Kasimir

Given the focus of the books, I feel it's inevitable we'll end up treating canon as loose suggestions. I've noticed a few mild canon mistakes I've made and am considering whether to fix them or not to, but will probably just be lazy and not bother.

They do have chemistry :eyes: I have but uh, you don't read it without knowing the background IMO. This is where I get burned at the stake for noting I just re-read TNotW because I wanted to confirm an argument with El and Wilson about whether they used dip pens, reed pens, or quill pens and I was Disappointed to learn they used quills and also TNotW actually didn't age well to me, my younger self loved it and now it's a weird feeling re-engaging with it, but moving on I may have spent some time yelling about how Rothfuss shouldn't call things fallacies if he doesn't understand what the actual fallacy is

I feel like this is sheer dead/spec doc erasure We spent so long coming up with barely PG-9 contracts and skeevy drek just so y'all could populate your contracts board with Extremely Sus Stuff :eyes:

Whyever would it be easier? Literally y'all have been abusing it since I've been following this game. Ayyyy other me sis! Welcome to the university U_U At least we're playing the same game this time

You guys are making me realise I have the patience of a saint and I feel like every SE player on the Shard is now screaming in protest at this statement I have just uttered I do flush it slowly, yes It's actually kind of meditative, watching the water run clear eventually. Might be going for a second Nakaya after all, but it's unlikely to be as pricey (relatively) as it's going to be bog-standard apart from the fact that I'm asking for a line from the 道德经 on the barrel of the pen. I wanted something that was personally meaningful to me, and despite not being a specialist in Chinese philosophy, neither Hume nor Kant nor most analytic philosophers have the courtesy to say something short enough that it can show up on the barrel of a Piccolo or Piccolo Long without being unduly demanding on Nakaya

I don't steal my bro's niches smhhhh You are The Street Hobo. I'm finding my Own Thing :eyes:

Also the characteristic nib, whether hooded or not: Depends on budget and range. Kakunos are typically around $16 or so, and they're fairly value-for-money. Pilot V-pens can be about $2, but need to be jury-rigged to be refilled. Here, it's typically $14 for a 80ml bottle of Diamine ink, and a CON-40 converter holds about 0.6ml of ink. Even if you eyedropper, it's rare to go above say, 1.5ml of ink, and that takes getting a full fill. So that's anywhere between 53 - 133 uses. @Coolmint probably knows more about the US market than I do; this is just SGD. Since I'm in Southeast Asia, I do get pretty easy access to the China market (i.e. going straight Taobao), so there are $2-$5 refillable pens. Don't recall about the ink on the China market as shipping liquids from China is risky, and there are cheaper deals on Diamine. Some of the Americans swear by Noodler's, which is about 90ml on paper and always filled to the brim, but there's a mark-up for Noodler's here and offers on Diamine are easier to access, so that's my go-to example of a budget ink. If one eschews converters and goes pure cartridge, again depends. Five Pilot cartridges go for $3.20 here, but I've seen $5 deals on 100 packs of Jinhao cartridges on the China market. Compatibility then becomes the big question, but cartridges can also be refilled from bottles via syringes. (Will note there's also the India market, but things get a bit more complicated.) tldr; US market is weird and shipping from the US is a nightmare but thank you China and India. Edited to add: Maybe better tldr; - it is absolutely not cheaper than going dollar stone pens unless you are talking about years of writing, and stick to the low budget end of fountain pens and go mass volume for inks. (Coke bottle, anyone?) But one can absolutely use fountain pens without breaking the bank and I think people would be quite surprised by how wallet-friendly the lower end of the hobby threshold can be.

Nah, I don't really use them anymore. I used them to experiment but they weren't particularly what got me interested in fountain pens - for that, I have to thank a Lamy Safari and a triple small bottle of Pilot Iroshizuku.

Pilot disposables can be refilled anyway. But I fear I've gone too far down the rabbit hole to go back to them All hail Taobao!

What happened? :joy: Understood though, I won't. Very much agreed on this. I don't dismantle them unless necessary. Feel there's too much room for things to go wrong each time. Even with the Pelikan, I prefer to unscrew the nib unit and lube inside the barrel rather than to take apart the piston. (Though I largely use the M200s so the piston just can't be disassembled anyway.)

We aren't so elderly yet that we simply accept a future that has been decided by someone else. In order to seek knowledge, to pursue a higher state of existence, we are willing to do anything. This isn't a memoir. This is a new story. My first tutor, a Re'lar by the name of Seoras told us, abruptly, in the middle of a lecture on basic safety in the Fishery, that our days at the University would be among the best days of our lives. I haven't really decided if he was drunk or just out of it. Admissions have a way of doing that to anyone. I never saw Seoras again, after that class. There were rumours. But this was the University: there were always rumours; who was sleeping with whom (easier in Yllish, where the accusative case is distinct and separate from word order), the latest scandals in Vintas and the Arturan Empire, a side of politics, terrible poetry, alcohol, and arguments about what had really caused the decline of the calenta poetic form over the fifth and sixth centuries in Vintas. Sometimes all at once. And then there were the Skindancers. If you read the accounts of Dern Gehent or Wyl Setheris, or even the published diaries of Feris, the University is always teeming with Skindancers. There's always some threat to the University, as though the Fae have it out for anything this side of the Omethi River. The truth, I suppose, is a little more complicated. There are twenty-one words for truth in the Ehasan dialect of Temic. An E'lir studying first term logic learns there are two values: one for truth and one for falsity. Things become more complicated when you uncover the basket of horrors that is uniquely known as fuzzy logics and multi-value logics. What I am trying to say, I suppose, however imperfectly: the Skindancers were real. And for every Dern Gehent, resisting the Skindancers, casting them out with iron and fire, there is a Feris, writing about the lunch options in Imre at the same time as the University was battling the Skindancer threat. We rarely see the importance of events, when we're living through them. How I remember the Skindancer threat is blurred, like light through mosaic glass, in colour and shape, broken up and visible only through the tesserae. I remember the stress of Admissions, of juggling the various administrative knots necessary to get myself re-enrolled in the University. Little of that worth telling, I think. But—well, if you're interested. But that comes later. I remember a perfectly ordinary day, juggling apples and sitting under a tree in the second-right courtyard in Mains, listening to Soren and Valerra tell me about their day. Master Namer supposedly asked a class, once, like lightning in a clear blue sky, about the seven words to make a woman love you. I have never know them. You do not, I think, make someone love you. They either give you their heart, or they don't. There is no making, about this. Perhaps that's why I was never much of a Namer. I remember some things very clearly. I remember one afternoon, trudging out of the Medica, with the bone-deep exhaustion of knowing you've done a good job, Soren slinging his arm about my shoulder, laughing. I don't remember about what. Funny, isn't it? I remember that laugh though, the way it warmed you to the very marrow. The way his smile illuminated those tired eyes. I remember struggling doggedly with the midterm evaluations for Sympathy: a whole group of us in the same class, desperately muttering the bindings again and again, and hoping that we'd done enough to stave off the tutor's wrath. I remember a late night out in Imre, drinking. I had never really touched my alcohol, but there was strawberry wine, and I thought, why not? We all staggered back to the University much later, with at least ten additional verses to Tinker Tanner, and most of them in languages we were pretty sure didn't exist. The Skindancers lurk at the edges of all of this, a shadowy threat I suppose I never truly grasped because I'm not the sort of hero you talk about in stories. I'm really not very much a sort of hero at all. If I were telling this story in the manner of Kvothe the Bloodless, I would tell you about my names, earned, and made dramatic and mysterious through distance. One of them is an obscenity in archaic Yllish. El'the Tyras had a tongue that would make Tehlu weep, and he was not afraid to curse you out in eleven different languages. I'd never really seen what was wrong with lurking after class to ask questions: after all, the questions are what drive us. Not so much the answers. Not here at the University. I could tell you being the despair of Master Artificer, and voted the student most likely to kill everyone with sheer incompetence after an accident in the Fishery which has probably become Fishery legend. I managed not to kill anyone during my time in the Medica. I consider that my biggest achievement. In the end though, this is a new story. This is my story: not Kvothe's, not anyone else's. The great events of our time barely leave a mark on us, except in the light of what is remembered. Imre will not remember all that much about the Skindancers: they will remember the time a University student blew up a bathhouse insisting Skindancers were hiding in there. I was there for most of the Skindancer incursion, but what I remember—what I treasure—are memories of my days as a student, when I was still young, and bright-eyed, and intoxicated with the learning itself; when my future seemed as yet unwritten, spread out before me. Where I made friends, found love, rejoiced in my own petty triumphs, my own personal anguish. When everything seemed rich with promise, when it felt like I could do anything, become anything. This is my life. And it is happening right here, right now.

Thanks. I'll try the pen flush I have first. Rapido-Eze isn't carried where I am but I can get it via Amazon. I'd rather not, but if I gotta, I gotta. I'll try first line first. I have a new housing (a lot of PenBBS spare parts actually) so that's not the worry. I'm actually a bit concerned there's some machining tolerance issues with this particular nib and feed as this is the second time a housing unit cracked, so I'm probably just swapping in a spare nib unit (i.e. different nib and feed in housing) and calling it a day just to be safe. RIP... Hot water and dish soap sound like the bet here. I'm actually curious whether cooling it might do a better job, as you don't want the feed to expand but to contract a little, but it's in metal and plastic so that's a bit more worrying. (Keeping in mind here that Joe Grasty's advice on fitting a FNF feed and housing does involve cooling one and heating the other.) @Coolmint (also what Slowswift said about the doing the @. Sometimes the pop-up is buggy and you have to delete, go back a line, recreate a new line, then it'll show. The comma right after Slowswift might've caused issues for you, not sure.) I could suggest a PenBBS 308 - that's their standard 'will take a cart' model, and PenBBS is probably low to mid-range in terms of cost. They also have some nice acrylics. But the downside is that it's a Chinese pen, and while Reddit users have claimed luck at using standard Chinese carts and converters (just 3.4mm bore ones), I haven't been as lucky and have had to just use their converter, but might try again with a fresh Jinhao batch. Someone did a slightly dated compatibility guide, which I'm linking here. Apparently Hongdian carts and converters work? (There's Hongdian as well I guess.) If you want to go cheaper still, there's the PenBBS MianMian, or 322, which I think only comes in EF. And the TSWBI Swipe is fairly reasonably-priced and takes both their spring converter and a standard international, apparently.

Do I Have To Read The Rules Doc? Do I have to read the rules doc? Come on, I just wanna play! Who reads a thirty pages doc Come on, let's not It's like university I used to have an MA But now I'm done Reading this I wanna cry Do I have to read the rules doc? Does it have to be thirty pages? Do I have to read the rules doc? I'm really here to study stuff I didn't want a PhD in rules I've even got a journal submission on this Hang in there, Kas Reviewer #2 just hates you All these rejections Think my supervisor's done too "You should be writing," he tells me. Please, there's a heart in there Don't make me read all of the rules They say, "Have courage," and I'm trying to I feel I'm gonna cry "Just read the rules," You say, but there's so many "FFS, Kas!" See what I'm going through! Do I have to read the rules doc? Don't @ me I can't listen to the song here so I don't recall if I've gotten the rhythm right. RIP. Clearly not going to try for musicality. Let's try (yet again) in Sisyphean zeal for another proper chill RPful game :sob: One day I'll get there. I even have a character arc and playlist. Two points worth noting: A. there's probably some point at the game where I might vanish for slightly over a week as I'm being tapped for a pretty intensive duty roster. I'll re-notify around then but felt the GMs should know since that's a rather extensive period of absence. I can maybe check in at points but won't be doing much. IDK if that's a deal-breaker for sign-ups. @Elbereth/ @little wilson B. Not really gonna be interested in playing this one all-out. I've never played KKC in all the time in SE due to the rules being complex but I'm currently one-manning Operation Daybreak in the M'Hael's absence since someone has to, and I think that will take my full attention. @ me in-game if you're bored and want in :eyes: Time to pretend the bright-eyed excited undergrad in me hasn't been killed by grad school or the harshness of the working world Signing up unless dissuaded (see: one week+ unscheduled absence) as Kevan, an eager young E'lir who owes one of the Masters (to be filled in later) a substantive debt for advocating for his admission. Kevan is ready to do his best to prove himself worthy of that trust, to learn all he can, and to maintain that near-perfect GPA. Will Kevan make it? Will Kevan go to grad school as a Re'lar or burn out? Will Kevan crack under the pressure? Will a sponsoring Master choose to drown Kevan in the nearest lake? Will he be sabotaged and expelled or turn out to be a Skindancer in disguise? Find out on the next episode of: Whose Life Is It Anyway? where the plots are most definitely made up and not bits of Kas's undergrad existence and the wincons don't matter. That's right, the wincons are just like Kas's ability to perma-chill: absolutely non-existent!

Can't help for this one, LAMY feed system is very different I think. Might need a knock-out block? Edited to add: It looks like it's friction-fit. I think soaking would be my first suggestion as well, in case dried ink is causing it to stick. I am currently planning to add dish soap and then do a second round with a tiny bit of pen flush but IDK. Ah, apologies. The pen has been leaking for quite a while now (and this was the pen with a cracked housing unit I changed earlier.) The nib unit is screwed into the section. I attempted to unscrew it to take a look at whether I needed to swap out the nib unit but instead the nib and feed came out. This is the point I noticed the housing itself was once again, cracked, so the housing itself must come out. I tried putting the nib and feed in again and trying to unscrew it. No dice. I then tried a rubber-band wrapped chopstick. Also no dice. I'm currently soaking it in water overnight in case it's being glued there by dried ink. In general I don't know why it's not coming out. It might be a friction issue, or there might be something else in there, but the housing must be freed from the section. I'm hoping if the housing cracks further, it'll likely solve the issue. As it is, I can't use the pen because the section has the stuck housing. Edited to add: @Coolmint: Not mine but this is how the nib unit looks like. Both nib and feed came free of the housing, which is trapped in the section.

Anyone has any advice on this? I tried to unscrew a PenBBS nib unit but the nib and feed came free and the housing is stuck. I'm currently soaking the section overnight. A FP forum suggested alternating hot and cold cycles to try to crack something. I do have a chopsticks and rubber band but it wasn't budging, so I'm soaking for now. Might add a bit of dish soap and pray.

Can't commit so don't want to be part of the problem I'm complaining about Edited: @Szeth_Pancakes have sign-ups closed yet? If not just sign me up ah whatever let's try for low commitment if Aman is being chill then I can too right? Character forthcoming.

No, thank you!

The point isn't whether the Village has options for keeping them, and I don't think anyone remotely denies this. The point is that this doesn't rest well with the claim that Intent Conversion stops Villagers from monopolising Shards. Or to put it more formally: (A) Intent Conversion stops Villagers from monopolising Shards because it effectively threatens them with not being Village anymore if they did. (B) Villagers have effective options to stop Intent Conversion. (C) Not monopolising Shards is essential to the balance of the game. (D) Villagers should care about and act for the best interests of their current wincon. You can't have all of these together.

Had to regrind my Go, so I guess similar problem to Cyclops, though I used a B. Something kept snagging. Agreed about the spring though. It's a bit of a problem whenever flow isn't enough for me. I feel you on this Fortunately I have not been tempted by Primary Manipulation but enough friends seem to be!

Congrats! I have definitely enjoyed my Ecos, though the B more than the Stub, which was just cursed for me, even with regrinding. Primary Manipulation is a Brooks blank that uh some of my local pen group friends regularly rant about in the ballpark of "why do Westerners love this damnit" It's fairly colourful and both custom penmakers and Nahvalur/Narwhal and Leonardo will frequently make runs in it: Example link here. IMO the biggest weakness of these blanks is that they're chancy because they're functionally resin pours. You can get an incredibly photogenic pen or one that looks really unimpressive. All luck of the pour!

I think it's worth noting for the interests of full disclosure that Archer and I were the two approvers for the public elements of the ruleset. My view of Intent Conversion remains that it's essentially the main demarcation that this game isn't meant to be treated seriously and players probably shouldn't care too hard about their wincon because 90% of it will be out of their control, which puts this game in a specific genre of game. That's fine, but it's the sort of thing that needs a specific set of expectations to get off the ground. All of this seems to boil down to me to a claim that, then, which I think is what Archer is driving at, for this game to be balanced, Village players need to meta not-care about maxxing their Village wincon. It also does guarantee that Elims can focus/charge Shards recklessly in a way the Village simply can't afford to do so - it just pushes the apocalyptic explosion later once they've had a full roster.

How do you find the Eco so far? Have been wondering what the fuss over Primary Manipulation is