dark science beyond belief

I have mixed thoughts on sex work. I love sex, but I hate work!

hey sorry we put your players in a time loop. yeah they can only win by learning, and they can only learn by playing. yeah grant o’brien is carboloading next to their podiums. yeah they know that x equals 8 so y must equal 6. no they can’t use the ladder. yeah now they’re doing the wenis. sorry. 

oh man i missed dorian and dariax

Orym's argument against Ludinus Da'leth and the Ruby Vanguard is essentially "The purpose of a system is what it does."

This is a systems theory coined by Stafford Beer around 2001. He posited there is "no point in claiming that the purpose of a system is to do what it constantly fails to do." It does not matter what someone tells you a system does if it does not reliably do that. The things it does consistently do are the actual purpose of the system.

Ludinus (and Liliana) claim the purpose of the Ruby Vanguard's violence is to free Exandria of oppression from the gods. Orym's point is that they have not consistently protected anyone from oppression. They consistently murder innocent people, indoctrinate vulnerable people into doing terrible violence (including children), support a ruling class that dominates the population through mind control and eugenics, and seek to release a predator so terrifying that the warring alien gods and native primordials worked together to seal it away as a threat to both of them.

So the logical conclusion is that the purpose of Ludinus' system is not to free anyone from tyranny, it's to install himself as the tyrant. And it does not matter what Ludinus says it's for or even what he believes it's for. The purpose of a system is what it does. And Orym has been personally and repeatedly victimized by what it does. Why wouldn't he keep reminding them of that?

Add onto that, the Ruby Vanguard is a death cult. They lure people in with believable lies. They use propaganda to control how people view them and to convince people to support them. Liliana has been groomed into a true believer who genuinely thinks what she has been told is true and that Ludinus' system does what he says it will. She has been convincing other people of this for years. Not because she's an inherently bad person but because everyone generally tries to convince others that what we believe is true. It is actually dangerous to let a cultist try to talk you into the cult's perspective. That's why Orym shuts it down.

Orym was already on edge but it's fully in a breakdown after FCG's sacrifice. One more iteration of Ludinus' system consistently murdering the people he loves. But he still told Imogen he wants her to have a good relationship with her mom again. He wants Liliana to make it through the other side of this. But that has to involve consistently stating the reality of what's happening against what she believes.

Ludinus believes in the rapture of the revolution. Burn everything to the ground on a fundamental level and a new perfect society will grow, with him to guide it. The reality is that kind of power vacuum consistently leads to horrific violence and conditions often get much, much worse. Especially for vulnerable people, who often do not survive. A lot about the gods' relationships to mortals probably needs to change, but this an incredibly dangerous gamble to fix it.

The purpose of a system is what it does. Any suggestion otherwise is cold comfort to Orym's family in the ground.

Making this the thumbnail is so unhinged. Orym in a sense as the force that is going to bring these two groups of people together. Orym reaching out to Dorian with such fervor and pain, begging him, begging the universe to bring him back because he needs Dorian’s comfort so badly that narratively we have no choice but to turn toward the crown keepers and watch their journey (hopefully) back to him.

I’m unwell

just gonna start killing people i dont find funny

Oh my godddddd I love this so much

It’s Flat Friend Friday; reblog with pictures of your pet being flat and comfy.

ONE CRITICAL ROLE SCENE PER EPISODE C2E4: Disparate Pieces

Matthew Mercer, DM: Ruidus lore PLOT schemes lore lore lore

Matthew Mercer, Dariax: that moon sure is red

8 intelligence 9 initiative bliss

-Critical Role Campaign 3, Episode 92, "Broken Roads"

Just a Keyleth straight out of my comfort zone. Did you happen to know that you can commission me? I'd love it if you commissioned me. Link in my bio.

I finished my rewatch/relisten of the Vox Machina campaign in mid-December (although I recently re-embarked on the second half of the Chroma Conclave arc hoping season 3 of TLVOM will be announced (released?? 🤞) by the time I reach "A Bard's Lament"). Predictably, I bawled, AGAIN, but by then I'd already been scribbling and sketching ideas for this for... a couple of weeks? Hence the little WIP preview last month.

I'll never shut up about this moment. It's just as beautiful as it's heartbreaking, in- and off-game, especially taking into account all the context of characters/people involved.

Also, bonus, because after I finished sketching that 6th frame I thought a hug was needed.

"You broke my heart." and all of ours as well 💔

“I stopped in the middle of the SAT to memorize a poem, because I thought, This is a great work of art and I’ll never see it again.” Mary Karr, The Art of Memoir No 1

Holy shit, they got Voyager 1 working again!

15 billion miles away and NASA was able to tweak code packages on one of the onboard computers and it worked and Voyager 1 is sending signals back to earth for the first time since November.

Incredible!

actually your characters should be pure wish fulfillment and your writing should be entirely self indulgent and it should all be very, incredibly, undeniably horny.

Water is pretty nice to drink despite how horribly it treated the crew of the Edmund Fitzgerald