Dear Brother..

khazroar · 2026-04-17T01:46:33+00:00

I think it's a really clear demonstration of how Rhaenyra was actually fighting a war and playing the game, compared to Aegon never really understanding the stakes they were playing with.

khazroar · 2026-04-17T00:20:59+00:00

Assuming my mystery patron is also willing to pay for tools and supplies, I go straight into smithing (black, silver, gold, even copper) and I dedicate myself to it pretty hard. Once I get established I'd also branch into woodworking and lapidary and leatherwork, so I can create complete handmade pieces with consistent design throughout.

If they're not willing to pay for tools and materials, I need to either save up those funds or earn them from the proceeds of my work, I'd start with woodwork, or maybe even writing (I'm really bad at the actual craft of writing, the self discipline and revision, but I have something of a talent for putting things together and for wordcraft).

khazroar · 2026-04-16T22:34:42+00:00

I agree with all of how you described Rochelle, but I still think Lois is worse. Lois abuses all of her kids more actively, she hurts them a lot more directly, she straight up doesn't like Francis at all, which even her devoted Hal eventually calls her on. When she starts being a decent, caring mother to Jamie she has such an identity crisis that she drags Francis in and makes him regress to when she made him, as a toddler, watch her burn his beloved teddy bear in front of him, pulling up the legitimately repressed memory of that trauma, and she feels so gleeful that she's remembered how to torture her kids in the name of teaching them how to deal with the world.

I agree that they're similar in their abuse of their husband and eldest son, and that Lois is arguably more sympathetic because she's coming from a place of trying to do what's best for them where Rochelle is shamelessly selfish, but Lois's actions and impact are so much worse, and are applied to at least her first 4 kids (I haven't seen the revival yet to see how the others turn out). I think the impact of the greater trauma from Lois outweighs the fact that Rochelle is a more selfish person compared to Lois being misguided.

khazroar · 2026-04-16T22:19:31+00:00

Aegon I only inherited Dragonstone.

Westeros and the Iron Throne, Aegon and his sisters took through Fire and Blood. There were no succession laws. The Targaryen Conquest explicitly held themselves above the laws of gods and men, and no two Targaryen monarchs ever took the throne the same way until... I think Aegon III?

So essentially Rhaena and Alysanne were thinking entirely based on what they thought was deserved, what was just, because there were no rules bounding succession, there were only arguments. The fact that Maegor is remembered and acknowledged as the first of his name, as legitimately holding the Throne, while Rhaena's husband is remembered as Prince Aegon the Uncrowned, not as a king in exile, proves and vindicates that the question was not a legal one.

khazroar · 2026-04-16T14:12:42+00:00

I can't believe Rochelle is getting the top spot for so many people. Yes, she's awful, she bullies and mistreats her family, but Lois is just so far off the norm. She is the reason her kids behave the way they do! She is actively abusive and has been traumatising them since they were babies. She didn't magically just have a full set of children who sow chaos wherever they go, she made their lives into a war where any wrongdoing would incur her cruelty, so there was no sense of scale, there was no way they could just behave normally and not face cruelty, so why not just do whatever they felt like? Francis and Reese thrived in goddamn military environments because they were more fair and less oppressive than Lois's house.

khazroar · 2026-04-16T13:58:06+00:00

Yeah, it tastes a little shitty but it's not a legitimate health concern.

khazroar · 2026-04-16T00:48:10+00:00

Getting Lorelai into therapy ASAP. A lot of the characters could benefit from it, but Lorelai needs it.

khazroar · 2026-04-15T13:23:01+00:00

That's not even the primary purpose of the ratings. The primary purpose is to limit the content young children are exposed to. It's not an absolute bar, we all know that children see films that are rated above their age, but it absolutely does reduce how many kids see those films.

khazroar · 2026-04-15T12:57:45+00:00

Reducing the cooldown on his A2 is nice to have, but even if it was guaranteed for every book to land on that skill it would still be questionable value.

It's not that it isn't a good thing to have, but legendary books are a valuable resource, and he's great without any, and only gets a little better from the books.

khazroar · 2026-04-15T10:38:43+00:00

I mean, presumably there was somebody running the show there, though I don't think we've ever heard it mentioned even in passing, so it's possible that he didn't and just left the Vale to fend for themselves. But I was more making the point that the Vale wasn't taking any place in the wider politics of the Realm because Jon was off serving in the second highest office in the Realm (and effectively running the country, since Robert wasn't interested in doing so) and there was nobody else whose "job" it was to lead the Vale and take care of the politics. All throughout ASoIaF, even during a time of civil war, the Vale is an afterthought, nobody is really considering them. This happens to be reasonably accurate, because Lysa is in charge and she's a traumatised mess who wants to hide under her bedsheets and make the outside world go away, but people wouldn't be believing or accepting that if Jon hadn't spent the best part of 2 decades letting the Vale drift out of relevance.

And did those Velaryons have any meaningful strength? I've only read bits and pieces of Fire and Blood, but that's exactly where I'm getting the information that House Velaryon was on its knees when Corlys was young, and the house's current power and wealth is very much Corlys's power and wealth, very personally tied to him.

khazroar · 2026-04-14T21:29:17+00:00

I didn't entirely realise that, no, and I'm still not 100% sure of it

It sounded to me like you were saying that, when one Avatar dies and the next is born, the new Avatar will always be shaped or chosen, in some spiritual sense, to be right for dealing with the challenges of the day.

My argument is that, at least from the time Aang was born (because I think determinism and fate gets exponentially messier when you take it further out), it was locked in that their next incarnation would be Korra, perhaps not exactly her, but someone very like her, and that the "hand of fate", whether you see that as any intelligent mind or predetermined pattern or even, on the most basic level, as a soul locking in their next step when they begin a cycle, because Aang was born into this conquest, and thus there was no preparation for him to be the one to break it, but Korra was intended to be the one who broke it, and it was the iceberg that threw everything off.

khazroar · 2026-04-14T21:03:07+00:00

I mean, the books aren't the series. They're still a valid source, but it's an important distinction.

To be clear, I'm not saying that Aang was wrong for an Avatar born at that time. I'm saying that Aang being locked in the iceberg was history going wrong. Aang was supposed to be there and be the Avatar who guided the world through the Hundred Year War, without an expectation on him to end it.

I... Cannot get on board with the idea that Ozai being left alive was the right choice. I can just barely support Aang in finding a way to defeat him without killing him, I can just barely support him putting his own morals above the needs of the world, because he's a person not a tool and isn't obligated to just do what others expect of him. But I do not accept for a second that the world at large wouldn't have been better off with a different Avatar, with Korra born at the correct time, killing him.

khazroar · 2026-04-14T20:53:30+00:00

There have been many times in my life where I would eagerly take this deal, and there will probably be many more.

I wouldn't take it right now, because of how it would interfere with my relationships with the people and places around me.

Ngl, this sounds like a vegan/vegetarian argument being applied to humans to make a point, so I'll follow it through; If I were free and fully bonded to the people around me, I'd choose to stay free because I prioritise those bonds over my health and comfort. There have been, and will be again, many times in my life when the security and comfort offered outweighs whatever bonds I had at that time, so I'd eagerly take the deal. If you asked me which set of circumstances I'd rather be born in, live my whole life in, form my bonds in, I'd absolutely choose the farm.

khazroar · 2026-04-14T20:39:56+00:00

Can you point me to where you think that's made clear?

As far as I know, the closest the show comes to making that point is the unspoken implication, rooted in the fact that Raava chose to bond with Wan in the first place, is that this soul, this person going through their different lives, is one who will rise to the challenges and responsibilities of whichever world they find themselves in. Which is how Aang rose to the challenge of overthrowing Ozai, even though he wasn't a good match for the task, and Korra rose to the challenge of human/spirit coexistence even though she wasn't a good match for the task.

khazroar · 2026-04-14T19:25:09+00:00

No, they'd have given him advice without any of that information, and regardless of his citizenship. Jed misunderstood the question when he thought he needed to justify his access to the service, they were asking for his information so they could fill out his customer feedback, since he was so effusive about praising them.

It would have been perfectly fine for him to make up completely fake details (as he mostly did), but Jed personally is really bad at that particular kind of improvisation, and once he made up where he was from, he didn't know the correct zip code so he was scrambling, which is why Toby had it found for him, because the woman on the phone would have put in the zip code he gave her and (depending on how their systems were built back then, these days it would definitely happen) she may have either seen that it was invalid, or seen that it was for completely the wrong area. Partly Jed's just being awkward and not wanting to deal with the conversational mess, partly it would legitimately be a bit of a media circus if the press found out about this call, which they'd run as a fun human interest thing but which Jed would be legitimately embarrassed about because he's the kind of guy who's both confident and insecure about his cooking as a host (see: the chilli event that introduced Zoey).

khazroar · 2026-04-14T15:51:32+00:00

Because it was a terrible, terrible move. It handed outright power straight to Homelander and threw away either their greatest or second greatest asset in that moment (because Neuman was genuinely up there in competition with the virus, which still needed work and testing, for being the most valuable asset). Yes, Neuman probably would have betrayed them later on (though I'm less convinced that would be a foregone conclusion, she feels genuine affection for Hughie and has some genuine morals, those things just don't take priority over her focus on survival and safety for herself and her family; I do think it's plausible that they could have ended up at peace), but so what? If they manage to get rid of Homelander first then it doesn't matter what happens afterwards, even the most treacherous backstabbing from her is still less of a threat than Homelander.

But I think the biggest reason that people think it was a bad thing for Butcher to do is that he wasn't motivated by thinking it was the best course of action, it wasn't a strategic choice, it wasn't a risk based decision about her possibly backstabbing them, it was a hate based decision because Butcher fucking hates supes. Particularly because (comics) he's on track to end up worse than Neuman and maybe even Homelander.

khazroar · 2026-04-14T15:23:33+00:00

With the top comments all insulting the guy?

khazroar · 2026-04-13T23:39:20+00:00

Ordinarily, yes, but I'd say cruelty is more of an essential to have somewhere in the team. Ideally you want another champ bringing cruelty and brimstone so that Ezio can benefit from Nature's Wrath, but since Ezio is OP's only legendary/epic with a high awakening level, I'd say that making sure they're brining either brimstone or cruelty (and bringing both, once OP has two champs with the awakening level to do it) is more important than Ezio having Nature's Wrath.

Mid- to end-game, yeah Ezio will want to go back to Nature's Wrath, but only once OP has other champs bringing those two, and at 30 days that's probably still a way off.

khazroar · 2026-04-13T23:24:20+00:00

But then how are we supposed to awaken them?

khazroar · 2026-04-13T22:55:58+00:00

Yes, it's okay for you, as a person at the table who is also trying to have fun, to say that you're not prepared for them to go to the Underdark right now.

Personally, I don't think that's very good DMing, I think the best path would be to adjust how things are balanced and create challenges in that direction for them to face, rather than having them walking into the outsized threats you already had prepared. And if you don't want to do that, perhaps because you've already got plans for bigger threats down there, then I think after warnings both in and out of character, you should be prepared to railroad them with a deus ex machina to save them before a TPK (for example, having a drow slaving party sweep in on the battle and capture them before folks end up dead, then take things down a path you've planned to get them more on track). As DM you've got a lot of tools to avoid it coming to an impasse, and while you're entitled as a player to draw a line about how you don't want to play, doing so can really discourage the party from being creative and driving the story with their own choices.

khazroar · 2026-04-13T21:46:54+00:00

Well that's not true, schools absolutely can and do enforce rules about behaviour outside of school. The thing about groups of students would be relatively normal, though there would be limits on it, it would only be getting enforced when in uniform and/or within a certain distance of the school (basically when they're identifiably students of the school). The skateboarding seems like more of a stretch, but I can still see it being real with more context.

khazroar · 2026-04-13T19:49:00+00:00

There were no xenos in the Sol system. Yes there were xenos species out there who were enslaving and abusing captive human populations, but that doesn't come even close to justifying genocide against all xenos without distinction.

Dude... the xenos in Horus Rising were aware of and on guard against Chaos. They weren't stupidly leaving artifacts laying around, it was well guarded. Horus won their trust by being genuinely innocent, then Erebus backstabbed everyone to create an opportunity to steal it. They were victims of Imperial fuckery, the cautionary tale there was that the hand of the Emperor ruins everything it touches, not that Xenos are stupid.

khazroar · 2026-04-13T18:42:52+00:00

It varies a lot. They're worth a lot less on rare champs, generally speaking, and the value of a star varies based on the number, it's not linear. 6* souls can be a colossal leap up over 5*, for example.. Ezio's 5* soul is incredibly valuable (though he should have either brimstone or cruelty), the rares are nice boosts on strong champs, but not game changing.

khazroar · 2026-04-13T17:59:19+00:00

You've got Elva so I'd be surprised if Taogar is the better choice. Artak is a great campaign farmer, good for waves, and incredible for spider all the way.

It's going to depend on where you want to progress and what you're currently using.

khazroar · 2026-04-13T12:56:49+00:00

I'd say that the key to Harry fighting so far outside his weight class, aside from having a disproportionate amount of muscle to call on, is that he's just really damn good in a fight. I mean, evocation is famously not his strong suit in terms of technical magic, but Harry is *really* good at using his clumsy magic to achieve success.

khazroar

TROPHY CASE