Secretary of Eumenes

If a team signs him to an offer sheet after the draft they give up their 2024 and 2025 picks instead of this years' pick. Patience is a virtue.

And now it's a derogative. Only ever used by 'leftists' to browbeat others into joining in -or at least not challenging- stone throwing. I think that's scummy and underhanded. When IllyaP calls J.K. Rowling a TERF that is an attempt to checkmate me into either not defending my appreciation of an artistic expression or risking implication that I might be a TERF too, or TERF-defending. Evangelizing speech. An attempt to convert or shame my opinion away from me by condensing of information into binary. One can either enable TERF or oppose TERF. Words don't just mean things, statements do too. Y'all can throw stones at whomever you please. I throw stones at Disney and would throw a brick through the head of a certain traitor who tried to steal my government away from me and my fellow citizens if given a seconds' opportunity. I don't argue, or let lazy copycat speech techniques imply for me, that folks who are being manipulated by Disney are doing anything wrong. I don't even do that about Trumpies anymore, because I want to accomplish things beyond making myself look or feel superior to folks I'd rather get along with. And I don't -think- Harry Potter isn't exclusionary. I know it isn't. Gimme your reasons why it is. I've already explained why it isn't. I mean, seriously. Do you not see how lazy that second statement of yours is? "... not remotely a shared experience or agreement." What does that even mean? That the earth isn't round isn't a remotely shared experience or agreement- not anymore That transwomen aren't women isn't a remotely shared experience or agreement - I thought they were still wrong, eh?

Again, there's nothing wrong with not liking Rowling or not wanting to play a game associated with her; for any reason. Well, there are some reasons that are stupid. Like being anti-witchcraft or anti-women's literacy... but nobody here is arguing shit like that... When IllyaP responded to me recommending the game to Rhom by saying that she didn't have interest in the books or movies we had absolutely no conflict between us. This is what I wrote in response: And then I went on to describe to Rhom why I was so excited about the game. There's no conflict at this point, nothing. IllyaP expressed she's not interested and I had a three-word cheeky acknowledgement. It was over. Buuuut... Yo, I take offense. I I I, ME Take offense, and don't want to take offense quietly anymore, at the supplemental use of evangelizing and whole cloth words -one in particular- that tell me how I'm supposed to feel about art or an artist. "Trans-Exclusionary" (I'm not even going to get into the imbecility of supposedly-liberals deriding people for being "Radical Feminists") < But real quick, while we're here; the word you're looking for is "Reactionary", nice edumacations y'all dun gotted, huh?> I've made very clear why Harry Potter is not exclusionary to anybody. With clear and functional language, including personal anecdotes that I SHOULD NOT HAVE TO SHARE in order to defend my right to have a positive, or even neutral, opinion about somebody or their art.

Never let nobody make you do something you don't want- least of all me I only ever was excited to have a game that was playable and engaging from the second I bought it. It's the first time in a long, long, while that I didn't have to wait for the game to be made playable via patch or completed through extra payments. And I take issue with certain made-up words that, by their very use, imply that I ain't supposed to like something. I don't want you to feel compelled to play the game. I just wanted to share that I am enjoying it and others might also. My niece was absolutely taken in by it yesterday.

I've really cut back on the soda this year. Like, a lot. Just the other day I was trying to get a 12 pack of the Pepsi Zero Sugar, but it was $7.99 for a 12 pack... AND it was Buy-Three-For $14.99 That's just plain manipulative. Literally leaning on peoples' wallets to make it harder to be self-disciplined.

I think there's some confusion: I'm not telling you you should like, or even not-dislike J.K. Rowling for her opinions. Please don't think I'm doing that. I don't like J.K. Rowling- I've never met her, and if I ever do meet her by then I'll be the young writing phenom and she can feel however she wants about me. I don't need her approval to be an awesome writer. And I don't need her approval to cherish her stories. I don't need anyone's approval, because I make up my own mind. Based on what I feel, what I believe, and what I know. And what I know is that there is nothing in a Harry Potter book that should make anybody but a Death Eater feel unwelcome to them. There is nothing -barring some kinda horrid final boss or something, I haven't beaten it- in the Hogwarts game that should make anybody but a School Shooter feel unwelcome to it. The thing that irks me about this is that there IS an implicit pressure -on this subject- to condemn Rowling. I'm not talking about Death of the Author or whatever, neither. Where you're giving me permission to like the books while disliking the woman. Nah, no thanks. I don't know her. I don't have to condemn or dislike her just because it's three-on-one. Even bad, failed, or perhaps just wrong (maybe she's just wrong!) people are capable of good and noble deeds. That's, like, one of the great messages of the later books. Reinforced many times over. You have to let people be wrong. You have to let them fail, and sometimes to have even been actively bad. You have to remember that not everybody's life was your life, that people can change and become better for it. But they won't if you never give them a chance. Why would they? Why SHOULD they? And giving people a chance to become better, or to maybe just learn better, should not come with prerequisites to apologies and grovelings in the "public square"- not in any interaction I wanna be a part of. Ms. Rowling is entitled to her opinions and her writings- ESPECIALLY if I don't like them. I won't hate her for it. I don't have to. Frankly, I looked at the GLAAD list of charges against her and the only thing that I really even gave half-a-fuck about was that she wrote that book with the crossdressing serial killer. Which is cringe, and I already knew about- but... Well... I'm writing a book right now in which an character is dehumanized and psychologically conditioned to stop seeing himself as a person, and instead as a thing. While being tortured and sensory nulled. Later, the evil scientist in charge of the program collects this... thing... and on the super-secret mission decides it still has enough going on sentience/personality-wise to treat them like a pet instead of a thing. Gives their new pet a name and decides it's gonna be a girl pet, because the evil scientist is fucking evil Am I not allowed to write my story, or try to have it published, because that depicts a transition in a bad light or something? Even though that poor, abused, character is secretly the hero. The only hero in the entire story? Or because I might suggest that a scientist/authority figure might not have a gender-nonconforming person's best interests at heart? Because that's what the GLAAD report on Ms. Rowling reads like. Block after block of text that really boils down to "She said or wrote THIS and if we had said or wrote it we would have said THAT." And frankly, my response is that if they want THAT then they should go fucking write THAT. Prolly can't tho huh? Not in a way people wanna read, eh? It takes nothing to say "I woulda wrote it like thiiiiiiis" Mr. Martin stole my name for a Hellenic princeling in my Magnum Opus. He stole it by beating me to get his art completed and produced/published. That's a challenge for me to make sure he doesn't beat me again. If you're so concerned with Rowling's productions, that they're anti-trans and whatnot, beat her to the ball. Being anti-Rowling isn't going to give anybody anywhere anything except a feeling of righteousness and/or rage. Being pro-trans, POSITIVE actually gives people something on which they can build instead of destroy. J.K. Rowling is not the First Order. She isn't a Nazi and she isn't Donald Trump or an elected official. She's a person. You credit her with too much power, that's why her game has power over you. It's less that I haven't heard of it. I've just never heard of anything worth the seething hate I see in response to the woman's name. Sorry, that's just how I feel. Also, Bloomberg said... Now the whole Trans-Raping-in-Bathrooms thing? Yeah, it doesn't happen. But you are allowed to be afraid of things, even irrationally. I'll remind that Ms. Rowling was raped. She's allowed to be wrong without having people send her death threats. Stating her opinion, and writing about the influences on said opinion, is NOT THE SAME as causing harm. I ain't really got much else to say, just that I don't identify with any Potterverse or what have you. I cherish the books, adore the films, and... Yeah, that's it. Those things, plus refuse to join in the tearing down of somebody I don't know and -surely- don't fully understand when I have thousands and thousands of pages of their art to reference that however wrong, misinformed, or outright irrational they may be about something: that doesn't define her on everything

I think it'd work best as a ten episode series. You could use it as a transition point from doing Children of Dune as a movie and continuing the rest of the story in 1 hour installments. You open and close each episode with the God Emperor lecturing Moneo or Siona about the attrocities we just spent the middle-parts witnessing. Hear the God Emperor's justifications of his actions, Moneo's capitulating complicity, Duncan's disgust, and Siona's rebellion If I were writing it I'd always start the episode with Moneo being the recipient of the God Emperor's lies, then he puts them into motion over the course of the episode. End each episode with alternating between Duncan and Siona getting the post-facto justifications for what has happened and rejecting them. Duncan internally, Siona outright. It could be done.

@Ran (whom I admire greatly) I, of course, have seen folks call her "TERF" and pronounce her a bigot. What I have never seen is why I'm supposed to believe... except that just because I'm, apparently, supposed to. That's not how I live my life. I use the internet to come here, my estuary where I can engage with literate folks of an almost inherently bookish bent To track football "news" (let's call it "happenings") And I watch YouTube videos. Mostly, though not exclusively, Sabine Hossenfelder videos on science as well as lectures by Stephen Kotkin or other historians/political commentators who share their knowledge and opinions with the capacity to follow-through with a point or lesson that is worth learning. That's what I do instead of obsessing over what other people have 'liked' or 'followed' on an exploitative algorithm machine that employed arbitrary character limits to confuse folks into thinking they're pithy. Eta: I forgot Professor Kotkin is of the unleavened heretics. Spelling.

'Bigot' is a word I'm familiar with. My mother is a bigot. Literally today repeat-blurted a slur word describing Asians that she enjoys from the series Deadwood and got offended when neither I nor her husband laughed. She used to prompt me to repeat racist jokes that a father-figure of hers would tell, when I was a small (traumatized) child. She thought this was high comedy. Called me several derogatory forms of 'gay' a dozen different times during my teen years because I played sports but didn't go around lookin to "fuck bitches, braaah!" I know what Bigot means. I was born in South Carolina. I know what racism looks like, actual racism. My momma has a lifetime membership with the KKK, paid for as a gift by that father-figure. She also has MS and can't take a shit by herself and hasn't had a friend in almost a decade. I still take care of her when it's my turn. Because she's my mother, and she saved my sister and I from state custody when literally nobody else would take us in. And I don't have to buy in to (or allow to pass unchallenged) her ugliness in these matters. But I still take care of her when it's my turn. Even when she starts moaning about how "if only you'd told me you were trans..." as she tries to rewrite history as if all of what I described above never happened. J.K. Rowling, from what I'm able to comprehend out of this inanity... like, made a tweet? Or was it two tweets? Or wait, she liked a tweet? Or something? Something, something, twitter twitter? I ain't never met the lady. I ain't never seen a video of her saying people like me, Trans people, ain't allowed to like her stuff. Ain't never seen a quote attributed to her that suggests as much. I read her books. Many, many times each. And they helped heal a broken little boy who didn't have access to anything else in his life worth having. Gave me an ambition I could follow optimistically with the intention to help heal other people with my own stories some day like I was healed. Now, it turned out that I was trans. I listened to the books on audible about six years ago while I was doing my driving job, after I was on hormones for several years, and never heard a word that would suggest anybody anywhere would be unwelcome to enjoy those stories. There's, at one point I recall, a silly bit on The Gang's way to the Quidditch World Cup where this batty old wizard is wearing a dress as his muggle disguise. One of the more muggle-conscious wizards tries to explain that this is a ladies garment: at which point the dress dressed wizard explains he doesn't care because "it allows a nice breeze to my privates." Or something to that effect. I don't have my physical copies of the books anymore, can't quickly confirm that; they were destroyed when my parents' basement flooded while I was in the Army. Is ^that^ supposed to be the grand proof that this woman despises people like me? I read it when I was a kid and laughed. It didn't hurt me. If J.K. Rowling said tomorrow that she hates trans people it wouldn't hurt me. Not physically, not practically. Certainly not any more than the actual, practical, laws being made in my country to marginalize folks like myself do. Orson Scott Card is famously homophobic. Explicitly. Because, in his own words, he has made this part of his character known. Not by association, 'liking' or 'following' people on Twitter. By making public issue of his anti-gay opinions. When Ms. Rowling does that, preferably in a forum that isn't a toxic hellhole where semi-literates timeline stalk people trying to prove their moral superiority for their own audience... you let me know. And, by the way, I read Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind with the full knowledge that Mr. Scott Card most DEFINITELY would not like me And I thank him for his art. Xenocide is one of my favorite books. I mentioned on this forum not that long ago that it's a permanent member of the UJ (United Jaces) Top Ten Book Council. Because it is. (The top-ten council is a joke, but it is one of my favorite books) Are you gonna tell me that's wrong? Because I feel like that's what you're stopping just short of. Strongly, strongly, implying that I'm doing something wrong by enjoying art. Actual, real, speaking-to-something-in-or-about-the-human-spirit art. And if you're not doing that. You're not trying to imply some kind of failing on my part... well, please help me understand. Because I'm obviously confused.

I don't do Twitter. What is a terfy? Is that a real word or just some blathetic made-up blubberish bullshit sprung from TwitTok that you bark onto a keyboard through a stream of pavlovian neuroses? Real question. I've gone on record just the other day that I'm very very interested in NewSpeak. Eta: supplemental inquiry- Is "terfy" a self-identified association or designation by Ms. Rowling or YOUR word?

https://i.imgur.com/cH33fl3.jpg (My Hogwarts Legacy character)

Folks are in town for the weekend- sister showed up with my nephew First words out of the boy's mouth, no lie... "I wanna watch Duuune!" He's 43 months old, if I'm not mistaken about his birthdate Yes, he knows which one is "Duuune" and immediately pointed to the box art which was actually laying half-covered underneath a book. Pulled the disc out of my hand (creating smudge prints that I then had to clean off ) in his haste to put it in the PS4. I couldn't love this kid more if Muad'dib ordered me to. Fuck those witches and their breeding programs, my sister and her dweeby husband already produced a Kwisatz Haderach Seriously, this kid is 3.5 years old and can use Ridiculous, Awesome, and a host of other pretty complex words accurately. Literally just today, actually while I stepped into the bathroom to clean the Duuune disc I was speaking anecdotally to my mother in the living room the boy followed me and -after waiting politely for a break in the conversation- said "Jalen you use a lot of big words when you talk." And in a way that made it clear he was following the conversation, and comprehended through context what the words I was using mean. Nothing crazy, I'm not walking around like Sheldon Cooper when talking to my mother or nothing. But this kid And that's not to short-change his sister, who is sharp as a whip and gonna be a helluvan athelete in addition- this is just the Duuune thread And I know I'm not just talking up my own relations, because that sister had a school thing we went to this evening. Six and seven and eight year olds. And the 3.5 year old, my nephew, had more to say about what was going on than a single one of those kids. Had observations about what was going on and demanded a book from the fare. Not everything is salt

Well, nobody's perfect. It's a real game! With a story and characters and everything! No payments-after-purchase required! The Slytherin common room is sooo much cooler than that lame tower whatshisface lived in

Have you tried the Hogwarts game? It's awesome! And single player, baybay!

Preach! My god, am IIIIII allowed to accuse him of treason? Because I will. I saw it. I saw him tell people to do treason for months on TV and then they did it for him PEOPLE DIED!!!! They TRIED TO HANG THE VEEP Boasted on Twitter that they were after the Speaker of the House!!!! ON TWITTER! AT HIS BEHEST! THEY -and he, Trump himself- LOOKED DIRECTLY INTO THE CAMERA AND TOLD YOU WHAT THEY WERE DOING. Many, many, times!!!! I will accuse him. I do. Seriously, this drives me up a fucking wall. THE MAN DID A BEER HALL PUTSCH AND THEY'RE GOING AFTER HIS WHORE PAYMENTS!!!! So are you allowed to attempt to overthrow democracy then as long as you keep your prostitutes paid up right? Because, not a lawyer, from what I understand he's (lol) "in trouble" for the way the payments were RECORDED rather than the payments themselves. It's -literally- a technicality... You can't make this shit up. I don't think I'm even gonna be mad at the Once and Future President when he announces the 4th Reich in about 18 months. Seriously, at some point I can't hold this... person... accountable anymore if he is never held to account for his crimes His REAL on-televison and predeclared crimes! He's not gonna arrest his fucking self, people! /End rant (I needed that, seriously @Darzin)

"Problematic" is my FAVORITE NewSpeak word As in: "I don't know how to argue an actual point so I'm gonna Mad Libs a bunch of nouns and conjunctions (perhaps a verb-or-two) around the word problematic and accept hero-status amongst similarly idiot-brained individuals who confuse compassion with an inability to compromise. Because I live on Twitter."

I'm trans. I played sports in Highschool, with the boys. I get embarrassed and ashamed at my fellow Ts for accepting trophies against competitors that they have a biophysiological advantage against. Full stop. That's not fair. No, people DO NOT transition just to compete in a field with an advantage... That's a sick and hateful argument and everyone knows it. But transitioning doesn't erase biological facts about male musculoskeletal development vs female musculoskeletal development. And no amount of memes or whining will change that- it's called real life I understand that that sucks. Being trans sucks sometimes and I -myself- would never want to accept a trophy against a sister of the world if I had an advantage that she could never possibly match. Being born male -especially having gone through male puberty- IS AN ADVANTAGE in physical contests. This is why we have sex-segregated sports fields. Sex- being a biological description of reproductive (overwhelmingly binary) capacities of animals Please, tell me I'm a self-hating creature who doesn't see myself as a woman (if not sexually female) after I "presented" on this forum for a decade explicitly as a woman. I love getting lectured about inconformity to NewSpeak and RightThink. It gives my art an extra bite for days afterwards.

The metric system is a plot invented by snooty Europeans to make smart Amrcns fell dum. I see you over there. With your fancy beers and public transits... I know your game "Anything wider than a short man's handspan, or a tall woman's shoe size, is inherently communist." - Pappy, who lived to be over forty years old!

Ain't that just fantastical? "I had tapes! I had them. And I copied these handwritten notes directly from them!" Truly, fantastical. As in: I don't believe it for a fucking second. You either have tapes or you have nothing... CNN and MSNBC's six-foot erections notwithstanding

James Comey says what? You people amaze me. C'mere and kick this football Charlie Brown...

I recall that now. I always interpreted the character as being a victim of her own power. Like, it was more about the helplessness of "triggering" a rape just by touching someone for her... She's the victim of her powers. It was like an inversion of female empowerment commentary, at least that's what I always understood about it. Regarding the specific episode/interaction that you're talking about... I mean, victims of abuse are tragically likely to perpetuate abuse on others. This is a well-known thing: although previously overstated as far as percentages and whatnot... I know this personally. Doctors scared the fuck out of me and my sister with this fact and I'm not blaming them for the fact that I don't like to be touched and get very nervous when interacting in... situations. But I think it's brave and important writing to have characters/stories like you're describing. Forgiveness and understanding are underrated, not every character needs to be put down the moment they fail to overcome their failings - NOT AN EXCUSE FOR RAPE: AN ATTEMPT TO DISCUSS AN ARTISTIC DEPICTION OF NON-CONSENT REGARDING A CHARACTER WHOSE STORY IS LITERALLY ABOUT CONSENT/NON-CONSENT THERE'S A DIFFERENCE

Are they doing that thing from 41/42 where they send one guy out with a shovel, and another guy out with some gloves so that he can pick up the shovel and bury the first guy?

Ah, Misfits! I liked that one. Don't recall the rape you speak of, I watched just after it aired... Goddamn had to be like almost fifteen years ago now Anyway, my first exposure to both the Future Mrs. Catelyn Stark and, of course, the Future Mr. Ramsay Bolton. I literally stole the idea of pretending to smoke when I was in the Army from this show. "Smokers get all the breaks." Is what the kid says in the Nazi Future Dystopia storyline. I did that, irl! I'd buy a pack of blue camel crush's and it'd last me a month because I'd light the cigarette, puff once, and then it would go out while I stood there hanging out. Eta: I guess it only came out ten years ago. Felt longer.

Every time I see that dude's image I have to fire off a message to my sister to make sure she knows where her kids are.

At some point in the last few months I was discussing makeup techniques with my shrink. I expressed that I've gotten good at it, but I don't actually have a foundation that matches my skin tone. At which point she said "Yeah, they don't really make one that's Casper-toned." So I've been looking forward to that sun too.