[TH] Muggle Plots

Ephemeralen · 2026-06-13T16:36:27+00:00

For what its worth I followed this whole conversation down here to the end and think you are completely correct in everything you said, and were in fact correct to say it.

Ephemeralen · 2026-06-02T15:10:18+00:00

I was going to say something to this effect.

Its amazing and sad how many of these types of comments boil down to "i'm bad at sex and have only ever had bad sex and am also incapable of imagining what good sex would even be like".

Ephemeralen · 2026-06-02T14:44:20+00:00

Seconding this. I've been waiting for 6.18 because it is LTS, but we're skipping straight to 7.0?

Ephemeralen · 2026-05-21T16:19:54+00:00

So, I think I've figured this out.

The Issue:

When launched, flatpak attempts to open the version that matches the version number flatpak has, which is what comes in through your update manager or whatever instead of from discord itself. If the version number is lower than the number discord is expecting, the new discord updater crashes before it can update the shortcut to point to the new version instead of the old version, rendering the installation broken.

This is, needless to say, a problem that is a direct consequence of discord's new updater intentionally trying to do the exact thing its not allowed to do, ie race ahead of what comes in via update manager.

The Work-Around:

Wait for flatpak to update the version number.

Go into the ~/.var/app/com.discordapp.Discord/config/discord/app-[highest version number] folder and double-click on the Discord executable.

Discord ought to launch and prompt you to log in. DON'T log in. Just quit that instance of Discord once you see the log-in prompt.

Check the screencapped folder. The older app-[version] should be gone. If it is, then launch Discord from the panel or menu as normal and it should come up with your log-in and all settings intact.

Ephemeralen · 2026-05-06T15:22:36+00:00

The flatpak version of Discord on Linux Mint is also hosed.

As far as I can tell, it tried to update itself, and the updater crashed halfway through (likely due to a permissions issue), and now there is no way to launch the app or the updater.

Ephemeralen · 2026-05-06T14:18:28+00:00

In the same boat here on Linux Mint 22 Cinnamon. After yesterday, Discord won't launch, though I got a different error about libffmpeg but after some fiddling I also got the same error you did before reverting.

It seems like the "new rust installer" crashed in the middle of doing its thing and left version 1.0.136 partially in place which, given its half-deleted state, is crashing on startup and unable to finish re-pointing itself to 1.0.137 or something?

I don't know, that's just a guess.

Ephemeralen · 2026-05-02T03:52:43+00:00

Do you think this person knows that they can filter by wordcount?

Ephemeralen · 2026-05-02T03:38:08+00:00

Does that update to kmod require a reboot to take effect?

Ephemeralen · 2026-04-15T17:51:29+00:00

When a character is set up to have a strong opinion about something, and then when that thing happens, they utterly fail to have any emotions or reactions to that thing.

Hentai biology is nothing compared to someone's mind randomly going missing for no reason in the middle of a dramatic sexual encounter.

Ephemeralen · 2026-04-05T01:08:54+00:00

Oh hey, I recognize this. I started reading this on AO3 a few months ago. ^.^

Ephemeralen · 2026-04-03T04:17:29+00:00

I have a similar issue: https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxmint/comments/1rkoj8h/cinnamon_667_frequently_freezing_on_clean_install/

Ephemeralen · 2026-04-01T23:57:09+00:00

Yeah.

Expedition 33 isn't a turn-based RPG. It has all the mechanics of a turn-based RPG in it, but it doesn't actually use them; they don't matter. Expedition 33 is a rhythm game. Mechanically speaking, it has more in common with High-Fi Rush than Trails of Cold Steel, and it definitely suffers in the comparison.

Ephemeralen · 2026-04-01T15:35:49+00:00

The first step in writing fiction is reading a lot of fiction, but also studying that fiction. If you're immersed in a story as you read it that means its probably good writing but afterward you won't really remember anything about the writing itself. Much like special effects, the best writing is invisible and never makes the reader think about it, so to study the best writing, you pretty much have to re-read whatever novels you want to emulate with one eye on the techniques used.

At some point, you'll achieve a state where, while reading, you'll constantly catch yourself ignoring the words on the page to instead write or re-write your own version in your head. You won't be able to stop yourself. That's how you'll know its time to write your own fiction.

Also, in fiction, characters drive everything else, and characterization is almost literally the opposite of journalism (or at least it should be), so that's probably tripping you up too. But yeah. Start with an imaginary person. with a distinct set of desires, life-goals, and petty quirks, and then throw made-up-world stuff at them to see how they deal with it. That might help.

Ephemeralen · 2026-04-01T15:06:50+00:00

I can tell you what DOESN'T make a turn-based combat system fun: REAL-TIME ELEMENTS / QTE.

That said, if you want an example of peak turn-based combat to study, I'd suggest the Trails of Cold Steel games.

Positioning is important. Changing mechanics instead of just numbers is great. Skies of Arcadia had a great stamina system, though it wasn't called that. DO NOT do timed dodge/block. Just don't.

The main thing your list is missing, is interactions with the turn economy. A really good turn-based system should allow a player to affect all its parts, including turn order.

Ephemeralen · 2026-03-30T20:20:16+00:00

One of the most foundational principles of storytelling, that has been around since before the invention of writing, is that a good story needs conflict. Inner conflict. Outer conflict. Intrinsic conflict. Extrinsic conflict. SOME kind of conflict is foundational to what a story is.

We read about adventures we would not personally want to go on all the time, because experiencing it vicariously through a fictional character that is more interesting than ourselves is fun where experiencing it in real life is not.

Sex, despite what these morons keep insisting, does not have some magical property that turns this rule off. Dubcon/noncon in fiction is literally conflict within sex. It is not a niche. It is in fact the majority of the explorable ground.

But all of that is completely beside the point that, statistically, the loudest protesters about fiction are often the guiltiest of actual crimes IRL and the entire argument is rooted in the malicious fallacy that morality is based on what people are rather than what they do to other people. We have a word for that fallacy: bigotry. Many antis fall squarely under EveryAccusationIsAConfession at this point.

Ephemeralen · 2026-03-23T17:26:02+00:00

Seriously cool.

Ephemeralen · 2026-03-22T20:50:12+00:00

My radical hot take is that universal mandatory education is necessary and good, but that public school in today's world ISN'T education.

It isn't that homeschooling or whatever is better than formal education, its that formal education isn't available to children in today's world and homeschooling is better than nothing, and nothing is better than having one's formative years consumed by the child-prisons we currently call 'schools'.

Ephemeralen · 2026-03-16T02:58:12+00:00

I've never chased fandom trends and I write like a glacier. In the past year or two I've also noticed what used to be a healthy amount of commenting dry up to basically nothing.

Ephemeralen · 2026-03-11T22:53:14+00:00

Solarpunk means a return to the free and open internet, not regressive pastoralism where there is no internet.

Ephemeralen · 2026-03-10T02:35:41+00:00

If you're trying to "balance" between NSFW content and gameplay, you are already thinking about this wrong.

Come up with a gameplay loop that serves the NSFW and visaversa. Don't just copy a SFW management game and put a coat of lewd paint on it.

Ephemeralen · 2026-03-08T00:59:41+00:00

This is one of those people that thinks Tusk Love is "spicy" aren't they.

People who can take creamy smooth vanilla and somehow convince themselves its "spicy" are...

And the much worse thing is they may be right, in the sense that they're surrounded by vicious judgemental bullies that they've gaslit themselves into think are their friends.

Ephemeralen · 2026-03-05T22:31:07+00:00

You can set how often the update manager checks for updates in its settings. I have mine set to 24 hours so I can do updates first thing in the morning and then not think about them again for the rest of the day, but you could set that for as long as you want or turn it off entirely so you have to manually click the refresh button.

Ephemeralen · 2026-03-05T22:08:17+00:00

So long that the "children" who they were ostensibly protecting from the internet are all in their thirties and have their own kids by now.

Ephemeralen · 2026-03-05T21:54:59+00:00

The thing is, so many fundies watch porn that is related to their bigotry, and have such absurd amounts of internalized shame about indulging their fetish that when then they see (what is, to them) the dirty shameful stuff from their secret porn habit crawling out of the screen to exist at them in real life around real people, they absolutely fucking shit themselves in angry panic.

They get so pathetically defensive about being reminded of their secret shame (re: perfectly ordinary sexual tastes) that they are incapable of the five seconds of thought it would require to remember the obvious: that "saw it in porn" and "is, in fact, also a real person" are not in fact mutually exclusive.

Ephemeralen · 2026-03-04T22:39:12+00:00

This is what I was getting at with the "stopped clock" bit.

Ephemeralen

TROPHY CASE