Shagster

The best way to experience "Dreamland" is to leave it on in the background, and don't look at the TV screen. Just pretend it's a radio drama of Dr. Who.

Worked pretty good for me. Made good background stuff as I puttered about on the computer one day.

This is so very true.

I remember vaguely an anecdote where a literary critic lambasted Isaac Asimov for his "overly simple" writing style, and several other writers of note came out to his defense, all basically saying "Ever try to write like Asimov does, with the efficiency of word choice, the minimal descriptions but still getting the story and ideas across? It's hard!"

She did it at least twice that I saw!

Once, when I got it. Then, another run when Electroanagesia and some other people got it, since they missed the first league that got it.

She does really deserve that badge....

Congrats!

I know you took a long time doing this. Talk about sticking to it!

Yeah, Green Stuff is tricky.

Managed to help another full League get it again tonight, including an SG member who helps me get badges, so I feel good about that!

The problem with defending Eminem this way, by saying that his critical intent and deeper meaning is clear if you take into account "the presentation, his own statements, tracks that came afterwards, and the whole of the work that it is in", is that a very large percentage of those who will hear his songs will be hearing one song at a time, released as a single, often on the radio or in a music video. That audience is quite justified in reading the meaning of that one song for what it says itself to them.

Now, if you claim that's a shallow reading, and that you always need to bring in a broader context, there's another problem. In the context of the genre of hip-hop / rap, there's lot of other artists who bring in violent and misogynistic messages seriously and earnestly. When I first hear an Eninem song, how am I to immediately know he's different from all the people in the genre I've heard before? Sure, there may be differences in presentation compared to other hip-hop artists, but that may not be obvious to those who aren't deeply into the genre.

And if Eninem is smart (and I think he is), he's got to realize the nature of the industry and the genre he's working in. He should realize that some of the audience is only going to hear singles out of context, and miss the broader message. And perhaps he's willing to take that hit, in order to tell his stories the way he wants, to the audience he wants to reach. If he didn't realize that some people would form opinions on single songs, without the context of his whole work or his personal statements, then he severely misjudged how his art would be distributed and consumed.


Writers have goals. Figure out what your goal is, and work towards that.

Some writers / artists create in order to provoke a reaction, any reaction. If that is your goal, than whether the audience "got the real meaning" is irrelevant. If they are talking about work, reacting to it, that's enough. If they think deeply about the work, that may be a worthwhile goal, even if they get "the wrong impression of what's really meant."

Some artists create to entertain. If that's that case, again, whether they get the "right" message matters less. The sheer numbers of human beings who consume the work and consider the time well spent is enough, whatever they think the message is. However, in this case, the artist may still be mortified / embarassed if the consumer of the work thinks that the artist is saying something the artist would find personally abhorrent or immoral.

The question of whether people are "getting what Eminem is saying" may be irrelevant, if his goal is one of the two above, to provoke or entertain.

And, of course, some writers write to communicate ideas or a point of view. If this is your goal, and not everyone gets what you are saying, then there is a choice beyond "dumbing down the work until they get it." One can always decide that the person who did not understand is not part of the target audience. If your goal is to communicate to a near-universal audience, then yes, work on simplifying your points, and making things clearer. If your goal is to reach only people who are capable of a discourse level of X or higher, or people who have a specific context of knowledge or expertise (like writing for a sub-culture or or a specific fandom or a particular professional group), then target that level.

Now, IF you find you are targeting people of a certain audience that meets your standards, and you find they aren't getting your points regularly, then, yes, it's the writer's fault. The writer has failed to meet his own, self-established goals and standards.

Basically, the dividing line between the "responsibility of the writer" and the "responsibility of the reader" is entirely set by the individual writer, at the moment he decides what his target audience is for what he's writing.

And then they put Nemesis in the game, just to make such intricate plots into a meme-joke for the playerbase.... so they'd never suspect the Devs actually think that way.

Diabolical.

Hm. Well, not every character would be strong enough to lift big things, though. And you'd want to allow for some other concepts.

What about a new Power Pool called "Lifting", and you could make the various powers in it have different animations / special effects.

one power for regular super-strong lifting. "Physical Might"
another for telekinetic lifting. "Telekinetic Manipulation"
another for lifting things with a tech-based beam. "Tractor Beam"
and another for moving things with a magical puff of air. "Eldritch Wind"

they could all have the same game mechanic effect. (pick up moveable object and throw it). But each could have a different animation for it, allowing for more character concepts, and people who aren't just generically "super-strong" wouldn't miss out.

Each power could be slotted with some kind of enhancement to move up from basic lifting to more impressive feats.

It's still a lot of work for the animators and such, but might fit in the powers system better that way?

I kinda like Screamy-Shouty Moriarty. It's an interesting interpretation. Calm, ultra-rational, unflappable criminal mastermind has been done before, including with Moriarty.

The way I see "Jim" Moriarty, he's very much a sociopath. And one SO clever, that he almost never fails to get what he wants. So he gets angry very easy. Dealing with stupid people can give one a short fuse, and he thinks the whole human race is stupid compared to him. And he's fond of violence and killing, making evil happen for fun (sponsoring a serial killer). He's more unstable genius and less the cold computing detached mastermind.

And it seems to me he's clever and focused when he needs to be. But when something is important to him, on a personal level, like verbally sparring with Sherlock, he has less inhibition. I theorize he never learned real emotional control, because he never had to. He almost always controls the situation, rather than controlling his own reaction to it.

At least that's how I see it. It's very much a Your Mileage May Vary.

Maybe a better way to do the badge would be to complete 10 Keyes trials without your character specifically getting hit by the beam? That way you could make progress towards the badge even if someone else in the trial goofs up?

It doesn't give you any bonuses any more at 50.

Go to your badges, there's a button you can click to cash in your Flames of Prometheus for a Notice of the Well (right under the badge for completing the Mortimer Kal SF). Not sure if you have to unlock your Alpha slot first.

Which isn't as long standing as most people think. For the longest time it was the other way around.

Apparently as late as 1900, dressmaker's guides referred to blue as the traditional girl's color (being paler) and pink being the color for boys.

And it persisted longer than that in some places at least. A 1927 news story about the Princess of Belgium being disappointed at having a female child, as she had already decorated the nursery all in pink, in anticipation of having a male heir.

So "pink for girls, blue for boys" may be under a century old.

(the fun things you learn watching QI!)

I really, really like the idea of having at least one slot in the Incarnate tree that increases the specialization and differentiation between ATs. Genesis would make sense, as it could be referring to "how you started before you were an Incarnate"

Especially if it boosted caps a bit.

My ideas would be something like this:

Tanker Core: increases Resistance cap by 1 to 4 percent, minor resist/DEF buff
Tanker Radial: increases HP cap, minor HP buff

Brute Core: Increased Damage Cap, minor increase to Fury generation
Brute Radial: Increased HP Cap, minor HP buff

Scrapper Core: Increased Damage Cap
Scrapper Radial: Increased Critical chances

Defender Core: Increased buff strength (similar to Power Boost but lower)
Defender Radial: Minor team buff auras with zero endurance cost

Blaster Core: Increased Damage Cap, range buff
Blaster Radial: Increased Defiance Buffs

Controller Core: Increased control duration / increased chance for Overpower
Controller Radial: Boosted Containment damage

Dominator Core: Increased control duration
Dominator Radial: Increased damage cap and damage buff while in Domination

Corruptor Core: Increased Scourge damage
Corruptor Radial: Increased buff / debuff strength

Stalker Core: Increased Damage cap
Stalker Radial: Self buff (Heal, +DEF, +Resist, +Dmg) for a few seconds after entering Hidden status. (makes Placate an improved tool for self-protection and setting up attacks)

Mastermind Core: Increased Supremacy aura
Mastermind Radial: Increased cap to pet damage

You only get the A-merit the first time you run each arc.

After that, you can get 1 A-merit a week for running ANY one of the chapters. But only one a week.

So, after the initial surge of "I got one A-merit for each arc, yay!" then you are time-gated to one a week.

Train B on average leaves about 1 minute and 49 seconds after Train A throughout the daily schedule?

(i.e. there's a narrower window of "time after Train A but before Train B" than there is of "after Train B but before Train A")

Which I assume leads to the metaphor that the Train to Solotown is always departing, while the train to Leagueville often leaves you waiting at the station a while.

**insert pic of Orson Welles doing a slow clap here**

I find this response to be so clever and entertaining, I'm going to invent a time machine and go back and change history so we are college roommates and can hang out.


.

You earned the Assistant badge.

So you had already run the WST once this week and gotten the big bonus then.
(or at least the game thinks you already ran the WST earlier in the week).

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Assistant