Lore Nerd

Band Names: Charity Kill, Jane Snowball, Love Butcher, Revolution Sixsmith, Humble Thatcher, Thank Holland

D&D Character Names: Peregrine Doyly, Lancelot Wells, Squire Boone, Chardus Alatheo Eyre, Grissel Toldervy, Rutoron Rettle

Stripper / Porn Star Stage Names: Virgin Kent, Dykes Alexander, Charity Nutt, Patience Rawbone, Sarah Sparkling, Fountain Sterrey, Reuben Rawbone, Discipline Matthews, Jane Snowball

Pro Wrestler Stage Names: Wilde Wilde, Hercules Cross, Constant Shield

Lumberjack Folklore Characters: Old Adams, Cotton Brown, Silence Williams

Lumberjack Folklore Cryptids: Patience Fish, Barb Bee

Fake Names Your D&D Characters Made Up To Get Into A Formal Event: Eustace Cockery, Corn Russell, Marvelous Scanfield, Elizabeth Poope, Gey Poope, Job Bland, Love Beer, Rich Whale

Soulsborne Boss Names: Returned Elgar

2. you select cash payment at conbini as your payment method

3. youre emailed a barcode that you take to the conbini

4. you show it to the cashier, they scan it, and you pay what you owe. note that the cashier does not see what youre buying

does this serve any purpose other than to make the publisher feel like they're Doing Something, and to help consumers feel like their purchases are meaningful political engagement?

I’m going to tell you about how a discord banner that was put up for pride month in the Lancer ttrpg official discord was so successful at getting bigots to out themselves, that it’s been the permanent official discord banner for 4 years now.

This is the updated version. It’s animated now.

But pride month 4 or 5 years ago, somebody made the server banner a Goblin mech dabbing in front of a trans flag.

And for your average person who joined the server, they just kinda went, lol cool.

For the trans people who joined the server, it made them feel extra safe.

And for the bigots who joined the server? They’d fucking bitch about it IMMEDIATELY. And promptly get banned.

And that month saw so many bannings of dipshits that they decided to keep that banner, because every single time a bigot joins the server, there is a high chance that they will out themselves IMMEDIATELY and be promptly banned.

While including text like this in a book is different than a community space, the reality is, fascists do not like being embarrassed or confronted about their beliefs; they have fragile egos.

So imagine you are going through the book with a group of friends, and you get to this block about “fascism bad,” and somebody is like, “I don’t know how I feel about this. It seems a bit stupid,” it immediately gets to raise a red flag for everybody that maybe this person isn’t, as cool to have at the table as they thought.

Similarly, you know how many bigots went and burned their beers/hats/shoes because some corporation supported trans people/gay people/Collin Kapernick?

This is performative, yes. But it’s not performative to puff up themselves as heroes. It’s performative, aimed right at the fragile skinned assholes who will boycott Oreos and Budweiser for “supporting the gays.”

It’s one of the FASTEST ways to reduce the number of virulent bigots in a community for ZERO COST.

Like, maybe the experience of the lancer discord is atypical, and fascists are learning to have thicker skins and lie about their beliefs better.

It’s still PROFOUNDLY CHEAP AND EASY to include this blurb.

So, it’s free, zero effort nazi repellent.

Frankly with that in mind, I’d regard anybody who ISNT doing this, as maybe a tiny bit cowardly.

It may be atypical but it's certainly not unique. Another example is the Heraldry discord I'm on, with an icon that is animated to switch its original colours and two other versions, displaying gay pride and transgender pride colours.

Bigots join, bigots mouth off, bigots get banned.

Sometimes we get a different flavour of bigot, ones who tolerate us queers but are racist as hell. They tend to out themselves, too, because it's a heraldry server. That fact alone makes them assume that we're all "European culture is best" and other racist bullshit. They get banned.

And that is TACTICALLY USEFUL.

Because game companies spend so much money moderating chat spaces (both forums and in-game chats) and they lose so much business when dominant third party online spaces associated with their game turn toxic. Hell moderation is the big money sink for social media. Managing that cost is one of the most difficult aspects of the business.

Now imagine telling a game or social media executive that you can eliminate half of their harassment in a single honeypot operation. Imagine telling them that you have a technique which surgically targets a majority of their most toxic members and immediately gets rid of them. Because that's what this is.

You slap up a big pride or power banner and an announcement that this company stands with [insert group here], or stands against fascism, and you take names on everybody who has angry or quibbling shit to say about that. And then you ban them all. And just like that the moderation load you're dealing with gets so much lighter. Keep it up with a similar announcement whenever a topical opportunity presents itself and you clean out any new trash which walks in too.

And it just so happens that the way to do this is to clear out the bigots and make a safe space for oppressed groups.

There are so many of these companies which are worried that by taking a stand like this they will hurt their user base. There are so many forums online with volunteer moderators who reflexively don't want to wait into politics because they think that will increase their workload. Give them good solid practical examples of this reducing their workload instead, and you will get some of them onboard.

i,, ok my roommate @unfortunatebedhead has been looking for YEARS for a particular brand of snack that seemed to stop being production some time in the twenty-tens

It's a classic asian dried sour plum/prune, right? a billion brands of these, roommate insists there is one particular brand with the PERFECT sour-sweet-salt ratio

the facts that can be recalled:

clear, plastic, heart shaped container

containers were stackable

label was gold on the container

the top of the container had a tiny nubbin handle that was also heart shaped

approx 10x10ish cm/4x4ish inches

this type of candy is called 話梅 or waa6mui2 or huàméi and is pretty available in chinese grocery stores

to the best of my artistic ability this is what the containers looked like:

i've tried the Jiu Zhi Hua Mei ones but they're not as good

afaik t&t does not carry this brand (they carry other, inferior brands), nor do any of the grocery stores in chinatown.

I wanted the birds to look like they were actually in the space so first thing after doing the draft was to do a lighting study

after that I covered the walls in letters in lieu of a projector/vr headset bc i have neither of those :) Then i take a picture of the section of wall and superimpose the lineart over top of it so I can pencil in the lines

et voila

GIVE IT UP FOR BIRD NUMBUH 5, THE CANADIAN GOOSE, Branta canadensis!!!!

bird 5/14, Bluejay, Cyanocitta cristata