don’t know if I’d say I don’t like it,” Erin says. It comes out in a voice she's never heard in her entire life, so perky it’s almost shrill.

“Something stronger?” Julius asks, looking about as disturbed by Stepford Erin as she is. She doesn’t know if he’s talking about the word she’d use or the next drink she should have, but either way the answer's probably yes.

“Do you want your hand back?” Erin asks. It’s not so much an offer as a genuine question, because she’s not sure her hand will unclench for long enough to release it, and she’d probably grab it again the next time the plane started rocking, though maybe she can figure something else out. Grab his thigh or something. It also makes him millions, but it can probably hold up to the abuse a little better.

“You can have it the entire flight if you need,” Julius says. “And for the others.”

Erin’s really, really been trying not to think about the fact there are more flights after this one. Plural.

“Might make it hard to eat,” Erin says. He has the window seat — no fucking way she wants to see just how high up they are, even though she already intellectually knows it — and she’s had custody of his right hand since take off.

“I can figure it out,” Julius says, stroking his thumb over her knuckles. It isn’t quite relaxing — nothing is, right now, not with that damn plane noise — but it’s, you know, not not relaxing, which makes it better than pretty much everything in the world at the moment. It makes Erin’s eyes prickle.

“I know it’s irrational,” Erin says. “I’m well aware of all the statistics, and that it’s safer than basically every kind of transportation. I know. It’s ridiculous. I'm being ridiculous.”

“We can drive,” Julius says. “When we get to Helsinki. We can drive instead. Or take the train.”

Erin tips her head back, trying to keep the tears from spilling. That still leaves Amsterdam to Helsinki, but one flight is better than two. “How long a drive is it?” Erin says.

“Does it matter?” Julius asks.

Erin shakes her head, and when they fall, she swipes at them with her free hand.

“We can drive,” Julius says, thumb tracing back and forth, and Erin focuses on it, the slow sweep of his skin against hers, until the flight attendant comes, asking if they’d like something to drink.

“Champagne,” Erin says. “Please.”

“Two,” Julius says, even though he didn’t even finish his first. “Please.”

“What are we celebrating?” the flight attendant chirps, and Erin stares up at her, unable to muster even a weak smile. Beside her, Julius must be pulling out the ‘dumb fucking question’ face he gives reporters, because the flight attendant says, bright and fake as Stepford Erin, “Two glasses of champagne,” then hurries on to the next seats.

“People,” Julius murmurs, and Erin slides down, twisting in her seat until she can put her head on his shoulder. Probably makes it harder than she needs to, since she refuses to give up Julius’ hand the entire time, but he doesn’t complain, just keeps up the slow sweep of his thumb, and when she finally makes herself comfortable — or, as comfortable as she can, considering the circumstances — he kisses her hair.

“Sorry about stealing your hand,” Erin says. She really hopes he doesn’t think it’s an offer to give it back, because he’ll be disappointed.

“That’s okay,” Julius says. “I don’t need it for my job or anything.”

Erin decides to hold on a little tighter, just for that.

[spacelazarwolf]

avi rates jewish foods

difficulty scale i'll rate these on a scale from 1 to 4, 1 being beginner friendly and 4 being difficult. (i'm not going to rate any recipes that are like ridiculously difficult bc the point of this project is to encourage more ppl to cook these recipes!)

to determine difficulty, i'll average these four categories:

how much active work? (chopping veggies, breading meat, making dumplings, kneading bread, etc.)

1 - little to none; this would be easy to throw together at the last minute or if you need to just toss something in the slow cooker. 2 - some; the recipe did require some time to prep the ingredients but it would be fine for an average weeknight dinner. 3 - a fair amount; a little too taxing to make every night, but i'd make a recipe like this once a week for a nice shabbat dinner. 4 - a lot; this required a lot of work, and i'd probably only do it for special occasions like high holy days or seders.

how easily can you get the ingredients? (i'm working under the assumption that you have access to a grocery store. i'm in the us so that's my frame of reference but ymmv)

1 - i was able to easily find all the ingredients in my local grocery store. 2 - i was able to find almost all the ingredients in my local grocery store; there were one or two specialty ingredients that i needed to get at an international market or order online, but hypothetically you could make it yourself or substitute it for something easier to find and it would not affect the recipe. 3 - i was able to find some of the ingredients in my local grocery store; there were several specialty ingredients that i needed to get at an international market or order online, and technically you could make it yourself or substitute it for something easier to find but it would probably be more difficult and would likely affect the recipe. 4 - i had to get several specialty ingredients at the international market or order online; you might be able to make it yourself or substitute for something easier to find, but it would be very difficult and definitely affect the recipe.

what kind of cookware do you need? (i'm considering "the basics" to be: a pot and pan, spoon, knife, stove/oven)

1 - just the basics. 2 - would be easier with one or two specialty utensils but you can still make it without. 3 - probably need one or two specialty utensils to make it correctly. 4 - you definitely need specialty utensils to make it correctly.

what kind of kitchen skills do you need?

1 - can you boil water? can you chop a vegetable? you can make this. 2 - would be helpful to know some basics (knife skills, sauteing, etc.) 3 - you need to know some intermediate skills (frying, basic bread making, etc) 4 - you need to know or learn some fairly advanced techniques.(higher level bread making, special techniques that apply to the recipe, etc.)

personal rating

1 - did not like, could not finish it. 2 - it was ok, but i wouldn't eat it again. 3 - good, i wouldn't go out of my way to make it again, but i would happily eat it if someone served it to me. 4 - really good, i would make this again. 5 - excellent, i am adding this to my regular rotation.

[bonkutoe]

nekoma hcs i've been dreaming up since before the movie came out:

- shibayama keeps a quote book

+ there are some absolutely foul, heinous statements in there.

+ he ends up passing it down to a first year before he graduates and has to explain uhh. quite a lot!

+ "um. why does yaku call kai babygirl" "how about we stop talking for a while!"

+ "'it tastes so good i would stick—' shibayama-san what IS this" "I'M JUST THE MESSENGER IT'S NOT MY FAULT"

- kuroo made a sliding scale diagram of every nekoma member from most to least catlike and refuses to accept any criticism

+ in order (as far as more relevant characters go) it went kenma, fukunaga, kuroo himself, tora, yaku, kai, shibayama, lev, inuoka

+ yaku in particular was deeply offended about his placement

+ "you're like if a dog could be a cat" "FUCK you how is tora higher than me" "well that's because he's like if a cat could be a dog."

- inuoka has a special handshake with everyone

+ the one with tora is the longest because they keep thinking of stuff to add and its really cool and not a distraction at all kuroo they promise

+ it's 40+ steps at this point

+ they keep having to restart because one of them forgets something

+ kuroo just wants to do serving drills and he's getting tired of asking nicely

- fukunaga can will and does fall asleep anywhere

+ like. anywhere. in a plane on a train on his desk at school on the floor in the library you name a location and i'd bet good money he's snoozed there. he fell asleep on the bench during a timeout once in the middle of a practice match. yaku found him in a cabinet one time

+ some under the counter door closed curled up shit. made it look like sleeping on a cloud too i'm sure

- speaking of fukunaga. he carries around one of those little party noisemaker things around with him so he can use it when something makes him happy

+ like those ones where you blow in them and the paper unrolls and it honks or whatever. you know the sound idk how to describe it

+ he's exploring creative methods of communication so he doesn't have to force himself to talk all the time :)

- every time kuroo sees a cat he HAS to meow at it, it isn't a question of if he will or not, he Has To. it's like a compulsion

+ it's the alternative to baby-talking them (which he also does sometimes)

+ when ppl send cat pics in the gc he types meow and hits send

+ he wants to be POLITE and say HELLO and since cats can't speak japanese, kuroo will speak cat

+ he gets down to their eye level too or at LEAST crouches. he doesn't wanna frighten them

- lev tried to keep the blood speech alive after the third years graduated

+ "ok we're blood--" "you're doing it WRONG" "WHATT WHATTTTT"

+ he tries to come up with something new but gives up bc he can't stop thinking of vital organs

+ "ok ok kenma i got it this time. so we're like the liver--" "tora i'm gonna kill this guy"

- touchiest volleyball team known to man

+ hugs, heads on shoulders or in laps, holding hands, shoulder touches, patting each other on the back or the head, arms around shoulders, cuddling at sleepovers they're doing it ALL

+ totally indiscriminate too. if you attend nekoma high school and join the boys' volleyball club you will not be touch starved i can tell you that

- you know how when you have a litter of kittens they all kind of sleep in a pile

+ this is a maneuver nekoma hits often, i think

+ it turns into a catch-all solution for like. anything

+ didn't get enough sleep? cat pile. finals are coming up? cat pile. forgot your phone at home? cat pile. it rained during the school day and you got the bottom hem of your pants wet on the way to afternoon practice? cat pile.

+ it sort of happens in the gym before/after practice just because it's the most convenient option, but it definitely happened in the bleachers after the dumpster battle too

[centrally-unplanned]

Gonna make this a quick one since I just don’t have the spoons for a really big effort post: Pre-CCP 20th Century China Did Not Have Feudal or Slave-like Land Tenancy Systems

Obviously what counts as “slave-like” is going to be subjective, but I think it's common, for *ahem* reasons, for people to believe that in the 1930’s Chinese agriculture was dominated by massive-scale, absentee landlords who held the large majority of peasant workers in a virtual chokehold and dictated all terms of labor.

That is not how Chinese land ownership & agricultural systems worked. I am going to pull from Chinese Agriculture in the 1930s: Investigations into John Lossing Buck’s Rediscovered ‘Land Utilization in China’ Microdata, which is some of the best ground-level data you can get on how land use functioned, in practice, in China during the "Nanjing Decade" before WW2 ruins all data collection. It looks at a series of north-central provinces, which gives you the money table of this:

On average, 4/5ths of Chinese peasants owned land, and primarily farmed land that they owned. Tenancy was, by huge margins, the minority practice. I really don’t need to say more than this, but I'm going to because there is a deeper point I want to make. And it's fair to say that while this is representative of Northern China, Southern China did have higher tenancy rates - not crazy higher, but higher.

So let's look at those part-owner farmers; sounds bad right? Like they own part of their land, but it's not enough? Well, sometimes, but sometimes not:

A huge class (about ~1/3rd) of those part-owners were farming too much land, not too little; they were enterprising households renting land to expand their businesses. They would often engage in diversified production, like cash crops on the rented land and staple crops on their owned land. Many of them would actually leave some of their owned land fallow, because it wasn’t worth the time to farm!

Meanwhile the small part-owners and the landless tenant farmers would rent out land to earn a living…sometimes. Because that wasn’t the only way to make a living - trades existed. From our data, if you are a small part-owner, you got a substantial chunk of your income from non-farm labor; if you owned no land you got the majority of your income from non-farm labor:

(Notice how that includes child labor by default, welcome to pre-modernism!)

So the amount of people actually doing full-tenancy agriculture for a living is…pretty small, less than 10% for sure. But what did it look like for those who do? The tenancy rates can be pretty steep - 50/50 splits were very common. But that is deceiving actually; this would be called “share rent”, but other systems, such as cash rents, bulk crop rents, long-term leases with combined payment structures, etc, also existed and were plentiful - and most of those had lower rent rates. However, share rent did two things; one, it hedged against risk; in the case of a crop failure you weren't out anything as the tenant, a form of insurance. And two, it implied reciprocal obligations - the land owner was providing the seed, normally the tools as well, and other inputs like fertilizer.

Whether someone chose one type of tenancy agreement or the other was based on balancing their own labor availability, other wage opportunities, the type of crop being grown, and so on. From the data we have, negotiations were common around these types of agreements; a lot of land that was share rent one year would be cash rent another, because the tenants and market conditions shifted to encourage one or the other form.

I’m doing a little trick here, by throwing all these things at you. Remember the point at the top? “Was this system like slavery?” What defines slavery? To me, its a lack of options - that is the bedrock of a slave system. Labor that you are compelled by law to do, with no claim on the output of that work. And as I hit you with eight tiers of land ownership and tenancy agreements and multi-source household incomes, as you see that the median person renting out land to a tenant farmer was himself a farmer as a profession and by no means some noble in the city, what I hope becomes apparent is that the Chinese agricultural system was a fully liquid market based on choice and expected returns. By no means am I saying that it was a nice way to live; it was an awful way to live. But nowhere in this system was state coercion the bedrock of the labor system. China’s agricultural system was in fact one of the most free, commercial, and contract-based systems on the planet in the pre-modern era, that was a big source of why China as a society was so wealthy. It was a massive, moving market of opportunities for wages, loans, land ownership, tenancy agreements, haggled contracts, everyone trying in their own way to make the living that they could.

It's a system that left many poor, and to be clear injustices, robberies, corruption, oh for sure were legion. Particularly during the Warlord Era mass armies might just sweep in and confiscate all your hard currency and fresh crops. But, even ignoring that the whole ‘poverty’ thing is 90% tech level and there was no amount of redistribution that was going to improve that very much, what is more important is that the pre-modern world was *not* equally bad in all places. The American South was also pretty poor, but richer than China in the 19th century. And being a slave in the American South was WAY worse than being a peasant in China during times of peace - because Confederate society built systems to remove choice, to short-circuit the ebb and flow of the open system to enshrine their elite ‘permanently’ at the top. If you lived in feudal Russia it was a good deal worse, with huge amounts of your yearly labor compelled by the state onto estates held by those who owned them unimpeachably by virtue of their birthright (though you were a good deal richer just due to basic agriculture productivity & population density, bit of a tradeoff there).

If you simply throw around the word “slavery” to describe every pre-modern agricultural system because it was poor and shitty, that back-doors a massive amount of apologia for past social systems that were actively worse than the benchmarks of the time. Which is something the CCP did; their diagnosis of China’s problem for the rural poor of needing massive land redistribution was wrong! It was just wrong, it was not the issue they were having. It was not why rural China was often poor and miserable. It could help, sure, I myself would support some compensated land redistribution in the post-war era as a welfare idea for a fiscally-strapped state. But that was gonna do 1% of the heavy lifting here in making the rural poor's lives better. And I don’t think we should continue to the job of spreading the CCP's propaganda for them.

There ya go @chiefaccelerator, who alas I was not permitted to compel via state force into writing this for me, you Qing Dynasty lazy peasant.

[nanaten]

more people should base mother characters’ character traits/design elements off their stats. its something ive been doing for a while now

I draw Ninten to be thinner than the rest of them as a result of his speed stat being significantly higher than the other two at level 99 (155!! insane!! more than double Lucas’s max speed!!) and I also imagine him to be that way having less guts than the other two protagonists— so he’s more susceptible to finding other routes to resolve/escape conflict, (4th D Slip you get it). He’s also (pardon my language,) a lucky, sarcastic fucker, so he’ll take advantage of that during combat too. (Wisdom/Luck: 155). I also think that Ninten, lacking in vitality, also aids this general idea that Ninten isn’t noticeably strong— though i also think maybe his vitality would be noticeably higher without the asthma, LOL.

This is why i also consider Ninten to be more witty and bastardy. Is he all that strong (from the outside)? No. Can he use offensive PSI? No. But luck is on his side, he’s smart, and he can pack a real damn punch if need be.

I also think, with his wit, he’d weaponise his smaller stature, this is to say he’d weaponise his (what is viewed as,) physical incompetence. you get it. he’s just a little boyyyy he’s a little birthday boy look at him he can’t hurt you he’s like 2 grams of protein Oh Shit He Just Knocked You Out Because You Were Unassuming And Thought He Couldn’t. Welp!

Ness’s I consider less simply based on the fact he specifically gets a huge boost (y’know the whole magicant boost thing,) nearing the end of the game, but I still think it’s important. For example him having the least defence of the three (whilst having the most guts & IQ) could take to mean that he’s overtly confident and relies far more on his own strengths and immediate in-the-moment smarts. I also take this to mean he’s got alot more muscle mass, not valuing speed as much as raw strength— His moves are calculated, but not premeditated, he figures out the best course of attack and goes for it immediately. I also think it’s representative of a more laid back, relaxed personality— he’s not too uppity, he’s not all that scared of much, he’s confident and reliable and faithful in his skills.

Lucas’s stats may initially seem weaker than the rest but I moreso take this to mean he’s alot more calculated. Being the slowest with a speed of 60, I imagine he puts an immense amount of thought into each and every move he makes— he cares less about how much he can do and cares far more about precision, each hit deliberate with intention. And i think this is cooperated well with his defence stat being the second highest (I also take this to mean Lucas is pretty tanky, as opposed to Ninten, who I think has high defence more from mental planning and probably PSI— cough cough power shield,) only 5 points away from Ninten’s— it all takes to mean he is safe and deliberate, calculated and threatening. I also think the high fight/guts stat infers that Lucas isn’t really one for finding alternative routes out of combat, he is not afraid to fight and is down to fuck your shit up if it comes down to it. He is also a notorious lucky fucker, like Ninten, but with it being slightly lower I imagine his luck would moreso aid him, as opposed to Ninten who would regularly bank on that luck.

Lucas’s stats don’t add too much to how I characterize him but I think they do further aid the general idea of Lucas being quite stoic and unmoving, quiet and observant.

These stats are scaled because each mother games’ stats work differently! this is just a general idea and for fun lol

[ramshacklefey]

No but serious. Dungeons & Dragons is one of the least flexible systems out there. So whenever I hear someone asking, "Why can't I do X in DnD?" or "How would I do (thing that the system is totally ill-suited for)?" my first response is just "GURPS."

For those of you who aren't familiar, GURPS stands for "Generic Universal Role Playing System." I always say it's like the Linux of ttrpgs, in the sense that it's less a system and more a framework that you can use to do whatever you want with.

And I really do mean whatever you want. You want high fantasy? Done. You want gritty realism in a dystopian world? Got it. You want superheroes? Good to go. Super tech space opera? Oh boy we got you there. You want magic systems that aren't based on spell lists? Go for it. Horror games where character death is a constant and very real threat? Sure thing.

You can set up your game to be anything from a complex data driven grinder to a cinematic rules basically optional flight of fancy.

You can play characters who are anywhere from realistically squishy humans to god-like super beings.

Characters personal flaws and strengths can have a direct impact on mechanics. Character species can have a direct and serious impact on mechanics.

The existence of so many options can make GURPS seem overwhelming at first glance, but if you are willing to put in a bit of effort, it's actually a very simple system to play. Most of the hard work is front-loaded into setting and character creation. Once play starts it runs as smooth as can be.

It's totally possible to play it with just the two core books, BUT there are dozens of books that are nothing but tips and advice for how to build a particular type of world or a particular flavor of campaign.

And the books, while not nearly as pretty as DnD books, are laid out in a way that makes it incredibly easy to find exactly the information you want.

Some more mechanical things that I particularly like about it (under the cut):

Characters are created on a point-buy system, but you don't just buy your basic stats, you also buy your skills, advantages, and secondary stats. And you can gain points back by dropping stats below average or taking disadvantages.

The advantage/disadvantage system. This is sorta the core of the character building, and it is *so* much fun. See, rather than pick out a class or species, you have a list (selected by your GM from a much larger list) of things you can buy that will have mechanical impacts on you in the game. Basically, an advantage is anything that opens up more possibilities for you in-game, and a disadvantage is anything that closes off possibilities. They can be superpowers, species traits, cinematic plot armor, personality traits, or things like chronic illness, bad temper, physical or mental disabilities, or being doomed by the narrative.

Simple dice system. To play a GURPS campaign you need three d6. That's it. All checks and saves are done by rolling 3d6 (low rolls are better than high). This has an additional advantage over the d20 system in that there is a probability curve. You're more likely to roll numbers in the mid-range, which makes both critical successes and critical failures rarer, and therefore more satisfying.

Your target roll is adjusted, rather than adding/subtracting from the roll itself. Say you're trying to, idk, hack a computer. Your skill level doesn't affect your dice roll, it affects the number you need to roll in order to succeed. This makes things a lot simpler on the player's end, imo, because there's less they need to keep track of. (You're trying to roll under the skill check, so whatever the base difficulty is, the GM just adds or subtracts your skill level from that).

The basic stats are on a much tighter scale, and they make a lot more sense. Human average is a 10 in everything. When you make your character you can buy higher stats or take lower ones and get more points to spend on other things. All stats cap out at 18, because that's the highest number you can roll. At a 10 strength you are a normal person. At 18 you're basically Superman. You'd have to roll a critical failure not to succeed in a strength check, and remember: critical failures are far less common than in a d20 system.

I could keep going ad infitum here, but instead I'll just close with:

Come with me boy, play my games! We'll have cowboy times in space!

[sfstranslations]

how hard(?) would you say it is to translate? Ive been kinda curious about that, like does anything get lost in translation/ just not make that much sense without knowing the og language? or anything like that? 🤔

Hm, maybe 7 or 8 on a scale of 10? Though it can easily go higher at times, haha. (Always when Sung Hyunjae is in a scene because his name is a misspelling and it pisses me off.* This is a joke. Only half, though.) Basic word-by-word dictionary lookup is simple, which is why machine translators can do it well enough. But then you have to string all of it together in a sentence where you:

figure out and find a way to convey any difference in connotation between this specific chosen word and other words that mean the same thing (think the connotations of "regal" VS "royal" in English), and

do the same as above, but on a sentence-wide level translating the nuance of a particular grammar/sentence structure (thousand and one sentence endings in Korean, I swear -_-), and

make sure distinct character voices are retained or translated from the original Korean (think Song Taewon's stiff formality VS Han Yoojin's more casual speech VS Sung Hyunjae's middle-aged rich guy-type speech), and

make sure this sentence flows with the overall paragraph/chapter.

All those priorities have to be juggled throughout the chapter and add up to make it a fairly hard task. It definitely gets easier with practice once you're more familiar with the language (especially the nuance/connotation stuff), though, and I did get lucky in that my native language shares some aspects with Korean so the grammar is easier to intuitively grasp. Of course, I'm still learning, so I do have times I need to call in more experienced speakers for help.

(I definitely wouldn't say I'm good with the language period. Recently I've tentatively picked up a new novel—people following my personal blog will know which one—and it turns out I'm familiar with the way Geunseo talks and familiar with the vocabulary typical to dungeon fantasy novels, but kind of. Majorly hopeless when it comes to other stuff. The phrasing is juuust off enough that I keep getting tripped up and taking thrice as long to understand what's being said.)

There's definitely stuff that wouldn't make sense in English—certain idioms, cultural stuff, and all that, but that's why I try to localize wherever possible and add footnotes with relevant info/links if not. And there is stuff that gets lost in translation—you can look at the chapter titles from 302–307 for an example of that, where the joke is much more immediately obvious in Korean but had to be translated differently as chapter title VS in-chapter text messages and lost the clear parallel. I also remember being grumpy back during the virtual reality dungeon arc because Yoohyun would use 네놈 (ne-nom but typically pronounced ni-nom, a derogatory way to say "you", LMAO) towards Sigma and there was no concise way to get that across in English except having him be aggressive and direct. Especially since he isn't the type to swear by word of god, so I couldn't have him addressing him with "asshole" or "jerk" to convey it.

TL;DR: Fairly hard to translate, but gets easier with time, and there is stuff that's lost or difficult to understand, but I do what I can to make it understandable in English!

--

* Sung Hyunjae uses "ae" at the end, but that implies it's 성현재, which is wrong—the correct spelling is 성현제, which should be "Sung Hyunje". (If you wanted to go the full Revised Romanization route, it'd be Seong Hyeonje, but I've weathered my share of name changes and that's a step too far even for me.) I've been meaning to make a poll about changing it like with the Lauchitas spelling, but I keep forgetting.

[cassiesdevblog]

~Shmovement~ in Grey Area

Hello goober goblins! Grey Area comes out ~September 15th~ and I wanna make some posts going over my involvement with the project 👁️👁️

I joined the project back in March because, while playing early builds, there were a million things, big and small, that I wanted to be able to polish up to really make the game shine, and my top priority was Hailey's movement

Grey Area is a game where beginners will mostly play inside a small range of velocities, but, thanks to @bisthefairy, there are ways to build and maintain greater speeds, so Hailey's movement has to be tuned for both small-scale, precision platforming and large-scale, broader movements. Plus, as most of the level design was already finished when I joined, all my changes had to work with, rather than against, the established design

General momentum adjustments

When I first joined, there were a few ways that slow and fast play would clash with one another. For instance, Hailey had low air friction. This was nice at higher speeds, because you should be able to briefly release the d-pad to shave off a little speed without getting rid of all of it, but it didn't mesh with tighter sections where you'd be asked to land precisely on small platforms

Luckily, since the smaller range of speeds Hailey usually stays within is well defined, I was able to just dramatically increase her air friction while not pressing a direction, only while inside that range.

Unfortunately, this led to a small problem: There are lots of spots in the game where you're meant to bonk off a wall and land on a platform. Where you could previously do this without having to hold a direction, you now had to hold back a little or Hailey wouldn't make it. To fix this, I just made her use the old friction during a bonk. That may seem unintuitive, but the bonk is all about Hailey bouncing back off a wall, so it feels natural for her to travel further. In practice, the discrepancy doesn't feel like a discrepancy.

Dive momentum changes

Hailey's main mechanic is her dive: a burst movement option that lets you speed straight forward. You can cancel out of the move at any point, cutting off all your momentum. However, when I first joined, Hailey would keep a small amount of the dive's momentum after a cancel. The intent was to let you keep the flow going even after a cancel, but it led to lots of overshooting in a game with low margins for error. I preserved the original way if the player is holding in the direction of the dive, so you can still keep your flow going, but if you're not pressing a direction, Hailey will instead cancel all the momentum and drop straight down

Release cancel (aka, half the reason I joined the project)

These subtle changes have made Hailey much more reliable to control. It feels much easier to translate your intent onto the screen regardless of how fast you're going (September 15th btw)

Speaking of intent, I've had a big impact on this game's controls! The first time I ever played, the dive could only be canceled by releasing B and then pressing it again. I felt this was really cumbersome and I barely felt in control, so I wanted to cancel by just releasing B

This was controversial though, as everyone else preferred the original way, so I instead suggested being able to cancel by pressing back on the d-pad, as it felt instinctual to hold against the direction of momentum to cancel it. I also suggested being able to press down to cancel, since a player might think of it as dropping Hailey down. Fortunately, both were implemented and the game became a bit more comfortable for me, but I couldn't get the idea of releasing B to cancel out of my head

Later, when I finally got my hands on the project, release cancel was the first thing I added, and it felt just as right and perfect and natural as I imagined it would. I figured, if I just made the other devs play with it, they might see the merits of it and change their minds. Tragically it didn't change any minds, but I was ultimately able to persuade Alayna to make it an option in the options menu. When you play the game, especially if you don't like how cancelling is controlled, please please please try changing "Press to dive" to "Hold to dive" in the options menu and join the church of release cancel. We have plenty of room :')

Other controls

I've made a bunch of other small changes to the controls too! Generally, I like every button on the controller to do something, so I mirrored a lot of functions to previously unused buttons. Hopefully this makes the game feel more responsive and playful, as well as a little more accessible! I also made it so Hailey sits down when you press down :) It's one of only a few graphics I drew for the game! (did I mention September 15th btw)

The Bounce 👁️👁️

I've saved my biggest (and most iterated upon) change for last >:3

When Hailey dives at smaller enemies, she'll bounce off as if she goomba stomped them, which cancels her dive and allows her to dive again. I added this because I thought the sick tricks and possibility for advanced play were too sweet to pass up. Not to mention it just seemed like fun. Plus, it would add exciting counterplay to some previously unexciting enemies. It's a simple mechanic, but it underwent a lot of changes!

Firstly, it used to work on almost every enemy, but it didn't feel right against bigger monsters. We ended up deciding that Hailey should only be able to do this against enemies around her size, so in practice, this mainly comes up with the Golch enemy. When I first played, I found the Golch really annoying, as the best and safest strategy to deal with it was to just stand and wait for it to fly toward you so you could jump on it. Now, you can dive right at it and pull off sweet tricks instead! This has ended up making room for tons of cool skips and it feels great >:3

I even redesigned the Golch's flight path so that it will usually be flying at your exact elevation (it moves faster vertically than it does horizontally to accomplish this) so you can more consistently dive straight into it

I also made it so that bouncing off an enemy clamps your speed within a relatively small range, as otherwise you would carry the momentum of the dive and easily fly off into a pit

Now, in my mind, this all worked perfectly, but then disaster struck

@zombielesbean, who uses press cancel, would try to press B to cancel right before running into an enemy in order to avoid it, but would press a few frames too late and instead the input would happen after Hailey had bounced off the enemy, so she'd dive again and accidentally fly off into a pit. We tried a million different avenues to resolve this, but all of them were significant downgrades to the mechanic

Fortunately, Alayna found that the issue was only happening because of the enemy placements in one or two spots, and after adjusting them, it was no longer an issue, so fortunately the best version of the mechanic got in >:3

So yeah!!

Those are a few of the ways I've cleaned up and improved Hailey's movement since I joined! I've gotten my grubby paws all over every bit of this game in a similar way. Cleaning things up, tuning numbers, adding effects, making things more clear, overhauling things, enhancing the flavor

A huge takeaway from this project for me has been that polish is a full time job!! Every little bit of polish seems small on its own, but when you add them all up they can make the difference between a decent game and a total banger. It just takes a huge amount of time to accrue all those tiny things. I think that's why they say you should triple all your time estimates on gamedev...!!

Fortunately, I have a good eye and a strong passion for all those little things, so I feel like an extremely valuable asset on this project, even though my hand is largely invisible and it takes long-winded posts like this to even explain what I've done

As Bis puts it, "Cass did for Grey Area before release what Sonic modders do for Sonic games after release"

~September 15th you vibrant fools~

[sir-adamus]

whenever i think of Ironwood's 'grand plan' after he gets spooked by a piece from a board game i always have to laugh because it was never gonna work, it was unsustainable from jump and only got progressively more unfeasible as volume 8 progressed

"we're going to use the staff to lift Atlas into the atmosphere where Grimm can't reach and leave everyone in Mantle to rot because if the poors didn't want to die they should've been born with money like the rest of us"

yeah cool bro, so given what we (finally) see of Atlas in volume 8 they've got some atmospheric control to accommodate for the temperature and presumably thinner air at the height Atlas is already floating at

and what powers that again? right, Dust. cos Dust powers everything

and you would have to assume that to maintain the current level of atmospheric control in a much higher altitude, that machinery would have to be cranked well the fuck up, which means more Dust is needed. and they can't mine for more because... they're up in the atmosphere, and their supply chain and underpaid exploited labourers got left to die on the ground

so power's gonna run out real fast and everyone's gonna suffocate and die slowly (guess Jimmy really wants to beat out Mountain Glenn on 'World's Largest Tomb')

but let's say by some miracle they do last longer than a week up there - food's gonna run out and they're not gonna be able to keep up supply and demand because they can't import any, supply chain is gone and they abandoned the rest of the planet to die to Salem. hell, water is gonna run out

and then the most ridiculous argument for the plan "Grimm can't fly that high". cos like. no. Grimm don't fly that high, because they don't need to. none of y'all were up there. just like none of y'all lived in the snowy tundras of the north so there weren't Grimm up there. until there were - funny how that works. and Salem's specifically been shown to be able to alter the Grimm without much issue - this wouldn't be a "one day the Grimm will adapt and fly that high" it's "give Salem maybe an hour and she'll make something that can get that high"

so yeah, the whole plan is stupid and it's basically just handing Salem the Staff because all she would have to do is wait out everyone dying from lack of air and then just going up there and taking the damn thing (and then dropping Atlas and causing mass devastation on a global scale)

and then volume 8 makes it worse - the shields go down and Monstra gets parked on Atlas. the plan was dead right there, she's already on the goddamn rock my dude - if you lift the rock now then she's still going to be on it and you will die even faster than you were already going to; like even after Oscar blew up Monstra and Salem was reforming, The Coward in Chief wasn't making any effort to scrape her off the side of Atlas before leaving, he just went back to making threats (which included the baffling logic of "Penny, unless you give yourself up now, i am going to blow up Mantle, and then you won't have any reason to not do what i say anymore anyway" as if Penny wouldn't have justifiable reason to decapitate him for doing that)

'the great general Ironwood' who grew up and came into power in peace time - strategically unsound, incapable of taking criticism and dumber than a bag of hammers

what a hero

[youkaiyume]

Hello, it's been a while since I did a rant. But WARNING for gross medical things:

SO it turns out my old nemesis the ovarian cysts have plagued me again. I found out about three weeks ago when a weird pain wouldn't leave my pelvis and went to urgent care and they suggested a CT scan. ONLY! for my insurance to deny me cuz they think I needed more probable cause for one so my doctor just recommended I go to the ER (which ironically is way more expensive for insurance to pay for than a simple CT scan but they did it to themselves lol).

Turns out I have cysts on BOTH of my ovaries FUN. But the left one is very concerningly big and probably needs to be removed but I can only do so by getting an approval of an OBGYN. So after finding one and waiting for my blood tests to come back so she can determine if she can surgically remove it--

YESTERDAY I had a SUDDEN AND SEVERE pain that hit me. I was at a solid 10 on that pain scale and vomiting and sweating so I drove myself to the ER again for the second time in two weeks. Frustratingly, the MALE doctor came back and was just like "well it looks like while we were doing your ultrasound you weren't consistently experiencing pain" which I was ready to bite his head off because let me tell you. While I was laying stretched out letting them do the ultrasound I was in the worst pain the ENTIRE time. And it was not a short ultrasound. It lasted over 20 mins and even after they asked me if I could survive sitting through the vaginal ultrasound after which would be another 25 mins. And those are painful just for the stick poking around in your yoohoo alone. I begged for pain relievers and when I described it they were like "oh that's labor level pains"

SO Mr. I don't have a Uterus doctor, DON'T TELL ME that your machine says I wasn't in pain. He even hit me with a "well I don't know what your pain tolerance is" as if to minimize or make me feel like I was overblowing what I was feeling. Like, fuck that guy. But because technically the imaging showed that the cysts haven't ruptured or caused my ovaries to twist it was considered "non emergent" and so the just gave me painkillers and then sent me home and reiterated that the only way I could get it removed at this point was to beg my OBGYN and convince her it was an emergency. In the meantime it was "oh you'll have to live with LABOR LIKE PAINS 24/7 until they let you have surgery." In the meantime they said I should only return to the ER after I've took all my pain meds and my pain doesn't improve OR if something worse happens. like a rupture.

WHICH btw are the exact same symptoms I have today so I was like how will I know cuz I can't imagine a worse pain than this one to which they were like "shrug"

I was in tears. Oh but it gets EVEN BETTER. Called my OBGYN this morning and she said my blood tests came back and that unfortunately they detected higher than usual levels of cancer markers in the cyst so that means she can't surgically remove them for me, she has to foist me to an Oncologist so THEY can remove it. She tries to say it doesn't necessarily MEAN cancer but hnnnnnggg that does not help with my anxiety at the moment.

Now calling the Oncologist to make an appointment today was a whole ordeal itself cuz their system kept going to voicemail so I had to call all the departments until they finally let me through but I had to run back to the hospital to try to get my Ultrasound discs for them. But even then they were like "your appointment isn't until next Wednesday" because THATS when the doctor meanders into work. So I'm like OH so like, in the meantime what if something happens??? And they're like well you gotta call back your OBGYN to see if you have other options. Which turns out she is also out. Until Tuesday. So I'm like. Guess I'll die then!

I don't even want kids!!! These ovaries have caused me nothing but trouble!!! Please rip them from my body!!

[drunkenskunk]

Welcome to another Drunk Skunk™ rant!

It is entirely possible that you have noticed: I love Warhammer 40k. At the same time, I hate Warhammer 40k... okay, hate is probably the wrong word, but let me explain.

40k is one of my favorite sci-fi settings because it is, hilariously, one of the few that actually manages to get the scale of Outer Space right. Most sci-fi writers have no sense of scale, but 40k is somehow able to convey the unimaginable, incomprehensible, terrifying vastness of Outer Space correctly.

Granted, I think it does this entirely on accident, because everything in 40k is exaggerated beyond the point of absurdity. The scale of everything is massive, every number has several zeros tacked onto the end of it, travelling anywhere takes months, years, even decades, and... that's just how Outer Space is. You can't exaggerate on what is already functionally infinite.

As a result, 40k as a setting has an enormous amount of potential. No matter how much we see of the Warhammer galaxy, we will only ever see a bare fraction of it, and there is always going to be more - and stranger - stuff hidden in pockets of the galaxy that has slipped entirely beneath notice for decades, if not centuries. Or even millennia!

But here's the problem I have. All of this potential? It is almost always completely wasted by Games Workshop. Nearly every single time, GW ignores the massive amount of potential in the setting they created, in order to focus on boring shit that nobody cares about like even more fucking space marines. It's infuriating.

As far as I'm concerned, there is no better example of this in the entire setting... than the Tau Empire.

The Tau annoy me, but not for the reasons you think.

The most common complaint I see leveled against the Tau is that they are the "good" guys, and that they don't fit into the Grim Darkness of the Grim Dark far future of Grim Dark. This is untrue. Moreover: it was never true. Even when they were introduced in 2001 with their first codex during 3rd edition, they were not good guys.

I've always held the suspicion that people saw things like their catchphrase "The Greater Good" and they read things like "the Tau are not overtly hostile," and took all of that entirely at face value, because a sizeable chunk of this fucking fandom has no media literacy skills.

It still amazes me that Warhammer 40k - a game physically incapable of subtlety - has fans that miss the blatantly obvious.

Before I get to my main point, let's clear the air on something right now: the Tau are bad guys, just like all the other factions in 40k.

If you were to place the Tau in any other science fiction setting, they would be a terrifyingly evil authoritarian space hegemony, with a firmly held belief of "Manifest Destiny" and constantly expanding the borders of their imperial holdings through the use of dirty tricks, illegitimate treaties, and good old fashioned military adventurism spurred on by their vast military industrial complex.

Yes, the Tau typically engage in diplomacy first, but that's usually only to establish a casus belli to claim the moral high ground in a conflict because the Tau are obsessed with appearances and love to play the Long Game. Yes, the average standard of living in Tau space is higher than the Imperium, but that's not a high bar. The Tau have a rigidly enforced caste system, and you can imagine how they deal with their "client races" who might disagree with that and even other Tau who refuse to fall in line.

Or have we all forgotten about Commander Farsight?

... I feel like I may have gotten a bit off track.

Okay, so: the simple reason the Tau annoy me is because there was a whole lot of potential there, and all of it has been completely wasted because Games Workshop doesn't seem to understand what made them interesting in the first place.

See, when the Tau were introduced in 2001, it was quickly established in the first codex that the only reason they even managed to make it to the "present" of 40k was due to a series of accidents that allowed that particular scrap of nowhere to slip beneath everyone's notice.

But here's the thing: we didn't really need that excuse. Every time we see maps of Tau space, it's always zoomed in to such an extent that it looks much bigger than it is... because, unlike every other faction, you can't have a full map of the galaxy that only focuses on the Tau, because it's always just a pinprick.

My personal favorite of these maps is the one from the 5th edition rulebook, but it's common with all of them.

To put this into better perspective: Tau space is almost always described as a sphere about 300 light years in diameter, which is roughly the same size as "The Bubble," the cluster of human worlds centered around Sol, in Elite Dangerous.

And that, right there, is why the Tau should be interesting, at least to me. They represent what could exist in the hidden parts of the Warhammer galaxy that slips beneath everyone's notice because SPACE IS BIG. The Imperium of Man may technically cover the entire breadth of the Milky Way galaxy, and "hold" a million worlds... but there are 100 BILLION stars, and even more planets besides, in a galaxy that stretches 100 thousand light years from end to end.

That is A LOT of Outer Space that could hold any number of secrets and weird alien species that nobody would know about until somebody accidentally stumbles on them.

The Tau could have - should have - been a jumping off point, allowing Games Workshop to make the setting feel even bigger and far more strange than it already does. The Tau could've been the template for introducing "pocket empires" to the setting: smaller xenos armies that people could use in skirmishes, but without entertaining the illusion that they have the military projection power to stand up to the other factions on an appreciable strategic scale for an extended period of time.

And yet...

It fees like Games Workshop consistently misunderstands what should make the Tau interesting. Every new codex, every new edition, it feels like we get more and more of GW trying to be like "No, no! The Tau can definitely stand toe-to-toe with the Imperium of Man! They build tall rather than wide, and are ABSOLUTELY a threat to the Imperium, we promise!" when in reality the only reason the Tau are even still here is because the Imperium always has bigger problems to deal with.

There was the bit I mentioned earlier, where the Tau were initially saved after they discovered fire due to a mixture of freak warp storms and the Age of Apostasy causing the records to get lost. The Damocles Crusade ended in the Imperium's withdrawal because of the imminent arrival of Hive Fleet Behemoth. The Third Sphere Expansion was only successful because Failbbadon Abbadon launched the 13th Black Crusade at the same time on the other side of the galaxy, blew up Cadia, and split the galaxy in half with the Cicatrix Maledictum. Every single time the Tau do anything, a much bigger threat always shows up, and causes everyone to forget about the Tau until they inevitably go back to poking the monster.

Like, I know it's GW doing this, but sometimes it feels like Tzeentch is secretly pulling strings behind the scenes to specifically ensure the continued survival of the Tau, for no other reason than simply because the Changer of Ways thinks its funny.

And that's not even talking about how they've slowly morphed into The Gundam Faction.

Like, it used to be that the Tau Empire was supposed to be this big conglomeration of many different alien races all working together. And there are token mentions of that in the 9th edition codex, with a big list of names largely devoid of context. But as soon as you see these guys in action on the tabletop, it's immediately clear what they're about. You only ever see Tau, and you only ever see Big Robots.

Which... it's not bad, the model range looks great, don't get me wrong. But it still feels slightly disappointing, when you think about what we could have had.

I love Warhammer 40k.

But I also hate Warhammer 40k.

Because I see all this potential... and, inevitably, I see it squandered.

And it frustrates me to no end.