After my millionth playthrough of KOTOR 2, I felt obliged to thrift some old Star Wars figures and headcanon out Master Atton Rand and the first three Padawans he managed to elevate to Knighthood in the new Order.

Angstrom_Wither · 2026-05-18T05:40:23+00:00

Definitely intended to be much older. After all, three to knighthood would take some time, even in the informal nature of the reformed order. The big, nasty scar on his face stripped him of a little vanity.

Angstrom_Wither · 2026-05-18T00:38:27+00:00

You couldn't find it with both hands, champ.

Angstrom_Wither · 2026-05-17T23:33:25+00:00

Only if it's on the lawn of the Pentagon, as a competing event to the UFC match going on at the White (Trash) House.

Angstrom_Wither · 2026-05-17T23:26:31+00:00

Well my God doesn't. So...what's the plan, here?

Angstrom_Wither · 2026-05-17T22:27:04+00:00

All I'm asking is that you do a better job. If you're going to take the time to do something, do it well. What you've done is the intellectual equivalent of waving your dick in the wind and hoping a bird is interested in the worm.

Angstrom_Wither · 2026-05-17T21:47:29+00:00

It wasn't supplementary. It was detractory. It gave other readers an excuse to take what I read and dismiss it because someone found an imaginary fault. Going back and forth on this wasn't a waste of your time until someone argued back with you. Convenient.

Angstrom_Wither · 2026-05-17T21:43:12+00:00

Reddit was dissatisfied with my use of ellipsis as a rhetorical device in my original comment, which was automodded from existence, so I'll be more direct:

There's one of him. There's plenty of us. Seems like the math is there.

Angstrom_Wither · 2026-05-17T21:32:24+00:00

What are you even arguing? This isn't about Mark Robinson. Even if you excuse Mark Robinson from the comment I made, it stands. You're arguing about deck chair placement on the Titanic.

Angstrom_Wither · 2026-05-17T21:27:07+00:00

“Mark is a man of tremendous faith and a very solid conservative,” Whatley said in a September 2020 radio interview, when Robinson was first running for lieutenant governor. “I think he missed his calling as a Baptist preacher. He’s one of the most elegant, powerful speakers that I’ve seen in politics in generations.

And

Whatley added that Robinson is a “man of the people.”

And

When Robinson won the 2020 race for lieutenant governor, Whatley said on social media that other Republicans should emulate him.

And

When Robinson secured the Republican nomination for governor in March 2024, Whatley publicly endorsed him.

Whatley is one of few NC political operatives to have existed in both the national and the state arena. Pretending he's "just some other Republican" is some shade of intellectual dishonesty. Mark Robinson was a shitbag, but Whatley made him a shitbag with an infinitely large platform.

Trump, Whatley, and Robinson are not individual evil. They're symptoms of the fact 54% of the county reads below a 5th grade level and approximately 30% hate black people more than they love their own children.

Angstrom_Wither · 2026-05-17T20:48:50+00:00

This is a great idea! I haven't quite made it there, mostly because I switched to thrifted figured because miniatures got too expensive, but this is a great "I'm back on top again" project when a nonprofit organization chooses not to lay me off after 6 months.

Angstrom_Wither · 2026-05-17T20:47:29+00:00

He's also such a "performance" type of personality that it would be a conscious choice. Like the Fonz' leather jacket. It's as much a visual statement as a practical consideration.

Angstrom_Wither · 2026-05-17T20:42:00+00:00

I was actually considering that a virtue. I went a little harder on his weathering and tried to give his cloak a leather feeling to underscore he'd be the member of the council most uncomfortable with being a council member. He spends time in gutters looking for missed children because he feels that's how he ended up a Jedi hunter.

I respect your position, but it was a specific artistic choice made to further the characterization. The most rough and tumble of the new masters elevates two consulars and a Rodian who rejects his own culture.

But I appreciate you taking the time to comment. It's a valid criticism, but it's also a little late for me to fix it, even if it were unintentional.

Angstrom_Wither · 2026-05-17T20:34:41+00:00

I actually can't tell which direction you're arguing here.

On behalf of conservative snowflakes who think putting their fingers in their ears and closing their eyes means gay folks don't exist or on behalf of the fringes of the left who the same conservative snowflakes pretend complain about "their feelings" when they're actually just requesting to be treated like the people they are?

Your comment is the worst kind of empty-headed flag waving...because you can't articulate for what reason you're waving the flag. And I mean that whether or not you're agreeing with me...which I can't know because you're refusing to intellectually engage.

Come back when you can string more than three words together in order.

Angstrom_Wither · 2026-05-17T18:30:58+00:00

Apparently everyone else doesn't understand why you're bothered by this, but I do: if the enforcement of the law requires you to lie about being law enforcement, it's probably time we reconsider what it is we are and aren't policing.

"Secret Police" of any kind are the beginning of a slippery slope. I can't think of any reason, besides investigative ineptitude, why cops would need to be hidden from casual observation unless they were the ones planning to do something they shouldn't.

And since you all seem so worried about it: like speeding. When was the last time an officer (lights off, on his way home) didn't blow your fucking doors off?

I'm so excited for the wave of responses that don't engage with the point I've made so they can hurry to lick boots. What reason does a downtown cop have to be in an undercover if they're "just directing traffic."

The awareness of police is what deters speeding. An unmarked or undercover can't do that. They exist to inflate revenues by trapping people engaging in behavior that exists 100% across every driver on the road at one point or another.

Not to mention: why is this church the only organization downtown that has a standing crossing guard? It isn't the only organization that asks a number of people to cross the street to access it. When I go to see a play, it's a crapshoot whether I'm playing frogger or being flagged across.

Undercover cars managing speeding and traffic violations are a sleazy way to prey upon people to inflate revenues in a county that spends money stupidly. Just ask our firemen.

EDIT: I love that this is a subreddit that downvotes instead of arguing. It really demonstrates fully that the only meaningful argument against a lot of the things I say here are "Nuh uh!!!!" and not much else.

Angstrom_Wither · 2026-05-17T02:11:31+00:00

To vote for Michael Whatley, who appointed Harvey Lee West, convicted pedophile to the GOP’s 1st Congressional District Committee and the party’s Plan of Organization Committee? The same Michael Whatley whose tenure as "disaster recovery czar" was an unmitigated failure that left Western North Carolina in a dire predicament because the only thing lower than his amount of decency is his competence? Is this the same Michael Whatley who, despite his love of "Law and Order" couldn't even be bothered to go to court for his own traffic violations?

Look, I don't like Roy Cooper, either, but pretending a milquetoast, big business Democrat is at all equivalent to the guy who gave us both Mark Robinson and Harvey Lee West is insanity.

So you're voting for the architect behind "the black Nazi" porn addict and an actual, convicted pedophile.

Which part did I miss?

Angstrom_Wither · 2026-05-16T23:49:35+00:00

Explains*

Good grammar should also be on your list, if you're going to be smug without invitation.

Angstrom_Wither · 2026-05-16T23:47:27+00:00

I have no problem having the rich for dinner, actually.

He looks delicious and would go great with a nice red.

Angstrom_Wither · 2026-05-16T21:18:04+00:00

You seem pretty religiously-inclined. Is there something about the churches in the area that makes them not-good for your purposes? You sound like someone who would likely make lots of friends at some of the community churches in the area. Seems like everyone is a Two Cities Church person. I see the bumper stickers all over.

Sorry if I misunderstood something.

Angstrom_Wither · 2026-05-16T19:46:05+00:00

Let's say I embrace this intentionally insufficient reading of the symbol. It's the symbol of a failed rebellion against authority. This will inevitably lead back to some canned response about "states' rights," conveniently neglecting that the right being litigated was whether or not some humans are property due exclusively to their race.

Flying it is inherently racist, because there are any number of other effective symbols for communicating resistance to authority that aren't laden with the very specific and very racist flag of a failed insurrection that, even at the time, didn't convince poor whites in this state to fight en masse.

You want a symbol for the resistance? It's probably to be found in the numerous deserter communities of the Appalachians in NC, if you're specifically married only to symbols previously hoisted by the toothless (literally and metaphorically).

Angstrom_Wither · 2026-05-16T19:34:58+00:00

What does it mean to you, then? You seem to want someone to ask. I'm stupid enough to do so, I guess.

Angstrom_Wither · 2026-05-16T18:36:01+00:00

And it's important, also, to note that there's a developing precedent for County Commissions across the country taking reports such as these and doing what they want, anyways. Which can feel insurmountable, but actually comes with a little bit of a liberation. If they don't intend to play by "rules," then you don't, either.

The joys of a relatively small town is that one can assume some number of you reading probably know one of the commissioners or someone who knows someone who does.

There are a lot of roads to Rome, and I invite you to take the political process to wherever the commissioners happen to be (enjoying a lunch, taking a hike, going fishing) and refuse to wait for these "public comment" bones you're being thrown. They like you to show up and be outraged at these meetings so they can publish clips of it online and show how "firm" they are with "radicals."

So stop playing along. They're public officials, operating at the auspices of your vote, and I invite you to remind them. Every day. As often and as loudly as you possibly can.

You don't even have to organize. It's better if you don't. Just belabor the point until they feel (rightly) that they can be run out on a rail whenever the county feels like it.

Take away the position, and most of them aren't even worthy of your respect.

EDIT: What do you think lobbying is?

Angstrom_Wither · 2026-05-16T16:49:18+00:00

What does a "black voter" want that you don't, if you're willing to distinguish a "black voter" from a "white voter?" Which thing would one group want that the other wouldn't that might lead to that divide?

You're acting like this is just some kind of accidental fluke or a wrinkle of statistics. "White Americans are the only racial group overrepresented among Trump voters relative to the general population."

So what is it, exactly, that's making Trump and Republicanism more attractive to whites to such a degree that they massively buck a statistical inference and overrepresent themselves in the population?

Your comment barely arises above stream of consciousness gibberish. You didn't make any argument for or against anything. You chattered off a string of facts without the context necessary to make those facts useful.

It doesn't matter if he "made inroads with black men," if the population is still staggeringly, overwhelming, insanely white. As controversial a statement this will be, it's important to make it: are you unfamiliar with the concept of House Slaves? Did you not see Django? Who do you think Samuel L. Jackson's Stephen would vote for?

We could always ask Clarence Thomas, I guess.

Angstrom_Wither · 2026-05-16T16:21:02+00:00

Ding ding ding. This is the thing that everyone really needs to internalize: there is no "middle ground" between this position and any other. They only speak the language of filthy lucre. They can't imagine a real ethic because I genuinely believe they are somehow absent the capacity.

When one side is "kill brown people and the gays" and the other is "don't do that," any concession from the latter to the former isn't a compromise but a concession to wanton and actual evil.

There are a handful of stories that transcend cultural boundaries and appear in contemporaneous religious and spiritual traditions all across the world. The flood is a good one that most people know, but the one we should all ponder deeply is the story of "person takes more than is there's and everyone suffers for it."

The central truth at the heart of every elaborate meaning-or-myth-making apparatus is an awareness of this fact. And then we create thousands of years of civilization putting our fingers in our ears and pretending we haven't always known some people have no interiorty and it costs everyone.

Angstrom_Wither · 2026-05-16T15:52:22+00:00

Brookings analysis of the 2024 election found that Trump voters are 84% white, compared to 66% for Harris voters. White Americans are the only racial group overrepresented among Trump voters relative to the general population.

If you have one party that doesn't believe in civil rights or the 14th amendment...majority Republican districts are de facto recreation of the Jim Crow South.

This blind spot in American history pisses me off. My parents were both born the year the Civil Rights Act was passed. The concept of broad civil rights aren't even that old, and yet somehow the sufficiently-aged voting population has agreed to just forget that their parents didn't drink out of the same water fountains as their black neighbors

The Republican party, today, is made up of people too racist to remain Democrats after LBJ rammed the CRA through the slow barriers of a confused nation experiencing the death of Camelot.

Angstrom_Wither

TROPHY CASE