Inky Xward

...You ever notice how it's only certain kinds of tastes that get slammed for being harbingers of aesthetic stagnation?

That don't get given the benefit of the doubt that those into them like other things too? That get directly linked to inherently to their fans' bad behavior rather than other things that might lead to shitty behavior?

Which, again, expanding one's horizons is good. A comedic JRPG I just beat today, Deathbulge: Battle of the Bands (Which I urge you to check out, a good game to play between Chapter 5 and Chapter 6) has a really unique take on Final Fantasy's Active Time Battle system as a core mechanic.

But it's interesting how the subgenre going in the crosshairs is the one that, from my observation; tends to get a lot of shit for being "childish," that tends to have an aesthetic and tone that isn't quite as "respectable"

I'm reminded of how JRPGs as a whole got shat on repeatedly in the aughts for what we realize now was largely thinly-veiled misogyny; homophobia and general douchebaggery.

another incident that comes to mind is a blogger using the whole Tumblr "gotcha," or at least one part in particular:

Like, I will say up front they have a point and that might give some people more things to think about, even if I feel like the actual material result of this genre of online critique is mostly "Give people with scrupulosity issues a new thing to be miserable about" (but that's its own topic), but I wanted to note an unspoken assumption of their own.

Like, what weight does the phrase "Disney adult" carry here? One might think that it's for a very specific "consume product" sort of mindless viewer, but A) That term's gotten a dickton of semantic drift, and that follows into B) Why do we casually use that specific aesthetic for that sort of Problem Person as opposed to, say, sports fans or gun people?

Why does their aesthetic taste matter to how bad their take is? If their area of expertise was; say; opera or literary fiction, would it be any less bad? Plenty of people in "highbrow" fields in the Global North have been shown to have similar assumptions, even if their bad takes have more flowery wording.

GFM unjustly terminated Fidaa's @fidaa-family2 campaign and she lost all of the funds she'd raised so far to help evacuate her family. She has to start all over with a new campaign.

Fidaa's campaign has been vetted here and here. Please consider donating to her if you have anything at all to give. Small dollar amounts can add up so never think you won't make a difference! If you have enough to buy a cup of coffee, consider skipping it to give to Fidaa instead. Imagine how frustrating it would be after months of fundraising to lose what you've worked hard for. We need to show Fidaa our support now more than ever!

You can also donate through Paypal directly.

I'm opening comms for a little bit. For 15 bucks I'll draw your furry/creature/monster characters looking like frightened animals you found under a damp log.

If interested, you can fill out This form.

I'll be posting finished commissions to my Side Blog, to keep from cluttering my personal art blog.

How many woo-woo-to-fascism pipelines do we have to create before we accept that any system in which we agree to prioritize what makes people feel good and comfortable over objective, observable reality is inherently prone to radicalization. How many times are we going to act shocked that people who refuse to accept scientific evidence in regards to crystal energy and repressed memories then move on to refusing to accept scientific evidence in regards to vaccines and chemotherapy. How many times are we going to hold people's hands and tell them of COURSE it's okay to believe things just because they Feel Right and not because you have even a shred of evidence and then act shocked when they start believing the people who tell them that all their problems are caused by minorities?

hi tumblr, i am making a follow up post to the previous one. bowie has been successfully adopted out to a household that he likes much more than ours, hooray! now, we need a loving home for china. here is the situation;

my wife @soldier-exclipse and i do cat-sitting and cat-boarding to make extra money because living nowadays is, ha ha, expensive. a couple of months ago we received two cats, china and bowie, with a normal stay duration. bowie was his own bag of worms, but to make a long story short, their mom surrendered them to our care because her new apartment only allows one pet and "she couldn't bear to pick between the two of them".

we are trying to get china to a no-kill shelter but that takes time and vet appointments we need to save up for to get her a clean bill of health - at the bare minimum, another two months. my wife and i do not have the extra money in the budget to take care of another cat. we can board because boarding makes us money, but just on their own, everything is tight enough as is with my other cat's heart failure costs that we really cannot financially afford taking care of china.

In 3rd Edition there were five official NPC classes (with a sixth introduced in Eberron), and they were for the most part mundane, giving mechanics for various hirelings (expert), regular 1HD humanoids (warrior), and the traditional "primitive" humanoid spellcasters (adept), also answered the question "what if a 0-level character could gain levels at being 0-level?" (commoner).

2nd Edition had a more robust selection of less generic classes such as Apothecary, Blacksmith, and Cartographer, which used the delightful experience system of the game to gain levels by doing their professional tasks rather than adventuring ones. But once again these are mostly just for your hireling types.

Alchemist

Anti-paladin†

Archer

Arrikhan†

Astrologer

Bandit

Battle dancer*

Beastmaster

Berserker

Bounty hunter

Bureaucrat

Charlatan

Cloistered cleric

Death master

Dreamer

Duelist

Entertainer

Escrimador

Fantra†

Garath†

Geisya

Jester

Huntsman

Illrigger†

Incantatrix

Lyan†

Mariner

Merchant

Mother*

Myrikhan†

Oracle

Paramander†

Politician

Samurai

Scribe

Sentinel

Smith

Timelord

Sumotori*

Witch

How many woo-woo-to-fascism pipelines do we have to create before we accept that any system in which we agree to prioritize what makes people feel good and comfortable over objective, observable reality is inherently prone to radicalization. How many times are we going to act shocked that people who refuse to accept scientific evidence in regards to crystal energy and repressed memories then move on to refusing to accept scientific evidence in regards to vaccines and chemotherapy. How many times are we going to hold people's hands and tell them of COURSE it's okay to believe things just because they Feel Right and not because you have even a shred of evidence and then act shocked when they start believing the people who tell them that all their problems are caused by minorities?