Parrhesia

what is sarcasm

Soapbar's submission is called by Outsider, by called 'Loner.'

For twelve years, you have been asking: Who is John Galt? This is John Galt speaking. I am the man who loves his life. I am the man who does not sacrifice his love or his values. I am the man who has deprived you of victims and thus has destroyed your world, and if you wish to know why you are perishing-you who dread knowledge -I am the man who will now tell you.” The chief engineer was the only one able to move; he ran to a television set and struggled frantically with its dials. But the screen remained empty; the speaker had not chosen to be seen. Only his voice filled the airways of the country-of the world, thought the chief engineer-sounding as if he were speaking here, in this room, not to a group, but to one man; it was not the tone of addressing a meeting, but the tone of addressing a mind. “You have heard it said that this is an age of moral crisis. You have said it yourself, half in fear, half in hope that the words had no meaning. You have cried that man’s sins are destroying the world and you have cursed human nature for its unwillingness to practice the virtues you demanded. Since virtue, to you, consists of sacrifice, you have demanded more sacrifices at every successive disaster. In the name of a return to morality, you have sacrificed all those evils which you held as the cause of your plight. You have sacrificed justice to mercy. You have sacrificed independence to unity. You have sacrificed reason to faith. You have sacrificed wealth to need. You have sacrificed self-esteem to self-denial. You have sacrificed happiness to duty. “You have destroyed all that which you held to be evil and achieved all that which you held to be good. Why, then, do you shrink in horror from the sight of the world around you? That world is not the product of your sins, it is the product and the image of your virtues. It is your moral ideal brought into reality in its full and final perfection. You have fought for it, you have dreamed of it, and you have wished it, and I-I am the man who has granted you your wish. “Your ideal had an implacable enemy, which your code of morality was designed to destroy. I have withdrawn that enemy. I have taken it out of your way and out of your reach. I have removed the source of all those evils you were sacrificing one by one. I have ended your battle. I have stopped your motor. I have deprived your world of man’s mind. “Men do not live by the mind, you say? I have withdrawn those who do. The mind is impotent, you say? I have withdrawn those whose mind isn’t. There are values higher than the mind, you say? I have withdrawn those for whom there aren’t. “While you were dragging to your sacrificial altars the men of justice, of independence, of reason, of wealth, of self-esteem-I beat you to it, I reached them first. I told them the nature of the game you were playing and the nature of that moral code of yours, which they had been too innocently generous to grasp. I showed them the way to live by another morality-mine. It is mine that they chose to follow. “All the men who have vanished, the men you hated, yet dreaded to lose, it is I who have taken them away from you. Do not attempt to find us. We do not choose to be found. Do not cry that it is our duty to serve you. We do not recognize such duty. Do not cry that you need us. We do not consider need a claim. Do not cry that you own us. You don’t. Do not beg us to return. We are on strike, we, the men of the mind. “We are on strike against self-immolation. We are on strike against the creed of unearned rewards and unrewarded duties. We are on strike against the dogma that the pursuit of one’s happiness is evil. We are on strike against the doctrine that life is guilt. “There is a difference between our strike and all those you’ve practiced for centuries: our strike consists, not of making demands, but of granting them. We are evil, according to your morality. We have chosen not to harm you any longer. We are useless, according to your economics. We have chosen not to exploit you any longer. We are dangerous and to be shackled, according to your politics. We have chosen not to endanger you, nor to wear the shackles any longer. We are only an illusion, according to your philosophy. We have chosen not to blind you any longer and have left you free to face reality-the reality you wanted, the world as you see it now, a world without mind. “We have granted you everything you demanded of us, we who had always been the givers, but have only now understood it. We have no demands to present to you, no terms to bargain about, no compromise to reach. You have nothing to offer us. We do not need you. “Are you now crying: No, this was not what you wanted? A mindless world of ruins was not your goal? You did not want us to leave you? You moral cannibals, I know that you’ve always known what it was that you wanted. But your game is up, because now we know it, too. “Through centuries of scourges and disasters, brought about by your code of morality, you have cried that your code had been broken, that the scourges were punishment for breaking it, that men were too weak and too selfish to spill all the blood it required. You damned man, you damned existence, you damned this earth, but never dared to question your code. Your victims took the blame and struggled on, with your curses as reward for their martyrdom-while you went on crying that your code was noble, but human nature was not good enough to practice it. And no one rose to ask the question: Good?-by what standard? “You wanted to know John Galt’s identity. I am the man who has asked that question. “Yes, this is an age of moral crisis. Yes, you are bearing punishment for your evil. But it is not man who is now on trial and it is not human nature that will take the blame. It is your moral code that’s through, this time. Your moral code has reached its climax, the blind alley at the end of its course. And if you wish to go on living, what you now need is not to return to morality-you who have never known any-but to discover it. “You have heard no concepts of morality but the mystical or the social. You have been taught that morality is a code of behavior imposed on you by whim, the whim of a supernatural power or the whim of society, to serve God’s purpose or your neighbor’s welfare, to please an authority beyond the grave or else next door-but not to serve your life or pleasure. Your pleasure, you have been taught, is to be found in immorality, your interests would best be served by evil, and any moral code must be designed not for you, but against you, not to further your life, but to drain it. “For centuries, the battle of morality was fought between those who claimed that your life belongs to God and those who claimed that it belongs to your neighbors-between those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of ghosts in heaven and those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of incompetents on earth. And no one came to say that your life belongs to you and that the good is to live it. “Both sides agreed that morality demands the surrender of your self-interest and of your mind, that the moral and the practical are opposites, that morality is not the province of reason, but the province of faith and force. Both sides agreed that no rational morality is possible, that there is no right or wrong in reason-that in reason there’s no reason to be moral. “Whatever else they fought about, it was against man’s mind that all your moralists have stood united. It was man’s mind that all their schemes and systems were intended to despoil and destroy. Now choose to perish or to learn that the anti-mind is the anti-life. “Man’s mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is given to him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its content is not. To remain alive, he must act, and before he can act he must know the nature and purpose of his action. He cannot obtain his food without a knowledge of food and of the way to obtain it. He cannot dig a ditch-or build a cyclotron-without a knowledge of his aim and of the means to achieve it. To remain alive, he must think. “But to think is an act of choice. The key to what you so recklessly call ‘human nature,’ the open secret you live with, yet dread to name, is the fact that man is a being of volitional consciousness. Reason does not work automatically; thinking is not a mechanical process; the connections of logic are not made by instinct. The function of your stomach, lungs or heart is automatic; the function of your mind is not. In any hour and issue of your life, you are free to think or to evade that effort. But you are not free to escape from your nature, from the fact that reason is your means of survival-so that for you, who are a human being, the question ‘to be or not to be’ is the question ‘to’ think or not to think.’ “A being of volitional consciousness has no automatic course of behavior. He needs a code of values to guide his actions. ‘Value’ is that which one acts to gain and keep, ‘virtue’ is the action by which one gains and keeps it. ‘Value’ presupposes an answer to the question: of value to whom and for what? ‘Value’ presupposes a standard, a purpose and the necessity of action in the face of an alternative. Where there are no alternatives, no values are possible. “There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or non-existence-and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living organisms. The existence of inanimate matter is unconditional, the existence of life is not; it depends on a specific course of action. Matter is indestructible, it changes its forms, but it cannot cease to exist. It is only a living organism that faces a constant alternative: the issue of life or death. Life is a process of self-sustaining and-self-generated action. If an organism fails in that action, it does; its chemical elements remain, but its life goes out of existence. It is only the concept of ‘Life’ that makes the concept of ‘Value’ possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil. “A plant must feed itself in order to live; the sunlight, the water, the chemicals it needs are the values its nature has set it to pursue; its life is the standard of value directing its actions. But a plant has no choice of action; there are alternatives in the conditions it encounters, but there is no alternative in its function: it acts automatically to further its life, it cannot act for its own destruction. “An animal is equipped for sustaining its life; i

im not happy to see u

a gun in my pocket

smooches

Sure, but there's a world of difference between that and just cutting out all failures. Nuance, mate, Christ.

[spoiler=Update 20] Oh, good. It's you. Were you such a great thief, you'd steal the chest that's right fucking there. Adele and Guinness may have been stranded here, but Wolfe and Caul came when called and dragged Lawrn from standby and Rodanu from mascot duty. My thoughts exactly, Dayvis. Good. Let them. Also, there's unusually sombre music playing. ... You know, I don't think I ever noticed this my first time playing. But it's fine, Dayvis is a chump- A chump with good evade. Caul kills him straight afterwards though and I'm surprised by it because there's no dialogue. His squad is bad but we get unlucky with spike traps, so their archer (called, um, 'Yurhee') picks off Lawrn. Yeah, fuckin', Yurhee. Adele, too. The named characters only have a single death line. Generics have like four? Five? Rodanu staves off death another turn - Rush is a lovely little niche skill. Normal damage attack that knocks back. bye rodanu But just as things almost get dicey... Oh, Nyme. Didn't you read the stories about the Langs? Oh. This is actually turning into kind of a slog. Guinness gets an unnecessary Opportunity because those are the only kind that ever happen. He's happy about pulping Yurhee super-hard though. Anyway, he retreats with Wolfe, heals up to make sure. the law was against self-targeting. And so it comes down to this. Four badly-wounded idiots in a pit. ... Well, at least it didn't break the ch- One idiot in a pit. You earned it, Guinness. You fucking earned it. After some dithering along the way, Kyrie has reached his final form. Templars are powerful swordsmen/spearmen who have an interesting set of perks, mostly defensive in nature. They have good stats but are agonisingly slow. But it's okay - Cid's okay. Aaand with all established to be okay, it's gossip time. The power of friendship is like an addictive drug - starts out with pleasure, ends in pain and sometimes Ursla. Cid, this isn't the time to be reasonable, this is the Fully Sick Gossip Hour. Cid's done foreshadowing - it's time for Exciting Things that I think are due about now. fluorgis fluorgis flu FUCK A dutiful lad. And a pragmatic patient. Next up on FFTA2: You know the drill.

'Don't have anything to say about the music itself but iirc Pink Martini got sued over the lyrics since they took some of them from a poem that they thought was public domain but was, in fact, not public domain. /fun facts with fal ' This makes Ambling Falchion's submission the French version of Land Down Under, then.

No. Crisply-edited is likely better but there aren't really many (any? I'm definitely not one myself) on this forum, it's a more casual-style LP community. My personal approach to errors is to be organic, but use discretion. I like imprinting the first run in full whether it fails or succeeds, then using personal discretion figuring out how many subsequent attempts to throw in (like in FFTA a second take won't be much more interesting for the audience, so I just skip to the end).

i have a machete

[spoiler=Update 20] Hello, people! Today you are getting me, Parrhesia, as it's a plot mission tonight. It's not this one. It's this one! We're doing all three today because one quest is a bit lean for an update and they're all in Galerria. I know, I know. Shocking. This map is about collecting all four potions on the ground, and that's handy because fighting this thing might be a tough proposition. That attack is more than any of us have - it's as much attack as Torch or Caul with the Cheaty Armour We Shouldn't Have has defence. Komodo Guy has celebrated our victory last time around by becoming American. Bangaa are hearty Scots, humans are bitchy, viera are smug - they are the only squad leaders worth bringing. They're tough, but kind of... you know... fire. Fire obsoletes them, and I brought Lawrn along. Rodanu gets hit by the ground from ages away. I need a beastmaster at some point, he's still bluemagicless. All the headless cyclops does is run away and flex when we kill all his friends. (Well, okay, there's still an ice drake off to the side, but this map's all but done.) Fuck off, Rodanu. These potions are all either opened or mostly empty (and thus probably empty). This was meant to be the last one but it was actually the third-last because yellow doesn't pop out against white very well. Place your bets. But, it's time. this is gonna suck should've bought two windslash bows. should've bought two windslash bows. should've bought two windslash bows. FUCK. It begins. Wolfe and Ursla will bombard it with arrows, Nofilia will support. Adele comes by default but can be removed but she comes anyway because, fuck it. I need some beef and that beef will be Caul. Yes, it's called a 'yowie', or, if you prefer, our worst nightmare. Caul will give him something to chew on. Despite the best efforts of the antlions to vomit on Adele, she'll take some time and effort to take down, too. The law, by the way, is that nu mou can't take (non-Attack) actions. I fail to get a good screencap of the yowie's first attack, which is to decide that everyone on my team takes 50 damage. Caul evades. Ah. As soon as one antlion goes down another takes its place so I guess we'll be all about attacking the big guy now. Anyway, Adele's fairly beaten up. I heal her a bit with Nofi, reasoning that putting her in the weak multi-target heal is more useful than the moderate single-target heal. Oh fuck off. So it just ate Adele. Plan B: More DPS. Handle it! That's not what I meant, Caul! My cunning plan works to a tee - Argo fucks off, allowing us to continue blindly pummelling the biglion. Draw In is by far its favourite attack. Guinness is next up. That's fine - his defence got crippled by antlion vomit, and it's more time for our archers to continue raining down the big hits. I'm confident enough to kill Argo. Somewhat unfairly, the replacement is an upgrade of higher level who also moves instantly. Nofi's been slowed so she's done fuck-all. Nofi's next for the chop, anyway. All bosses, incidentally, are represented by teeth. But it's okay. We would be so, so, so, so fucked without Ursla, but it's okay. Good fucking night. In fucking disputable. Wolfe, meanwhile, is carving a hats out of the antlion. He will give another one to Ursla. The power of friendship makes itself known. Maybe you could've fought monsters better during the monster fight that just happened, then. Heartwarming stuff. Fitting end to the toughest mission in the entire fucking game. Now, time to get back ho-

the other guy was probably privately-educated

Thor Odinson, with what is accurately noted to not be a Chinese song. Ever since the two playlists have been a thing, they keep adding twice to each playlist with one click and it's really aggravating.

I stand by the concept of the journal being a good one, just... like with everything, poor execution.

It's been changing every chapter - Ursla's journal, Rodanu's memoirs, Wolfe's reports, Caul's notebook and Lawrn's thesis. Story updates will be from my third-person perspective.

Original Do5 is like the FE4 of hacks, it stands okay as long as you absolutely do not question it at any point.

If I did go on exchange it'd be for my Journalism degree, I'd relish the chance to be in a country without media law

[spoiler=Update 18] Lawrn's Pyrotechnique Artes and High Sciences, Chapter the Ninth Ah, the Targ Woods! Where my career as the greatest wizard known to the world began. LESSONS - CHEMISTRY Ex. 1: Chemistry of Sword Pretty swords are better swords. Pretty and better swords may or may not be liable to exploding under duress. In my view, this only improves the sword, but mine is not a popular opinion in the 'hallowed' halls of the Academy. Pah! Strangely, after all the exciting talk of exploding swords, our feeble leader Guinness saw a petition for this mysterious 'Fayk' hiding out in the Galerria Deep. He was dubious, but I saw through the deception immediately and realised that this was the Exploding Swordsman himself! We needed it. Why is Guinness the or a leader? Should I not be leader? Ex. B: Chemistry of Meat A moronic trapper had set spike traps for faeries. Faeries have wings. My companions, however, do not, and I relished the opportunity to see how they would explode as the steel hit their vulnerable underbellies. Torch immediately saw fit to break the law by dealing a grotesque damage on the faerie. This is well, as the squad anticipates an easy fight. I have been provided with an accurate map of the traps and have been trusted to make certain they do not step on them, for easy disarmament later. They assume that I have their best interests in mind, rather than the best interests of science. Seeq, for instance, have enough excess flesh that a standard spike trap will manage to sink each spear into meat. Seeq are the opposite of faeries on the scale of being spikable. Irritatingly, Wolfe insists on clearing out the alleged opposition before my science can continue. I ignore him, even when he turns gold and shouts enough to destroy two fey. Seeq, while trying to dislodge the spikes from their bountiful meat, may then prove unsuspecting when the assault of a sky rock presents itself. I convinced Yvet to go for the chest, directly into the third of the traps. It was then that Wolfe snatched the map off me and shoved me forward, where Torch was waiting to give his own directions. To pain. Elm, speaking for us all apart from the insolently unharmed humans and bangaa. Ex. III: The Chemistry of More Fire I convinced the party to take a detour to the Aldanna Range, where the mists are strongest. They have learned, by and large, to follow my lead. Guinness has taken to calling it Pavlovian Lawrning. I am certain that this Pavlovia was an amateur. Wolfe was puzzled when what he believed to be a metaphor was, in fact, the actual case. I mocked him and he berated me. My science lesson suffered... ... setbacks. In fact, had the fightmules been intelligent enough to have magic of their own, so would theirs. I did as best as I could to emulate the brainless, shambling fightmules, consoling myself that at least I was getting some use from my unstoppable firestick. And at least I would not be alone in my silence. Or perhaps I would, as Ursla felled it with a close-range volley, boasting of her melee archery skills. Oh, the miserable simpletons I journey with! In my peripheral vision, the cat exploded. I did not care. I needed to focus on regaining my voice. And it was glorious. And there needed to be more. The opportunity arose later that day, as we finally tracked down a man's lost pet. Ursla suggested committing violence against it and killing its friends, a unique solution would have that won her more favour with Yvet had she been there. The cat began this where she left off. Ursla had little patience for the pet, shooting it in the spine, twice. This did not stop it almost killing the cat, who retaliated by almost killing the pet. We left them to bleed together. At least, this was my desire, as the fightmules left me there. Wolfe designated me a 'chew toy'. I loathe the unscrupulous Wolfe. The fightmules accomplished the task while I seethed. But I knew that when the lawless Cid was back, I would be permitted to flourish. Next on FFTA2 It's time. Fuck me, it's time.

okay to this day i deny hurlbat was my fault but annie thinks it was and no primary evidence remains I'm glad people liked it, though, and hopefully it's inspired others to do better.

I don't know if it was ever released past C15, but I'm pretty sure a couple of chapters had been put into the game. I don't think I ever wrote scripts past both versions of 15, though. Given that I was bound to sticking to map data, I'd have still needed to get the Tyrant to summon dragons - probably, like, intentionally animating skeletons, not just fucking up this time. From there; The original plan involved a global conspiracy where the global illuminati were orchestrating revolutions everywhere because ???, anyway, Renair would quash the secession movement in Aukema, reclaim her nobility and then keep moving through Vishara to Gral because ???. 'The Five' that were having a Dream were Varkade (who was the party's needlessly spiteful tactician for a while because ???), Coraline Farrell (then Sarka), Fleur, xin'Khen (from the Onduris trainwreck) and uh... I don't remember the fifth guy. Again, most of this came from an outline Astra plotted out in like, 2010. This would've had like, 35 chapters, not even counting sidestories or the routesplit. When I came back to the project I recognised that it was never going to get that far. Having foreshadowed Renair's nobility more effectively this time, she would reclaim her noble title, fight the secession off in Aukema and ensure peace in the realm - that would probably be it. Maybe like, Chapter 24-25.

50 is a pass. That's the way it should be. smh I was talking about getting distinctions to a couple of Americans and they were like 'oh my god a 75?? how do you live with yourself', christ

Esme: 'The lyrics are based off a poem by Siegfried Sassoon titled, "A Letter Home".' Electrelane's To the East was the second-ever Vicar song!

i don't really feel like this overdramatic screed should be left on-site lol