TheLepidopterists

joined 3 years ago
[–] TheLepidopterists@hexbear.net 50 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

God this sucks for Ukraine. I've had this thought for a while but the absolute best case scenario at this point is that as much as possible gets annexed and Russia just straight up refuses to acknowledge the debts the old government racked up right?

American corporations just fully own them at this point it seems like.

[–] TheLepidopterists@hexbear.net 19 points 1 month ago

In the US and I get this if I'm zoomed out a bit (and it looks like this is how disputed islands are labeled also, if you check Malvinas/Falklands for example) but if I zoom in a bit it's just "Gulf of America"

Oh man that was a good list.

[–] TheLepidopterists@hexbear.net 16 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I'm out of the loop, what did President Sheinbaum nationalize?

[–] TheLepidopterists@hexbear.net 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yeah we'd always do our rewatch to get ready for the new season so the end of the show disrupted it a bit.

I should have known better than to doubt our emoji database.

[–] TheLepidopterists@hexbear.net 9 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Oh yeah,damn haven't watched it since the movie came out, haven't thought of that plotline in a long time.

[–] TheLepidopterists@hexbear.net 16 points 1 month ago

The bikes in the street picture from Tiananmen Square maybe.

[–] TheLepidopterists@hexbear.net 15 points 1 month ago (5 children)

I'd never considered that that might be the case, but I find it delightful. Imagining it, it is a funny line. Sounds like something he'd say about another villain he's being petty towards.

[–] TheLepidopterists@hexbear.net 35 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Need an emoji that expresses "you might be right but I don't like hearing it"

[–] TheLepidopterists@hexbear.net 45 points 1 month ago (7 children)

It seems like it's got our number, but it did tell me that cth got banned for supporting violence against cops.

Joined 4 years ago

fry

 

Full spoilers for both of these Season 3 Star Trek TNG episodes:

Season 3 Episode 14 "The High Ground"

In this episode the Enterprise is on a "mission of mercy" to deliver medical supplies to Rutia IV a planet which nominally has a planetary government, but which is dealing with an insurgency from a group called the Ansata who clearly view the planetary government has a colonialist entity.

While Cpt Picard, Dr Crusher and a few others are relaxing in a cafe after the delivery there is a bombing. Picard orders everyone to beam up to the ship but Crusher insists on staying behind to treat the wounded. She is captured by Ansata members using personal teleporter technology.

At this point the perspective splits in two, following Crusher as she lives with and learns about the resistance movement, as well as other crew of the Enterprise talking to the head of security forces in the occupied continent, and brainstorming how to get Dr Crusher back.

In the Dr. Crusher scenes, you learn that the planetary government has wiped out whole cities regularly tortures people, and killed the leader of the resistance movement's 13-year-old son while he was in detention, but considers the guerrilla actions/asymmetrical warfare of the resistance to be terrorism, which apparently Starfleet agrees about?

Data and Picard have a conversation in which Picard states that terrorism is never justified and that he doesn't believe that "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun" lenin-dont-laugh and Data points out that sometimes a political movement has no other viable choices, and that "terrorism" has successfully achieved political aims in the past, mentioning a couple of examples including the 2024 unification of Ireland connolly-shining . Side note episode was produced while the Troubles were ongoing and did not air in the United Kingdom or Ireland to my understanding, and wasn't available completely unedited until the mid-oughts in the United Kingdom.

The Enterprise crew works with the Rutian of security, who hints that she would like to have access to Starfleet weapons to put an end to the war, and they say no because they consider themselves neutral in this conflict, but do agree to help her track down the until now hidden headquarters of the Ansata rebels in an attempt to rescue their doctor.

Crusher and Kyril Finn, the leader of the Ansata have a discussion where he points out that using violence to accomplish your political aims is only considered terrorism by the people in power when their enemies do it, or by historians when documenting failed attempts to gain power. He compares himself to George Washington which feels unfair to the Ansata to me, because as far as I can tell none of them are pro-slavery. Beverly is offended and defends Washington against being compared to these objectively better people (amerikkka TV show after all).

She claims that Starfleet is neutral in all this, but he points out that by trading with the Rutian government, especially providing medical supplies only to their side of the conflict (she is a bit disdainful of the fact that the Ansata stole some of the medical supplies for their own wounded) they've involved themselves.

Eventually they use their personal teleporters to try to blow up the Enterprise, to draw the Federation into war with them, because they believe that they will have an easier time negotiating, if the Federation is a third chair that negotiating table. But are unable to detonate the bomb before it's teleported into space. They do capture Picard during the attempt.

After this, the Enterprise crew and the colonial government conduct a raid on the Ansata Base that Enterprise has located. During the raid Kyril Finn is murdered by the head of Rutian security, which the Enterprise crew objects to but does nothing to punish, she says that as a prisoner he would have generated violence, but she believes that as a martyr the violence will calm down. This seems backwards to me just from a practical standpoint?

Regardless, a teenager who is a member of the resistance picks up a laser rifle and points it at the head of security, but the Enterprise crew convinced him to put his gun down, at which point Rutian soldiers arrest him and haul him away, presumably to torture him to death in detention like they did to Finn's son.

A Starfleet officer opines that maybe this is how peace starts, with one boy putting down his gun. Of course, this ignores that the colonialism that precipitated all of its violence is no longer being resisted presumably?

Overall, this episode strongly reminded me of the current genocide in Gaza, and fortified. My opinion that actually Starfleet is not that good. Lying to themselves about being neutral in an imperialist struggle while materially supporting the imperialists and helping to track down the resistance is pretty disgusting.

A second episode that recently left a mark,

Season 3, Episode 16 "The Offspring"

Data gets back from a robotics conference, and ensconces himself in his lab for a while. Eventually, he reveals that he has created a new Android with a positronic brain, who he has named Lal, which apparently means "Beloved" in Hindi.

Lal has a strangely featureless face, and no genitals. This is because Data is a very good father, and plans to allow his child to choose their own gender and appearance.

Several different heartwarming and or wacky events occur throughout the episode, due to Data's daughter (she chooses to be a female human) lacking experience with human culture, and basic knowledge of the world around her, while Data spins the episode raising her and asking Beverly Crusher for parenting advice.

Eventually some piece of shit admiral from Starfleet (again, Starfleet bad, kinda) comes along and demands that Lal be handed over to Starfleet Research to be raised. This causes a big conflict because, at this point in the show we've already established that Androids are people with the full rights and freedoms of any other member of the Federation. As a result, this is essentially breaking up a family for absolutely no reason, and Lal, having developed emotions, becomes terrified of the thought of being separated from her father causing a cascading positronic brain failure. Data tries to repair her brain, but is unable to do so and spends her last few moments attempting to comfort her. She tells him that she loves him, and he says that he wishes he could share the feeling. She tells him that she will feel it for both of them. At this point I started sobbing. Shortly after Data tells the rest of the bridge crew that his daughter has passed. Give him their condolences, but he states that she'd made such an impact on him that he could not consign her to oblivion, and transferred her memories into his own.

I don't think this one would have hit me as hard before I had kids, but at this point in my life it's gut-wrenching.

On a lighter note, there is a scene where she's observing flirting while working Guinan's bar trying to learn about human social interaction. When Rokwr walks into the bar, she picks him up from behind the bar and gives him a kiss, and at this exact moment Data also walks in, witnesses the scene and asks Riker "What are your intentions with my daughter?" This was pretty funny.

 

Uh, spoilers I guess for TNG season 2 generally and TMoaM specifically.


We're watching TNG for the first time (not counting seeing random out of order episodes when my aunt was watching me decades ago) and so far season 2 is definitely better, but the dehumanization of Data has been driving me up a wall.

This fuckin doctor who isn't Beverly Crusher consistently treating him like a thing and even being smug about it as she learns that she's wrong was bad enough to start with

But now we have this asshole calling him "it" repeatedly and saying that he's Starfleet property, doing the "well if one of Data's best friends doesn't make a sincere argument that he's a nonperson, I'll just immediately declare that he's a nonperson" etc.

Just unreal "justice system" brain worms. Oh is the question of whether this individual, who clearly has feelings and desires, deserves to have literally any personal rights more fitting for "saints and philosophers" you dumb lawyer hog

And finally the smug science nerd space fascist right here.

This guy's insistence that in spite of not understanding Data's construction at all basically, he should be allowed to vivisect him and poke around in his brain was absurd. Like, once people start asking him any questions about his plans for the experiment he immediately makes it clear that he doesn't know shit and hasn't considered the dangers to Data at all. The moment during the trial when Picard demands that he distinguish the traits that Picard demands has and Data lacks that makes only Picard sentient and he whines that the question is "difficult" holy shit I was funing. He loses the court case obviously but frankly I am mad that (and I know that TNG isn't this show) nobody shot him in the head with a phaser.

 

So I was just on SLS yelling at some lib that was complaining that the sub is not targeted at libs, but was actually left on left infighting because we "didn't propose solutions and were aggressive toward pro Kamala posters" or whatever.

When it started getting circular I reported them for genocide apologism and they quit responding (I assume they caught a sub ban) and then like 2 minutes later I got a permanent site ban for "harassment or bullying" pointing at a week old top level comment I made on /r/bisexual on a deleted thread calling for people to vote Kamala to stop project 2025. The comment was "I will never vote for genocide and fuck anyone who will."

Now I can't talk about ttrpgs or other similar shit on reddit, but that is what I get for communist-posting and nerd-posting on the same profile.

2
submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by TheLepidopterists@hexbear.net to c/ttrpg@hexbear.net
 

Ran The Witch is Dead for my wife and SILs recently.

They played an Owl with Create Fire (Othello), a Crow with Make Book Read Itself Aloud (Cawthorn) and a Cat with (Tidy Clean and Mend).

If I'm honest, Create Fire was definitely an MVP.

Spoilers, session report, includes arson, a murder and some eye stuff

spoilerThey went to investigate the cult controlled village, which was centered around a wizard college full of old men in pointy hats and star covered clothes.

They made a beeline to the wizard tower, Sylvia tried to enter as a student did, got underfoot and he magically burned down a tapestry when startled. Othello eavesdropped through some open windows and learned that some pranksters got another student expelled by framing him for a prank and interrupted an old man's spell causing him to accidentally blast her out of the sky with a torrent of water. Cawthorn made a cork notice board read itself aloud and heard some of the available classes, the honor roll and a notice about the expulsion.

They then fled the tower and went to the market to listen to some human gossip and heard some guys talking about how Steven had killed his first target and had eyes on another. They had weird symbols stitched into their cloaks which tipped the familiars off to them being cultists and of course they decided these guys were probably connected to the witch murderer.

They followed them to a farmhouse where they got confirmation of this so they used Create Fire to burn it down. They followed the fleeing cultists to the inn/tavern and the birds went down an unlit chimney but got soot in their eyes and became tangled up during the fall. The crow hid in the soot when the patrons came to investigate and the owl but someone's finger off when they tried to grab him. The cat used the resulting commotion to sneak in the back when someone ran into the kitchen from outside and the the familiars met up near the main room to kitchen doorway while everyone was trying to help the fingerless guy. Sylvia followed the cultist upstairs and listened through the door as he talked to gasp Steven! Steven explained that his friends at the school got another student expelled and he'd be killing him as well soon. He dropped a bit of info that the student was the cobblers grandfather (all wizard students are bearded old men). Around this time Othello decided this tavern needed to go also and caught some oily kitchen rags on fire.

At this point Cawthorn flies back to the witch's cottage and rips the spellbook page out explaining witch resurrection. Othello and Sylvia lurk near the market and try to listen to conversations to find out what a cobbler is. Eventually they do make out that it's a shoe repairperson and so when Cawthorn gets back they all head to the nearby building with a shoe painted on the sign out front and find the disgraced wizard student there. He's in tears and arguing with his cobbler grandson and they get his attention by making the spellbook page read itself. He quickly surmised that they're familiars and that the witch has been murdered and they scratch crude diagrams in the dirt implying that he's next.

Steven arrives at this point and Garamulus the not-quite-a-wizard flees into the wheatfields. Steven makes chase and Sylvia repeatedly trips him by getting underfoot. The birds claw at his eyes and throat until in a moment when he's particularly distracted, Othello bites his trachea out and watches as Steven dies in owl-terror, but not before accidentally injuring his wing with Steven's dropped knife in an attempt to stab Steven with it. In the distance, Garamulus can still be heard screaming and running away through the wheat. As required for the resurrection ritual Cawthorn takes Steven's eyes.

Sylvia carries the grounded Othello back to the cottage on her back while Cawthorn flies overhead. They do the resurrection and their beloved witch wakes up and heals Othello's wounded wing.

Below are some pictures of character sheets, the village map and some notes I took during the session (most of them are the names the players came up with for the expelled wizard when they couldn't remember his actual name).

Overall we had a great time, good way to spend what would have been the time for our normal game when a few players were out of town.

Edit: also we used these little plastic ducks to track danger and also the location in the village our intrepid heroes were at.

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