majestic

The same thing Chakotay suddenly saw in Seven of Nine, out of nowhere. Lines of a script, written by hacks. A-koo-chee-moya. I shouldn't be too hard on Voyager. Voyager is pretty watchable compared to the other stuff that came afterwards. Like One Night in Sickbay, which was probably the worst Star Trek episode until These Are The Voyages... which was the worst until every other Discovery episode became the worst until the androids in Picard summoned Mecha-Cthulhu from Dark Space (tm). Oh how I wish I'd be exaggerating just how breathtakingly stupid this was... edit: Ah, minor tip here, I don't think it'll help, but try not to think about anything that happens in Discovery going forward. It'll just break your brain if you try to make sense of it. Just "enjoy" the ride. You'll get to watch Skynet ASSUME DIRECT CONTROL at some point. That'll probably make no sense yet, but unfortunately it will soon enough...

This is thread is sure going places. If it's an actual harem*, it might have been one of his daughters, sisters, wives, or any other woman of the household, rather than a slave. Wait, that doesn't make this any better, does it? *I think historical accuracy isn't part of Space Cobra, so that's unlikely, huh?

Wand of Call Lightning, there is one right at the beginning of the dungeon, and one more further in.

It's a good indicator of how much the show cares for getting the little details right. It's fine if a gamma ray burst doesn't kill everyone, that's why these ships all have fictional shielding technology, but once it's past the shields and is like a light flash on the bridge, it's everyone melts into goo time. And yeah, Earth getting hit by a gamma ray burst is a potential extinction event.

Yikes, I forgot to write my weekly Discovery diatribe. I'm not going to do that in as much detail as usual, but let is suffice to say that it was, once again, patently dumb and bad. Season four, episode 10. Don't really care what the title is. A few key things:

Clearing Blackwater was an unpleasant experience on unfair difficulty, and that's primarily attributable to me thinking it'll be all right to bring a few shock weapons and make due with the wands until you can grab Stormlord's Resolve. That wasn't the best idea, all in all. It works fine until you run into the augmented succubi who have an annoying tendency to take zero damage from the weapons and you need to get through both their spell resistance and their reflex saves for the wands to work. Battling mirror imaging, level draining demons with regeneration you just can't turn off properly is a tad... annoying. As per usual, the two actual boss fights were more than managable. Ember's supercharged enchanment DC and enemies not immune to mind altering conditions equals having a fairly easy time, comparatively. Picked up Agony on Ember for the first time too. Works well enough against enemies with weak (that's relative on unfair) fortitude saves and has twice the range of the other hexes. Isn't as powerful as slumber when it works, of course, but it's still a decent way to turn an enemy off with a bit of dice luck. Also ended up picking up a whole lot of Improved Initiative feats. On unfair, you really do not want to be caught flat-footed. Eh, and pretty big lol at the Brown-Fur Transmuter mercenary. The guy is well worth his money and then some. I'd call that a bargain, and he does a decent job at throwing Bolstered Battering Blasts at enemy lines when the buffing is said and done.

Keyrock liked Hercules in Space more than Andromeda, so... yeah, I don't think that's going to change his mind.

Oh, it is, and then you add the other plot that's the main story to Clear Card that's not been revealed yet, and it becomes a dumpster fire. That's what's going on with Sakura, there's another plot going on involving the new Mystery Transfer Student (very creative choice there), but I think that starts in a couple of episodes, outside of strange dreams. No, there's a full episode that acts as a bridge between the final epsiode and Clear Card with some flashbacks and helpful information for people who start with Clear Card: Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card Prologue: Sakura and the Two Bears If that sounds like a garbled bullcrap version of the actual final episodes of the anime, then that's because it is. I'd say stick to it, it gets better, but really, it just doesn't. In fact, the first few episodes are actually the best, not counting the ones where they brought Meiling back. If you don't mind missing parts of the ludicrous plot, you could just jump ahead to the episode where Meiling and Tomoyo watch her "Sakura video tape best of" at Tomoyo's home cinema, episode 15, Sakura's Nostalgic Viewing Party. Meiling is in he series from episodes 13 to 16, but 14 is a real barn burner where people randomly turn into animals, so I can't even recommend the full run. The only other halfway worthwhile episode is Sakura, Rainbows, and Grandpa (20). Or you could try episode nine, the moment when watchers realize this is creatively bankrupt. Sakura returns to the aquarium where she captured Watery, and imagine that, a tank breaks...

Why is everyone always forgetting Andromeda? edit: I love how Rich has to try really, really, REALLY hard not to burst out into laughter all the time.

Yeah, overall Clear Card is such a low effort job it hurts. Eriol and Kaho, sitting on a tree k-i-s-s-i-n-g... it's not weird, really, because Eriol is a whole lot older than the 13 he looks. Really. Pinky swear! Rika has one very teensy tiny cameo with a different voice actress once in the show. If there's one thing about the manga and the anime that's really weird is the writer's obsession with teacher/student romance. I think Ms. Ohkawa might have had a few crushes on her 先生 in her early teens. Well... spoilers for a part of the "plot" of this travesty: I guess you didn't watch the episode "0" prequel-OVA bridge between the old and the new series? Loved all the inconsistencies and continuity errors, but they're semi-handwaved in a conversation (or "intentional" if you will). Also a big plus is the tech up. This is a year later than the original, but 20 years ahead in technology. No, that isn't weird at all. It also wasn't totally weird in Sailor Moon Crystal. Nope. Not weird at all... Hooooooooooooeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Looks like Germany is reneging on their refusal to ban Russia from SWIFT. Still needs to pass the 27 member vote unanimously, but... signs point to it being back on the table. The cynic in me thinks it's time to invest in the Yuan. Giant spoiler:

Bruce, perhaps you'd like to rephrase that into: They had no legal obligation to help the Syrians and sticking to treaties their request for asylum needs to be processed at their point of entry into the EU, not somewhere else. Because the way you're writing it boils down to: Ya, I'm not racist, but they brown, so we ain't helping.

Anyone of you got a working IBM 5100? If yes, keep it safe.

A few of us are guilty of that. It always appeared that Putin is an intelligent, if not always very amicable fellow. Ruthless, yes, but not crazy. Apparently though, that's at least partially not correct. Worse though, he made a couple of funny posts not age very well, and that's pretty unforgivable. Meh. @BruceVC for a more serious reply now that I have some time for it, yes, apparently the intelligence wasn't a fabrication, or exaggerated for effect. You know the story about the boy who cries wolf, he gets eaten by the wolf eventually, but indeed, it was correct this time, the posts didn't age very well, and I was wrong in expecting that this crisis would be solved without shots being fired - kind of like every other crisis every year ever since 2014. To be honest, I still don't see what Putin expects to get out of this that benefits Russia, or his position, in the long term. You'd think France and Germany would put their own interests above others and strong-arm the Ukraine into backing down, but hey, here I was... apparently overestimating Putin, Macron and Scholz. Putin always did a good job in keeping the EU divided and navel-gazing by supporting the fringe elements of many EU states that wanted the EU to go back to being a trade union (Front Nationale, The Freedom Party, fellow dictator wannabe Orban, recently supporting the anti-vaxxer movements) in order to prevent a more tightly knit European Union and common defense policy, but now he's running dangerously close to undoing a lot of that work*. I also really don't want to be in Zelensky's shoes right now. Like @Guard Dog said it is really unlikely that anyone is going to war over the Ukraine. Going to be a lot of hindsight is 20/20 for the Ukranian government. A government I have a hard time expressing any sympathy for, to be honest. It's just really bad for the Ukranian people. They certainly donn't derserve any of this. Two weeks ago, I'd have agreed to your assessment, and made it myself. Now, I'm not so sure. Apparently this is a hill worth dying on for Putin, for some reason. *Admittedly though, probably not, because the US also has no interest in allowing any of that, and if this invasion proves one thing then it's that if push comes to shove, any emancipation of European interests flies out of the window in an instant.

Of course Russia didn't want to invade the Ukraine, the West forced them into it. That's obvious, right?

That's okay because it's Russia, not the West!

Well, Drezen is taken, and with the Angel spell merge it's going much better than before. Reaching level 9 made the Brown-Fur Transmuter a whole lot more fun too. It is really not very fun to go up against those hit point sponges that you pretty much need to pull out extended buffs for all the time to make it all bearable, but it's workable enough. Need to pull out some serious defense scaling shenanigans to make this work. Once I'm done, I'm never going to play Unfair again.

I'm actually of a mixed opinion here to be honest. Komi Can't Communicate's faults are deeply entwined with it being an anime. Almost all of the things the anime does that I absolutely hate simply has to work differently in a live action TV show because it's a very different medium. The constant yelling of the characters, the over the top crazy animated stuff. Then there's some stuff that can't work, like Najimi, unless they managed to find an actor that can pass as both high school boy and a high school girl. The one thing that's not going to be in the live action series is the best part of the anime, and that's Komi's face when she's scared. That's a major downside. Fun fun I just looked at a character presentation because there's apparently no trailer for this on youtube, or at least not a trailer I can find. Najimi is a walking flaming homo stereotype. Good choice there, show. Very good choice. The actors are all terrible, and one of them is sitting around with face paint. So, scratch the above paragraph, this is a terrible idea all around. I shouldn't be surprised, because live action adaptations tend to suck (unless they suck in the good way, like Masters of the Universe). Yeah. Uhm. Time coded to Najimi. My brain's melting. Thank you Japan for this experience, and @Bartimaeus for finding it.

Even if you do nothing else with her, the Fortune/Protective Luck Hex/Cackle, uhm, synergy (call it an exploit if you must) alone is worth having Ember in the party, but if you don't want her to spam Red Salamander based Hellfire Rays with triple enhanced dice rolls just cause she won't Trickster about (your loss ) you can just slap every Conjuration focus on her and all the summoning feats and mythic abilities and call it a day. Expanded Arsenal: Enchantment rounds it out. Ember becomes a mobile front-line and a crowd control expert. Not that you need either as Angel Oracle, but since you don't want her to pew pew fire and brimstone, that'll work. However, it's technically not impossible to make her an Arcane Trickster. Core would be 8 levels of Witch, one level of Vivisectionist to get the sneak attack with Accomplished Sneak Attacker, one Cross-Blooded Sorcerer level with Brass and Gold dragon bloodlines, then Second Bloodline: Red plus Ascendet Element: Fire. Get Red Salamander, Ring of the Pyromaniac and eventually Deadly Rays. Turn everything into cinders. Works decently enough if you know where to find gear for her and don't mind shelling out the big bucks relatively early. Not worth it unless you have another source of hexes, but she'll deal enough damage even against enemies with sneak attack immunity.

Loses a bit in the translation, huh?

Totally off-topic, @ShadySands are you on moderated status for some reason, or have I turned blind in addition to stupid? Didn't see your post in between there. 😮 edit: This forum software being how and what it is, I wouldn't rule out a bug either. Hmmm.

4chan & Telegram.

https://osf.io/5gu8a/ Enjoy. Christof Kuhbandner is a professor of educational psychology, and of course a veritable luminary in the fields of epidemiology, virology, immunology and statistics. Or maybe not, maybe he's just an educational psychologist who based a problematic study on data not suitable for analysis and produced a hilarious example of spurious correlations. Or rather, it would be hilarious, if it weren't dangerous. Did you know that there's an almost perfect correlation between eating cheese and death by entanglement in bed sheets? I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions based on this data, I'm just going to say this one should be of much concern to you, I mean, you do eat a lot of cheese, don't you? Careful, I don't think companies making cheese are "legally responsible" for the deaths by entanglement they cause.

お陰様で。

You haven't lived until you walk about the map on Unfair difficulty, something spawns next to your backline and does back to back 120 damage crits to your casters. Can't say the game doesn't keep me on the edge of my seat though. Any encounter on Unfair is over when it is over, not before.