(biologist - artist - queer)

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You’re the only magician that could make a falling horse turn into thirteen gerbils

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 10th, 2023

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  • You didn’t mention it, but have you considered how it would feel if you had a bad day and didn’t live up to this standard?

    You’re framing it like a moral philosophy, but feeling anger is not a morally bad thing. Neither is jealousy, or selfishness, at times. It’s just part of the human experience, and we can avoid it most of the time, but occasionally we’re going to need to focus on ourselves and our needs and our feelings.

    Similarly, it’s impossible to avoid having an ego 100% of the time. Honestly, it sounds like this quality is part of your identity-- would you like yourself less if you lived up to this standard imperfectly?

    I don’t think it’s unusual to want to be a good person and to want to control our worst impulses. But to describe it as “trying to act like a saint”, and saying you’re “deaf to your own needs”-- those are concerning statements.

    I don’t think anyone can speak for you or guess what’s going on from the outside. But if I were you, I’d be exploring if there’s fear underlying these impulses. Fear of judgment: how do you think the world would perceive you if you stopped being so strict about it? Fear of badness: how does it feel when you have a bad day and you fail to be perfect? Do you resent yourself? Fear of impurity: do you feel like other people are bad when they have these natural reactions? Do you fear being like other people who are experiencing and dealing with normal feelings?


  • Oooooh I have some ideas! Some of these are paid/premium (but NOT micro transactions) and some have mild ads. But I share the distaste for data-mining, money grubbing, brain-melting-ad-ridden games, so I’m certain they are on the least intrusive end of the spectrum.

    I really love biology (I’m a biologist…) so these are both pet games and usually breeding/evolution games!

    • Fish Tycoon – This one specifically. A classic! Breed and care for cute fish!
    • Niche breed and evolve – so neat and pretty educational about evolution/genetics. There’s a slightly more complicated/difficult pc game if she decides she likes the nichelings/universe.
    • Pocket Frogs – Simple, low stress collecting game. it would take years to collect all the frogs, and there’s a relatively active community of people who trade sets of frogs to other people to help them complete collections. Would be fun to play with her friends at school!
    • Reigns Her Majesty – a game about running a kingdom as a queen. When you die, you become your heir and retain some progress from your last lives. It doesn’t fit the exact criteria you mentioned, but I think she might like it anyway!

  • The point this guy is trying to make is that people are conflating Israel, Judaism, and Zionism in ways that don’t always make sense

    Like, the polls you’re quoting are sentiments of Israelis, so this guy (and the vast majority of Jewish people in the world) are not included in those polls.

    Even within Israel, that’s, what, 3-4 million people that disagree with that sentiment? And Israelis are only ~73% Jewish anyway?

    On top of that, tons of zionists arent even Jewish, they are even likely to be antisemitic tbh.

    So… what you said sounds a lot like “I don’t have anything against one particular group, but the sentiment of the citizens of this one country makes me second guess the perspective of a person in a totally different country just because they share one dimension of identity”… In essence, it sounds a lot like prejudice

    (free palestine, in case that isn’t obvious)


  • As an education professional: what the hell, dude? It’s not unfortunate that we aren’t just dropping struggling students without first carefully examining why they’re not succeeding.

    You might be right that you can’t let some students detract from the class for other students, but the solution there is advocating for better funding and more staff to be able to give every student what they need, whether they’re above or below the expectation for their age.

    Saying it’s “unfortunate” that students don’t fail (read: ruin their whole god damn lives) as often anymore is blaming our most vulnerable YOUTH for the systemic problems of our society. It’s not their job to be what the school environment wants them to be, they don’t even have a choice about whether or not they are there. It’s our (as educators, and as tax paying and voting community members) responsibility to make sure they get the education they need to be functional members of our society.

    We even have huge bodies of research to reinforce this. It’s not a secret that the school environment excels at making nice workers, not critical-thinking and well-adjusted adult humans.

    Take it up with the school board! Take it up with the local, state, and federal government! Take it up with the voters!




  • I feel like this is true if the reader is meant to have the perspective of the person who feels that something is magic (the Hobbits, in the example from your video). However, not all magic in fiction is like this, and sometimes the reader is supposed to mostly have the perspective of Galadriel, or to gain her perspective over time.

    An example is Lev Grossman’s The Magicians. The reader has the perspective of the Hobbits at first, because that is the perspective of the main character. But the story has themes of “lifting the veil” of magic, and by the end both the main character and the reader have a more similar perspective to Galadriel.

    I guess what I mean is, I agree with you and the video’s author in large part… but like… to broadly say that magic “should” be used in literature in a certain way ignores how it can be used in different ways to great effect!


  • I think they’re making the claim that if we’re looking at “varience”, variety, etc. then pf1e has more overall variability. Pathfinder does it with a combination of classes and archetypes, where 3.5e does it with just classes. I don’t think they made the explicit claim of there being more classes in pf1e by overall number.

    I find that instead of pathfinder having more “classes” by number, it feels more honest about what is a class and what is a subclass/archetype. Imo, many 3.5e classes would be archetypes in pathfinder, as they fit your definition of “instead of x, you get y” without much substantial difference. And likewise, in my experience playing different archetypes in pf can produce vastly different player experiences (some archetypes and classes more than others, for sure).

    All of this is pretty subjective, though… and I personally haven’t heard anyone making fun of 3.5e for lacking classes, compared to either pf1e or 2e, but it could happen!


  • Pretty much every day, multiple times a day, with strangers, acquaintances, and friends. I think it usually brightens people’s day, and with strangers, I think delivery and content is much more important than what I look like or who I am.

    For content, I only compliment choices, not attributes:

    “Cool shirt!” is good, “Nice legs!” is not

    “I love your haircut!” is good, “Your hair has such a nice texture!” is not

    Tailored compliments are even better, ex. “That book (or other media) is awesome!” is great, if I really do like it, and it can start a conversation, but obviously I don’t lie and pretend I know it when I don’t.

    For delivery, I keep it light and casual. I am mindful to only do it when they aren’t preoccupied, like on the phone or reading something. For tone, I guess I pop the compliment, smile, and movie on. For example, if we’re walking past each other-- I don’t slow down, and I look away immediately after giving a friendly smile. I don’t mean that I don’t care about their response, because of course I’m mindful to be sure I didn’t offend them, but I don’t burden them with needing to respond with gratitude or happiness. I think of it as, I want this person to have the (hopefully pleasant) information that their choice was seen and respected by a stranger. I don’t want anything back from them.

    I would say 95-100% of the people I compliment seem to be genuinely happy I did, and of the ones who don’t react positively, I’d say the vast majority react neutrally. In the rare case where my compliment has totally failed, I usually go “Oh! I’m sorry” and again, disengage.

    Obviously, with friends and acquaintances the options open up a little more, and usually I do follow up/continue the conversation instead of moving on. But it’s similar in the philosophy that I’m usually just trying to give them positive information, and not seeking anything in return. Compliments are not a tool to get people to talk to me or be friends with me. That can and does happen, but it’s not the point. Honestly, I think that’s the part that most people struggle with, if they feel like they don’t get good responses with compliments. It’s not for us.

    I do think I’m probably an outlier, because I give compliments a lot. But I continue to do it because it seems to really make people smile!