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This machine kills AI

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Don't confuse labor value theft with goodness.

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LOOK AT THIS VASE I MADE IN MY CERAMCS CLASS IT WAS REALLY HARD AND THERE WERE SO MANY RISKS BUT I DID IT AND NOTHING WENT WRONG ITS A MIRACLE (also i know NOW it looks like ferrofluid, but it was actually not the intention from the start LOL) If you're curious as to the inspo + process, it was inspired by this minoan jug on the left! It was made in two parts, and was originally supposed to be sleeker, longer, and smaller spikes but uhh look I'm not very good at ceramics LOL. So the size of the spikes and the more round shape.. already not on purpose, a byproduct of my lack of skill.

There was a lot of waffling on what colors I wanted to do, I had floated Squeakoid colors (white base, colorful spikes), all black, tenmoku (black but breaks brown), as well as half and half.

I decided on black in the end because DARK GOTH VIBES and my teacher felt the shape was so much already that simple black would highlight the silhouette and not be too busy. And that's how in the end it turned into a ferrofluid vase by accident LMFAO

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Unmute !

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So I’ve been thinking about rational vs. irrational character decisions.

An irrational decision is great when your story is driven by your character’s personal flaws and struggles, and for crafting situations where your audience knows that these decisions are unavoidable because they are perfectly in character. Having your characters be perfectly able to solve their problems if they weren’t, y’know, themselves, is so very hard-hitting, and can be a fantastic part of a narrative.

The downfall with irrational decisions is that it can make situations seem less dire or make your antagonists seem less dangerous. If your characters are falling over themselves and their own personal issues, then it’s hard to show how the external problems in your story pose a serious threat, because you can’t demonstrate how they’re hard to deal with if your characters aren’t making solidly competent attempts in the first place.

Rational decisions are great for stories where most of your problems are external, like your characters trying to build a spaceship or infiltrate the bad guy’s lair. It’s also key to any horror writing, where you need your characters to be competent in order for your danger to be credible; if your audience spends the entire time wondering why your protagonists aren’t doing very obvious things to solve their problems, it’ll be a lot harder to get a properly spooky atmosphere going. But if your characters are only ever making the most optimal, logical choices without ever struggling, they won’t be very compelling, so just like with irrational decision-making, there’s a time and a place for this.

Ideally, you want some combination of both rational and irrational character choices. And maybe even more importantly, whatever choice a character’s making needs to be one that makes sense for them given everything you’ve already shown in the narrative so far. If the decision feels forced or contrived, then it doesn’t matter if it’s rational or not, because it’s not a choice that fits with the rest of the story.

But, yeah, ultimately, both types of character decisions are useful tools, and it’s less about one or the other being right, and more about both of these tools being useful for different types of situations.

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It should be illegal to require that any device or software connect to the internet just to run. I shouldn't need to log in with microsoft to open any of their programs on my local computer. All games should be playable without access to an online server. All media you pay for should be downloadable to local disk as a raw file and if they don't like that because they know you'll share it and upload it, tough shit. They took your money already, they'll live.

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About the AO3 "No Guest Comments for a while" warning

If you're not following any of AO3's social media accounts you might be in the dark as to what kind of "spam comments" have engendered this banner at the top of the site:

These spam comments have been posted about a great deal on the AO3 subreddit for the past couple of days. Initially they comprised a bunch of guest (logged out users) bot comments that insulted authors by suggesting they were using AI and not writing their own fics. Some examples, from the subreddit:

But it then escalated to outright graphic porn images and gifs being posted in comments, again by logged out 'Guest' accounts. Obviously, I'm not going to give examples of those, but between these two bot infestations, AO3 has clearly decided to act and has temporarily closed the ability to post comments for users who are not logged in with an AO3 account.

Unfortunately, this means that genuine readers who don't have an AO3 account won't be able to leave comments on fics that they enjoy.

If you are a genuine reader who doesn't yet have an AO3 account, I strongly suggest getting yourself on the waiting list for one. More and more AO3 authors are now locking their fics down to registered users only - either due to these bot comments or concerns about AI scraping their work - which means you're probably missing out on a lot of great stuff.

Hopefully guest commenting will be enabled again at some point soon, but I suggest not waiting until then. Get yourself on that list.

Wait times are going to be longer than usual at the moment, due to the current Wattpad purge [info on Fanlore | Wattpad subreddit thread], but if you're in line, then your invite will come through eventually.

Update: There's now a Megathread about this on the AO3 subreddit.

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Oh the dread. Call it innocence. Call it being blissfully unaware. The plot holes are many, and they be coming. I like to think as my job being learning how to invent convincing lies on command while bullshitting my way through a story that would otherwise not make sense without the literary smoke and mirrors, so to speak. Also, learning how to distract your readers from the leftover plotholes (since every writer has them) and to bring out that oh-so-sweet "Suspension of Disbelief".

Navigating plot holes can get much more chaotic if you're writing fanfiction. You're not only juggling your own plot holes, but the plot holes of the OG author. Fun shit, that is. At least if canon compliance is your jam in the moment.

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He’s a musician

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"I'm sorry for yelling."

It's a simple sentence, but one that has made a huge impact in my children's lives.

See, I used to yell a lot. Anger issues. But my partner suggested that yelling did nothing but frighten them, and I didn't want my children frightened, right? Especially not of me?

So I instituted a no yelling rule for all of us, me and the kids. We don't yell and if we mess up, we stop and apologize. I mess up sometimes, but I stop, breathe, and apologize. Then I explain my issues calmly, and my children have never been happier.

So now, instead of just yelling at them, I stop and I sat, "hey, [blank] isn't okay because [reason]. Why did that happen and how can we avoid it in the future?"

Then I listen.

I've extended this dialogue to adults as well. Instead of getting mad and arguing, I say the above and I get so much better results.

My partner has made me a better parent and by extension, a better person.

Give grace. Be kind. Show love. Have hope.

You'll be so much happier.

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I think this is the most I've ever agreed with Colville on anything, which is saying something because the man is a genius.

TLDR: Running smaller adventures (like, the span of a level or two) is healthier for your games in the long run because it gives players a sense of accomplishment. The endless mega adventures are pushed by publishers because they make more money, but promote bad design/play habits that not only put undue expectations on everyone involved but also rob the story of vital momentum.

What I was struck by in the video was how much the non-d&d media I've grown up with (open world games, streaming series, epic fantasy books) have coloured my expectations for how long the default d&d game SHOULD be. Sure, I can keep a whole campaign's worth of information in my head down to the accents of the shopkeepers in all the settlements we've visited and the machinations of courtly power players we'll never get to meet, but I can do that because I'm a freak with a head for details and my players mostly aren't.

By stretching out my stories too far I was diluting their effectiveness, as vital information and emotional beats were lost over weeks and months. I was inadvertently inflicting marvel-fatigue on my own party, putting too much work into setups that I might never get a chance to land because building up to big shocking twists and AHA red string moments was what I was conditioned to expect.

I know I was doing this because it's the exact same thing that I see happening with a lot of media I've tried to get into in the recent past and ending up bouncing off of. Just like with marvel (especially the later phases) there's a constant feeling of "what you're looking at doesn't really matter, this is just to set up to something that's going to pay off later", which is so pervasive that it prevents me from getting genuinely invested in anything. I hate that shit, and I would definitely hate inflicting it on my players.

I also applaud Matt here for repeatedly bringing up the idea of "the health of the game", as it's an umbrella term that can not only be used to describe a lot of good practices, but a mindset that we should take around our own tables for ensuring everyone (us DMs included) are having a good time now and into the future.

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