So you decided to make a pro-China anti-US argument by linking to a flat-earther meme?

You alright there?

It’s not a dick DM move as much as a lazy move. But it might feel like a dick DM move to some of them.

If the idea is to make them weaker, give them a long-lasting debuff rather than removing levels. 50% HP, -4 to attack rolls, etc. Removing levels requires a lot of work on the player’s part, and feels like it takes the game backwards rather than forwards. Giving them a debuff that they have to work to restore, on the other hand, feels like there’s a path forward to advance towards.

Thank you! I’ll give that a try.

I’m using Cloudfare for DNS. I’ll check out what they have available.

Considering that Taiwan has been de facto an independent country for a long time, its easy to see why “forever maintaining the status quo” is the best choice for most people.

Declaring independence from China when they are already functionally independent from China would just be kicking a hornet’s nest. The outcome of a war with China would end in either a bloody defeat in which their country would be leveled and their freedoms taken away, or a bloody victory resulting in… the current status quo, just with lots of dead people.

So why would your average citizen desire anything but the status quo? They’re already a free country, this question is just asking them if they’d like a war for the fun of it, or their freedoms taken away.

I agree Reddit is toxic. I’d argue reddit actually stopped being Reddit around 2016. But it’s posts like this that clog it all up and are partially why it is the way it is today.

I gotta agree with this. The toxicity in any reddit thread increases dramatically when the poster pre-emptively complains about all the toxicity they expect to receive. Whereas when you just ask straight without going into a whole speech about comment quality, you get much better replies. Particularly because it’s hijacking your own thread; changing it from whatever question you wanted to ask into an analysis of the comments.

I’ve seen that, although I think it was a fan video and not any official creation. I liked it very much. It would have made a better introduction for sure.

Indeed. While I would have preferred an orchestral piece, the intro theme for Seasons 1 and 2 was jarring, but not bad. When they updated it for S3 and 4 it was absolute garbage.

The one-shot intro for the mirror universe episode was absolutely fantastic though. They should have stuck with that one, or Archer’s Theme, which has an appropriately Star Trek optimism to it, while still being a bit “pop”-y.

Likewise, the melodrama is what killed it for me.

There are a lot of bad trek episodes scattered across every series. Bad episodes isn’t the issue with Discovery. The issue is that, throughout all of trek, the crew has come together and stuck with each other through thick and thin. If there ever is inter-crew strife, it’s solved in generally one or two episodes (except for major plot/story themes like the Maquis, or Seven being a Borg).

Discovery, on the other hand, is a show where the crew was constantly backstabbing, betraying, lying, and being all around bad towards each other. There was no finding solace among the crew in a world filled with strife – the world was strife, and the crew was also strife. And whenever the inter-crew issues seemed like they could finally be resolved, some new stupid issue was shoehorned in. It was unbearable to watch because of the forced melodrama.

It’s the piece of corn in the turd.

I enjoyed seeing so many beloved characters again, and it had several very good moments, but seasons 1 and 2 did Jean-Luc dirty and S3 didn’t make up for that.

Yep. My family were lifelong subscribers to National Geographic Magazine, and I grew up reading it. And I remember distinctly the change in quality when Fox bought it. The first magazine that was put out under the new management was all about the “facts” of the “real” Jesus, and would have been fit for a History Channel special. It was such a disappointment to see something I loved so much turn into a trash rag.