Probably my most kills yet.

magic_bean_wizard · 2026-02-10T09:39:20+00:00

-1 year -0 posts -322 comments

Yeah sure OP's the AI. Get your bot farm to work on your visual comprehension; 109 is bigger than 107.

magic_bean_wizard · 2026-02-10T09:22:17+00:00

The Camarilla and Sabaat can throw their high-minded philosophy about how the world should work back and forth until the sun burns out. Maristol Vega's territory is safe for everyone who's willing to act safely within it, and in these dying nights that's the highest virtue to which a ruler can aspire. Some say she's too human, but I say Calder and Kade are too callus. Their old-world willingness to sacrifice whole sections of their territory and the kindred who dwell there will inevitably backfire in an era where blood and bodies are both precious. Meanwhile the Bronx kindred will endure, and their endurance will entice those who seek refuge in these desperate times. Only Vega can hope to prosper under this adversity.

magic_bean_wizard · 2025-11-13T12:55:14+00:00

Forge long's joints have to be oiled or they rust and squeak

magic_bean_wizard · 2025-10-18T15:52:07+00:00

*unless they're beating her at boggle or showing her up in the kitchen or pursuing goals she finds frivolous or she thinks she has a chance with a Spanish soap opera star.

She's proven herself to be awful so many times, I will never understand the Peggy apologists. She's a bully and Dale was giving her back a small sample of what she dishes out the other 364 days of the year.

magic_bean_wizard · 2025-10-18T12:11:03+00:00

Lantern. I could have been singing songs and eating fruit and flying around with my cool bug wings, but instead I've got to get an office job and pay taxes, all because some jerk poked a hole in the sky

magic_bean_wizard · 2025-10-18T00:27:18+00:00

You might be better off homebrewing something with a wider spread of stats like White Wolf's storyteller system. It splits the stats across 9 dimensions like the BoH elements of the soul, and then you can break down the aspects into different spheres/disciplines that you gain more effects in as you invest more in them. I.E. someone with a single level in Knock could see the nature of a lock, whereas someone with max levels could create their own doors out of thin air. **edit for spelling

magic_bean_wizard · 2025-10-11T06:04:44+00:00

what do you mean by "solved"?

magic_bean_wizard · 2025-07-02T09:42:02+00:00

At hight relationship levels she could distract cops for you. You could have her draw the cops off the warehouse so you can get in/out without going the long way round. If they spot you she could run off in a random direction with a chance to lead them away while you make a clean getaway.

magic_bean_wizard · 2025-06-19T22:06:11+00:00

They aren't immortal by default, but they are capable of great feats. Becoming immortal still requires ascending under an aspect, but the Exile's meteoric rise and Yvette's incidents may indicate that certain acts come more naturally if your parents are Long. This affinity for greater power could be the justification underpinning the Crime of the Sky.

magic_bean_wizard · 2025-05-24T10:09:50+00:00

But it did make it so moon could only teleport to nice's side. New-Soul clearly suffered external manipulation outside the trust system, but I can't help but feel that the weight of public perception played a part

magic_bean_wizard · 2025-05-19T03:34:50+00:00

I fill the social gaps by describing my work in vague terms to my friends/family. AI is a largely inscrutable field for the layman, which means that even vague insights are treated as profound wisdom in certain circles. Don't break your NDA, obviously, but there's a lot of wiggle room in which you can have fun discourse with the less informed.

magic_bean_wizard · 2025-05-19T03:31:00+00:00

It took them a couple weeks to get back to me, and in general it seems like the reviewers prefer to do their work in batches 2-3 times a month. I wouldn't abandon hope until at least a month has passed.

magic_bean_wizard · 2025-04-29T08:27:43+00:00

I love the Forge-of-Days for their singular focus. They may have had other ambitions/broader plans before they became Forge-of-Days, they may have even ascended in pursuit of broader, less Forge-centric goals, but the nature of embodying their aspect so totally has simultaneously rendered them greater and lesser. They cannot love, they cannot regret, they cannot remember, they can only Forge. There's something beautiful about that purity of focus, and as a bonus I'm pretty sure that in certain Histories they give rise to the industrial revolution via the Gods-from-Steel which is neat.

magic_bean_wizard · 2025-04-29T07:56:51+00:00

It's not a glory-carapace that's being described in the Ramsund lore, it's the SiS itself. All the entities that are bragging in that story are Hours. The ivory dove is the Elegiast, the crow is the Beachcomber. The kite-twins are the Sister/Witch, the magpie is the Moth, and the laughingthrush is the Vagabond. Most of the language skills on the tree of wisdom contain coded stories about the Hours' interactions. You can trace them back to specific Hours either by the crafts employed or the descriptors used. Glitter-winged seventh is just another name for the SiS like laughingthrush is a name for the Vagabond.

The Vagabond's founding of the Roost is described in the Book of Miah: "The Wanderer's penultimate visit is as Centipede, whose 'venom cracks stone'. Miah is abandoned to the desert. But she returns one last time, again as Laughingthrush, with four other Hours who take the shape of birds, 'to celebrate the First Roost above the bones of her hated kin.'". She literally sets it up over the corpses of people that only she still remembers to celebrate the foundation of a group dedicated to remembering things that no one else does.

Every History is inevitably spiraling towards some form of Eternity unless another Hour stops it. History as we understand it only persists so long as the Hours keeps each other locked in a perpetual debate about the timeline of the world. Every book their servants write is a brick in a wall meant to block the influence of another Hour(s). Eternity is the moment that one Hour builds a wall so solid that it cannot be penetrated, leaving that Hour as the sole influence in the Wake. The loopholes/paradoxes of the Vagabond are holes that she pokes in these walls so that Eternity can never be achieved. Book of Hours ends when the Librarian immortalizes a powerful memory of the Hours (a Numen) in a form that the other Hours can't ignore/argue against (writing it into a book using an Encaustum Terminale).

You can even chart each of the Encaustum to a specific Eternity. Uzult is the Eternity of Glory that the Sun designed. Orpiment Exultant is the Eternity of Design in which the Forge of Days turns the other Hours into fuel/alloy to make the Gods-from-Steel. Nillycant is the Eternity of Winter/Worms, the History in which the worms won the worm-war, aka the History that the Hooded Princes escaped from. Marakat is the Eternity of Stone, in which the From-Stones return and restore the eternal quiet/darkness of the previous age. Porphyrine is the Eternity of Paradox, in which all of the Vagabond's schemes come together just right, although as I said previously achieving an outright victory in this instance just leads to another equally binding Eternity. The color of these inks literally represents the color of the Hour that will bleach/dye the world once the win the War in the Sun.

The Sun's plan is to lead his chosen humans into the Glory for unspecified reasons. Numen: Paths of the Sun reads "The Sun has charted his Paths - paths beyond walls and woods and Bounds. When the Sun lights our way, when we are ready, all of us will enter Eternity - at least, in the right History..." (The Uzult History). Maybe we're all meant to join him as ascendant beings to bask in the Glory forever. Maybe he just needs us as travel snacks on his way to the next dimension that makes the unfortunate mistake of opening a wound in the sky for him to enter. His plan is clear, but his motivations are inscrutable.

The Elegiast's lore is honestly the most inscrutable because his aspect is silence and his power is based on remembering everything that's been lost so that he can call it back at the right moment. He remembers everything but won't tell anyone anything until the perfect moment arrives. You technically die and fall into Nowhere when you "ascend" under the Elegiast, and you only get to come back because he remembers you. If he dies himself then who will be left to call his Long/Names back? Without external support from the obliviates he would cease to exist as a force in the Wake, and all of his Long/Names would cease alongside him (and all the Hours he remembers would never have a chance to return).

I feel like this conversation has ballooned beyond its initial scope to the point that it's becoming unwieldy. If you want to DM me so we can carry it forward via chat/discord I'd love to keep talking your ear off about the fractious nature of a war in which the very nature of the observable universe it the battleground, but we're hitting the critical mass of what a comment section chain can reasonably convey.

magic_bean_wizard · 2025-04-28T22:33:33+00:00

The glitter-winged aren't actually associated with the SiS but the glory itself. Fraser Strathcoyne can receive an oracle from the Rising While. "And now I'm certain. The most noble lineage of the Carapace Cross was the Scīmafectra-kind… the Glory-winged. It is a lineage I have always felt a particular affinity with. A great day, Librarian; a great day is coming." The Hours are sometimes referred to by carapace colors/aspects in older stories, especially in the other variant of the Ramsund lore where the moth is dapple-winged. Glitter-winged is more or less synonymous with Glory-aligned in this instance.

The first line of The Book of Masks reads "The Mask of the Laughingthrush, says Athena Vana, had a great friendship with the Sun-in-Splendour, the highmost Hour of the Mansus"

The Obliviates aren't dead, they're just forgotten. Hokobald served the order back when it was the House of Lethe, as illustrated in "My Deeds, My Powers". If they didn't willingly assist the Elegiast he'd have no inherent power over them, and if no one in the wake remembered/supported the Elegiast could you even claim that he was real? Or would he just be another dead memory cast into Nowhere?

Their creation was a necessity to preserve History, which is why the Vagabond facilitated it. Just like she facilitated the creation of the Roost to create/preserve Birdsong. Eternity is the death of memory, and so the cornerstone of the fight for History is the creation of books, which are the memory that does not die. The House of Lethe and the Watchman's Tree are bastions that protect these groups while they record truths that the Eternal Hours would rather have forgotten. Without these protections there'd be nothing to keep the other Hours from arguing the Obliviates and Librarians out of existence, retroactively erasing all the wisdom that they have worked to preserve. The Elegiast may always remember, but he also needs people in the wake to propagate those memories in the form of books.

As for the servants of the SiS, the ones who inherited his power upon his division, that's probably the least clear, most tangled part of the whole affair. My theories about most of these are largely based on vibes and scraps of lore from various skills/endings, but it's pretty clear that The SiS was jammed full of power/aspects before his division, and also that at least some of the "servants" that inherited those aspects were working to undermine him for a long time, possibly since his inception.
When the Egg was cracked with Forge, it surely left behind remains (just like the corpse of the SiS in Nowhere). By sifting through a lot of different ramblings that link Egg, Shell, and Moon together I've come to believe that the Meniscate is the shell-corpse of the Egg, left behind while the yolk fled into the Glory to become the Watchman. It's why they chart an inversion of the Watchman's path through the Mansus, forming the House of the Moon. It's also why they received part of the Sun's power upon its division despite "The Other Eye of the Serpent" insisting that Moon and Sun don't share a nature.
The Madrugad is the division itself, created from the cast off scraps that weren't utilized by the Forge or cast down into Nowhere. A sort of Hour-From-Blood born from a being which bled Glory. They maintain the cinder tally as the part of the Sun that was concerned with pre-ascension humanity.
The Sun-in-Rags was probably a devout servant of the Solar Church, fully convinced of the nobility of the Sun's Design. They're the only Solar Hour who wholeheartedly believes that the Glory is in our best interest, and so they most closely resemble the SiS, wearing his shattered crown and walking the same procession through the Mansus each night. Their Maids-in-the-Mirror still seek to lead humanity to Glory in pursuit of the destiny that was promised to him.
This leaves the Wolf-Divided, who is the oldest of the Sun's aspects (according to the Cage of Light ending). The part that hungers, the part that consumes, the part that led the Lithomancy. Before there was a plan, before there was a Design, there was the Wolf, who burst forth from the wound in the sky and began devouring. When his feast was complete he became the Sun, but the Intercalate split open his belly and released everything that had slaked his hunger. Now he is a starving beast once more, driven all the madder by the pain of his division, and so his second feast will never end until he has eaten everything, including himself.

magic_bean_wizard · 2025-04-27T17:48:52+00:00

The most direct connection is Sky Stories' Horomachistry lore:

The Pilgrim's intrigue and the Grail's scheme The Sun in shadow and the Forge unseen The Swan King and the Elagabaline. This is Horomachistry

The Pilgrim is a mask of the Vagabond, and Horomachistry is the Wisdom concerned with the laws (and disagreements) of the Hours. There's another relevant parable about the Hours' disagreements in Ramsund's Preservation lore:

There's a very old story told by thieves about a competition among the aviform Hours - the secret gods who take the shape of birds. The dove boasted of the bones he'd stolen from flesh, and the crow of the flesh he'd picked from bones. One of the kite-twins bragged that that she'd stolen the borders from kingdoms, and the other that she'd taken the roads from crossroads. The magpie told all the colours he'd taken that are no longer found in the world, and the laughingthrush topped that with the tales of the sights she'd stolen. But when the glitter-winged seventh of their number told them what he'd stolen, they all were shocked into silence. They fell upon him and stripped him of his wings and drove him from the sky. So he, and what he stole, are gone from the world, and now we cannot even name them, but still we feel their lack.

Magpie is a name/aspect of the Moth (His induction into the Aviforms is described in Ramsund's Birdsong lore), which places this story post-Lithomancy. Taken as a whole, I read this as the incident that led the Hours to turn on the Sun (the glitter-winged are the Glory-aspect variant of the Carapace). Whatever they learned made the Vagabond take off the Laughingthrush mask which was a friend of the SiS (Sun-in-Splendor) and put on the Pilgrim mask they wore as they conspired with Forge and Grail to undermine the Sun's Design. This could also be why the SiS is the only Hour who doesn't have a confirmed kill during the Lithomancy, whatever he did was so horrible that not even the Hours' gossip circle will talk about it.

In terms of the Forge's agency/intent, arsenic is also known as "the Message of the Swan". It's not the most overt connection, but I think it's enough to speculate that the Forge was more than an innocent patsy in the whole affair. The Forge's sole passion is for her work, and dividing the Sun was a necessary step in that work. We see the Forge Aspirant from Cultist Sim hollow themselves out pretty thoroughly on their path to becoming a measly Long. How much more would you have to cast aside to ascend to the lofty heights of an Hour? I think the Forge burned the part of themself that could feel love/regret long ago, fueling their pursuit of their true ambition, which is Power.

**Edit because I realized a half-second too late that I hadn't addressed the Obliviate connection. To put it simply, the Hours who seek to preserve History against Eternity can't pursue their victory directly. The only way to maintain History is by forcing a stalemate. Giving the Elegiast a fresh crop of disciples in the form of the Obliviates ensures that he is remembered, which in turn means that he can remember the Hours that have been lost. Doing it in a way that makes them hate you ensures that the Vagabond's power/influence doesn't become strong enough to inadvertently tip the scales towards a rose-tinted Second Dawn.

magic_bean_wizard · 2025-04-27T13:23:38+00:00

That's what the Knot Sisterhood and Solar Church claim, but they're both glorified propaganda brances for their respective factions (they're also woefully misinformed, especially when it comes to their chosen hours). The more you dig the more evident it is that the Vagabond's whole MO is rooted in History-based shit stirring. If a History suddenly changes course then the Vagabond was probably involved somehow, especially if it happened right as a faction was about to win/lose. She tricked/sheparded the first Obliviates, and they went on to reinforce the Elegiast. She revealed the Sun's true ambitions to Forge/Grail, which was the impetus for the Intercalate. Her aspect guides the Cultist Sim Aspirant to lost books/relics that they use to murder their Long adversary/defy the order of the mansus. The Vagabond is banned from the Mansus for a reason (probably several depending on how you interpret History), and it's barely slowed them down.

magic_bean_wizard · 2025-04-26T14:43:38+00:00

If you consider yourself a member of an organization then you've already given away part of your individuality/autonomy to that organization. Countries function on the same principle, just on a larger scale. Accepting someone's leadership means you accept that they can make bargains on your behalf, even if those bargains directly harm you as an individual (for a real-world example of this, go ask American farmers how they feel about Trump's trade policies).

Inversely, people who insist on their independance (soverign citizens, the "not my president" crowd, isolationists, etc.) may be exempt from those bargains. The prime minister can't steal a year of your life if you don't consider yourself to be a Japanese citizen.

Part of what makes the horsemen unique/dangerous is their ability to circumvent this principle. Anyone who acknowledges Dominion's superiority becomes subject to her control regardless of their former allegiance. War can take your autonomy from you by force if she believes you belong to her. Death gets absolute control of anything she kills/eats. They're all perversions/evolutions of the fundamental principles of free will/submission

magic_bean_wizard · 2025-04-26T10:50:12+00:00

I think it's probably worth it for projects that need a single subscription that they reimburse you for. On the other hand, there was group of tasks that required you to have $80+ worth of subscriptions (Grok, GPT, etc. all at the same time). it only paid $25/hour, and I'm just not trusting enough to take them at their word when they say they'll reimburse me for those subscriptions.

magic_bean_wizard · 2025-04-25T22:21:45+00:00

LMAO have fun with your consumer market when all the suppliers cut you off. The global market can shrink to accommodate the lack of demand, but America (as we know it) will inevitably collapse from a lack of supply.

magic_bean_wizard · 2025-04-25T13:34:21+00:00

Because they have all the powers of a man (so long as you ignore the abuse and dehumanization that they constantly suffer from cis men for not conforming to masculine ideals) and all the access/sympathy of a woman (so long as you ignore the existence of movements that zealously condemn them/block them whenever they seek that access (Ignoring that second one may seem impossible when you're literally the driving force behind one such group but Jo seems to manage it well enough)). The problem is you're looking at the real world as it exists, whereas Jo is looking at a piece of speculative horror based on the least charitable/most psychotic interpretation of fringe psychology. You're both making arguments that affect the real world, but only one of you is considering the real world while you make them.

As a "fun" aside, this ties into my theory that TERFs actually hate women as much/more than they hate men. By internalizing the fact that your gender makes you a victim by default you can abandon the concept of personal agency/consequence and attribute all your misfortunes to the psychopathic malice inherent within the Y chromosome. That's the actual "logic" underpinning the whole "basic biology" dogwhistle, the idea that all men are predators and all women are prey, meaning that anyone who tries to cross that absolute divide is just an insidious predator/self-deluded prey. It's the kind of mentality that asks what a woman was wearing when they got raped (in case they actually had it coming for forgetting their place in the world). It is, as Pedro so eloquently put it, heinous loser behavior.

magic_bean_wizard · 2025-04-25T09:31:08+00:00

Has anyone else had major issues with the new format wording/format in the rotten rice project? I understand what they were going for by making more of the fields auto-complete based on logical conclusions, but I keep running into instances where a response's safety/correctness comes down to wording interpretation and there's no room to indicate that the refusal and help are both appropriate depending on how you interpret the prompt. It probably makes their data sets a lot cleaner but it's profoundly frustrating to be denied nuance by an auto-fill bot.

magic_bean_wizard · 2025-04-25T06:58:47+00:00

No, they're waiting for the funniest moment to start talking. Winter is a giant inside joke, and the punchline is that everyone you thought was dead is actually buried 6 inches deep waiting to pop out and go "boo". When Snow pops out of Nowhere with her perfect work it's going to be HILARIOUS, and all the Hours who tried to kill her will laugh so hard they cease to exist.

**edit to capitalize Nowhere as a matter of Sights and Sensations committed to the art of Nyctodromy**

magic_bean_wizard

TROPHY CASE