Nobody knows what they're doing

He/Him, College graduate, weirdo

[charlesoberonn]

Bad pacing is the most common problem I see in stories, regardless of medium. I tried reading a new fantasy book today that had good prose, decent characters, and a world with a lot of potential. But the way it was paced killed all investment I had or could’ve had in it.

Also, the way people talk about pacing is very rudimentary and shallow. The criticism is either “pacing too slow” or “pacing too fast” and that’s it. No room for nuance and no explanation for what makes a certain pace too fast or slow.

Makes me want to write a short guide on how to pace stories properly, or at the very least a “what to avoid” guide.

[charlesoberonn]

Charles Oberonn’s quick guide to pacing in storytelling:

Keep reading

[crow-caller]

as a child there's nothing cooler than a kid who gets subjected to evil experiments and gains special abilities. it's even cooler if these abilities also cause unfathomable suffering to use/against others. children love stories like this.

[demi-shoggoth]

The children yearn to be Mewtwo

[patema-introverted]

[prokopetz]

Organising my recently downloaded indie tabletop RPG manuals/playtests/etc. is always fun because it's like:

10 000 SWORDS AGAINST HEAVEN

FULL-METAL SPIRITS GODSMASH

THIS MACHINE HAS MEAT IN IT

THE THUNDER IN OUR HEARTS

SCHISM: THE NEW FLESH

Wet Grandpa

[prokopetz]

[prokopetz]

THE DEVIL CITY AND ITS SEVENTY-SEVEN VICIOUS PRINCES

FOR SMALL CREATURES SUCH AS WE

SPAWN OF THE HUNGERING ONE

THE THUNDER PERFECT MIND

A MOST BLOODY DEVOTION

Don't Kinkshame God

[000yul]

I think my biggest arknights moment of betrayal was finding out leizi isn't called leizi in chinese

[000yul]

she's named jingzhe, presumably after the 3rd solar term of the traditional Chinese calendar. oh hey it has a Wikipedia page

interesting. cool. scrolling down hang on what's this--

uh...?

DIY KITS?

[000yul]

these women are onto something.

[000yul]

NO FUCKING WAY?

[marxism-transgenderism]

REMEMEBER IF HARD WATER IS CAUSING CALCIUM BUILDUP IN YOUR BONG, JUST LET SOME WHITE VINEGAR SIT IN THAT THING FOR A FEW MINUTES AND SHE'LL BE LOOKIN BRAND NEW. JUST DONT SMOKE WEED WOTH THE VINEGAR INSIDE PLEASE

[marxism-transgenderism]

I am not nearly advanced enough to come away from such a maneuver unscathed

[swagophile]

asked my little sister what she wanted for her birthday she said Nothing so I got her vbucks and then when her birthday came around and i gave her the vbucks she started crying and sobbing and saying she wanted the tears of the week and the flesh and blood of the innocent and then i took out my backup gift in case the vbucks were bad (20 dollar robux gift card) and she immediately started smiling and i asked her why she was happy if she wanted the tears of the weak and the blood of the innocent and she said "this is basically close enough"

[hemipenal-system]

if you want to sail on the high seas you have to have a strong constitution and be able to tolerate The Horrors. luckily, you can fuck many of the horrors about it

[hemipenal-system]

Mermaids and Sirens are both extremely carnivorous and also extremely fuckable, to say nothing of the giant fish and seabirds big enough to swallow a man whole. Hippocampi are very sweet, gentle lovers, as long as you remember to keep them fed. Sea Serpents are quite nice, if you like a thousand pounds of slimy, snakey body curling around you and pinning you to the deck of your ship. Deep Nymphs are horrid monsters with dolphin bodies and beaked squid mouths that drag sailors off the ship with their tentacle-tongues, fucking what they can and eating what they can't. Horsewilds possess the steeds traveling onboard ships and set them loose, throwing them over the side of the ship and taking as many sailors with them as they can. they can possess humans too, they just find it less funny. Chaingeists are shambling masses of tangled ropes, chains, and manacles containing the souls of sailors who drowned in them. they're vengeful spirits, but they're big into bondage. don't even ask about the Kraken bro we dont wanna talk about it.

the other humans you might run into aren't any better. Reavers, souls from Davy Jones' Locker sent up to collect other pirates, can be a good lay if you can ignore the... everything about them. Imperial Service ships will just take any pirates they encounter as prisoners, often throwing them to the wood-and-metal magical constructs they use, for them to fuck as "punishment for piracy" or whatever excuse they give to justify watching the show. Ocean Traders will do the same thing, but with their hauling-beasts. other pirates might just take you captive and try to sell you for some meager money, or keep you as a sex toy for themselves if they can't get anything for you. the high seas suck

[tpwrtrmnky]

Tbh I think the "but data centers are important infrastructure, not just AI" talking point misses that like

Ok so roads are important infrastructure. A lot of stuff that's important happens on roads. Now, let's imagine that quadrillionaire Matt Stench has decided that the next big tech innovation is the Wide Car. It's a car that takes up six lanes despite seating only one passenger.

The Wide Car is supposed to be the future, and everyone's going to be driving Wide Cars, even though nobody who makes Wide Cars is turning a profit. Employers are offering Wide Cars as an employee benefit, and getting "nah." Some employers are going as far as demanding their employees drive Wide Cars, and the result is that people take time out of their workdays to get in the mandatory gas usage for their Wide Car before driving home in a regular car.

In spite of the fact that the Wide Car is clearly set to fail, there's an enormous push to expand to twelve-lane roads to accommodate a bunch of Wide Cars that simply will not materialize. This is not an organic response to demand, but a speculative investment that amplifies the existing issues with road development for no good reason.

That is the problem.

[tpwrtrmnky]

Oh and the road infrastructure project is buying up resources other people could have used for literally anything else. With money they promise they'll be making from Wide Car sales any day now.

[tpwrtrmnky]

Okay so what I'm getting from the notes is that when you try to transplant some techbro nonsense into an offline equivalent, you have to be careful to avoid simply inventing something the Americans are already doing in real life

[apricops]

that post about “you get bandits when you cut soldiers loose without pay” reminds me of the Thirty Years War, because one could say that beneath all the religious schisms and diplomatic jockeying, the heart of the thirty years war was “what happens when you have a state with just enough capacity to raise massive armies but without enough financial capacity to actually pay those armies” and the answer is that the line between professional armies and roving gangs of bandits disappears and every time you try to raise an army it just becomes another independently acting wildfire devouring the countryside. No matter how bad things get, every day I wake up and thank my lucky stars that I do not live in 17th century Europe. Or 17th century China. Or the 17th century Americas. Or basically anywhere in the 17th century.

[monsieurenjlolras]

you've heard of "quiet quitting," now I'd like to introduce you to the next level, The French Work Ethic:

Do exactly what you're paid for and nothing more

Absolutely refuse to be available to contact when you're off the clock

Never prioritize work over your own health, wellbeing, or family because that would be insane, it's just a job.

Have a little glass of wine

Take as long as you feel like for lunch

Deeply understand that work doesn't matter

Make sure your boss your boss knows they're always your second priority ❤️

[lerayon]

🗣️ Hey, young Americans:

Old Millennial American speaking here. I need you to adopt this mentality as early as possible and hold to it. The older you get, the harder it is to begin this practice and claw back the extremely unhealthy effects of a workaholic lifestyle. I am speaking from 20 years of experience.

This does not mean having a shitty attitude at work, or not doing your job, or relying on co-workers to carry your water.

This means you do what it says above. It also means not making work and productively your entire personality; not tying your productivity to your value; and not becoming so emotionally enmeshed in your work and workplace so that you are living and dying by what happens there.

Good luck out there. American workplace culture is mostly designed to work you to death. Moving against that tide can be challenging, so having a healthy mindset is important to living a life not consumed by your paid labor.

[prokopetz]

In terms of establishing the fundamental aesthetic of the 1990s strand of cinematic cyberpunk, the 1993 Super Mario Bros. adaptation is probably up there with Johnny Mnemonic and Lawnmower Man influence-wise, as much as we all hate to admit it.

[facultativeactivity]

What the fuck

[prokopetz]

Welcome to the "learned from this post that the first major live-action feature film adaptation of a pre-existing video game franchise was a dystopian cyberpunk AU of Super Mario Bros. for some inexplicable reason" club.

[sabrieterrhisken]

I do believe the stink of this movie saved us from some far worse projects. I have no idea what those would have been, but I believe.

[prokopetz]

Are you kidding? This film was the vanguard; it may have tanked in theatres, but the novelty of it led to a number of bandwagon-jumping projects in following years. After Super Mario Bros. dropped in 1993, we had Double Dragon and the Jean-Claude Van Damme Street Fighter in 1994, then Paul W S Anderson's Mortal Kombat in 1995; the unexpected commercial success of the latter film was reportedly the deciding factor when Angelina Jolie accepted the lead role in Tomb Raider a few years later, which in turn kicked off the second wave of major live-action video game adaptations in the early 2000s that gave us the Resident Evil films

[captainwolfrandthe42nd]

Don't forget the 𝘋𝘰𝘰𝘮 Movies

[prokopetz]

I prefer to focus on positive outcomes.

[somecutething]

[silentstep]

from the perspective of persephone trying to eat a damn pomegranate in peace

[brendanthesalty-deactivated2018]

their tongues

they synchronize

[rhymewithrachel]

Happy pride month to the bisexuals

[universeleads]

I explained the concept of "blorbo from my shows" to my 71 year old immigrant grandfather because I referenced it in passing and I thought nothing of it, until today when he said "I think I'll watch peaky blinders tonight and see my blorbo from my shows" referring, of course, to Cillian Murphy playing Tommy Shelby

[universeleads]

English isn't his first language so he's not super in touch with modern slang, so I've been accidentally teaching him to talk like a tumblr user. His favorite thing to say lately is "me when I'm a little hater" when he's like talking shit about the neighbor's son

[overwhelmedfernfrond]

I explained the “x before gta6” meme to my immigrant father and he, in turn, explained to me how back in his day in Romania, they had the same type of joke, except instead of it being gta6, it was about the imminent death of a singer named Gică Petrescu, who everyone was continuously shocked by because he refused to die. Every time a momentous event happened people would say, in essence: “This happened and Gică Petrescu hasn’t even died yet?!?”

So. He understood the gta6 meme immediately because they apparently had the same thing in Romania when he was young, except way, way more morbid

[venort]

OP are you telling me we got the death of Gică Petrescu before we got gta6

[emyuri]

one thing about glimmer is she ALWAYS stood on business, like she didn't care abt bodies fr fr

that's why the writers only gave her teleportation, bc she would've killed everybody

[newsmutproject]

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

[beatrice-otter]

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.

[probuccalfat]

you actually feel gaslit when you try to tell white people of a certain age that pewdiepie, with a platform so vast and catering to youth, helped reinvigorate racism and casual dehumanization towards indians because they get all “omg you can’t blame One man for that” like yes i can actually :) we were very incrementally making our way past the gas station indian popularized by apu and indian creatives were finally being given legitimate and serious opportunities (like say what you will about aziz and mindy in hindsight but at the time that was a shift culturally) only for this dumb swedish pig to get online and spark that vile shit right back up. ask any indian with a modicum of pride in their heritage and they can tell you how uncomfortable pewdiepie made us with ourselves

[girlcalledwhatsername]

Adding this