Posts made by The Tree of Woe

States' rights to what?

I'll give you a hint. States rights to own ssssssssssssl...

Regarding this list:

I'd read any and all of them, even by the ones whose authors I object to on moral grounds or just because I think they're complete d-bags, before I picked some of the lit I had to read in college back up.

I don't know what was up against A Thousand Acres when it picked up the Pulitzer, but it must've been, like, How to kick pregnant women in the stomach or something. That book was AWFUL.

@Misadventure said:

Who, alive today, would you blame?

People who fly the Stars and Bars or the Bonnie Blue Flag without understanding what they mean.
People who fly the Stars and Bars or the Bonnie Blue Flag who absolutely understand what they mean.
Individuals who serve or have served in the U.S. government or the military who fly either flag, doubly so.
People who build monuments to Stonewall Jackson.
People who name bridges, schools, or hospitals after confederate generals.
People who refuse to admit their state turned traitor over the right to own slaves, even after you read said state's secession declaration aloud, to them.
People who support Voter ID laws.
People who use gerrymandering to put a political stranglehold on any area with a large minority population.
Politicians who punish participants in SNAP for a statistically insignificant amount of fraud instead of coming down on the crooked shop owners who must be in on it for SNAP fraud to happen, at all, period.

It's a long list. I blame them. I absolutely blame them.

Last night's The Flash ended with, as the Narrator of Townsville would put it, "A good old-fashioned super hero super villain super fight." Firestorm, the Flash and Green Arrow vs. Reverse Flash.

DC's really turning the dial on its TV stuff up to 11.

In my mind, the idea that Demons understand what it is, or by extension what they are, should be patently false.

Given their own tendency toward the intelligence game, how can they trust their own memories of what they were created to do or their understanding of the God Machine and its agents?

Long story short: You don't know. If you think you know anything about it beyond "It's a demiurgic entity that wants to recycle us" you're wrong.

@Huzuruth Try Mansions of Madness. It's Arkham Horror meets Heroquest, and I dig it enough I plan to get all the expansions. There's no random choice of antagonist player.

The very fact that a sizeable faction of Americans, including politicians, refuse to acknowledge the fact that their forerunners launched a war that culled something in the area of fifteen percent of the population of the United States over the right to own a human being the same way you would a horse or a dog (and treat them worse than either) means we shouldn't shut up about it and people SHOULD be blamed.

Yankee pride. Preserve the Union. Free the slaves. Uphold the constitution.

For what it's worth, I believe Cirno is being genuine in this instance. I've brushed up against racism against African-Americans from Chinese guys that would make garden variety bigots go "Now hold on a minute!"

Then again, they get theirs. I still fondly remember the anecdote a friend told me about all the Chinese students eating together, except one girl who was alone. When he asked her if something was wrong, she looked up and said "Oh, no. I'm Mongolian."

"They fear me."

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/05/11/arts/television/elizabeth-wilson-a-character-actress-of-stage-screen-and-tv-dies-at-94.html?referrer

Abigail Craven/Dr. Pinterschloss. Roz Doyle.

I cringe at even an incidental mention of General Butt Naked. Nobody wins there.

@Silver said:

@GentlemanJack said:

A_kazlauskas on the Skypes.

^ Highly recommended. Best coder I know of.

Seconded. Fast and good.

I choose to trust Deviant.

I wouldn't be surprised if somebody updates CE and Final Nights for the new patch before too long.

Unless you have three computers.

I don't believe so.

More to the point, did I SAY it was okay? I am familiar with the way Dominate and Majesty work.

I like vampire, but when I play it I try to know exactly what I'm playing and what they're capable of. Part of that is 'A blood-sucking horror capable of great evil'. But at the same time, that's only fun if the vampire I'm playing has a conscience. The moral decision is part of the game. So by all means, bring up the moral evil of using Dominate to hollow a person's mind out.

That choice -- need vs. conscience -- is a feature, not a bug.

If fucking with people's emotions to produce hittable glamour becomes a Clarity sin, that will largely silence my problem with Changeling, aside from Pledges being, as I said, free candy. Yes, they do give the changeling a measure of power over you, but if they're your Best Buddy Ever, that risk amounts to nothing.

Pledges, in part. I don't like free candy, for various reasons. It encourages people to try and game the system. I think there's already been discussion about that. Something about a duration clause being free points. It basically allows a group of people with a Changeling or two to inflate their sheets without spending XP, and I think it's stupid.

Another part of it is thematic, or at least has to do with a common perception of theme: A big part of Changeling is snorting people's emotions like magic coke -- and the tendency for people to act as if this not only okay but that it is a good thing. Did you ever think of the implications of fucking with people's desires, sorrows, or anger? It's pretty barbaric. Put some Changeling sparkles on it, and that shit's A-OK, though?

Another part of what bugged me was how many people with emotional abuse issues completely missed the trick on this.

Part of it is my own tendency toward bitterness. Thinking back? Most of my bile is reserved for Liam's player. I never said I wasn't a hypocrite, or that I didn't hold grudges.

Jeremie. I learned a lot at HM, and made more than my share of mistakes. I'm actually more disappointed than proud of my time there.

And I made you burn down your fucking house, using a level two Cruac ritual.

Eh. Think what you will.

The things you think are fun, I think they suck. We are generally incompatible as human beings.

I played a Mage... for five minutes. Until I got a faceful of Juerg and never logged the bit in again. I don't like Mage much either.

I know Czcibor and Konrad RL, but haven't spoken to either in a very long time. Interests took us in different directions. Life's like that.

I have no idea what you're talking about, by and large. Except that I provoked you into burning down your own house. Beyond that, awful with raisins in it.

Also, don't ever use "make your life interesting" as a euphemism for shitting on people. It makes you look like a cockpunch.