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Consider: the entire Vox Machina campaign except everyone is wearing giant pink fur coats.

“Faux Pachina” (a beautifully selected name, thanks to @MIHistoryGuy on Twitter)

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ok so hear me out

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Scientists at UC Riverside have demonstrated a new, RNA-based vaccine strategy that is effective against any strain of a virus and can be used safely even by babies or the immunocompromised.  Every year, researchers try to predict the four influenza strains that are most likely to be prevalent during the upcoming flu season. And every year, people line up to get their updated vaccine, hoping the researchers formulated the shot correctly. The same is true of COVID vaccines, which have been reformulated to target sub-variants of the most prevalent strains circulating in the U.S. This new strategy would eliminate the need to create all these different shots, because it targets a part of the viral genome that is common to all strains of a virus. The vaccine, how it works, and a demonstration of its efficacy in mice is described in a paper published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  “What I want to emphasize about this vaccine strategy is that it is broad,” said UCR virologist and paper author Rong Hai. “It is broadly applicable to any number of viruses, broadly effective against any variant of a virus, and safe for a broad spectrum of people. This could be the universal vaccine that we have been looking for.”

Continue Reading.

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i know the creators of worlds beyond number have been clear that they're not exploring a world with our real-life social strata

but that does not exempt *us the audience* from the biases and blindspots of our real-life social strata

every time i see a post that implies that suvi is uniquely unkind or arrogant, or more annoying than either of the other PCs, or that it's the presence of ame and eursalon that influence her towards humanity, i have to wonder if the poster is projecting onto a confident Black woman

the same thing happened with laerryn. xerxes was *actively courting a destroyer god* out of grief for his love, but we had sympathy for him. laerryn went to dizzying extremes trying to save her love, and we get:

"but laerryn cast blight on the tree!" "but suvi was trying to fight orima!" yeah, aabria is an excellent player who makes internally consistent character choices that drive the plot and drama of the whole game forward. stories without conflict aren't going to keep your attention, y'all should be thanking her for telling a good story

in other words: she should not need to be sweet and humble for you to empathize or understand or refrain from public judgment of her character

interrogate your instinct to be publicly critical of the character's choices - is it really coming from an honest place, or are you letting some well-established biases that we're all indoctrinated into warp your perception of what all of the PCs are doing? a good indicator: do you extend the same level of critique to all of the characters, or just the one making choices you personally don't vibe with?

it's important for us the audience to be aware of how we participate in the ecosystem of storytelling. we're not just here to consume content for our own gratification. we also have to be good, thoughtful, active listeners.

#the wizard the witch and the wild one #wwwo #worlds beyond number #wbn #suvirin kedberiket #like I get the surface reason why some parts of the fandom seem to extend all the empathy in the world to Ame and Eursalon #and very little to Suvi #it's easy and tempting to just say 'well yeah empire bad institution bad therefore suvi is always at fault when things go bad' #but like ALL the PCs are DEEPLY flawed characters #just because Ame and Eursalon come from backgrounds that more immediately read as “good” to a tumblr audience #doesn't mean they are never at fault #in fact they are FREQUENTLY the problem #not because of what they're trying to do but because of how they ice Suvi out #and then fandom makes Suvi out to be the bad guy for not being telepathic #there are a lot of things about Suvi and the dynamic of the party that makes it EASY to lean into gut feelings about 'right and wrong' #but that's why it's so important to THINK and be critical of where your kneejerk support and empathy goes during conflict #also like if you're subscribed to the patreon LISTEN to what Aabria says about Suvi's decisions and conclusions #Suvi is a fantastically complex and well constructed character #and Aabria is ALWAYS playing from a place of “what information does Suvi have about this situation” #which is almost always less than Ame and Eursalon have when things break bad between the three of them #idk man I just love Suvi

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You people talk about ADHD / Narcissism / Depression / etc the same way that medieval peasants talked about their humoric temperament.

TikTok voice: "Ten Tips To Make Sure Your Daughter Isn't Dating A Suitor With An Abundance Of Yellow Bile"

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Pride and Prejudice (2005) + tumblr posts (part 1)

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I feel like there's two levels of chronically online. There's like, the variety where you recognize obscure memes and stupid drama and post constantly but have some sort of tether to reality and have friends in the real world and read the news from time to time, and then there's the kind where you genuinely don't realize that your political position or feelings about popular media are not just non-mainstream but actively fringe and that it's not emotional labor to pick people up from the airport.

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so back when i was teaching, one of the things i learned to look for were the "mood makers", as i liked to call them, of the classes. there were always 2 or 3 per class, and it was easy to find them in the first few days. you got those kids on your side, and it was a ripple effect with the rest of the students - they would all follow. so winning those kids over was huge when it came to how the year would play out. and from time to time, whenever the class was sort of faltering - middle of winter, of a big project, burn-out high - i would lean back in on those mood makers again to turn things around.

one particular class, when we had a big multi-month group project happening, were just... really struggling with getting their shit together lol. they were supposed to be practicing their presentations (english speaking class) and they were doing pretty much anything but, and their presentations were supposed to start the next class day. they were also PANICKING as i started giving out some feedback - which was NOT GREAT - as they were running through the lines they were supposed to be remembering. after realizing all of them needed so much extra work, i decided we needed to have a turn-around, so i invited one of the mood makers up to the front. i held out a cup to him, with two papers inside.

"one of them," i said, "says tuesday, and if you draw that, presentations go as planned. but one of them says thursday, and if you choose that one, everyone gets extra time to practice."

everyone was like OH SHIT. OKAY. THIS IS IT. and this mood maker, he was a big personality (they usually are) so i knew he'd really ham this up, and he did. we made a huge deal, with drum-rolls and everything, of him picking one out of the cup. he opened it up the paper and announced THURSDAY to a round of huge cheers. he was the class hero. everyone had TONS of motivation to work super hard on this gifted extra day, and really put the time in. their presentations were great. morale SOARED.

the plot twist was that both papers said thursday, because they all needed the extra time. my forever teacher advice: find creative ways to make things happen so that you get the buy-in from the class.

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To Whom it May Concern (my mutuals and followers): I'm getting top surgery in a little over 12 hours!

#personal

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Something about living by the sword

inspired by this post by @genderbinaryisforlosers because it fucked me up

#worlds beyond number #wbn #suvirin kedberiket #steel wbn #wwwo

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everyone should be weirder about their ocs more.

#been deeply considering writing shippy fanfic for mine and my friends D&D characters #we both shipped them and were playing out a subtle romance with them #and when we ended the campaign 2 weeks ago we narrated them getting together afterwards #but my friend and I talked about it and she didn't want to play out any explicitly romantic scenes between the two #so of course I couldn't stop thinking about how my character WOULD have romanced hers #and it feels like those thoughts ought to be shared somewhere

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The most beautiful thing about Drawtectives is that you can choose any combination and you will be right. But no way I'm ignoring a beautiful garb next to York.

#drawtectives #yeah these are the vibes

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I always thought it was like an exaggeration when horse people would talk about how silly it was for anyone to think that riding a horse does not require any particular level of skill or balance or anything, or even that they "drive themselves" (???) but just the tags on the reblogs of that "can you ride a bike and/or horse" post from me alone are demonstrating how overconfident some people are in their (often entirely theoretical!) ability to stay on an alive and moving animal with a will of its own.

#the horse bike poll failed the specify the conditions under which a person would be riding the horse #I had 2 months of horseback riding lessons as a child #and had a number of other occasions to ride horses from ages 8-14 #could I gallop on a horse? fuck no #could I canter? no way #could I trot? well that's as fast as I went as a tween and it scared the shit out of me #but the poll didn't specify anything like that #so I believe that I still remember enough of my childhood lessons that I could WALK a horse from one point to another #and if the poll meant any other horse speed goals or conditions it should have specified

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The most popular browsers in different countries in 2012 and 2022.

by @theworldmaps_

#I love Firefox #I'm so glad one of these types of posts convinced me to switch back to it last year #I cannot emphasize this strongly enough: you will not miss Chrome #though to be fair you will need to keep a second browser installed because sometimes websites are not bug tested as thoroughly on Firefox #but if the more popular Firefox gets the more companies HAVE to test their sites on more than just Chrome

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Source

"Isn't it exhausting being someone you're not?"

"No! Isn't it exhausting being the same?"

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#pizza man couldn't look more italian if he tried

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After the whole geas/music box shenanigans, can I just say that I still think (and hope) that Steel isn't up to any like ~great evil plan~ that goes way beyond the pale of anything we currently understand about her. I don't think she's some secret villain; she's just Suvi! She's Suvi if Suvi continues down her current Citadel path and doesn't step off it. Steel is kind, just, well-intentioned, open-minded as any Citadel wizard can be. It's also very likely that she's condoned, participated in, or even orchestrated atrocities.

I think it's important to see that these things can coexist. That the justification machine could work on anyone. No matter how kind you think you are, any of us given the right circumstances could probably fall victim to propaganda or indoctrination. You don't have to be finger-steepleingly evil or monstrous, just a person. Especially if the system in question has granted you privilege or comfort.

Steel has thrived in the citadel/empire, and that makes it especially easy for the justification to work, for her to not question too fundamentally the place that has given her privilege and power (though interesting that wizards like Stone have fundamentally questioned the Citadel and come back to it. I can't wait to find out more about why). Plus we know almost nothing about Gaothmai or Rhuv, and I suspect there are things that further explain how the justification machine is able to succeed.

We know she is extremely committed to the Citadel at the moment, but it isn't blindly. As she says in ep. 23, "It feels like every inch I move within this Citadel, someone has a great reason to protect people from accountability, from knowledge, and from clarity. Everybody's got a vested interest in putting up walls and fog in a place whose sole purpose is to bring light to the world." I think she's at the point that many many people are at IRL where they separate an institution's or structure's stated intent from its actual impact.

I think it would be very compelling to see that Steel is what you can get when you take someone like Suvi and not have the connections to others with very different lived experiences and have many difficult conversations and do a lot of self- and world-interrogation. I think we all want that for Suvi, and I think it's quite possible that rather than being a big bad, that's an option for Steel as well.

However, I have every confidence that these people will create an extremely compelling story no matter what happens.

#wbn #worlds beyond number #wwo #from the very beginning I have known that Steel will one day break our hearts