Random Stuff X: Something Weird

[Mestiv he/him]

I agree that the story would be more interesting if The Trio was sorted to different houses but became friends anyway. 

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

5 minutes ago, Orlion Determined said:

It also created a magical caste system, in which knowledge, spirit or privilege is not valued in and of itself but only if it serves The One True House.

And in many ways, only serves to make Slytherin's bad reputation a self-fulfilling prophecy. Everyone goes on about how Slytherins are standoffish and practice dark magic, treats them as if they have some sort of zombie virus, and is surprised when Slytherins become standoffish dark magic practitioners. At the same time, the "it is our choices that determine who we are" line neatly absolves members of the One True House of culpability--the Slytherins made their choice! Gryffindor nastiness had nothing to do with it!

[Shqueeves]

44 minutes ago, TwiLyghtSansSparkles said:

And in many ways, only serves to make Slytherin's bad reputation a self-fulfilling prophecy. Everyone goes on about how Slytherins are standoffish and practice dark magic, treats them as if they have some sort of zombie virus, and is surprised when Slytherins become standoffish dark magic practitioners. At the same time, the "it is our choices that determine who we are" line neatly absolves members of the One True House of culpability--the Slytherins made their choice! Gryffindor nastiness had nothing to do with it!

There it's a video about this; I'll search for a link to it

Edit Here it is

Edited January 24, 2017 by Shqueeves
Added link

[Nashan’Elin he/him]

33 minutes ago, TwiLyghtSansSparkles said:

And in many ways, only serves to make Slytherin's bad reputation a self-fulfilling prophecy. Everyone goes on about how Slytherins are standoffish and practice dark magic, treats them as if they have some sort of zombie virus, and is surprised when Slytherins become standoffish dark magic practitioners. At the same time, the "it is our choices that determine who we are" line neatly absolves members of the One True House of culpability--the Slytherins made their choice! Gryffindor nastiness had nothing to do with it!

I never realized any of this stuff until I started lurking on the Shard. But looking back, it seems so obvious! Why did younger me read so blindly! How could he be so naive! (Little bit of exaggeration here )

Edited January 24, 2017 by Nashan'Elin

[Mestiv he/him]

Time for a little game! Caption this fabulous photo!

[Orlion Blight he/him]

1 hour ago, Mestiv said:

Time for a little game! Caption this fabulous photo!

I wish I was as fabulous as Quick E Cat!

[Silverblade5 he/him]

7 hours ago, Glamdring804 said:

It's open enrollment, so they accept more students than actually end up enrolling. They have plenty of out of state students. As for housing, I can't really speak to that, as I live off campus. You will also have to pay out of state tuition, unless you establish residency in Montana. 

Any idea what the standard interval between graduation and employment is?

[Darkness Ascendant he/him]

Hello.

I'm back.

[Sunbird she/her]

5 hours ago, Mestiv said:

Time for a little game! Caption this fabulous photo!

"Draw me like one of your French kittehs."

Or

"Why are you just standing there taking pictures? Fix my breakfast, human slave!"

[Darkness Ascendant he/him]

Anything of particular not happen while I was gone?

[Sunbird she/her]

2 minutes ago, Darkness Ascendant said:

Anything of particular not happen while I was gone?

Brandon's novella Snapshot got optioned for a movie deal, even though it hasn't even been released yet.

Just today, the title for Star Wars Episode VIII was announced: The Last Jedi.

Oh and Cosmere chat on Discord kinda exploded in population. A ton of people from Reddit came over and now there are way more people than were ever in there when it was just Cards Against the Cosmere chat.

Edited January 25, 2017 by Sunbird

[ThirdGen]

5 hours ago, Mestiv said:

Time for a little game! Caption this fabulous photo!

"No, kitty, ballet is only impressive when it's vertical."

[Darkness Ascendant he/him]

12 minutes ago, Sunbird said:

Brandon's novella Snapshot got optioned for a movie deal, even though it hasn't even been released yet.

Just today, the title for Star Wars Episode VIII was announced: The Last Jedi.

Huh first one is interesting. Although they should have picked I hate Dragons

Knew the last one. Thinking of making the random stuff corresponding with it as "The last Moderator"

[Sunbird she/her]

That moment of extreme self-control when you have to stop yourself from correcting the grammar of a Tweet that's 6 months old...

[Glamdring804]

3 hours ago, Silverblade5 said:

Any idea what the standard interval between graduation and employment is?

No storming clue. Probably depends largely on your major and field. 

[Quiver he/him]

17 hours ago, Glamdring804 said:

Nahiri the Lithomancer, a character from Magic: the Gathering with awesome, badass powers whose character arc was unfortunately butchered by Magic Creative's poor story-telling. 

@Kaymyth; As fun as that sounds, it's not really relevant to me. I mainly am interested in MTG because of the lore, I don't actually play that much. 

... I have some morbid curiosity. What was the arc, and how was it ruined?

[ShadowLord_Lith he/him]

17 hours ago, Glamdring804 said:

Nahiri the Lithomancer, a character from Magic: the Gathering with awesome, badass powers whose character arc was unfortunately butchered by Magic Creative's poor story-telling. 

@Kaymyth; As fun as that sounds, it's not really relevant to me. I mainly am interested in MTG because of the lore, I don't actually play that much. 

Thanks to this, I now know that I've been masquerading as a diviner of the future for quite some time now. Quite by accident, I assure you.

To all those diviners of the future who have noticed and remained silent, I apologize.

 

Also: 

 

THIS IS THE FEELS!!!

I apologize to all those with extreme empathy problems.

Edited January 25, 2017 by ShadowLord_Lith

[Glamdring804]

2 hours ago, Quiver said:

... I have some morbid curiosity. What was the arc, and how was it ruined?

Nahiri was initially introduced as a protector initially, someone who believed in sacrifice for the greater good. Thousands of years before the current Majic story, she and two other powerful mages (known as planeswalkers for their ability to step between worlds) discovered a trio of terrible eldritch abominations. These bizarre creatures live in the space between worlds, and traveled the multiverse consuming said worlds. The three planeswalkers managed to draw these monsters into Nahiri's home world and lock them in space and time. Nahiri agreed to stay as a warden for the prison, and they three parted ways, on the condition that should the prison ever fail or weaken, they would answer the call and help save her homeworld. 

Millennia pass. The eldritch horrors struggle against their bonds, and eventually loosen them enough to reach out and start consuming Nahiri's home world. Nahiri calls for the other planeswalkers to come to her aid, but neither does. After several months, she manages to repair the prison on her own. Confused at her partners' absence, she leaves her home world in search of them. She finds one partner, Sorin, on his own home world, where he is exhausted from having created a network of defenses for said world. She asks him to come back to her home world to help check on the prison. This is where the first cracks in the story appear. Instead of keeping his oath, Sorin outright refuses. And instead of trying to reason with him, Nahiri goes off on a childish temper tantrum and attacks him. After a protracted battle, he wins, and imprisons her in a block of magic-proof silver. 

Fast forward to now. The eldritch horrors escaped their prison and are laying waste to Nahiri's homeworld, so that they may gain the strength to travel between worlds again. Throug a completely unrelated chain of events, Nahiri is released as well. The first thing she does is travel to to her home world, and finds in under attack by the monsters she had tried to keep imprisoned. And this is where stuff really starts fall apart with the characters. Instead of trying to save her world, like most reasonable people would do, she decides that instead, she should get revenge on Sorin, and destroy his world as well. So, she travels to his homeworld and starts using her magic to draw one of the eldritch horrors to it. Sorin comes back to his homeworld. Instead of trying to save his world, he just gives up and decides to go kill Nahiri. The two fight, both bemoaning about how the other is a terrible person. Nahiri wins and imprisons Sorin in much the manner he caged her. Nahiri decides to become a villain, and is last seen leaving Sorin's homeworld. 

This doesn't really capture what actually happened with them, but basically, in order to bend their story in the way they wanted to, they reduced two of their better characters into one-dimensional vectors. Storytellers are supposed use conflicts to flesh out characters, not turn them into cartoonish villains. The entire arc felt lazy and convoluted.

2 hours ago, ShadowLord_Lith said:

Thanks to this, I now know that I've been masquerading as a diviner of the future for quite some time now. Quite by accident, I assure you.

To all those diviners of the future who have noticed and remained silent, I apologize.

 

Also: 

 

THIS IS THE FEELS!!!

I apologize to all those with extreme empathy problems.

I'm not sure I'm following...

[Quiver he/him]

2 minutes ago, Glamdring804 said:

Nahiri was initially introduced as a protector initially, someone who believed in sacrifice for the greater good. Thousands of years before the current Majic story, she and two other powerful mages (known as planeswalkers for their ability to step between worlds) discovered a trio of terrible eldritch abominations. These bizarre creatures live in the space between worlds, and traveled the multiverse consuming said worlds. The three planeswalkers managed to draw these monsters into Nahiri's home world and lock them in space and time. Nahiri agreed to stay as a warden for the prison, and they three parted ways, on the condition that should the prison ever fail or weaken, they would answer the call and help save her homeworld. 

Millennia pass. The eldritch horrors struggle against their bonds, and eventually loosen them enough to reach out and start consuming Nahiri's home world. Nahiri calls for the other planeswalkers to come to her aid, but neither does. After several months, she manages to repair the prison on her own. Confused at her partners' absence, she leaves her home world in search of them. She finds one partner, Sorin, on his own home world, where he is exhausted from having created a network of defenses for said world. She asks him to come back to her home world to help check on the prison. This is where the first cracks in the story appear. Instead of keeping his oath, Sorin outright refuses. And instead of trying to reason with him, Nahiri goes off on a childish temper tantrum and attacks him. After a protracted battle, he wins, and imprisons her in a block of magic-proof silver. 

Fast forward to now. The eldritch horrors escaped their prison and are laying waste to Nahiri's homeworld, so that they may gain the strength to travel between worlds again. Throug a completely unrelated chain of events, Nahiri is released as well. The first thing she does is travel to to her home world, and finds in under attack by the monsters she had tried to keep imprisoned. And this is where stuff really starts fall apart with the characters. Instead of trying to save her world, like most reasonable people would do, she decides that instead, she should get revenge on Sorin, and destroy his world as well. So, she travels to his homeworld and starts using her magic to draw one of the eldritch horrors to it. Sorin comes back to his homeworld. Instead of trying to save his world, he just gives up and decides to go kill Nahiri. The two fight, both bemoaning about how the other is a terrible person. Nahiri wins and imprisons Sorin in much the manner he caged her. Nahiri decides to become a villain, and is last seen leaving Sorin's homeworld. 

This doesn't really capture what actually happened with them, but basically, in order to bend their story in the way they wanted to, they reduced two of their better characters into one-dimensional vectors. Storytellers are supposed use conflicts to flesh out characters, not turn them into cartoonish villains. The entire arc felt lazy and convoluted.

... Huh. That sounds... disappointing.

I should give a caveat; I one or two Magic:The Gathering novels, but they were focused on the Weatherlight crew, so some of the specifics of what you said went over my head a little. Also, I kind of love the idea of doing a story where the hero becomes the villain, and I have done for a long time...

... but this sounds like executing that theme in a really clunky, awkward, unsatisfying and downright wrong way, so... condolences for the railroading of one of your favorite characters. 

[Glamdring804]

2 hours ago, Quiver said:

... Huh. That sounds... disappointing.

I should give a caveat; I one or two Magic:The Gathering novels, but they were focused on the Weatherlight crew, so some of the specifics of what you said went over my head a little. Also, I kind of love the idea of doing a story where the hero becomes the villain, and I have done for a long time...

... but this sounds like executing that theme in a really clunky, awkward, unsatisfying and downright wrong way, so... condolences for the railroading of one of your favorite characters. 

The Weatherlight story was supposed to be quite good, though I haven't had the chance to read the novels.

As for Nahiri, yeah, that about sums it up. I could have dealt with her becoming a villain, but only if it was done right. It ended up feeling shoehorned into the story, and rushed because they needed an antagonist to set things in motion. They stripped her of any sympathy or credibility in the process, and just turned her into a 'lol, eviluuz' archetype. I stopped following the Magic story as a result.

[ShadowLord_Lith he/him]

2 hours ago, Glamdring804 said:

 I'm not sure I'm following...

You mentioned lithomancy, so I looked it up and discovered that it's the art of casting stones to diviner the future. I apologize for the impersonation.

The story was just a random impulse. I apologize for the complete lack of reasonable connectivity between the two.

[Delightful]

Posting here for traffic; I wrote more writing!

 

 

[Glamdring804]

4 hours ago, ShadowLord_Lith said:

You mentioned lithomancy, so I looked it up and discovered that it's the art of casting stones to diviner the future. I apologize for the impersonation.

The story was just a random impulse. I apologize for the complete lack of reasonable connectivity between the two.

Ah, I got ya now. No, the Lithomancy that Nahiri uses is actually "Magic of the Earth's Crust." Essentially, her magic allows to shape stone to her will and create resilient, lasting structures or tools. She can raise a marble rampart in the blink of an eye, or draw a glowing sword straight out of the ground. 

[ShadowLord_Lith he/him]

Nice!

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

I keep thinking I'm getting sick, and then I remember....oh yeah, I woke up three times during the night, including once at 4:30 am, and didn't fall asleep again until just before my alarm went off.