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They shouldn’t have included the 2nd picture then. It’s the lightest of all of them.
A tale that is perpetually dark in tone becomes tiresome very quickly. It needs to feature the occasional ray of light for contrast and to create a sense of hope. Monsters and other terrors must be offset with creatures that are kind and lovable, giving the characters even more reasons to stand against the darkness. Here are a couple of ways to add glimmers of light to a tragic tale:
- In a land as dreary as Barovia, take the time to describe the occasional scene of beauty, such as a pretty flower growing atop a grave.
- Make sure that the heroes have contact with NPCs who are honest, friendly, and helpful, such as the Martikovs in Vallaki or the Krezkovs in Krezk.
-Curse of Strahd, Introduction. Marks of Horror. 2016.
317·1 year agoBut there are people who identify as left-wing who will support China and Russia while downplaying their authoritarianism.
That’s not something being invented as a boogeyman. Anyone can go to lemmygrad.ml right now to see it in action.
I’ve seen Sealioning used quite a bit in a particular Lemmy instance that would self describe themselves as Pro-Russia & Pro-China, as a way of shutting down discourse between people who disagree with them. There are people who disagree with a particular narrative, and they’re discounted immediately for wanting to know how someone would arrive at a pro-Russian & pro-China position.
Also they’ll just “whatabout!” and change the subject whenever unassailable critiques of these regimes come up. As if its is only possible to hold outrage in a single direction at a time.
I’ll have you know I’m capable of disliking EVERYONE mentioned in a given conversation.
Yeah and as smart as anyone is, they aren’t right all the time. As much as you can agree with his messaging, it’s important to critically assess everything said, regardless of who is saying it.
Modern capitalism as we know it began forming in the Renaissance, particularly in colonial European powers who were getting to the Colonization of the rest of the world game earlier than their peers. This notably includes Portugal and the Netherlands, followed swiftly by most everyone else.
There were promissory notes that were carried by travelers prior to this, in the form of Crusaders traveling from Europe to Jerusalem, in the relatively brief period of time that it was conquered. But this did not interact with market economies as we’d know it, and is directly analogous to traveler cheques, meant to make you less of an appealing robbery target on the road.
No, these kinds of shenanigans were concocted rather recently, and are not reflective of baseline normal human behavior. It’s mostly a system that was created by accident, with conventions that were forming being purposeful altered during creation by the people with money, for their own benefit.
0·1 year agoIt’s one of those things where I look at it, and say ‘wow that sucks… But you can’t argue with the results damn, can we workshop a better version of that?’
China doesn’t aim for global hegemony
You are gliding over every single time that Xi Jinping said, out loud, that this is the long term goal? Why wouldn’t you believe him?
Yeah, they couch it carefully, but it’s quite clear, from the China #1 propaganda, that China doesn’t want to uplift anyone else, they want to use their soft power to make neighboring countries dependent on them. They’re following the playbook laid out by Western companies in the 20th century, but organizing it with State controlled corporations.
And as for Singapore, there’s a lot of propaganda from some right-wing Supply-Side economists that mischaracterize that country as being an ideal Capitalist state, while gliding over how the State controls most of the means of production. It isn’t an ideal system, it has many inequities. But it’s an example that serves as a surprising counterpoint to the argument that only free markets can thrive & survive in global capitalism, and components of it could be useful for looking for solutions to the issues with capitalism. Right wing economists do this, so they don’t have to confront how incorrect their argument that Capitalism cannot be reformed with the State taking a direct role in the economy without disaster.
You say that like Russia isn’t Capitalist as all get out.
The only good counterpoint to Capitalism in the modern global landscape is Singapore, and possibly China if you’re feeling extra spicy and support their version of global hegemony.
The modern Russian state is a Fascist Autocracy propped up by Oligarchs. Y’know, what Trump likes.
Edit: Actually I’m going to add Slovenia to that as well, as I had a great time learning about that Jewel of a Country before the Delta Variant absolutely wrecked it.
When I was there in 2018, it was a fantastically eye-opening example of a successful socialist state.
But that’s where my knowledge end on counterpoints to Capitalism, in its varied forms. I’m sure more exist. I’m not an academic on this subject.
I didn’t hand curate them, I just went to google and copy/pasted in a demonstration of the lowest amount of effort I could do to find articles that dispute the narrative here.
Most of these countries have free press, btw. And some articles blame Russia, others give credence to the possibility that Ukraine could have done this, but with the realistic perspective that it’s basically impossible to know.
In fact, reading those stories makes me incredibly skeptical of anyone who doesn’t show uncertainty on this topic. Look at that, I just changed my own view by researching a bit more.
Seymour Hersh is a conspiracy blogger??? You want to tell me all the previous times when he was correct like was also conspiracy theories? My Lai, Watergate, CIA support for Pinochet, Israel having nukes, Abu Ghraib, etc. ???
I’ll fully admit that I hadn’t read the entire thing or did due diligence on the sources prior to my comment. That’s a mistake I just did, and I will not be removing my previous comment, but striking it out with an added a correction as an abject lesson & to walk back the clearly erroneously statement. This is a bad habit of mine when I see vitriol online, particularly when it has a flavor of Russian state Media talking points.
Thank you for pointing me to this guy’s blog. That is very promising to me, someone who likes to be informed by people who do their due diligence.(Hold up one more time! Here is a article that I found that refutes Seymour Hersh’s assertions. Also, we only have a single anonymous source of S. Hersh’s claims. https://oalexanderdk.substack.com/p/blowing-holes-in-seymour-hershs-pipe) I don’t like the idea that the US did this on Ukraine’s behalf, but that doesn’t make me think that Russia is the good guys, actually. The number of things that Ukraine and the United States would have to do to outweigh the atrocities that Russia has perpetrated, especially in starting this war for reuniting ‘Greater Russia.’ Not for standing against Capitalism, which is alive and well in the de facto fascist-oligarchy that is the modern Russian state.This isn’t “horrible cycle of retribution”, this is ongoing imperialism and specifically USA efforts to maintain their global hegemony in the capitalist system - an infinite growth in finite planet. And even the hot part of that war wasn’t started by Russia, it was started by Ukraine attacking Donbas in 2014, Russian intervened in that in 2022.
Russia horribly mischaracterized a political pressure cooker, and made it tremendously worse by invading. You are repeating that purposeful propaganda in this moment. Protecting ‘ethnic russians’ was never the goal.
I suppose next you’ll tell me that the Crimean peninsula vote to join Russia was above board?
lmao you actually think the BBC is incredible?
Not particularly, they are heavily influenced by the party in power that gets to selectively enforce biased news laws. That was in the order that Google gave it to me with no reordering. BBC is B-Tier for North American news because there is less impetus for political bias. I usually go the Associated Press and The Globe And Mail.
My comment was more to how easy it is to find many news stories covering this from a multitude of perspectives.
And for the record, yes, I do believe that journalistic standards upheld by credible institutions are safeguards against specious speculation and lies. You can phrase that however you’d want, but the conceit of that statement is true.
Some of those links are broken, but I’m getting the jist. Not all those links support your position, tho. Many that are not Russian news orgs are pointing the blame at Russia.
The politico article makes sure to point out that Russia is placing artillery in a position very close to the nuclear plant. That’s Bad, and inviting disaster.
The first link is a conspiracy blogger.this is patently not true! Leaving this up as an abject lesson in doing a little more reading before reacting to reflexive vitriol. I don’t particularly like that Ukraine shot at a nuclear power plant, but…There is no real great answer to the question of “how do you behave when someone as a boot to your throat?” This war, started by Russia, is monstrous, in no small part because of the horrible cycle of retribution.
I didn’t know that Ukraine actually fired on Russian installations near a nuclear power plant. Thank you for informing me. I don’t like it, but I blame Russia for daring Ukraine to attack it.
In order of my google search’s results.
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4043221-ukraine-kakhovka-dam-collapse-theories/
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/06/16/world/europe/ukraine-kakhovka-dam-collapse.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65818705
Most of these articles admit that it is kind of impossible to know for sure in the middle of a warzone. It’s as likely that it collapsed due to lack of proper maintenance in the middle of a war.
What’s your source?
In order of my google search’s results.
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4043221-ukraine-kakhovka-dam-collapse-theories/
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/06/16/world/europe/ukraine-kakhovka-dam-collapse.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65818705
Most of these articles admit that it is kind of impossible to know for sure in the middle of a warzone. It’s as likely that it collapsed due to lack of proper maintenance in the middle of a war.
What’s your source?
Maybe they did the pipeline, but none of that other stuff.
Either way you haven’t actually showed me where you got any of this info.
What I’m hearing is a tonne of supposition without backed up facts and hard reporting.
I would love to see a link to a news story covering the evidence. Otherwise this sounds like a social media consensus built in a speculation-echo-chamber.
She’s supporting the Ukrainians tho.
Are you actually saying that they did all this to themselves? That’s what the Russian state has been saying without credible proof.
Edit: I’d like to see where you got your info.
The secret is to not work from what you’d like to do, but to work backwards from what your players want to do.
Seriously, throw out all the prep you have that isn’t landing, and just ask your players what kinds of things they want to do. Then, make stories inspired by the actions or accomplishments they want to undertake.
… This does require that your players have some idea of what they want to do, though. If you have checked out or uninvested players, there’s essentially nothing you can do I’m afraid.
So now I will soapbox to the players reading this: Your job is to be invested in the game. If you don’t put energy into being invested, you’re not fulfilling your side of the arrangement at the table.