Open Letter

[active_apathy]

Dear United States of America,
(and especially those states coloured blue on the election maps,)

HUGE SUCCESS.

I'm very happy with about fifty sixty-one million of you. Go you! Please find enclosed an appropriate icon.



Love,
active_apathy

Comments

[annemjw.livejournal.com]

Yaaaaaay!

I don't even live there and I can't stop smiling, good job people!

[channonyarrow.livejournal.com]

No, be happy with all of us. I have been drinking the special Kool-aid for a few months, but I believe that it's true: we need to discuss unity in this country now. I think that that is the gift Obama's election gives us, the chance to try to remind ourselves that we are one people, we are citizens of a country based on ideals that, hopefully, all Americans can support and respect, and that it is time to start healing the wounds that the last eight years have built into this country. We have become two peoples; we need to remember how to be one.

I hope that we can achieve that. And I believe that if anyone can lead us to that, it is Obama. But be happy with all of us. Don't let the divisions continue.

[ladyphoenixia.livejournal.com]

I can't stop grinning. This is a beautiful day for the world.

And America, which I have long despised as a country, where I couldn't help but believe the apathy of the many and the strength of prejudices would prevail... you have proved you are better than that, and I apologise. I was wrong. And I've never been gladder to be so.

[shaysdays.livejournal.com]

Oh no-I totally heard that as the voice of GladOS!

[palmer-kun.livejournal.com]

It was a triumph!

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, it looks like the evil and cruel Proposition 8 (=no gay marriages not ever, probably not even the ones that have already happened, no way, jesus doesn't like it) may well pass. And Obama isn't too interested in gay rights. But it could be a lot, lot worse. I could be digging my Palin-themed nuclear shelter right now.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

...and it now occurs to me just how that sentence sounds.

It's a non-exclusive kind of happiness; I'm very happy with those who voted for Obama, but also with those who decided it was worthwhile to turn up and have their say in who was going to go to bed as the President-elect. With those of you who believe in meaningful engagement with the political process instead of apathetic bickering from a distance. With those of you who want your country to be something other than an isolationist fortress of nationalism, and with those of you who want to encourage the others to follow you. For the rest? I want to be happy with them, and there's happiness on offer for every shiny step on the way there.

And, really, I hope you, as a people, can achieve it. I hope Obama is the real-world Bartlet he seems to be. I hope that your country can start being just as great as it claims to be.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

*checks*

That saddens me some; the exits were looking very hopeful for a no on proposition 8. Hopefully the votes they haven't counted for it yet will defeat it; or, failing that, that it's amended back out of their constitution in 2010.

[channonyarrow.livejournal.com]

That is exactly how I feel: I may not agree with who you voted for (I may, in fact, think that he and his running mate are crazier than a bag of weasels) but I am so happy that so many people decided that, finally, finally, it was worth it and important to take a stand.

I hope, though I am not convinced that it will happen, that that will turn into exactly what Obama wants: to bring us all back into our government again. It's only been in listening to him that I've started to analyse the roots of my disenfranchisement with government (and I have voted in every election since I was eighteen; I just stopped having any faith that my vote or my phone calls or my money meant anything) and realised that it is not just me and the liberals being excluded from the government: it's all of us. I hope that McCain's supporters will understand that and believe that it is a worthwhile goal.

As I say, the special Kool-aid. *g*

[lonecow.livejournal.com]

Hah, me too! Now I'm going to have the song in my head all day.

[maggiebloome.livejournal.com]

Woot!

Hey, now that you're alive again... I fell off the face of Falkensburg a while ago and have been too scared to check - is it still running!?

[palmer-kun.livejournal.com]

Nah, we all fell off the bandwagon around the same time.

But if there was enough coordinated effort to revive it, I'd love to get it going again.

CONFESSION: I've been running a D&D game online (using virtual tabletop software).

And I dropped my group into Falkensburg. Half the players had played in Falkensburg previously, half had not. Things are getting amusing.

[psychodrake.livejournal.com]

My state is still too bloody close to call. But heck, we're solidly republican usually, so even that's a marked improvement.
I do hope just the fact that we elected Obama improves our image with the rest of the world, it seems like it really could make a start like that.

[eighthcloud.livejournal.com]

This is my face right now:

:D

[kittydesade.livejournal.com]

Heeee icon.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

And I have two more to post in a couple of minutes. :D

[kittydesade.livejournal.com]

Yay!

*runs off to stab people in the eye for Prop 8 Florida and Arizona, excuse me*

Ahh, Mood Whiplash.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

...but prop 8 is still quite close. There may yet be need for rainbow-coloured pitchforks.

[kittydesade.livejournal.com]

Stupid time zones and California not being in yet with that resolution. I wait with baited breath. Especially after that tuna.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I'm given to wondering how much our perceptions of their voter apathy are flavoured by living in a country where enrolment is compulsory and 95% voter turnout is perfectly normal.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

Woot indeed! There need to be leetle Barack flags.

And, not as such, though it might be worth considering a less... ambitious setting, were we to try it again. Steamy stuff is an acquired taste.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

And an appropirate face it is, too. :D

[maggiebloome.livejournal.com]

It's a pity because my long summer break starts in a few days and I'd have liked to hop back on :P I remembered because, you know, an entry to write popped into my head and then I was like "Oh wait. How long have I not written in that for?"

[maggiebloome.livejournal.com]

That's pretty cool. Got a website? I wanna see!

[ladyphoenixia.livejournal.com]

Indeed. I suppose I shouldn't judge them too harshly, for as an NZ Citizen, I hadn't even thought until someone pestered me today that I should enrol and vote for their upcoming election, haha. But then... it's not like their politics affect me, really.

But compulsory voting is a Good Thing which I strongly believe in.

[selenitia.livejournal.com]

My birth state (Indiana, I moved to Texas in June) went red, but my birth county (which looks like a shoe) went blue.

Texas also went red, but Houston went blue.

So. *happy dance*

[palmer-kun.livejournal.com]

No website. We're playing using map software... I can draw maps, lay down tokens (for players and monsters) and then we can move the tokens in realtime and use the chat window to talk and roll dice and stuff.

You'd be welcome to sit in and watch a game though. We usually start around 3-4pm on Fridays (Sydney time, for your convenience) and play till 7-8pm. The software involved is both free and cross-platform. If you are interested, let me know promptly on IM of some sort and I'll help get you set up.


Here's a chat log for your amusement: http://www.shinraonline.com/palmer/maptool/Logs/chatlog.html

4th Ed D&D. Kiorin is a Eladrin Star Pact Warlock.
Renyn is a Elven Cleric with a short (1 femtometer is short, right?) temper.
Mikor is the Half-Elven Fighter and, quite often the voice of reason.
Phaien is the Human Wizard. You may know Phaien's player... my girlfriend soberloki

Also: http://community.livejournal.com/rpgquotes/98335.html

[maggiebloome.livejournal.com]

Hahaha nice. I'm playing an Eladrin- well, idk about "ing" it's an RL tabletop game and everyone got hit with uni work so we kind of faltered off about a month ago. But I WAS playing an Eladrin in a 4th ed game. Have you ever noticed that every group has somebody who likes to set things on fire? I was the token pyro. ...then a crazy warlock joined our group. Her first action in combat was to napalm somebody. *got outclassed*

[palmer-kun.livejournal.com]

Well, you see the group above. If you could guarantee making the time slot for an indefinite long term (I'm looking at a year) for a Thursday or Friday (Friday now, may change to Thursday and/or Friday after new years), we do have room for a fifth. You could even make Obermann :)

Or you can always just sit in on a session. As I said, let me know a few hours beforehand and I'll show you the ropes.

[palmer-kun.livejournal.com]

Don't let the defunctness stop you from writing that article!

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

Mm, quite. I've thought about it once or twice too, but I think something with a slightly broader audience might work better. And get more (active) players, and thus more articles, which is more or less the same thing.

(Airship docks were my last "I should write that!" idea.)

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

Which would be the advantage of not making up rogue academics. How's it working out for you as a setting? Or meta-setting, as the case may be.

[palmer-kun.livejournal.com]

It's not getting a lot of setting exposure... it's been more of a stopover with Somewhat Familiar Guest Stars™

Basically, the group found this portal guarded by this animated dragon statue. They accidentally activate it.

So they, not knowing anything about it, naturally go through it. So I had to come up with somewhere for them to go. Originally it was just going to be somewhere Away, but about a week later at work the Falkensburg idea hit me, and I was "Yeah, that works!"

So they arrived, greeted by a surprised and nervous Martellus and Plasner. Martellus immediately asked if they had heard the word of The All-High Dread Lion-Spider-Panda, N'Kratack.

CASE IN POINT: Our somewhat loopy Star Warlock is played by Martellus's creator. So Kiorin immediately replies "Yes."

Cue everyone else getting really nervous and twitchy.

Then some race-supremacist elves burst in demanding everyone assume the party escort submission position, as they were being conquered.

Natural response to that? "I cast Dire Radiance on the arrogant twat"

Since then it's been a series of running battles with the elvish invasion force, Martellus conjuring up a city-wide Cloudkill that only affects those not native to the plane (N'Kratack dined well that day).

Then the Warforged showed up, which did not exist in either setting until, well, that point.

Now they want to check out the library, stock up on supplies, and then track down the source of these bastard elves.

Oh, and the portal they came in through? Never went anywhere before that moment, and pretty much sealed up behind them. It's an obvious portal, leads into a trans-dimensional tunnel, but there's no exit. Like a dead end.

It's useful as a hub, much the way Sigil is, but much more strictly bounded.