@path-forbidden / path-forbidden.tumblr.com
This is a lot of my raw selvedge denim thing, it's one of the last bastions of durable, quality clothing with some types offering free lifetime repairs. For footwear, I've heard good things about Darn Tough boots, Kursk cycling trainers, etc. a rare few sneakers can also be re-soled.
My main criticism of Qud is that despite fantastic prose and imagination, it wears its heart on its sleeve.
For instance, there's an order of fascist knights resisting the sticky impurity of the world. They attack you on sight as a mutant, mentally enslave others as "newchildren", etc. All this is cool, but I think the writing becomes weaker when labouring over their crooked spines and excessive jaws from being inbred for purity.
It's not enough that life is the gordian knot they love to cut, they also have to be ugly so no one can miss they're bad guys. I'd let this pass (or view it in another light) but the most anarchistic and disability-friendly factions are unfailingly nice to you.
When the game reaches for the very strange, it excels, but it's unsubtle when it reflects on the modern day. I have more respect for New Vegas's approach of presenting 3 past-bound failures as your only options, demanding you say "no, none of these" and walk your own path. If Caves Of Qud had an Ulysses, he wouldn't be from the Legion and he'd begin as your friend.
[In fairness to the devs, a lot of people do think the Putus Templar are cool. I understand why being subtle is offputting when you have close contact with fans and can see them misunderstand you.]
QUDPOST
While in a weak monster's mouth several automated corpse-strippers descend on me. The realization I haven't laid waste to everything around me naturally leads to a second one: my greatsword is gone. They got it two turns ago.
Weaving in-mouth around snatching appendages and spitting out someone else's digestive enzymes, I decide to use my fists. I'm ripping my way out when the corpse-strippers score my cloak. It occurs to me that if they get my armour, I'm going to have to pull my side-sword. If I pull it and they take it, I'm going to die down here. That will be 20 hours progress flushed.
This forces me to use a rare resource, teleporting about thirty feet off. The monster that had me stumbles in confusion and a railgun round pulverizes it. Irritated, I light up the corpse-strippers as they rush me, sift through the debris and find I blasted my greatsword to pieces. That or the one that had it fell down a hole. I'm not getting that back.
Not long after, I'm navigating an industrial hell with a crystal side-sword in my hand. In the other, an ordinary spray-bottle. A couple hours back, I found an unknown something in the ranged weapons tab of my inventory.
It has since refused to be un-equipped. In fact, there seems to be a freckled handcannon growing out of my wrist now, veins thudding. I'm still taking a knee and spraying acid on it every couple of minutes, inbetween dodging pistons and machine fanatics. It stopped shooting a while ago, so I think it's dying.
QUDPOST
While in a weak monster's mouth several automated corpse-strippers descend on me. The realization I haven't laid waste to everything around me naturally leads to a second one: my greatsword is gone. They got it two turns ago.
Weaving in-mouth around snatching appendages and spitting out someone else's digestive enzymes, I decide to use my fists. I'm ripping my way out when the corpse-strippers score my cloak. It occurs to me that if they get my armour, I'm going to have to pull my side-sword. If I pull it and they take it, I'm going to die down here. That will be 20 hours progress flushed.
This forces me to use a rare resource, teleporting about thirty feet off. The monster that had me stumbles in confusion and a railgun round pulverizes it. Irritated, I light up the corpse-strippers as they rush me, sift through the debris and find I blasted my greatsword to pieces. That or the one that had it fell down a hole. I'm not getting that back.
Death to settler colonialism, free Palestine!
If anyone still thinks the original tweet was an exaggeration, here’s a video from 2009 of Israeli's watching bombs falling on Gaza
Transcript from their interview with Keren Levy, an Israeli real estate agent:
Keren: They Chose Hamas to rule them, it's their fault, they got it to where it is now
Reporter: Don't you think it gets worse bombing them?
Keren: No I think that is the only solution, I think they should just clear off all the city, just take it off the ground.
Keren: Yes I'm a little bit fascist.
Saul Bellow, Humboldt's Gift
when people say "ok but x bug has no benefit to nature" I bet they can't even name 5 facts about the bug they're shitting on. so how could they Possibly know what its function is in the environment and if it's "useless" or not
wasps being the perfect example, I still get people saying "oh bees are cute and pollinate :) yay. but WASPS ARE EVIL and they don't contribute ANYTHING!!!" and it's like buddy. wasps pollinate too. they also control spider populations. they do a lot of great valuable things. but even if they didn't, they're still worthy of being here. I see SO much hatred toward wasps and I wish people would try to learn a little more about them.
I'm mainly talking about paper wasps here because these are common ones we run into in daily life and most commonly deemed "aggressive". but wasps have body language. and if you learn to read this language and learn how to properly act around them, things will go a lot better for you! wasps can be curious creatures and they may come up to observe you, especially if you're wearing something brightly colored. this can be startling for sure, but my best advice is to just be still, DO NOT SWAT or wave your arms. try to just back away or sidestep so it loses interest and leaves. swatting is just gonna make them feel as if they are being attacked and increase your chances of being stung.
many stings happen due to unfortunate but accidental circumstances. unknowingly getting too close to a nest, stepping on a wasp on accident, one getting stuck in clothing, etc. I got stung once while gardening, went to pull a weed and the wasp was on it, so I grabbed her without knowing and she stung me because she was scared. this doesn't mean "oh wasps are AGGRESSIVE and EVIL" it means you stumbled into an unfortunate situation where the wasps felt threatened and defensive. instead of being like "FUCK all wasps" go forward trying to learn about common nesting areas, be wary of holes in the ground, wear gloves while gardening, and if you do have to be around a nest, try not to make a lot of noise. if the nest absolutely needs removed, call a professional.
i had a paper wasp nest next to my front door for about 5 months and the only aggressive thing they did was go \!/ when i was being too annoying with my camera.
Now the next generation is building a nest near the same spot and they continue being perfectly polite polistes :)
pictured are guards doing the warning stance \!/ and a satellite nest filled with fat and happy grubs showing how close they let me get.
Learning about fashion always seemed like it would be imprisoning, but it actually feels kinder to know why something looks bad based on broad principles rather than feeling like it's an inner ugliness swimming up to the surface. Playing without knowing the rules, you feel haunted by a special lack of grace.
There's this sense of something being set in your reality, inherent to you, that I think is quite common. Beliefs like gender roles play heavily on it. But it can cause the most complete shift in perspective to escape that sense even briefly by seeing yourself change, all bitterness and envy drained from the wound.
I would dearly like a freer world that allows that to happen more often.
The Animedia September 1997 supplement 'Duelist Bible' has been slowly getting scanlated as a project by Vanna...that's me! Because of weird Xenforo nonsense, I have to upload them in reverse order to get them to show up right later--so I'm working back to front! Welcome to pages 90-93: the cast interviews! (Touga's voice actor was like this ALL THE TIME, goofy bitch.)
i feel weird about a narrative i've been seeing a lot. the one where people idealize childhood a bit, and the ways in which we thought/expressed ourselves when we were children, before we got hurt by the world in certain ways. before we learned to sort things into discrete boxes, before we learned to limit our own imaginations so much.
it's not that i disagree on the face of it. the context ("wanting to capture some of that uninhibited creativity, for the sake of making games that are fun/interesting to play") really matters a lot, IMO. and i know *my* creativity was a lot less inhibited when i was playing imagination games as a kid, before things like Genre and Category and Tone became conscious concerns. (to say nothing of Realism)
but... i'm thinking about art movements in any other medium where adults have idealized that backward-looking notion of a purer childhood experience and thrown themselves into trying to evoke it, polish it, return to it in some fashion, and I gotta say: that is some worrying company to keep!
there's something important to me about the parts of growing up where i learned how limited my imagination was: the moments when, however unbound I was by The Rules, I hadn't actually seen enough, learned enough, experienced enough to really move past them.
and... that gets into the personal, because my depression and damage aren't just things that were inflicted on me by an uncaring world, or specific actors who hurt me; they're also, to some extent, a reflection of the sense i was able to make of the world and my experiences at a young age. i had to do a lot of growing to become someone who could imagine better for myself!
Beatrix Russell the…sexy ghoul cowboygirl
it kills me that 'enshittification' is such a 2012 reddit sounding term, it sounds so corny, and we're chained to it because of its importance.
caught a hint of welded rubber sneakers that are built with these 70 year old machines that used to make russian army boots, i'm like "yeah gimme those" and they're no longer being made. cruel joke, people talkin about running shoes lasting 6 months like this is okay.
hey, i know i’ve not been around much, so i feel like, awkward about asking for mutual aid in light of that, but i’m in a bit of a bind
due to circumstances beyond my control, in July, i’ll be losing a source of monthly income amounting to about £200. this is a huge problem since my income from benefits is barely adequate as is and cost of living keeps rising.
while ideally i’d set the goal at £1200 to cover the loss for at least the rest of the year, that seems like too much to ask rn.
so i’m not setting a goal for now. but … i really need help affording bills. i’ve suspended my efforts to boost the GFM for new furniture in light of more pressing bills.
i’ve cut down my expenses as much as i can. i already can barely afford to eat and due to my limited mobility, food pantries aren’t really an option.
links to send £££:
please keep boosting!
Taiwan Beauty Snake (Elaphe taeniura friesei), family Colubridae, found in Taiwan
photograph by Smoldering Serpents
