In unrelated news, I have decided to take a two-week break after this arc ends on Saturday. Luckily, there might be some content to fill those six days to tide everyone over.
It makes sense. If Celestia knows what Rarity is, then that means that Rarity will most likely find herself under some extra surveillance. Anypony she meets with will be noted... and carefully looked at by the Royal Guard. Celestia's promise to Rarity doesn't hold for the ponies investigated in such a manner.
Worse yet, if Elusive knows that Celestia knows about Rarity, yet Rarity is not punished, then the immediate question that Elusive would ask is, what did Rarity offer Celestia to get out of arrest? Did Rarity sell Celestia inside information on the Thieves' Guild? That would certainly be a blacklist-worthy offense...
OR: It's because she's the element of Generosity... Thieves aren't generous... at least not in the sense that it is being used. That, I think would easily get a thief blacklisted as well.
Watch that any time you start to feel sympathy for people who commit _malum in se_ felonies.
(Which, note, are different from privateering and raiding. Those are acts of war, and do not involve pretending to be part of the polity to which the victim belongs.)
More pertinent question - How could Elusive possibly know about Rarity's 'arrangement' with Celestia? They were the only two in the room at the time!
Unless there's more than one pony that knows that Celestia knows, which could only be possible if Celestia herself TOLD somepony else, which would imply that Elusive has a double-agent in Celestia's inner circle.
And Elusive just tipped her hand massively by showing that she has somepony in Celestia's inner circle. There is nothing at all to stop Rarity turning around and giving this info to Celestia, and then watching as the Thieves' Guild is systematically demolished by a thoroughly-pissed-off monarch.
And perhaps why you never irk a rogue in such a position. Warn them, apply sanctions, even a small or larger fine. But to up and blacklist, thats honestly the worst (and idiot ball carrying) thing you can do to any remotely experienced pc rogue.
Because you are giving them an axe to grind. Their friends reason to ensure you aren't around, and they have either, power, influence, or some other form to just up and rip your guild a new one, if not simply bury it, and every single member of it.
Think about it, pc rogues are the ones whom go into the dark, laughing, cutting up, and carrying on. They see things, that would snap lesser folks, and flourish in prosperity.
I rather hope in this, we do get to see rarity outright destroy the guild. And leave the leader with a simple lose lose, a quick simply death by dash, or being tried under the highest court in the land, with folks like twilight testifying to the horrors this guild has done.
Who says Elusive does know about the arrangement? Rarity is close to Celestia. That much is certainly no secret. If she's an honest thief, the risk of Celestia catching her makes her a liability. If she's working with Celestia, then she's more of a liability.
unsure how comments stack so re Ariana-- I had no idea where you were leading as I read 90% of your comment but was on-board with the idea--and then it all made sense with Westen and I'm realizing that I would love a ponies Burn Notice.
Twi would be Sam Axe as she'd be the closest to "old buddy who used to inform on me to the FBI" and RD as the trigger-happy ex-girlfriend?
whatever this is a very long winded way to say "I approve of/agree with this notion"
> More pertinent question - How could Elusive possibly know about Rarity's 'arrangement' with Celestia? They were the only two in the room at the time!
My theory? Celestia deliberately leaked the facts that (a) she knew what Rarity was, and (b) she wouldn't be punishing Rarity, specifically so that the Thieves' Guild would think that Rarity had sold them out and blacklist her. This, together with Rarity's knowledge that Celestia is keeping an eye on her, is an elaborate plot to force Rarity to give up on thievery and pursue an honest living.
...either that, or an elaborate plot to persuade Rarity to *actually* sell out the Thieves' Guild.
@Arania.
Seems like your comment has sparked quite some agreement (or at least fervent hopes to see such entertainment come to pass). It'll likely not happen though... but one can dream!
It is also more than possible a test of loyalty and ingenuity on behalf of the guild. An opportunity for them to "show their worth" to the guild from a position of weakness. I doubt very much this is permanent, unless that blacklist comes with a bounty. In any case, they were kind enough to warn her (or The Princess found out and warned her instead).
Its likely why, given any other factor. Either who was imprisoned, or simply the here after talk with celestia.
As for a test of loyalty, if your guild is that paranoid, there are easily far more lucrative ways of making the money that dont involve tossing anyone into the fire at the first sign of trouble. Seriously, if they are that paranoid, they are easily up to something of 'going to get everyone killed' kind of trouble.
As for the double play CCC, its a marvelous bit of statecraft to do so. she wins very clearly, the guild, if it retaliates against rarity, well, earns the ire for national heroes, and worse, justified reason for bringing down the guard on everyone, with folks selling out their mothers to get leniency.
As for if she is one and the same, well, secrets never work out for a dm, not when you have a pc wronged. Its one thing to have it hidden as a nature of plot, and story. It is another to really break a pc's in character dreams and aspirations. And this was as stone cold as the frostiest undead could be. No why, just, 'your out and never getting back in' Think a pc is going to let it stand?
I've seen pc's destroy and derail the plot for that, off the rails, and breaking the game kinda incidents..
By test, it was less oriented on loyalty and more on the other. It is not unreasonable for the guild to consider this a moment to evaluate the skill with which Rarity can operate when cut off from guild contacts, resources, etc. and under supervision.
That's what I thought too. I figured the guild doesn't like that she aligned herself with Fancy Pants (who admits he discarded the guild's services when he got a guilty conscience, and succeeded on his own). Or Upper Crust was in close with Elusive and didn't like being put down.
It means no one will sell to her or buy from her, defend her, or quite possibly even acknowledge that she exists. She's effectively out of the guild.
Assuming this was actually sent by the guild and not by, say, Celestia herself. Any Rarity arc in this comic is rich in opportunities for second-guessing...
Short version: The guild is offended by something she did and they won't do business with her until it's resolved.
In general, Blacklisting someone is when a person or organization labels another person or organization as undesirable. Anyone on the Blacklist is to be shunned socially, and no business is to be done either with them or in a way that benefits them directly. There are degrees, for example, if you're a fan of Burn Notice, getting "burned" and getting "blacklisted" are pretty similar: can't use official resources, can't contact old associates, can't take jobs reserved for regular employees. On the other end of the spectrum is the (Fantastic, utterly enjoyable) show Blacklist. The Blacklist in that sense is a list of all the people the world would be better off without.
I'm pretty sure in Rarity's case, it just means she can't talk to any of her guild contacts until she works off a debt to Elusive.
It's actually closer to White Collar, but a lot more awesome.
The FBI's Most Wanted, Raymond Reddington (played by James Spader) walks into their headquarters, introduces himself to the receptionist and asks to talk to the Director. When he lands in a cell they designed specifically for him, he says he's willing to help the FBI find the criminals that are so dangerous, so bad for humanity, and so good at it that the FBI has never heard of them. One catch, he'll only work with a newly minted profiler named Elizabeth Keen (played by Megan Boone).
My name is Rarity. I used to be a thief, until
"From the invisible desk of Elusive, yadda yadda yadda ... blacklisted?"
*whistle*
When you're blacklisted, you've got nothing. No cache, no credit, no job history. You're stuck in whatever town they decide to dump you in.
"Where am I?" "Ponyville"
You do whatever work comes your way. You rely on anyone who's still talking to you.
A party-crazy ex-girlfriend "I'll save you!"
An old friend who's running an apple orchard "Well we can't just leave Rarity like this"
Family too "It's a trip to save my sister from a horrible future" if you're desperate.
Bottom line? Until you figure out who your guildmaster is, you're not going anywhere.
Somehow this went through my mind as I read "Blacklisted": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0dOtzZcm0I
Anyway, that was not expected. I figured things were wrapped up after Celestia's visit and that was the end of the consequences of this session. Well Rarity, if you play your cards right, you could go back to Celestia and ask to be part of her spy network and work your way up to spy master or maybe get a contract to be a personal privateer with some stipulation that whatever items you find at the places you go to are considered an extra bonus on top of whatever payment you can arrange. Come on, Rarity, this is definitely NOT the time to have a mental breakdown!
Rainbow Dash. Bearer of the Element of Loyalty and all that.
Besides, Twilight would agonize over what would happen if she got caught, Applejack can't keep a secret to save her life, Pinkie Pie wouldn't understand the seriousness of the situation, Rarity wouldn't want to get her hooves dirty, and Fluttershy... is too nice for me to put in such a situation.
Applejack is very loyal, and can keep secrets. Rainbow Dash is flighty and says what she thinks. More than anyone else, they get tested by their Elements. Everyone else seems to use their elements as a power source.
Maybe the guild suspected her of being a little too successful. Can't allow her to climb too high up the social ladder, lest she be examined more closely.
Also, the fact she often gives material things away might lead the guild to suspect she's taking jobs on the sly, behind their backs.
Much like the Hollywood union, taking even one job that's nonunion is grounds for permanent blacklisting.
That, or she refused to sleep with someone in power. That will get you blacklisted in Hollywood, too.
I can totally back up the Hollywood part. I have a cousin who's an actor and the guilds there are quite restrictive to the point it makes the movies seem tame.
I am aware of a few things the Hollywood guilds do. You know, like blacklisting anyone who professes deep religious beliefs, or has political beliefs other than strongly liberal. Or for any girl who refuses to lay down on the casting couch.
Can you imagine how Hollywood would treat an ex soldier? Probably like an animal. Never allowing him or her anywhere near their businesses.
Drew Carrey? Really? Huh. Learn something new every day. I would like to point out, though, that the hollywood we have today and the hollywood from Jimmy Stewart's day are a bit different.
Also, Jimmy Stewart is awesome. Not quite as awesome as Reagan, though. He was freaking badass. He had his own fantastically cheesy and patriotic comic book series to prove it. There was this one bit where these armed gunmen stormed the white House, took down the secret service, and attacked the oval office.
Only to meet Reagan, who kicked all their butts, bent their guns in half with his bare hands, and the only line had had was, "Idiots." And it was fantastic. Or the time he teamed up with Optimus Prime, or the time he... Wow. Now that I think about it, Reagan was in a lot of comic books, huh?
Wow. I am a bit of a comic book nerd. I guess that's where Raxon gets it. And I guess that's also where he gets the mistaken notion that people will let him finish three paragraphs of exposition in a fight. (spoiler warning, they won't, and guns are really good for making a person stop blathering on about the structural properties of steel under load bearing siituations.)
But back on subject, Hollywood is a hard place to get any work if you accidentally let slip that you are towing anything other than exactly the party line. It is so political that you can get yourself blacklisted for accidentally saying something that was popular a month ago, but isn't now. Shame, too, since we get so many bad actors that become big stars. You know, like supermodels, and singers.
Which, of course, brings us back to the casting couch problem. Elvis was a decent actor. Not great, not terrible, but decent. But sports superstars, singers, and supermodels generally should not be acting. *cough*PamelaAndersonShaquilleO'nealMichaelJordanMichaelJackson*cough*
I don't mind bad actors. In fact, I can actually enjoy them if they're hammy enough. But having exactly one expression is not fun, whether that expression is 'get over here and screw me' or 'slight frustration', this does not make for good entertainment.
And in Michael Jackson's case, well... Do I really need to say anything more than Moonwalker?
Is it part of a plot, maybe? The Guild thinks (probably correctly) that Celestia has inside agents. Those agents get word of this, which finds its way to her. She knows Rarity's no longer part of the Guild, now, and might be a bit more trusting, and eventually they become close enough that Rarity can rejoin on condition that she acts as their own agent near Celestia or steals something somepony more distant couldn't get their hooves on.
Poor Rarity... the one time my DM let me play a Career Thief like her, my DM informed me of me being Blacklisted by the guild right out the gates... >,,<
Hehehe. I got blacklisted from the druid's union once. The DM did not like my druids.
I had a pot smoking super hippie dumbass who made a ten mile hike every day to crap in a well to keep from sullying the beauty of nature. It was a well that people drank out of. I actually made sure to have my druid ingest things that came out in his stool, so the rest of the village was basically slightly stoned all the time. This same druid also ate no meat, and yelled at people when he saw them eating meat. He threw rocks at people for harming animals, harassing hunters and causing more than one to starve because they had nothing to bring home.
I pretty much just googled hippie stereotypes and made some changes. This is a guy, by the way, who smoked so much pot that he KO'd a vampire that bit him. He went through six pounds of leaves a day. Per level.
Let me repeat that. Six pounds of pot per level per day. By level four, he smoked twenty four pounds of marijuana per day. I played him as so damn high he had no idea what he was really doing.
I Don't often play Joke characters like that, i tend to make my characters Seriously, even when they're a 8 foot tall Crabman Armiger.
This Rogue tho, didn't do nada wrong yet, the DM just hated the Idea of a Protagonist being connected to the Thieves Guild, which he wanted to basically tag as "Entirely CE"... now that i think of it, Didn't you have a Thief who was Imprisoned for just being Evil, posted a few pages back?
No, I had a character who was lawful evil, and by DM decision, he was was standing in the wrong place at the wrong time, and got arrested for the rest of his life. For a crime he didn't commit. And this, according to the DM, was karma for being evil. That DM believed that all authority, even corrupt authority, was still authority, and thus it is good to obey.
In other words, I had a paladin who was told he was not welcome, and using his divine powers was against the law. I used detect evil right then and there. I lost my paladinhood because breaking the law is evil. I did not stick with this DM very long.
As you can imagine, a jailbreak was totally out of the question. Because only criminals go to jail. if they weren't criminals, they wouldn't have broken the law, and thus they wouldn't have been sent to jail. Thus, they must be evil because they are in prison.
Lost your Paladinhood because of disobeying a Law thats not even the Law you follow? Thats... that is Dumb.
Theres more then one "Law", what is legal or what not differs from place to place, and Paladins follow the Law they are Sworn to, not the law of wherever they happen to be standing... if they were in a Place where SLavery was Legal, they'd lose their powers for NOT trying to free slaves regardless!
Also, this reminds me of my Long-running DM, who basically threw out Alignments entirely, and make it "all about perspective"... we have had about 33% less Arguments sense, but we do admitantly run the risk of a Player going "everyone i Don't like is Evil to me and i get to use Smite Evil on them", the one time that happened tho, it worked out for us oddly enough.
Said DM also made a entire Custom setting with a Event timeline... so theres alot less 'But that didn't happen that way' in the lore.
...seems i completely lost my topic somewhere.
Regardless, I feel your pain in regards to close-minded and "my way or die" DM's, and hope you have/will find a ideal Dm for your playstyle. :D
Actually, a Paladin should follow all just laws. I suppose a law banning the use of smite, detect, and the assorted group buffs a paladin gets is not that unreasonable.
Now, I was later to see that the law said all thieves get their arms chopped off at the shoulders. Giving charity to thieves was illegal. There were a remarkable number of mangled orphans. One guy gave a little girl with one arm a few coins for food. He got a very stern warning and a fine. I suspect we were in a lawful evil kingdom.
To be really, really pissed off. Omnicidal maniac kinda thing.
He was self medicating, needing more and more pot every level to keep myself from devolving into the psychotic raging killing machine that was his normal self.
He ate powerful hallucinogenic shrooms, like, for every meal. He cooked for the rest of the party once. When they woke up, they had apparently made little condoms out of frogs and left the legs on, and had been hysterically telling all the townsfolk about the divine warts of the giant evil frog creatures from beyond the stars, and trying to tear their pants off and make everyone wear the horrifying hollowed out frog condoms.
They were no longer welcome in that town. And everyone learned to stay the hell away from my dude's food.
FYI, they were trying to warn everyone about these monsters called the Slaad. They are chaotic evil outsider frog monsters. The monk got a letter from his brothers at the monastery a few days later, thanking him for the 'lovely' frog condoms, and asking him if he's had any head wounds recently.
No, but I can completely understand why you might think that.
The ranger made the condoms. He gutted frogs throught their mouths. That was literally the entire preparation. And these froggy condoms were supposed to hide us from their sight by disguising ourselves as gods.
The rest of the party was pretty damn high, and we spent the rest of the session figuring out what the hell they had been doing. Needless to say, assaulting random villagers and forcing them to wear frogs around their penises was considered in poor taste.
I was the one allowed to write their wacky shenanigans, since it was my drugs that caused all this. I decided that they couldn't put condoms on the kids, so they made venison penis sausages, with the length big enough to wrap around the school, and just put their damn froggy condoms on either end.
And then there were the billy goats.
You see, women don't have penises, but billy goats do! So they rounded up all the billy goats they could find and the frog condoms on their horns, and gave one to each female in town. The mayor's wife even got one with frog condom booties that went squish when he walked. It left the most horrible mess all over the house. Inside and out. They decided that every woman should get such protection. Two hundred goats running amuck through every house in the village, all wearing frog booties. It was so much fun being acting DM for half a session.
I rolled dice to see what stupid thing they would obsess over. The animal dice chose frogs, and the object roll selected condoms. I just ran with it.
To recap, they were slipping frogs over their penises, mouth first, to disguise themselves as gods. They threw a goat wearing boots made of still twitching frogs into every house. Wild goats, mind you. They killed enough deer to make a quarter mile length of sausage out of their penises, then wrapped that length of sausage around the schoolhouse to protect the children. And while this happened, I was waiting patiently back at camp, waiting for them to return. Other than, you know, my daily crap in the town well. Sure, I saw the weird stuff in town, but I dismissed that since I ate almost nothing but hallucinogenic mushrooms for every meal.
They only had a bowl of my stewed mushrooms each. They didn't OD because they were superhuman. They were, however, high as balls for three days.
I really must play a very heavy drug user again. This caused all manner of wonderful silliness.
You know, this is starting to stink of a setup. It's possible that Elusive/the jewel job pony who gave Rarity the Dainty Dove persona just so that Celestia would catch her, giving them justification to blacklist Rarity.
Because really, who wants a "Spirit of Generosity" among a guild of thieves?
Also, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. And Rarity is a thief, so it would be hilariously awesome if she turned her skills against the guild to take them apart.
Especially since the stolen goods could be returned for free.
And no place to create custom spells like in Oblivion! Raxon in Skyrim never got his ultima spell.
An attack spell with max fire, ice, and lightning damage over time, with a time duration of one second.
That's okay. I was too busy sniping dragons out of the sky with a single arrow. And stabbing everyone with my insanely powerful dagger with over a thousand charges of soul trap. Seriously, daggers are sooooo overpowered in skyrim. I rather like sneaking up on dragons and stabbing them in the butt with a knife to eat their souls.
NOOOOOOOOOO!
Oh, you, uh... you meant a different kind of blacklist. My bad.
Worse yet, if Elusive knows that Celestia knows about Rarity, yet Rarity is not punished, then the immediate question that Elusive would ask is, what did Rarity offer Celestia to get out of arrest? Did Rarity sell Celestia inside information on the Thieves' Guild? That would certainly be a blacklist-worthy offense...
Watch that any time you start to feel sympathy for people who commit _malum in se_ felonies.
(Which, note, are different from privateering and raiding. Those are acts of war, and do not involve pretending to be part of the polity to which the victim belongs.)
Modern takes may add "after a reasonable percentage for operating fees" but still pretty generous.
Unless there's more than one pony that knows that Celestia knows, which could only be possible if Celestia herself TOLD somepony else, which would imply that Elusive has a double-agent in Celestia's inner circle.
And Elusive just tipped her hand massively by showing that she has somepony in Celestia's inner circle. There is nothing at all to stop Rarity turning around and giving this info to Celestia, and then watching as the Thieves' Guild is systematically demolished by a thoroughly-pissed-off monarch.
C'mon Rarity! Go Michael Westen on their asses!
Because you are giving them an axe to grind. Their friends reason to ensure you aren't around, and they have either, power, influence, or some other form to just up and rip your guild a new one, if not simply bury it, and every single member of it.
Think about it, pc rogues are the ones whom go into the dark, laughing, cutting up, and carrying on. They see things, that would snap lesser folks, and flourish in prosperity.
I rather hope in this, we do get to see rarity outright destroy the guild. And leave the leader with a simple lose lose, a quick simply death by dash, or being tried under the highest court in the land, with folks like twilight testifying to the horrors this guild has done.
Twi would be Sam Axe as she'd be the closest to "old buddy who used to inform on me to the FBI" and RD as the trigger-happy ex-girlfriend?
whatever this is a very long winded way to say "I approve of/agree with this notion"
Which leaves Pinkie as the jokey support character of the week. She can wear a different hat every time.
My theory? Celestia deliberately leaked the facts that (a) she knew what Rarity was, and (b) she wouldn't be punishing Rarity, specifically so that the Thieves' Guild would think that Rarity had sold them out and blacklist her. This, together with Rarity's knowledge that Celestia is keeping an eye on her, is an elaborate plot to force Rarity to give up on thievery and pursue an honest living.
...either that, or an elaborate plot to persuade Rarity to *actually* sell out the Thieves' Guild.
Seems like your comment has sparked quite some agreement (or at least fervent hopes to see such entertainment come to pass). It'll likely not happen though... but one can dream!
In any case...the plot thickens...
As for a test of loyalty, if your guild is that paranoid, there are easily far more lucrative ways of making the money that dont involve tossing anyone into the fire at the first sign of trouble. Seriously, if they are that paranoid, they are easily up to something of 'going to get everyone killed' kind of trouble.
As for the double play CCC, its a marvelous bit of statecraft to do so. she wins very clearly, the guild, if it retaliates against rarity, well, earns the ire for national heroes, and worse, justified reason for bringing down the guard on everyone, with folks selling out their mothers to get leniency.
As for if she is one and the same, well, secrets never work out for a dm, not when you have a pc wronged. Its one thing to have it hidden as a nature of plot, and story. It is another to really break a pc's in character dreams and aspirations. And this was as stone cold as the frostiest undead could be. No why, just, 'your out and never getting back in' Think a pc is going to let it stand?
I've seen pc's destroy and derail the plot for that, off the rails, and breaking the game kinda incidents..
Or it could also be used as a verb, which is what it is being used here:
deny someone work in a particular field, or to ostracize a person from a certain social circle.
Assuming this was actually sent by the guild and not by, say, Celestia herself. Any Rarity arc in this comic is rich in opportunities for second-guessing...
In general, Blacklisting someone is when a person or organization labels another person or organization as undesirable. Anyone on the Blacklist is to be shunned socially, and no business is to be done either with them or in a way that benefits them directly. There are degrees, for example, if you're a fan of Burn Notice, getting "burned" and getting "blacklisted" are pretty similar: can't use official resources, can't contact old associates, can't take jobs reserved for regular employees. On the other end of the spectrum is the (Fantastic, utterly enjoyable) show Blacklist. The Blacklist in that sense is a list of all the people the world would be better off without.
I'm pretty sure in Rarity's case, it just means she can't talk to any of her guild contacts until she works off a debt to Elusive.
The FBI's Most Wanted, Raymond Reddington (played by James Spader) walks into their headquarters, introduces himself to the receptionist and asks to talk to the Director. When he lands in a cell they designed specifically for him, he says he's willing to help the FBI find the criminals that are so dangerous, so bad for humanity, and so good at it that the FBI has never heard of them. One catch, he'll only work with a newly minted profiler named Elizabeth Keen (played by Megan Boone).
"From the invisible desk of Elusive, yadda yadda yadda ... blacklisted?"
*whistle*
When you're blacklisted, you've got nothing. No cache, no credit, no job history. You're stuck in whatever town they decide to dump you in.
"Where am I?" "Ponyville"
You do whatever work comes your way. You rely on anyone who's still talking to you.
A party-crazy ex-girlfriend "I'll save you!"
An old friend who's running an apple orchard "Well we can't just leave Rarity like this"
Family too "It's a trip to save my sister from a horrible future" if you're desperate.
Bottom line? Until you figure out who your guildmaster is, you're not going anywhere.
Now who's Bruce Campbell?
Anyway, that was not expected. I figured things were wrapped up after Celestia's visit and that was the end of the consequences of this session. Well Rarity, if you play your cards right, you could go back to Celestia and ask to be part of her spy network and work your way up to spy master or maybe get a contract to be a personal privateer with some stipulation that whatever items you find at the places you go to are considered an extra bonus on top of whatever payment you can arrange. Come on, Rarity, this is definitely NOT the time to have a mental breakdown!
Agh! Creepy fourth panel.
Anyway, despite the obviousness of the situation, Rarity is essentially this...
Even without Elusive Rarity has her own shop, the Element of Generosity, 5 really good friends and a spell that lets her find gems.
I can't see this being a huge problem for her
Side question : Which of the mane 6 would you ask to help you hide a body?
Besides, Twilight would agonize over what would happen if she got caught, Applejack can't keep a secret to save her life, Pinkie Pie wouldn't understand the seriousness of the situation, Rarity wouldn't want to get her hooves dirty, and Fluttershy... is too nice for me to put in such a situation.
Not that she'd need help on that angle. She has Angel.
Also, the fact she often gives material things away might lead the guild to suspect she's taking jobs on the sly, behind their backs.
Much like the Hollywood union, taking even one job that's nonunion is grounds for permanent blacklisting.
That, or she refused to sleep with someone in power. That will get you blacklisted in Hollywood, too.
Can you imagine how Hollywood would treat an ex soldier? Probably like an animal. Never allowing him or her anywhere near their businesses.
Also, Jimmy Stewart is awesome. Not quite as awesome as Reagan, though. He was freaking badass. He had his own fantastically cheesy and patriotic comic book series to prove it. There was this one bit where these armed gunmen stormed the white House, took down the secret service, and attacked the oval office.
Only to meet Reagan, who kicked all their butts, bent their guns in half with his bare hands, and the only line had had was, "Idiots." And it was fantastic. Or the time he teamed up with Optimus Prime, or the time he... Wow. Now that I think about it, Reagan was in a lot of comic books, huh?
Wow. I am a bit of a comic book nerd. I guess that's where Raxon gets it. And I guess that's also where he gets the mistaken notion that people will let him finish three paragraphs of exposition in a fight. (spoiler warning, they won't, and guns are really good for making a person stop blathering on about the structural properties of steel under load bearing siituations.)
But back on subject, Hollywood is a hard place to get any work if you accidentally let slip that you are towing anything other than exactly the party line. It is so political that you can get yourself blacklisted for accidentally saying something that was popular a month ago, but isn't now. Shame, too, since we get so many bad actors that become big stars. You know, like supermodels, and singers.
Which, of course, brings us back to the casting couch problem. Elvis was a decent actor. Not great, not terrible, but decent. But sports superstars, singers, and supermodels generally should not be acting. *cough*PamelaAndersonShaquilleO'nealMichaelJordanMichaelJackson*cough*
I don't mind bad actors. In fact, I can actually enjoy them if they're hammy enough. But having exactly one expression is not fun, whether that expression is 'get over here and screw me' or 'slight frustration', this does not make for good entertainment.
And in Michael Jackson's case, well... Do I really need to say anything more than Moonwalker?
I had a pot smoking super hippie dumbass who made a ten mile hike every day to crap in a well to keep from sullying the beauty of nature. It was a well that people drank out of. I actually made sure to have my druid ingest things that came out in his stool, so the rest of the village was basically slightly stoned all the time. This same druid also ate no meat, and yelled at people when he saw them eating meat. He threw rocks at people for harming animals, harassing hunters and causing more than one to starve because they had nothing to bring home.
I pretty much just googled hippie stereotypes and made some changes. This is a guy, by the way, who smoked so much pot that he KO'd a vampire that bit him. He went through six pounds of leaves a day. Per level.
Let me repeat that. Six pounds of pot per level per day. By level four, he smoked twenty four pounds of marijuana per day. I played him as so damn high he had no idea what he was really doing.
This Rogue tho, didn't do nada wrong yet, the DM just hated the Idea of a Protagonist being connected to the Thieves Guild, which he wanted to basically tag as "Entirely CE"... now that i think of it, Didn't you have a Thief who was Imprisoned for just being Evil, posted a few pages back?
In other words, I had a paladin who was told he was not welcome, and using his divine powers was against the law. I used detect evil right then and there. I lost my paladinhood because breaking the law is evil. I did not stick with this DM very long.
As you can imagine, a jailbreak was totally out of the question. Because only criminals go to jail. if they weren't criminals, they wouldn't have broken the law, and thus they wouldn't have been sent to jail. Thus, they must be evil because they are in prison.
Theres more then one "Law", what is legal or what not differs from place to place, and Paladins follow the Law they are Sworn to, not the law of wherever they happen to be standing... if they were in a Place where SLavery was Legal, they'd lose their powers for NOT trying to free slaves regardless!
Also, this reminds me of my Long-running DM, who basically threw out Alignments entirely, and make it "all about perspective"... we have had about 33% less Arguments sense, but we do admitantly run the risk of a Player going "everyone i Don't like is Evil to me and i get to use Smite Evil on them", the one time that happened tho, it worked out for us oddly enough.
Said DM also made a entire Custom setting with a Event timeline... so theres alot less 'But that didn't happen that way' in the lore.
...seems i completely lost my topic somewhere.
Regardless, I feel your pain in regards to close-minded and "my way or die" DM's, and hope you have/will find a ideal Dm for your playstyle. :D
Now, I was later to see that the law said all thieves get their arms chopped off at the shoulders. Giving charity to thieves was illegal. There were a remarkable number of mangled orphans. One guy gave a little girl with one arm a few coins for food. He got a very stern warning and a fine. I suspect we were in a lawful evil kingdom.
He was self medicating, needing more and more pot every level to keep myself from devolving into the psychotic raging killing machine that was his normal self.
Besides shouldn't his heart have stopped beating by that point?
He ate powerful hallucinogenic shrooms, like, for every meal. He cooked for the rest of the party once. When they woke up, they had apparently made little condoms out of frogs and left the legs on, and had been hysterically telling all the townsfolk about the divine warts of the giant evil frog creatures from beyond the stars, and trying to tear their pants off and make everyone wear the horrifying hollowed out frog condoms.
They were no longer welcome in that town. And everyone learned to stay the hell away from my dude's food.
FYI, they were trying to warn everyone about these monsters called the Slaad. They are chaotic evil outsider frog monsters. The monk got a letter from his brothers at the monastery a few days later, thanking him for the 'lovely' frog condoms, and asking him if he's had any head wounds recently.
The ranger made the condoms. He gutted frogs throught their mouths. That was literally the entire preparation. And these froggy condoms were supposed to hide us from their sight by disguising ourselves as gods.
The rest of the party was pretty damn high, and we spent the rest of the session figuring out what the hell they had been doing. Needless to say, assaulting random villagers and forcing them to wear frogs around their penises was considered in poor taste.
I was the one allowed to write their wacky shenanigans, since it was my drugs that caused all this. I decided that they couldn't put condoms on the kids, so they made venison penis sausages, with the length big enough to wrap around the school, and just put their damn froggy condoms on either end.
And then there were the billy goats.
You see, women don't have penises, but billy goats do! So they rounded up all the billy goats they could find and the frog condoms on their horns, and gave one to each female in town. The mayor's wife even got one with frog condom booties that went squish when he walked. It left the most horrible mess all over the house. Inside and out. They decided that every woman should get such protection. Two hundred goats running amuck through every house in the village, all wearing frog booties. It was so much fun being acting DM for half a session.
I rolled dice to see what stupid thing they would obsess over. The animal dice chose frogs, and the object roll selected condoms. I just ran with it.
"Kill Villain X" Plots. XD
They only had a bowl of my stewed mushrooms each. They didn't OD because they were superhuman. They were, however, high as balls for three days.
I really must play a very heavy drug user again. This caused all manner of wonderful silliness.
Raxon, you are a national treasure. Even if all your RP stories are made up BS, they're brilliantly funny BS and I effin' love ya for 'em.
Because really, who wants a "Spirit of Generosity" among a guild of thieves?
Especially since the stolen goods could be returned for free.
Reaching level fifteen in your starting town is easy. Repeat after me: Alchemy.
An attack spell with max fire, ice, and lightning damage over time, with a time duration of one second.
That's okay. I was too busy sniping dragons out of the sky with a single arrow. And stabbing everyone with my insanely powerful dagger with over a thousand charges of soul trap. Seriously, daggers are sooooo overpowered in skyrim. I rather like sneaking up on dragons and stabbing them in the butt with a knife to eat their souls.