The Arcanist's Almanac

don't forget to ponder your orb

[brongusthearcanist]

I've been thinking of getting into a LitRpg book. But I also really don't want to cause I feel it proliferates a "everything is videojame" attitude. Like stats for DND are there to help us understand limitations and of course it is a game. And even in video games, the stats aren't like "cannon". They are a way to give the player control in some aspects, and help them understand abilities/limitations, for the sake of optimizing gameplay. But reading isn't gameplay. And I want to be immersed. I want the magic to feel like if ____ was true, this is possible. While yes I love hard magic, this doesn't mean that soft magic cannot also achieve this. Most of the time, if we are being honest, soft magic systems aren't totally soft, there are hard aspects, and then soft aspects to encapsulate wonder and whatnot. Think Gandalf vs the one ring. The one ring has obvious and repeatable consequences/benefits. Gandalf, while not breaking immersion, doesn't really have these same rules.

But LitRpg to me, just feels like a breeding ground for unchecked power fantasy, that doesn't have a point other than surface level gratification. My guess (I have really no data for this as I haven't read one) is that the genre is a power scalers wet dream. And one of the main reasons I started reading epic fantasy instead of watching shonen anime, was to avoid power scaling fantasy as much as possible. (I truly detest it, I think it's a breeding ground for fascistic thinking and 'might makes right' philosophy, along with undermining good story telling. For everyone who thinks I'm wrong, how many people will say they hate Legend of Korra because she's weak and would "totally" lose in a fight with Aang, as if that is even a valid line of thinking/questioning.) But again I haven't read one, it's just people seem to always compare them to shonen, and unfortunately that's kinda a staple of the genre.

I want to read one, because I want to see if there's anything interesting there, or if I'm wrong and it could expand my horizons. So please give me a recommendation. I know about Dungeon Crawler Carl, I'll get to that one but I'm really not interested in a comedy book, especially not right now. I want a somewhat hard to read, deeply philosophical/political work that challenges my thinking. To me, those are my favorite books. Something akin to Suneater/Dune, or an R.F. Kuang book, or The Deavabad trilogy. Or even something a little lighter like a cosmere book (I realize that may sound wack). Also I'm not entirely against comedy, big fan of the Locked Tomb series, very funny, still challenging, especially Harrow the Ninth. I'm personally just not interested in "turn your brain off shlock", if I want that, I'll just watch some T.V. or like a marvel movie. If y'all have any ideas let me know, cause I'm too lazy to research this. I would rather go through my TBR of books I know I will likely enjoy or at least think critically about, rather than spend my time digging gold in a proverbial landfill.

[brongusthearcanist]

I'm so tired of pretending that you have to play by the rules to do good things. The fascists think they are doing good things, and they know they aren't following the rules. They understand that seeing your goals come to fruition involves bending the rules. They understand it involves effective propaganda (fun fact, propaganda doesn't have to be inaccurate, it just means you are using the info to attempt to sway public views, we can do this for good things too). They understand that the system which we have currently propped up, is not designed to change by any means other than the moving of Capital. If you want change, you're gonna have to lobby for it. In the coming years, I'm gonna need to see all these leftist streamers who are Multi-Millionaires, actually start to leverage that capital. I'm not against them having it, they've done it in the most ethical way possible in our current system. I'm not against them enjoying the fruits of their unexploited labor. But I am gonna need to start seeing some responsibility. The world is the way it is because rich people spend all their time rigging the game in their favor, to ensure that they, their peers, and their children all continue to gain wealth exponentially with no effort. If we are going to stand a chance it is gonna be because some of these wealthy leftists actually decided to use their wealth to rig the system in favor of the working man. It is going to require that you burn that wealth. Unlike your average lobbyist, you are not going to see a return on your investment of lobbying. You will not see that ROI in your own hands, but in the hands of your community.

[brongusthearcanist]

I would like to remind every hypochondriac who claims their germaphobia is hygiene, that the clean clothes that you took out of the dryer, still have bugs on them. Like a lot of bugs, and most of them aren't dead. You just exfoliated for 2 hours, cool, still got bugs. And even if you did manage to get them all off, the second you touch anything, you have undone all that work. There is no such thing as perfectly clean. Just acceptable levels of cleanliness and unacceptable levels of soiling. I don't need to take a shower In the morning cause I don't normally sweat in my sleep. "Your bed is a cesspool". Ok well that's your bed. My bed has the sheets and blankets changed every week, I take an industrial carpet cleaner to it biannually and I dry it with a hair dryer. My mattress is cleaner than yours. Are there still bugs on it, duh! You are never going to get them off, and you really wouldn't want to, many of them help. Some of them eat dead skin in a way that doesn't spread disease. It's like gut bacteria. You can't have none and you wouldn't want to. You just need the right type in the correct amount. It's about population control. It's honestly a very similar approach to the way we control wild life populations, especially those of predators. Which to reiterate one more time, we need. No predators is bad, too many is probably a little worse than none at all. People in all things swing wildly between extremes, while simultaneously denying that the extremes are extreme or even that the swinging is occurring.

Is organized religion bad, yes. But it also provides essential elements of community. And if you wanna get rid of it, you have to replace it with something. But we decided to swing wildly to the opposite extreme, and now an ideology hinged entirely on community and the power therein, will never come to fruition. Because we decided that the main way we organize is bad, and we'd rather do nothing. And when someone has the gall to say "hey, fellow leftists, perhaps we should put our money where our mouth is, and actually organize to form plans and utilize the power of collective bargaining" YOU CALL HIM A FED AND THEN BLOCK HIM.

Let the suffering begin. For the way to holiness is not in seclusion, It's through the bog of degeneracy.

[pedantichoe]

Never expected Brandon Sanderson of all people to become the Patron God of Yaoi but here we are and I couldn’t be happier

[brongusthearcanist]

I'm only 300 pages into Wind and Truth, and both unboxing and reading this book feel like Brandon laid his full Sandercock on the table like a piping hot baguette, and I am here for it.

[junglejim4322]

Gonna be fr grown adult queers should know better than to engage in crazy fear mongering telling other people it’s over and we’re all gonna be sent to camps and lose our rights and be criminalized and whatever like hey how about don’t tell a group of people with unbelievably high suicide rates that there’s no hope and life is over

[brongusthearcanist]

Buy a gun and wait

[brongusthearcanist]

I don't know about y'all but, there is literally now way I'm paying taxes next year

[nikibogwater]

Might get canceled for saying this, but I LOVE that Zelda is so traditionally feminine in EoW. Like, the devs could've made her a rough-and-tumble tomboy, or a super-skilled ninja warrior--and that would've been totally fine. We've had those versions of her character in the past, so it wouldn't have felt disingenuous or anything (btw Nintendo, if you're listening, I'm still holding out for a Sheik game). But instead, they gave us a playable version of Zelda who is sweet and graceful, who wears pretty dresses on her quest to save the world, who collects adorable accessories with magical properties and has a special bond with her beautiful white pony. She's the unanimously adored big sister/mom friend of everyone in Hyrule. She's an unstoppable powerhouse of kindness and problem-solving. And no one belittles her or takes her less seriously for being "girly." She is every bit the hero that Link has been in past titles (and still is in this one), just with a different approach to saving the day. And idk, maybe my brain is just microwaved from too much time on the internet, but I think that's really cool, and not something you see a lot of in adventure games.

[brongusthearcanist]

I really hope Nintendo gives us an official scale for the tri rod. Like I need to know how big it is. Cause I think it's a Gandalf sized walking stick, some people think it like a cane, and some of y'all think it's just like a big wand. And I need to know. I don't know why.

[mochiobonio]

zelda gives ganon diabetes but in the jojo's bizarre adventure style

[brongusthearcanist]

Link: (trapped in a crystal) Zelda will be here any minute

Ranch girl: ooo that's so close but you were off by 0.2 seconds, guess your not the horsey master! Sorry!

Zelda: (decked out with 5 accessories, wearing the stamp suit, notebook full of 160 echoes) THE FUCK IM NOT THE HORSEY MASTER! Now take my rupees you ungrateful peasant!

[brongusthearcanist]

Reading Suneater, on book 3, very good. For those who have read storm light, imagine that you actually got to read the real in world Oathbringer that Dalinar writes and that's basically the vibe of the series and it soo good fuck punctuation.

[virtualtear00]

Thinking about Chinese covers of the Cosmere books

Artist is Jian Guo

[brongusthearcanist]

The best part about Spotify is that the algorithm is genuinely pretty good at predicting your taste. It's not always gonna play a song that I just have to add to a playlist, but it gets the vibe. The worst part is that the algorithm is so specific, if you rely on it a lot, you are likely going to be jamming to shit that no one around you has ever heard of. Will I ever meet anyone who listens to Bear Ghost? Will they ever see Prelude the way I do?

Some please I beg of you, look up Necromancin' dancin' and listen to the newest album it's so fucking good and my GF thinks I'm crazy.

[ohhhmio]

i hated how when i finished The Way of Kings, my favorite character ended up being that one dude that appears literally only three times in the past 1k pages. and like, everyone else is so amazing, so determined, so admirable, so cool—and then there's Wit, who can pop out after disappearing for 400 pages and make me gush like an annoying prepubescent teenager who just read their first wattpad romance book. Wit, my dude, my silly, goofy, mysterious little assassination target... I love you, but fuck you, man.

And then I pick up Words of Radiance, looking for him, once again, and this shit frosted asshole appears literally on around page 600. it makes me question why I like him. wtf did he do to me? why would i like him? was it the flute? it was the flute, wasn't it? I mean, he's as loved as a cockroach, has the attitude of a fucking onion, and is already three times what's already twice an ass. again, thank you for making me happy, but fuck you, dude.

[brongusthearcanist]

Hoid is just Brandon's Murder Hobo™ who by the laws of the universe, cannot murder or even harm, so He does it verbally instead.

[brongusthearcanist]

My favorite thing is when people race or ethnic swap a character and the main character trait added in drinking. What to make a character Black, Irish, Russian, Romani? Just make em drink a shit ton I guess.

[brongusthearcanist]

I think one of the things on the switch two is gonna be a GameCube emulator after the Twilight princess and windwaker ports. I just think they will want to charge us outside of a subscription for it. But the GC Emulation means that we might not be far away from Nintendo attempting to find some way to resell DS games, and eventually 3ds games. But the problem is you need 2 screens for most of these games, or they need to be adjusted to work. What will they do? My bet, and what I'm hoping, is a Mini DS console similar to the mini NES and SNES. I'm hoping it will actually be XL sized and equipped with a mini HDMI cable so you can play it on the big screen(s) (split screen maybe?), and use a capture card.