Goldengirl

Slightly off-topic (???), but why are you interested in paleo? I don't understand its appeal as a dietary choice. I'm working on coming up with an interesting recipe. I'm a vegetarian with a pretty repetitive diet, so I'm not coming up with much. The occasional curry, lots of stirfry, pasta, sometimes tacos... Nothing too exciting. That said, I've got some nice dessert recipes I can probably share, once I dig them up.

The closest thing I can think of are PDF's. A lot of books are uploaded as PDF's, some for purchase, many for free. Moreover, if you have access to a scanner, you could always do the job yourself and make a PDF of any physical books you have. Beyond that, I'm afraid, I don't have much advice. Good luck.

I recently got a Nook, which has opened up lots of new options for reading. Right now I'm still reading a paper-and-ink book, though. Bodies That Matter, by Judith Butler. It's her sequel to her more famous text, Gender Trouble, in that it picks up where the last one ends off and tries to resolve the contradictions and limitations of her theory of gender performativity. The Nook has also allowed me access to a lot of bawdy novels.

That makes a lot of sense, wackypanda. I always rationalized it as the Shapers having way more resources, such as labs and Shapers, to do new research. Meanwhile, the Rebels have a dearth of both, as most of their Lifecrafters are busy fighting rather than researching, and most of their territory where they might have labs is under threat of attack. In fact, the only real Rebel lab was in the Grayghosts, and most of the Drakons had to withdraw from the front lines to help with the research there. It would be nice to implement combat disciplines. Guardians and other melee-heavy characters can be really boring to play without them. That might be a way to spice up the Battle creations, too, since the biggest complaint against them for most of the series is that they were underpowered.

This is exactly part of it. The formal power structures aren't there anymore. Theoretically, all nations are equal. In reality, of course, the old imperial powers still have a lot of power, while the former colonies are still getting the short end of the stick. Cultural appropriation actually assumes that this is the case. The argument that cultural appropriation is bad has two foundations. First, that it's disrespectful. This holds most for religious symbolism being co-opted in order to be 'trendy.' Second, that it is a continuation of colonial power relations through other means. This second claim is the more interesting one to me. Absolutely. It's a process, and will continue to be. Hopefully it goes well for Zimbabwe and the rest of the world.

I don't have a lot to add, mostly just more contextual analysis to complicate matters further. The historical context out of which cultural appropriation emerges is two-fold: decolonization and neoliberalism. First, we have, post-WW2, global efforts that have dismantled formal imperial power structures almost completely. Apart from huge liberation projects in Asia and Africa, these ideological schemes have been transplanted to other colonized populations. Thus, African-Americans, etc. are attempting decolonization efforts to liberate themselves. I think this is where the impetus for preventing cultural appropriation comes from, in large part. The other side of the coin is neoliberalism. Intellectual property has been around as a tool for a long time, of course, but aspects of global capitalism give it a new flavor. First, international intellectual property rights are a huge site of dispute between various powers, such as the United States and the People's Republic of China. How these questions will be resolved is uncertain. Second, Western societies (and globally, to a lesser extent) are increasingly atomized. Individuals are considered more and more to be the most basic unit of society, which means that individuals are seen as owning property rather than collectives. This is far from total, obviously, but it's a trend. Third, there is a proliferation of information globally. The advent of the Internet and its increasing accessibility means that folks can be exposed to ideas from everywhere at any time. How we navigate these ideas and attribute ownership in the digital commons is also far from determined. So, we have various marginalized communities articulating a desire for liberation and reclamation through the vocabulary of neoliberal capitalism. This vocabulary, however, is already problematized by contested negotiations over the values that shape the discourse of intellectual property. These negotiations are everywhere, from the diplomatic tables between countries to the micropolitical level of art blogs trying to keep their work. Cultural appropriation is especially challenged by the growing atomization of society, which challenges the very rights of collective entities to make claims at all. As I see it, the question for communities trying to liberate, reclaim, and decolonize, is this: can neoliberal capitalist ideas be co-opted to challenge hegemonic culture? Or rather, can the master's tools dismantle the master's house?

I'll give this a shot.

Moreover, most of the endings are pretty similar. The stalemate, built up after ~20 years of war, never really breaks. Things just get to an equilibrium where one side is powerless to really pose an existential threat to the other. In the hardcore Rebel ending, the Shapers still get the far coast. In the hardcore Loyalist (Alwan), the Rebels more or less get to keep the Ashen Islands. In the moderate (Astoria) ending, Terrestia is pretty equally split. No one gets their grand, total victory. Even in the more ideological, extremist routes, between Taygen and the Trakovites, neither get their ultimate ideological cleansing of the corruptions of Shaping. They just get an uneasy ending to the war with limited reforms.

Here's hoping some of the more generic details of Valorim get filled out a bit... Although there certainly was a certain charm to the giant sibling-merchant class servicing the whole continent, all named "Merry" by unimaginative parents.

Short term, get my bachelor's degree. Longer term? Go to China, become fluent in Mandarin, and get into a good graduate school. Become a professor. Teach at a university that isn't in a godawful place. On a more personal note, get a name change, get medicated, train my voice, and save up cash for a battery of medical operations. Also, overthrow capitalism.

Keep playing Spidweb games, Darth Ernie. You'll eventually get to the section on psychic networking with other Spiderwebbers. It's just past the Shareware Demon.

I love to be a completionist, and I hate to be a min-maxer. I'm terrible at video games, too, and I enjoy more the plot and setting (of Jeff's games in particular) so I try to explore everything I can. Usually that leaves me with enough skills to beat the game, though I'm not against cheating.

Alas, I die...

I was recently there, and thought the same thing. My conclusion was that Alaska isn't somewhere you visit to stay in the city.

Here's my map. I actually just knocked out Alaska for an academic debate tournament. I've also been to British Columbia in Canada. Vancouver is a beautiful city, and will make a great addition to Cascadia when the time comes.

I feel like partnering with Sylae was a good idea.

I take a great deal of issue with the psycho-pharmaceutical industry and the constant pathologization of mental abnormality. I think society is probably sick more often than people; anorexia nervosa can only come about in a society obsessed with the equation of thinness with beauty. With that salt thrown in, there's definitely some mental stuff going on with me. The only time I've been properly diagnosed, it's come up as mood disorder, not otherwise specified, and I've never felt like any one descriptive set fit me. Major depression, variants of bipolar mood disorder, gender dysphoria, and others all have some aspects that seem to fit the bill, but nothing is ever a satisfactory fit, let alone perfect. That said, I've got enough symptoms to be sure that something is up. I've had a history of self-harm, suicidal ideation, weight issues, crippling apathy... So I suppose I'm just not otherwise specified. That didn't stop them from writing me a prescription, though. Counseling helped, and the drugs give me some reasonable baseline without too many negative side effects.

I've shifted pretty drastically, if memory serves right. Something about ideology being fluid during the teens and twenties. Economic Left/Right: -6.75 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.95

When i was playing Avadon for the first time I listened to the Monkey Business album from the Black Eyed Peas on loop. I have an especially strong association memory between the Kva and "Pump It."

G5 spoiler? Not really, this is announced within the first 30 minutes of gameplay. I don't know, I feel like having a living tool serve as a highly effective form of enslavement is probably the most efficient it could get.

Technically, yes. However, it seems that people don't have the communal energy to invest in an RP like this right now, judging by the inactivity of the thread. As such, it is essentially over already.

Although I wasn't lying when I said I was quite busy during this time, my plan (as Sylae can verify) actually was to play silent and let everyone freak out over who else to target. It worked, so that's good. Forgetting to submit my vote at the proper time... that was embarrassing. Alas.

Howdy. I really should have been devoting more time to this, which I'll correct for in the next few days. I'm confused, but there is one thing I want to question. Are we certain that there are three actual Imperial spies? With the (relatively) small number of people playing, it may just be two. I doubt it'd be one, just based on ratios, but it is an outside possibility.

Sure, since my RP tanked I assume people will be able to change their votes within the voting period?

I'm more interested in finding who doesn't play any Spiderweb games.