Phenomenal.
"But how can you justify a player character with a (non-disinherited) noble background in a dungeon-crawling fantasy game" well, the most obvious approach is a fantasy setting whose nobility practices cognatic primogeniture where, instead of "first son inherits, second son goes into the military, third son becomes a priest", it's "first son inherits, second son goes into the military, third some becomes an adventurer". From the player's perspective, it handily explains why the title comes with little material support from the family; from the family's perspective, there's an unspoken understanding that most of the spare heirs will be eaten by a dragon (or whatever), thereby simplifying the inheritance situation, and the few survivors will become great assets.
(There is, of course, the possibility that a surviving third son, having grown powerful and understandably harbouring some slight resentment, will come back, kill his elder brothers with dark magic, and take over the dynasty, but in practice this almost never happens.)
Studies show that approaching youth with a bystander-intervention model is actually a lot more effective for reducing sexual assault, and it is also more enthusiastically received than programs that bill themselves as anti-rape.
We can tell youth that they are basically “rapists waiting to happen” (anti-rape initiative), or we can tell them that we know they would intervene if they saw harm happening to someone and we want to help empower them to do that (bystander intervention). The kids jump in with both feet for the latter! It was amazing to see children (and young boys in particular) excited to do this work and engage their creativity with it. Also, studies show that not only do they go on to intervene, but they also do not go on to sexually assault people themselves. Bystander intervention also takes the onus off the person being targeted to deter rape and empowers the collective to do something about it. It answers the question in the room when giggling boys are carrying an unconscious young woman up the stairs at a house party, and people are not sure how to respond and are waiting for “someone” to say or do something.
Richard M. Wright, “Rehearsing Consent Culture: Revolutionary Playtime” in the anthology Ask: Building Consent Culture edited by Kitty Stryker
This is also, btw, how the US drastically reduced drunk driving in the US. Telling people they shouldn’t drive when intoxicated made absolutely zero difference. A slogan-and-ad-campaign for “Friends don’t let friends drive drunk!” changed drinking culture. Going after the bystanders is quite often the most effective thing to do in any social change.
Fortnite, are you sure about this? Did you think it through?
this made me laugh so hard
Knitting, 2021 - by Joseph Ford, English
this is one of a [series] and they're all fantastic
joseph ford is the photographer and the knitter who made the pieces is nina dodd (ninadoddknits.com)
people always talk about evil clones like oooh a dark mirror oohh what if you saw what are cruel person you were/are capable of becoming. and well yes but what if you were the evil clone. what if you looked in the mirror and what you saw was so bright it blinded you. what if you had to know exactly how good you could have been.
2010. A Japanese woman sits down to take photos of her shiba inu dog for her blog. Suddenly, a man leaps out of a time portal. "Sorry, I can't let you do this. I cannot tell you why." She asks: "Is it forbidden knowledge from the future?" He sighs: "No, it's just too fucking stupid to explain."
Got off a video call with my grandma. Asked her what sort of American foods she was enjoying (my dad flew her in from Korea and she's staying with him in Phoenix rn). She said most of the food isn't too impressive but she's addicted to a specific candy, and when she held up a bag of Werther's Originals I started howling
*WHEEZING*
my observation from 2 months of kittens
Feeding the Night Dog
Calamity Cole (@calamitycoleart)
THE DOG??? THAT IS NOT THE BEAST!!!
I used to do cross country in high school, and there was this guy on the team that was wonderful. Great guy. But his advice to everyone that asked how to get good was to run 20k a day.
If you don't run, I'll just tell you, most people's bodies cannot take that kind of abuse. No matter how much you train, you will not be able to run 20k a day. It's like how you can't train to make your cuts heal faster. You recover as fast as you recover. So while a big part of what made this guy so succesful was the dedication and mental toughness needed to actually run 20k a day, an equally big part was that he healed like fucking Wolverine. And that's fine, but it would've been nice if he knew that and stopped telling new guys to commit suicide by jogging.
Different guy on the team ran like, 5-6k a day, which actually isn't all that much. His problem when he gave advice was that he didn't really get that 5-6k a day doesn't generally produce elite results for most people. He was lucky in the sense that he didn't have to work all that hard to get great results, and unlucky in the sense that if he pushed himself much further than that, he fell apart.
I think about those two whenever I get advice from succesful people. The very things that make them outliers also make their advice useless to most people. Worse, they're often outliers on totally separate ends of the same spectrum, so their advice will be contradictory.
I love everything about this.
@headspacedad Is this true? Because I love the concept of bunnies practically flipping the bird
this is TRUE!
Rabbits rely on body language for the majority of their communication. They also rely on manners in a way that would make the Heian Era aristocrats look uncultured. And you don’t get manner dictates like that without ALSO knowing how to be passive-aggressive with them.
Rabbit flops are super vulnerable for a bunny. Their stomachs are exposed and they’re in a position that means if danger shows up they have to waste precious seconds getting up before they can sprint for safety. A rabbit flop means both ‘I’m so happy I can’t contain it’ and ‘I feel so safe I am going to be vulnerable and really let go’. Rabbit owners love seeing it. It means that your bun really does feel that safe around you. It’s a pretty high compliment from an animal that knows everyone’s out to kill them.
However -
it can also be used passive aggressively in the ‘you mean so little to me you’re not even worth acknowledging as existing’. It’s right on the same level as walking into a room and greeting everyone but one person. An enemy rabbit would be a threat. This rabbit? This rabbit isn’t even important enough to be a threat. They’re a nobunny and so I will flop because there is nothing in the area worthy enough to bother being aware of.
To humans it can look very much the same but trust me, the bunnies know exactly which is which.