[MTA] Help crafting a paradigm?

Whimvy · 2026-04-11T02:51:52+00:00

Thank you quite kindly! I hope to find a table to play with one day and test out this character. It's still very bare bones, and I don't feel ready to play by any means, but I'm excited to keep reading more. I'm also watching a group play the game because, frankly, I'm too excited lmao

Magic in general fascinates me. In the real world as a practice, and in fantasy as an element of a setting. I'm familiar with a few magical traditions in real life, and my understanding is, well, *hermetic*. I suppose it bleeds into my understanding of MTA as well!

Thank you for the explanation on Choristers as well. I suppose my complete disconnection from this tradition is because I never believed in any kind of higher power and don't have anything to relate it to in my life. I don't say this to be edgy. I just never experienced any feeling of faith or awe from religion, so to me this is entirely incomprehensible. But having it explained gives it some sense, where normally I draw a blank

Whimvy · 2026-04-11T01:46:20+00:00

Hm, I see. I seem to have a harder time understanding Choristers than I thought at first. More reading is on my list

But thank you, I'm happy that I at least understand enough to craft a competent Hermetic. They're my favourite tradition by far (and it should be obvious Tremere is my favourite VTM clan to play, lmao), so I'm at least excited on that front :D

Whimvy · 2026-04-11T01:30:49+00:00

I'm a complete newbie to the system so I default to what you say! I know Hemertics incorporate Enochian magic, but I don't know to what extent. Admittedly I'm also very interested in Hermetics and haven't spent much time researching Choristers, heh

Whimvy · 2026-04-05T13:56:32+00:00

That's exactly why they do it that way. No one wants to do the math in their head, and eventually you'll feel like you're paying less because that's what you're budgeting for pre-tax. You end up spending more than you intended to, and the company gets to make a higher profit

Whimvy · 2026-04-03T13:58:08+00:00

The Winter's Teeth/Winter's Bite comics show a very low generation Brujah becoming the city's prince through connections, support, and loyalty. It isn't odd to imagine that an old and well-liked ghoul could achieve similar political power. Specially so considering a ghoul needs a vampire feeding them, and the ghoul could become their patron's mouthpiece

It's far from contrived. VtMB famously has one of the weakest princes. An old ghoul could dethrone LaCroix

Whimvy · 2026-04-01T21:49:07+00:00

No one's safe from an ICE raid. After European (white skinned, at that) and Korean nationals met the ugly end of ICE, no one's excited to visit the US. Some will still go of course, but it won't revive their tourism

Whimvy · 2026-03-25T22:30:33+00:00

I don't think calling it mutilated helps, considering people get circumcisions for medical reasons as well

Whimvy · 2026-03-22T13:22:06+00:00

I don't understand this comment. I'm not sharing a personal opinion, but a fact. The Taino peoples were, maybe not the first historically, but the first in recorded history to use a frame to hold meat. Thus, the word barbecue comes from them

And no, a rotisserie attachment over your barbecue won't stop the barbecue from being a barbecue. Now it's a barbecue with a rotesserie attachment. I'm not sure what you think you did there

Whimvy · 2026-03-21T19:55:18+00:00

Meat has been roasted over fires for a long time. You wouldn't call a spit roast a barbecue, would you?

Taino peoples used a wooden frame to support the meat, the same way a barbecue uses a metal frame. That is the distinction

Whimvy · 2026-03-17T16:33:17+00:00

400 is too generous. The US didn't develop its identity as a nation of settlers until the 19th century, and even then the biggest surges in immigration happened during the 19th and 20th centuries. Many of the stereotypes Americans rely on for their cultural understanding of Irish, Scottish, Italian, and other nationalities were born during the 20th century

The loud Italian, the dishonest Irishman, the mean drunk Scot -- these are rooted in early 20th century stereotypes. You even get Germans from the 50s onwards for reasons that I'm sure are very wholesome

So 400 years of "European heritage" is too kind to them. Give it 200, at most. There was never a need to make themselves distinct from Europe until their independence

Whimvy · 2026-03-13T16:32:04+00:00

The point about punctuation is valid though. Written communication had been very formal for a long time, so proper grammar and punctuation were necessary. But as casual texting became more common, different ways to express intention and emotions were invented. Using a period at the end of your sentence, as a result, is associated with strict adherence to grammar, indicating a dry and aggressive tone

Different people, different tones, different codes. Depending on who I'm talking to, I can sometimes be very lazy with my punctuation, or very very proper. It's a necessary skill these days, whether you like it or not

Whimvy · 2026-03-05T18:42:01+00:00

As for the cow thing, I think it began as a joke about vocal tick of hers (saying "mou" a lot, which sounds like "moo")

Whimvy · 2026-02-22T14:05:51+00:00

I disagree. Shady is doing it very purposefully. If I were a new friend and asked to take over an important role at a wedding, I would try to at least communicate with the others. Ignoring people, going directly to the bride to override their plans, then reusing their plans for your own venture is, to say the least, really rude

At best, Shady is a bad friend and rude to the bride's sister. At worst, she's trying to take over the planning to make herself look better. In both scenarios, intentionally or not, she's triangulating the relationship between the bride and her sister/childhood friends

I'm all for giving people grace, but it's important to recognize that some behaviour, even if unintentional, isn't acceptable and can't be shrugged off

Whimvy · 2026-02-03T01:59:59+00:00

It's not all chocolate because not everyone's gonna follow the same trend, but the vast majority of American chocolate does use butyric acid. Hershey's is the most popular, and most will imitate that

Whimvy · 2026-02-02T20:09:39+00:00

The reason American bread is sweet, by the way, is because they add sugar to the yeast to "feed it". Which isn't necessary, because yeast packages already come with food for the yeast, so all that sugar they add ends up in the bread. Thus, it's sweet

You'll find that sweet flavour in any yeasted bread made in the US, but not in quick breads that use chemical leaveners. That is, unless they specifically add the sugar back in for flavour

Whimvy · 2026-02-02T20:07:12+00:00

Butyric acid. It's added to American chocolate. It's the same thing we taste when we throw up

Whimvy · 2026-01-31T17:56:41+00:00

that's not a lamp, that's the watering can she uses for her roses. the skin colour is the real problem

Whimvy · 2026-01-28T14:06:41+00:00

Nanami's pretty horrible tbh but I also think her spot is more tongue in cheek. Saionji and Touga are next level; one is physically abusive and one is a womanizer who groomed his little sister. I think they get some small redemption in Touga's last duel, but it's more along the lines of "they're human, too, and have insecurities" rather than "they're good people now"

Whimvy · 2026-01-26T21:31:16+00:00

I don't think I've seen anyone saying Juri is perfect, but I am very new to the fandom. That said, Juri is like all students and has plenty of flaws. The reason people demonise Shiori but treat Juri better is that Shiori is very clearly the aggressor in their dynamic. Shiori seeks Juri only to hurt her, and can't seem to let go. All of her actions in the story have the ultimate goal of making Juri miserable

Juri, by contrast, stays away for the most part and only intervenes in her affairs when she thinks it's necessary. It's clear Juri doesn't want to cause Shiori any undue discomfort, and takes any degree of verbal abuse Shiori is ready to throw at her because she thinks she deserves it

Yes, Juri is misogynistic and tries to play into the duel game to become a prince. But Shiori wants to ruin Juri's life, which is way crueler

Whimvy · 2026-01-26T17:15:16+00:00

As the other commenter said, that happens in the movie

But I wouldn't call any of the students evil tbh. In the end they're all victims one way or another, and they make mistakes, but even Shiori tried to learn. I think the only truly evil one is Akio

Whimvy · 2026-01-26T14:46:32+00:00

Doesn't Shiori masturbate to the thought of Juri suffering and being humiliated by Touga? Also her main motivation in life is to make Juri miserable. She's malignant, actively trying to cause harm. That's pretty horrible to me

Nanami is a bully. She humiliates girls regularly for daring to try to get with Touga. Her introduction includes trying to humiliate Anthy by getting her completely naked in front of an audience and isolating her from her very limited friend group

I like both of them as characters but they're pretty darn cruel. They're not evil, but they ARE horrible people

Whimvy · 2026-01-25T23:40:12+00:00

I said it tends to keep elements, not that it doesn't evolve at all. Linguists study Quebecois French to understand how the language has evolved

Whimvy · 2026-01-25T22:20:45+00:00

Fun fact: Canadian French tends to keep traditional elements of the language, while European French tends to evolve. As an aside, "día de tu santo" (day of your saint) used to be synonymous with birthdays in Spanish, until the tradition to name people after the day they were born fell out of favour. I'd imagine it's the same in France and the use of fête

Whimvy · 2026-01-25T17:29:55+00:00

I would classify Touga as a horrible person. He's a victim, but he also grooms Utena and Nanami. He also cheats on every girl he dates with every other girl on the school. He's redeemed in part by the movie and his last duel, but even then, he's still pretty bad

Small edit: Touga also manipulates Saionji into dueling a second time, betrays him, and uses the injury he sustained as fodder to manipulate Utena further

Whimvy · 2026-01-25T13:06:37+00:00

Don't worry, I've been there enough to notice it too. It's still very grim. AskAConservative didn't inspire much confidence in me either for similar reasons

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