#i hate bureaucracy

[journeytothewestresearch]

Immortals vs Earthly Bureaucracy

In chapter 88 of JTTW, Sun Wukong, Zhu Bajie, and Sha Wujing take three Indian princes as martial arts students. Monkey goes on to perform a ritual in which he bestows them with superstrength and likely some form of immortality.

Someone recently asked me why the monstrous pilgrims would take human disciples in the first place. Well, this is the result of a sequence events:

The young princes are amazed to see Sun, Zhu, and Sha display their martial arts skills while flying on divine clouds.

They tell their father, the sovereign prince, that they want to become their students, claiming it would allow them to protect their nation.

The monarch asks Tripitaka for permission, and he agrees.

The sovereign prince then personally requests that Sun, Zhu, and Sha tutor his sons in martial arts (Wu & Yu, 2012, pp. 197-199).

This seems straightforward enough, but there is an underlying answer that just dawned on me. Everyone agrees, and Monkey goes a step further by empowering the princes, as a way of kissing the ruler’s butt since he stamped the group’s travel rescript, a kind of passport needed to legally travel through various countries (Wu & Yu, 2012, p. 193). Without the stamp, the pilgrims wouldn’t have been able to continue their journey to the Buddha’s mountain.

The humorous implication here is that even celestials have to bow to earthly bureaucracy. 

Fig. 1 - The princes drop to their knees as they watch the three monstrous pilgrims display their supernatural martial skills. Image from the Qing-Period Color-Illustrated Complete Edition of Journey to the West (清彩繪全本西遊記, 2008). Fig. 2 – Monkey empowers the princes with his divine breath. Image from Chen Huiguan’s Newly Illustrated and Complete Journey to the West (陈惠冠新绘全本西游记, 2001). Both images found here.

Source:

Wu, C., & Yu, A. C. (2012). The Journey to the West (Vol. 4) (Rev. ed.). Chicago, Illinois : University of Chicago Press.

[margo-lith]

>call pharmacy, they say to call doctor

>call doctor, he says to call insurance

>call insurance, they say to call pharmacy

[santacoppelia]

It is amazing how something apparently simple for neurotypical adults, such as making a couple of simple administrative procedures, can require me three breakdowns and a month just to have the bandwidth and the time I know it will require from me.

But yeah, it is done: the hydra of changing my legal address and all the derived changes in my work documents is finally dealt with. And now I can finally end the procedure for being registered as a provider for an awful client so I can charge them.

Living with a funky brain in a world so filled up with red tape and complicated systems can be exhausting.

[kreepysheepspider]

[justicegundam82]

Starfinder to PF1 Conversion: Despondaemon

Another conversion from me, and this time, I'll be looking to Starfinder in order to convert a creature from there. I was quite impressed by the Despondaemon (from the Starfinder AP #45, "The Culling Shadow"), and I thought it could have been an interesting challenge to convert. Besides, it kinda represents a very vexing real-world evil...

Please tell me what you think. I think I might have botched the feats...

DAEMON, DESPONDAEMON

Image © Paizo Publishing, taken from "Starfinder #55: The Culling Shadow", page 55

What just a second ago looked like a huge mound of sand surges to life, as two gem-like eyes blink open and a cavernous mouth opens in a terrifying yawn.

DESPONDAEMON CR 8

XP 4’800

NE Huge Outsider (daemon, evil, extraplanar)

Init -1; Senses blindsight 60 ft., darkvision 60 ft., emotional empathy; Perception +15

DEFENSE

AC 20, touch 7, flat-footed 20 (-1 Dex, +13 natural, -2 size)

hp 104 (11d10+44)

Fort +11, Ref +2, Will +9

Damage Reduction 10/good;

Immune acid, death effects, disease, poison; Resist cold 10, electricity 10, fire 10; Spell Resistance 19

Defensive Abilities amorphous, harden exterior

OFFENSE

Speed 20 ft., burrow 10 ft.

Melee slam +16 melee (3d6+10 plus grab)

Space 15 ft.; Reach 15 ft.

Special Attacks psychic warfare, swallow whole (3d6+10 bludgeoning, AC 17, 10 hp)

Spell-like Abilities (CL 11th, concentration +14)

At will – greater teleport (self plus 50 lbs. of objects only)

3/day – crushing despair (DC 14), death knell (DC 15), vampiric touch

1/day – confusion (DC 16), summon (level 3, 1 despondaemon or 1d3 lacridaemon, 35%)

STATISTICS

Str 24, Dex 9, Con 18, Int 5, Wis 15, Cha 14

Base Atk +11; CMB +20 (+22 overrun); CMD 29 (31 vs. overrun, cannot be tripped)

Feats Cleave, Great Cleave, Improved Overrun, Lunge, Power Attack, Skill Focus (Stealth)

Skills Intimidate +11, Perception +15, Sense Motive +13, Stealth +6 (+14 in deserts), Survival +10; Racial Modifiers +4 Sense Motive, +8 Stealth in deserts;

Languages Abyssal, Common, Infernal, telepathy 100 ft.

Special Qualities compression, emotional empathy

ECOLOGY

Environment any (Abaddon)

Organization solitary

Treasure incidental

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Emotional Empathy (Su) A despondaemon can intuitively read the emotions of those it senses with its blindsight, knowing what emotion the target is experiencing at any given moment. As a result, a despondaemon has a +4 racial bonus on any Sense Motive check.

Harden Exterior (Ex) As a swift action, a despondaemon can harden its exterior, granting it a +2 circumstance bonus on its AC but halving its speed. The despondaemon can end this effect as a swift action.

Psychic Warfare (Su) A creature swallowed by a despondaemon is telepathically assaulted by the daemon, constantly hearing voices that urge her to surrender so that it can feed on her. A creature inside the despondaemon’s gizzard must make a Will save (DC 17) at the start of each turn or become shaken for that round. The save DC is Charisma-based.

A despondaemon is a particularly loathsome kind of daemon that, rather than representing a specific kind of death, is created from the souls of obstructive bureaucrats and incompetent pencil-pushers who prioritized bureaucracy and useless, time-consuming formalities over the well-being of people. In life, they drove well-meaning people to ruination and caused avoidable deaths and suffering with their insistence in following obtuse protocol; now, in their afterlife, they have been transformed in unreasoning beasts, since they refused to use reason and common sense to reach an easier and more compassionate solution to otherwise simple matters. And much like they suffocated people with endless paperwork and pointless consistency, they now literally suffocate their prey in their semisolid bodies.

A despondaemon is a direct combatant. It slowly approaches prey or simply waits for its victims to get close, before surging out of the sand and try to gulp down its prey. Victims swallowed by a despondaemon constantly hear the monster’s telepathic voice, urging them to surrender and let themselves die so that it can feed on them and that “the proper order is kept”. In the dismal wastes and deserts of Abaddon, these creatures mostly feed on petitioners, but they much prefer living and sentient prey. They consider people suffering from depression to be particularly delicious morsels and target them whenever possible, using their strange empathetic senses to single them out.

Despondaemons are made of living sand, and as such don’t have a fixed form, but they usually resemble mounds of sand about 10 feet in diameter and weighing several tons.

[hobo-from-7-11]

Man I really don't get how people get their identity stolen, my name is spelled wrong on one of my documents and that has prevented me from getting an ID for the past 3 years

[bethanythebogwitch]

I'm doing some college courses this fall and spring to get additional education and references. I gotta say I did not miss having to deal with university bureaucracy. They were supposed to send me one number I need to set up my school email and 3 days later I still have no number, have been bounded around a few departments, and been put on hold for at least 2 cumulative hours

[gamer2002]

This is why socialism will always fail. While this also happens in capitalism, as it is a constant human nature, succumbing to this companies get replaced by competitors. Because they need to generate profit. Government is a monopoly that earns money by taking it from you at a gunpoint.

[onedaughterofman]

i'm giving up

[margo-lith]

>call pharmacy, they say to call doctor

>call doctor, he says to call insurance

>call insurance, they say to call pharmacy

[dreamyberry]

God i wish my will to live were not so incredibly fragile

[jessaerys]

PAYPAL RELEASE MY MONEY CHALLENGE AAAAGGDKSJAAAAAAASKDKSJDJDJAAAAKFFJ

[raindropsonwhiskers]

.

[edgepunk]

the most relatable quest in The Witcher 3 was in the B&W DLC where Geralt wants to withdraw his money from a bank and needs 125646548 papers to get it approved, and has to waste half a day to get them. I felt his pain.

[wizard-mp4]

I'm stuck at my works office, to be clear I don't work in an office but I'm here because they want me to absorb information from these training videos produced by corporate, so I can regurgitate the same nonsensical trash to real humans who are paying life and limb for our horribly managed services that I technically partake in providing.

None of this would matter to me if I was actually getting to learn or progress my technical knowledge. But the bureaucrats want a piece of paper, notarized by my direct boss and then notarized by their boss, that says I watched a video confirming I know what to do at work.

After work I'm gonna go to the weed store. I deserve it.

[martylrx]

I hate having to fill out paperwork the government should know me by now.

It’s been literally years and they still don’t know my birthday without me telling them:(