Riot: ngl I forgot that meant restarting the server

Riot: Any word from our story teller?

Vul: they are runnin a bit late last I checked

Riot: K just curious

Riot: No rush obvs

Vul: i mean in a "I asked and they said that" instead of the more like, empyrical version

Riot: Fair

Vul: so otherwise, hows it going

Riot: Applied to the good pizza place down the street

Riot: Gonna go watch The Old Guard with friends after we play because the sequel comes out on the 2nd

Riot: How about y'all

vonel: going okay

vonel: noting really much happening

Vul: i finally fixed my truck's auto-lowering running boards

Vul: silly, silly truck

Vul: oh also I guess maybe the haze in the air means fire season is starting up again

Ganaroth: Hey. I'm really sorry about the delay. Would people maybe want to do this on a different day, so we can get the full time? Just mentioning it, because I sorta.... yeah, I took way more time than I should have. -.-

Ganaroth: I like the idea of the interviews, but I think having it take almost 2 hours is perhaps excessive.

vonel: gezz

Riot: oh wow two hours? godamn

Riot: I mean that's good for making sure you're all on the same page I guess but still

vonel: job interviews arnt even that long

Vul: ya, that's longer then the interviews put together that got my current job I think

Ganaroth: Yeah. I didn't even think it would take even half that.

Vul: what is that interviewing for a wow raid?

Ganaroth: They seemed friendly, and the questions weren't dumb, but it was still longer than I thought I would take.

Vul: idc about starting now or not but like, I'd be burned out from a 2 hour interview

vonel: Right?

Riot: Same jesus

Ganaroth: I was interviewing to be a player in another DnD game. I'm trying to learn 5e, and I didn't think it would be fair to try to make you suffer through me trying to just jump right to DMing. And even then, we're, you know, playing a game already.

vonel: If we want to do another day I'm down, free any afternoon this week.

Riot: Unless the pizza place calls me to come interview or start working I'm free whenever

Vul: I'm maybe not free thursday when they fix my fucking dishwasher

Vul: fucking first month freak failures

Vul: #reeee

Riot: lotta F's

Vul: aleteration always awesome

Ganaroth: I.... am a little burnt right now, not going to lie. I had to defend my desire to play a female character. For the best reason, to be clear: They'd had male players who'd played female characters in problematic ways before. I floated the idea of maybe a trial run, and if they didn't like it, I could switch. And despite knowing why, and believing it to be valid, a despite them being perfectly polite, my hackles got RAISED.

Vul: fair

Vul: I mean like

Riot: Ah yeah entirely valid

Vul: ask no cross play of a gm, see resulting campaign world

Vul: (fair in your hackles being raised I mean not their ask)\

Vul: THATS IMPORTANT TO CLARIFIY I THINK

Ganaroth: Lol, right? But yeah, obviouslty we all have plent y of female npcs, but there is a bit of a difference when it's supposed to be the character who you're inhabiting. I actually think it wasn't unreasonable. They were asking in the interest of protecting a different member of the table, though I do wish that they hadn't immediately leapt to "can you switch that?" as the first solution. It's not a huge sin, just exhausting. ...Oh. DUH. That's why. It's exactly the same feeling that I used to get when I had to fill out paperwork and had to select "male" or "female." Where it feel like I'm being pinned to something that doesn't accurately represent shit.

Vul: I mean personally I see it as identifying the wrong problem and applying a fix haphazardly

Vul: Shitty person going to be shitty regardless of the form of the destroyer

Riot: It's not the wrong problem

Vul: it wrong if the person who was shitty before would have been entirely fine if they were playing a guy character doing the same actions

Riot: People playing other gendered characters and being creepy as hell about it is a thing

Ganaroth: The thing is, this is the easiest bottleneck. If men doing this is a persistent problem, it's much easier to curtail that behavior at this point than at the point of evaluting whether they are being a dick.

Riot: To the point there are a LOT of DnD horror stories about it

Riot: Yes exactly

Riot: Though agreed that "can you switch that" as the first avenue is less than stellar

Riot: But at least their hearts were in the right place

Ganaroth: We used to talk about the concept of Superbitch/Superslut, which is exactly this issue.

Ganaroth: Ie: That it seemed like every guy playing a girl in (early years) dnd gravitated towards one of those archetypes, because people have terrible opinions about women.

Vul: terrible things stick out

Vul: oh well, probably why i'm in exactly 0 other games

Ganaroth: Anyway, I told them that I would be willing to change if people thought my character wasn't working out. The thing is, this character being female actually is important for the concept, for once, rather than just being my play preference. XD

Vul: I'd think they should put that sorta prefrence on the ad for the game

Riot: Hard to do I think

Vul: why because it sounds bad in writing xP?

Ganaroth: Mmm.... I suppose, if we could figure out a way of phrasing it that wouldn't come across as dickish..

Riot: "No playing opposite genders" reads as "these players might be chuds"

Riot: You could say "We'd prefer no playing opposite assigned genders" but it still comes across poorly

Ganaroth: I can't personally think of a good way of doing it that doesn't require multiple qualifier, and at that point you might as well just do what we did, and ask in person.

Vul: still bad form putting a person on the spot to make them have to consider your unkind ask

Vul: like if you were going to ban elfs

Ganaroth: Yeah, but I'm not sure there was a move that wasn't bad. I definitely don't know how I'd do it.

Ganaroth: Banning elves is way easier.

Ganaroth: "No Elves."

Ganaroth: See?

Ganaroth: I don't have to worry about pissing off actual elves if I write that.

Vul: except if that came out after you tried to join

Vul: you'd be all, 'what? why?'

Vul: "Prior people have played elfs poorly"

Vul: eeh w/e

Ganaroth: Akaiku, I actually think their concerns are totally valid.

Ganaroth: I just didn't like it being applied to me, even though I acknowledged why it was happening.

Riot: Fantasy race is not the same as real life gender stuff

Riot: To me yeah like G basically said: Real problem, hard to solve fix

Riot: Not gonna be a perfect way ever I don't think

Vul: it's not my fight cause I'm not currently not joing a group who'd be like that if they asked me like that

Vul: but I sorta get it because people have all sorts of layered 'requirements' on various forms of imagination

Ganaroth: They seemed perfectly nice. I wasn't trying to imply that they mistreated me, per se. It just didn't feel great, which might just be an inescapable consequence.

Riot: Unrelated but I really want Thunderbolts to come out on the high seas already

Riot: Been a minute since i've wanted to see a Marvel flick

Ganaroth: Don't you mean Thunderbolts* ?

Riot: lol yes

Riot: Can't type that in search parameters though

Vul: its on shitty cam rip

Riot: Yeah, saw that

Riot: Rather eat glass

Ganaroth: I'm so far behind on marvel stuff.

Vul: I once watched pre-prod no sfx version of wolverene movie, that was funny

Riot: Look Yelena has a lot of issues about her big sister dying and I want to see it

Riot: Also the fact they got Bob from Top Gun 2 and named him Bob again is hilarious

Vul: also to be hero x is sorta intresting

Ganaroth: I never saw Top Gun 2. Is that the Sentry actor?

Riot: iirc

Riot: yes

Riot: Don't quote me on his character name outside of being named Bob

Ganaroth: Well, can't really avoid the "Bob" then.

Riot: Apparently he asked if they could change the name because he was worried about being typecast lmao

Riot: They told him no

Ganaroth: Can you imagine the nerd rage if they changed Sentry's name?

Riot: Bob was one of the best TG2 characters

Riot: I am unfamiliar with Sentry but I'm sure there would be some

Vul: "That's it? Just good bye and good luck?" "We did not wish you good luck."

Ganaroth: Sentry is... mmm. Schizophrenic Superman?

Riot: oooof

Ganaroth: He's got that sort of power level, and most of the same powers (he's marvel's most powerful superman clone), but with the twist that he is literally his own archnemesis. Under certain circumstances exacerbated by his mental illness, he can lose control, and his powers will invert and he beomes a thing calle "The Void."

Riot: Oh fun

Riot: (not fun for him)

Ganaroth: Indeed.

Ganaroth: He doesn't really get used as a protagonist very much. He usually gets to be a dangerous ally that eventually flips out and the actual protagonists have to deal with it, or he gets to be a plot device for if you need someone to show up and stop a fight between two other people, because he can usually pull that off without a fanboy complaining.

Riot: Ahh gotcha

Ganaroth: "So, World Breaker Hulk has been kicking the shit out of the other heroes for like a dozen straight issues now. Can we wrap this up?" "Fine...." (Sends in Sentry, who punches Hulk so hard that the angry flies out of him.)

Ganaroth: This is a thing that happened.

Ganaroth: As far as I'm aware, he's essentially the physical antagonist for the movie, so that tracks.

Riot: Ah is he the red Hulk?

Ganaroth: ?

Ganaroth: Is who the Red Hulk?

Riot: World Breaker Hulk

Riot: Or did you mean Sentry/Void is the antagonist

Ganaroth: Sentry/Void

Riot: I know the most recent Captain America has a red Hulk as the bad guy but I haven't watched it

Riot: Ah I see

Ganaroth: Yeah, Red Hulk is the hulk form of General Ross, though I guess he's president in the mcu. Haven't seen that either.

Ganaroth: But yeah, world breaker hulk is like Hulk's super saiyan form that he took on after his wife's death etc etc. He tried to smash everything, so Sentry smashed him.

Ganaroth: The images of the movie that I've seen strongly indicate Sentry being the antagonist.

Ganaroth: Though he's probably being manipulated.

Riot: Ahh gotcha. I've mainly seen stuff about Yelena and then Bob just being Bob

=^v^=: I just heard it has a russian character that people like in it as a good guy

Ganaroth: Some of the shots of him in costume look like he is definitely having an episode. And unfortunately, his tenuous grasp on sanity has been exploited by villains more than once.

Riot: The Russian guy is Red Guardian from the Black Widow movie

Ganaroth: Yup. David Harbour.

Riot: Also gotcha, I don't know if I've seen any of those shots

Ganaroth: I'm too far behind, though. I'd need to watch a bunch of shit at this point to catch up, and knowing that a lot of it is mediocre at best doesn't exactly incentivize me to watch 8 hours of marvel.

=^v^=: I have watched many hours of mid

Ganaroth: Well, yeah, but our tolerances are sorta famously not the same.

Riot: lol you don't wanna know what Static is currently doing

Ganaroth: ....Yes I do, because information.

=^v^=: I think i still have like, black panther 2 and agatha all along and maybe some other random stuff in that era to catch up on if I cared about having a complete MCU following

Riot: She's down for a couple of months for surgery and so she decided to watch every Marvel property in story order

Riot: TV and movies

=^v^=: I actually have the mcu in chronological order as a playlist on jellyfox

Riot: Currently she's forcing herself through Iron Fist

Ganaroth: The canonicty of the defenders shows is sorta up for debate, so she could just skip it.

=^v^=: iron fist is not on my list

Ganaroth: (Daredevil and Jessica Jones were good, at least!)

=^v^=: huh, black panther 2 isn't either and I haven't watched echo

=^v^=: owell

Ganaroth: I'd have to go looking to see where I left off.

Riot: I'm gonna send it to you in a few

Riot: She's still sending screenshots lol

Riot: Sent it in your DMs lol

Ganaroth: Fun, lol.

Riot: Absurd lol

Ganaroth: I'm not that crazy. I just need to watch everything after Thor: Love and Thunder, besides The second seasons of What If? and Loki.

Ganaroth: It's still too much.

Ganaroth: Anyway... thanks. Be well!

Riot: Okay, have a good one!

vonel: yar

Riot: hi hi

vonel: Wonder if that repair person showed up right at three or something?

Riot: I know Akaiku has said 330 sometimes

Riot: Maybe it's that?

vonel: maybe

vonel: that's about when I'd be getting home on friday

=^v^=: oi

=^v^=: I guess nobody said we were playing today?

Riot: hi hi

Riot: You literally said it

=^v^=: well, before today

Riot: I was the last one to reply that I could make it which was last night