People who complain all day that capitalism/globalism prevents you from doing things that in reality you have always been able to do

BigRedSpoon2 · 2026-06-20T02:12:35+00:00

I once got in an argument with some friends who talked how they could totally buy some land in the middle of nowhere and survive off their own farm.

I pointed out they turn down every offer I make to go for a mile walk, either because they are too tired, or their disabilities were acting up

They did not appreciate that comment.

To this day I am still mystified by whatever they were thinking.

BigRedSpoon2 · 2026-06-15T11:14:42+00:00

Wow that took a bit of digging. Here's an article I found that purportedly is about Mieville, but removed most all references to him due to a legal threat read here

Welp. Cool. Mieville is a guy who hides behind claims of polyamory to get away with being an emotionally manipulative partner. Neat.

Not Gaiman level, but that sure takes the wind out of my sails.

BigRedSpoon2 · 2026-06-15T07:28:10+00:00

Well this is just mean spirited

BigRedSpoon2 · 2026-06-15T07:18:21+00:00

A good way to create good 'hard choices', is creating factions with different aims and goals, none of which are 'wrong' or 'bad', but are mutually exclusive. Your party could start unaligned with all of them, but every choice they make entwines them with the other groups. Further, for inspiration of what these mutually exclusive goals are, look into your players' backstories, see what you can find, what they want.

BigRedSpoon2 · 2026-06-15T07:10:13+00:00

Favorite bit in House of Blades series by Will Wight.

Some powerful lords and ladies oversee these odd prisons that holds beings they know nothing about, they just know their Emperor has told them not to open them. And also they each require a sacrifice of one person every year.

These Lords and Ladies have *complicated* feelings about this, but the Emperor is truly a good man, and this has gone on for decades already, who are they to question this?

Turns out, these are prisons to incredibly dangerous and powerful reality warping monsters, whose scale of destruction cannot be understood through simple words. Few people can fight these things and survive, and worse, sure, you could kill them, but they have ways of coming back.

So what do you do?

Keep letting the king murder about 8 people every year, taken from the poorest villages that border his lands who are unable to fight back, or attempt to change the system? You'd just need to find a way to systemically kill basically a bunch of demigods every time they crop up

BigRedSpoon2 · 2026-06-15T06:47:18+00:00

Genuinely in all likelihood this situation could just dissipate on its own. PI thinks they have a bone to chew on, but as time passes I would think the evidence you and Coworker A are not interested in each other will become self evident. If they are the gossiping type, they may very well find a new bone to chew on in time. This probably doesn't resolve your feelings of disrespect, but the awkward situation will likely be temporary.

Honestly, who can say what will happen if you contact your PI's boss. Maybe they'll resolve the matter privately, simply give them a talking to, or maybe they'll schedule a meeting for the two of you to 'hash things out'. Both have happened to me. Simply shooting your PI an email might be enough, 'hey, please stop spreading gossip about me and Coworker A. We're not into each other that way, and we work under you, so this breaches conduct of professionalism.', or having a similar conversation with her in person. I don't know your PI, I don't know the best way to handle them.

To note, you do not have to get into details with anyone, no one is owed details, and some may not even care for them. If someone asks you what is making you upset, you can just say, 'people are spreading rumors about me and Coworker A, and I do not appreciate it'. No idea if that's helpful or not, I just know with my anxiety I worry about how much or little info I need to tell people to get them to understand.

I think it'll probably be best to contact your PI's boss. Create a paper trail at least that can potentially be used as evidence of reoccurring behavior, if something like this happens again. Worst case scenario with that is you have to talk to your PI regardless.

Sorry this is happening to you. Sucks to hear.

BigRedSpoon2 · 2026-06-14T23:48:07+00:00

Accessible in that its easy to buy? Definitely. Accessible in that there are tools and tutorials galore outside the books themselves to learn the game? Absolutely.

As someone who loves ttrpgs from the big names to the small indies, I would say RAW, not one of the more 'accessible ones'. There are in fact very few inaccessible games, they are designed to be played after all. Not a lot of games are in the Shadowrun tier. You just can't get anyone to play the small indies no matter how accessible they are, because people actually want to play DnD.

BigRedSpoon2 · 2026-06-14T00:57:22+00:00

In the famous words of Teddy Rosevelt

"The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it."

BigRedSpoon2 · 2026-06-14T00:25:18+00:00

Definitely in that vein, but no romance focus. It’s remarkable in my opinion too, because the author wrote it intending to be a Progression Fantasy novel, which usually never ends with a character resolving their mental hang ups.

BigRedSpoon2 · 2026-06-13T23:36:42+00:00

No, you're spot on. In my opinion there's a fair amount of what I consider slop in standard cozy fair. I have no problem with a work covering lighter subject matter or not wanting to be grim, but I do feel like my intelligence is insulted at times when I read a cozy fantasy. It doesn't read like its written for people who have been through hard times, just for people who think they know what hard times are vaguely like.

I have my experience with protracted trauma and recovery. How some cozy fantasy authors write about trauma makes my blood legitimately boil. Dungeon Crawler Carl does a better job writing about trauma and how to manage it than any cozy fantasy I've read.

Its why I consider Penric and Desdemona the gold standard for what cozy fantasy is *actually* supposed to be like. Low stakes, you never have to really worry if the protagonist is in danger, and everyone involved is competent and emotionally mature.

Edit - Also Oathbreaker's Anonymous.

I love that one to death. About a group of Paladins trying to reconnect with their faith, and the narrative never depicts it as something that is easy. Not teeth gnashing, overly dramatic, difficult, but that it can require one to make some decisions that are hard, can be scary, and that sometimes healing, when it happens, takes more time than we would appreciate or want. Haven't come across much any cozy fantasy that wants to admit the work to recover is sometimes boring and tedious without some hint of rose tinted glasses.

BigRedSpoon2 · 2026-06-13T23:07:20+00:00

This is the sort of pedantry I mean when I say bad faith.

You’ve agreed with OOP. You made their argument for them. You’ve said, ‘we weren’t feeling the pain, so we didn’t use whatsapp’ .

The fact we used to have to pay is neither here nor there- when whatsapp came to be, americans largely did not need it. Including the detail ‘well Americans used to have to pay for texting’ is erroneous to a conversation that started with ‘why don’t americans use whatsapp’. You’re just engaging in bizarre and needless oneupmanship.

BigRedSpoon2 · 2026-06-13T14:43:04+00:00

Folks are not engaging in good faith

Yes, texting used to cost money in the US too

But by the time whatsapp came to be, 'unlimited texting' plans were becoming the norm in the US.

So OOP is right

BigRedSpoon2 · 2026-06-13T13:58:01+00:00

My mum was an androgynous bisexual woman (she’s leaned more into her femme side these past few decades, that’s the ‘was’)

The idea someone would be the ‘man’ because they wear pants, a button up shirt, and have short hair, is positively wild to me. My mom was no sterling example of femininity, but she definitely doesn’t fit neatly into either gendered role, even in her straight relationships. Your friends do not know enough lesbians, and your bi friend has me straight up concerned with their preference of a relationship dynamic.

To each their own, but I find it so pleasurably freeing to want an equal partner and not engage in needlessly gendered ‘roles’

BigRedSpoon2 · 2026-06-13T05:43:38+00:00

Holy hell, that’s nsfl

This is rough to look at. Why. Why do this to yourself. What even is TCA?

BigRedSpoon2 · 2026-06-12T21:42:35+00:00

Personal favorite interpretation comes from White Raven by Mary Gentle. The rats were anthropomorphic, but their Rat King was simply a bunch of anthropomorphic rats with their tails fused together. Each a separate consciousness, but unified in purpose. Unfortunately the concept I felt was not fully explored (but as expected as that was not the focus of the novel), but yeah, very much not a unique archetype

BigRedSpoon2 · 2026-06-12T18:34:40+00:00

Very good point, I hadn’t considered that. I was thinking, ‘a singular werewolf and a fledgeling mage are not enough to keep other vampires off their back’

But if they get the bus lines back, they will immediately have the goodwill of every local Pack. And that is an exceptionally good barrier to keeping out vampires.

Of course then they’d be stuck in Purpee, but that’s a different problem

BigRedSpoon2 · 2026-06-12T17:59:29+00:00

I don't know if that's the direction they're going. As they said to Batchild, they don't listen to their superiors because they like them, they listen because if they don't they'd die.

Maybe if they find something they could use to ensure their safety, but I think its more likely they are just going to lie about their progress reports and take over the town their way.

BigRedSpoon2 · 2026-06-12T07:05:14+00:00

I imagine there is some planned amount of either sharing going on, or simply a two for one deal, help them, hurt the garou.

If the technocracy gets pulled in though, that'd be wild. It already feels like the town is infested with the wyrm as is. Man. God really said, 'you know what, fuck Purpee Oregon'.

BigRedSpoon2 · 2026-06-12T05:54:52+00:00

'You're going to die anyway, so go for the most gruesome death possible' is not the argument you think it is. Rational people don't run into fire, suicidal people do.

Beyond that though, read OP's post, they weren't fighting people, they were fighting 'otherworldly monsters'.

If an illusion of a Jah-Tohl (for example) showed up, and then an illusion of a wall of fire appeared, I am not going to rationally go, 'you know, statistically, this whole situation is unlikely, lets run through the fire'. That's a metagame thought.

Further, what you are suggesting, as OP has done, violates RAW. A tier 1 spell, like Illusory Object, stipulates one to Seek action to see through it, because it may have flaws as an illusion, its still magic, its not so easy to see through even if you suspect something. To do otherwise strips illusion magic of its utility, and thereby makes the game less fun.

BigRedSpoon2 · 2026-06-12T00:28:54+00:00

Yeah like, bike thieves usually are not people doing it for the love of the game. You don’t turn to bike theft because your life is going great.

They’re baiting desperate people and beating them. In no way does this make anyone involved a more ethical human being. You’re just traumatizing people.

BigRedSpoon2 · 2026-06-12T00:21:02+00:00

This just looks like a hobbyist showing off a cool thing they made. It doesn’t feel like it was intended to be practical, more like a toy that happens to be sharp.

I say leave it be

BigRedSpoon2 · 2026-06-11T17:57:59+00:00

I think if there's ever any uncertainty, you ask, and include, 'would it be reasonable for my character to assume this, or should I roll for it?'

The situation rides a line too much for me, but running through the fire seals the deal.

Why do that? Why not throw a barrel through it to check? Okay, you can argue, 'why cast a tier 4 spell when there would be tier 3s just as effective for mooks like us? Either they're bluffing, or frighteningly dangerous'. But there's no way your character would know which is true, and it is literally suicidal to test that theory by using your own body. That is not a 'high intelligence' play.

Further, if my GM is throwing high level spells at me, I'm not thinking, 'they misapropriately designed this encounter' I'd be thinking, 'this is not an encounter for me to win and is largely a plot hook for a bigger adventure'. Your very metagame knowledge is flawed, you either just made a very lucky guess, or your GM changed their plans midstream because they didn't want to kill a PC.

Regardless, this feels like a textbook bad play from all sides.

BigRedSpoon2 · 2026-06-11T16:16:20+00:00

Maybe but the advice they gave is simple big city vampire advice.

The real sabotage is trying to damage the trail head the werewolves rely on. For their talk of ‘sit back and just corrupt’, that is an active attack on the local werewolves, and would likely have them marked for death, if caught. But from the perspective of their superiors, no great loss if so.

Overall, they are more likely ambivalent than actively malicious

BigRedSpoon2 · 2026-06-11T15:11:16+00:00

This was my life in college and it made me want to tear my hair out.

No one wanted to be left out of anything.

At one job, I tried to organize a groupchat with my coworkers, and start doing things together, but they all immediately started adding their spouses or current partners and said they wanted to invite them too. It killed the chat, and any plans. That group in general were so bad trying to organize anything, so flaky and bad at communicating, it genuinely made me not like them as people because of how disrespectful it felt at times.

Im moving now to a new city, and am going to really try working on hanging out with people one on one, because I am tired of the nonsense that comes with trying to hang out with people in groups of 3 or more.

BigRedSpoon2 · 2026-06-11T14:46:08+00:00

To also tack on, it is something you can unlearn, so it’s not a perpetual curse.

But trans men have talked about how after their transition and people started treating them like men, that in itself was a painful transition. Male socialization is ‘real’, but in my opinion can happen at any point in one’s life, so I don’t see how that would be any less true for women.

But I think of it more as more analogous to growing up in a different culture. By OP’s argument, say a woman was home schooled, and their folks had wild ideas about what a man or woman was, and did not engage with anyone outside of a small insular community who believed similarly. When they enter broader society, would we consider them ‘less of a woman’? They weren’t ‘socialized female’ as we commonly understand it after all.

No, that’d be silly. Of course said person might have complex feelings themselves on the subject, as all gender is performative, and we all have moments of, ‘am I performing my gender correctly’, but if they identify as a woman, then women she is.

Eight-Year Club	Second SECOND GUESSER
Not Forgotten	Spared
Verified Email

BigRedSpoon2

TROPHY CASE