deep deep dark dark deep dark pit

Nowadays you can play anything you want and never have to worry about getting kicked or rejected from dungeons, groups, what have you, but back then if you weren’t one of the favorites you really did struggle. 

Monks had it the worst in the beginning, it felt. They didn’t have great skillchain synergy with anyone and despite having really good DPS, their numbers “looked” low due to each individual punch counting as its own damage and when you add in being a Galka which, due to the bizarre kind of in-game racism that existed back then could actually get you kicked from parties because ew, a galka 

so, I spent a lot of time just.. lonely, lookin’ for party, soloing as best as I could given the circumstances. I had just had a huge falling out with some friends at the time, too, so it was just crushing for awhile.

I was just coming up to lv40, and I forget why but I was wandering around in this one area called King Ranperre’s Tomb that was mostly empty and unpopulated save for the undead monsters roaming around. I figured I might be able to get some EXP while I’m there but.. I was quickly overwhelmed. 

I called for help, but no one else seemed to be around. Just when it seemed I was gonna die and lose the meager EXP I had just struggled to earn a Lv75 Monk came running up and provoked the skeleton off of me. It was an elvaan lady, and she was decked out and then some. She destroyed this thing with ease and just, left me in total awe

I was just a dumb kid at the time but it was such an awesome sight I kinda just.. lingered around watching them destroy undead mob after undead mob like they were tissue paper

Finally after a bit I asked them

“Was it hard to get to 75?”

they said yeah, it was, but it’s worth it. Because now they get to help people like me easier, they get to help other Monks get stronger and it lets them see more of the world

I was just, awestruck. Every frustration I had, every sadness I had, just melted away and got replaced by my resolve to be like them. I want to get stronger so I could help people too 

They waved goodbye and said “Don’t give up! Just keep punching!”

so I did

I didn’t give up, I REFUSED to give up. Even when times were at their toughest I kept punching and punching and punching. Slowly but surely I made my way to 75 

I remember being sad that I never saw them again after that, never even seen ‘em come online but I always remembered them. I remembered to just keep punching and how I felt that day, why I wanted to get stronger

I devoted a LOT of my in-game time to helping others. I gave away gear to fledgling Monks along with advice and positivity. I cheered ‘em on and promised them it was worth toughing it out. I helped people through the stories, through the trials and tribulations. I wanted to give back to the world what they had given me that day.

Just keep punching.

Years later, I ended up becoming quite literally the most powerful Monk in the game and conquered enemies that no one else in the world could even come close to defeating

one day a friend of mine and I were talking about how rough it was to be a Monk in the old days so I told them my story

Turns out that my friend had known them, rather, knew someone who was related to them. Not long after I had met them they died in a car accident, and that’s why I had never seen them again. Back then, social media wasn’t what it is now, they weren’t a big community figure or anything and the internet was just, kind of a more wild west place where info didn’t always travel as well.

I think about that a lot. How one fleeting moment, one chance encounter, dramatically changed how I played the game and how I felt. This one small moment changed me for the better, and I’ll always be thankful to them for that.

I’ll always remember you, Calypso. I kept punching, just like you said to and I spread your positive message to anyone who would listen.

I only need the pants now anyway

Maybe it speaks poorly of me, of my priorities and beliefs, that it feel so important to me in such a turbulent and uncertain time in my life. I may as well be trying to impress the moon for all the good it does me when life is so crushing and difficult for everyone, not just I, or perhaps it makes me that much a better pierrot to serve an endearing cautionary tale

Or, maybe, it’s an expression to whom or what ever may notice that even small, transient bonds can endure and survive and that being there for someone is never forgotten, holding aloft the hope in my heart that gestures of remembrance and love can reach to the heavens and give the eternal night a little more peace in its sleep

It’s hard to deny FFXI, and for awhile FFXIV was escapism from an, and if I’m speaking frankly lol, enormously traumatic life and intense grief to a near comical level for like, a 15 year old to have though I don’t suppose there’s any age it’s any less as heavy as it is.

Hard not to reflect on it all as I get older, especially when life is how it is. I’d say I hate to sound cheesy but I’d be lying,

just keep punchin, it’s been working for me and if I can do it

we're looking to create an AI policy, and when we were talking about this, my boss (older millennial) was genuinely shocked to hear that younger people do not (seem) to view AI positively (a la the recent commencement speakers being booed)

please rb for larger sample size!

Question 1/3

Thank you for helping with this data collection. Please rb for as big a sample as possible!

Yes, because the Washington state government activated like a sleeper-cell and ruthlessly, systematically hunted them down and annihilated them.

“Y2K came to nothing amirite?”

Yes because an army of software engineers working around the clock, losing sleep, and busting ass till the last minute prevented it from happening.

“Remember the hole in the ozone layer?”

You mean the one that was fixed through rigorous world wide government action?

One of the root problems of our society is a refusal or inability by media to articulate that all those “it’s gonna be an apocalypse” disasters were not disasters because we collectively did something about them.

The good news is this is actually quite correctable. I maintain my firm belief that we as humans are capable of solving almost all of our problems, when we decide to do so.

And I still think that’s going to happen. I don’t know when or how, but I do know that abandoning hope won’t help bring it about.

Obvious disclaimer that you shouldn't have wild animals as pets.

But like, cheetahs are the only large cats that keepers will do free contact with. Hell, even most small cats don't get free contact. (Because small cats can be VICIOUS. They'll have a baby pallas cat wearing thicker gloves than when handling an owl. Because small cats can just be vicious.)

Like I think the only other cat at our zoo where I've seen free contact with was servals? Because I know they've used servals in shows to demonstrate their natural jumping ability. But I know servals can sometimes have a mean temper as well. Meanwhile they'll do the cheetah run and afterwards put the mic by the cheetahs and it's just like an engine with them purring. It's fascinating to watch when the message in every other large animal is "no free contact because it's dangerous even when they're born in captivity".

i brought in a bunch of my books from childhood, and we started having one-on-one reading lessons with the littles. then i went out and bought about fifty more books secondhand. first step was covering the pictures so the kids couldnt guess what the words said and had to actually TRY reading them first. second step was making a list of new words for each kid so we could learn about those words, what they meant, and if the kids were old enough, some of the etymology behind them (because if you can recognize latin root words, it's easier to make connections for pronunciation later on eg. unicorn -> universe).

the kids HATED this. reading was previously the easiest class and now it was really, really hard. but reading class had also previously been the most boring class; their books were ten pictures with a single sentence on the opposite page. we got through it by taking turns reading books the kids picked out from my collection- they would read one sentence or paragraph, then i would read the whole page complete with funny voices, then it would be their turn again, etc. it turns out that if kids are motivated to hear the rest of a good story or a lot of information about a topic they love, they're more willing to struggle.

the kids improved so rapidly that i honestly almost cried a few times from how proud i was. one little girl (kindergarten aged) went from being unable to sound out the whole alphabet to reading goodnight moon by herself in two months :'>

all this, though, was NOT my job. my job was to keep the kids on task during their online schooling and prevent them from killing each other or starving. i am not a teacher. the school system was failing these kids to the degree that outside individual reading lessons were necessary, and school systems across the US are still doing this!

1. wait until you’re absolutely sure the ink is dry

I've presented two maps at the exact same zoom level, as indicated by the big red arrow. They also each have a red area circled, of approximately the same area.

In the first image, I've circled one of eightish parking lots at a US mall. A normal amount of distance for even Americans who drive everywhere to walk through.

In the second image, I've circled:

a subway station

a park

like twenty apartment buildings

like twenty restaurants

three convenience stores (which, being Japanese, can also handle banking, copying/printing, and a variety of governmental paperwork)

one grocery store (another two right outside the circle)

seven medical clinics, two pharmacies

a fire station

a post office

two preschools and three cram schools

a Shintō shrine

a Buddhist temple

multiple parking lots and a car dealership

This wasn't even a particularly cherry-picked part of Tokyo! I just picked the area around my house.

Over 90% of parents of visibly intersex children opt for cosmetic surgery on their infants.

The ones that don't experience medical violence then, likely experience it as a teenager.

I didn't.

I am very rare in that I did not experience medical violence.

Why? Because I learned what intersexuality was as a young age, and I actively fought against what doctors wanted to do to me. All the way down to legal research on what medical care minors can be forced into. I remember walking into that doctor's appointment with the state law written down that proved that if I did not consent they could not do surgery.

i could spend some time teaching you guys about different beef and dairy breeds, but i think the underlying concern here is about beef farming if im correct! if im not, let me know and i can write up a post about beef and dairy breeds, because i do love talking about them too hehe.

its completely normal and human to be upset at the thought of an animal dying, death is an ugly thing to a lot of people you know? i think its in our nature not to want animals to suffer. but its important to realize that everywhere in the world animals are there to be eaten by other animals. the ecosystem, the cycle of life, whatever you wanna call it.

in the wild, bovines are mostly picked off by predators when they're young and unable to defend themselves! an animal can be killed and eaten at any point, and if they get sick or injured thats often fatal for them. in captivity, cattle and other bovines get to live to adulthood happy and healthy and surrounded by friends! they get free food n water, free medical care, and they get to sit in a big field with all their buddies. we care for them and love them for their entire lives, and at our hands they die quickly and painlessly. and then we eat them. its a symbiotic relationship.

to an outsider the industry can seem 2 to be all death bc thats the only part we know about. but its so much more than that! farmers dedicate their whole lives to their animals. they raise them, feed them, tend them when theyre sick, give them space to run around, make sure theyre not too hot or cold and that their water troughs are clean... for whole lifetimes! over and over and over, farming is about life. we feed them and they feed us. its beautiful. genuinely.

every fat person you know for the most part probably has a story like this, of medical neglect. many of the stories i've heard personally are when the complaint or the doctor wasn't related at all, like being told to lose weight at the ear nose and throat doctor or at the dentist. it's straight up just bias. it's such a thing that in the show Shrill it's portrayed, when Aidy Bryant goes to the gynecologist and her doctor suggests she get gastric bypass.

the studies on health and fatness are simply not that black and white and there is basically no research that shows that more than an incredibly tiny minority of people can lose weight and keep it off for more than like 2 years. bodies have set points that they gravitate towards, it's not a personal failure. this also is how the weight loss industry succeeds so well - repeat customers.

some of the harm associated with fatness is also due to weight cycling, which is very hard on your body and is even worse if you get off a GLP1, which according to a recent study causes weight to be regained at a rate that is 4x faster than without taking a GLP1.

you don't have to hate yourself. you don't have to hate other people for their body type either. it makes me so sad to see the thinspo tag going around again in 2026 a lot like it was back in the day.

some resources to learn more here:

https://www.reuters.com/article/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/feeling-fat-may-be-worse-for-you-than-being-fat-idUSTON079061/