despite all my rage, I'm still just a silly bean

i HATE self-censorship for a lot of reasons, but being in crisis work makes it even more frustrating. who are you censoring for? like i am being so fr, WHO are you censoring for? have you even thought it through? people who have been raped know that they have been raped. if someone attempts suicide or is grieving someone who did, saying "sewer slide" isn't going to protect them from any of the feelings. a murder victim's family isn't going to feel better bc you said "unalived" instead of murdered. if anything, it's just extremely invalidating and othering. it's saying "what happened to you is so bad that i won't even say the word," which is NOT trauma-informed care. you are not protecting survivors/victims when you self-censor. the ONLY things you protect when you self-censor are the puritanical ideologies that are being encouraged by rich fascists who want your money and obedience

The star of the show is a cat in a tiara

There are enough pop culture references to make a spreadsheet of them

There's a Spotify Playlist curated by the author

Surprisingly deep themes and found family are hidden in the dick jokes and gory horror

Of like three canon romances (all side notes really) one contains a furry and one a sex worker

Toxic yaoi with a foot fetish on main

A literal ball busting GILF

The fandom calls itself a cult

12 skulls Imani. The first example of "it might get worse before it gets better." Queen of "They will not break me." He might not even realize it, but Carl's ideals were demonstrated and reinforced by Imani. Maybe the most important woman in the series? (I love her)

Meeting all of Meadow Lark was clearly deeply formative, but meeting Imani? Imani, who loved her people enough to mercy kill them? Imani, who loved her co-workers enough to take that decision off of them? Imani, who physically left behind the bloody choices of the first two floors and the pvp tickets, and chose a race and class that let her go back to healing? (I love her)

talking princess cat who kills with lasers from her eyes (deeply traumatized)

mr everyday man who is the embodiment of "the human spirit vs the cruel indifference of the universe" and commits act of alien terrorism (has matching nipple rings with his cat) (deeply traumatized)

superpowered horny ai (toxic yaoi edition)

fish with a job (hi, zev!)

Too old for this shit dad friend (new body every floor)

Also, more often than you might think, they’re not actually promoting bigotry so much as “didn’t consider all the implications of something” or just used words that were polite then but considered offensive now.

First, Brennan uses Hannan as an antagonistic force toward the Seekers; he unifies them by standing against both Occtis and Vaelus. He also provides contrast to the more measured and peaceful Druids we've seen thus far. He provides a counterpoint to Vaelus, the only other Elf we've seen in the campaign, and forces her to reveal more about her position regarding the Shaper's War by defending it.

As his relationship with Vaelus develops, we get more nuanced glimpses of what Elvish life is actually like, the full weight of Sylandri's hold of her creations, and Vaelus admits who she actual has been missing and grieving all these years; not Sylandri, but her family. Admitting this lets us understand the sacrifice she makes when she chooses to put her family aside, to break the Stone of Nightsong and help the Rungjani dead find peace.

And of course, when Hannan learns of Mara's capture he flies to Obrimus Manor to help her. There, he does not barge in to search, instead he starts to counter the Undead. This is extremely important support for Thimble. The magical darkness dissipates, her search difficulty decreases significantly, and the undead threat is lessened greatly. I feel confident in saying that Thimble would not have succeeded without this intervention, but critically, he supports Thimble's success without swooping in to make it his own.

With this support, she is able to finish off the Undead Monstrosity that was Raimond Davinos. Now Teor's death is not in vain because she heroically finished the work he had started. Together, they rid the world of a great evil while freeing Raimond's spirit and recovering his blade.

Thimble is able to recover the Pridesires. Their spirits and bodies cannot be harnessed by the Tachonises. She recovers the Royce Bracers and the Einfassen ax, which could have complicated things had they been discovered in the crypt. She also finds valuable information throughout her search, learning where the Gnomish statues were taken and information on the tenebral ship. Hannan facilitates all of this as he holds the darkness and the dead at bay.

The last important thing Hannan does is to die.

And this is very important, narratively.

Primus Tachonis has been bested by the work of the Magpies. We've seen him threatened by the Einfasen and condescended to by Yanessa Halovar. Why should we be threatened by him? Maybe he's just prideful and sloppy. Maybe he's careless and stupid. Maybe he's actually not that frightening.

And then he kills Hannan without a second thought, and we see the truth that Brennan has been nudging us toward since the beginning.

Primus is not stupid or short-sighted, he is panicking.

He knows things we do not. He knows something is coming, and the full wrath of the Druids that may come in a handful of months doesn't matter, because there are larger forces at play. So yes, the Einfasen and the Cormorays are deeply powerful and the Halovar's have power and influence as well as cunning and poise the others seem to lack.

Even so, Primus Tachonis is the most dangerous threat right now, because he is desperate. In his mind, he has nothing to lose. The murder of Hannan proves this.

Sometimes the cost of a great story is the loss of a great character.

Early AI was okay-ish at recognizing some information in english when scanned in (OCR), but everything had to be reviewed by humans who were/are familiar with the information set being converted.

Now, companies expect that AI is super advanced and can do everything perfectly, which puts important data (legal and research in particular) at risk because AI is not able to understand a vast majority of written information (particularly if degraded by time). Much of the time if gen-ai cannot parse information it hallucinates something to fill it in, rendering the info useless.