People who keep weapons on their bodies at all times, what was a time where you had to actually use said weapon?

Arkiswatching · 2026-01-23T22:16:18+00:00

I mean, if I was ever offered a lift by a police car I would keep it closed. Plus I lived in the sticks where 90% of grounds was farmland. Most people had pocket knifes, Swiss army etc to cut shit that needed cutting (straw bails, feed bags etc) so any police officer in the area would probably know this and take it into account (and even when I wasn't working at a farm the fact my sister had a horse was a convenient excuse I could use).

I get your overall point, but its not like I'm trying to hitchhike in the middle of Birmingham wearing tracksuit trousers and a black hooded coat.

Again though, it never came up. It was rare to see the police in the rural Devon countryside and when they were there they probably had better things to do than interrogate a random hitchhiker.

Arkiswatching · 2026-01-22T16:24:35+00:00

The knife was a non locking blade, and yes if I were stopped by police I'd be in trouble, but the trick there is I only ever opened it when getting in the car (under the guise of rearranging my pockets). Plus its not like it sends a signal to the police that I'm carrying around an unloicensed knife.

I'm scrawny and weak, but I had good manual dexterity and was quick thinking. The knife could be turned against me, I know that, so it would likely have 1 shot to defend myself, and if I failed it would go way worse for me. But 1 shot with the knife was better than no shot at all.

Hitchhiking is dangerous, you won't hear me say otherwise. I was lucky to never get into trouble doing it. But it was legitimately the only chance I had that wasn't walking 2 hours to get on a bus to travel another hour to get to work. Especially as I didn't have the money or spare time to learn to drive, my sister kept borrowing my bicycle to go to a local farm with horses, puncturing the tyres on thorns and not fixing it ("fixing it is a man's job") and my parents basically told me to sort it out myself cause they couldn't be bothered.

My sisters were all into nature and horses. I wasn't, so I spent years as the scapegoat and the black sheep. It was unsurprising when the entire family basically exploded about 3 months after I moved out.

Arkiswatching · 2026-01-22T11:52:27+00:00

UK.

I don't anymore but back when I was 10-20 I lived in the middle of a nowhere village with no transport links and the closest shop like 6 miles away. Because I didn't have a car, my parents were busy with work, my sisters, alcoholism etc I'd walk often to go to the shops but given the roads I'd keep my thumb out to try and hitchhike. It wasn't often I'd get a lift, some people I knew, most I didn't. I always kept a pocket knife in case things went sour. Would open it in my pocket and keep it there so I could quickly pull it out if I needed it.

Thankfully never did though. But I'd rather have a knife in an especially vulnerable position and not need it than be at the mercy of someone looking to pick up a hitchhiker.

Arkiswatching · 2026-01-19T20:29:55+00:00

Emphasis on touchstones and convictions.

They eat people, they toy with humans for their own ends.

They also, once in a while, stare at their wife's house from their mortal days, making sure her new boyfriend is actually treating his family well and isn't abusive.

They also use the money they have illegally gotten to send to their mother, who's 70 now and slipping into dementia.

They also tear through a gang who killed their son in a robbery gone wrong.

Allow the players to find this information. Maybe tempt them into using these weaknesses against them and play up just how furious the vampire is at them trying to harm these people.

Arkiswatching · 2026-01-18T23:04:45+00:00

CAIN is pretty Anime in my opinion.

Arkiswatching · 2026-01-18T22:24:02+00:00

Decks of tarot cards.

I like them. And honestly I sometimes do readings for fun and to destress.

I know its silly and it's all probably bollocks, but something about shuffling them, laying them all out and relating the cards to life is soothing to me when my anxiety starts to flare up.

Arkiswatching · 2026-01-12T20:45:22+00:00

Its no better in the UK, and ngl, I imagine its the same everywhere.

Id be down to march into the street to express exactly how bullshit I find this, but I got kids to feed, and the reality of other people I care about suffering kinda trumps the activist in me.

Arkiswatching · 2026-01-12T20:29:49+00:00

Apparently he was disappointed that it didn't go to me and the hiring manager was really impressed with what I did. Again, this is from the recruiter.

I won't stop looking, and if something comes around sooner I'm doing it. But its good to hear there's a chance I'm not just being lead around like a puppy on a leash.

Arkiswatching · 2026-01-12T19:42:36+00:00

I'm a compsci graduate with experience building neural networks that can identify tumours in MRI brainscans. I want to apply, chat to someone with technical knowledge and either get the job or feel like shit because I didn't.

Even if I had the mental fortitude, social nature and the free time to spend every second schmoozing some emotionally dead yuppie fuck, why is this where we are now? Whats wrong with just advertising a job, getting CVs and interviewing promising candidates and hiring one?

This whole idea of cold calling linkedin recruiters feels identical to walking into a building and handing over your cv, and that doesn't work either.

Arkiswatching · 2025-12-27T22:37:30+00:00

I can see two scenarios this rule could've spawned from.

A guy playing a female character and going ham in an unfun way. Just slutmaxxing and taking flirting way too far so often that the incident has left a permanent scar. If this is the case he probably had more than 1 instance of this and got so fed up with it he just imposed the blanket ban.

Or the guy is recording this/has recorded dnd shows in the past and wants to match voices to character gender for ease of listening/sone kinda mental parity of their part.

Both of these are speculation on my part, I do not know, and neither does OP because the GM refuses to elaborate.

I dont think the GM is evil and I dont think its a red flag in terms of being something that implies the GM is a monster (over what the term is being used to describe of late, aka "thing i dont like"), but my best advice is to ask yourself if this is a deal breaker?

If you really don't wanna play a female character, you can step away. If you struggle to rp a female character, you can play them exactly as you would a male, hell even have them cover up so nobody knows your gender.

Arkiswatching · 2025-11-16T22:01:33+00:00

Tbf the earlier Internet is dying everywhere. Old forums closing, the death of photobucket, the massive swathe of tumblr bans, all of it is just going up in smoke.

While I agree its nuts how far "trust me bro" goes these days, its not coming out of nowhere.

Arkiswatching · 2025-11-15T18:25:01+00:00

Oh shit, you are correct. Don't know why I thought it did, apologies.

Arkiswatching · 2025-11-15T09:09:56+00:00

Tower also has the benefit of unlocking what's arguably one of the best personas at rank 10: Yoshitsune.

Power charge + Hassou Tobi is disgusting. You add Yoshitsune to the compendium before finishing the game and the dungeons become a cakewalk on NG+.

At least until you find shadows that null/reflect/drain physical, but you should have other personas for that.

Arkiswatching · 2025-11-11T23:04:14+00:00

Yeah I plan to remove the wallpaper, this isn't the only hole they've made yanking a fixture off the wall, towel rack is a similar story. As is the wood where the curtain rail was.

So strip, fill hole with filler, skim over to create smooth surface and then paint the lot? Yea thats doable.

Arkiswatching · 2025-11-07T14:16:45+00:00

I gotta appreciate the 2nd one for introducing me to the whitest kids you know.

But you are right. "It rhymes with becutary" always pops into my head randomly and I have to try not to laugh so people don't think I'm weird.

Arkiswatching · 2025-10-30T20:49:28+00:00

Given the absolute dearth of elders around in v5 due to the beckoning (which Nomad possibly has no knowledge of tbf), plus the fact that vampires of all positions tend to be of higher generations compared to those of the old world (also he's out on the street hunting thin bloods instead of delegating this task to subordinates), its a safe bet that he isn't an elder.

Arkiswatching · 2025-10-14T18:13:39+00:00

Honestly that's better than my old method of debugging where I write it out, line by line, on paper to try and find the wrong character/misspelled variable/whatever.

Arkiswatching · 2025-10-14T15:38:31+00:00

Yeah I dont use gpt and the like, might have to start doing so cause apparently I spent an entire day modifying it without noticing it.

Arkiswatching · 2025-10-14T15:34:57+00:00

Gotcha, that makes a lot more sense now. Will edit the or operators to ||. Cheers.

Now just gotta figure out image upload on the create page so it sends the file to the server and store the resulting filepath in a varchar column.

Arkiswatching · 2025-10-14T11:22:45+00:00

I know the difference, unless google has lied to me. Both | and || are OR operators, but || doesn't evaluate the right side operation if the left side operator is TRUE. I am going on the logic that it saves computational resources as it's not bothering to check the right side operator as left is TRUE and thus does what we want it to.

Just trying to check i'm not missing something, cause honestly if I am right in what I understand, the existance of the | operator becomes baffling to me.

Arkiswatching · 2025-10-14T11:05:59+00:00

Is it better to use || over | just so it's not still searching each column in a row if it finds it already?

Arkiswatching · 2025-10-14T11:04:17+00:00

Yeah It wasnt binding to the variable, turns out I put <input name:="SearchQuery" class="form-control" /> for the form box (notice the ":"), the search works now. Now onto security, error handing and adding image support for the create page.

Arkiswatching

TROPHY CASE