No but for real. Your brain is one of the most advanced machines known to exist. It's a computer capable of running a sapient intelligence on - and I cannot stress this enough - 25 watts of broccoli and stew. What the fuck.
When Tess Morgan's son came home with a tattoo, she was griefstricken. She knew her reaction was OTT (he's 21) but it signalled a change in their relationship
This is gold this, absolute gold, the most over the top melodramatic hysterical ridiculous thing I’ve ever read
This is actually so interesting to read- it’s from 2012 but its full of the same anxieties, even some of the same phrasing that many of the guardian’s later pieces on transness use. really hammers home how much of the terfism that emerged in the late 10s was middle class mothers angry at a loss of control over their adult children- whether that be their bodies or their friends or their opinions- and making that everyone’s problem because they have the power to do so
I look at him, sitting there, my 21-year-old son. I feel I’m being interviewed for a job I don’t even want. I say, “But you’re not. You’re different. I will never look at you in the same way again. It’s a visceral feeling. Maybe because I’m your mother. All those years of looking after your body – taking you to the dentist and making you drink milk and worrying about green leafy vegetables and sunscreen and cancer from mobile phones. And then you let some stranger inject ink under your skin. To me, it seems like self-mutilation. If you’d lost your arm in a car accident, I would have understood. I would have done everything to make you feel better. But this – this is desecration. And I hate it.”
Game companies hate emulation, but none of them seem to understand that a lot of us would just buy ROMs from them directly if we could. I don't want a fifth remake of Final Fantasy IV, I want to pay five bucks for the 3MB file you already made bank with thirty years ago. Nobody who wants to play something for the purpose of retro gaming is going to consider a $40 remake as the alternative option, and we're certainly not going to let the original dissappear. They're crying about opportunity cost for a product they're not even selling.
op i know you're probably talking about like, video games, etc, but this is also critical for research science - my lab has so much abandonware, either because the company's out of business, or the company decided to not maintain it, and it's a fucking nightmare. we have two windows 95 computers that are CRITICAL for performing experiments/data analysis because the software needed is abandonware. one of the main roles for a guy in my lab is to maintain these little dinosaurs because if they go out, we lose access to ~20 years of raw data for research. part of why is that these companies also make their own file types, and make it difficult-to-impossible to convert those file types without their specific software. by habit, i convert all research files to more generic versions (txt, pdf, tif, etc) so that i minimize risk of losing my shit, but some stuff can't be converted.
for example, we have a microscope that is perfectly functional, good microscope, but its software is abandonware because the company refused to maintain it. the company is still in business, still makes essentially the exact same software, but they made all of the old tech incompatible with new software to force people to buy the new microscope tech. it would cost a quarter million dollars to replace this microscope. this perfectly good microscope.
so like, i know a lot of people look at the original post here and go "well op just wants old video games to play" (which is valid! games companies should not be able to push shit to abandonware and then close it off) but also this is critical for like. biomedical research. if y'all had any idea how much basic infrastructure built on science relies on shit that is technically abandonware, you would probably be horrified.
"Warm yourself by the fire, son. Morning will come soon. I'll tell you stories of a better time in a place that we once knew."
Quick sketch in between commissions because I feel terrible.
Thank you @hellothisisangle for the template! click for better resolution
This was very fun, loved thinking about how being a different race would affect Strike. He canonically didn't have any ties to 'his' race, being raised for a few years by a tiefling and a halforc before he got snatched up by the cult, and his background is the same no matter the race. He's always primarily a sorcerer, but multiclasses into something else
Tiefling - Closest to canon, behavior wise. Funky and smug dude. Same multiclass as in canon, battlemaster fighter
Gnome (Assassin Rogue) - Do I know the difference between an adult gnome and a human child? Yes. Does Bhaal? Probably. Does he care? .... No clue, but Strike as a gnome is a grown man who can easily pass as a child if he tries, and he plays heavily into that. He's still almost forty and his personality is the same, he's just creepier about it.
Gith - (Bladesinger) Not nearly as charismatic as in canon, because being basically the only Gith in Baldur's Gate didn't give him many chances to learn to socialize. In canon he 'makes up' for being a drow by being charismatic enough to get away with pretending to be an elf, but as a Gith, he just embraces being a scraggly street rat. Braids his hair when fidgeting.
Human (Monk, Way of Drunken Master) - Found a way to monopolize his drinking habits. By far the messiest version. Without elf genetics, his age and consequences of his lifestyle actually show on his face.
Orc (Cleric of War) - he grew up with his orc mum telling him of what people thought of their race, so he purposefully went against that. Very suave, put together. Can rip you apart with his bare hands but prefers to do it in a fancy way.
Sun Elf (Paladin of the crown) - Take all of his daddy issues and multiply them severely since now Bhaal is also his patron. Version that is by far the most like Orin and has killed both her and Gortash before the Plan ever could happen. Just barely keeping it together. Ginger.
Dwarf (Spore Druid) - very friendly, trustrworthy and polite. His favorite food is still roasted dwarf.
Dragonborn (Storm sorcerer, no multiclass) - Canon personality but without the silly little guy persona. Ruthless and functional. Sometimes puts his whole mouth around Gortash's head and that is considered affection.
Tbh his personality is usually the same, what changes is the act he puts on over it. Both tiefling and dragonborn can disappear completely if they close their eyes in the dark. Just lineart under cut