Kitty Dorkling

Obviously a publisher is a business and a business needs to make money, but the idea used to be that you'd have a couple of very successful authors who bring in so much cash that they subsidise the new kid who is building a back catalogue of books that sell okay until they get name recognition and pay for themselves. I was told back then that a couple thousand pounds was very reasonable for a debut novel because you want to get royalties for the sales exceeding your advance and that way the publisher sees you as a profitable investment. The last couple of years I keep hearing about six figure book deals for debut (!) literary fiction (!) novels, what on earth?

My day job is as a freelance editor for nonfiction books, and I can safely say that if the publishing industry were operating as intended, I would either not have a job at all or be working for a specific press. Authors pay me directly to do the work that a press editor used to do as part of publication contracts. This is because so many presses have started outsourcing all their editorial work to either third-party contractors or, even worse, to genAI.

Anyway, I love editing. I think I love editing almost more than writing, and I'm pretty sure that I'm better at it. Last year I edited an academic article from 11k to 9k words for my supervisor and I felt like a god when I finished it, but when my supervisor asked if I'd thought about doing this professionally, I had to tell her that there's just not a viable career in editing anymore. Publishers used to employ! editors! Several different kinds of editors for different stages of the process! That used to be my dream job!

Editing is so essential to making a text good. It doesn't matter how talented or dedicated you are as a writer, you cannot achieve the level of quality by yourself that you could achieve by working with a skilled editor. That's normal! The lone genius who comes out of the cave with the perfect novel does not exist! The manuscript that gets sold to a publisher is supposed to be handed off to an editor who tells you to tighten up that plotline and reminds you that every day can't be Tuesday and sharpens your prose so your voice really shines. Skimping out on that part of the publication process takes money out of the hands of skilled professionals, leads to consumers (ew) receiving subpar products (ew!), and is such an injustice to the writers whose work can't reach its full potential (and the writers who won't get published because they can't afford to pay an editor out of pocket!).

Couple of Thieves

I really like the colours you get on magpies, what at first glance looks like a other black and white bird is actually full of these wonderfully iridescent greens and purples

The way I explain it to my patients is that our neurons don’t regenerate. They make connections with each other and that’s it. If you don’t use your brain, they make fewer connections and, if one of them dies, you’re gonna miss it, because that was the only one that knew how to do X. Now, if each one of them has many, many connections, you won’t notice the difference when one of them dies. The others pick up the slack.

As of 2024, 45% of dementia risk factors are modifiable. Relevant to this conversation, 5% for less education and 5% for social isolation.

We absolutely are going to see the reflection of this, but it’s gonna take decades and it’ll be too late. So, for the love of your brain, pretend that it’s a muscle and make it work. People complain about “when am I ever gonna use this maths formula in my life?” You’re not. You’re teaching your brain to think logically. Those sinapses will be there for when you need to figure out your week’s schedule. English classes taught me how to interpret data and how to convey it in this text so it’s clear and you understand what I’m saying, not because I needed to justify why the curtain is blue.

Make your brain know how to do different things. Logic games, puzzles, taking care of a garden even if small, planning a church’s event or birthday, learn a new instrument, learn a few words in another language, look at a calendar every day, do some manual labor if possible. Do not, I repeat, do not let your brain get rid of sinapses by letting AI do everything. Your brain uses 20% of your body’s energy — do you really think it’s going to maintain connexions that aren’t in use?

Most cases of Alzheimer’s are sporadic, meaning no family history. Family history of a first-degree relative with Alzheimer’s starting before they were 80yo increases your risk in 2-3x on average.

You have been turned into this type of mermaid!!

the autistic space frog lady

the mean underground elf lady

An overdue quickie outlining what Cannor starts with at the beginning of each act, now that I can finally mod my way to what he actually looks like:

Beginning of Act 1 Helmet: none. Cloak: Arcadia's Shawl. Armor: Bandit Padded Armor (13). Gloves: Bandit Leather Wraps. Boots: ordinary Leather Boots. Camp Clothes: Bandit Restored Camp Shirt. Camp Shoes: FearTaylor's Smarmy Swaggerer Boots. Underwear: ordinary human (changed to halfling) version. Amulet: none. Ring 1: Ring of Defense. Instrument: ordinary Lute. Melee 1: ordinary Whip. Melee 2: ordinary Dagger. Ranged 1: ordinary Sling.

Beginning of Act 2 (new items; all others same as Act 1): Helmet: Bandit Absolutist Scarf. Cloak: Marine Cloak. Armor: Bandit Armor (14). Gloves: Dexterity. Boots: Speed. Amulet: Misty Step. Ring 1: Protection. Ring 2: Crusher's. Melee 1: Emerald Serpent +1. Melee 2: Ritual Dagger (via Abdirak).

Beginning of Act 3 (new items; all others same as Act 1): Armor: Regis' Coat (10+2). Cloak: Verdant Shroud. Camp Clothes: FearTaylor's Gaheid Slickjaw. Lute: Battered Lute.

The biggest changes (besides his whip, trading shortbows for slings, and nerfing away Civil Militia) are the armors: Bandit Padded (a ludicrous AC 13 +DexMod) helps keep him alive in light armor during Act 1

Bandit Armor (AC 14+dexmod) in Act 2 is basically that padded armor plus a breastplate and pauldrons that I assume are both leather, since it's light armor. This is basically Aradin's kit. I like to think that he just slapped some extra stuff on his Act 1 gear because of course he did.

Regis' Coat (AC 10, bonus +2) is what he pulls on in Rivington for Act 3 to look presentable. It's clothing, but with a +2 AC bonus that, combined with his Dex Gloves (18) and other marginal goodies, gets him to about 19-20.

Everything is dyed with FaerunColors' Balduran except for Regis' Coat, which gets real dark so FC Talona keeps it a similar green shade. The only other canon gear he starts with besides that padded armor are the Ring of Defense (which subs for Ring of Protection until he acquires the latter), and his ordinary 5e whip-and-dagger combo. 5e Cannor has an ordinary cloak, but Arcadia's Shawl looks like it the most, so once he acquires anything else, Zafraia appropriates the shawl from him.

I like the idea of using modded armors but I still prefer the pretense of changing into better gear as the game progresses. I simply refuse to continue the age-old D&D ritual humiliation of terrible gear at Level 1.