He isn't lying.

The health insurance provisions are not limited to minors. They refer to the definitions in the prohibitions for care of minor sections as to what constitute "gender clinical interventions," but say nothing about being limited to health insurance coverage for minors.

I appreciate the concern y'all, but don't worry about me, for now. 

I'm not hiding and never will. 

In any case, living in Austin, I figure I'm pretty safe until they start actively rounding us up. The odds of that happening before January 2025 are not that high. But if the republicans win in 2024, I'll probably flee to a blue state. I have my kids to think of.

https://armoxon.substack.com/p/they-know-exactly-what-theyre-doing?post_id=106406971

2 hours ago, unclevlad said:

 

One must question whether the US can remain one country.

 

Thought experiment:  you are offered $10M, after taxes.  The only condition is that you must live full-time in Florida, Tennessee, or Texas for the rest of your life, for at least, say, 75% of the time.  Would you take it?

 

For me?  No.  But I'm financially comfortable...not rich, but comfortable.  So that obviously makes a big difference.  Oh, $10M would be awesome...but not at the cost of looking over my shoulder at my state's government, wondering when the hammer might fall.  

 

There are other states that might get included there, these are just the 3 that have been most front and center recently.

I'm sort of stuck here it Texas anyway, so I might take the $10M, given I'm a bit insulated, here in Austin. I figure there's less than a 60% chance they'll be looking through court records to find those of us who changed our gender markers, then rounding us all up. At least until after the 2024 elections.

1 hour ago, Ranxerox said:

Both Both Republicans And Democrats Severely Overestimate How Extreme The Other Side Is

 

The ironic thing about this is that all the factors that one would expect to lead to more accurate assessments only make things worse.

That study doesn't show what they say it does. The statements are mostly either so vague as to be useless, so extreme as to be parodies, or just to vague.

Quote

Properly controlled immigration can be good for America

This is going to mean completely different things to Democrats and Republicans. 

Quote

Racism still exists in America

I've heard many republicans claim with a straight face that it does, but it's against white people. Others admit it exists, but say it isn't a significant problem.

I won't go on, but look at just about any of those statements and think about how a Republican and a Democrat are likely to interpret it.

And I notice there's no question about LGBTQIA rights in there.

I've got to say, it sucks that it's likely that by the end of this year I won't be able to drive across this country without fear of arrest, just for existing. 

I never cared much for the republican party, but I deeply hate it's current incarnation.

Genocide is an ugly word, but it is an accurate description of what is being attempted against transgender folk here in the US.

A new anti-trans bill in West Virginia would ban "transgender exposure to minors" as "obscene matter."

If this passes, it will be illegal for me or people like me to exist in West Virginia. Bills like this are being proposed across the country, and some of the marginally less bad ones have already passed.

Some people wonder why I and people like me can't be friends with Republicans these days. After all, it's just politics. Well, I can not be friends with, or, honestly, even civil to, people who support the elimination of people like me. If you vote Republican in these times, you are voting for my death (or, I suppose, just my imprisonment, which, since you'd also have me put in a men's prison, might as well be my death). Whether you personally want me dead or not, if the party you support gets it way, that's the end result.

I limit my participation on these boards somewhat because certain frequent posters have made their affiliations clear, and I'm not going to interact with them as if they aren't evil and a threat to my existence.

17 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

But if I accept "only fire" is -1/2,  I realistically have to accept "not vs fire" is -2, so that the two sum up to the full cost of the ED.

I disagree with this. There's no implied symmetry. It's fine for 'only vs. fire' and 'not vs. fire' to both be worth the same value. It might make sense to keep them symmetrical if characters only ever faced threats of a single special effect at any given time, but that's not the case in most campaigns.

Being (mostly) fireproof fine against the flamethrower-wielding Viper agents, but they'll quickly pick another target and let their teammates with Sonic Rifles focus on the fireproof hero. And the opposite holds as well. Given how common fire is as a special effect, most adversary groups will have at least some capability to attack with that special effect.

In the modern Fantasy game I ran a few years (okay, couple of decades?) back, the characters had to pay points for any innate abilities, spell casting ability, or signature magic items (one character had a family heirloom magic sword). Then they had a small gear pool— a set of points to use to buy any mundane (or commercially available magical) items that they would have with them during an adventure. We didn't track exact levels of money for the game, but they had to be able to justify the items based on their current (approximate) level of financial solvency. We also discussed the kinds of things their business ( a small security/private investigation agency) kept on hand, for them to trade out adventure to adventure. There was an understanding that anything purchased through the gear pool could be easily taken away, but equally easily replaced through purchase/looting/etc. Easy come. easy go.

When things got rough (usually toward the end of an arc), they could take the opportunity to "gear up," and have double the Gear points viable for their pool. There needed to be an in game explanation/justification for the temporary power up. Since my group and I had a high level of trust, that was never a problem.

I wrote a short-short story this weekend that seems relevant to here. It's completely unedited or polished, and will probably stay that way, but I feel like sharing anyway.

Fear Itself

A fight in an Ikea could be a lot of fun. It's a huge space, but walled off into almost a maze by tons of partitions (which at some point I assume characters would just start blasting through). There's somewhat open air above the partitions, which is nice for flyers, but those spaces are crisscrossed with ducts and pipes and support wires. Lots of potential for chaos.

It also comes with lots of things for bricks to throw: appliances, furniture, shopping carts.

There's even a restaurant if you want to lean into comedy and break into a food fight at some point.

1. WandaVision

2. Ms. Marvel (would have been better if they could have stretched it over two more episodes)

3. Loki & She-Hulk

5. Hawkeye 

6. Falcon & the Winter Soldier

7. What If

F&WS & What If being at the bottom doesn't mean I didn't like them. I enjoyed them quite a bit. I just enjoyed the others more.

I haven't finished Moon Knight. It just doesn't hold my interest.

(ETA - On the BG reboot, it was interesting at first, and there wasn't nearly as much good SF on at the time, so I liked it somewhat. I gave up somewhere during the second to last season, though, and never saw the ending som many have complained about)

You can use the images however you want, but so can anyone else, unless you pay for the private upgrade. I just paid for the regular upgrade, myself.

7 hours ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

Um, I'm not sure how to tell you this, but your Warlock seems to have serious cataracts in one eye and a blown out pupil in the other. Should probably get her to an eye cleric. 😁

 

On a more serious note, that's some pretty cool stuff, I'm going to go check this thing out.

Ha

I'm actually replacing both eyes,( because my warlock has funky eyes) but just wanted to show what MidJourney actually produced.

I've been playing with it a lot, lately.

Here are a few of my favorites I've generated

A ring for my Genie warlock in D&D 5e:

Character portrait for the above Warlock

The Helm of the Fallen Paladin (same campaign)

Amused Blonde with purple Streak

The Goddess of Icecream

And so many others.

On 8/20/2022 at 7:39 PM, Cygnia said:

Lobby group wants LGBTQ+ kids in separate classrooms ‘like children with autism, Down’s syndrome’

As an autistic, queer trans woman, my response to this group is not suitable for this board.

I'd be satisfied with 10 years in prison under 18 USC 793, plus forfeiture of Mar a Lago and any other properties where he ever stored those documents, or assets he might have used to transport them,  under 21 USC 853, as referred to by 18 USC 793.

I find the idea that there's something unrealistic or inappropriate about established characters being revealed to be gay or bi hilarious. I made it it to fifty years old without realizing that I'm trans. I was married with two kids. No one (including me) suspected that I was anything other than a straight, cisgender man. And I know a ton of people in the same (or a similar) boat.

As long as society keeps moving in the right direction, I think this will happen less and less, but it's not going  go away, at least not in my lifetime. People figure out they're different at their own pace. Or they just don't reveal certain aspects of themselves until they're ready. It's the world we live in. Even though comic book worlds aren't our world, there's no reason to expect them to be different in that particular regard.

Just because you don't want to see something doesn't make it unrealistic or inappropriate.

I don't think that's really Ben Affleck.

You may, of course, do as you like (until and unless a mod says otherwise).

I, however, am done discussing this particular tangent on this thread. 

I don't think I can explain why comparing conservatives in the modern USA to Jews right before the holocaust to you is offensive if you don't see it. Especially considering it was done at a time when Republicans held two of the three branches of federal government, and hold a majority of state governments. And that is disregarding her transphobia. If you want to discuss this further, please take it to the politics thread, since it's not really on topic for this thread.

https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-culture/film-and-tv/what-did-gina-carano-say-why-actor-has-been-fired-from-disney-show-the-mandalorian-after-abhorrent-instagram-post-and-her-response-3131574

4 hours ago, Greywind said:

 

Separate the artist from the art. Otherwise you will forever be finding things to offend.

That's a fine sentiment when it it comes to judging the quality of a given piece of art. It's nonsense when deciding whose art to support. I didn't go looking for some way to be offended.  Carano used the much bigger platform she gained by being on the Mandalorian to mock my identity and minimize the culpability of Nazis for the holocaust. If giving a little less money to Disney might to help, even just a tiny bit, to remove that platform, then that's what I'll do.

So, thanks for the advice, but I think I'll keep trying to deplatform transphobes and other bigots.

19 hours ago, Greywind said:

Heaven forbid actors have opinions that don't follow the liberal.

And heaven forbid I not support a company that employs a transphobic bigot in a public facing position.