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Writeups.org

@writeups.org

One of the classic tabletop role-playing game resource websites, profiling thousands of published characters from various media (but mostly superhero comics). #TTRPG / #comics / #MECFS / #DCHeroes #Mutantsandmasterminds

5703 Posts1859 Follower 457 Folgt

Writeups.org @writeups.org · 1h ago

Dang, @archive.org is down. I'm refurbishing an article where most of the external links have long since 404'd, so I hope they get back up so I can do archive links instead.

Writeups.org @writeups.org · yesterday

Refurbished our character profiles for Marvel #Comics' Frenzy (Joanna Cargill), who mostly appeared in #Xmen material. The first entry covers her 1980s-ish time as a super-mercenary and X-Factor enemy. Pics, #TTRPG stats, powers, biography, characterisation, quotes, etc. - our steel-hard usual.

Frenzy - Marvel Comics - X-Men character - Acolytes - Cargill

Full character profile for Marvel Comics' Frenzy (Joanna Cargill). This one covers her early career. Pictures, powers, biography, quotes...

writeups.org

Ciara | Ciaraíoch 🎨@ciaraioch.bsky.social · 2d ago

The amount of working artists I've spoken to who are losing or have lost the ability to make a viable career out of it due largely to people's use of genAI instead of hiring artists is genuinely so upsetting. We won't know what we've lost until it's gone.

Writeups.org @writeups.org · 2d ago

Refurbished our character profile for Inspector Rodriguez, a demon hitman who posed as a cop. He appeared in #Charmed, one of the important 1990s fantasy TV series. Not as critical as Buffy, but still notable. Photos, #TTRPG stats, powers, plot recap, quotes, etc. - our usual plus a killer scream.

Inspector Rodriguez - Charmed - Carlos Gomez - Character profile

full character profile for the demonic Inspector Rodriguez, as played by Carlos Gomez in the Charmed TV show. Photos, powers, bio, quotes...

writeups.org

Michael vs. 2026 @thepmann.bsky.social · 3d ago

Dragon Age fans now finding ourselves in the awkward position of mourning Arl Rendon Howe.

Ruth H. Burns @ruthhburns.bsky.social · 4d ago

Indian country was hit hard by Covid. We all know people, like my dad, who died from it. We lost so many. Grandparents. Teachers. Medicine people. Veterans. Matriarchs. When the Moderna vax showed up at Indian Health Clinics across the country we lined up to get it. It saved lives. Thank you Dolly.

Writeups.org @writeups.org · 3d ago

Refurbished our character profile for Marvel #Comics' Dragon King, a minor enemy of #SpiderGirl in the MC2 future. Easy to use, simple powers, a few story hooks to him. He's handy to have. Pictures, #TTRPG stats, biography, powers, quotes, characterisation... our curmudgeonly draconic usual.

Dragon King - Marvel Comics - MC2 - Spider-Girl enemy - Profile

Full character profile for Spider-Girl enemy the Dragon King, in Marvel's MC2 comics. Pictures, powers, personality, quotes, RPG stats, etc.

writeups.org

Writeups.org @writeups.org · 4d ago

Still too hammered to write coherently - simply adding a speargun picture to an article today was a pathetic comedy of confused errors. So I went through my lower-level #PathOfExile blighted maps. Loot is shite, but it's a relatively safe activity one can do by rote with the right ring enchants.

Writeups.org @writeups.org · 4d ago

Also added on the site a note about having been downed for good chunks of the summer by murder heatwaves. Still recovering from the August one, wot incapacitated me for two weeks.

Writeups.org @writeups.org · 4d ago

Added a fishing speargun to our #TTRPG article about unusual small arms. You scoff, but you'll regret scoffing when the time comes to fight classic Luke Cage enemy Mister Fish and you don't have a speargun.

Special application firearms in tabletop RPGs

Big article presenting unusual small arms for stories and games. Many pictures, lots of explanations about their workings and story roles.

writeups.org

Writeups.org @writeups.org · 4d ago

Did my feedback, so I'm mentioning it on E.U. hours. Let our feedback to this be a new Maastricht, and... no, wait, not Maastricht. That was a bad example.

arnaerr 🦭⭑｡@arnaerr.bsky.social · 5d ago

Please share your feedback on how genAI destroys the livelihoods of artists on the official EU website. You can do so even if you're not an EU citizen. We have to be loud so the change will come, and practice shoes that voicing hatred towards genAI works ec.europa.eu/info/law/bet...

Sean @seanizaakse.bsky.social · 6d ago

My variant cover for THE FLASH #39

Writeups.org @writeups.org · 5d ago

Today's the 24th of August, and there has been no warning about monthly CPU cycles quota depletion for the site. So I'm pretty much certain there won't be no blackout this month. I don't want to jinx it, but this problem seems solved.

martyfive @martyfive.bsky.social · last yr.

sea monster i don’t fear of you i swim these currents like i’m one of you (july, 2024)

digital artpiece depicting Corvo Attano and The Outsider from Dishonored games, done in greyscale. they’re at that shrine in the abandoned apartment with blue hydrangeas from the second game (it’s also my favourite place in the game). The Outsider is sitting on the shrine table with all the barb wire and sharp wood and a rune beside him. he is smiling, hiding his face in Corvo’s palm. Corvo, standing before him, looks like there’s no other place he’d rather be at. LIES. you got a daugh- *cough* an empress to save, your whale boyfriend can wait, chop chop Corvo

Grigori Karpin @grigorikarpin.bsky.social · 7d ago

Easily one of the best independent writer/artists out there in the comic industry @carlaspeedmcneil.bsky.social is opening preorders for her newest book. One of the most inspiring authors I know when it comes to characters and world building. www.etsy.com/listing/4559...

Elly Bangs @ellybangs.bsky.social · last wk.

PSA: Merriam-Webster Games is better than NYT Games -- and *doesn't* promote horrific transphobic propaganda! - Like Wordle? You'll love Quordle or Octordle. - Like Spelling Bee? Blossom basically the same but without the annoying monotony of all the four-letter words.

Word Games & Quizzes

Challenge yourself with dozens of word games, puzzles, crosswords, and quizzes with new content every day!

merriam-webster.com

Matt Seybold @mattseybold.bsky.social · last wk.

Anybody who’s still advocating putting these tools anywhere near a school is not doing so despite the cognitive collapse they cause, but because of it. dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn...

Abstract
Using 30 months of panel data on 26,811 Chinese students in grades 7-12, we study how generative Al affects homework productivity and learning. The data combine monthly closed-book exams, high-school and college entrance exams, and homework scores and completion time across nine subjects. We exploit staggered Al adoption in a difference-in-differences design. Al adoption raises homework scores by 18% and reduces completion time by 30%, but lowers monthly exam scores by 20% within six months.
High-stakes entrance-exam scores fall by 18 and 24%, with the full penalty emerging only after about two years. The losses are largest in social science subjects, followed by STEM and languages, and are especially large for junior students, high-achieving students, and boys. The learning losses are concentrated among roughly 80% of Al users whose behavior is consistent with homework outsourcing, as indicated by exceptionally short homework completion time coupled with high homework scores. Al users who maintain similar homework completion time as non-Al users experience small learning losses.

Rob Secundus @robertsecundus.bsky.social · last wk.

If you are a teacher being forced to incorporate AI LLMs in your classroom, and if you're looking for some way to mitigate the damage, I have four recommendations for you, with some lesson plans and assignment ideas. Link in replies.

1. Don’t just “teach with AI.” Teach your students ABOUT AI.
Students think of “AI” as a kind of supercomputer that knows everything but is mostly used to churn out annoying slop or kill their future careers. Many of them despise it, but negativity isn’t really an inoculant, because all the time people use tools they hate if those tools are necessarily or more convenient, in some way, than an alternative. Kids hate AI—and they also use it constantly. If you want to produce graduates that might choose to ever write or think for themselves, you can’t rely on their negativity, nor should you aim to simply instill greater antagonism in them toward the technology.

2. Teach your students the alternatives as you go
If you are required to teach students how to use AI as an information-gathering tool, introduce them to Google4 as well as other search engines like DuckDuckGo, or any private databases to which you have access. If your school has a JStor subscription or anything along those lines, get them comfortable with Boolean searches. Show them how to use a physical index in a textbook, and have them practice skimming a text for answers to questions. Don’t just frame these activities purely as alternatives to using LLMs, but as compliments. Explain that sometimes they’ll need to verify something a chatbot has said, and at others they’ll need to look for information that is not well-represented in a chatbot’s training set.

3. Incorporate in-class writing wherever and whenever you can
If your school is asking them to use AI, it is asking them to atrophy as writers and thinkers. In order to combat this, you desperately need to use whatever time you can to have them write without AI in the classroom. They are losing extremely precious time for developing the two most important skills one can have in an educated civilization. Make up for that time in class, even if that means condensing other parts of the curriculum.

4. Teach your students what good writing looks like and teach them what AI slop looks like.
A lot of your students are going to—falsely—determine that slop just “sounds better” than their own work. You’re going to need to show them what’s distinctive about AI slop and, further, what’s so bad about those distinctive qualities.

Paul Kupperberg @paulkupperberg.bsky.social · last wk.

Sad to learn my Charlton Neo Comics cohort Roger McKenzie (left with the late Mort Todd, artist Steven Butler, and me in 2017 at the Fayetteville Comicon) has passed. Roger was one of the good guys, a talented writer and a Southern gentleman who always had a smile for everyone. R.I.P. old friend.

Frau_Haku❗️@frauhaku.bsky.social · last wk.

The Enemy Snipers Skull Sniper & Quiet | Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain Skull Sniper by Frau_Haku Quiet by Vasiliel_cos Ph by Morpheeva Photography #MGS #MetalGearSolid #MGSCosplay #MetalGearSolidCosplay

Alejandro Arbona 🇵🇷@alejandrobot.com · last wk.

Shocking and very sad to hear about the death of Dave Lanphear, the amazing letterer of Immortal Iron Fist, and Fantastic Four in…¡Isla de la Muerte! (among countless others), two comics that still rank among my career highlights to this day. Great guy, genius letterer, a true artist and craftsman.

Writeups.org @writeups.org · last wk.

As an obvious good-guy protagonist despite not being typecast, I think I need a personal growth character arc where I learn not to pick low-value loot in #PathOfExile because it might "turn out to be valuable".

Brent @danverzone.bsky.social · 2w ago

Sharing this: 90s comic inker Timothy Dzon (West Coast Avengers, G.I. Joe) faces medical & housing crises. Signed comics ($12+) & completed sketches ($80). Send your own books to be signed too (COA included) Details: www.facebook.com/share/p/1Eh2...

Screenshot of a social media post. Text at the top reads: "If you feel like donating anything please do so a any time. He greatly appreciates your help at this time." Below the text is a photograph of an older, thin man with grey hair, a mustache, and a small goatee, wearing a blue tank top. He is sitting indoors next to a window and holding up two identical trading cards featuring the G.I. Joe character Dr. Mindbender.

Fantagraphics @fantagraphics.bsky.social · 2w ago

SCAM ALERT: Do not order from www.fantagraphics-us.com, it is not a legitimate website! They have cloned our real website and are stealing people’s credit card information. If you want to order directly from us, please do so at www.fantagraphics.com.

The Madrid Review @madridlitmag.bsky.social · 2w ago

Our latest blog post explores some of literature’s most memorable imaginary places, from García Márquez and Borges to Tolkien, Ursula K. Le Guin, Faulkner and Terry Pratchett. themadridreview.com/f/countries-... #narnia #Tolkien #faulkner #maps #imagination #pratchett #borges #literature #invention

Countries That Never Were

From Macondo to Middle-earth, Ruritania to Santa María, a small journey through some of literature’s most memorable imaginary places. By James Hartley.

themadridreview.com

Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 2w ago

🔇 🔇 🔇 My book, Deep Unlearning, is now available for preorders! I don't know how people write so many books because this one took a lot out of me. It turns out, I had a lot to say 😂, with editors cutting out 50k of my words 🫣 ✴️ You can now preorder it at www.simonandschuster.com/books/Deep-U....

Cover of my new book, Deep Unlearning: The Rise of AI and The Radicalization of a Tech Idealist.

There are two concentric circles in the book, the left being circuits in black an white, and the right being a bunch of dots with orange accents. The cover background is cream. And the words are written in black except for "Un" which is in orange.

Kotaku @kotaku.com · 2w ago

Were you interested in South of Midnight but didn't wanna give Xbox money whyever that might have been? HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU!https://kotaku.com/south-of-midnight-compulsion-games-bds-xbox-2000724140

There Is No Reason Not To Play South Of Midnight Anymore

With Compulsion Games now newly independent, their BAFTA-winning game is now free from Xbox and anything else that might have kept you from trying it

kotaku.com

Writeups.org @writeups.org · 2w ago

Refurbished our character profile for Marvel #Comics' Blue Eagle, of the Squadron Supreme. Hawkman and Guardian expy also known as Cap'n Hawk, the Condor, American Eagle II, etc. Pics, #TTRPG stats, biography, gear, skills, etc. - and @davidgallaher.bsky.social art too.

Blue Eagle - Marvel Comics - Squadron Supreme - Hawkman expy

Character profile for the Blue Eagle of Marvel Comics' Squadron Supreme, a Hawkman-like guy. Pictures, biography, personality, past versions

writeups.org

Writeups.org @writeups.org · 2w ago

Uh, Caravan Sand Witch is free on the Epic Game Store. Nifty, well-reviewed, neat-looking video game. Not terribly demanding on the hardware either.

Zac Emery @thezacemery.bsky.social · 2w ago

It is not lost on me that so far every writer that has been at the center of a major AI controversy has been Black or PoC, and the only evidence is the results of an AI-detection tool that is, itself, AI-powered. While Pangram boasts that its false-positive rate is something like 1 in 24,000...