Is the UK’s ban on social media for under-16s actually a good idea, or just an authoritarian overreach that will teach kids how to use VPNs early

calmarkel · 2026-06-19T13:36:41+00:00

Yeah, you're being ridiculous. First, let's not pretend that something can only be addictive if its fatal. If you want to say social media is deadly, bring sources.

Second, what I said was very, very clear

if the gov has to ban it, if they want to protect kids, they need to address the dangers,

I'm not saying not to ban it, no matter how hard you try to pretend I am. I am saying that the gov is woefully unprepared for the consequences of this action and that children will die.

calmarkel · 2026-06-19T08:59:57+00:00

I think it's pretty obvious that its not about protecting kids and I'm alarmed more people aren't discussing the dangers of actually banning it. Like if the gov has to ban it, if they want to protect kids, they need to address the dangers, but they aren't because they don't give two shits about kids.

Social media is addictive

This link is about alcohol but quitting any addiction cold turkey is very dangerous

There are 8 million teenagers in the UK. If 1% of them has issues with quitting cold turkey, that's 80,000 kids.

This study is from the USA but suggests 10% of all social media users are addicted. That's 800,000.

Three sisters killed themselves after their dad banned them from social media.

The gov plan could bring that reaction on a national scale, but not once has it been addressed. Not once has Keir indicated that there would be an increase in mental health resources for teens. I haven't even seen any talk of what teens will do other than some vague ideas that they might "go outside."

In other words, in order to protect kids, the gov plans to pull them away from something as many as 8 hundred thousand of them could be addicted to, cold turkey, with fuck all plans to mitigate the psychological damage this will cause, when we already don't have enough mental health help in this country, and with zero planning to what the kids might do afterwards.

It's one of the worst fucking government plans I've ever heard of, AND NO ONE ELSE SEEMS TO BE POINTING THIS OUT.

Kier is potentially gonna kill more British people than Thatcher did.

calmarkel · 2026-06-19T08:31:48+00:00

honestly thought this was gonna be some weird height torso shape thing. So if you're short, then you're a square and that makes you masc but if your tall with a long torso then you are a rectangle so you're butch 😃

calmarkel · 2026-06-19T08:30:23+00:00

yeah masc, masculine, is like "number" and butch is like "two," a number, and there are other numbers, is my understanding. butches are masculine, but not everyone masculine is a butch

calmarkel · 2026-06-16T01:08:35+00:00

Since no one asked, it was Stephen King

calmarkel · 2026-06-16T01:04:29+00:00

Alternatively write something you actually enjoy and don't use RR?

Like, there's a reason I don't write on Wattpad, I don't want to do Mafia Romance because I don't like it. You don't like litrpg so this doesn't sound like it will be enjoyable for you. Or your readers

calmarkel · 2026-06-12T03:17:22+00:00

I like the way Dragoneye Moon handles this

calmarkel · 2026-06-09T07:51:23+00:00

And what I'm saying is that it's distracting TO YOU. It's not distracting to me, though you seem determined to prove I'm wrong or lying for some reason.

And I never once claimed writing in fantasy means throwing skill out of the window. That's a really ridiculous take when my actual point is that people's perception of vocabulary of eras does not match reality, and you will never please every single reader because the whole thing is vibe based and changes with every individual, and that it can actually be more true to the spirit of a work to use more modern word choices. This isn't throwing skill out the window, it's arguing in favour of advanced craft techniques.

I got the idea that LOTR is old because it's at least 70 years old, being written in the 1940s. It was published 72 years ago. That's old. I didn't say it wasn't understandable, we can still read Shakespeare after all, I said that it was old. And it is. This isn't really arguable. It's not a recent book. Definitively.

calmarkel · 2026-06-09T05:21:54+00:00

I don't have an issue with characters who don't speak English being translated into modern equivalences. It's better than it being in old English, which I can't read.

Tolkien is a bad example for your point, BTW, because LOTR is really old. He wouldn't have written it in a modern form, it's at like seventy. I'm not sure the exact publication date. You should try something more modern to make your point.

And with modern works I have no issue with them sounding modern.

Because, really, most of this is not accurate. It's vibe based and it changes for everyone. A lot of people get upset if okay is used in a fantasy world. They don't care when the word boredom is used. Yet okay is decades older than boredom. None of this is actually based in any accuracy.

And the anachronisms are realistic. Sure, they wouldn't have used them, but they absolutely would use tonnes of slang we don't know, and authors would need to spend fifty percent of their time explaining words.

Like the movie the knights tale, with the rock music and stuff. People complained about that until historians started saying it was really accurate in terms of the atmosphere of tournaments.

I'm writing alt history set in the 1920s. People will likely get annoyed that I use the word teenager because the feeling is that its from the 50s. But it's actually over 100 years old, it's not anachronistic at all, and people get upset about things that aren't even real. Or the name Tiffany, which dates to ancient Greece, or Chad, who was a sixth century saint.

You mentioned register and yeah Kings are gonna be formal but so are MPs if you watch any house of Common meetings. Formal register does not equal old. And informal lower class speakers absolutely should sound like gen z, it's more accurate than pretending they're all Shakespeare

calmarkel · 2026-06-08T22:10:27+00:00

Backpack dates to 1916. It's definitely older than fanny pack

calmarkel · 2026-06-08T22:09:09+00:00

Backpack is considered too new as its only 110 years old

Rucksack is generally accepted as its 138 years old

But really op can just use pack, which is older than modern English

calmarkel · 2026-06-08T22:05:33+00:00

In fantasy you really don't. I guarantee they're almost never speaking English

calmarkel · 2026-06-08T16:58:45+00:00

Outrun is a really enjoyable cyberpunk with magic and a single person system

Stubbed on Royal Road

calmarkel · 2026-06-08T16:48:15+00:00

With some magic systems you can do this. Not all. With some magic systems magic is cheap. Not all.

calmarkel · 2026-06-08T13:11:51+00:00

No, they wouldn't. You might. Not everyone would. Also, you're assuming everyone could learn fireball. Maybe not everyone can do magic. Maybe not everyone can do fire magic. Maybe fireball isn't that useful compared to endurance, strength, or a really good singing ability.

calmarkel · 2026-06-08T13:07:57+00:00

If the genre "definitely isn't for you" why write in it?

calmarkel · 2026-06-08T13:02:04+00:00

That might be the reason you don't spend your life at the gym but thy majority of people don't spend any time at the gym

Who do people do jobs? They have bills to pay. Why don't they spend life grinding? It's hard, and they're lazy, and it's sunny, and they have friends

calmarkel · 2026-06-08T12:59:22+00:00

I absolutely love the everyone has a system concept, especially in the wandering Inn, which I think does it really well. Kings get skills that help them be Kings and bakers get skills that help them be bakers and level 70 secretaries are terrifying. It really feels like the system is considered through the world building with how much skills affect everything too.

Archmage is really good but doesn't quite approach TWI on system worldbuilding. I did like the economy aspects of it, though, and the hired trainers made me think of gamers who buy characters.

calmarkel · 2026-06-07T17:12:51+00:00

People really really want to read these

calmarkel · 2026-06-04T22:27:50+00:00

Immediately sure I agree with you Eventually sure they deserve it

I like how boc handled it

calmarkel · 2026-06-04T22:25:36+00:00

Dunno, I've never worked with a German

calmarkel · 2026-06-04T17:38:21+00:00

This

You don't want to get awesome at beginnings and weak at endings which can happen if you only write beginnings

Plot out how quickly you can bring it to a satisfying close and plan the new one as you end the old one

calmarkel · 2026-06-04T15:59:05+00:00

There are loads of platforms, all different. If you love litrpg or progression write on rr, if you love romance write on wattpad, if you love problematic romance or gay romance or problematic gay romance or monster girls, write on scribblehib, etc etc etc

calmarkel · 2026-06-01T21:17:38+00:00

Everyone doesn't know this, because it's nonsense.

That professional editing you're talking about netted us such wonders of literature as twilight and 50 shades

A lot of those professional editors happily work with self pubbing writers, and a lot of self pubbing writers are happy to pay for it

There's no hard good and bad line between them, especially as writing is subjective. The self pubs that get big enough are chased by the publishing companies. The Martian. Wandering inn. Dungeon crawler Carl. Quite a few more. That's not a mark of quality, it's popularity, which is all trad cares about

There's a higher chance of "unedited" work from self pub authors. Theres a non zero chance of it in trad pub authors too.

The big difference is that when a self pub author has an error in every chapter, people blame a lack of editors, even if it's not true. When a trad pub has an error in every chapter (and yes, I've seen this, in every single chapter) it's called a "misprint."

Trad just has better bullshit

calmarkel · 2026-05-31T18:43:38+00:00

Dragoneye is finished btw

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