Writing practice: Adventurers

Love, bound and broken, dreams vivid nightmares til the end of time

Courage, shattered, always struggling, cannot right the wrongest crime

Rage descends to bloody murder; Hatred forever burns... cold

Atop a cliffside, a group of adventurers waited in a suitably heroic pose, overlooking the next town.   The normal group for such a thing was, of course, a warrior, a thief, a healer, and a mage-- and this one was no exception.  They'd be immediately recognized as adventurers by the town, and the town would simultaneously rejoice and cringe at their arrival.  After all, they were there to solve problems that the town could not easily solve themselves, and yet, at the same time, they always brought trouble with them.  Thieves were the most obvious trouble, having earned their name quite well, but so too could warriors cause mischief, being arrogant and boastful of their martial prowess.  While the practitioners of the healers' white magics were welcome almost anywhere, mages practicing other forms of magic were all mistrusted, because most of them were highly destructive-- while they could be used in constructive ways, so few of the adherents did so that they were essentially unheard of.

Although full of vices, they were also full of virtue as well.  Those cursed with the adventuring spirit were simultaneously blessed with it; thieves made it a code of honor that they would not take more from the poor than was necessary, and often gave to charity what wasn't needed-- indeed, anonymous and questionable donations were oftentimes the only thing keeping some charities running.  Warriors put their lives on the line to defend those weaker than them, simply as a matter of course, and many a town had given one honorable burials.  Healers would work themselves exhausted to mend those in need, and mages would work in the background to protect the people from things best left unknown.  Thus was the world of Ametrias kept in relative peace... and stagnation.

For the village of Hendric in the nation of Masrica, however, the heroes would be too late.  Not that they had any warning... the several dozen individuals that made up the little hamlet went on with their lives, not knowing how soon they were all going to be snuffed out.


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"Kind of a shithole, isn't it?"  "Be polite, they're going to provide you with tonight's meal."  The Knight and the Rogue had the same argument they had always had, every time they came across one of these villages.  Invariably, the Sage and the Wizard stayed quiet.  The former because she was trying to resist bashing the two over the head with her staff for their constant bickering, and the latter because... well, no one knew.  The Wizard never talked.  No one knew what they looked like underneath that hood, and not a single inch of skin was revealed.  Knight referred to them as "the most powerful mute in the world", as a jest-- without a voice, however, the Wizard was very restricted in what spells they could cast.  Still, Wizard had never failed them, somehow always casting the right cantrip for the situation, the weak yet versatile spells only useful in specific situations.  "Hey Wizz, magic us some featherfall will you?  The cliff looks steep."  The Knight shrugged.  He would of course have no problem, even if he fell down the hill his armor and undeniable toughness would get him through with little more than scratches.  And it's not like he was worrying about the Rogue, whose athletic and acrobatic abilities led to many circus related jokes being given out by the Knight.

But the Knight, of course, loved the Sage-- she had yet to return his affections, citing her oath of celibacy, and her dedication to healing.  The Rogue shared his affections for the Sage, but was perfectly happy with using his charms to seduce the natives of the various villages they went to.  It was almost too stereotypical, in fact, and in fact, and the group found themselves considered so generic that no one really remembered their passage.  The only thing really unique about them was that no one knew anything about Wizard.  No one knew his name... or even his gender-- it was assumed that Wizard was a male because almost all mages were male.  it just fit the stereotype that the group seemed to embrace so well.  The group struggled to define themselves and push themselves out of obscurity, but it seemed as if they were destined to fade away.

And then... Rogue noticed the Wizard's response.  A hand outstretched from within the cloak Wizard always wore had a single outstretched finger, pointing towards the town.  As everyone turned to look... it was burning.  Quickly, Wizard started climbing down to the town, Rogue following shortly afterwards.  Knight grabbed Sage's hand, and they all began to move down the treacherous path far too quickly for comfort.  Hendric was not a major town, more of a small collection of hovels really, but where other adventurers would simply skip by it and see it as beyond their help, the adventuring spirit was far too great in those four meager adventurers.

As Rogue began opening doors and windows to check for survivors, Knight burst through walls to rescue those he could see that were in the greatest danger.  Sage began to set up a triage, and Wizard summoned snow upon the village, directing the cold winds of a snowstorm to the biggest of the fires.  But Wizard seemed distracted... "What's wrong, wizzy?  Wolf got yer tongue?"  Wordlessly, the spellcaster pointed down the street... at the being that had caused this fire.  Four adventurers... dark shadows of what they had become.  Draped in black armor, Blackguard's cruel laugh echoed throughout the firestorm.  Baron tossed the coin he was flipping in to his bottomless sack, and took out his dueling blades with a wicked grin.  Assassin, ever-quiet, was already cloaking herself in shadow, as Necromancer's bonecrafted armor glowed with a sickly green light.

"Laven, get out here!  I think we have real trouble now!"  The Rogue shouted to the Knight, as he drew his twin daggers.  Magic blades he earned from an Elven lord, through entertaining him with feats of prowess.  They shined brighter blue than he had ever seen them glow. Warrior's greatsword, too, shone a soft silver, as Sage shielded her companions.  Wizard began making hand signals, and the Rogue and Knight nodded to Wizard's plan.  After all, when Wizard got a plan, it always worked.   Though a mysterious mute who never took off their mask, Wizard was considered the most trustworthy of the four adventuring companions, at least by the companions themselves.  Wizard, after all, would do whatever it takes to both complete the mission and get everyone out alive in the process.  Even if it meant that Wizard had to suffer for it-- and suffer they did.

First up came assassin, striking where she should have been unexpected-- at Sage's back.  Rogue, however,  already predicted the attack, and with Wizard's warning, he was ready-- parrying the vicious poisoned claws of the assassin, and beginning a duel that would impress royalty.  Knight, however, had already received his orders, and worked in concert with Rogue to force Assassin to dodge his blade-- right in to the awaiting daggers of Rogue.  "Nice work, Rowan.  Wizard, keep an eye on the others!"  The two continued double teaming the assassin, cornering her and bleeding her out one by one, as Wizard began to place elemental barriers between them and the rest of their dark counterparts.  Necromancer and Baron were quite willing to simply wait for the spellcaster to waste its energy on containment, while Blackguard marched through as if immune to anything Wizard would do.  And so Sage stepped in.  Her staff enchanted to be as hard as iron, she knocked Blackguard's swing wide off of the Wizard, and released a blast of pure magical force to knock him back in to the wall of lightning.

Forcing Assassin to withdraw-- too injured to fight on-- the two fighters rushed forward to protect their beloved, although the highly defensive Sage seemed to be having no problem pushing aside the Blackguard's attacks even if she could never land a hit.  Assassin slinked away, abandoning her erstwhile allies, as Blackguard found himself cut down by the efforts of Rogue and Knight. But even in his last breath, he grabbed his backup mace and smashed it against Rogue's head, sending him flying back.  "ROWAN!  Laven, cover me!"  "Right!"  The knight finished off the dying Blackguard, as the Wizard's spell ended.  Baron rushed forth with the appeal of a swashbuckler, countering every strike that Knight delivered, inflicting many ,many minor wounds upon him.

Necromancer and Wizard began a duel of spells and counterspells, their quiet duel showing them standing still as Necromancer's sickly aura grew and grew... and yet Wizard never showed even the slightest spark of magic outside.  The sigils and magic words from the Necromancer slowly become more and more visible, more audible... as Baron finally forced Knight to yield, dropping to one knee from his injuries, and Sage cried out "Laven!", the Necromancer released his true spell.... from all around, the dead villagers began to shed their skin.  Even those that were alive did so while screaming in agony, as they had all been marked for death by the Necromancer's poisonous treason days before.  It was to be the first of a glorious undead army... Blackguard the general, Baron the financier, and Necromancer the powerhouse.  Assassin taking care of anyone who got in the way.  It still would, mused Necromancer.

But now with his "allies" killed, he'd resurrect them and control them directly, giving HIM more power.  He would have to thank these adventurers, by making them also generals within his glorious army of death.  And so he did not warn Baron as the first Skeleton thrust its bone sword in to his neck from behind, making Sage scream and back away as she saw the horrors that Necromancer had summoned.  Cruelly, Sage felt blows on her back as well, bony hands beating her as the Necromancer listened to her screams.  All the while, Wizard was stuck in a complex trap that had been lid, and was unable to help.  As her eyes blurred from the pain, Sage looked at Wizard, and thought she saw their face for the first time, hiding in the shadows under their black hood.  And the last thing she heard was a woman's voice...

 "Rest, Felicia."

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Knight was the first to awaken, his unbelievable durability allowing him to see the final part of Necromancer and Wizard's duel.  The bone army had been decimated somehow, charred bones, blasted splinters, and shattered slurries of bonemeal were the only evidence of their existence, as Wizard unleashed spell after spell after spell upon the Necromancer.  Despite the horrors that had been inflicted, Knight could not help but feel pity for the fool, as he struggled to maintain his defense against the onslaught.  How much had Wizard been holding back until now?  The hood was down, to reveal long, flowing brown hair, and in her hands-- and the face was definitely female, albeit scarred up by torture-- was a sacrificial dagger.

And then it was over-- Wizard thrust the dagger in to Necromancer's heart after distracting him with a flash-bang cantrip.  Pulling it out, Wizard stood in shocked horror as he watched the dagger draw the blood from his body until he withered in to a dessicated corpse.  Moving back, Wizard whispered "Rest, Laven." and he felt the tiredness return, and slumped over once more.  Wizard sighed and rubbed her throat, the scar preventing her from speaking without the aid of magic.  It was going to be annoying answering questions from them after this.  But she dare not risk using an amnesiac spell on someone so injured as this.  Besides, she LIKED these people.  And so she began using the blood magic stored within her dagger to heal them ,and sheltered them from the snowstorm in a stone building whose walls withstood the attack.

It would be days of recovery before they could move, both physically, and for Wizard, spiritually.  The use of blood magic on those with evil hearts is never pleasant, and she needed the time to purge the Necromancer's evil from herself so she did not succumb to his own rotten ambitions.  She answered no questions from her allies, becoming mute once more.  Perhaps they'd reject her like her previous group did.  As she sat there in self-loathing, Wizard dozed off, leaving the rest of the group to wonder at what exactly their mysterious companion was.  Knight explained what he saw and heard, as did Sage, and even Rogue confirmed it wit ha subtle look under the hood-- Wizard had either forgotten or didn't have a chance to recast the illusion over her face this time, so tired she was from the duel.

"Personally, I think we should trust her still.  I mean, blood magic is bad but... she only used it to help us.  I think her heart is in the right place."  "Stop thinking with your crotch, Rowan.  She needs to be turned in as a witch... I mean, I don't really want to, but it's the law.  Blood magic is banned."  Sage sighed, and shook her head.  "I don't think she WANTED to use it, Laven.  Besides... we all saw her face now.  She may not have learned it willingly.  She's a wizard, not a witch, and I know I'm going to treat her that way."  Knight and Rogue looked at eachother, and shrugged.  They could always go against Sage's wishes... there was no appointed leader of the group.  They were just friends... and yet that's also what kept them from acting on Knight's suggestion.  "Fine... I don't really want to do that to her anyway.  Rowan, where are you going?"  Rogue shrugged as he headed out.  "I'm going to loot their corpses.  At the very least, we should separate the tainted stuff from the good, and destroy it."

"Good idea, Rowan.  Laven, go help him.  I'm going to stay by Wizard, maybe talk to her when she wakes." The look of utter self-loathing on Wizard's face was more than enough to move Sage.  She had seen that look before... they all had.  Most of the time, it led to suicide, and yet curiously, Wizard had shown no evidence of trying to commit suicide over the months that they had spent traveling with her.  She couldn't help but hug the woman, trying to comfort her in her dreams.  Perhaps someday she would open up a bit more, but Sage doubted that would be today.  Still, she had to try.


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"The thrice-damned evil bastards here don't have a single item untainted.  All of it will make you evil by using it."  "What Rowan means is that it is powerful... but comes at a price.  It increases the bad emotions when you use it.  I've come across this before... nothing good comes of this kind of thing, no matter how well intentioned you are in using it."  "Really, Laven, you have?  Want to tell the story?"  "No.  Also, don't touch me.  I'm not sharing your bed."  "Hah, you old flirt."  Annoyed once more, and yet also to some extent amused, Sage bapped both of them on the head gently with her staff, letting it clang against their respective helmets, steel and leather.  "Quiet, you dorks.  Any survivors?"  "What, other than us?  Yeah, we found one girl in a well.  We were actually coming back to find a rope or something."  "Poor thing looks like she's been down there since before the attack... I wonder what happened?"  

Certainly she was eager to get out.  Cold and wet, she had to sit by a campfire made by Wizard, who had still said nothing to any of her teammates, and let herself be wrapped in one of the extra cloaks that Rowan kept (pretty much for this specific kind of situation).  "Well Jenna, we can bring you with us, at least until the next stop.  I don't think you're much suited for adventuring, at least not in your current state."  "Uhm... thank you.  And, well... I was practicing to be a ranger... then one day, a wizard came by... looking just like... that one over there... and my mother pushed me in to the well at night and told me to stay quiet."  She took a hunk of bread and ate it, a little too quickly.  After a few coughs, she continued.  "I heard a fight going on, and then it was quiet for a day... then everything was on fire.   Then you helped me out."

"So, just like Wizzy over there?  Hm.  Did you catch a glimpse of their face?"  "No... I uh... I didn't really get a good glimpse of his face.  I did hear his voice though... it was... soothing.  Compelling even... I think he mind-controlled the village."  "Hm ,maybe it was that necromancer?  But I didn't find any robes in his gear that would match Wizzy's."  "Besides, he was much bigger than our Wizard anyway.  Perhaps it was an ally of the evil adventurers?  sent ahead to cause trouble...crap.  I'm going to be on watch tonight, aren't I?"  "Hey, good guess, Laven.  You have some thinking meats in there after all!"  Laven punched Rowans' shoulder and the two laughed, making the girl smile.  "I think I'll go with you then.  I don't really want to hang around a village of skeletons...  

"Well, welcome aboard, Jenna.   We'll see if we can scrounge up some ranger gear for you, so at least you'll be able to take some low level contracts once you get to the next town over.  Just... try not to get depressed.  None of us are that good at talking people out of suicide..."  "What?  Oh gods no, I wasn't contemplating suicide.  I might stick with you though.  At least until I get good enough to work on my own."  "That's fine with me.  What about you, Felicia?"  "Yes, welcome aboard our little circle of friends.  Get some rest... you need it.  We all do.  Except for you, Laven."  The Knight groaned, and the group had a good laugh at his expense... even Wizard seemed amused.

Perhaps, Wizard thought, this group might work for me...

Some notes and brainstorming

Bored and insomniac, ergo, this blog post.  Brainstorming ideas about Homestuck, because a friend got me in the mood for it.  As such, this will be a very, very different blog post.  It's unlikely that anything will come from this, but it is a fun exercise nonetheless.

Melissia Solanace

• Mage of Void
• "Messiah of Ignorance", "Prophet of Mystery", "Saint of the Unknown"
• Prophetic visions of unknown events and locations.
• Natural illusion-based powers. 
• God tier powers focusing on reducing knowledge, obscuring things, etc.
• Uses revolvers as a weapon.  Secondary type being daggers, due to focus on practicality.
• Plothook:  Visions of her planet keep showing up, until she has explored it all, and pacified the violence on it, allowing her to grow in to her class.

"Your name is MELISSIA SOLANACE. Today is your WRIGGLING DAY, a momentous day to anyone who cares. Which most assuredly is not you. 

What you DO care about, however, are your varied and numerous INTERESTS. You have a passion for FANTASY MOST BIZARRE, especially for the much-derided BRIGHTHOPEFUL WARGAMING SCENE, for which you collect and paint ELEGANTLY CRAFTED MINIATURES. You like to play COMPUTER GAMES, especially VIOLENT ONES. This is appropriate, because you are described as so FULL OF RAGE that you could make a lower class troll bleed to death through SHEER HATE. Related to hatred and rage, you find other trolls UTTERLY ABHORRENT, and you have to struggle against your BLINDING HATE in order to not murder most of them due to your royal purple blood. Also due to your royal purple blood is your astounding MARTIAL PROWESS, which you use to wield ROTARY CANNONS which also happen to be REVOLVERS. 

With said MARTIAL PROWESS you are surely destined to join the powerful yet wild and unpredictable band of MAVERICORSAIRS in time. Or you would, if they had not involved themselves in one of your favorite literary tools, the GLORIOUS LAST STAND. You do happen to love LAST STANDS and REVOLVERS and related to these you also enjoy a particular, peculiar, and obscure genre of movies called WESTERNS from an alien culture so few have learned about and will NEVER BE RELEVANT TO ANYTHING THAT EVER HAPPENS TO ANY TROLLS EVER. Your trolltag is terminalAnimus, and you type in extremely proper grammar, despising such non-sense as contractions and compound words. You also have a fondness for FINE SUITS and FORMAL WEAR, of which you are unique amongst trolls for your impeccable dress. 

You are soon to wear one such FINE SUIT in a game with trolls you do not abhor enough to consider immediately killing them. What do you do?"

Remaining characters, question marks indicating the most unsure parts are.

Elazarus Skiernos (?)

• Knight of Heart
• "Defender of Souls"
• Protects other players from harm, especially preventing destruction of their dream-selves (?)
• Strong martial prowess, intuitively understands dreamworld.
• God tier powers help keep other players from dying (?)
• Uses umbrellas as a weapon, due to a strife specibus mix-up early on.
• Assists with frog breeding.
• Plothook:  Has to defeat a soul-destroying monster and confront their own mortality?  Seems too cliche, but it fits with what is known about the Knight class thus far.

???????? ????????

• Rogue of Light
• Able to steal luck in order to help teammates.
• Possible fixation on romantic interests (?)
• Uses a staff as a weapon, quarterstaff style.  
• Doesn't likely get along well with the Mage of Void.
• Plothook:  Has to make sure love interest sees the error of their ways, perhaps?  Or possibly has to overcome obsession with romance and give up their chase in order to help the group?

???????? ????????

• Thief of Time
• Steals time to benefit self.
• Possibly quite selfish (?), if well-meaning in the end.
• Uses stolen time to create time loops and perform time based shenanigans.
• Beat Mesa equivalent for performing the Scratch.
• Uses an edged weapon, related to her ability to start the Scratch if necessary.
• Perhaps a hatchet, matching her thief/bandit theme?
• Plothook:  Mistakenly believes they stole the time of a region of their planet; the region is actually "locked" in time, and she has to "break in" like a thief.

???????? ????????

• Witch of Breath
• Manipulates force, "the windy thing"
• Offensively very powerful, can destroy massive amounts of enemies very easily.
• Friendly, but awkward.  
• Pre-emptive dream-self awakening?
• Uses "magic" daggers as weapon (keris/kris/kalis style?), perhaps helping Mage of Void with obtaining a more functional kind for her strife portfolio.
• Plothook:  Must attempt to unlock her "magical" power by learning to manipulate The Breath / The Windy Thing, to clear the diseased fog of her planet?

???????? ????????

• Maid of Rage
• Capable of vastly increasing her rage and combat prowess, especially offensively.  
• Very hard to kill, but has weird shenanigans around her dream self and real self.
• Very polite and nice person, until she awakens her god tier powers.
• After awakening, she becomes a handful for her moirail (Mage of Void?)
• Uses a bastard sword as a weapon.
• Plothook:  Something keeps happening, or several things both minor and major, that eventually cause her to snap in a terrifying murderous rage, which she must learn to control, almost as an opposite to the Mage of Void.

???????? ????????

• Heir of Space
• Has control of size and mass of various objects.
• Stokes the session's forge.
• Frog breeding duties.
• Makes use of a club/mace or shield, is somewhat brutish at least in combat.  
• Plothook:  Clumsy and introspective, the Heir makes many mistakes which hurt both himself and his fellow players.  Eventually, though, he grows to become a very powerful player, making perfect use of his space powers.  Perhaps it is because of the frog breeding?

???????? ????????

• Sylph of Life
• Helps others heal, shares abundant life force, etc.  Perhaps can revive teammates?
• Very friendly, down to earth type, probably enjoys sharing information.
• Uses something silly as her weapon, perhaps a broken bottle picked up out of necessity?
• Plothook:  Has to try to create life from her lifeless home and planet?

Misuse of the term "tsundere"

Yes, I know, two angry posts in a row, meh.  I need a specific reason to post, and I haven't had enough time or money to get new gmaes recently (although someone did give me a copy of Dead Island so I might review that-- the few hours I have spent on it have been quit enjoyable, albeit a bit ), but still-- I'm getting a bit tired of this.

A woman who is a nice person generally, and who says something harsh, is not a "tsundere".  The term and concept for "Tsundere" came about because Anime writer shave no damned clue how to write women, and so they almost always wrote about a plucky girl or about a proper housewife.  Tsundere was an attempt to deepen the female characters by adding one (1) new element of their personality-- usually a mean streak on an otherwise nice girl.  However, it is still lazy writing, because the "tsundere" character is almost invariably very, very shallow.  The term itself comes from "tsuntsun", IE aloof or irritable, and "deredere", IE lovestruck.  And its use goes way too damned far for such a lazy, condescending term.

Unfortunately, Japan being what it is (royally fucked up), and Japanophiles being what they are (also royally fucked up), the term has been used to describe real people instead of half-assed constructs by lazy writers.  A normally nice woman who is groped and tehn gets mad about it is called "tsundere".  Because... what, she's supposed to LIKE having her breast grabbed by impetuous little turd of a man or something?  The man DESERVES the anger.  She isn't being tsundere, she's defending herself from an asshole.   Similarly, if one percieves a woman as a mean bitch but then sees her doing something nice, this also desn't mean she's a tsundere either.   More likely than not it just means that you probably gave her no reason to like you in the first place, or the time you've known her she has been in a situation that you keep caching her in a bad mood due to reasons enitrely beyond her control.

People are more complex than anime constructs.  There are a wdie variety of different personality quirks in a single person, and attempting to define them by comparing them to definitions of pop culture concepts is a stupid endeavor.  Get to know them as people instead, and you'll find that they're far more interesting that way.

Homeopathy is a lie, and other frustrations with modern idiocy.

I'ill just get the first part out of the way.

Homeopathy is a lie.  Homeopathic practitioners are liars, fools, and/or idiots.

Homeopathy presumes to work on "resonance", which is an unproven pseudoscientific idea (calling it a theorem or a hypothesis is too kind, it is neither of these) that chemicals maintain a "memory" of atoms they have bumped in to.  This is ludicrous, and completely unfounded.  If that was the case, then every drop of water we drink would have the resonant "memory" of dirt, shit, piss, blood of various species, diseases, salt, mercury, the various organic compounds that compose what we refer to as "oil", semen of various species, just an incomprehensible amount of chemicals which water has come in to contact with over the eons of geological history.  But it doesn't, of course, because the homeopathic "vibrations" concept is utter bullshit.

Following on that, one of the basic principles of homeopathy is that the more dilute a solution is, the stronger it is.  This is because to prepare a homeopathic "remedy", one puts a small amount of it in water, then shakes it, and then dilutes that further, then shakes it, then dilutes it further-- supposedly making it stronger each time.  This goes against every single basic concept of chemistry.  The reason one dilutes concentrated sulfuric acid is to WEAKEN its effect, not to strengthen it.  And we shake/stir/etc our goddamend H2NO3 quite well thank you very much, you fucking lying, thieving charlatans.

But even worse than that, they also try to claim that they can violate the laws of physics and statistics with their remedies.  Their "strongest" solutions are so dilute that they pass a crucial point in chemistry and physics-- Avagadro's Number.  This is roughly 6*10^23-- once a dilution gets past this point, there is only a chance of there being one single molecule of the substance in the mixture.  Some of the "strongest" medicines are so dilute that there is only a one in a million chance of there being only one molecule in the mixture.  This is equivalent to taking a grain of rice, grinding it in to a powder, and then mixing it in to a pool of water the size of the solar system, then adding the same amount of water a couple dozen times, and then taking a single sip out of that mass of water.

THAT... is fucking dilute.  The reason I rage so hard about this, aside from being professionally offended as a chemist who knows that every lie they spout confuses the scientifically illiterate, is that they're fooling people.  Stealing their money by selling miracle water and snake oil.  They're liars, they're cheats, they're worthless trash and scum, every single one of them, and yet they make millions and even billions off of ripping poor, unfortunate folk off, people who don't really understand the science (or lack thereof) behind this quack system of remedies.  They prey on fears, taking advantage of people who are afraid of anthrax attacks.  They prey on the unfortunate, selling miracle water to cancer patients and ripping them off as the cancer patient suffers and gets worse because of their lies.





There's plenty of this crap going around.  Faith healing, psychics, ghost whisperers, and other liars prey on the grieving, the unfortunate, the suffering.  These aren't merely hobbyists, no, if that were the case they'd be magicians/conjurers, doing it for entertainment value.  No, they're predators.

To a lesser extent, this sort of thing has involved itself in the political system of the US as well.  People believe what they want to believe-- damn the facts!  Obama is a jew-hating muslim who wants to sell us to the chinese!  Romney will force everyone to take multiple wives!  Bush is a backbiting hick who sold the country to private military contractors!  And so on and so forth.  People allow themselves to be distracted by the spectacle of it all, they get caught up in the emotional lies that are told to gain their support.

Doesn't matter which side you're on-- think for yourself, not for your party.  Skeptical thinking should be applied to people you disagree with, certainly, but even moreso it should be applied to those you agree with, because they're the ones that can fool you the easiest otherwise.

DVD Burning is a pain in the ass.

Every single dvd burning software is full of bugs, bloatware, spyware, bugs and bloatware, bugs and spyware, or bugs and bloatware and spyware.  No exceptions.

They all require me to jump through hoops just to get their basic fucking functions to work-- just to burn data to a dvd so I can back up files and save space on my hard drive.

Every single time I try to burn a dvd something goes wrong and I have to spend hours fixing it-- and, inevitably, the customer service of every single one of these programs sucks more proverbial ass than a gay black hole with a scat fetish, telling you a few basic things you need to do, then ignoring you after you say you've done them (or just repeating them, which means they're probably actually forum bots rather than real human beings).  

ArcSoft, Nero, DeepBurner,  CDBurnerXP-- no exceptions.  They're all like this.  Why the hell can't someone create a simple, barebones dvd burner for backing up files that actually WORKS without having to reconfigure your computer a dozen times and restart it half another?

So, I've been reading Left Behind

... I honestly don't know if I've ever read a more abhorrent book, that goes so contrary against Christian beliefs.  Even satanist books offer more for the soul than this tripe-- because even most satanist books don't pray for the end times to come so that all non-believers (and most believers who aren't part of their specific denomination) can burn in hell for eternity.

Yes indeed, that's exactly what this book prays for.  It's not an uplifting book.  It is a veritable "take that" at anyone who doesn't believe in the author's skewed and hypocritical version of so-called Christianity.  And this book is an American best seller.

For those that don't know yet (IE those outside of the US and those with little exposure to evangelistic movements), Left Behind is a series of atrociously written books about a skewed and inaccurate, and often hypocritical, view of "rapture" and the end times-- oftentimes pulled from sources other than the bible.

It follows two misogynistic, homophobic, occasioanlly racist, and even biased against left-handers (What.) "heroes", a sociopathic (and occasionally psychopathic)  pilot who constantly uses and strings along women, emotionally cheating on his wife despite his constant assertions that it's okay cause his pants never came off, and a "greatest reporter of all time", who never actually does any real reporting, and conveniently ignores all of the death and destruction around, to instead go hunt Jews.

And before you forget, these are supposed to be their GOOD side.  For reference, another supposedly good character is a doctor that helps stop the pilot's head from bleeding.  Sounds nice?  But wait, there's more.  He sat there complaining about BOREDOM, while outside the window of the airport were dozens of wrecked planes, the bodies not yet pulled from their flaming carcasses, the wounded not yet cared for.  The so-called heroes are more concerned with the fact that all of this death and destruction is slowing down their travel than they are about the fact that all of the world's children vanished at once, including their own.


And this is exactly how the author says you should act.  These are not Christian books.    These are ugly, hateful, spiteful books, books that in their poor writing don't offer a hand of salvation but instead waggle a finger of "oh, just wait for the end times, because THEN you'll be sorry!".  The emotions it extols from its readers are not the Christian emotions of love, acceptance, and joy-- but instead of vindication, wrath, and juvenile jealousy and hate.

These are the kinds of books the supposed anti-Christ would write, except at least said mythological (and not necessarily biblical) anti-Christ would write a more competent and interesting book than this.

And they sell them at bookstores in colleges around the nation.

I'm scared, hold me.

Duke Nukem Forever

Pardon the shortness of this entry, I'm using a keyboard with a broken space bar, it's tiring to type too much right now.

So a lot of people are really hating on this-- and I honestly can't figure out why.   The game is great fun, it has a sense of humor, it's well paced, has good variety... it's certainly no game of the decade, but it's still hella better than games such as the CoD/MoH/BF series as far as single player goes.

The driving sections which I normally despise, are short enough with enough breaks in them to stay acceptable, the shrink ray sections I wish were more frequent (not necessarily longer, but in more places) but they're still excellently done and played with quite well, the normal FPS gameplay is superbly done, etc etc etc.  The only real problem I had with it was the alien hive, which was just... too dark.  Not metaphorically dark (no, that art fits in quite well), but literally too dark, too... colorless.  Sure the Nevada desert areas are a bit drab, but at least they have an old west appeal going for them, and they aren't quite as monochrome and visually dark and... well, boring.  The casino/duke's hotel was excellent, and I enjoyed the water battles at the end as well.

The weapons are nicely varied, with only the M1911A1 being taken from the real world (though the shotgun is at least feasibly an RL shotgun), the sounds are excellently composed, and the storyline works as well as any Duke storyline has, which is to say, it's an excuse to kick ass.  Hearing duke actually pissed of (and not just dryly saying he's pissed off like normal) was an excellent touch for this duke nukem fan.

All in all... I've spent ~50 bucks on far worse than this.  Certainly I have no regrets, unlike my purchases of BFBC2 and CoD:BO.