LGBTAI+ #52: Aces High

[Jaycemonde]

People become all kinds of terrible when drunk. If he still supports those ideas when sober (and serious), it may be time to give that friendship the 'ol heave ho.

If he does actually believe those things, knowledge of your orientation and decent human being status may sufficiently disrupt his worldview. Normally decent people with horrible ideas on one subject are usually importing them from somewhere without critique. If that source's authority goes, so does the majority of the attitude. In theory.

One year that I was in high school, I had this absolutely horrible chemistry teacher from Turkey that wouldn't fact check a single bigoted or poorly-conceived thing he read on his little corner of the Internet (mainly Forbes) and would parrot all of it to the class. One day he got into a rant about how LGBTAI+ people were all "sick" and just needed some kind of cure, and a few *******s in the class were agreeing with him, saying things like "I wish we could just move them all to Alaska so they couldn't bother normal people." I actually got up and walked directly to his desk, shoved his laptop off the desk along with all his papers, grabbed my stuff, and stormed out of the room. Later someone came down to the front lobby to ask if I was okay and informed me that everyone "thinks I'm gay now." I told him I didn't give a **** and that they could all burn in hell, and he just agreed. It was pretty cool to find out that there were a couple sympathetic people there, honestly. And I didn't fail the year in Chemistry, since this happened nearly at the end. I think the teacher got some kind of write-up to boot.

[BladeofObliviom]

One year that I was in high school, I had this absolutely horrible chemistry teacher from Turkey that wouldn't fact check a single bigoted or poorly-conceived thing he read on his little corner of the Internet (mainly Forbes) and would parrot all of it to the class. One day he got into a rant about how LGBTAI+ people were all "sick" and just needed some kind of cure, and a few *******s in the class were agreeing with him, saying things like "I wish we could just move them all to Alaska so they couldn't bother normal people." I actually got up and walked directly to his desk, shoved his laptop off the desk along with all his papers, grabbed my stuff, and stormed out of the room. Later someone came down to the front lobby to ask if I was okay and informed me that everyone "thinks I'm gay now." I told him I didn't give a **** and that they could all burn in hell, and he just agreed. It was pretty cool to find out that there were a couple sympathetic people there, honestly. And I didn't fail the year in Chemistry, since this happened nearly at the end. I think the teacher got some kind of write-up to boot.

...Damn, that's awesome!

I wish I were brave enough to stand up to a roomful of people like that without anyone backing me up.

[Lentrax]

I on e passes out in speech class.

Suffered a narcoltic episode right there, in front of everybody. Just got up, introduced myself, asked how everyone doing, etc, etc.

"Today
We get to talk about narcolepsy. Narcolepsy usually affects people, who like me are not able to sleep for weeks or even moths with no real collection of data.*question* yes. I suffer from insomnia as we'll pushing me past the two week mark is pretty easy, but the mind may decide to..."

I scared the bejesus out of a frightened nurse when I continued my speech for another minute before notice the scenery change,

[Septimus Faber]

One year that I was in high school, I had this absolutely horrible chemistry teacher from Turkey that wouldn't fact check a single bigoted or poorly-conceived thing he read on his little corner of the Internet (mainly Forbes) and would parrot all of it to the class. One day he got into a rant about how LGBTAI+ people were all "sick" and just needed some kind of cure, and a few *******s in the class were agreeing with him, saying things like "I wish we could just move them all to Alaska so they couldn't bother normal people." I actually got up and walked directly to his desk, shoved his laptop off the desk along with all his papers, grabbed my stuff, and stormed out of the room. Later someone came down to the front lobby to ask if I was okay and informed me that everyone "thinks I'm gay now." I told him I didn't give a **** and that they could all burn in hell, and he just agreed. It was pretty cool to find out that there were a couple sympathetic people there, honestly. And I didn't fail the year in Chemistry, since this happened nearly at the end. I think the teacher got some kind of write-up to boot.

To you, my friend, goes all the praise. I know that if I were in that situation I would just be silent... Looking down at my desk... Doing absolutely nothing... And then berate myself afterwards for not doing anything and be generally angry at the world. I think your solution works better.

[golentan]

I'm going to disagree. It was a good time to take a stand, but Jaycemonde, you need more productive ways of channeling your anger. Smashing things and storming out may feel good, but it blows back all too easily and isn't exactly a great way to change people's minds.

[Marnath]

I'm going to disagree. It was a good time to take a stand, but Jaycemonde, you need more productive ways of channeling your anger. Smashing things and storming out may feel good, but it blows back all too easily and isn't exactly a great way to change people's minds.

On the other hand, some people only understand violence.

[Thufir]

I think I would disagree with the shoving of the laptop but agree with the storming out, as I think that would be my response to a comparable thing happening to me. Now, that is. When I was in school it's more likely I would've just sat there and felt uncomfortable.

[Jaycemonde]

...Damn, that's awesome!

I wish I were brave enough to stand up to a roomful of people like that without anyone backing me up.

To you, my friend, goes all the praise. I know that if I were in that situation I would just be silent... Looking down at my desk... Doing absolutely nothing... And then berate myself afterwards for not doing anything and be generally angry at the world. I think your solution works better.

Thanks, I guess? I'd spent the last four years prior to that moment feeling like **** for never standing up for myself or people I cared about, but enough was just enough. He was a horrid teacher anyway.

I'm going to disagree. It was a good time to take a stand, but Jaycemonde, you need more productive ways of channeling your anger.

Y'think?

Smashing things and storming out may feel good, but it blows back all too easily and isn't exactly a great way to change people's minds.

On the other hand, some people only understand violence.

Marnath has it in this case. The guy only got over himself after the school made him apologize.

I think I would disagree with the shoving of the laptop but agree with the storming out, as I think that would be my response to a comparable thing happening to me. Now, that is. When I was in school it's more likely I would've just sat there and felt uncomfortable.

It didn't break. But it was pretty crappy anyway, so whatever. And yeah, I usually just squirm around. This particular time it was too much to deal with.

I scared the bejesus out of a frightened nurse when I continued my speech for another minute before notice the scenery change,

That's got future-grandchildren (or future-niece/nephew/nibling) storytime potential.

[Heliomance]

About to go to my first voice therapy session!

[Miraqariftsky]

@Grytorm: You're welcome. Hope your dress and hat went well? Once again, a friendly reminder--- keep your stash safe, at least, while you're still under their roof.

@Turkishproverb: Sorry for the delay on the reply. Thanks for the concern.

@Jaycemond & Heliomance: Friggen great! Good fer y'all.

But, yeah, agreeing with Marnath's point. Ain't always wise to meet extremes with extremes, paying harshness unto harshness. At least you stood up for what's right.

~~~

Paradox, having accepted my queerness. Feeling a heck of a lot lighter at heart... yet heavier because of the, at least at this point, necessity of having to keep things under wraps and live with a mask on. Been getting messages from my Elementary alma mater, invitations for some kind of grand dang reunion of alumni. They're good folk, but way religious and conservative... or that and certain other reasons, I don't entirely feel comfortable with attending. But I want to, for old times' sake. Hell, I even entertain the astronomical possibility of attending in full girl mode. Also, looking at it from a utilitarian perspective... attending will be , well, useful, for acad/work-related networking. And, maybe, catching up with old friends. And, maybe, engaging my old evangelizer/confessor, who, at last count, still worked there... though this last point, of course, is slippery ground on Forum Rules.

~~

Offering well-wishes, coffees, hugs to those who need or want them.

[Miriel]

About to go to my first voice therapy session!

How did it go?

[Heliomance]

Just did a vocal assessment and was told a bit about how the voice works. First actual therapy session in about 3 weeks, I think.

IRN, I've been given an endocrinology appointment for next week! Apparently there was a cancellation, I'm not really sure what to expect. I haven't had my second appointment at Charing Cross yet, I don't know if this replaces that or what! Excited, but also confused.

[Miriel]

I didn't get the research job on trans people I interviewed for.

Spoiler: Selfish rant

Show

I need to rant because I can't deal with rejection.

So the research thing was on trans people and how to accomodate them at our college. Basically, the point was to give recommendations of things my University should do to accomodate trans people, backed with comparisons with what's going on elsewhere in Canada and the US, stuff like that. (I don't know why they need to do a research thing for this. Our trans group already has demands to this effect, based on what is done in other universities, and I could tell them everything they need to know in a two-hour-long conference and give them a report of this or something, so I don't know what the purpose of this is exactly. But anyway.)

My interview went well. I was able to answer all the questions easily. I thought I was basically the person for the job. I mean... I know this university pretty well, and I know the experiences of trans people here pretty well too. I talk about that stuff all the time. I know the litterature. AND I have experience in research (though not the same kind of research).

Sure, I may have been a bit ambitious in what I wanted (a collaborative project that integrates trans people in the research itself), and I'm not sure if the "by January" timeline would have worked for such a project, but that's because I basically know the litterature already, I know quite a bit about the issues and everything, so I thought that the best contribution would be to do something extra, that could be useful to people elsewhere. If they just wanted recommendations and some background, I could've done it within a month.

I'd like this research to be something great. I really, really hope whoever was selected is a real ally that we won't need to educate. I have no idea who they are right now, not even the name, I just know they are studying sociology, with a background in sociopsychology. The sociopsychology experience of whoever was chosen scares me a bit, because, from what I know of classes here about trans stuff in psychology... it's generally weird and/or oppressive.

I hope it's not some random cis person whom they hired to rubber-stamp our demands.

In all honesty, I'm not really mad at the moment. I might become if I learned they hired someone who's incompetent, but I don't know that yet. Anyway, until further notice, It's probably a good thing for my life, because I'm completely overworked. But sometimes, I need to vent when I learn not-good news.

[Icewraith]

I didn't get the research job on trans people I interviewed for.

Spoiler: Selfish rant

Show

I need to rant because I can't deal with rejection.

So the research thing was on trans people and how to accomodate them at our college. Basically, the point was to give recommendations of things my University should do to accomodate trans people, backed with comparisons with what's going on elsewhere in Canada and the US, stuff like that. (I don't know why they need to do a research thing for this. Our trans group already has demands to this effect, based on what is done in other universities, and I could tell them everything they need to know in a two-hour-long conference and give them a report of this or something, so I don't know what the purpose of this is exactly. But anyway.)

My interview went well. I was able to answer all the questions easily. I thought I was basically the person for the job. I mean... I know this university pretty well, and I know the experiences of trans people here pretty well too. I talk about that stuff all the time. I know the litterature. AND I have experience in research (though not the same kind of research).

Sure, I may have been a bit ambitious in what I wanted (a collaborative project that integrates trans people in the research itself), and I'm not sure if the "by January" timeline would have worked for such a project, but that's because I basically know the litterature already, I know quite a bit about the issues and everything, so I thought that the best contribution would be to do something extra, that could be useful to people elsewhere. If they just wanted recommendations and some background, I could've done it within a month.

I'd like this research to be something great. I really, really hope whoever was selected is a real ally that we won't need to educate. I have no idea who they are right now, not even the name, I just know they are studying sociology, with a background in sociopsychology. The sociopsychology experience of whoever was chosen scares me a bit, because, from what I know of classes here about trans stuff in psychology... it's generally weird and/or oppressive.

I hope it's not some random cis person whom they hired to rubber-stamp our demands.

In all honesty, I'm not really mad at the moment. I might become if I learned they hired someone who's incompetent, but I don't know that yet. Anyway, until further notice, It's probably a good thing for my life, because I'm completely overworked. But sometimes, I need to vent when I learn not-good news.

Are you an active/known member of the on campus trans group? Yes, yes you are. (Avatars are breaking on this connection, I'm bad with names, and you changed yours semi recently.) You're probably already in too deep to be considered for the position. Are you well informed? Absolutely. Are you qualified? I'll assume so. Are you motivated? Definitely. Are you impartial? Probably not, because you're well informed, qualified, motivated, and local. Whoever they hire, it probably has to be someone non-local or at least not previously involved in the discussion. Assuming I'm understanding things correctly.

If they were looking to hire someone local, it might still be because you're just too closely connected to the issue or you may have proposed (as you yourself suspect) far more than they think they have budget or time for. Or they may have looked at your workload and determined that giving you the project would exceed regulations against cruel and unusual punishment for executions. Death by research project is a bad way to go.

[Axinian]

It recently struck me just how interrelated my depression and my feelings of dysphoria are. I'm currently dealing with a bout of depression that is explicitly gender orientated. My desire to transition, my feelings of dysphoria, and my gender fluidity are foremost in my mind during this. I've been through similar experiences with depression, but never before have my feelings been so... gendered (though I have come to realize that maybe it has always been this way, I was just not aware of my trans*ness at the time).

I feel like I'm in a vicious cycle. Okay maybe vicious is too strong a word for how feel... I'm in a prickly cycle. When I'm depressed, my dysphoria can be overwhelming. The need to transition is strong, but my self-criticism is also high, so I'm constantly beating myself back from doing it. On the other hand, when I'm happy, dysphoria is near non-existent. There's just a vague desire to transition. It makes me doubt and question whether the feelings are even real, whereas when I'm depressed I'm convinced they're real, but I beat myself up about it.

My desire has slowly been coalescing into certainty via logic unclouded by depression and positive affirmations, but I still feel like I need to be standing on firm ground BEFORE I begin medical transition, not hope that the turmoil within myself settles down afterwards.

Like, I know it's ok to question, but I can't stop. I need to know where I am before I can move to where I'm going I feel like. I don't know, it just seems like the memoirs of other trans people I see, while varied and I've found some not bound by trans-normativity that I can really relate to, all share the common element of an overwhelming certainty and need immediately prior to transition. I feel maybe something like that sometimes, but it is fleeting. Like, sometimes I feel like my true self is just fine, other times I feel like it is buried beneath this male body, and other times I don't know who I am. How can I seek to become my true self when I don't know who I am?

[Miriel]

You're probably already in too deep to be considered for the position. Are you well informed? Absolutely. Are you qualified? I'll assume so. Are you motivated? Definitely. Are you impartial? Probably not, because you're well informed, qualified, motivated, and local. Whoever they hire, it probably has to be someone non-local or at least not previously involved in the discussion. Assuming I'm understanding things correctly.

But when your research exists for the purpose of action, high motivation for action shouldn't be . I don't think it's fair to exclude me as biased because I know what I'm talking about and want something to be done. (Btw, it has to be someone local, and the questions they asked me in interview were about how well informed I was, so that should be a plus.)

The danger in not choosing the (probably) only trans person applying is that . So unless the other one is a trans person I never heard about with more appropriate, to me, it will sound a bit like: "Yeah, we know you think that you're oppressed by A, B and C, but let's ask a cis person what they think about that." Which is exactly how erasure of trans lives happens.

Another problem is that I'll probably end up doing whoever's research in double, because there are parts I did already, and if something hasn't been done already, it's probably also on my to-do list for unrelated reasons. So either they ask me everything, so I'm working for free, or they do my work over again, which is a waste of time.

If they were looking to hire someone local, it might still be because you're just too closely connected to the issue or you may have proposed (as you yourself suspect) far more than they think they have budget or time for. Or they may have looked at your workload and determined that giving you the project would exceed regulations against cruel and unusual punishment for executions. Death by research project is a bad way to go.

If that was the problem, they could have hired me and said "Try scaling this down a bit". I offered additional research possibilities because the basic stuff they asked for was already done, from my point of view. In fact, I even asked for fewer hours than they offered.

[Grytorm]

Well quite often lately I have just felt icky about my body. Which isn't very nice. I don't know. Need sleep. To much Online Pokemon TCG.

[Astrella]

Well quite often lately I have just felt icky about my body. Which isn't very nice. I don't know. Need sleep. To much Online Pokemon TCG.

Yeah, body stuff isn't fun. :/

Also you play the online pokemon tcg too? Neat. :D

[Mono Vertigo]

@Axinian: it can be difficult finding out who you are, doesn't it? Try to settle on small bits, if you can't see the whole at first. Focus on how you feel, before you find out who you are.
Also, depression is a [REDACTED]. As long as you're still able to identify when it's the depression speaking, don't believe it. Cherish the small victories and satisfaction, even if your situation as a whole isn't great; that'll help. (Also, fighting depression alone is very hard, and I don't know if you're seeing a psychologist/psychiatrist but if you can, see one. If they suck, recognize they suck, and try looking for another one.)

One year that I was in high school, I had this absolutely horrible chemistry teacher from Turkey that wouldn't fact check a single bigoted or poorly-conceived thing he read on his little corner of the Internet (mainly Forbes) and would parrot all of it to the class.

Regardless of your actions/whether they were justified... how is the fact he's from Turkey relevant?

[Togath]

So... Not exactly an LGBTAI experience, but this seems as good a place of any...
I was in the first session of an online game(pathfinder, though that's probably an irrelevant detail) last night, a group formed over(and using) roll20.
Started off normally enough... In a town for various reasons, and the party got hired(separately) to help protect a caravan as it traveled through a desert.
After a while, the party spotted a tent with armed drow(dark elves, famed for being.. less than trustworthy).
They gestured to us to go in a specific direction... The party, suspecting a trap, went the other way... And was promptly attacked by giant scorpions.
After we defeated the scorpions we wandered over to the(non hostile) drow to ask why they were there.
They showed us several wanted posters, saying they were looking for the people on them... One of which was an elderly dwarven camel herder(now, as far as we knew, he was just a kindly old man, since the gm hadn't said anything other than that he was very old, and liked camels).
My character decided that the drow were either evil, or overzealous(believing that whatever the kind old man did, he's been redeemed. count that as foreshadowing).
*warning, stuff will start to get dark soon, hence the spoiler*

Spoiler: trigger warnings for gore and rape

Show

My character tried to knock them out.. Succeeding in one blow, my character kept advising the party to use nonlethal force because.. Well, she believed we should find out just who sent them after the "innocent" camel herder.
After I had downed the second, a party member came up and hit them with a powerful fire spell... nearly finishing off both of the unconscious ones, and prompting a horrifying description from the gm of what happened to the elves hit.(I nearly left there...)
It's then as I'm trying to get the last to just surrender through words... That a party member comes up, and revives the first elf I knocked out... Only to start torturing him to death(cue more horrifying descriptions), cutting off pieces as the elf was dying.. And eating them. Complete with yet more horrible descriptions... And him offering pieces to the party. I tried to stop him, but the gm simply said no, I couldn't interfere with another player's actions.
After my character tried to knock the crazed murderous cannibal guy out, most of the party turned on me, both IC and OOC, with the gm ruling that I couldn't actually attack him, since he was a another player.
Then the party revived the elves(two females were the only living ones at this point), tying them up, before that "kind and elderly" dwarf came over, and started beating them, for fun. Again I tried to stop him, since it turned out i was very very wrong about him. The gm ruled that because I thought he was innocent, I sided with him despite this. After I tried knocking both out again, the group started getting angry at me, saying my class was op(because of how I knocked out an elf in one blow earlier, supposedly).
I left as the gm described that dwarf I mentioned about to rape one of the captive elves.

So. Yea. Really bad and creepy and messed up session, and I'm still a bit shaken from the awfulness.

[Miriel]

So... Not exactly an LGBTAI experience, but this seems as good a place of any...
I was in the first session of an online game(pathfinder, though that's probably an irrelevant detail) last night, a group formed over(and using) roll20.
Started off normally enough... In a town for various reasons, and the party got hired(separately) to help protect a caravan as it traveled through a desert.
After a while, the party spotted a tent with armed drow(dark elves, famed for being.. less than trustworthy).
They gestured to us to go in a specific direction... The party, suspecting a trap, went the other way... And was promptly attacked by giant scorpions.
After we defeated the scorpions we wandered over to the(non hostile) drow to ask why they were there.
They showed us several wanted posters, saying they were looking for the people on them... One of which was an elderly dwarven camel herder(now, as far as we knew, he was just a kindly old man, since the gm hadn't said anything other than that he was very old, and liked camels).
My character decided that the drow were either evil, or overzealous(believing that whatever the kind old man did, he's been redeemed. count that as foreshadowing).
*warning, stuff will start to get dark soon, hence the spoiler*

Spoiler: trigger warnings for gore and rape

Show

My character tried to knock them out.. Succeeding in one blow, my character kept advising the party to use nonlethal force because.. Well, she believed we should find out just who sent them after the "innocent" camel herder.
After I had downed the second, a party member came up and hit them with a powerful fire spell... nearly finishing off both of the unconscious ones, and prompting a horrifying description from the gm of what happened to the elves hit.(I nearly left there...)
It's then as I'm trying to get the last to just surrender through words... That a party member comes up, and revives the first elf I knocked out... Only to start torturing him to death(cue more horrifying descriptions), cutting off pieces as the elf was dying.. And eating them. Complete with yet more horrible descriptions... And him offering pieces to the party. I tried to stop him, but the gm simply said no, I couldn't interfere with another player's actions.
After my character tried to knock the crazed murderous cannibal guy out, most of the party turned on me, both IC and OOC, with the gm ruling that I couldn't actually attack him, since he was a another player.
Then the party revived the elves(two females were the only living ones at this point), tying them up, before that "kind and elderly" dwarf came over, and started beating them, for fun. Again I tried to stop him, since it turned out i was very very wrong about him. The gm ruled that because I thought he was innocent, I sided with him despite this. After I tried knocking both out again, the group started getting angry at me, saying my class was op(because of how I knocked out an elf in one blow earlier, supposedly).
I left as the gm described that dwarf I mentioned about to rape one of the captive elves.

So. Yea. Really bad and creepy and messed up session, and I'm still a bit shaken from the awfulness.

WTF?!?!

*hug*

[Grytorm]

Yeah, body stuff isn't fun. :/

Also you play the online pokemon tcg too? Neat. :D

A little. I downloaded it yesterday and am only trying the AI so far. Just looking at the crds and the decks you canonly get an idea about the deck cycling. Although the AI is bad at times it still helps me learn a bit more about how the game is played.

[noparlpf]

So... Not exactly an LGBTAI experience, but this seems as good a place of any...
I was in the first session of an online game(pathfinder, though that's probably an irrelevant detail) last night, a group formed over(and using) roll20.
Started off normally enough... In a town for various reasons, and the party got hired(separately) to help protect a caravan as it traveled through a desert.
After a while, the party spotted a tent with armed drow(dark elves, famed for being.. less than trustworthy).
They gestured to us to go in a specific direction... The party, suspecting a trap, went the other way... And was promptly attacked by giant scorpions.
After we defeated the scorpions we wandered over to the(non hostile) drow to ask why they were there.
They showed us several wanted posters, saying they were looking for the people on them... One of which was an elderly dwarven camel herder(now, as far as we knew, he was just a kindly old man, since the gm hadn't said anything other than that he was very old, and liked camels).
My character decided that the drow were either evil, or overzealous(believing that whatever the kind old man did, he's been redeemed. count that as foreshadowing).
*warning, stuff will start to get dark soon, hence the spoiler*

Spoiler: trigger warnings for gore and rape

Show

My character tried to knock them out.. Succeeding in one blow, my character kept advising the party to use nonlethal force because.. Well, she believed we should find out just who sent them after the "innocent" camel herder.
After I had downed the second, a party member came up and hit them with a powerful fire spell... nearly finishing off both of the unconscious ones, and prompting a horrifying description from the gm of what happened to the elves hit.(I nearly left there...)
It's then as I'm trying to get the last to just surrender through words... That a party member comes up, and revives the first elf I knocked out... Only to start torturing him to death(cue more horrifying descriptions), cutting off pieces as the elf was dying.. And eating them. Complete with yet more horrible descriptions... And him offering pieces to the party. I tried to stop him, but the gm simply said no, I couldn't interfere with another player's actions.
After my character tried to knock the crazed murderous cannibal guy out, most of the party turned on me, both IC and OOC, with the gm ruling that I couldn't actually attack him, since he was a another player.
Then the party revived the elves(two females were the only living ones at this point), tying them up, before that "kind and elderly" dwarf came over, and started beating them, for fun. Again I tried to stop him, since it turned out i was very very wrong about him. The gm ruled that because I thought he was innocent, I sided with him despite this. After I tried knocking both out again, the group started getting angry at me, saying my class was op(because of how I knocked out an elf in one blow earlier, supposedly).
I left as the gm described that dwarf I mentioned about to rape one of the captive elves.

So. Yea. Really bad and creepy and messed up session, and I'm still a bit shaken from the awfulness.

That's messed up. On lots of levels, including the irrelevant and pedantic point that that's bad GMing.

[Irish Musician]

That's messed up. On lots of levels, including the irrelevant and pedantic point that that's bad GMing.

That is HORRIBLE Gming. Setting aside everything that is wrong with this DM (which is a lot from the sounds of it) the whole thing just screams psychopaths. I can't believe that 1) the players did something like that and 2) that the DM allowed any of that. And not only allowed it but played along with it and kept the awfulness going. It is those types of players and DM's that piss me off and give other players and DM's a bad name.

[noparlpf]

Wait, what's this about a Pokémon online TCG?

[Astrella]

Wait, what's this about a Pokémon online TCG?

Linky. I've been playing it for a while now, it's pretty fun. And free / comparitively cheaper if you buy pack codes online than the physical game.

[Jaycemonde]

Regardless of your actions/whether they were justified... how is the fact he's from Turkey relevant?

I guess it isn't. It's just one of those things he shoved down everybody's throats, how much better his country was and so on. It's the most convenient way to refer to him since I can't remember his name.

Also, since this happened like three years ago, I don't really want to keep talking about it.

That is HORRIBLE Gming. Setting aside everything that is wrong with this DM (which is a lot from the sounds of it) the whole thing just screams psychopaths. I can't believe that 1) the players did something like that and 2) that the DM allowed any of that. And not only allowed it but played along with it and kept the awfulness going. It is those types of players and DM's that piss me off and give other players and DM's a bad name.

That's horrible.

[Mono Vertigo]

@Togath: seconding everything already said. Bad players, worse GM, what the hell is that.

I guess it isn't. It's just one of those things he shoved down everybody's throats, how much better his country was and so on. It's the most convenient way to refer to him since I can't remember his name.

Okay, I just kind of saw bad implications (that weren't actually there), but that makes sense.
Dropping it now it's clarified.

[noparlpf]

Linky. I've been playing it for a while now, it's pretty fun. And free / comparitively cheaper if you buy pack codes online than the physical game.

Ooh, neat. I never got into the TCG much because I didn't have people to play with, but I'll definitely go check that out.

[Zurvan]

One year that I was in high school, I had this absolutely horrible chemistry teacher from Turkey that wouldn't fact check a single bigoted or poorly-conceived thing he read on his little corner of the Internet (mainly Forbes) and would parrot all of it to the class. One day he got into a rant about how LGBTAI+ people were all "sick" and just needed some kind of cure, and a few *******s in the class were agreeing with him, saying things like "I wish we could just move them all to Alaska so they couldn't bother normal people." I actually got up and walked directly to his desk, shoved his laptop off the desk along with all his papers, grabbed my stuff, and stormed out of the room. Later someone came down to the front lobby to ask if I was okay and informed me that everyone "thinks I'm gay now." I told him I didn't give a **** and that they could all burn in hell, and he just agreed. It was pretty cool to find out that there were a couple sympathetic people there, honestly. And I didn't fail the year in Chemistry, since this happened nearly at the end. I think the teacher got some kind of write-up to boot.

Wow kudos pal!

I would never do something like that... Most of the time I just stay in silence because I'm still not ready to come out yet and as Jaycemonde if say something in favor of the homosexuals everyone assume you are one.

So... Not exactly an LGBTAI experience, but this seems as good a place of any...
I was in the first session of an online game(pathfinder, though that's probably an irrelevant detail) last night, a group formed over(and using) roll20.
Started off normally enough... In a town for various reasons, and the party got hired(separately) to help protect a caravan as it traveled through a desert.
After a while, the party spotted a tent with armed drow(dark elves, famed for being.. less than trustworthy).
They gestured to us to go in a specific direction... The party, suspecting a trap, went the other way... And was promptly attacked by giant scorpions.
After we defeated the scorpions we wandered over to the(non hostile) drow to ask why they were there.
They showed us several wanted posters, saying they were looking for the people on them... One of which was an elderly dwarven camel herder(now, as far as we knew, he was just a kindly old man, since the gm hadn't said anything other than that he was very old, and liked camels).
My character decided that the drow were either evil, or overzealous(believing that whatever the kind old man did, he's been redeemed. count that as foreshadowing).
*warning, stuff will start to get dark soon, hence the spoiler*

Spoiler: trigger warnings for gore and rape

Show

My character tried to knock them out.. Succeeding in one blow, my character kept advising the party to use nonlethal force because.. Well, she believed we should find out just who sent them after the "innocent" camel herder.
After I had downed the second, a party member came up and hit them with a powerful fire spell... nearly finishing off both of the unconscious ones, and prompting a horrifying description from the gm of what happened to the elves hit.(I nearly left there...)
It's then as I'm trying to get the last to just surrender through words... That a party member comes up, and revives the first elf I knocked out... Only to start torturing him to death(cue more horrifying descriptions), cutting off pieces as the elf was dying.. And eating them. Complete with yet more horrible descriptions... And him offering pieces to the party. I tried to stop him, but the gm simply said no, I couldn't interfere with another player's actions.
After my character tried to knock the crazed murderous cannibal guy out, most of the party turned on me, both IC and OOC, with the gm ruling that I couldn't actually attack him, since he was a another player.
Then the party revived the elves(two females were the only living ones at this point), tying them up, before that "kind and elderly" dwarf came over, and started beating them, for fun. Again I tried to stop him, since it turned out i was very very wrong about him. The gm ruled that because I thought he was innocent, I sided with him despite this. After I tried knocking both out again, the group started getting angry at me, saying my class was op(because of how I knocked out an elf in one blow earlier, supposedly).
I left as the gm described that dwarf I mentioned about to rape one of the captive elves.

So. Yea. Really bad and creepy and messed up session, and I'm still a bit shaken from the awfulness.

That is just stupid evil. Like so childish and juvenile... That is why like to know who I'm going to play with stuff like this breaks the immersion.