Posts made by surreality

Doubtful, since I think most of the other folks working on this are not remotely on board with that. (Read: loathe it like it actually enacted every your mother joke that's ever been traded on the forum at once.) I just keep pitching it anyway because it is a setting I really, really want to see happen some day.

Because I am like the team equivalent of the nagging housewife that bangs on endlessly about some random thing constantly, then backpedals on most else to say but, like, I totally only do wiki! the moment my eyes start to glaze over on something.

(Again, this is a self-awareness thing... but @tragedyjones, @Thenomain, and @Coin can doubtless confirm the cosmic truth of this.)

That said, FUCK YEAH THAT WOULD BE AMAZING, so I really really hope it could be a thing.

@Collective Yup! Shit, I would even be tempted to play in that setting as some stoner boho Daeva 'fuck the mannnnnnn' underground (see what I did there?) artist flake or something. (I am super bleah on WoD/CoD/etc. on the whole lately, though @tragedyjones knows I will wiki for him any day.)

@Collective I would build the shit out of that earthquake-eaten hotel, don't even tempt me.

Watch Wicked City for a good example of why I am keen on this specific blend, though. Also, no magically solving every mystery with google and a smartphone.

Just throwing my yearning for 1980s Los Angeles into the mix. 'cause that's one hell of a dark setting.

@Vorpal said in Do you believe in paranormal things?:

Except this was not coming in reply to 'people believe this is real', but 'people believe this might potentially be possible'.

I would say the stance would be close to being the same.

And I still maintain the stances are fundamentally not the same -- and even 'close to being the same' is not what you were claiming a few pages ago -- in a number of important respects that do not only apply in this particular arena.

Even a claim of something that seems possible requires evidence when no documentation really exists.

I am not talking about people standing on the mountaintop and saying, "This exists!" or "This might be possible!" and suggesting others agree with them or whatever proofs or theories they put forward. It is not unreasonable to suggest either party demonstrate some kind of evidence if they want others to agree with them in this case.

It is, however, well past unreasonable to demand someone prove something absolutely exists before they even entertain the notion that it might.

I mean...

By seeing the future before it happens we’re basically saying that we can observe an effect before its cause.

You're basically demanding people act contrary to science here, man. You're saying people need a confirmed conclusion before they're allowed to even wonder about it in the first place. In order for someone to actually fit this thoroughly impossible standard? They would, yes, have to be able to see the future. Which is why I keep calling this out as total crazy talk.

This is essentially what you're insisting people do before they even consider whether something is possible or not on the personal level. I'm not even going to touch the claim that 'wondering whether something is possible or not personally' = 'demanding others believe a thing is true' thing, because... that's just transparently not remotely the same thing at all on any level and I can't believe how much you're trying to justify it being the case at all. And then the whole 'disprove one thing by claiming something entirely unrelated is false' thing, which is also just... this is just bad logic up down and sideways.

There is a reason this is intensely frustrating, and the 'no' side of this debate is not the one being consistently categorized as thinking magic pixies are totally a thing and that they're members of a cult or any number of other deliberately nasty things. I mean, goddamn. Realistically here, our count is 1 solid 'yes!', a handful of 'no!', and a whole lot of 'maybe, I dunno! (with or without 'there is weird shit I have seen, yo')'.

I'm definitely in that last group, and you can keep mocking me as a cultist who believes in magical pixies if you want for thinking, "Hey, that was weird. I wonder what that was. Nope, it's not that, or that, or that, or damn it isn't that either, apparently we don't have a solid explanation for whatever the fuck that was yet. Freaky!"

I'm reasonably certain all of those things will eventually be understood or explained as being, yes, a part of the natural world, even if it falls under that heading of 'not only stranger than we know, but stranger than we can know' today. Maybe it won't happen in my lifetime, but I have little doubt we'll get there eventually.

Basically, I have had three groups of friends who were dead set convinced they were the reincarnations of the Arthurian Court. (Seriously, I totally dare you to even try to count the number of ways in which that's funny.) When told/asked, "OMG, you are so awesome, you must be one of us, who are youuuuuuuuuu?" I cheerfully told them, "Elaine. You know, Lady of Shallott. In fact, I better leave, get back to my loom an' shit, 'cause if I stay out here too long I am clearly going to die." I am still sad no one realized this was an excuse to flee like rabid dogs were yapping at my heels, or why it was also funny. Seriously, that makes me sad. (To be fair, I probably am the only person any of them knew who actually has a loom!)

Conversely, when I was much younger, friends of the family owned a restaurant, in an old mansion that had formerly been a residence (and I think a boarding school). I stayed there multiple times with their daughter, who was a friend of mine. I dismissed her family as a pile of the flakiest cornballs ever when they'd go on about how the place was haunted, etc. Until I spent a handful of years watching weird shit constantly happen there. Do I think there's 'ghosts' there? Not necessarily. I absolutely see how and why they think there were, though, from things I witnessed repeatedly myself, that I certainly can't explain. Does it mean I agree with their assessment? No. It does, however, mean I'm not going to make fun of them for believing what they did after the experiences they've had, because I can absolutely see how they came to those conclusions.

@Arkandel <many hugs> I'm sorry. Looks just like one of my mom's kitties, too.

@Coin There is not ren faire then. Unless we put up a tent in my yard.

( ...which I am not above. I am reasonably certain I have enough leather mugs for everyone and at least we could have hard liquor... )

@Coin Dude, weren't you heading out this way some time somewhen? Bring your leather mug and breeches, bitch. It's ON!

@Vorpal said in Do you believe in paranormal things?:

I find hopelessly disingenuous and playing semantic games to weasel around them is growing a little tiresome (…) Now, you're arguing for the use of common parlance and 'you know what I meant'.

Let me go back to that, briefly. Ganymede was lamenting the fact that the thread included an actual discussion of contrary opinions.

That... wasn't my take on what she said at all, actually. Contrary is one thing; there's tons of contrary around the boards all the time, sometimes pretty heated (like this gets on and off) and everybody's still pretty chill about it.

This thread has been a little different, in that there's a lot of derision going around, and that's why it's brow-beating. (Mercy knows @Ganymede and I argue a lot around certain subjects, but there's none of the derisive or dismissive tone present in abundance here.) I don't really see anyone objecting to people presenting alternative views (which exist on a spectrum), and I do not get the impression that @Arkandel's initial intent was 'believers, represent!' at all. Heck, the way the question was initially phrased, the only answer possible was 'no', which many people pointed out at the outset.

Not necessarily. I don't know Lithium well, and consider that I live about half an hour away from Boulder, Colorado, which is something not unlike the unofficial Sedona Embassy. I hear talk about 'energy fields' all the time- even from people who are somewhat scientifically literate but still fall for the Deepak Chopra/Marie Brennan/New Age Guru of the moment.

I am reasonably sure we could trade stories of ridiculous silliness, for sure. (I have so many. SO MANY. There is a reason my favorite eps of Supernatural involve the Ghostfacers, and... oh, so many stories.) I also know people who are not, in fact, ridiculous, but have set a different goalpost for what they believe is possible than you have.

The sheer absurdity and internal contradiction of, "I don't believe in the impossible, ha ha!" when you're demanding that other people prove something actually exists before they could be even remotely reasonable to consider the possibility that something might exist for pages on end before this point. Talk about believing in the impossible, dang.

That’s a mischaracterization of the position, to be honest. There are things that, according to the knowledge we have accumulated so far, are possible, and there are things that are impossible. The survival of something ‘extra’ after the death of its body, the existence of a never-dying, eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent being that can rearrange the universe at a whim, these are things that are deemed unlikely or impossible.

If you’re asking someone to believe that they exist, proof is needed. I’m sorry, but that’s how thinking works- we are not called to disprove a negative.

Except this was not coming in reply to 'people believe this is real', but 'people believe this might potentially be possible'.

That's not asking people to believe in anything but the possibility that something could potentially exist. I don't fault people who say 'no' to that ask, but I will point out the difference between an ask and a demand, and further, in the difference between demanding a belief from others and personally considering the possibility that something could potentially be going on for which we have no current explanation, because these things are not equivalent.

To ridicule someone for demanding proof in the face of a claim that, in the face of everything we know, seems positively absurd by making them seem close minded is only an attempt to displace the onus of proof.

There's no reason to ridicule someone for demanding proof of an extraordinary claim. Thing is, I haven't, with one exception, seen anyone do so in this thread, either, and that demand has been made multiple times by multiple posters.

If we are to believe in dryads, then we’re going to have to find them, or sufficient evidence of them outside of fables and stories to make their existence a possibility. This also applies to god, spirits, ghosts, fairies and Justin Bieber’s talent- until proven, they are all claims with very little to support them.

...the bolded bit totally earned an upvote. And coffee, spit-taked all over my monitor.

@Arkandel I will be taking my pay in turkey legs, admittedly, because as much as he keeps trying to pay me for shit, I keep refusing, in spite of broke-ness and general starving-artist-hood, since lord knows I've done so much tinkering on sites for games that won't exist for at least a forever, I need somewhere to crash test the crazy notions.

This may or may not have anything to do with the fact that there's a ren faire local to both @tragedyjones and myself, which... may or may not have been entertainingly relevant to a faction on BITN. (That, and my husband keeps wanting to meet him, and our timing has been for shit for over a dang year on that front thus far. )

@tragedyjones I am so easily bribed. Even when I do not have to be.

...sigh. You know what I'm in for on it already. Poke me when you are at the point at which you need a wiki.

@Vorpal Sorry, but you really can't keep trying to change the argument.

I've called out a few things already that -- and I like you, I do! I wouldn't bother otherwise! -- I find hopelessly disingenuous and playing semantic games to weasel around them is growing a little tiresome, as is the insistence that others discuss things exclusively on your terms, yet you have zero inclination to do the same.

The double standard in this regard is getting a little beyond absurd. I mean, dude. You called out @Lithium for her use of language, when you're well aware of what she meant, to demand she use scientific terminology. You're not even being asked to discuss things in the terms that the other side of the debate uses -- but in common parlance -- and you didn't. Now, you're arguing for the use of common parlance and 'you know what I meant'.

This is sincerely ridiculous.

@Ganymede said in Do you believe in paranormal things?:

It is not unreasonable from the sheer volume of discourse produced, that not only criticizes but, in many ways, demeans the idea that someone could believe in something for which no evidence has yet been discovered, to conclude that this is no longer a discussion or civil argument, but instead a concerted, if unconscious, effort to browbeat one or many perspectives.

...and I wholeheartedly agree with this. Hence the need to point out the sheer absurdity and internal contradiction of, "I don't believe in the impossible, ha ha!" when you're demanding that other people prove something actually exists before they could be even remotely reasonable to consider the possibility that something might exist for pages on end before this point. Talk about believing in the impossible, dang.

@Coin It's still not 'you pass a law, and people believe a thing'. There's a lot more to that than what the law can actually accomplish on its own going on there.

We've already seen what happens when laws are passed mandating adherence to a specific religion or avoidance of another; people continue their practice of what they originally did in private, and pay lip service in public.

Some of my Ye Olde Grancestors were chased out of Spain for marrying <gasp> Jews during the days of the Inquisition; they went somewhere else, where this was less problematic, and they could better 'keep their cover'.

@Vorpal said in Do you believe in paranormal things?:

Free will, though, is a thing, and people can believe whatever they want to as long as they don’t force others to believe it by law.

...which will never happen, because it's pretty impossible to force someone to believe in something by law. You can require lip service, and adherence to tenets of whatever faith it is as far as going through the motions is concerned, but you can't legislate that someone actually believe it.

I suppose you could legislate some kind of test of faith/belief, and brainwash people if they don't pass it, but that's more than a few steps beyond law.

@Arkandel said in Do you believe in paranormal things?:

@lordbelh Good read, that's for posting it.

Even accepting there's something happening there science cannot explain, is possession by a fallen angel truly the only way someone can suddenly speak fluent Latin?

It isn't! There's actually a known brain disorder, usually caused by head trauma, that can cause this. There's a dude now working in Chinese television originally from somewhere in Europe (I forget the specifics) who has been a case study for (thoroughly mundane) research into the effects.

@Griatch Actually, a number of folks just go ahead and do it.

Building (areas) is fairly specific; a number of games allow this, but restrict the object creation to staff. They then allow players to create the descriptions and effects for the object itself.

Wandering monsters generally aren't much of a thing on the whole.

People with custom-coded commands for descers, individualized +who lists, and similar, though? That tends to happen quite a lot.

It tends to be the actual creation of objects that gets restricted to staff on the game level, not the adding of code to those objects.

@HorrorHound I still hiss and bitch constantly they did not make it to nWoD in either version in that aspect, yes. And the conversion that was cooked up just sorta ignored all of that entirely. It gave me a major case of the sad.

I basically think Wamphyri, and run from there.

On a freeform 'do what the fuck ever' site, running with a similar concept a handful of years back, the char I was playing removed her and her partner's hearts, shrunk them down to a tiny size, and connected the veins into a continuous loop circulatory system, and wore it as a living, beating necklace. This was her idea of a romantic gesture. That's the kind of territory my brain goes mining for Tzimisce.

@HorrorHound Can, but likely wouldn't.

The alien beauty thing is a big one for me.

Bear in mind, by my definition, that's more 'art design from Nightbreed' and uncanny valley like whoa and urban primitives and Lumleyesque people-furniture and sit still my dear, I'm going to make you pretty...

@HorrorHound said in An open letter to Fallcoast:

Con:

• All the werewolves could hump each other.

There's a reason that's actually solid gold amazing, though: staff need no longer give a single solitary fuck about anybody else's single, solitary f-- you get the picture.

But really, as a former werestaffer? I was stupendously happy it is now in the books that I did not have to care about wereboinking, ever.

That there was one sphere that required staff to give a damn about who was or wasn't TSing was, at least for this hobby, pretty epic on the bleah scale. And that's in addition to the many, many reasons OP changed it themselves, the vast majority of which get a Hell Yeah! from me.