Comrade Angles @Angle@witches.town

Or if not, which one comes closest? I'd guess Scholar.social? :/

Hey all, is there a mastodon instance for journalists? :/

Someone shared this a day or two ago, I forget who. It's kind've terrifying, though. :/

https://ghostbin.com/paste/q2vq2/raw

@Gargron ...Huh. Do you not see pinned toots when looking at someones client through the usual mastodon interface? I only see your pinned toot when I look at your profile in a new window. :/

...How possible would it be to cut off Elsevier and other predatory scientific journals at the source, and simply refuse to publish in them? Publish straight to scihub or the like? :/

"Given what we put them through, may the bots have mercy on us all." XD

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=R9OHn5ZF4Uo

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wvWpdrfoEv0

Anybody have any useful references on nonbinary folks taking or not taking hormones? Or nonbinary folks who wouldnt mind answering abfew questions on the subject? XD

@cryptovexillologist Have you seen my latest worldbuilding trip? I think you might get a kick out of it. XD

Though perhaps I'm making the setting unnecessarily dark? I mean, people do tend to want to avoid the whole fighting and murder thing, and would probably work pretty hard to do so. But on the other hand, I'm pretty sure even IRL, without powers to inflame the situation, war was pretty common. :/

On top of that, people have noted how these things go, so a rival group getting a an artificer is usually sufficient cause to attack them and try and kill or kidnap said artificer.

Which isn't to say that theres nothing but violence forever - things have been trending towards less violence and peace overall,. It's just taking a while. XD

This state of affairs is of course exacerbated by the way these things tend to go. You have a couple tribes without much in the way of powered people or artificers, probably having some constant low level warfare because killing the other guy and taking his stuff is an ancient and storied human past time. Then somebody gets a decent poiwer. So of course, they stomp all over the other tribe, take everything they can, kill a bunch, enslave some more, and generally have a great old time of it. Until whoever it is giving them an advantage dies, and their rivals get a magician of their own. Then things reverse, and their rivals have a royal old time of it.

The big story is probably about how people try and adapt to this world. Artificers are of course, very valuable, so being one is a pretty quick ticket straight to the top for you and your family. But on the other hand, it also means that all of your cities rivals will want you dead, or kidnapped, and you'll probably end up with horrible working hours just from the constant demand, so you'll hardly even be able to enjoy your newfound wealth and prestige. And any failure of your artifacts might come down on your head, if things get bad enough...

Perhaps I should say, the big problem they have is with constant violence and destruction. It's the classic game theoretic trap, only worse - because of the nature of power here, everything is inherently unstable. You might have an insurmountable advantage today, but tomorrow the artificer that relies on might die, and then it's all downhill unless you can find another source of power. Or your rivals might acquire some great and promising new talent, or something else might go wrong, and it might be right back down to the bottom of the pile again...

I'm thinking the world might have frequent regional dark ages and descents into chaos when someone important dies and the stuff they made can't be maintained, or when someone really destructive comes along, or when people decide to have a really nasty war, or whatever. So the world is just littere with strange lost artifacts, sometimes half functioning, and full of political intrigue, and generally just a very exciting place to live, not necessarily in a good way. XD

Another has a much more mundane style, just a bit more advanced than the roman empire - but with a truly monumental hoard of stockpiled artifacts. Flying carpets, impenetrable armor, you name it. They rule a vast empire and trade even beyond that, and try to recruit every mage they can get their hands on.

One interesting consequence of this is that different places will have radically different technological bases. One city relies on a variety of magical plants, which form the basis of their infrastructure, and which they jealously guard the seeds and secrets of.

For example, most of the world still relies on glowstones - artifacts which emit light. The world is, of course, relatively low tech - think medieval technology, at the latest. But through the use of all these artifacts, they manage to surpass even some of our capabilities.

So here's an interesting Idea I had. A world where people have superpowers, right? They're actually quite common, though powerful ones are still very rare. But! It's widely agreed that the most important powers aren't those that are good in combat - Its those that can be used to build things.

tfw your posts get into your lists. XD