[spoiler]I know it abolishes all sympathy for me, and I know it's wrong to use something like this to perseverate on my own "soapbox issues".
I want you all to know that these feelings are endurable, and you are not alone. I hope you all can take s…
[spoiler] I have considered those questions, often and deeply. I believe that there are specific cases when it ought to be permitted. I don't think the State will always get it right, and it is an infinite moral horror when something like this is …
[spoiler]It's not a majority, no, but it is still many millions of people. Many of those are the people who felt this hopelessness on the day Roe v. Wade was passed and the culture wars in their modern form began. Those people are still feeling a …
[spoiler] Things my loved ones have told me when I felt this way:
"It wouldn't hurt like this if you didn't care so much, and this is a choice you are making, to make yourself miserable.""There's nothing you can do about it. It's not healthy to do …
[spoiler]And, you know what? There are millions of people whose hearts are broken by this. People with the ability to persuade and win arguments and write newspaper pieces. You have been spared the crippling loneliness of knowing that you are the…
[spoiler]So, about the Supreme Court's recent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
I never wanted any of you to feel this. The utter shock of your world cracking, of knowing that the next generations won't know what it was like to have those basic fun…
I'm sorry that I didn't post here recently. In late February, I got a full-time job, and after 76 working days, I was let go. I've been emotionally all over the place in the week-and-a-half since.
While Of Centralia had said it was "too dark, too cold, and too jagged", Skriph was sure that (1) no other roof-alcove gave such a view of the streets and skies while being itself hid* to most angles of view**, (2) nowhere in the world could possibl…
From Barnaba's Journal:
??-12-????: Breakthrough! "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle", and always in that order, is the phrase. Where are the Reducing Fairy and the Reusing Fairy (or, perhaps, the Reduction fairy and the Reuse Fairy?)? And why do they all…
Skriph pondered, not for the first time and not for the last time, on magic. False-lights shone with no heat, lifeless eyes turned and watched from the walls, echoing voices chanted from no mouth, and none of this was "magic" to the people. More f…
Skriph: Supplies! Here's tissues.
SFX: TissuesHittingConspiracyTheorist.wav
Barnaba: Aak!-Bwuh? Hey, get out of there before you fall and hurt yourself.
Skriph: Explain.
Barnaba: No U, I mean, you explain.
Skriph: I don't know why you made …
NON-DIAGETIC NOTE: There's a trope I think about a lot, Unintentionally Unsympathetic, and I also think about its twin, Unintentionally Sympathetic. Audience sympathy is such a powerful thing, it practically determines the morality of fiction, and…
We open with what appears to be misspelling of the Home For Infinite Losers which anime fans may be familiar with.
YE'AH: a secret word, disguised as a typo, which means "It is opposite day, but the prophecy forbids the open discussion of it being …
Skriph had, in time, learned that it was the easiest of things to pretend to be someone you weren't. Act like you belonged, and people would generally assume that you were supposed to be wherever you were. Nobody seemed to verify identities very m…
30 Rozpoints to whoever first gives feedback on (what is, I suppose, now officially named) the Skriph Saga.
I mean, come on, you pretty much can't get Rozpoints anymore, I think the last time I gave them out was last decade.
(Man, I wonder if Imipoi…
From Barnaba's Journal:
??-2-????: I'll never keep enough junk mail for long enough to crack the messages, but I've just figured out another means to the same end: the word searches in the newspaper! If you keep only the letters that aren't in a…
Barnaba: Haven't you ever known something was going to happen, and everybody said it wouldn't, but you knew you weren't being silly no matter how many times you were told not to be silly, and then it happened? Didn't you want to scream "I knew it!…
I like to imagine that there are aliens who would be impressed by things like nuclear weapons, and would say that humanity is too hard on itself about such things. I also like to imagine that humanity would feel the same way about the equivalent se…
Skriph: So, about the boy watching for wolves. I think we got off-topic in the conversation*.
Barnaba: Oh, yeah, so, the boy gets bored, as in, mega super bored, because nothing happens and he doesn't see or hear any wolves.
Skriph: But that mea…
Barnaba: I always hated the story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf.
Skriph: Aack! Oh, hello. Boy crying wolf? I don't know that one.
Barnaba: So, a boy is a shepherd, which means he takes care of sheep, so he is supposed to watch for wolves, and ye…
NON-DIEGETIC-NOTE: (The "NOTES FOR PEOPLE-FROM-ROZBURG" are supposed to be excerpts from a book that is something of a cultural guide for Rozburgians about the rest of the world. It is supposed to come off as precise-but-inaccurate, and perhaps a …
Skriph thought, not for the first time and not for the last, about knowing. Knowledge was sometimes like fire, you can give it to another without diminishing your own. But not always. Some things couldn't be taught, only learned, and that knowing…