Belle Sorciere's page

I am so grateful for this thread. I haven't been responding or contributing because I haven't felt up to it, but reading everyone's posts here has been a net positive for my mental health.

So thank you all for being here.

I am seriously looking forward to this more than any other movie except Captain Marvel.

My opinion is that one cannot actually feel like they should be a man, but also feel like they are not, nor also feel like they should be a woman, but feel they are not. My opinion is that what we feel is confusion about who or what we are, and we all feel this confusion at times. Our society fills our heads with ideas about what a man is and what a woman is, but these are just constructs.

Or what he's describing is possibly gender fluidity, which does exist and is real and real people have experienced it as well.

I know you're trying to be helpful, but a common thing that trans people hear a lot is that they're confused - about themselves, about gender, about what constitutes gender. This doesn't help, and can push people away from learning what works best for them. Trans people aren't confused. Genderfluid people aren't confused.

I once got into a nasty argument with a guy who wanted to play a transgender woman in Wraith. My point was that if he couldn't respect the character enough to use the correct feminine pronouns he shouldn't consider playing the character at all and he was put out by this.

Like respect the character you're playing and you'll probably do fine.

In the good news department (smaller good news, but good news):

The Wisconsin Department of Justice has advised the state's Group Insurance Board to stop their recently announced plans to go ahead with implementing coverage for gender surgery next year. The Wisconsin DoJ's reasoning is more or less the same as that put forth in the new Texas lawsuit (in which Wisconsin is a co-plaintiff).

The Group Insurance Board and the state's Department of Employee Trust Funds replied (paraphrasing): Nah, we're going to go ahead and expand trans healthcare coverage just the same, thanks.

Quote:

The insurance board did not take any action on the changes at a meeting Tuesday. ETF is proceeding with the decision made in July, spokesman Mark Lamkins said.

Which I take to mean a) they weren't making the change to coverage under duress. And b) there are some good people out there.

Take your victories where you can find them.

Hey, thanks for the commentary. I wasn't really thinking of that when I made my demoralized comment.

I don't think that's what Belle was saying, tengu-friend. ^_^

I think her point, in response to Bob's post, was that it's important to report on LGBT athletes (and not treat it as dirty or all about sex). I didn't read her post as being pro-forced outing at all. Look more carefully at the final line of the quote in your post.

Exactly. Thank you.

It is a good thing when public figures such as Olympic athletes come out as lgbt because it helps those who might be struggling or having difficulty finding relatable role models. I also don't agree that being out as gay is all about sex. It's about relationships. What that reporter did is wrong for the aforementioned reasons, but an article about gay athletes is not out of line in itself.

I am a bit surprised that the poster V is contemplating does not include their children.

Also emo = emotional ;-)

It references a genre of music and associated subculture. If one wants to call someone emotional, using "emo" is misleading. "Emo" is also often used in a derogatory fashion relative to everything from being "oversensitive" to various mental illnesses (such as depression). I mean you can use whatever word you want, but the word you chose to use carries connotations that are going to be read into it because you chose to use that word.

Not to be overly serious or anything.

V isn't emo, V is regretful.

Relevant to age, Carol Danvers would have to be at least 40 years old to hold the rank of colonel.

Belle Sorciere wrote:

The point being that Ghostbusters isn't being discussed as a flop.

It's highly unlikely that GHOSTBUSTERS is going to recoup it's budget in theatrical release. We'll see in a month or so. But right now? It's a flop.

Literally the only places I've seen this film discussed as a flop are this forum and MRA sites.

Snakes make wonderful pets, though.

I'm a bi 15 year-old guy, and it's pretty tough balancing what society says I should be and who I really want to be. However, the Pathfinder community has been one of the most welcoming communities I've come across and knowing that all NPCs are assumed to be bi has really helped me. This post is kinda deraily but I just wanted to put my thoughts out.

Welcome! And your post isn't deraily.

Also I have so many fun games I never would have found in a game store.

Sulu's orientation was never established before, so establishing one doesn't retcon anything.

Thank you, Fellow Steve, for bringing me Lords of Gossamer and Shadow, and so much more.

This is how I got into Rite Publishing, which in turn got me into Pathfinder.

Steve will be missed.

So in other news, I-1515, the attempt to put an anti-transgender rights bill on the 2016 ballot, failed to make the ballot.

I'd link a story, but I can't seem to manage it on my tablet.

Orville Redenbacher wrote:

To be fair, if the apocalypse happens, getting video games at the store will be your last worry.

You CAN still get *video games* at the store - if that doesn't prove that there is indeed a difference between them and *computer games,* I don't know what does. They'll always be different to me.

There's literally no valid difference in this false dichotomy you've set up. So you can buy console games in stores and games for your computer online. That reflects a difference but that difference iis not the one you are trying to promote. Many of these games are available for both consoles and computers which makes the distinction fuzzier than you seem to want it to be.

As far as the rest, people aren't going to cut down internet usage to satisfy Luddite preferences or even concerns about any given industry moving most of its business online. Overall these shifts are a good thing and make games more accessible.

Also, the memetic similarities you describe are not nearly as encompassing as you say. There's quite a lot of diversity in game design, especially as was pointed out, outside AAA titles (although I'd say even those aren't the array of memetic clones you described).

Again, you chose to plaY the game that way rather than to just interact with the characters and story and see where it goes.

You can certainly play the game however you want, but when you play it in a way contrary to the way the game's design supports complaining that it doesn't work perfectly is kinda weird.

People who play in a way to maximize paragon and renegade points are not playing contrary to the way the game's designed. They are playing the game in exactly the way it was designed. The game literally rewards you for playing this way. The only way what you said about the game's design could be true is if the game were designed without paragon and renegade points in the first place.

Sharoth wrote:

Yes, the old game store is dying. It sucks, but that is the joy of the internet. You can look at Good Old Games, but I do not think that helps out as much as you would like. Especially since it is a game store. The best bet is to ask around and look at other sites. We will be glad to recommend some games that we like or find interesting.

Slight correction for you...GOG is no longer Good Old Games, and probably half their catalog is now games released within the past 5 years or so.

They're still adding older games to their library, at least. At least over the past few years I recall the X-Wing games and Starfleet Command.

Belle Sorciere wrote:

It took me some time to adapt but once I did dealing with Steam, Origin, GOG, etc. was pretty painless.

Then again I made the transition in 2009 (that is aside from getting Half-Life 2 on Steam a few years prior).

If the OP is on the Autistic Spectrum, it is likely to be harder for him. We tend to have a harder time with changes, especially ones that as big as this.

Unfortunately, this may be something that you will need your therapist or psychiatrist to help you with, assuming that you have one.

I'm on the spectrum as well, which may be why it took me until 2009.

It took me some time to adapt but once I did dealing with Steam, Origin, GOG, etc. was pretty painless.

Then again I made the transition in 2009 (that is aside from getting Half-Life 2 on Steam a few years prior).

In general, the shift to online purchasing has been a net boon to the videogame industry (there is no video game/computer game distinction anymore, assuming there was ever truly such a distinction in the first place).

Steam has been a good thing. There are bad things in Steam (Early Access being abused, for example), but overall it has been a net plus for gamers. I don't have to worry about misplaced or damaged DVDs, and I have more games than I will ever reasonably play (which is my own fault, and I'm much better about not buying everything that looks good). GOG.com is also a net plus, with a different focus on older games. They have older games that wouldn't otherwise run on newer systems, but they often configure them to run on newer systems.

Losing brick and mortar shops is not that great a loss. Product exposure on Steam can far exceed anything you'd get in a store, and you do not have to worry about old games no longer being kept in stock.

I picked a bad month to have a dead computer, darnit.

They did recover the phylactery. Redcloak prepared and gave a fake phylactery to Zykon and kept the real phylactery in his possession.

As soon as the phylactery was recovered, they moved on from Azure City.

Belle Sorciere wrote:

That reminds me of a study I read not too long ago. The conclusion was that despite cutting off anyone 1 standard deviation below the norm, average IQ scores for people with AS are slightly lower than for the general population.

I've read the same. Not an insult on anyone who falls on the spectrum obviously, but yeah.

Indeed! Not meant as an insult at all. It just seems to me that often people focus on the gifts associated with AS over the difficulties and this can trivialize the latter. I am glad that so many Aspies can find work in an appropriate field and I just wish more could, and that those who can't get past job interviews, or who can't actually work for very long without burning out or have issues that make work difficult or impossible, who aren't intellectually gifted, don't get forgotten or left in the dust.

Here's any interesting one: it's possible that girls are woefully under-diagnosed with autism than boys, perhaps because its effects are more subtle in the former than the latter. There are some theories, but this is the thrust of it.

Also some really interesting first-hand accounts by girls with autism.

Before her death, Lorna Wing said that the number of autistic girls and women were probably not that much different from the number of autistic boys and men, and that these problems you linked makes it more difficult for girls to be identified. I don't know if her statement is accurate, but I believe the number of women and girls diagnosed is far far below the number of autistic women and girls who exist.

I don't think someone who considers killing goblin children would be evil or neutral because of such a thought - we don't really control our thoughts as tightly as many may believe, and all kinds of things can cross one's mind. A good person can have terrible thoughts, but the question is not "what are you thinking?" but "would you act upon it?" And for a good person, the answer would be "no."

Saying that a good person would never think bad thoughts basically means that temptation is impossible, and we know that isn't true. To take an example from literature - both Gandalf and Galadriel were tempted to take The One Ring, and are arguably both good characters. If they were simply incapable of having those thoughts then the dramatic value of Frodo offering the ring to them is lost.

I have yet to play or pick up more than the core rulebook, but I will be getting more next month. I appreciate the incremental changes from 3.5. I also appreciate some of the awesome stuff I've seen in the SRD (like magi, I really like magi. And witches).

Not 'including'... 'replacing'... Or are you fine with having a nice young white boy being cast as Virgil Hawkins? Or How about when Marvel rebooted, Sam Wilson became white?

At least when Alan Scott was rebooted, the writer gave a reson for making him gay (The reboot erased his son and since Todd was gay, he felt the new Alan should replace him)

The replacement was temporary, and anyone who has followed comic books for more than six months would know that. And I mean that no matter what the executives or creative staff might have claimed about Flashpoint. And I mean look at how it turned out - Superman and Lois from the pre-Flashpoint universe has been hanging around for several months now, and Wally West got to be the next hero who came back from before. Heck, he's pretty instrumental in fixing the situation that led to the post-Flashpoint universe in the first place. I get the impression DC will never be satisfied with continuity.

I thought I had agreed earlier that replacing a known character with a different version of the same character can be annoying, but that still doesn't make the inclusion of a black character a PC token, which is simply an ideologically driven complaint with no basis in reality.

Don't you know? Replacing a white character with a minority is ALWAYS to be met with universal acclaim, otherwise you are admitting you are racist.

On the other hand, even the mere thought of replacing a minority character with a white ALSO means you are a vile racist scum.

Wow, check out the straw men in this post. It's like an entire field of scarecrows.

Also, here's an excluded middle for you: There's a lot of space between "including a black character is PC tokenism" and "including a black character requires universal acclaim," and I wasn't even saying that new Wally needed to be met with universal acclaim - I just said making him black wasn't a PC tokenist move. Which it isn't. It's just a creative decision like any other.

Calm down, no white people are being harmed by including black characters in comic books.

Belle Sorciere wrote:

And speaking as someone who liked the first Wally West, I didn't really mind post-Flashpoint Wally was black.

Speaking as someone who grew up with Wally West as Flash and collected his entire 20+ year run, I was insulted when they just cast him aside like yesterday's dirty laundry. And then they replaced him with an entirely different Wally.

I wasn't aware that we were supposed to be measuring things in this discussion. But... I grew up on Barry Allen and remember pretty clearly when Wally took over.

A character being black doesn't make him (or her) a PC token.

And speaking as someone who liked the first Wally West, I didn't really mind post-Flashpoint Wally was black.

Shocking and tragic. I also hope everyone is okay.

There's a clinic local to me that lets you call in if you're in crisis but not necessarily suicidal - but the one time I called them they kept asking me if I wanted a therapist, and I was like I just need to talk to someone right now, not at intake in three days.

I mean I needed to do intake too but that was beside the point.

Belle Sorciere wrote:

Ah, I found something regarding "all men are created equal."

Quote:

Thomas Jefferson did not make the same distinction in declaring that "all men are created equal" and "governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." In a time when women, having no vote, could neither give nor withhold consent, Jefferson had to be using the word men in its principal sense of "males", and it probably never occurred to him that anyone would think otherwise.

And I think it very likely he was thinking of white men. The sentence aimed at tackling their problem at the time which was aristocracy and the royalty. That some white men were above other white men by virtue of birth

Of course he was thinking strictly of white men, given the racist and misogynist standards of the time, standards that he benefited from (for example, he owned slaves). You make it sound like it was simply a benign focus based on opposing aristocracy and royalty, when it was not benign at all for those who were not white and those who were not men.

Belle Sorciere wrote:

Lloyd Jackson wrote:

Random language nerd aside, Men in the context of "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." includes women. In English the default in a mixed or unknown gender situation is the masculine form. That's why mankind is humanity and womankind is well... only the women. Of course in this case Men also meant specifically non-bondaged land-owners from groups we like, but hey. We got there, mostly.

The idea that masculine pronouns and signifiers are the default for mixed group is itself a sign of bias against women.

But anyway, I think they pretty much meant men when they said men.

If the default was feminine, would it then mean that there is no bias ?

Nothing I said would or should imply that. It seems like a red herring at best.

I think they for the most part did not consider the matter of women because that was not yet the topic they wanted or needed to adress.

I think that for the most part they did not consider women because women could not vote and thus could not consent to be governed by anyone - and they were not considering giving women the right to vote, given how long it took*. Considering how women were treated at the time, it is an immense stretch to assume anyone who wrote "all men are created equal" actually meant men and women. The exclusion of women from such considerations - as you suggest - also implies a significant bias against women.

* August 18, 1920. 144 years.

Random language nerd aside, Men in the context of "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." includes women. In English the default in a mixed or unknown gender situation is the masculine form. That's why mankind is humanity and womankind is well... only the women. Of course in this case Men also meant specifically non-bondaged land-owners from groups we like, but hey. We got there, mostly.

The idea that masculine pronouns and signifiers are the default for mixed group is itself a sign of bias against women.

But anyway, I think they pretty much meant men when they said men.

I think it is important to let players get the mechanical benefits they paid for, whether feats, skills, etc. So that means that sometimes Diplomacy will be rolled to deal with a situation and sometimes Knowledge (anything) will be rolled to learn things, and that's perfectly fine.

When I ran 3.5 and 3e I'd give a circumstance bonus for roleplaying such things out, even if the player wasn't perfect at it. It's not always fair to expect players to be as good at their stuff as their character is. I am not the best at being diplomatic but I love to play bards. Should I not play bards and take diplomacy because I can be abrasive? God, I hope not. I will still try to roleplay that diplomacy, but I expect that the points I put into diplomacy will matter at some point.

Also, I am not trying to say anyone in this thread said mechanical benefits shouldn't matter, nor am I responding to any particular post in this thread. Just posting my thoughts based on the discussion so far, and thinking of some interactions I've had in ftf tabletop games wherein social mechanics would be set aside and it all had to be roleplay, despite players emphasizing those skills or abilities with how they built their characters.

Anyway, as far as the question in the topic: I try not to punish players for not roleplaying, I try to reward them for roleplaying.

Fried Goblin Surprise wrote:

Krensky wrote:

No it wasn't.

There was no attack there at all.

I have to disagree.

Belle Sorciere wrote:

Right now it doesn't look like you are all that informed about how and why it happened.

What Belle basically said was "You are too stupid to argue with, go read a book."

That is pretty uncool and, as BNW said, a pretty clear use of abusive ad hominem.

BNW made a statement of fact. That opened him up to impeachment of his character, or more precisely, knowledge here. Ad hominem arguments are not always attacks or falacious.

I apologize if it was an ad hominem, but it appeared to me that BNW doesn't know the reasons for the diagnostic merger as he hasn't addressed any of them in this thread. Reading up on them could be quite informative.

There really isn't a lot of research supporting the existence of autism and Asperger syndrome as two completely different things, and plenty of research that supports them being essentially the same thing, or at least being variations of the same thing along a spectrum. The view of autism as a spectrum is well-supported and widely recognized, and is something else BNW contradicted without much support.

If we're going to talk about ad hominem, however, I suppose I could bring up just how polarizing it is to call someone abusive, especially on the basis of one sentence that was twisted into meaning something else - Pointing out that someone does not seem to be informed on a topic is not the same thing as saying they're too stupid to argue with, and nothing I said was in the ballpark of calling BNW stupid or too stupid or any kind of stupid.

hasteroth wrote:

You mis-attribute the selfish version of balance concerns to this group, where a player is only concerned when they get the short end of the stick and couldn't care less when it affects someone else.

Your group of players with little or no experience had balance concerns with players having different stats?

If the group thought different stats = balance concern, why did they decide to roll in the first place?

Something I've seen happen on many occasions in the various RPGs I've played and run is people going with an idea that looks good on the surface, only to discover later that it brings up balance concerns or other issues. Rolled stats may seem great until you have significant disparity from character to character. At that point, it might seem more reasonable to switch to point buy or some other method to reduce the chances of such disparity.

I am doing great! I just started getting into Pathfinder because I missed playing D&D, and I've been enjoying the many threads I've been reading here.

Glad to find this thread,too.

Not much to add to the discussion here. Mostly that my gender ranges from woman to agender and I am a lesbian. And this thread is sooo much to take in all at once.