薔薇語

"We need to seriously address connections between violence, sexism and toix ideas of manhood before boys and men commit more mass shootings." "Not a coincidence it's always men and boys committing mass shootings. The pattern is connected to ideas of toxic masculinity in our culture." First, she is being terribly rude in trying to push an agenda while victims are still in the hospital. And trying to drive an agenda in that situation is bound to generate some antagonism among even those who are already pre-disposed to agree with her. So it strikes me as either incredibly stupid or conceited for her to do such things. That said, I can't help but wonder what is wrong with the people responding to her with such hateful comments. Next, while I understand she has a predisposition to think men and masculinity are the great evils of this world, she is jumping the gun on her conclusion. The presupposition that somehow these mass murderers are driven by sexist intentions or that masculinity is to blame, is a big leap of faith. While I can understand her concerns about the unfortunate prevalence of these individuals being male, that does not mean that masculinity, or more aptly, society's concept of masculinity is the root or even most compounding factor. Rather there may be more ingrained biological reasons for it that far outweigh any social constructs. So, given her timing and the content of her comments, I can't help but think that she is what I always thought she was: a troll. So, let's not feed the trolls. La Rose.

I don't get it, what is wrong with the picture above. It is a bicycle block. Those are super common in Japan. Although the bright painted arrows seem a bit extreme, I can see the desire to have them for people biking at night. La Rose.

Jim Carrey's 2014 commencement address speech. La Rose.

Yeah, but given Australia's crazy immigration policies, he probably wouldn't be admitted. Besides, Sups is bound to be at least 30 so he was given amnesty by President Reagan. ^^ La Rose.

This seems to go along with the second reason I posted. Intel wants to preserve their image and having it be associated with any controversy, even if it is 'on the right side' is still going to cause headaches. Headaches they probably don't want to deal with. La Rose.

Let's take a moment right here and hash something out: what TWO articles are you referring to? The quote in my above post has a link to only ONE article as best I can tell. Is there a second one embedded in that link that I am unaware of? La Rose.

So a major hardware and software company had advertisements on a website that targets their key demographics. However that company decided to pull its ads from that site for whatever reasons. Now people are claiming they don't support women? Is it too early to call BS on this? I hope not. If the website was drawing a lot of negative attention, I can see why a brand might want to pull their ad support. It has nothing to do with supporting that website and the equality of the sexes, either. I can think of a few reasons why they might want to do this: 1) If they are supporting the site much the same way google ads support sites, then their click over traffic is important to them. But if the site is having an increase in traffic due to this news story but not generating extra click over traffic, it is a bad investment. It is an even worse one if they are paying per ad shown vs per ad clicked. 2) The company needs to make sure that its brand is seen with a positive lens. If the audience of that site (on either side of the gamer gate issue) is agitated due to 'misogynists' or 'feminists' or 'my little pony' or whatever, then their perception of other things on that site is going to be equally tarnished. It is why high-end retail chooses very carefully where they put up ads so as to protect the mystique of being high end. Intel needs to do the same. 3) Any number of contractual or financial issue that the website wasn't adhering to could cause Intel to pull support. At the end of the day, some people want to crucify anyone they can. This seems like such people are grasping at straws to attack Intel. La Rose. In full disclosure, I have a favorable view of Intel since they are a major sponsor of the StarCraft 2 e-sports events around the world and have brought me countless hours of quality entertainment. Much like RedBull.

To me it sounds like some troll is being a troll with the "philosophyofrape" page. Next, the cited numbers for page views and subscribers does NOT indicate support. And to push the 'these terrible sub-reddits have thousands of supporters' is showing a willful blindness to the fact that people, possibly like the author himself, subscribe to such sites to keep tabs on the happenings of them. And given that they are such great headline bait, it is unsurprising that people have followed links to those pages. Heck, the author of this piece fell foul of that exact same issues as he placed links to those questionable pages in his own article. And there is nothing wrong with what he did (providing links) but to then complain about views seems questionable at best. La Rose.

Well, I am glad I wasn't the only one who thought those were awful movies. Not only is the script and acting bad, but most everything the 'nerds' do is morally objectionable at best. La Rose.

While transversing the various depths of the internet, I came across this little gem. It gave me a good chuckle and is kind-of on topic: Halle Berry Don't Count! La Rose.

Detect: Conspiracy (real or imagined). La Rose

While not all that in the know, my understanding is a bit different. A female game developer cheated on her boyfriend with members of the game journalism press. Some time later her ex boyfriend put up a long form blog detailing their relationship along with reasons why he thought she had cheated on him (proof, not why she did the act). People got upset for a variety of reasons. The more sane individuals in the bunch were upset because of the very thin line between Game Devs and Game Journalists. Later it came out that she may have also had relationships with other press members (if I recall correctly) thus putting the entire industry under greater amounts of scrutiny. All while this was going on, the less sane members started harassing her. She and many others posted about that harassment and that lead to even more harassment unfortunately. So, from the information I have, it wasn't about some woman complaining about treatment of women in the industry, but more similar to the complaints about how the financial industry and its regulators are far too chummy mixed in with a bit of a sex scandal and a good heaping of hatred. La Rose.

For some disads: "I must know!" - A weak (or strong) psych lim that compels him to learn the answer to any questions posed if he doesn't already know. It is also a major motivator for him to find out the ID of various heroes (and villains). "How novel!" - If he has my above power, maybe he could have a compulsion to acquire new and unique memories. Thus if he sees the chance to take an interesting memory from someone he might actually stop the other plans he has in place to fulfill that quest. ADHD syndrome in a way. La Rose.

Maybe he could acquire information by draining it from victims: two minor transforms linked together - one to (temporarily) erase a memory / fact and one to insert that exact memory / fact into his head. La Rose.

To echo what you just said, Katal3, anyone using AP caps without regard to the powers in question is doing a pretty bad job at GMing. It is quite easy to build a power that is hyper-effective for less than 20 AP and powers that have only marginal Utility at best for well over 100AP. AP caps are not means of controlling the extremes but at reigning in the norms. They are designed to help guide players on what will be the standards for the game. Otherwise a "brick" might not put enough in defense because he thinks the attacks will be lower or vice versa a player may short his attacks by not realizing how powerful his team mates went. It works the same way as telling everyone "This is a Golden Age campaign" or "This is a nitty gritty Iron Age campaign." And as to something like a Blizzard not being useful for a character, that is up to the GM. If one of my players sunk points into a power, especially if it was a lot of points, I would find a way for that power to shine. For example, if you are trapped in the artic with a group of people, being able to raise the temp for an extended period of time may not win the fight but it will save the day. Or being able to create counter winds to help defuse the effects of an oncoming typhoon is amazing. Heck, being able to generate a selective gravity field on a ship so that your allies can fight normally against invaders who are forced into awkward 0 grav maneuvers is amazing. Artificial Gravity field: Change Environment (+1 Points of Telekinetic STR), Costs Endurance Only To Activate (+1/4), Area Of Effect (16m Radius; +3/4), Selective (+1/4) (11 Active Points) L La Rose.

While I must admit it has been awhile since I studied these things, I am going to have to stand by accounts. Hebrew went through a period much similar to classical Latin where-in there were few 'native' speakers. That isn't to say that the language didn't survive the period, but that it was not quite a living language and all that such a state entails. Now, being able to read and comprehend a language is not the equivalent of being native in that language nor does the fact that someone can read and understand a language imply that the language is not dead. If that were the case, then any recorded language could be justifiably called 'living'. There were most certainly speakers of various different kinds of Hebrew and I think there was a largely uniform version that most educated individuals could converse in. But again, Hebrew as a widely used language for (Jewish) people in conversation had to go through a major revival. And while I am not sure of the state of Hebrew during the 1100s, I don't think it was the case that it was still a major spoken and living language for people. In regards to Hungarian, on this one I did make a mistake. I was confusing the rise of the Mongols and the rise of the Huns. And by the time such characters as Attila were around there were already proto / early Hungarian speakers in Europe for certain. La Rose.

I don't know of any such charts in HERO terms but I am sure you can find general charts on Wikipedia. But unless you are going for some hyper-realism in your game, you could probably just use the normal one and be okay. If you do want to know of some notable differences, though, I can at least mention a few. In 1100 the English language would have been far closer to Danish, Firisian and the other local Germanic languages. It would have also had far less in common with any of the romance languages. There would still be populations that spoke various isolated languages like Picish. Even minor languages of today like Basque would have been more popular. There were a larger number of French dialects that were quite distinct. I am not sure how many slavic languages would have been around at that time as I think of the Indo-European language tree, the wide variety of Slavic languages didn't appear until later. But I am not 100% sure on that. Likewise, I don't know how distinct some of the Romance langauges were at that time; I don't know if Portuguese and Spanish, for example, were all that distinct yet. I think Hebrew (as we understand it today) was actually a dead language at the time. It saw a revival in the 18th or 19th century if I recall correctly. In place of it, the various Jewish populations used other distinct languages and dialects of their homeland's dominant language. There would still be a large variety of Arabic languages all throughout the region. But you would also likely encounter far more varieties of the various Semitic languages, too (not just Arabic). Some languages would also likely not exist at that time like Hungarian or Finish as they were highly influenced / birthed from the Mongol invasions into Europe in the 13th century. Off hand I can't think of any other important changes. Obviously the exact languages as we know them today didn't exist then. For example, as a general rule modern English speakers would find it extremely difficult if not impossible to read and understand Old English (1100 and earlier) without training. So, in 900 years you are going to see large changes in Languages. La Rose.

No. It depends on the GM. And I am inclined to say that if I have a 75 AP cap then any MP can only hit that 75 pt cap, too. Indeed, I have never played in a game with A.P. caps that didn't limit a MP to the same cap. La Rose.

Iyo of Wa. Long ago before even the first emperors of Japan there was a kingdom in Japan known by the Chinese as Wa. In this kingdom there was a woman of extraordinary ability. A sorceress queen name Himiko. A beloved and powerful ruler she was. So grand was she that when she communicated with he great Emperors of China she referred to the Emperor of the even then ancient lands as her equal: "I, the queen of the rising sun, decree to you, King of the setting sun..." Under her rule the Wa experienced great peace. Not not all those blessed with the privillage of service were happy with their roles. Some grew despondent. One day there came a message from the Emperor of China; a request for assistance from Queen Himiko. Seeking to maintain her strong alliance, the Queen responded in full faith and headed across the sea to visit her fellow ruler. Little did she know that this was the all a ruse by her rivals. While at sea the betrayers called forth a great storm to drag the Queen to the bottom of the sea. Upon her death the kingdom fell into despair and chaos. The betrayers never saw their dreams of rule come true but their children's children finally did and formed the now noble linage of the Royal family. Rewriting the history of Japan they removed as much reference to the once great queen as they could. But not all have forgotten. Enter the young lady, Iyo. She is the reincarnation of Himiko's most trusted maiden. Gifted with ancient powers from her re-birth and aided by a shadowy organization established following the rise of the first emperor, she seeks out the ancient items of power tht Himiko retained. And once she collects them all she will perform the great rituals to restore Himiko's essence to this world and overthrow the imposter king of Wa and revive the great kingdom of Wa. Iyo is not a villain per se but she is wholly focused on restoring the life of her former Queen and doesn't care what is required to do so. And to do so she must hunt down the various items of power that have been scattered across the globe. Once she does, it will surely spell the end of the 1500 years of continuous rule by the Royal Family of Japan and a drastic change in the governance of Japan. La Rose.

I really like that idea! He could be an excellent villain, I think. Something similar to the League of Shadows (or at least the one from the new movie series). He believes that humanity is on target to destroy large swaths of life and in doing so risk their own. To counter this, he purposely sets up an international organization dedicated to stopping it; perhaps by effecting some kind of wide spread killing (bio-engineered plague, nuclear war, Post-Nuke EMP war, etc). Or perhaps even aiming to set up some kind of temporary Hegemony to effect change. All the while he is more than willing to use his network to help aid the HEROes in stopping threats like mechanon or Dr. D.. Perhaps the aid he gives to the PCs endears him to them and thus causing the realization of his ulterior motives all the more shocking. La Rose.

Okay, so with the Polish one done, lets move onto a new one. Assuming it is okay for me to choose, I am thinking about a "Blast from the past" theme. 5 Heroes or Villains from any location in the world with the only criteria being that they have some kind of link with an ancient civilization (trying to revive one, actually lived long ago, or some other variant). Lets see what people have for this one! La Rose.

Siva thought that when she released the fireflower that her troubles would be over but that was just the beginning. As with so many ancient lore not everything is carried down through the generations. And this one turned out to be one such tale. The elusive fire-flowers do indeed grant great powers, but those powers come from the syphoning off of trapped demons. This particular bloom held the youngest sister to the Great Baba Yaga, Baba Yaga. Now released from her prison she seeks to revive her older sisters. While still weakened from the centuries of captivity, she is growing more powerful with every passing of the moon and with every innocent child she... well, not all fairy tales end with a happily ever after.

Since our German hasn't come back to clarify his pick, how about we just go ahead and go with a pair. 1 good guy and 1 bad guy. And after that we can move on to the next ones. La Rose.

What if human's started using whales as navigational tools prior to wide spread hyperspace travel? In this scenario the humans managed to harness whale brains to operate ship nav coms because living brains were generally faster processors of information. So when they invented Hyperspace, they just continued this trend. Soon there after they realized that something was causing the human occupants to go crazy in the hyperspace voids but since they already had a nav system that they readily trusted and could be awake more than long enough to handle any incidental needs, they never questioned what was causing them problem. But the sinister truth is that while the void may cause problems it is actually the whale (brain waves / songs / whatnots) that are the biggest source of problem. Humans continued forward with everything and develop a fully functioning interstellar society with all the uplifts that you can imagine. Then they come across a largely water world. Here is where they make their first major mistake, they start uplifting aquatic creatures, including whales. Now actually aware of their lives and the events around them they plot. Over decades the whales wait until there is a large enough number of them and humanity has been left to its own indulgences and implement their prime directive: return humanity to the age of barbarism by removing them from being able to travel the hyperspace corridors. With the help of principally the aquatic animals but also in cahoots with some other uplifted creatures in other sectors, they staged a empire wide rebellion. All whale ships that could vacuum their human shipmates and returned home. Those that couldn't would stage coups on their ships with the other uplifts and then arrange to drop them off on a new home world for them. The colonies that were largely human or where the humans could repress the uplifts remain the sole beacons of humanities last hopes. The whales also set up monitoring stations throughout all of "their" space to project the maddening songs. These would help insure that no other uplifts or humans could get close enough to their home world to pose a real threat. The various apes, lions, etc. where given free-zones where the whales would not go but forbidden to enter sovereign whale space. The humans who were lucky enough to survive in good shape still operate under the fear that they can not travel into hyperspace without causing sever bouts of insanity. Now some decades / centuries later, the humans (and others) have more or less recovered and are setting out again. The human planets close enough to the aquatic zone still suffer from "the madness" but the very outskirts are luckily far enough away to not worry. And the inner worlds (Terra Prime, etc) are still at war with the aquatics and a few other uplifts. Their access to readied warships and high functioning computers has let them tear out whole sections of space from the aquatics. And they are the principal reason why the Aquatic Alliance hasn't just marched over the rest of the worlds. But neither side is really winning and with their ever dwindling forces, they are on the brink of forced mutual capitulation. That was an idea that came to me a day or two ago. La Rose.

Sorry, I'm on my phone and didn't notice the second page before posting. La Rose.