Nepenthe

Definitely south of you, since for me as a kid the frost would kick in from October and you couldn’t expect snow until very late November/early December on through February. By then, it could snow, but in my experience it was mostly turning to sleet. Christmas was always white and we always got a couple feet.

Not enough to dig tunnels in like my mom used to do in Chicago. The mountains to the east protect us from the worst of it. But enough to make one snowman after another, all with the initial base larger than a 10yr old is tall, until we were all too frozen to stay outside. We could go sledding. We could build protective snowball forts if we took the time.

I haven’t seen the snow for 14 years, and both those times were technically one state north. One of those, even, was so pitiful we settled for a medium turtle on my end and what my brother touted as the world’s smallest snowman balanced in his open hand.

My aunt has denied climate change my entire life up until 6 years ago when I finally got her to admit something may be odd. We were out in the parking lot, about to pick up my Xmas present in mid-December. It was 75F.

I don’t hear the birds like I used to.

Oh no. Kinda seems like we should be funneling money into welfare, huh. Maybe something livable so those that can’t find or maintain employment aren’t digging in the trash? Bad times for anyone who expected perpetual growth.

deleted by creator

My dad would have been a boomer. Guy did have the advantage of entering the workforce during a time when it was still not only possible but even normal to expect to hold the same job for decades, but that and a kid who cared about him were about all he ever had to his name. And then he lost the job too.

He fought hard as shit, but with zero legs up and several of them permanently down, he never managed anything resembling the life he (or anyone else) hoped for, and after he died, the palliative nurse told his remaining family he was better off.

Being born in a lucky generation makes it easier, but it doesn’t guarantee one has it easy. It’s not an age group, it’s a behavior. Not that we aren’t already in the Find Out stage, for that to matter. But the fewer people under the impression all the bad people are going to die out, the better.

Crows can hunt in packs, and they’re known to mob enemies. They’ll even distract otters while another crow sneaks up and takes all their fish.

I would think it stranger if the goings-on of a tiny, flaccid, xenophobic asshole crow screaming crow racisms under some tree by itself didn’t pique the interest of others.

Also, gtfo of my notifications, Enduring. (Pls do not gtfo of my notifs, it’s always amusing to run into you out and about. Hope you guys are feeling any type of better)

He could theoretically whip up a mob, if things were bad enough and enough people decided they were bored. Crowds attract bigger crowds, but it really doesn’t even take a large one to become a physical threat worthy of law enforcement in the…apparently depressingly likely event of.

Though I hesitate to think best case was the intended phrasing here.

Otherwise known as: “what if everyone’s abusive ex ran the government?”

So much for that “stay in school” speech…

Imagine any of this rhetoric was used for issues like black women and their sky high mortality rate during childbirth, lack of attention towards Asian hate crimes, ignoring of natives women murders, or police brutality towards black men. That we have other things to deal with so it’s all on them to fix it.

Historically speaking, it is.

I think ideally, waiting around for The Correct Group to fix a known problem is insane and pointless as fuck. And you’re right, both on paper and with a morality any non-sociopathic 2nd grader should be able to manage.

I also think there’s a substantial bitterness among women that does deserve to be there. We’ve been left to fix every problem we have more or less by ourselves, and had to pay dearly for every inch of it. I say, as we visibly stand here losing ground again.

Women weren’t allowed to vote? Couldn’t serve in the army? Hold jobs? We protested til we could.

We had no public bathrooms, forcibly leasing us to a set vicinity from our own home? We made two associations about it, men destroyed a model bathroom by driving a cab through it, and the idea only finally took hold because of cholera.

Couldn’t divorce? We murdered abusive husbands we couldn’t escape and continued lobbying. Same with controlling our own money.

Couldn’t wear pants? We wore them anyway, often in the face of sustained verbal and physical abuse, until men just got used to us wearing different clothing.

Every women’s scholarship was left behind by a woman who didn’t get a scholarship, found success anyway, and left a ladder for others who needed it. Men aren’t doing this nearly as often for reasons I don’t understand.

The first battered women’s shelters in Japan? Started by women. Australia, Germany, Italy? The UK and the US? All women. The first in the US was a random storefront with an apartment in the back that a handful of women repurposed. It was initially run entirely on donations they got from selling crafts. The police didn’t appreciate it and rarely if ever lifted a hand except to show a dangerous amount of indifference to threats.

On its face, it’s venomous to see a problem and tell someone to just deal with it themselves. In reality, we have done all of this ourselves, always with significant pushback.

This is where we are when the other half of the planet swears up and down they can’t do exactly the thing that we did. Yes, you can. If you need shelters, so did we and we opened them. We were forced to stand up for ourselves if we wanted anything fixed, and we did so.

Now, whenever this comes up, men want us to fix their problems for them too. Especially egregious since a lot of times, they’re the ones society takes at all seriously. They’re the ones with the funding, not that that was ever a valid excuse for us. We can barely get y’all to treat us like fellow humans if we stick y’all in prison for it and even that isn’t helping, but your work is still being laid at our feet.

Every time we so much as suggest men compliment and support each other, they snap straight to whining and explaining it would really feel better if it came from women and what if someone thinks they’re gay. THEN BE GAY.

I don’t think I can begin to describe how frustrating that is, and the kind of bitter anger that it breeds. Nothing is stopping you.

I’ll admit, as dismissive as it looks, part of me was reading the head comment and going, “so why don’t you just…start a group? There’s clearly a niche, surely they aren’t the only one in that entire state going through this.”

We care. Sometimes brutally. It’s not like we can’t relate to what that’s like, you know? But you’re not, as a class, less capable than we were. It isn’t whether we morally should, it’s the constant allegation that men’s problems MUST belong to us and no one else. Along with also our problems, also usually courtesy of the same men.

This was never the kind of thread to be writing shit like this. Certainly not suicide, I have a military buddy who’s the last one standing out of his entire squad, that all committed suicide, and he won’t goddamn go to therapy.

But the experience, as always, of begging men to do anything at all to fix any issue they are having is. Maddening.

Are you suggesting that Belgium may counter-rule that any adult stepping foot in their borders automatically loses Jordanian nationality, in direct opposition to the latter country’s own internationally recognized laws and to the immediate detriment of Belgium?

…Sure, that might as well happen. Nothing else makes any sense on this goddamn planet.

“Fuck you!” *foreign country forcibly claims you as a citizen* Wait, I think I just reinvented colonization

It’s not especially surprising to hear. Women are raised their whole lives to play emotional support with everyone.

Which is also why all their friends invariably turn into unrequited love: they’re just treating their guy friend identically to how they treat their women friends, but the guy’s never received the basic decency of consideration unless it was romantic.

But men are trained to problem solve whatever they can’t stuff down and ignore, aren’t they? And from what I’ve heard, hanging out generally prohibits anything emotionally heavy?

They’re logically in the same position you are. I would find it hard to believe at least one person among them doesn’t relate. It would make more sense to me to wonder if they just…have no idea how to be supportive. A distressing number of grown men can’t even put a name to their feelings beyond “sad” and “pissed off.”

What do they do if you just…tell them you feel like that? A friend who doesn’t care to address what you’re going through or to rectify that kind of relationship disconnect when it’s brought up isn’t really a friend. Maybe an acquaintance at best.

Fantastic. That had to be so painful for the rest of the party to watch.

May I also have a D&D story and/or perhaps a picture of some woodworking about which you are proud? Or one which you have at least failed at hard enough to be funny?

I love listening to people talk about their hobbies. I may not understand a third of it, but the passionate energy someone gets when they’re all excited is contagious

Which seems to be what they’re taking advantage of here. Palestinians currently fall under Jordan’s nationality laws, which dictate that

Individuals born to a Jordanian father are automatically Jordanian nationals at birth regardless of birthplace. The status is not transferrable by descent to children of Jordanian mothers unless the fathers are stateless or their nationalities are unknown. For nationality purposes, Palestinian fathers are never recognized as stateless whether they hold citizenship of any state or not.

From my limited understanding, purely because they are the children of Palestinian refugees, Belgium can’t make them stateless.

Well. That will teach me not to scroll before reading the article. Thought everyone was real chill about strip searching Belgian kids for some reason.

What the fuck, by the way. What are they even trying to accomplish aside from A Racism? The kid’s parents being refugees, they still retain indefinite residency with an option for citizenship down the line.

The child itself would be growing up there for at least a few years and could do the same once they hit adulthood. They’re still able to reunite with family like the Foreigners’ Office is complaining about.

I could see closing a loophole for anchor babies even if I don’t entirely approve of such, but this is brazenly, solely Palestinians?

Unless they were born or raised with empathy, which is an obvious no, nothing bad happens to them if they’re terrible. A ton of enjoyable things happen, even.

At that point, you’re weighing the opportunity to do whatever you feel like at no consequence against doing what other people tell you to do for none of your own benefit (the only measurement that matters). Technically at a moderate cost to the one reigning themselves in. Under the looming threat of nothing if you do not comply.

I know the question was purely rhetorical and born out of the same frustration that I have. But I wish we’d drop this weird notion the more humanitarian of us seem to default to, like people who do this shit just haven’t had the golden rule properly explained to them yet. They know. And they’ve figured out it’s currently a farce.

If it were always women doing it and predictably always women throwing a fit when abuse were talked about? Yeah. Next question.

I’ll admit, there have been multiple times recently I’ve started to wonder if he’s somehow a pod person. And he’s…certainly one to speak, as a national representative.

But as much as it irks me, I’d rather admit to common ground than find myself sacrificing my own morals on the basis that I don’t like who said it.

It can be a little stressful even for me. And yes, the inventory management is atrocious btw, it’s a common complaint.

Like someone else mentioned, you can always pay a little to respec if you find out a character doesn’t have the stats to do what you’re wanting/what they’re built to do. That does require gold, and it is something that needs to be read up on and ultimately taken for a test ride to see if it’s even fun for you. That many options can feel really daunting.

But I think with enough cleverness, the game can be won with almost anything. Just last night, I watched a playthrough of a guy who had challenged himself to beat the game without killing anyone or manipulating anyone else to kill them for him, and he did it.

Whole game. The only NPC he had no way around personally harming could still be knocked out and left alive. He tricked the end boss into murdering itself through careful use of explosive barrels and he himself never fired a shot — a super cheesy fighting tactic common enough that the term “barrelmancy” is a thing.

I’m not gonna say there won’t be reloads, but there are a multitude of ways to handle most if not all altercations. Some things can be talked out of, or allies sought to help.

If not, it could be a huge, horrible fight taken head-on for the awful fun of it, or you could sneak up and thunderwave them into a hole and be done with it. Covertly poison the lot. Command them to drop their own weapon and then take it, and giggle while they flail their fists at you. Cast light on the guy with a sun sensitivity and laugh harder at their own personal hell.

You could sneak around back and take the high ground, triggering the battle by firing the first shot from a vantage point the enemy will take 4 rounds to reach through strategically placed magical spikes.

I passed one particularly worrying trial by just turning the most powerful opponent into a sheep until every other enemy was dead and I could gang up on them. Cleared another fight sitting entirely in the rafters where they had trouble hitting me, and shoved them to their death when one found a way up.

Going straight into a battle is the most expected way to do it, but there are usually shenanigans that can be played, is what I’m saying. Accept with grace the attempts that don’t work. If the rules of engagement seem unfair, change the rules.

If it helps any, the game does also reward xp fairly generously. Just reaching new/hidden areas grants a little bit, to say nothing of side quests.

That guy I was talking about, the one that finished with zero kills, ended the game at level 10. The level cap is 12. That was all just wandering around, doing stuff that didn’t require fighting.

Know which stat each class mainly uses and focus on that. Do not make the mages wear armor, it is not a happy fun experience. Beyond that, be clever and moderately lucky with your cleverness. You’ll be fine.

It’s a lot to get used to and does take time to be familiar with all your options, but I started out not very far above where you sound like you are. You do get used to it if you take your time, and I’m certain most people would be overjoyed to help.

I’m not so sure. I’ve not played the first two to be able to measure between them, but I do recall thinking that if I hadn’t been so into watching videos of other peoples’ dnd campaigns, I would be so helplessly far out of my depth.

As it was, I was already struggling a little bit with which class was best for my likely playstyle. Who can use what armor, why, and what happens when they don’t. What skills go with what stats. The general info they don’t have a need to go over when you’re not the one at the table.

Those aren’t things OP would know enough about to even know they don’t know, so I’m glad they have someone helping them. I don’t consider myself anything remotely resembling intelligent and they’re starting out with less. For being easily one of the best things I’ve played in years, it would feel impossibly daunting for a noob

What if all the apostles were buried alive