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NSFW but...
-If a superhero has unlimited endurance but not super speed, does that also mean it takes them longer to uh...get a release? Would super strength turn into a Bella/Edward bruisefest? (Ugh, I made a twilight reference.) If Flash has super speed AND endless endurance, isn't he basically a human vibrator?
-If I were to fall for any superhero, I would chose between Wolverine and Oliver Queen from Arrow.
EDIT: Given my second point, maybe Flash should make the list but he's so...blah. Other than Captain America and Superman, he's the most boring character ever.
(Spinesreach): Xiuhcoatl says, "Oh man, grab the children-corn. This is gonna be good."
Wolverine is the choice, but not the Hugh Jackman version. Got to pick the small harry man version. XD
Also, I don't think endurance and release are connected. There's a play called 'Sex Lives of Super Heroes' that's this and a romance between nerds.
I'll set it up into tl;dr spoilers so you don't have to read what you don't want to read. You don't have to read anything at all. This is for me. I'm taking a deep breath and making a holler into the internet void for a second.
The Beginning - Depressing Shit
They came thundering back two years ago. My doctor chose to prescribe imitrex and it worked for a while but then I was getting more. I was given to a neurologist. I was MRI'd. Nothing was found, prescriptions were changed and mgs upped. Imitrex stayed.
Fast forward. 2018. 18-20 migraines a month easy. My life is determining which cocktail of pain meds will get me from bed to work and back. That sentence is such a mild way to describe the amount of pain I was in on any given day you talked/talk to me. I don't even know how to describe to a person with any accuracy honestly. My body is a deceitful bitch and my brainbox, in which I live, wishes mightily to evict its only occupant (me). I switch to a new doctor.
Changes are Afoot, Medically!
THE DISCOVERY
The above paragraph makes me officially tear up. I have never been Addicted (official A) to anything in my life. (Aetolia excluded). I need to wean off, but I don't know how to wean off, because weaning off means triggering migraines, which I am fighting to avoid and what I was explaining above WASN'T a migraine, it was just a 'shit sucks man, haven't had an imitrex in a while' feeling. I've had that before, too. This is just the first time I've recognized it as not the beginning of a migraine like I thought it was and is in fact a symptom of withdrawal (why does withdrawal have an extra A in it that is dumb).
I know what I need to do. I know what I HAVE To do. I don't know WHEN I SHOULD do it so as to not hurt a body already going through system shocks as we play system Tetris.
STUBBORN PATH OR SMART PATH
Do I give substance to body in increasingly small doses until I'm not doing that anymore and then in the future use it sparingly if at all.
I'm not sure if we've spoken before, but I am fairly open about the fact that my spine is pretty heavily damaged and I have a lot of issues with it. I have been on some really intense pain killers before, and I have been horribly addicted to a couple of them, in the physical sense.
I don't use drugs recreationally very much, and I'm not usually fond of being high - only really when I want to be, do I want to be. Funny how that works.
So I'm not sure about what degree of mental dependence you have on these drugs, apart from the effects they are meant to have. But, here is some advice that is based off my experience and the assumption that you are not someone who needs the high:
Do not just take the drug you're addicted to as well as the other medicine! The new drug might conflict with it and put you (further) in hospital. Check with a doctor first.
Cold turkey is fast and effective and a bad time.
I would spend a few days, a few awful days, on no drugs at all, when I was stopping or changing a prescription. It was painful and sickening and a few times there were embarrassing moments from my body deciding it wasn't listening to my brain. There were tears and snot and mood swings, but even for things I was quite addicted to, this never took me longer than a week. Usually around 3 days. If you want the addiction GONE, then the withdrawal can be worth the faster process. Only do this AFTER letting your doctor know, because shit can happen, and only if you can say "Okay, brb life, need to go do stuff". If you have responsibilities that you can't back out of for a little bit, then do something more gradual, because if you're as addicted as you say, you are not going to be super functional.
Weaning is slow and not as awful but can lead to your condition being more of a dick.
Weaning lets you function, even if you're not exactly happy about it. It's slower, so the 'effectiveness' of your treatments might be compromised during the switch. Expect crabbiness, irritation. If you spend a lot of time with someone, you might end up having a blue because, at least in my experience, you'll WANT to start something. If you have a close family or a life partner, you might want to let them know that you're not going to be a basket of sunshine for a little while. However, you do have to TRY to live normally, and it can take take a lot of effort some days. That's the price of weaning. Cold turkey sucks more, but at least you can give in and cry and be useless while you kick the addiction. Weaning gives you enough control that you're still going to have your actions reflect on you, because you'll have more control.
This is not a decision you should make on your own. I am (and was even more so during the thick of it) a young and otherwise healthy man. I could handle a lot of medical backlash from withdrawal and was entirely in care, so it didn't matter if I was out of commission for a while longer than expected. Speak to your doctor about it. This is obvious advice, but when it comes to pharmaceuticals, the only person who could and can predict my reactions to prescription changes better than me is my GP. I know him pretty well, he knows me fairly well. I've been seeing him for 7 years, so he can tell these things. If you don't know your GP that well, then a second opinion doesn't hurt, but with this kind of thing, I have to advise you to value their thoughts more than your own.
I hope this helps, and if you need someone to complain to about withdrawal symptoms, feel free to shoot me a message. It's gross and sometimes embarrassing to talk about to someone who hasn't also been through it, so yeah.
Do you ever wonder if a midget gets pissed off because there's no shorter toilets and they possibly have to jump/climb to get atop a toilet??
Does an increase in hype, and therefore expectations, have an inverse effect on the perceived quality of a product? If so, where is the line? At what point does hype start to become unhelpful, or even harmful?
Cute-Kelli by @Sessizlik.
-I don’t understand why people enjoy the chronicles of Narnia. I love CS Lewis as a writer and a theologian but man, Narnia was bland as white bread.
-I like 90 Day Fiancé. I’m still not sure why. It could be because it’s like rubbernecking a car wreck.
-Risk board game > all
-I’m still convinced that 2009 Enorian was- and still would be- the best city to role play in. It had an active god in Arion that championed it and made it immersive. It had a player driven, moral zealot center that encouraged conflict so the org felt like it had purpose and dimension. I could go on and on but A+. Sibatti’s Duiran is a close second for much the same reasons. Republican Spinesreach is okay.
EDITED: For nuance
(Spinesreach): Xiuhcoatl says, "Oh man, grab the children-corn. This is gonna be good."
Man I still think about this all the time. I played in Sibatti Duiran too and it was...not nearly as much fun if you weren't in the core group, and man the Bahkatu sure weren't, but there was a distinct sense of purpose.
Moirean Carnifex/Spinesreach is the most fun I've ever had in an IRE game, because everything had a purpose - even if it was just some crazy thing Moirean felt like doing that day. But I sure don't have the energy to be her, and I don't think any players do- her specific brand of mania was something spectacular, though admittedly double-edged.
Spinesreach as a city though just...struggles. We have excellent players, the best CT in the game, and we DO THINGS well. Like we win events, we do great on the PK scene, we rally up hard for things like war/the Jox event. Mechanically, and player-wise, and anything like that I absolutely love the city.
But once it gets to the lore...what even are we.
Welcome to Spinesreach, show up for Toz and stay for the
Shadow magic that can kill us allThrilling political system that is just like every other cityMilkshakes????- Ability to do whatever you want
Every other city has a reason for what they do. Enorian fights for the Light, and has/could have a serious religious bent. They have IDEOLOGY that drives their actions, and they won't be satisfied until you're nice and IDEOLOGY'D too. Duiran has to protect Dendara AT ALL COSTS. Defenders of the Wilds. That's a great 'why' to get out of bed in the mornings. Bloodloch has a bit of a weaker thing, but SPREAD UNDEATH is sort of the driving force of vampire movies/zombie movies so they got that going. But Spinesreach is very...apolitical?
Ashtan had issues and was eventually destroyed because neutral isn't a great theme for an org. Spinesreach falls short of 'neutral'- we're very much Shadow-aligned. But world domination FOR SPINESREACH is kind of a strange lore bent to do. In a game with no war system, no mechanical way to siege areas or take over cities, etc. what should we be working towards?
Something I have to figure out, I suppose.
If I could have my dream Spinesreach...
- Military dictatorship underneath a single god (Bamathis)?
- - I am super duper not the guy for this, but man that'd be neat
- Shadow cultists worshipping Ohlsana on the sly while pretending to be UPSTANDING CITIZENS OF THE CONTINENT, because I'm a sucker for duality
- Crazed survivalist preppers, hoarding resources before the world ends
I have no idea what would Make Spinesreach Great Again, but I do think we do amazingly for what we got.
I take long showers.
I feel that Spinesreach has a lot to draw from regarding its Ankyrean legacy. I understand the city has mostly evolved from that concept, though I still think it would be cool if there was more focus on the pursuit of progress at any cost.
If you're having trouble with org direction, I'd suggest setting up a meeting with us so we can work things out and do some brainstorming. We're here to help!
At the time when I quit playing aetolia way back then, Ashtan was hostile toward bloodloch and shallam simultaneously. It was chaotic and in the chaos it was very interesting.
By default, duiran and enorian are allies against the ebil bloodloch and spinesreach +snore+... huh? Woops fell asleep! Anyway, it's kinda boring having a status quo relationship with other cities. One thing missing from Aetolia that a neutral (though self serving would be a better description of Ashtan imo) city provided was a force that threw political and moral stress into the mix between the cities and grayed the lines of battle. Of course, this could be a role that Spinesreach could take over as well.
A cool plot twist I would like to see to replace this void is something that forces the cities to have to truly choose between their overall goal or their allies. The only way to save the world is to use the power of dendara but doing so severely weakens dendara as a random example. Or, a tomb has been unearthed that contains something that could empower the bloodlines but it would harm Spinesreach in the process. Something that puts stress on alliances, may create new alliances against old ones, pisses off one good against another of the same tether, etc.
TLDR: Complete polarization is predictable and a little boring. Screwing over your allies is realistic politically and creates more interesting RP experiences.
Ps - I'm not still in the shower.
@Kalinaar pls no we are not going neutral. We tried Spines v BL v Duinorian and it was awful, because those cities usually outnumber us ANYWAY. And Duinorian will never split. We tried, admin tried, it's bad times to try. Gonna be a 2v2, that's just the way it goes.
@Tiur If you want to split it up into a four way battle royale... what would happen if you made a war system that allows a city to attack another city and claim comms as a source of resource boost... so long as they win some sort of skirmish event?
In my opinion, making each city's ruling style unique would go a long way in making each city distinct from the others (alongside some pretty heavy lore drops to give people multiple points to branch out from and latch onto). I have an idea for BL that I came up with, and I'd be glad to share, but based on things said elsewhere on the forums, putting it here would make it difficult or impossible to then use in-game for legal reasons and such. I'd rather not jeopardize any potential plans, since I'd like to see things change and improve, so throw my name in the hat for people who feel like things have just become too stagnant/impossible to engage with due to overall world plot/conflict and lack of concrete, engaging RP.
Secondly, the Housing system could go as well. There's no point to it. Everyone either works for Bloodloch or they don't. Much like any other city. This whole multi-layered organization floundry has done nothing but make people stay to their own circles instead of working together for the city.
Thirdly, I've not really seen an issue of people being sidebarred or slapped because they aren't undead. However, if that is truly the case, get rid of that too. Bloodloch can reform a new identity without the use of vampirism or undeath. As it stands, very few people even utilize Praenomen as a class, so losing said class wouldn't even be constituted as much of a loss, especially since they don't even have a guild anymore.
ETA: bloodloch definitely needs a shakeup in the worst way. i couldn't let this slide by, though...
A clear identity and community is, in the end, more valuable to a broad organization like a city than the kind of mission-based-purpose we're accustomed to. It is something we have seen demoralize this playerbase in the past, and in other games, where their goal is something that mechanically will not happen. Bloodloch will never conquer all of Sapience. Duiran will never destroy all cities and return to hunter-gatherer nature.
The lore is there for each org to work with or ignore as the players choose. We can definitely work on better highlighting if it has been lost track of over the years, although this cycles into other conflict of how much Administrative interference you really want.
Bloodloch:
- Vampirism and Undeath
- Protecting Sapience by ensuring the Pillars of Azvosh remain intact, to keep the Earthen Plane from colliding with Prime.
- Legacy of old Empires trying to reclaim their glory through dominance and strength.
Spinesreach:- Ankyrean legacy, attempts to restructure, research, and regain some of that lost power while at the same time not repeating the same mistakes. (RIP Conclaves)
- Lore-centric in many global events, shared history integral to the larger conflicts through Severn
- Wardens of the Shadow Plane, developing mastery over the element to build their strength and help in the monitoring and fight against Ohlsana's influence.
- Progress and industrial/magical advancement at whatever the cost.
Duiran:- Protection of Dendara, the plane of Life, at all costs.
- Maintain the balance of elements in the Prime Material Plane, now dual-front with Shadow and Undeath between Bloodloch and Spinesreach, and Spirit from Enorian and the revival of the Duamvi.
- Conservation and reclamation of the natural world over the damage the citystate and invasive conflict leaves.
Enorian:As for your points about Bloodloch, the Pillars are not something that's city-centric. They're very much tied to the Teradrim only, and the guild definitely needs to push it as an angle more and bring it to the city, but as a concept, it doesn't work because the city can't interact with Azvosh/the Pillars. They can't visit them (without Teradrim assistance), they can't feed them, Bloodloch can't mechanically use them to imprison smaller threats and feel like wardens protecting the world, etc, etc. It's a great concept I can get behind, but there's no engagement on a city level due to the mechanical foundations and setup, which instantly kills it as an RP tree for anyone but the Teradrim. The concept needs expanded, given more role importance to the Teradrim, and then brought to the city in ways they can tangibly interact and assist with it.
This leaves the last angle. "Legacy of old Empires trying to reclaim glory through dominance and strength" LOLWUT? Bloodloch has an empire? wut??? Who all do they subjugate? Last time I checked, the only protectorate they had was El'Jazira.
@Imvra Tying Spinesreach to anything Ankyrean is about as retarded as the last generation of Ankyreans said the rellyw were. Unless it is hardcoded that my character is actually as mentally inept as they said I was (That's a joke because Emir is special). It always threw me when older Spirean players said stuff like 'Oh I hate vampires because they played a part in bringing about the end of Ankyrean Spinesreach' or something of a similar vein. Any Rellyw (read: every citizen) of Spinesreach should be THANKFUL that it ended, right? Or was that lore retconned? Am I misremembering? We should harbor a bitter hatred towards the Ankyreans. We should have tried to lock Lobyl up immediately, then found out he was from a different time period than what we knew about, THEN we could have been like 'ok we can be friends I guess' but still slightly mistrusted him?
first of all, i'd be completely stoked to see more azvosh/pillars stuff done on the city level. maybe this is a good application of IDEA 1490!
vampirism/undeath (hereafter: VU) is a dead end as an identity with any meaning, as far as i can tell. bloodloch only began accepting living citizens again during my tenure in aetolia, and while i'm sure the exact reasons behind it were complicated, my sense is that you wouldn't be totally wrong to simply observe that the city needed to have a little life *rimshots and airhorns* injected into it. while i can see the city continuing to be the most supportive of VU, trying to maintain the centrality of VU to bloodloch's identity seems counterproductive. a not insignificant consideration here is that, frankly, the dominion is widely disliked, even among vampires. the various vampire mechanics, especially organizational mechanics, absolutely are part of what makes bloodloch struggle on a city level - just for example, consider that no other group has a permanent seat on the ruling council that a single person can occupy until they willingly step down or stop logging in for a prolonged period.
N.B. that i don't want to make this about any particular player, so please let's not slam anyone specific. i'm just trying to observe that thematically and structurally, bloodloch is set up in a way that encourages people to just kinda sit where they are.
the above isn't a full critique so much as a few observations, and i don't really have any good (shower or otherwise) thoughts about how to revitalize the governmental/political structure. however, i was briefly spitballing some theme ideas with @Rhyot (i know it's surprising, but sometimes we both take a break from digging out our respective salt mines), and i think there's a way we can make a sort of lateral shift into something a little healthier for us as a whole: rather than being specifically the city of VU, we take Chakrasul's name for us more seriously (and maybe a little creatively). City of Carnage - or, the Carnal City, united in wanton glorification of physical strength, violence, pleasure, etc. a city whose ethos is: take what you want. this is potentially a good tie-in for vampirism, as well as for any others of the extreme lengths to which bloodloch's citizens go to achieve their goals. it would also play very well into our new patron's teachings. just, like, generally win-win, i think, in that it accommodates the full breadth of citizenry, doesn't necessarily privilege one group over others, etcetera.
just ideas, of course! i do think the mechanics of our political structure will need adjustment to really get the most out of this pivot i'm trying to describe, though. gosh, i really hope we can get some adjustments to our political mechanics.
/$20.02