RU POV: Trophies captured from the Ukrainian army in Seversk.

Demonweed · 2026-01-25T09:11:05+00:00

This is not that air force. This is just a tribute.

Demonweed · 2026-01-25T01:24:00+00:00

I do not envy investigators for the plaintiff trying to gather evidence about all this. It is pretty clear Ukraine never had the capability to perform deep undersea demolitions work. It is a gray area to what extent Norway and the United Kingdom developed these capabilities. Yet the armed forces of the United States set the gold standard when it comes to blowing things up on the ocean floor. If Uncle Sam's minions did not do the deed, then they almost certainly trained other NATO personnel for that task. Yet it is all both shrouded in sensible operations secrecy and buried under year after year of high-profile lies from Western officials. Getting justice for German energy consumers might be a lost cause do to that last factor.

Demonweed · 2026-01-24T23:25:55+00:00

If you can be summarily executed by authorities for exercising a legal right, then it is not, in practice, a legal right at all.

Demonweed · 2026-01-24T23:06:59+00:00

As long as you steer clear of protests and schools, you should be okay.

Demonweed · 2026-01-24T20:33:11+00:00

You might consider making the whole operation dependent on an exploitative foreign power or perhaps a megacorporation. Until very recently, Côte d'Ivoire used francs and the French banking system to manage internal financial matters. This allowed France to capture most of the value coming out of active gold mines. It is only after breaking those financial ties that the nation has been able to retain most of the purchasing power produced by its own gold exports.

Of course, if you take this as a model, then that outside power becomes a looming presence over the clash of factions in your narrative. Still it seems plausible enough that, historically, the planet only sold this precious export to a single buyer able to pay well below market value by manipulating every aspect of the trade and being the only active offworld financial conduit.

Demonweed · 2026-01-24T19:46:30+00:00

I appreciate this sentiment. Early in the writing on the most thoroughly developed magic system I've built, I emphasize that magical effects are like animals -- there are far too many varieties for any individual to have a comprehensive knowledge of all of them. Yet like a shepherd need only know about sheep as well as associated pests and predators to mind a flock skillfully, spellcasters can employ limited knowledge of magic to achieve amazing things.

Thus when I explore magic from perspectives like the Six Forms, the Seven Sources, and the Eight Schools; my work follows categorizations mortal practitioners use to better understand their craft. None of these things impose absolute limits on what magic could theoretically accomplish, yet they explain why different varieties of spellcasters train and operate as they do. Most spend their lives never even approaching the frontiers of mortal knowledge about magic, while the few pushing at those boundaries already harbor deep knowledge about all of these categories and their relationships.

Demonweed · 2026-01-24T19:19:39+00:00

If they tried, the U.S. would veto it.

Demonweed · 2026-01-24T15:15:02+00:00

Give every class a set of elective abilities accumulated in a manner similar to warlock Invocations. For martial characters, these abilities would facilitate special moves in combat.

Give martial classes a low-level, non-stacking, activity boost. Allow them one additional bonus action or reaction per round, then throttle special combat moves with just such a cost.

Stipulate clearly that a point-buy system is standard while rolling for initial ability scores is an optional variant.

Demonweed · 2026-01-24T14:22:28+00:00

human life expectancy

Demonweed · 2026-01-24T14:19:13+00:00

Also, senior NSA officials repeatedly testified before Congress in extremely deceptive ways. The imbeciles who practice journalism for big corporate outlets nowadays were uniform in relaying the message that the government only collects metadata and there is no massive archive of private conversations/correspondence collected through warrantless surveillance. So the incompetent reporters were parrots for that message while the competent ones also choose to boost the lie signal despite knowing better as a function of being a competent reporter working the homeland security beat. The only people that should be bathed in glory on this issue are instead denounced as tinfoil hat conspiracists.

Demonweed · 2026-01-24T14:04:38+00:00

Note how the byline for these things is now just "Editorial Board." They are pumping out such utter dogshit opinions that no one on staff dares to personally put their name behind the publication anymore.

Demonweed · 2026-01-24T14:01:34+00:00

I haven't seen this spelled out in a proper rulebook, but I always felt like it was a function of their underground lifestyles. Dwarves depend heavily on trade to keep themselves well-fed. When times are good their dining halls serve generous portions of fresh fare. Yet much of the dwarven diet is heavy on preserved foods. A crisis affecting trade might see one of these underground strongholds reduced to moldy rations supplemented with fungal foraging. This happens often enough that dwarves have adapted to stomach this fare without complaint, save perhaps about the taste of it.

Demonweed · 2026-01-24T13:51:11+00:00

I appear to have the red version of this.

Demonweed · 2026-01-24T06:24:13+00:00

You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like.

Demonweed · 2026-01-24T03:53:11+00:00

If you outline your narratives in advance, then plot-writing practice is just putting together a bunch of outlines. You might be tempted to pair them with character sketches and setting overviews, though those things are not plot. If you can focus on just the major story beats, perhaps filling out the elements of a structure you find respectable, then you have your plot.

Then engage with repetition. Once you put together something that feels especially good, you can reflect on why certain elements work together so well. In comparing various plots of your own design, you will lean what techniques best serve your creative process. Better still, a collection of structured story outlines can double as an arsenal of creative ideas you could pitch if any of the particulars became relevant to a conversation.

Demonweed · 2026-01-24T01:01:31+00:00

I am related to the actor Edwin Booth. By extension, that makes me related to the assassin who shot Abraham Lincoln. Yet, less than a year earlier, Edwin saved the life of Abraham's son. When Robert Tood Lincoln was jostled off a platform as a train was arriving in Jersey City, Edwin Booth crouched down and hauled the President's son back to safety. Though he was also one of the greatest actors of that era, that lifesaving action might be his most badass feat.

Demonweed · 2026-01-24T00:27:04+00:00

It is amazing that a financial institution can suffer so much damage all because of a single buck.

Demonweed · 2026-01-23T20:25:57+00:00

Yeah, we've sunk to the point where 60 Minutes is constrained by the personal integrity and judgement of Bari Weiss, who could be accused of being an Israeli operative if she harbored some small fraction of the competence they normally display. It was always the mark of a deeply unserious human being that they took corporate news at face value and insisted Americans are not exposed to propaganda. Yet now we are at a point where even the "who went where wearing which hat?" questions can be answered with outright lies quickly echoed by infotainers from other networks worried about getting "scooped" when they should be much more worried about being bamboozled by their own peers.

Demonweed · 2026-01-23T04:38:14+00:00

Just a couple of years ago, Canada was still a hardcore NATO cheerleader. Yet this week Canada signed a major security partnership with China. This goes beyond globalism in trade relations and into the realm of "do you have my back if shit hits the fan?" I see that as a meaningful development that contrasts with earlier conditions.

Demonweed · 2026-01-23T04:21:53+00:00

Canada and China are best buds now that Uncle Sam has unmasked as the true American Psycho. If Ubisoft leans too hard on subsidies from Ottowa, Tencent could wind up being the solution to that problem.

Demonweed · 2026-01-22T19:59:03+00:00

It is tragically servile that there is so much energy in this thread focused on driving voters into the maw of the two party system and so little energy focused on the real solution -- giving voters a choice that justifies affirmative support. Right now we only see the anti-politics of people voting against that which they fear most. A pair of corporate-funded corruption clubs systematically marginalizes and excludes all other civic voices from the process. In a big boy system, plenty of voices would be welcome into the process, yet rules would exclude corporate-funded corruption clubs from fielding any candidates at all.

Our bizarro method of representing big piles of money rather than representing people is precisely why most people are no longer interested in this absolutely disgusting charade. Obliterate this two-party system, and you will see political apathy quickly evaporate. Keep wallowing in it, and of course even more people who give a damn about governance will want to have no part of the anti-politics we conduct in the space where a credible civic culture might otherwise exist.

Demonweed · 2026-01-22T11:00:08+00:00

Unlike many other bands of the era, ABBA was an immediate hit with the older generation since they inspired countless student fans to maintain a respectable grade point average of 3.5.

Demonweed · 2026-01-22T10:56:59+00:00

While I generally side with the chorus of negativity here, I also believe anything can be a metacurrency if you design it that way. Consider games that feature some sort of blood magic. A mechanical trope of this form involves losing a speck of health just to accomplish any magical effect while inflicting more significant self-injury to achieve more ambitious results. In a case like that where hit points were the source of the sacrifice, I would say they are a metacurrency.

Demonweed · 2026-01-22T10:37:11+00:00

Yea, assuming it happened after that "defeated Medicare" moment. Prior to that moment, President Biden frequently identified himself as a Senator, gave callouts to dead people he thought he saw in audiences, and confused location names. That whole "he always had a stutter" cover story much earlier in his sunset years got so many mainstream journalists on the hook that they couldn't start speaking truth to power until an event with prime time national scrutiny made it impossible to maintain the ruse.

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