Apr. 26th, 2024
Tumblr crosspost (2 February 2021)
Apr. 26th, 2024 10:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
heckofabecca responded to this post:i'd be happy to chat sometime!!! phone or zoom or w/e!!!
hug!
I replied:
Oh, thank you very much!
Tumblr crosspost (2 February 2021)
Apr. 26th, 2024 10:36 amMy warlock managed to survive to level 6, so naturally, I’ve been looking at the powers she’ll have if she manages to get to … 14
Tagged: #also i get to add my cha mod to any radiant or fire damage i do at all #so that would actually be +10 to whatever the roll is #this character is designed for theme and not effectiveness (her aasimar and celestial abilities overlap at multiple points) #but still #:D #and i have counterspell and dispel magic now so i feel a bit better about things
[ETA 4/26/2024: somewhat (though not always) hilariously, this character built entirely around her backstory and theme, sometimes to mechanical detriment, was more or less regarded as incredibly powerful by the group. This was fairer later on because Protector Aasimar used to get a trait that's minor at first but scales incredibly well at higher levels—i.e. your bonus damage is based on level rather than your spellcasting modifier, so any attack that hits at level 14 would add +14 damage. As a warlock with Eldritch Blast+Agonizing Blast, by level 11 she'd have to miss three separate rolls to not get the damage bonus. The real difficulty was avoiding melee combat aka death, hence my relief at getting her all the way to 6 in this post!]
When you have to make a death saving throw at the start of your turn, you can instead spring back to your feet with a burst of radiant energy. You regain hit points equal to half your hit point maximum, and then you stand up if you so choose. Each creature of your choice that is within 30 feet of you takes radiant damage equal to 2d8 + your Charisma modifier, and is blinded until the end of the current turn.hell yeah
Tagged: #also i get to add my cha mod to any radiant or fire damage i do at all #so that would actually be +10 to whatever the roll is #this character is designed for theme and not effectiveness (her aasimar and celestial abilities overlap at multiple points) #but still #:D #and i have counterspell and dispel magic now so i feel a bit better about things
[ETA 4/26/2024: somewhat (though not always) hilariously, this character built entirely around her backstory and theme, sometimes to mechanical detriment, was more or less regarded as incredibly powerful by the group. This was fairer later on because Protector Aasimar used to get a trait that's minor at first but scales incredibly well at higher levels—i.e. your bonus damage is based on level rather than your spellcasting modifier, so any attack that hits at level 14 would add +14 damage. As a warlock with Eldritch Blast+Agonizing Blast, by level 11 she'd have to miss three separate rolls to not get the damage bonus. The real difficulty was avoiding melee combat aka death, hence my relief at getting her all the way to 6 in this post!]
Tumblr crosspost (3 February 2021)
Apr. 26th, 2024 11:04 amI reblogged a space-themed aesthetic post that I had originally reblogged in 2016, and added:
#just feeling emotional about space rn #it's so unimaginably vast and deeply cool #like #virtually everything in it is weird as hell #so are we! sol is pretty atypical and obviously so is earth! #but like... #the whole concept that all those little sparkles are other planets or star systems or whatever the hell?? #wild #the moon too #i look up and it's like ... there's a world just floating up there!! close enough to affect the oceans!!! wtf #no disrespect to earth which is itself very cool and special #but... space...
#just feeling emotional about space rn #it's so unimaginably vast and deeply cool #like #virtually everything in it is weird as hell #so are we! sol is pretty atypical and obviously so is earth! #but like... #the whole concept that all those little sparkles are other planets or star systems or whatever the hell?? #wild #the moon too #i look up and it's like ... there's a world just floating up there!! close enough to affect the oceans!!! wtf #no disrespect to earth which is itself very cool and special #but... space...
Class & Austen (with a side of Godwin)
Apr. 26th, 2024 11:35 amI've been thinking about ways in which Austen criticism has often fallen down wrt class analysis. Back in the 90s Julia Prewitt Brown wrote a "review" that is actually a guided tour through the failings of feminist analysis of Austen due to many things, but one of them was a failure of substantive class analysis in terms of gender. But I still see a lot of what she was talking about in both academia and more fandom or pop culture oriented interpretations—I'm inclined to think particularly when it comes from a contemporary US perspective.
I have way more thoughts about this than I have time to articulate, but I think US fans and academics in particular (though not exclusively) struggle to understand class in Austen's novels or other literature of the time in a way that is not simplified and enormously dependent on largely unfamiliar formal or legal categories rather than complex, sometimes contradictory or unpredictable, highly, highly striated structures that a quick consult of population breakdowns or tables of precedence is not going to explain. And at the same time, I think we (speaking as a US American!) often focus on the more (to us) exotic elements of 18th and early 19th-century British class dynamics rather than analyzing those dynamics in terms of class interests. These interests aren't purely financial (the understanding of class priorities purely in direct financial terms also seems very much a US perspective on it—maybe not exclusively again, idk).
Easy example, but: analysis of class in P&P tends to focus overwhelmingly on questions of exact legal status, precedence and large-scale categories (military, clergy, gentry, upper vs lower servants...), and reported income. And those things matter, for sure. But this tends to neglect how the characters perceive their own class interests (and how accurate their perception may or may not be), who their "natural" allies are, what larger social structures they benefit from or fail to benefit from (again, not only financially, though also that), their conflicts and alliances. Anne de Bourgh and Charlotte Lucas likely have either the same or quite similar ranks in formalized terms before Charlotte's marriage (as daughters of knights*) and are just about exact contemporaries, but the class structures around them are very different in ways that extend even beyond Anne's vast inheritance and Charlotte's lack of one. The image of Charlotte standing in the cold wind while a closely supervised Anne talks at her from her phaeton without any awareness of Charlotte's possible discomfort makes this seem especially stark.
This is even more glaringly apparent in something like William Godwin's Caleb Williams, in which the terrifying, relentless extent of aristocratic power over common people is represented by a country squire with six thousand a year. Legally that squire, Falkland, is no less a commoner than Caleb himself (relatedly, every member of the extended Fitzwilliam family appearing in P&P are also legally commoners). But that doesn't tell you anything about the sheer degree of power afforded Falkland and what six thousand a year signifies beyond direct buying power (that is very wealthy for the country gentry of the 1790s; it turns out a major part of his income, significantly, derives from slave plantations rather than his property in England; moreover, Falkland is able to bring power to bear everywhere Caleb goes in a way that only partly involves direct purchases).
I do seriously have to go write other things, but I wanted to get some part of this out of my head before I forget.
*Anne de Bourgh could be the daughter of a baronet rather than a knight, and thus higher-ranking than Charlotte in terms of strict precedence, but a) the distinction in precedence is so unimportant to understanding what she represents in class terms that we aren't told, and b) Sir Lewis is more likely to have been a knight than baronet IMO from what contextual information we do have.
I have way more thoughts about this than I have time to articulate, but I think US fans and academics in particular (though not exclusively) struggle to understand class in Austen's novels or other literature of the time in a way that is not simplified and enormously dependent on largely unfamiliar formal or legal categories rather than complex, sometimes contradictory or unpredictable, highly, highly striated structures that a quick consult of population breakdowns or tables of precedence is not going to explain. And at the same time, I think we (speaking as a US American!) often focus on the more (to us) exotic elements of 18th and early 19th-century British class dynamics rather than analyzing those dynamics in terms of class interests. These interests aren't purely financial (the understanding of class priorities purely in direct financial terms also seems very much a US perspective on it—maybe not exclusively again, idk).
Easy example, but: analysis of class in P&P tends to focus overwhelmingly on questions of exact legal status, precedence and large-scale categories (military, clergy, gentry, upper vs lower servants...), and reported income. And those things matter, for sure. But this tends to neglect how the characters perceive their own class interests (and how accurate their perception may or may not be), who their "natural" allies are, what larger social structures they benefit from or fail to benefit from (again, not only financially, though also that), their conflicts and alliances. Anne de Bourgh and Charlotte Lucas likely have either the same or quite similar ranks in formalized terms before Charlotte's marriage (as daughters of knights*) and are just about exact contemporaries, but the class structures around them are very different in ways that extend even beyond Anne's vast inheritance and Charlotte's lack of one. The image of Charlotte standing in the cold wind while a closely supervised Anne talks at her from her phaeton without any awareness of Charlotte's possible discomfort makes this seem especially stark.
This is even more glaringly apparent in something like William Godwin's Caleb Williams, in which the terrifying, relentless extent of aristocratic power over common people is represented by a country squire with six thousand a year. Legally that squire, Falkland, is no less a commoner than Caleb himself (relatedly, every member of the extended Fitzwilliam family appearing in P&P are also legally commoners). But that doesn't tell you anything about the sheer degree of power afforded Falkland and what six thousand a year signifies beyond direct buying power (that is very wealthy for the country gentry of the 1790s; it turns out a major part of his income, significantly, derives from slave plantations rather than his property in England; moreover, Falkland is able to bring power to bear everywhere Caleb goes in a way that only partly involves direct purchases).
I do seriously have to go write other things, but I wanted to get some part of this out of my head before I forget.
*Anne de Bourgh could be the daughter of a baronet rather than a knight, and thus higher-ranking than Charlotte in terms of strict precedence, but a) the distinction in precedence is so unimportant to understanding what she represents in class terms that we aren't told, and b) Sir Lewis is more likely to have been a knight than baronet IMO from what contextual information we do have.