I’ve been thinking a lot about Tolkien.

It is often remarked that a central thesis of his books is that evil provides the means of its own defeat. Sauron crafted the One Ring that killed him, Shelob impaled herself of Sam’s blade, Smaug exposed his belly to Bilbo and let him see the weak point.

I think it is less often commented on that the corollary to that is that good must still act to use those weaknesses. The Ring did not cast itself into the fires of Mt Doom but was brought by the Hobbits. Shelob was only able to impale herself because Sam kept his arm strong and held it out. The black arrow still needed to be shot into Smaug’s belly.

And a final point that I don’t see often enough is that Tolkien clearly believes good only loses if it surrenders to hopelessness. Denethor’s suicide driven by fear would have broken Minas Tirith if not for the Fellowship, Frodo would have fallen to despair if Sam had not been there to carry him, if Bilbo had seen the shot as hopeless then he never could have warned of the weak spot.

But because in those cases someone provided hope, good triumphed.

I don’t know. I’ve just been thinking about that a lot lately for some.

Bad Apple over SSH:

ssh badapple@ansi.rya.nc

I'll add subtitles (thanks @foone) in a bit.

Draculo is now streaming!! Come and join the fun!!!

Doom: Hideous Destructor Co-op !! (EVENTIDE.wad)

#retro #gaming #foss #linux #games #streaming #videogames #owncast

https://secret.draculo.net

slightly ominous mailer from the Red Cross

Shamelessly stolen. I'm not sure I have ADHD but I surely have terrible burnout. I don't think I talk to anyone who'd say they didn't.

Anyway, I find myself naturally doing pretty much all of these things. I'm really trying to simplify my life, and being okay with just doing that "one thing" per day.

reddit is so fun sometimes you just get the weirdest posts. i love r/dataisbeautiful because it always has some whack ass shit like this.

#shitpost

Quick message to all fediverse newcomers:

Moderation in the fediverse is done by humans. There are no bots that shadowban you based on detecting certain keywords. This has some important consequences:

1. If you see a rule-breaking post, click the “report” button and write a report. The actual living, breathing creatures who run your instance will review the report.

The location of the report button varies depending on your client/app software: it’s usually near “reply” or “boost.”

1. The text you write in a report matters, because it will be read by an actual person. The mods are not just counting the number of reports.

2. If you’re talking about a sensitive topic like suicide, you should not bleep it out like “sui-de”. You won’t be banned for typing the actual word out. You should instead use a content warning for your post to warn your readers.

#FediTips

Welcome to the Fediverse! Do you trust these two sharks more to keep your social media alive than a silicon valley CEO? Then this is your site!

boosts help me survive

Come listen to another cozy Elder Scrolls reading~

I'm kinda pissed that this is the only dragon break that we have any real details about, honestly There are one or two more known ones, and they're super interesting phenomena, but there's hardly any writings on the matter

What Happens When Reality And Time Twist ~ [The Warp In The West]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0KViOMDcOU

For those who aren't familiar with the lore, this book essentially details the events at the end of The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall from the perspective of various Blades agents who were in the area and experienced it. While magic exists in the world of The Elder Scrolls, events like The Warp In The West take incomprehensible amounts of it and are a truly rare sort of phenomenon

These accounts of the event were only accessible to very few, and only because of the existence of The Blades, a security and information organisation that answers to the emperor. Meanwhile, most people were either not privy to the details of the event or simply call it an act of the divines.

------------

A big thank you to my ko-fi and patreon members for helping me make sure my cats and I can continue to have food and other essentials. If you'd like to support me as well as get access to audio-only versions, please consider becoming a member~
https://ko-fi.com/octaviaconamore
https://www.patreon.com/c/octaviaconamore

I also do live readings a few times a week over on Twitch (alongside Youtube) if that's more your thing
https://www.twitch.tv/octaviaconamore

#Vtuber #Games #Gaming #Trans #Reading #Bookstodon #Books #AudioBooks #ElderScrolls #Daggerfall #Skyrim #Oblivion

woof woof

I love the fedi, but I'm sorry- y'all got it just as bad as bluesky when it comes to dealing with ACTUAL people...and specifically BLACK PEOPLE.

I said this when I first came here, and ima say it again. You're not gonna have any good laughs, actionable change, and community building without making your space welcoming to black and marginalised folk.

Ima eco this~ get your heads out your asses and actually build a fun and safe fedi plzzzzzz.

If everyone was refusing to provide official IDs to verify their identity and age on social platforms, and just let their account rot there unused instead, we would soon see platforms themselves starting to advocate against these invasive laws to recover their users.

Just saying.
They need you more than you need them.
Stop complying with invasive requests.

#Privacy #AgeVerification

huge shoutout to CurseForge for keeping every version of every WoW addon and letting you sort by which WoW version they’re compatible with. AFAICT there is Absolutely No Reason why this would be helpful for a retail WoW player but it is a lifesaver for private server players like me

I’ve been getting back into my private WoW server lately (I do this about once per year for 2 weeks and then get bored again lol) and it’s reminding me why I always delete all of my characters and start from scratch: WoW characters are extremely fucking complicated and there’s no way to take notes that are stored on the server about how to play them or what I was doing with them, or really anything about them at all

which character was my auction house character? why is my character in this zone in particular? what items are stored in which character’s bank and why? how do I make sense of the enormous complexity of their abilities? etc. it’s way easier to just start from scratch than figure out wtf was going on with each one

so yeah I have about 10 characters and I’m going to delete all of them and start from scratch. I feel like the average WoW player would be screaming at me right now lol but genuinely, it’s this or not play the game at all