#anti troll talisman

[crazyskirtlady]

*Attracting Companionable*

[Programed Psionic Engine (Hypervisual)]

Harmonizer patterned field to attract sympathetic vibrations to your own

Eloptic energy wave manipulator programmed to cancel out conflicting energies that seek to bring discord

[mrslittletall]

Well, here are my thoughts for Final Fantasy 14 Endwalker, so of course there will be spoilers for people who still want to play this game or are in the middle of it. First, I got told that the expansion was meant to be two but thanks to Covid got condensed into one and wow, you can FEEL that. I still don't think the expansion is bad, but it doesn't reach Heavensward or Shadowbringers and I think even the story of Stormblood is more coherent. Now, let's get into the different zones. I thought the expansion started a bit slow, with us going to Thavnair and the Labyrinthos. Thavnair at least had the goal with the talismans but Labyrinthos was pretty much "Hurr durr, the council is up to something but we won't find out what." At least we had the hilarious "Estinien is bad with money" scene and the thought of him having to take care of three very motionsick friends was fantastic. I also had a good laugh at Urianger just collapsing xD Okay, after we got the introduction out of the way, it was time for Garlemald. Wait what, already?! We had like one tower dungeon and we are already going against the big one? Yeah, that is where it is obvious they had to condense the story. The whole thing with the towers could have been its own expansion and end with a final boss against Zodiark and then they could have used another expansion for the Dynamis stuff. More on that later. Garlemald was... difficult. Mostly because of how close to home it hit. The garleans are pretty much fascists and well, I am German. It always stings to be reminded of the crimes of our past. However, I also figured that the garleans are kinda brainwashed and that the rift between Garlemald and Eorzea is just that high. It felt pretty powerful honestly. And then got ruined by Alphinaud and Alisaie being completely ooc! Like when the legatus asked us "Why don't accept garlean rule?" all my thoughts flashed to Stormblood, to Fordola and to Yotsuyu and what garlean rule means. Of course it can be argued that the twins just thought it was just pointless to discuss, but they looked like they legit thought Quintus had a point and I really really wanted them to at least say something. For Alisaie to go "Damn you, I have seen what garlean rule does" and for Alphinaud to stop her. Or for our WoL to have a little chance to say something and even if it was just "angry glare." And I also think the character of Jullus was underused. Yeah, you can feel in the Garlemald part that the story was condensed. We then go fight Anima as a dungeon boss instead of a trial. It was a damn good dungeon boss, but having freaking Anima as dungeon boss felt really bitter. And then the whole thing gets cosmic and we hit the moon. The moon had massive nostalgia, but it felt pretty stretched out to be honest. I figured out in five minutes that Sharlayan helps the Lopporit and well, there was not a big reveal or anything, it was played completely straightforward and I don't know... Oh forgot about Zodiark. Great trial, felt a bit anti-climactic. Nuff said. I liked the optional quests there though. The Lopporit are kinda wholesome and I loved how much they tried despite failing a lot. I also ate the blue carrot and got a reference to Douglas Adams which came back in the very last zone! Amazing! Then we had the second half of Thavnair. That was fire actually with the apocalypse and all! I also liked how the weather reflected it and how the theme was "Don't give into despair" but of course it was a violent cycle. I liked this part. Okay, so Elpis. First thing first, I don't consider the time travel to be a copout. It was clear it was difficult, there was no chance it would work and we wouldn't be able to save the source of the first final days.

And then... freaking Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus in their original Ascian form! Fanservice? Yeah sure, but I don't mind it, Emet-Selch was fantastic here and I loved loved trolling him. Seriously, speak to him each time he just stands around, it is glorious ^^ I also liked to see the world of the Ascians and what and how they were. Meeting Hermes and Meteion... and the puzzle slowly being set together. Honestly, I think Elpis had the exact amount of time it needed to set up and let you figure out what the final days really are. And I had to do the dungeon with trusts and I don't regret it ^^ Loved that they discussed the second boss as if it was their work. However, that Venat solo duty?! Too difficult! I had to put it on very easy and I STILL struggled. Sure, I am not a pro at playing my class, but I at least can get enemies down in proper time and do my part in dealing DPS in trials and dungeons. The orb phase was just cruel and evil, they should nerve that. Even on very easy Venat got to like 67 % and people who bested it in normal said she is getting to 87 %. And that means they couldn't beat like 8 or 9 orbs. Yeah, that is a lot. So, we are done with Elpis, we know the truth and honestly, I don't think Meteion was pulled as the villain out of the ass. She had a proper build-up and it was more a concept. EW made this very clear. Hope vs. nihilism kinda. The second part of Labyrinthos was.... not good. That they changed the upbeat normal music with a song that felt like powering up and we had to listen to it on loop was annoying and it felt so stretched out... I agree with the people who hate the quest where you have to find eight scholars with fakes thrown in. Uuugh... I liked the dungeon there though. And I died a lot in the Hydealin trial.. sorry for failing you Venat. And then... Ultima Thule. I enjoyed this part, especially how the music was building up. However, after the second scion "sacrificed" themselves, I was figuring out it was a fake and they would be back. It still made me feel, so much that at the end I told the twins to not do it! Not you too! Because sure, I, the player, could see what was coming, but my character has no guarantee they come back... I liked the three civilizations on Ultima Thule and what happened to them. The Ea were especially interesting and apparently their truth is a truth for us as well? Eh, I don't think we should just sit and wait for the end and besides, I want to die one day. I want to live a good life and then go when it is my time until I can live another life, even though I won't remember this one. Then the trial. It was a fine one, but I was more touched by the cutscene after that. "Let's go home, Meteion." Just a child having to search for an answer that was too much for her... at least we could give her a flower. And that Zenos solo duty? It felt a bit like "Oh wait, Zenos was there, wasn't he?" At least the fight against him was amazing and not as frustrating and difficult as Venat's. I had fun dodging all his attacks and fight him to the death and even though at the end it was a simple fist fight, as a monk main I had to laugh. I am still good without weapons! Hm, now I forgot to talk about the Dynamis. I kinda liked the concept of "hopes and feelings" as energy. And that is what I think they could have used as a whole expansion. It could have started with the final days happening and then travelling to Elpis and it could have been... more.

But meh, I won't complain too much. I enjoyed the story still. The music in this? I actually prefer the zone music of Shadowbringers. Not that it was bad, but it didn't have the same impact as Raktika or Ahn Areng. The battle music however, THAT was fire and a lot better than Shadowbringers which was too samey. I really liked the dungeon mid-boss and final boss themes and the trial songs and the solo duty songs. Okay, I think that was it. Feel free to ask questions or give your own opinion. If I would have to rate the expansions and ARR, I would go like this... A Realm Reborn Stormblood Endwalker Heavensward Shadowbringers (pure perfection)

[adamburt1984]

Why I'm started to hate football (soccer)

When hearing the word football, or see a football ball, it triggered/upset me. Here reason starting losing interest, I'm a Manchester United and England fan. No glory supporter/fan, even I'm not from Manchester or no reatives there and there no rule on who to support. I'm a fan of whoever I want. Yes, Americans I mean Soccer.

Since Sir Alex retired- Since he retired never think how worse it got and also think it wouldn't get better without Sir Alex. Since then United struggle and likes of Manchester City and Liverpool, it's f***ing frusrated. had five managers and many different players, try get a player that prove the team but need more than just few players. Things are diffcult with rivals getting better every day, it pissed me off. We won three trophies so far and thought when we won something it start but end up nothing. We got Ten Hag, start two matches loses, but won on afterward. I stay away from football, cos upset about the World Cup, when on United they won a League Cup and finised 3rd, there many ups and downs, and many downs. Wanted Kane at United but didn't happen but got three great players, annoyed a South Korea player choose Bayern instead of United. Friendly match was annoyimg and start of new season, we went backward. I'm fed up, want football to disappear. This what make me think how depressing football can be.

Manchester City, Liverpool, Bayern, Celitc, Seville and other clubs I hate- I hate the sight of Manchester City and Liverpool and the word/sound of it. By the time by time they got new owner and then new manager, it took retirement of Sir Alex. Annoyed what change of United and City, they buy United's history by winning treble then they try and Arsenal Unbeaten record and then win another treble or more or four tropies then another four trophes next, worst they be coping Bareclona. By time United return, it be tricky to catch up and City fans say they still the best when they end up struggling. Their manager Pep is a prick when he was at Bayern, I remember him criticing United, there a City fan talk to some United fans why United not doing well cos we buy player that didn't do well, why would I listen to a City or Liverpool fan, they wouldn't listen to a United fan. And then their Liverpool, they seem to catch up, when United catch them up in League titles, they on 20 and Liverpool on now 19, they think they won most trophies then United but believe it's wrong. And their fans are pathetic. They go on about how many European Cup they won, it pathetic. And other team is Bayern, I can't stand abit more than Real and Bareca, two players we try to get Kim Jae Min and Harry Kane, Kane hurt me more. Wanted to see him in United, as I'm also England fan and love to see some great English players in United and Kane is a talisman of England and there rumor of Kane joining United, but United move on cos of £100 millions. We would got him for free if he stay with Spurs (mention them later). corry on Bayern they still on top and they like mocking United. Also got trolled by two Bayern pricks on twitter. I hate Celtic, for many reason, they seem unstoppable cos in Scottish League there not much challengers and they seem bunch of Anti-British/Poppy/English. Also one of their fan in Star Wars forum, one of my nememies in that forum. and United bad record againist Seville, I don't know how that happen. I hat Spurs cos of Kane, they should keep him until his contact finish so maybe United can get him but sell him to Bayern (as they never give up like Real or Barcea). So my hated of Spurs cos of Kane. Don't know how long Kane be in Bayern. Also hate Leeds and Arsenal cos of their fans, Leeds their history of attacking other club players (See movie, Dammed United) and fans are worst, they love to attack United fans when their matches. And one of the Arsenal fan (Bits and Prats, Youtuber) say they gald United didn't get the South Korean player, likw what the fuck. Also hate Real, Barclona, Galasray, West Ham and Bolton.

(Yes Hate maybe string word but I don't care, many say they hate Manchester United. And everybody has fans, so does Manchester United and got hated for many reason.)

Sport Medias- Everybody has opinion but they talk alot of c***, and no interest in them, they're are depressing. Also these fans channel they do tell c***. Same with newspapers.

Fellow Manchester United fans- We may support the same team but disagree on many things, I gald that United got Mount but some fans disagree and blame him on faliure. Some don't believe Ten Hag is the man, can't afford to get rid of him and get new manager and start again and get worse. I believe they one of the reason United faliure, if they ever took over the club from Glazer sure they ruined it. Also one used to called me a glory supporter cos I never went to matches, and mention some from London went to matches (as he think he know them), when I snap back he f***ing respond to support Leeds and say I'm sad, he more sad and should of support FC United or Man S***y. Also United fans' hated on England how sad, sure there might be some but some think they don't believe United fans to be England fans, they think they know them.

Money and Billionaire owners- I believe money destory football, some players cos £100 Millions, one day £1 billions. Also club may unable to get cos they unable to give them their wage, how did that happen, like United unable to get Garth Bale cos they unable to give him wage. And Manchester City and Chelsea are small team then billionaire come in and bought them and somehow tranform them. Even Chelsea no longer has that Oil Billionaire, Man Shity are get worse. And f***ing Glazers refuse to sell Manchester United yankee pricks.

WAGs- Why I be interest in them? And why they a thing. WAGS mean Wifes and Girlfriends of footballers, Former England manager,Sven think it's a gppd idea for footballers to bring their wife or girlfriend for media to follow them and keep away from England team, which is pathetic. When next World Cup, stop bring WAGs still either way, then fans say it good idea well maybe some.

Womens' Football- NOT AGAINST IT, JUST NOT INTO IT. I'm more used with men's football and glow up with it. Then comparing it really p*** me off.

Will England (mens) ever win the World Cup or Euro?- Why is it England unable win a trophy, even have some great players and still no ever near. And some English go for other nation and moan about people not support their local and support other teams. I always go for England, no matter what idiots say.

Memories playing football at school and college- School was worst memories playing football. Never great football player, blame for loss, people try to put my aside, argue for having me, pick last, bad goalkeeping and when try to trackle people say it's a foul. Thinking about make me sick.

Some Players- Manchester United players or not, specially not, there some players I can't stand and totally disagree with, include political.

Haters of Manchester United- Worst Human Beings. Not reason I starting hating/hating football, but they are worst about football.

[misto713]

lol. honestly i thought it would be more like "oh gods there's two of them now!" and then they'd slap sqq with a dozen anti-possession talismans but this one works too.

especially if it tapped into SY's more nerdy side - i bet he'd be able to compose an essay's worth of facts about history, origins, meaning and cultural impact of most of the memes. and SQH would just stare as he holds a lecture about the ancient evil of 'me gusta' and troll face because even HE didn't know that, bro!!

you can't tell me shang qinghua never slipped up before his legenday "wtf" at the immortal alliance conference.

come on! you want me to believe that man never memed at the peak lord meeting, not even once, not even by accident? especially since any memes would be just seen as weird turns of phrase and sqh never expected anyone else to be a transmigrator and to recognize it?

honestly, this is how it should have gone:

Liu Qingge: "...and that's the status report. Bai Zhan requires extensive repairs to its Northern and Eastern gates and-"

Shang Qinghua: *under his breath "Two gates? In this economy?"

Shen Qingqiu: *splutters and chokes on his tea

Shang Qinghua: "..." (゜。゜)

Shen Qingqiu: "..." (゜。゜)

All the Peak Lords: "..." (・_・ヾ

Shen Qingqiu: "Destruction? At Bai Zhan Peak? It's more likely than you think!"

Shang Qinghua: *chokes on air Σ(°ロ°)

All the Peak Lords:

...and then these two dumbasses could have put their brains to work together and find a way to avoid the entire Abyss debacle.

All it would have taken would be for SQQ to actually attend Peak Lord meetings :D

[magic-and-moonlit-wings]

Backstory timeline for ‘Becoming The Mask’

Since I’m Not Using The One From Wizards

Notes: not every Trollhunter will be listed

Eight million years ago: First trollish writing appears. Trolls have culture and oral history prior to this point, but this was when literacy became a thing; or at least, the earliest written documents that survive to the present day date back to this time.

Mentions of ‘Trollhunters’ appear in these early writings. ‘Troll’ can be used to mean ‘a member of the species’ but it can also be used to mean ‘a member of a particular tribe’. 

Hunter Trolls are nomadic and travel alone or in small bands between various tribes, fighting monsters like Nyarlagroths. 

Being a Hunter is a self-appointed job. There can, therefore, be more than one Trollhunter at a time, but there can also be periods without any active Trollhunters. 

The Trollhunters are mostly young adventurers who want to see the world and fight things. 

Some Trollhunters are trolls who were banished from their home tribes, and are taking the only job that allows them to continue interacting with other trolls. 

Some are basically running protection rackets. (“Nice cave you have here. Be a shame if it got infested with monsters.”) These Hunters usually get taken down at some point by another Trollhunter who isn’t running a protection racket and takes offense at the Hunter reputation being besmirched. 

Because Trollhunters travel between different tribes, sometimes they get commissioned to escort other travelers, or go to dangerous places and retrieve magical/medical ingredients. 

Trollhunters begin to be called upon to mediate inter-tribal disputes; if there is a Trollhunter who has saved both tribes involved in said dispute, they are therefore a neutral party that both sides are willing to trust.

Six million years ago: Mediating inter-tribal disputes becomes an expected part of the Trollhunter job, even if they’ve never dealt with either tribe before.

It becomes a faux pas for a Trollhunter to try and refuse a request for aid.

Because most of these jobs are dangerous, a member of one Trollhunter band invents a grit-shaka, a talisman that takes away fear. The resulting recklessness proves fatal for almost every wearer. 

This is the origin of both “Trollhunting Rule Number One, always be afraid”, and the expression “the fearless are the first to die”.

That band of Trollhunters decides to start calling themselves Ga-Huels (“adventurers” in archaic trollish) instead of Trollhunters, so other trolls will stop asking them favours when the band passes through their territory.

Four million years ago: The Ga-Huels expand enough to become a tribe in their own right. They continue to be nomadic rather than permanently settling somewhere. 

Their typical pattern is to move into another tribe’s territory, conquer the locals, demand tribute while there, and then move on to the next place. 

The Decimaar Blade is invented and magically bound to the Ga-Huel leader. (Decimaar means “authority” in archaic trollish.) 

It can be wielded by any member of the tribe, and only by members of the tribe, but only summoned or dissipated by the leader. The link will be passed down to anyone who manages to kill the leader using the Decimaar Blade. If the leader dies another way, the sword chooses its own successor. 

The sword also gives its wielder the ability to look into people’s minds, intended to give the wielder a heads-up to sneak attacks. The “mind control” feature came about as an accidental overload of this power. 

One million years ago: The Ga-Huels officially start referring to their leader as a Warlord.

500-300 thousand years ago, by current estimate based on fossil evidence: Homo sapiens diverges from other hominids.

Six thousand years ago/circa 4000 BCE: Trolls discover that there is a surface, rather than the whole universe being rocks and caves and magma. 

Quag, of the Wumpa tribe, meets and befriends Merlin and Morgana. They study magic from each other. Morgana starts doing research into how to allow trolls to withstand sunlight, on the theory that this could also enhance her Shadow Magic, which is weakened at certain times of day.

Some of the Wumpa tribe form a settlement on the surface, under the leadership of Quag (now their king), and rename themselves the Quagawumps.

More trolls begin visiting the surface after discovering how tasty the animals are. Most trolls do not yet distinguish between humans and any other surface animal.

The Ga-Huels begin actively displacing trolls with territories near the surface, in the interests of claiming the best bases of operation for hunting parties. They start to be referred to as Gumm-Gumms.

“The fearless are the first to die” starts to be used as a taunt instead of strategic advice, becoming “the brave are often first to die”.

Gunmar is born and quickly becomes known as a powerful and dangerous wizard. He kills King Quag when the Ga-Huel attempt to conquer the swamp.

Merlin learns (or remembers, from conversations with Quag) that a Trollhunter cannot refuse a call for help. He approaches the only active Trollhunter of the time, Gorgus the Great, to ask her to protect humans from Gumm-Gumms.

Merlin builds the Amulet of Daylight. Designing and assembling it takes a few decades. 

Because he doesn’t have Shadow Magic, which is necessary to allow trolls to touch sunlight, he cuts off Morgana’s hand and forearm to melt down and infuse into the metal. 

Tethering the artifact to one person at a time and letting it choose a ‘worthy successor’ is based on the enchantment structure of the Decimaar Blade. 

Merlin adds a few safety features, such as the amulet not choosing whoever killed its last bearer as the new bearer; no one being able to wield the sword except for the summoner; and it being possible to steal the Amulet entirely (in case he ever had to take it back from the Trollhunter). 

He also adds a language translation enchantment, so the troll who carries the Amulet can talk to humans. 

Gorgus accepts the weapon and armour, but continues referring to herself as a ‘Trollhunter’ rather than ‘the Champion of Daylight’.

Morgana’s research into how trolls work allows her to create an animate stone prosthesis for herself. She swears revenge on Merlin.

Five thousand years ago/circa 3000 BCE: Spar the Spiteful is the called as the second Champion of Daylight. He wasn’t a Trollhunter before that and does not want the job, but is magically stuck with it. 

Gorgus is annoyed at Merlin for not telling her that her soul would be trapped in the Amulet to watch over and occasionally advise her successor. It is unclear if Merlin knew this would happen but she suspects he did. 

Spar meets an Akiridion, on Earth for reasons unspecified. He helps jump-start her spaceship by pushing it off a cliff after the local humans throw a spear through the Daxial Array. (Scene from the Trollhunters spin-off comic, The Felled.)

The Gumm-Gumms begin to use the Darklands as a permanent base of operations, with Killahead Bridge giving them rapid access to the surface. Killahead is one of the earliest examples of trolls using bridges as portals. 

Morgana experiments with transmuting stone to flesh and back again. She invents Creeper’s Sun toxin and its antidote during these experiments. 

2000 BCE: In the course of her experiments, Morgana finds a way to 'pause’ the development flesh or living stone, and to restart the process later. 

(This is eventually used to keep the Familiars from aging in the Darklands, and the Changelings from aging until they get Familiars.) 

She uses this to give herself eternal youth on top of her wizardly longevity.

Humans begin launching counter-attacks at the less dangerous troll communities on the surface, intended as retaliation against the Gumm-Gumm raids. 

Even though trolls can now tell humans are capable of more complex reasoning than most other surface animals, these attacks encourage anti-human sentiments, so eating humans remains common even among troll tribes that don’t actively hunt them.

1000 BCE: Morgana begins to consider the merits of an Eternal Night, which would allow her to access her full level of power at any time rather than the fluctuations in power that the day-night cycle brings. 

0 BCE/CE: Maddrux the Many becomes the Trollhunter. There have been a few others between Spar and Maddrux. By this point it is more-or-less forgotten that ‘Trollhunter’ was once a job title that had nothing to do with the Amulet of Daylight.

300 CE: Orlagk the Oppressor becomes the Gumm-Gumm Warlord and names the wizard Gunmar the Skullcrusher as his top general.

400 CE: Maddrux the Many dies and is succeeded as Trollhunter by Araknak the Agile.

Late 400s-early 500s, the time period to which Arthurian legend dates back: Rise and fall of Camelot.

500 CE: Morgana proposes an alliance to the Gumm-Gumms, giving them magical items and cutting them in on her ‘Eternal Night’ plan, in exchange for them giving her trolls to experiment on.

530 CE: Deya is born. 

600 CE: A plague ravages Deya’s village. Her newly-hatched brother is one of the dead. The villagers are weak when humans attack, and most of the surviving trolls are killed. 

Deya survives the plague and the raid. Since she is small and ‘harmless’ at the time, she is taken by the humans, who rename her ‘Callista’ and raise her as an exotic pet. 

She picks up their language, but her ability to speak is seen as a charming quirk rather than a sign of intelligence. 

800 CE: ‘Callista’ runs away and tries to find more trolls. 

Vendel is born.

900 CE: ‘Callista’ finally meets other trolls for the first time since she was in her eighties (the trollish equivalent of a human 5-year-old). Her clumsiness with social niceties gets her the nickname ‘Calamity’. 

A series of negative coincidences happen in various places she tries to stay, and she gets a reputation among other trolls for being bad luck. The nickname ‘Calamity’ gradually becomes a more deliberate insult.

Mid to late 1100s: Usurna and Gunmar secretly make an alliance.

Merlin meets a young con artist named Hisirdoux Casperan, realizes the boy has actual magic as well as slight-of-hand, and takes him on as an apprentice.

Although eating humans is still not something most trolls think is morally a big deal, it’s also starting to be more trouble than it’s worth, so avoiding humans becomes more typical. 

Early 1200s: Usurna becomes Queen of the Krubera.

A troll scholar named Bodus attempts to study the Gumm-Gumms, creating The Book Of Ga-Huel. He learns some old Ga-Huel magic during his work to make his book self-update as their tribe’s history progresses. Due to overall troll sentiments about Gumm-Gumms, Bodus himself becomes feared and distrusted.

1200-1300: AAARRRGGHH and Stricklander are born (exact dates undecided) and taken by the Gumm-Gumms. AAARRRGGHH is raised as a soldier and Stricklander becomes one of the first successful Changelings. 

Mid 1200s: The Trollhunter, Tellad-Urr the Triumphant, cracks under the never-ending demands placed on Trollhunters to resolve every petty little problem, and starts working with the Gumm-Gumms, becoming known as Tellad-Urr the Terrible.

1297: Angor Rot asks Morgana for help in protecting his village from the Gumm-Gumms. Morgana responds by taking Angor’s soul and magically enslaving him. She also magically pauses his aging, so he’ll perpetually be in his prime while hunting down the Trollhunters. 

1350s: Angor Rot kills Tellad-Urr the Terrible and absorbs his soul. 

1360s: Gogun the Gentle, the Trollhunter after Tellad-Urr, dies peacefully in his sleep. Gogun is the first Champion Of Daylight not to die in combat.

1380s: Angor Rot kills his second Trollhunter.

Deya learns her birth name when she is called by the Amulet. Trolls are still not particularly welcoming of her, but they stop actively driving her away. 

Early 1400s: Blinky is born. (Exact date undecided, but he is in his 600s in the present day.) 

Skarlagk, daughter of Orlagk, is also born. 

Enough Changelings exist that the Janus Order is formed. 

Mid 1400s: Testing the limits of how mutable she can make living stone, Morgana creates the first Polymorphs; Changelings who do not need a Familiar to take on human form. Because this is more difficult and has a higher death rate than making ‘standard’ Changelings, she only makes a few of them. 

Late 1400s: Deya goes on her quest to punch Merlin in the face for being chronically cryptic. (Scene from the Trollhunters spin-off comic, The Felled.)

Non-Gumm-Gumm trolls learn that Changelings exist. Gaggletacks are discovered. 

Trolls start making more active efforts to conceal their existence from humans, partly to avoid encounters with Changelings and partly because human weaponry continues to improve.

Early 1500s: Gunmar kills Orlagk and becomes the new Gumm-Gumm Warlord. 

Gunmar loses his eye in the fight. Merlin has a vision of the Triumbric Stones being the key to defeating Gunmar, so he gathers them and hides them in places he thinks will be safe until he figures out how exactly that will work. 

AAARRRGGHH internally questions how safe it is to remain on Gunmar’s side, since AAARRRGGHH is now at the same rank Gunmar was before overthrowing Orlagk and therefore Gunmar might start viewing AAARRRGGHH with suspicion. 

Mid 1500s: Skarlagk the Scorned begins recruiting Gumm-Gumms for a coup, intending to kill and replace Gunmar to avenge her father.

Jim, Nomura, and Not Enrique are born, kidnapped, and made into Changelings.(Nomura is older than the boys, but only by about twenty years, which isn’t much for trolls.) 

Bular is also born. 

The Dishonourable Bodus learns of the Triumbric Stones and records that there is a way to defeat Gunmar. Stories about the hypothetical ‘Eclipse Sword’ begin to spread. Gunmar has Bodus and his students tracked down and killed, and all found copies of his work destroyed.

After burning Bodus’ Final Testament, Stricklander reads and memorizes the riddle about where to find the “three forces elemental” which make up “a shadow’s bane”.

Deya hears that Merlin found a potential way to defeat Gunmar and is annoyed that he hasn’t told her about it, but right now she doesn’t have time to track the wizard down and punch him again.

1582: The Gregorian calendar is established. 

Late 1500s: AAARRRGGHH deserts the Gumm-Gumms. To prove himself trustworthy to Deya, he gives her crucial information about the location and function of Killahead Bridge, the Darklands’ main access point to the surface.

Anticipating an attack after AAARRRGGHH’s desertion, Gunmar leaves Bular in the care of the Janus Order.

Deya seals the Gumm-Gumms in the Darklands.

Merlin seals Morgana in the Heartstone and decides to take a nap for the next few centuries.

Early 1600s: Morgana figures out how to siphon Merlin’s magic.

Skarlagk openly turns against Gunmar. Many Gumm-Gumms resent being trapped in the Darklands, which makes recruitment easier for her. 

Gunmar begins mind-controlling more and more of his soldiers. This increases the rate of desertion among those not being mind-controlled. 

The Janus Order beings trying to gather and rebuild Killahead Bridge.

1620: The Mayflower sets sail, with trolls stowing away ... somehow.

1630s: The trolls find the Heartstone and settle under what will become Arcadia Oaks. 

Birthstones which were carried along during the migration begin to hatch. Draal is one of the first trolls born in Heartstone Trollmarket.

AAARRRGGHH makes contact with the Krubera for the first time since his infancy.

Dictatious, who was too close to the bridge and pulled into the Darklands by accident, is found by Gunmar’s forces. He swears loyalty to Gunmar to avoid being mind-controlled or killed. 

Gunmar decides that, if Dictatious was able to survive the Darklands alone for as long as he did, he must have potential and be worth keeping around. 

At the age of 1100, Deya the Deliverer is killed by Bular. 

Unkar the Unfortunate is called as the Trollhunter and killed by Angor Rot before Bular even knows who the new Trollhunter is. 

Late 1600s: Unkar’s successor is also killed by Angor Rot, but successfully traps him before dying. 

Their successor is killed by Bular, who assumes the Trollhunter he just killed was Deya’s successor. 

On Gunmar’s orders, as conveyed through a Fetch, Usurna makes contact with a few Changelings, who begin spying on trolls instead of humans and reporting to her instead of Bular. 

Gunmar’s eye is passed from Usurna to the Changelings to the Janus Order.

The head of the Janus Order is aware that there’s at least one non-Changeling troll besides Bular who still serves Gunmar but isn’t in the Darklands. The head does not know Usurna’s name and has never met her in person.

Bular does know Usurna’s identity, but has never had the opportunity to meet her in person.

Through Usurna, who got the information from AAARRRRGGHH when he told the Krubera about how he left the Gumm-Gumms, the Janus Order learns that Killahead Bridge is now ‘locked’ by the Amulet of Daylight, and the Amulet will be necessary to reopen it. 

Stricklander begins building a fake Amulet on the hypothesis it can work as a ‘lock pick’.

1700s: A branch of the Janus Order located in New Jersey discovers a Heartstone. Rather than turning it over to Gunmar, they desert as a whole, making it look like humans discovered them and the Changelings gutted the base to destroy any evidence of what they were doing before getting wiped out. 

The Changeling deserters rename their group the Jersey Devils, after the local legend.

1850: California becomes a state.

Kanjigar becomes the Trollhunter. 

Stricklander becomes the leader of the Janus Order.

1859: Nomura is assigned to a Familiar. She will later resent that she “just missed” the Renaissance. 

1875: El Rancho Arcadia, the town that will become Arcadia Oaks, is founded. (Year and original town name seen on a sign on the final page of the spin-off comic The Secret History Of Trollkind.)

1876: Nomura, with her Familiar’s family, attends the first ever performance of Peer Gynt.

1877: Phonographs are invented. Stricklander buys one for personal use and Morgana communicates with him through it. All Janus Order bases are equipped with phonographs as soon as possible. 

1900: Nomura and Draal meet and attempt to date. 

1903: The Janus Order finds out Nomura has an ‘in’ with the Trollhunter’s son and she is instructed to try and steal the Amulet. Strickler gives Nomura the fake Amulet in case she can swap it for the real one. 

Nancy not-Domzalski-yet is born.

1909: Carla Fontaine, leader of the Jersey Devils, accidentally encounters her ex-lover Tiffany Archenn, who is still in the Janus Order and thought Carla was dead. Luckily their relationship ended on good terms, so Tiffany is willing to keep Carla’s survival a secret and Carla is willing to accept her promise. 

1914-1918: International warfare erupts, which will come to be known as ‘World War One’ after humans have a second one; at the time it is called ‘The Great War’ and ‘The War To End All Wars’. 

Teenage Nancy probably-not-Domzalski-yet acts as a spy near the end of this war, taking advantage of her youth to avoid suspicion while running information.

1920s: Draal figures out Nomura is a Changeling but doesn’t let her know he’s figured it out. He starts “sneakily” trying to convince her to change sides, which gives away that he knows.

Nomura gives Draal a grit-shaka, expecting him to do something stupid under its influence that can be used to lure Kanjigar into a trap.

Things end badly, but surprisingly no one actually dies in the fallout. Draal sees Nomura escape, but does not correct his father when Kanjigar assumes she’s dead. 

Trollmarket knows there was a Changeling trying to get in, but are under the impression Nomura was on her own, and that therefore they don’t need to worry about more Changelings. 

Early 1950s: Dr Bernie Sturges begins working at Area 49-B, keeping an eye on what the humans are up to there on behalf of the Janus Order. 

Nancy Domzalski has a surprise pregnancy. She and her husband Horace name their son Ralph. 

1970s: Barbara is born. (Exact date undecided, but she’s in her mid-to-late twenties when she has her son.)

Early to mid 1990s: Barbara meets James Lake at college. They marry shortly after graduation. 

Late 1990s: Bernie Sturges is discharged from Area 49-B for questioning policy decisions one too many times. They remain under surveillance because they know so much classified information, and are suspected of being involved in Stuart of Durio’s escape. (Bernie was not involved in that escape but did regularly object to the base’s treatment of prisoners.) 

After several years of working as a painter, Barbara decides to go back to school to become a doctor. 

James decides to get Barbara pregnant, expecting her to change her mind about going back to school once they have a baby, with the reasoning that “this whole ‘doctor’ thing is just because she wants someone to look after,” and “if I ask her not to go back to school, then I’m the asshole, so she needs to feel like it was her own idea.”

2000: James Lake Junior is born. Three months later, he is swapped for a Changeling who comes to be known as ‘Jim’.

2001: Mary Wang’s parents, Thomas and Laurel (names inspired by the character’s voice actress, Lauren Tom), get divorced because they have incompatible money-management techniques.

Laurel is very cautious with spending and meticulous about saving, believing in putting money aside for a rainy day; Thomas expected her to "be less of a penny-pincher" after they got married and pooled their resources.

Thomas is very relaxed about money, believing if you have it then you might as well enjoy it; Laurel expected him to "be less of a spendthrift" once they got married and had a fiscal responsibility to each other as well as themselves.

Once their finances are untangled, they get along much better, and the divorce is a friendly one.

2002: Ralph Domzalski and his wife win the state lottery. They put most of the money into savings but also decide to go on a cruise around the world, leaving their two-year-old son Tobias in the care of Ralph’s mother. They are lost at sea during a storm. 

2003: Nancy Domzalski turns 100 years old.

2004: Darci Scott tells her parents she feels more like a girl than a boy. They do some talking with her and some research on their own, and help her to transition. 

2005: Nancy and Tobias Domzalski move into the house across the street from the Lakes. Jim befriends Toby mostly because it draws attention from concerned adults if a child appears to have no friends. 

James Lake Senior abandons his wife and son. 

Several months later, Jim brings the unassembled bike kit James gave him to the Janus Order base and throws the pieces through the Fetch.

Nancy sets Toby up with regular therapy appointments with Dr Tiffany Archenn, because Nancy believes in preventative maintenance as part of mental health.

Mary Wang’s mother remarries. Premarital counselling happens this time around to make sure they’re on the same page about things like money. She and her wife, Jennifer Smith, each leave their names unchanged. 

Jennifer Smith, a Changeling, puts heavy-duty protection spells on every building where her wife and stepdaughter spend a significant amount of time and any items they frequently have with them. The spells are applied in such a way that you have to be checking for protection spells (or set them off) in order to notice them.

2006: Jim realizes he genuinely cares about Toby, and gives him a spot on Jim’s mental list of “humans to try keeping alive”.

Barbara starts learning krav maga. In these classes, she meets and befriends Zelda Nomura. 

2008: Bernie has been away from Area 49-B long enough that the surveillance is beginning to slack off.

2012: Since James Lake Senior has been “missing” for seven years, Jim is able to have him declared legally dead.

Barbara graduates medical school and becomes an emergency room trauma surgeon.

Summer 2015: Since Mary is about to start high school, her parents finally agree to let her have a cellphone. Jennifer adds yet another protection spell to the device; it’s a good anchor since Mary will presumably have it with her at all times. 

Claire and Jim both attend a fundraiser for Arcadia's hospital. Claire sees Jim dancing with Barbara and is charmed and intrigued at the sight of a boy her age who is unembarrassed to dance with his mother in public. (Idea taken from the first spin-off novel, The Adventure Begins.)

September 2015 - June 2016: Toby develops a friendly acquaintanceship with Eli Pepperjack. 

Jim is polite, in the interests of not driving Toby away by preventing him from having other friends, but wary because of Eli’s conviction there is something supernatural in Arcadia and his determination to uncover it. 

Eli picks up that he is more ‘tolerated’ by Jim than ‘liked’, which makes Eli feel awkward and suspect Toby feels the same way and is just better at hiding it. Toby and Eli never progress past “friendly acquaintances” into “friends”.

Jim and Claire are partnered in several school projects. Like Toby and Eli, they become friendly acquaintances. Jim makes a note of how often and how fondly Claire speaks of her little brother once Enrique is born.

August 2016: Bernie Sturges fakes the death of their current human identity and temporarily moves into the Janus Order base while setting up a new one. (Sometimes Changelings have overlaps or gaps between identities, to muddy the trail if someone tries to track them.)

September 2016: Kanjigar dies. Jim is called as the Trollhunter. Fanfic begins at this point.

[unitatotato]

Magic Chess (before updates)

So I have been doing quite a few Tanks Plays. Mostly Guardian but also Targeman, because Tigreal is real Hacks. 

I also saw someone use Gatokaca with 2 Concentrated Energy and 1 Enchanted Talisman. He was pretty much last man standing with Full HP. Aas soon as he activated his Skill it was 1 jump = dmg + full HP (I can say he used his skill quite many times with that combo of items).

I have a really hard time using Dragons Altar to be honest. I remember I used it in the beginning of Magic Chess, but later on I kept losing with it. Then I see other players rocking with it. So I must be doing something wrong. But it is really cool when you make it works. Your team is full of dmg and shield, pretty undeadly. 

Combo of Empire and Cyborg, is just pushing with the mega tanky heroes on board. Cyborg adding 6k HP is really hacks. But after the updates it is only 2k and 4k hp and 1.5k for other heroes. 

Basically if you decided to go with tanky team, make sure you at least have 1 or 2 strong dmg dealer and place them on a good spot, so they don’t get killed early on. 

The last game, ended up like that because I just couldn’t think anymore and I was half trolling and I wasn’t expecting a win. It became a 5 tanks Team. Ouff for fun facts the rest of the players had mostly Physical Damage, which made me a strong opponent to face. Also only 1 team had Abyss (reduce Pdef.). Is this combo and synergy viable? Probably not. It was pure luck, but it was super fun. Every single face off made me nervous, but it was quite hilarious when you see they only hit your Tanks so I basically only had Zilong to deal damage. 

Guardian - Akai + Minotaur + Belerick (P. def)

Targeman - Tigreal + Baxia (Shield)

Monastery of Light - Rafaela + Alucard (M. def)

Support - Rafaela (P&M Def. + Buff)

Dragons Altar - Akai + Zilong + Baxia (Shield)

Fighter - Zilong + Alucard + Argus (HP Recovery) 

So for Magic opponents you want to get Monastery of Light (raise Mdef. by 80 on all heroes). Anti Physical Damage, you just need to get Guardian or Targemen and Support (sad thing it got removed, it added both 15% damage and 20% P&M Def. and heal by the actual hero). Anyone else miss Kaja from Chess TD? :<

On another note I am back to Epic Tier (solo). It was fun doing Grandmaster Rank. Somehow this rank isn’t as bad as everyone says they are. I mean most of them are real quick to back up on team fight. Or at least they do follow the tank (haha) I mainly used Gatot and Support Roles like Rafa/Nana/Ruby. My friend did Solo Ranking too using only Gord she is also back on Epic again. 

[bralef]

A lot happened this year at PortConMaine - mostly in the form of tabletop RPGs - so I decided to write all about them. This is basically just going to be a huge wall of text of me gushing about the fun I had doing tabletop RPGs for half a week.

Thursday was kind of a weak start. My uncle surprised me by taking me to the new Transformers movie. I appreciate the gesture, but it was not only terrible, but it made me late to PortCon. I’d have rather watched Wonder Woman again. As a result, I missed the DnD 5e session I was planning on attending, so I went with some Star Wars session instead. I played a Wookie Technician. Nothing particularly amazing or awesome happened, but it was fun and funny enough, I suppose. Then I played some weird Spy/Word-guessing game that takes way too long to understand. Me and the guy I teamed up with won both rounds. Finally, I played a few rounds of Lupinball, some (free?) game on Steam. One of those deceptively simple lightning-fast multiplayer games. It's pretty fun.

~~

Friday was great, exactly what I'd expect out of a good day at Portcon. I participated in three sessions, and will cover them in order from least exciting to most.

In between two better sessions was a Pathfinder campaign where we explored some haunted house. It only took a couple hours (I think that DM preferred multiple quick adventures rather than one big one) and ultimately was pretty boring. I played a half-orc Inquisitor. Nothing really noteworthy happened.

The last session I did was a DnD 5e session called the Sunless Citadel. I was a Dwarven Barbarian who I named Beerbeard McBeardbeer after a character in a long-term campaign I'm in (though I didn't roleplay him very similarly). What we were supposed to do was help these Kobolds rescue their baby god or something.

What ended up happening was, we convinced them to let us use their key to open some big important door. Someone touched a magic orb that forced everyone to make a Wisdom save or be feared, forcing them to run right into a pit (where they would take 1d6 fall damage, or half on a successful save). Beerbeard and one other party member passed immediately. The others, including the Kobold holding the key, all ran into the pit and took damage (keeping in mind this is Level 1 where the median health of everyone is like 9). One of them re-entered the room and passed his save that time. The other two kept running back into the room, failing the save, and chucking themselves into the pit again (Beerbeard watched). One of them, at one point, decided to kill the kobold (who had been knocked unconscious by the fall) and steal the key...for some reason. Finally we all made it past the Orb of Confusion and into the next room.

The next room was simply a riddle where the answer was “stars.” Nothing exciting there. The next two rooms were separated by a spiky pit. Our monk made it across and promptly got fucking manhandled by an imp. So, one of our other dudes jumps across. Beerbeard tried to join them, failed the check, and took 9 piercing damage (out of his 16 health). Another party member failed too, only she was way squisher so she immediately went down.

Beerbeard managed to carry the downed party member out of the pit...Right as the imp went invisible. Fuuuuuck. The next several turns consisted of us swinging at nothing and attempting to find the imp, who eventually went across the pit to fight our remaining party member who hadn't jumped across. He eventually managed to slay it, and we were left with a coffin that we were all pretty certain contained a boss. We were beaten to shit, our healer was out of spell slots, and two of us were at 1 HP, but we had already expended all of our (read: one) hit dice. There was nothing to do but try fighting the troll.

It killed us all.

The second session I played was a contender for the best one I played all week. I believe it was Shadowrun, or at least took place in the same universe/system, but was some kind of sequel or successor to it. One thing I really dug about the system is how on-the-fly and improvised everything is, even among tabletops. For example, once per session every player gets to declare a contact. It can be as specific and on-the-nose as you want. For example, if the party's mission is to infiltrate some facility, you can go, say, “Oh, a buddy of mine worked as a security guard there once, he might be able to hook us up with some floor plans or something.” Stuff like that. In addition to whatever explicit equipment you have, certain events or actions will give you “Intel” or “Gear,” which basically works in a similar manner. With gear, if you're in a tight spot, you can say “Oh, that gear I picked up earlier? That was a grappling hook. I'm going to use it to scale the building and get away.”

Anyway, I played an Adept, which is sort of like a cyberpunk monk. A cybermonk, if you will. (I didn't steal that from you JP, I thought it up too but let you say it since I was on a phone and figured you'd pick up on it without my input). Taking inspiration from the recommended suggestions for my character, I made him a wrestler named Red Rooster. “He sounds like a luchador.” ...Well, I did make him hispanic, so yeah, that works! One of my party members was a huge fan of Red Rooster, and another party member, who was a hacker, used Red Rooster’s mask as his online hacking avatar.

We were also told to create fictional facilities in the universe that would be relevant to the session. I came up with Koala Tea, a restaurant chain. I decided that Red Rooster is basically their mascot, and thus all of his moves are named after items from their menu.

We were tasked with stopping a facility from releasing a mind-control potion onto the market. We decided to do this by blowing up their manufacturing facility. Along with Red Rooster (real name Carlito Diez), we had Tuck, a human hacker; Dominic, a shaman who was capable of communing with the spirit world and its inhabitants; and Devontus Grimlore, a troll-kin hired killer who preferred brute force. In our backstory, Devontus once broke into a Koala Tea establishment and, very publically and conspicuously, removed an official's mechanical endoskeleton from his body. Forcefully. This resulted in a huge brawl between him and Red Rooster, that evidently resulted in them becoming friends.

Dominic declared his contact: Siri, spirit of smart phones and information. She gave him a general map of the building and allowed him to open a window of opportunity for us to infiltrate. Unfortunately this also garnered the attention of Clippy, an obnoxious spirit who constantly annoys Dominic and suggests inappropriate solutions to problems.

We entered the facility using automated trucks that Tuck had hacked into. When we got in, we opened the doors, and Red Rooster blasted into the room on his flashy motorcycle while Devontus pulled out a piece of gear he had gathered earlier: A minigun.

Devontus is gunning down machines and personnel alike, while Red Rooster holds off the guards by driving his motorcycle into them and leaping off with a Koala Slider™ Tackle. Shrapnel from a stray gunshot cost Red Rooster one of his eyes, and Devontus gets his arm caught in some industrial machinery (he's a troll, he'll be fine). I realized that he was the only one who hadn't used his contact yet, so I decided a particular guard looked very familiar, even without his signature mask on...Red Rooster's rival, former mascot of Kangaroo Coffee...Blue Bull.

“What are you doing here, Blue Bull?! Dressed in that uniform and using a gun, guarding such a dishonorable facility! What happened to you?”

“YOU DON'T GET TO DECIDE WHAT'S DISHONORABLE FOR ME RED ROOSTER RAAAAAAA” cue the fight, which I planned on winning to show Blue Bull the error of his ways, making him help us in destroying the facility.

I rolled the minimum roll possible, so Red Rooster got his ass kicked. He went in for a Koala BBQ Rib™crusher, but Blue Bull countered with an Atomic Coffee™ Suplex. So he didn't help us...But we still destroyed it, and got away thanks to Dominic timing the mission beforehand so that we simply needed to board one of the automated trucks that was leaving.

We completed the mission, and all we needed to do was get paid. We rolled to see whether there were any complications with the payment. Turns out we were set up, by what was heavily implied to be an elder god. Multiple incarnations of Clippy suddenly appeared and we tried to fight them off. Dominic cast an anti-clippy talisman he had explicitly gained earlier, which vaporized them and caused a dark void to appear, no doubt leading to the one who had set us up. We had to decide whether to stay and fight and probably die, or run. Devontus was up for a fight. As for the rest of us:

Me: I have “Code of Honor” and “Pride” as two of my character traits. Red Rooster literally can't turn away from this fight.

Dominic: [turns to Tuck] Remember us! Tell our story!

Tuck's player: You're assuming I'm still there.

Tuck: [already long gone]

The session ended with the three of us remaining turning to the void and leaping into whatever mysterious adventure it held in store for us. End Credits.

~~

Saturday was a weird coincidence. I played three sessions, and my character in all three of them was associated with dragons.

The 5e session I planned on attending was full, so I went with a 3.5e session instead, where I played a Half-Elf Dragon Shaman. The DM seemed pretty new at the whole thing, as there was very little actual roleplaying and it was basically just filler to get us from fight to fight. Early on I was really bored and tired to the point where I considered making an excuse to leave. I stuck with it, though, and by the end we had had a few fun moments, more from just joking around than the actual session. At one point our dwarf clobbered a sleeping red dragon with his axe...and it failed to notice or wake up.

The DM from the Sunless Citadel session was running the same campaign again, so I decided to join in again and see if we'd be more successful this time. He gave us all potions to help in that regard. This time I was playing a Dragonborn Fighter named Lamarr, and this time we actually went ahead with the plot instead of taking a detour to an optional boss. We agreed to help the kobolds find their dragon baby god. One complication was the fact that we had a goblin rogue on our team – the goblins stole the baby god, so the kobolds hated them. We managed to assure them he was on our (and thus, their) side, so the baby god's caretaker (Meebo) escorted us into Goblin territory. After fighting a big mama rat and her children (made a lot easier by our bard Tom casting a Sleep spell) we stepped into a hallway filled with caltrops. Our half-elf tried pushing them out of the way but somehow impaled herself and fell unconscious. We then got shot at by some Goblins at the other end of the hall, but our own goblin was all “Hey! What are you doing?” and managed to convince them he was working for some big goblin boss. He was mentioning that he'd want to work out a trade for the baby god, when Meebo saw this and went “TRAAAITOOOOR!” He ran back to the other kobolds, who turned their weapons on Tom, assuming we were secretly working for the goblins. He managed to convince them that Meebo was simply being paranoid and that we were being slick by tricking the goblins. We basically had a pass with both factions, and that’s where the session ended.

Finally, was a session where we were all dragons. Actual, literal dragons. Young ones, who had been kept in a cryptid circus and used for entertainment by evil witch bitch Magna. My character was Bar, a clawed dragon who was capable of digging. I don't think I ever actually used digging to our advantage. Highlights include:

The one diplomat dragon we had convincing five axe-juggling dwarf brothers to stop fighting us and actually help us escape.

Phantasmapotomas, a dancing hippo who existed as an excuse for the DM to sing songs relevant to whatever situation was at hand.

“I want to take him out nonlethally. [crit fail]” DM: Whoops, his head popped off!

Blue Dragon tackling the “caretaker” that abused us for years. He survived, but it was heavily implied his spine was severed and that he was paralyzed.

A riddle door who required three questions: What is your name, what is your mission, and [insert randomly-generated difficult trivia question]?

Diplomat dragon's response: 1. [Name]. 2. “To escape this hellhole.” 3. “Wait, WHICH capital? There's four of th- *launched into the sky*”

Arrogant Dragon's response: 1. [Name] 2. “To escape this place.” 3. “A number.” *launched into the sky*”

The Dwarven brothers' response: 1. [hacks door into pieces with axe] 2. [eats piece of door] Huh, gingerbread! (“It's a durable, reliable building material!”) 3. Now THAT'S how you get past a riddle door! [steals Magda's paybox]

The DM talking/responding out of character in Magda's voice/in character, implying she had metagame knowledge.

Magda attempting to turn four of us into newts in turn, and all four of us crit failing the save while Diplomat Dragon was being attacked by clown ghouls.

Us freeing all of the cryptids except the mermaids, because letting them out would kill them and dumping them into the local rivers would wreak havoc on the ecosytem. As one player described them, they were basically Dire Piranhas.

Ultimately we succeeded, and in fact we got straight to the point quicker than the DM planned. This is the same DM who hosted Werewolf Wrestling Federation vs the Vampire Women (one of the most fun sessions I’ve ever played), and when I mentioned that to him he said that, just because I asked, he'd make another session of that happen next year. Woo!

~~

On Sunday I killed some time by playing a few quick scenarios with the same Pathfinder DM, where I played a Cavalier named Alain (horse named Dalahan I think). First we stormed a haunted estate and killed some bugs and a weird ghoul thing. He wielded a severed leg as a weapon, and there was a corpse with only one leg in the corner. Here's a few quotes from the session:

“Can I take the leg?” “You can take the leg.” “I take the leg.”

“I give him his leg back.”

“No wait, I changed my mind, I need it.”

There was a well in the middle of the room with like a million more ghoul things, one of which was climbing up. I jabbed down into the well with my lance, and got a nat 20.

“You see Alain plunging into the well with his lance, blood and gore spewing out.”

“It's like a satanic toilet.”

It was a very short session, but that's good because it ended right when the conclusion of the Sunless Citadel started.

We only had three returning party members (including me), and three new ones. Our goblin rogue was taken over by the DM for diplomatic purposes, as were Tom and one other character. Tom managed to gain audience with the goblin boss (actually a Hobgoblin), and several slaves (read: the players new to this session) were brought out to be used as footstools. Aurelia, our Paladin, tried sneaking food to one of them, but was noticed. A flying mug and a shout of “NO FEEDING THE PRISONERS” let us know how the goblins felt about that. Our Cleric distracted them with dancing long enough for Tom to pick the locks on their manacles. One of them (a Tiefling Wizard whose first name was Freedom) cast a cantrip to make one of the doors fly open to try and cause a distraction, but was noticed, causing the goblins to realize we had set them free. Commence fight.

We were holding our own, but eventually a small goblin woman who had been kneeling in the corner stood up on the throne and declared she was the ruler of the goblins now. This caused the hobgoblins and goblins to fight amongst themselves. Eventually we helped her take down the king and his lackeys. As thanks, she freed the slaves: Freedom; a Dragonborn Monk named Roger; and a Warlock who I think was a halfling. They joined us, and we went upstairs to try and find the baby god: According to them, they lost at least one goblin per day to the thing, so were more than happy to let us take him off their hands.

Tipped off by a goblin’s screaming and severed arm launched from a doorway, we found the baby god. He then unleashed frost breath and knocked down Lamarr and the Cleric, before finishing off Roger with a claw. Aurelia managed to drag Lamarr out, and eventually we got everyone out alive and healed up, after sealing the door shut. Concluding that this dragon was far beyond our capacity at the moment, we instead opted to go after our second goal: finding the source of some magical fruit that can cure any ailment.

We went down a well in the goblin throne room, and were attacked by some twig things (who were easily dispatched) and shovel-wielding skeletons. The skeletons were tougher, but Lamarr knocked one’s head off with a nat 20. We then fought a Bugbear and his pet rats (one of which was named Fang).

Eventually we tied up a second Bugbear (I think her name was Helga) and had her lead us to Bellack, the magician behind the mystical fruit tree. He revealed he was basically mind controlling two previous adventurers as slaves.

Bellack: You have two options: Leave this place, or become my slaves. It is too late to save these two.

Lamarr: But not too late to avenge them.

Aurelia: We won’t be your slaves!

Lamarr: And we’re not leaving, either.

Cue the final boss fight...Which I immediately had to leave because I had a bus to catch. What an anticlimactic end to a great campaign, right?

Fortunately, at my request, the person playing Aurelia actually Emailed me the results of the fight and how the campaign ended:

“So the good news is that we didn't die. You and Roger used your fire breath to burn up the evil tree and we took down Bellack- however after burning the tree freed Sir Bradford and Sharlin from the spell, Bellack's death caused them to either and die. We did try to heal them, but the magic was beyond us. The big tree was in a grove of saplings and we decided to torch the whole grove as the trees were just too powerful. We took the bodies of Sharlin and Sir Bradford back to Oakhurst for proper burial- Sharlin to her family and Sir Bradford to the temple of Pelor. And that's where we ended it. Our entire party did make it out in the end- though (as I'm sure you can imagine) not without more struggling to keep the cleric in check.”

Thanks, Abby. You’re a lifesaver. A perfect way to end the campaign, as well as Portconmaine 2017. This was a great year, and I hope to have an even better one next year!

[deniscollins]

How Hate Groups Forced Online Platforms to Reveal Their True Nature

If you were a Facebook executive, would you ban pages with names like ‘‘White Nationalists United’’ or does this violate freedom of speech on the Internet: (1) Yes, (2) No, (3) something else (if so, what?)? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

White supremacist marchers had not yet lit their torches when the deletions began. The ‘‘Unite the Right’’ Facebook page, which had been used to organize the rally in Charlottesville, was removed the day before the event was scheduled, forcing planners to disperse to other platforms to organize. And then, in the hours and days after a participant drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring at least 19 others, internet companies undertook a collective purge.

Facebook banned a range of pages with names like ‘‘Right Wing Death Squad’’ and ‘‘White Nationalists United.’’ Reddit banned, among others, a hard-right community called ‘‘Physical Removal,’’ an organizer of which had called the weekend’s killing ‘‘a morally justified action.’’ Twitter suspended an unknown number of users, including popular accounts associated with 4chan’s openly fascistic Politically Incorrect message board, or /pol/. Discord, a chat app for gamers that doubled as an organizing tool for the event, and where a prominent white supremacist had called for disrupting Heyer’s funeral, rushed to do cleanup.

The clampdown extended beyond the walled gardens of social platforms to a wide array of online services. The Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi site that promoted the march and celebrated its fatal outcome, was banned by the domain registrar and hosting service GoDaddy, then hours later by Google’s hosting service, then lost access to SendGrid, which it had used to deliver its newsletter; PayPal cut off the white nationalist Richard Spencer’s organization, which later lost access to its web host, Squarespace; Airbnb removed the accounts of a number of Charlottesville attendees before the event, and released a statement saying that ‘‘violence, racism and hatred demonstrated by neo-­Nazis, the alt-right and white supremacists should have no place in this world’’; by Wednesday, Spotify was even expunging ‘‘white supremacist’’ music from its library.

The platforms’ sudden action in response to an outpouring of public grief and rage resembles, at first glance, a moral awakening and suggests a mounting sense of responsibility to the body politic. You could be forgiven for seeing this as a turning point for these sites, away from a hands-off approach to the communities they host and toward something with more oversight and regulation. An inside-out version of this analysis has been embraced by right-wing users, who have wasted no time declaring these bans a violation of their free speech. But this is an incomplete accounting of what happened and one that serves two parties and two parties alone: the companies themselves and the people they’ve just banned.

The recent rise of all-encompassing internet platforms promised something unprecedented and invigorating: venues that unite all manner of actors — politicians, media, lobbyists, citizens, experts, corporations — under one roof. These companies promised something that no previous vision of the public sphere could offer: real, billion-strong mass participation; a means for affinity groups to find one another and mobilize, gain visibility and influence. This felt and functioned like freedom, but it was always a commercial simulation. This contradiction is foundational to what these internet companies are. Nowhere was this tension more evident than in the case of Cloudflare, a web-infrastructure company. Under sustained pressure to drop The Daily Stormer as a client, the company’s chief executive, Matthew Prince, eventually assented. It was an arbitrary decision, and one that was out of step with the company’s stated policies. This troubled Prince. ‘‘I woke up in a bad mood and decided someone shouldn’t be allowed on the internet,’’ he wrote in an email to his staff. ‘‘No one should have that power.’’

Social platforms tend to refer to their customers in euphemistic, almost democratic terms: as ‘‘users’’ or ‘‘members of a community.’’ Their leaders are prone to statesmanlike posturing, and some, like Mark Zuckerberg, even seem to have statesmanlike ambitions. Content moderation and behavioral guidelines are likewise rendered in the terms of legal governance, as are their systems for dispute and recourse (as in the ubiquitous post-ban ‘‘appeal’’). Questions about how platforms like Twitter and Reddit deal with disruptive users and offensive content tend to be met with defensive language invoking free speech.

In the process of building private communities, these companies had put on the costumes of liberal democracies. They borrowed the language of rights to legitimize arbitrary rules, creating what the technology lawyer Kendra Albert calls ‘‘legal talismans.’’ This was first and foremost operationally convenient or even necessary: What better way to avoid liability and responsibility for how customers use your product? It was also good marketing. It’s easier to entrust increasingly large portions of your private and public life to an advertising and data-mining firm if you’re led to believe it’s something more. But as major internet platforms have grown to compose a greater share of the public sphere, playing host to consequential political organization — not to mention media — their internal contradictions have become harder to ignore. Far before Charlottesville, they had already become acute.

In a bracing Vice documentary about the rally, a man identified as a writer for The Daily Stormer told the reporter Elle Reeve, ‘‘As you can see, we’re stepping off the internet in a big way.’’ He saw the turnout as confirmation that what he’d been a part of online was real. ‘‘We have been spreading our memes, we’ve been organizing on the internet, and so now they’re coming out,’’ he said, before digressing into a rant about ‘‘anti-white, anti-American filth.’’ This sentiment was echoed in active and longstanding far-right communities on Reddit and 4chan and adjacent communities on Facebook and Twitter.

It is worth noting that the platforms most flamboyantly dedicated to a borrowed idea of free speech and assembly are the same ones that have struggled most intensely with groups of users who seek to organize and disrupt their platforms. A community of trolls on an internet platform is, in political terms, not totally unlike a fascist movement in a weak liberal democracy: It engages with and uses the rules and protections of the system it inhabits with the intent of subverting it and eventually remaking it in their image or, if that fails, merely destroying it.

But what gave these trolls power on platforms wasn’t just their willingness to act in bad faith and to break the rules and norms of their environment. It was their understanding that the rules and norms of platforms were self-serving and cynical in the first place. After all, these platforms draw arbitrary boundaries constantly and with much less controversy — against spammers, concerning profanity or in response to government demands. These fringe groups saw an opportunity in the gap between the platforms’ strained public dedication to discourse stewardship and their actual existence as profit-driven entities, free to do as they please. Despite their participatory rhetoric, social platforms are closer to authoritarian spaces than democratic ones. It makes some sense that people with authoritarian tendencies would have an intuitive understanding of how they work and how to take advantage of them.

This was also a moment these hate groups were anticipating; getting banned in an opaque, unilateral fashion was always the way out and, to some degree, it suits them. In the last year, hard-right communities on social platforms have cultivated a pre-emptive identity as platform refugees and victims of censorship. They’ve also been preparing for this moment or one like it: There are hard-right alternatives to Twitter, to Reddit and even to the still-mostly-lawless 4chan. There are alternative fund-raising sites in the mold of GoFundMe or Kickstarter; there’s an alternative to Patreon called Hatreon. Like most of these new alternatives, it has cynically borrowed a cause — it calls itself a site that ‘‘stands for free speech absolutism’’ — that the more mainstream platforms borrowed first. Their persecution narrative, which is the most useful narrative they have, and one that will help spread their cause beyond the fringes, was written for them years ago by the same companies that helped give them a voice.

[scnapersonal-blog]

I’ve been in a private-messaging circle-jerk with the Kiwis for the last several days which has grown to about 25 pages

In that time, I learn the most shocking thing: somebody had acquired SRS who should frankly be intellectually incapable of receiving it by differentially diagnostic exclusive criteria.

Cuntster was the one who had made the announcement with his usual gaslighting shtick.

His inability to convince me of the absence of these emotional needs aside, I’ve written a parting exposition to that group today regarding how they even conspoired to sabotage my college entrance, but ultimately, with a context critical not of psychiatry, but psychiatry’s politically contextual use (NobleGreyHorse then ignorantly rambled on about Scientology as if they’re going to save any Aspergians in the upcoming Transsexual Imperium):

: All I really care about is that he chose someone of blood which will spare me of the worst-case scenario fate for when I really need to leave Scotland in the upcoming transsexual imperialist-induced Asperger genocide in the future. Low-mid caste status under leadership of my brother down the line is a fine staying scenario for me. It's the best choice I could've made whilst I discuss with Lennihan this Friday rehab. No, I'm serious; I want to go to rehab (so basically the anti-Winehouse; well, she was a real Jew, lol) and I want it to work, I want my reliance on opiates to stop and I want to be able to stay off them long-term either with the assistance of opiate-substitutes with a view to coming off them all altogether in a tapered fashion as should've been the case all along. I need to contact my SW to see if he has obtained the original copy of my SQA certificate yet from the college which I left having forgotten to pick it up after they'd photocopied it (they didn't make their cues clear in the interview process; that, as far as I'm concerned, was purposeful until recovery of this materialises). If he has, I can look to January options after having recovered in rehab, or, if that takes longer, next year options; same course, same level. I want, as an ideal, a hum-drum, office-going life, uncaring of how that pays -- if it's barely the living wage, well, emphasis on living. A single person regardless of sex can live comfortably off about £14,000 a year. Whatever you have to say about work-shops to be condescending or whatever, surely you should be able to foresee that in my abilities post-recovery. We'll never meet eye-to-eye on this gender stuff. Let's make that clear. I'm presenting as female as we speak, however "poorly". This isn't about sexual gratification or blahblahblah with this recent spurning by someone I misinterpreted had romantic interest for me, I've kind of meekly rescinded into quasi-asexualism-by-choice/celibacy, not because I don't have romantic desires, but in acknowledgement of my compete relationship exceptionalism. I'm self-aware of that much. I wasn't out to get cock. Being female was an emotional need, regardless if you believe it or not. Being remotely close to where my sister already was in her early-20s; moderately well-paying admin work subsidiary to a human resource's department but still in supervisorial role of call-centre staff -- I can communicate quickly, bark commands, co-ordinate myself under-pressure, and think fast on my feet when stabilized but nevertheless pressured, if that makes sense, having managed cults on Skype being my closest informal experience but nevertheless imparting very useful skills in that area, would be nice. The tertiary talisman I seek in particular is a 2-year Business degree. Maybe that'll become a 4-year far down the line, part-time. It's not my intellectual incapaciousness that ever let me down contrary to Cuntster's ramblings. He was on the money with the emotional instability things and why that could be a red flag with respect to admissions. The main problem was that autism-centric support was condescending and frankly disrespective of my new identitarian needs. Autism being a poison to my identity is most certainly a viable maxim; it's an excuse bordering on ludicrous not only for my mother to keep pressuring me to stay on benefits for her own sake, but for Cuntster to patronize me with this garbage about 'tard-wrangling work-shops? I don't even think Mel's IQ estimate would have me performing that work, to be honest. That is the stuff of Down syndromic people and severe schizophrenics who, content with their executively dysfunctional state, understandably want to occupy their time, but completely inappropriate in my functional predicament, which is objectively a bit higher; mid-road between that and a neurotypical on a social level given the right conditions and accomodations. I just need to stop making stupid, random relationships, like with prison gangsters, or with random junkies at bus-stops, and exercise better judgement. How I move on from there is indeterminate and difficult, but I know I won't be applying to the same college twice; Cuntster has made it implicitly clear they're ex-NHS and are employed there now, and explicitly so with the conversations I overheard. Besides, with Beth Brownlee's condescending attitude towards neurological hypermales, a discrimination case should be launched against them regardless of my attendance or not, and will be pursued courtesy of my legal contact. That truly is toxic to your college's environment. Your Business department would benefit from an increased number of autists in attendance for a number of reasons I could cite but deep down, you know them all; you know the studies of female inefficiencies and failures in their integration into the work place; you know how the neurological female at its near-extremes is toxic enough, let alone to when it gets so close to mental illness that you're the inevitable result, @Cuntster. Indeed, since gender dysphoria is one anyway, perhaps an employment tribunal should be launched against you, for, if I remember correctly, you had tried, in your pursuit of a PhD., to get medically licensed, but were too unstable and so pre-emptively disbarred. Wise move on the end of the General Medical Council. Your abuse of sodium valproate has done nothing to change that, as demonstrated in your sadistic trolling callousness here, and your bribing of medical professionals in Britain to support the transsexualism diagnosis and SRS of a testable mental exceptional individual overseas for recommendation purposes (Dr. Haselgrove was one of the psychiatrists involved in Robert Wayne Stiles' SRS recommendations, apparently motivated entirely by spite). The internationalism of psychiatry, a Trotskyist influenced strand of thought owing to the work of the Frankfurt school leftists in the first instance, where catecholamine alchemy is used to lineraize and psychopathize the thought processess of otherwise creatively independent beings (see: North Korea in its natural state, where the only antidepressant is codeine and the only cure for schizophrenia is methamphetamine), shows itself in the permission of a verifiable exceptional individual to become transsexual entirely out of spite, whilst denying their intellectual superior of the same conditional predicament (and that's not a claim of graniodisty: verifiably, where Natalie is on the IQ bell curve, nearly everybody around her is smarter than her and as such he should've never been allowed to make the decision, let alone undertake it; I'm pretty mediocre, and that's probably the best thing going for me in support of proving my stability for transsexualism-ascension reasons) for similarly emotionally fickle reasons unbefitting of the supposedly objective spirit of a "science" psychiatry feigns to be, but fails to embody. Being nice, being superficially appeasing to the sensitivities of psychiatrists, being of a personality type that's likeable, are not objective criterion of psychiatric disorders, but human vulnerabilities in the stupidity of its nature Haselgrove, despite his/her (I'm still unsure tbh; I'm stuck between "masculine cisgender female" and "cryptic-intersex MAAB for a long time", but either is condescending enough) supposed superior intelligence, fell folly to in the final analysis of its endorsement of Natalie Sharp's transition to spite the Cde. and General Sopiya Jangeun, showing psychiatry not to be science so much as pseudoscience in its politically charged nature of use. Indeed, when we see Lennihan verifiably speak of his confidence in persuading either the college in question, or, as he put it, "a college", to grant me entrance to a course, either now or down the line, we see psychiatry's use in a more political than objectively academic, analytical, or scientific purpose; all the more so for the impetuous actions of Haselgrove, who had sought to use its agent Cuntster, whether that is himself, or an intermediary, to try and deconstruct my ego to nothing in what is nothing short of psychopathically backwards sadism which makes the North Korean 49s look enlightened by comparison. Conclusively, this has been a certain adventure in the exploration of the psychiatric lobby's use of individuals to wield political influence in the destruction of "undesirables" in very specifically targeted ways that could be evidenced by strong circumstantial evidence in all cases; the sudden "disappearance" of my record being one of them when my SW either fails to recover it, or MySQA comes back online to show, incorrectly, that I left school with nothing. That will have been a mixture of Fareal and Cuntster's work; it would reveal that their purpose was not to stabilize, help, reason, or whatever with myself, but purely in a long-haul sabotage to destroy, life-ruin, and everything suspected of every self-serving hypocrisy I could accuse psychiatry of engaging in, and evidentiary of psychiatry as a tool of hypocritical self-servitude, for that matter. That's whether Cuntster has tried to appeal to Haselgrove intermediarily, or, has acted in split-differentiated/disassociative fashion, or, used other means in the chain of command to otherwise sabotage my life. "Chukjibop" may well be a metaphor, but it encapsulates perfectly the stupendous efforts of the NHS to destroy the offspring of a paedophile simply because of the primary school logic of "ah dinnae like him that much naww"; a primitive, Scotland-bastardized version of Songbun. I was made to be representative of my father's misdemeanours on numerous occasions and denied attribution of my remorse in an emulation of the emotional torture sustained by the National Socialist Prisoner of War Hoess during his incarceration in the British political prison system. However, "chukjibop" may also literally encapsulate the spirit of the speed and the ardour with which an Aspergian must do things in the future in order to prevent all and any forms of neurotypical sabotage and be weary of their trust of them, using the destruction of my person at every level of my existence, even staging a junkie to meet at a bus stop to appeal to my addictions on an emotional level (I wouldn't be surprised if that was Cuntster's staging), as an example of why neurotypicals must be regarded untrustworthy by Aspergians and approached on wearily, diplomatically precautious and "ten-foot-pole" terms; they are not friendlies, but are inimical to you when their psychopathic masks slip from not appeasing their emotionally faux-sensitive pseudo-vulnerabilities of untempered rage, vengeance, aggression, negroidality, and other primitive emotions only attributable to neurotypical psychopaths, for which it is all they are capable. It is only Monday, and I ultimately have until Friday to go; I'll be semi-active in this PM, but would prefer if KiwiFarms contact went strictly off limits, as articles, particularly in admonishment of how Natalie has unethically been given surgical procedures beyond his intellectual ability to comprehend, and how the diplomatic discussions between myself, LagoonaBlue, and ash_and_stone were misrepresented by Cuntster, need to be composed, edited, and accordingly published by ASMG members of staff; the active ones are 1 editor, as the rest cannot presently be reached by myself due to managerial duress and overload. Even autistic self-run concerns need their own accomodations, y'know. I'm not that delusional of my "powers" or abilities. Consider my analysis of the way Cuntster has manipulatively tried to throw the burdensome onus on me for sabotages he himself had planned and expected me ton combat in chasing for random, at-best-insinuated happenstances like a headless chicken, whether that be the implicit threats on the Farms in collusion with others, or the explicit boasts between himself, Atesh and Brownlee, whether that was in misrepresentation of my politics to portray me incorrectly as too "extreme" for the college environment, or colluding with Brownless to retroactively manipulate past records to include more extreme incidents in-class than had ever occurred in previous iterations of the course. Brady is innocent, of course, far too overworked to have a clue of the conspiracy going on. This shall be copied directly to her, solely for her contemplative benefit, and also to see if she can figure out who Cuntster is and fire him (c'mon, a 6'7'', moderately tanned, post-operative transsexual with idiosyncratic racial features can't be that hard to spot), accordingly.

-- myself, PM sent yesterday, some time late last night

In closing, too, because they had, as we say in the transsexual community, “ascended” somebody with diagnosed mental insufficiency/intellectual disability:

Robert Wayne Stiles is an ethics case. Failing to score above the intellectual disability threshold on an IQ test at any stage in life -- something I can proudly say I've never done even on my worst mark-downs -- is exclusion criteria for surgery, where-ever you are and whatever money you bribe. It demands investigation.

To which end I pledged writing to various editorial councils about it. SRS is irreversible, but the minimal punishment for him should be group home incarceration, and the minimal punishment for those who had written his recommendations with his worst interests at heart should be disbarring from respective medical councils.