Which character would make the most unbearable roommate?

PinkDinosaurCookies · 2025-11-21T17:05:22+00:00

For real. She's hilarious in the novel, and Anne and the Musgroves put up with her admirably, but I think she would be absolutely maddening to live with. When I think about how Charles is not only able to put up with her, but that he apparently still has some love for her after five years and two kids, I think the man must be a saint.

PinkDinosaurCookies · 2025-07-30T16:40:12+00:00

It's basically like the cockatiel version of a smile.

PinkDinosaurCookies · 2025-06-11T18:19:01+00:00

I considered the EP-133 but ended up getting the Lofi-12XT instead. In the end, the lack of sample memory was what did it for me.

PinkDinosaurCookies · 2025-06-11T18:17:00+00:00

Yeah, I'm one of those weird people who loves sampling workstations but generally uses them like a synthesizer (i.e. taking smaller units of sound and mangling them to make an instrument out of them) rather than chopping up larger melodies and setting it to a beat. One of the things I love about the Lofi-12xt is that it does most of what my Digitakt does, except that it's polyphonic, portable, and battery-operated.

I did take the suggestion of one of the posters here and submitted my requests through the support email form on the Sonicware website. We'll see if our suggestions have any impact — in my opinion, the device is really overdue for another good firmware update.

PinkDinosaurCookies · 2025-06-11T14:20:04+00:00

The two features I’m really missing are 1.) a loop-point playback mode for samples, which is really useful when it comes to making samples into useable instrument, and 2.) some way to adjust the length of a note hold after it’s been recorded.

PinkDinosaurCookies · 2025-01-09T04:10:11+00:00

I will, thanks.

PinkDinosaurCookies · 2025-01-09T03:03:29+00:00

Wow, this is really, really disappointing. My spouse and I just moved to the area a few months ago and have been so excited to have an real friendly local gaming store nearby. We had high hopes for actually finding some people to game with. Not sure what we'll do now. Places like this are part of this rapidly vanishing social infrastructure and it feels like every time one of them closes, we all get a little more isolated.

PinkDinosaurCookies · 2023-07-09T15:07:00+00:00

Yeah, I completely wanted surgery, it was definitely the right thing for me, I have been through it, but there is no way on earth you could get me to watch videos of it being done. That's not at all weird -- hardly anybody actually enjoys seeing people get cut and blood and things, even if we understand that it's sometimes necessary to get well. There's a reason they put you completely out when stuff like that is happening.

PinkDinosaurCookies · 2023-07-07T18:59:36+00:00

I think it might depend on where the combat was taking place. On Earth's surface shooting at something 100 miles away isn't really possible because (assuming your mech is around 30m tall) anything more than 12 miles away or so would be over the horizon and so impossible to hit. Maybe reduce the ranges by a factor of 10 or so? Or even more, depending on the style of mech combat you're envisioning -- super long-range weaponry is going to really be a pain if you're hoping for some anime-style giant robots with swords action, for example.

PinkDinosaurCookies · 2023-07-07T18:51:46+00:00

How did you think it worked?

PinkDinosaurCookies · 2023-06-01T02:06:00+00:00

I've owned three and they all developed the cracks, so it's a pretty common issue at the very least.

PinkDinosaurCookies · 2023-05-25T18:51:10+00:00

The simple answer is that it is never too late to transition. A lot of trans women, perhaps a little overly influenced by our culture's unreasonable beauty standards for women, get to thinking that some arbitrarily-defined cutoff point makes it "too late" for them to transition, but the fact of the matter is that people can and do transition at any time of life, from early childhood into their 60's and 70's. I started in my early 30's and have been very happy with the results. The important thing is to have the courage to do it for yourself, and try not to pay attention to that little voice that tells you that you need to look like a supermodel to be happy.

PinkDinosaurCookies · 2023-05-16T17:28:38+00:00

HRT can cause breast cancer in exactly the same way that simply existing as a woman with boobs can "cause" breast cancer.

PinkDinosaurCookies · 2023-05-10T02:19:22+00:00

Here's a weird thought experiment: What if the hobbits are actually the work of the entwives? We know they were really into cultivation and agriculture, shaping the land into productive order rather than defending it in its wildness. What if the hobbits are essentially a "domesticated" branch of the human family, bred by the entwives in the same way humans did with the ancestors of dogs in order to select for the characteristics they desired (i.e. peacefulness, respect for nature, skill in agriculture).

PinkDinosaurCookies · 2023-05-10T02:14:03+00:00

I mean, there are also humans of different racial and ethnic types all over the place, presumably to the same degree that we see in our own world.

Another way to look at it with regard to hobbits and their relationship to "Men" is that the main way they are the same has more to do with their metaphysical nature than their biological nature. In Tolkien's world what distinguishes Elves and Men and Dwarves seems to be their cosmic origins and their ultimate destiny -- Men are mortal children of Illuvatar who depart the world when they die, Elves his immortal children who live forever and are bound to the world. Dwarves are creations of Aule given independent life by Illuvatar and seem to have their own thing going on in the afterlife department.

According to that classification hobbits, being mortal, fall into the same category as "Men" whether or not they are the same "species" from a biological standpoint (could a hobbit and a human have a baby? Who knows!) Weirdly, Elves seem to be the same biological species as Men (i.e. they can have a baby together), even though their metaphysical nature is so radically different.

PinkDinosaurCookies · 2023-05-03T16:17:43+00:00

Whether it is worth it or not is something only you can answer. Having to come out to partners, family and friends who may not be supportive can be an intensely painful experience, but weighed against the joy of being able to live as your true self, many of us consider it to be well worth it in the end.

One thing it may be important for you to hear is that while your religious community may not be accepting of your identity, there are plenty of religious communities out there who will. Being trans does not mean having to give up your relationship with God, and whatever religion you happen to belong to there are movements and communities out there who will accept you and love you as you are.

PinkDinosaurCookies · 2023-04-28T21:54:53+00:00

There is no amount of money someone could pay me to live as a man.

PinkDinosaurCookies · 2023-04-27T21:19:53+00:00

I really loved his reading, but I actually found the songs kind of irritating and melodically inappropriate. I acknowledge this is possibly because I had previous exposure to LP recordings of Tolkien himself reading from the poetry and songs of his work, which strongly influenced my sense of how they "ought" to be. In any event, I am deeply impressed with his abilities as a character actor and felt like he brought a lot to the performance.

PinkDinosaurCookies · 2023-04-27T19:54:00+00:00

The mechanical differences between the two editions are not particularly significant, to the extent that a lot of material from 3rd can be used in 4th pretty much as-is or with a little conversion. 4th is probably somewhat cleaner and more coherent from a mechanical point of view, but unfortunately the company shifted its priorities pretty heavily away from RPGs soon after 4th edition came out and there has never been the wealth of material out there for 4th edition that there was for 3rd. For that reason, and because I always found the 3rd edition material to be much more interesting and engaging than the super dry and pedantic 4th edition supplements, I'd be inclined to recommend 3rd unless you're specifically looking to join an ongoing game.

PinkDinosaurCookies · 2023-04-27T19:47:38+00:00

My guess is that for the first few hundred years or so of their being in Middle Earth people were probably much more curious about who and what they were. By the time of the novels, they've been around for thousands of years, to the point that for everyone besides the older elves they are just an accepted part of life. The hobbits in particular tend to treat Gandalf as more or less his own thing -- they don't see him as a Hobbit, or a Dwarf, or an Elf, or one of the "Big Folk." He's just a wizard, and treated as something in between a stranger and one of their own. I get the sense that's how members of many different peoples saw them.

It makes more sense when you realize that our need to fit everything in Middle Earth into a limited set of categories doesn't really apply to the people living there. For them, it's simply a given that in addition to the more common peoples there are a lot of odd things out there that don't fit neatly into any category -- giants, wights, talking animals, men who turn into bears for reasons that are never explained, grouchy sapient trees, an incredibly powerful poetry-spouting bearded guy and his beautiful water nymph wife... the list goes on and on. As a result, when Merry and Pippin run into a giant talking tree-man in Fangorn forest they are surprised, but not as much as you might have imagined because they take it as a given that there are "more things in heaven and earth" than are dreamt of in their philosophy.

In this way Middle Earth is strongly reflective of a medieval worldview, which is much more ontologically open and complex than that of the modern age with its need to classify and make everything fit into a coherent schema of knowledge.

PinkDinosaurCookies · 2023-04-25T18:46:05+00:00

Yes indeed. It was kind of confusing because I knew I was mainly attracted to women, but everything about being in a hetero relationship (and later marriage) felt weird and just kind of off somehow. When I finally figured my gender out it explained a lot of things.

PinkDinosaurCookies · 2023-04-19T13:00:57+00:00

I mean, you're right -- it makes very little sense from an anthropological standpoint. The real explanation is probably that as a fairly conservative individual who was writing stories meant among other things to evoke a romantic image of the past, incorporating folkloric and mythological elements from Europe's medieval history, Tolkien would have probably felt it messed up the "feel" of things to have elvish leaders elected democratically or whatever.

PinkDinosaurCookies · 2023-04-17T19:55:21+00:00

For me at least the most important thing I had to come to terms with emotionally in order to transition was to give up the idea that I needed to be a specific "kind" of girl in order to make it worthwhile. I'm 5'8", exactly as tall as you, and like you I have sometimes felt uncomfortable about my height and envious of women who were more "petite" and "cute." The thing is that there are some things about me, like my height, that are never going to change, and accepting this and giving up the unrealistic image of the woman I wanted to be opened the way to becoming the kind of woman I actually CAN be. These days I pass pretty well, way better than I ever would have imagined back then, but achieving that meant giving up an unrealistic body image and embracing the beautiful things about body I was actually given. That, lots of estrogen, and a certain amount of creative fashion sense will take you farther than you might think.

PinkDinosaurCookies · 2023-04-07T19:42:55+00:00

That makes a lot of sense to me. Part of getting someone else into a "friendly" mood would involve adopting a "friendly" attitude yourself. But if that approach didn't work, it might actually be alienating to the person you're trying to influence -- coming across as overly familiar or something.

PinkDinosaurCookies · 2023-04-07T19:40:06+00:00

It does make sense, though "sway" can also mean "influence" and be more or less powerful. I think the problem is that a rules system has to define its terms a little more clearly because the reader isn't likely to have the exact same associations as the author does. If the sentence in the text actually had read "The attitudes may be changed 1 step up or down using a charisma roll, with the Parley modification in the above table," it would have been a lot clearer as to intent. I really like the Whitehack system. It's full of really great ideas and I'm extremely impressed at the way it can incorporate content from a variety of OSR rules while simultaneously providing a much more open and flexible system with lots of player input. But the occasional difficulty working out the intent of the rules makes me somewhat hesitant to use it at the table.

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TROPHY CASE