100% This.

This is it, right here.

I feel like the psyops are back…

Y'know, I've also read some SF with the same basic premise, believe it or not. And urban fantasy. I'm not going to name names, but wow, "Transparent Author Insert who is in a new world where they're SUDDENLY APPRECIATED and BETTER THAN EVERYONE" is a popular genre for some authors.

"But if this other world has always operated according to video game logic, why is the isekai protagonist literally the first person to figure out all these basic mechanical exploints" well, largely because litRPG isekai is merely the latest flavour of I've Been Transported To Another World Where Everyone Is Stupid Except For Me, a venerable genre that's been a going concern at least since Mark Twain.

When I was a kid, it was American sci-fi authors writing stories about shitass engineering majors getting portal-fantasied to alien planets and single-handedly saving civilisation on the strength of being the only person in the world who knows what a flowchart is, and very little has changed – right down to the weirdly inverted character arcs where the loser protagonist discovers that they don't actually need to engage in any self-reflection at all because the very traits that rendered them odious in their native society are what make them God here.

I'll take anything I can get at this point.

This is how we got here, yeah.

My cartoon for the latest issue of New Scientist.

Yes, but also: "Cast in the name of God, ye not guilty!"

Humans are derived fishes. The skeleton of a human (A) compared with the skeleton of a derived tetrapodomorph fish (B), with the fish skeleton scaled to the size of the human’s and oriented in a humanlike pose (and with a humanlike skull). Red shading indicates dermal bone and, in fishes, the dermal fin rays. (From Long 2011 © John A. Long.)

– F. H. Pough & C. M. Janis, Vertebrate Life (10th ed., 2019; p. 165)

This is true; it's another variation of all the other arguments that something is bad without actually explaining WHY.

Disgust has absolutely no ethical weight. If you are basing your ethical positions on the emotion of disgust you should stop, it is entirely unjustified and leads to a huge amount of harm.

I mean, I'm American and I think it's funny...

So I was playing one of my games the other day and got dropped into a dungeon with, I shit you not, 'Merica Homeofthebrave' and 'Freedom Isntfree'

Me, the healer: If you're both american Imma have to ask for a 500 gold copay before each healing spell I cast for you. 💰

Merica: that's not funny

Other DPS: it's a little funny

Look, you can fuss if you want, but Ozma is the best lesbian trans princess, and that's just science, not opinion.

The concept of the Oz books was that Baum was getting letters to Dorothy about her adventures and writing them in books.

Therefore Dorothy discribed Ozma like this to him.

GOOD LORD NO DO NOT USE THESE

PSA: *Beware* AI-generated fungi guidebooks!!

…Not a phrase I imagined myself typing today. But, via @heyMAKWA on Twitter:

“i'm not going to link any of them here, for a variety of reasons, but please be aware of what is probably the deadliest AI scam i've ever heard of:

“plant and fungi foraging guide books. the authors are invented, their credentials are invented, and their species IDs will kill you.”

…So PLEASE be careful if you run across anything of this kind.

(ETA: Corrected egregious typo in the title. Apologies, as I was [a] in bed [b] typing hurriedly and one-handed on the iPad, and [c] I think its native keyboard may need recalibration, but also [d] I was upset about what I was having to post, because seriously, WTF?!!)

Supportive parenting for the win!

insane clown posse man was at midwest fur fest in a fucking juggalo fursuit oh my god