u/scrawledfilefish

For context, the sentence I'm trying to write says something like, "Why half-ass this thing? Go all in on it!"

EDIT: Whoops, I probably should have been more specific - I'm looking for a verb-version of "half-ass." I should be able to take the sentence "Why half-ass this thing?" and replace "half-ass" with a different word and the sentence should still make sense.

Ok so Athena, Aphrodite, and Hera start the Trojan War because they're arguing about the golden apple.

Aphrodite takes the side of the Trojans, Athena takes the side of the Greeks.

Ten years pass, Troy gets sacked.

Ajax rapes the princess of Troy, Cassandra, in the temple of Athena. This pisses Athena off and she punishes the Greeks by making sure the trip back home is difficult, if not impossible.

All the stuff happens between the Greeks leaving Troy to when Odysseus ends up on Calypso's island. After 7 years, Athena and the other gods are like, "Ok, time for Odysseus to go home now."

And I'm just a little confused about Athena's motivation here. I'm sure the Greeks did a lot of terrible things in her name during the war, why did she get so upset about this particular act? Is it because it happened after the war was over? Is it because it happened in her temple? I've heard the Greeks were a pretty patriarchal society and mostly saw women as property, so it's not because Athena was upset that a woman was raped, right? Or did I hear wrong about that?

She seems to love Odysseus now, but did she hate him along with the rest of the Greeks after what Ajax did? Or was she like, "Still love you, Odysseus, but you and all your men have to pay for what Ajax did"?

Why is she suddenly demanding that Odysseus leave Calypso now? Was she mad at Odysseus this whole time but has now gotten over it? That would make sense given how much I've heard about how fickle the Greek gods could be. Or did she love him this whole time, and only just now decided that it was time for him to go home? That makes less sense to me because it seems kind of arbitrary.

In general, what are Athena's feelings towards the Trojan War? I would've thought she'd be thrilled about winning it, especially because of something as clever as the Trojan horse. Or is the whole thing tainted because of what Ajax did?

I always used to struggle in my English classes and have never been much of a literary person, but these past couple years I've been trying to read more "advanced" books, so any help would be appreciated! Oh, and for context, I'm reading Emily Wilson's translation of the Odyssey. Thanks!

I've always been like this, ever since I was a little kid. When I'd write book reports summarizing a book I had read, it would be pages and pages long.

And this has followed me into adulthood. I can just never figure out what is important and what isn't. And now my job involves me reading academic papers and having to summarize them and...I end up just writing down the whole paper, but in the form of an outline.

It's just so inefficient and tedious and unhelpful. It can take me days to get through a paper that would take me maybe an hour to read, because I keep stopping to write down everything. And in the end, my notes are useless. Reading them is just rereading the article!

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to fix this? I learn best from example, so a detailed guide would be ideal. Something that's like, "Here's a random article, here's what we determined to be the most important points, here's what our notes on this article looks like." But barring that, I'm absolutely down to read books, articles, watch videos, take an online class, whatever - I'm just so tired of taking notes like this!

I'm doing a module called Call from the Deep, and my players walked into an illithid nautiloid that crash landed on an island. While exploring it, they found a room full of pools for raising tadpoles. For flavor text, the mod said there were strange glyphs written all over the walls. I had forgotten that my warlock has some sort of ability that lets them read all written languages, so she asked me what the glyphs said. And I didn't know! They were just glyphs! So I started rambling about how they're just instructions on how to care for the pools. "Do a water change three times a week. Check salinity, pH, and temperature every day. Clean filters every day."

And then they just started asking me all sorts of questions about the maintenance of these pools, and I didn't know how to answer any of those questions either! "Where did they get the water from?" "Is the water the same pH as the nearby ocean?" "Do the instructions explicitly describe how to clean the filters?"

I stuttered and stammered through some weak answers, until I finally just said something like, "Guys, I'm gonna be honest, the mod says nothing about the glyphs. There's no important information there."

Two of my players looked disappointed, the other two looked at me suspiciously.

So how do y'all handle when your players do this? Do you immediately tell them, "what you're focusing on doesn't matter, it was just flavor text"? Or do you try to come up with actual answers? My worry with the second option is that my players will think that there is important info I'm telling them and they'll run off on a random pointless goose chase that will get them completely off track.

EDIT: I have been told that my expired passport is acceptable if it expired less than five years ago. And it expired last year! So I am good to go!

OP:

For more context, according to the US State Dept's website, I need to provide proof of citizenship either with my birth certificate or

"A full validity, undamaged U.S. passport. This means the passport is or was valid for 10 years if issued after the age of 16 and 5 years for children under 16."

I'm assuming this means that I can use my expired passport as proof, but I just want to double check. I've basically been given a last minute opportunity to travel to another country and I'd need to fly out in exactly a week. I've got an appointment with my local passport office this Tuesday, so I REALLY can't mess up expediting my passport renewal.

EDIT: I think I got my answer! Turns out, sea hags (which is what the sea witch NPC is) are just fucking assholes! And I think if I lean into that and truly revel in her assholery, it won't feel lame and bad and dumb that she did all this just for the sake of being evil. Thanks for the help, everyone!

I'm doing a pre-written module named "Call from the Deep" and this is everything that has happened so far.

My players have sailed from the mainland to an island to help the people there deal with a ship that crash landed on the far side of the island.

While sailing, they randomly encountered a bunch of different NPCs and enemies. One was a mermaid who gave them some jewelry. At another point, they fought some sahuagins and ended up with a locked treasure chest. They could sense something magical inside the chest, but they decided not to open it.

They arrive on the island and try to sell the jewelry. They ask the jeweler if they know anyone who could maybe help them figure out if the chest is safe to open. The jeweler directs them to a sea witch that lives nearby.

The sea witch is this sweet old lady who asks the adventuring party to collect some special seaweed for her. They go to a nearby sea cave and find the seaweed.

While in the cave, they also find a hidden door, which they open to reveal a room that has two treasure chests in it. When they touch one of them, a bunch of ropes that were lying around the room suddenly come to life and attack my players.

They defeat all the ropes and open the chests. Inside one chest is some gold and spell scrolls, but the other chest has a bunch of dolls that all look like my players. At random moments, they spring to life and mimic the movements and noises of my players, before flopping over and going lifeless again. My players do an arcana check on the dolls and determine that if something bad happens to the dolls, something bad will happen to the players.

When the players leave the room, there's a giant sea lion waiting for them in the cave. It attacks, but then one of my players uses Speaks with Animals, rolls a Nat 20 on animal handling, and gets the sea lion to stop fighting them. The sea lion tells my players that he was instructed by the sea witch to kill them, if the ropes failed to.

And, I dunno, when I read this in the mod, I was like, "Oh, this seems like a fun little side quest," not thinking AT ALL about how my players might have a lot of questions about it! Cuz now they, understandably, want to try to capture the sea witch to see if they can get answers from her. They've been on the island for less than 24 hours, why is she trying to kill them? Why does she have these weird dolls of my players? Why do they jump up and randomly mimic my players? They're also CONVINCED that she's the BBEG, and she's not even close! She's just a random sea witch!

And the mod gives NO explanation or motivations to the sea witch. And I can't come up with anything myself, besides she just wanted to be evil for evil's sake. Which is so dumb and lame and bad! Especially when it comes to the weird dolls!

Any help would be really appreciated!

...he missed the window of opportunity to connect with Carol before she got seduced by the hivemind.

Just thinking back to when those Plurbs were like, "We can get you to Carol Sturka by nightfall!" If only he had taken them up on it! She still had her "Fuck the hivemind!" attitude at that point, which means the two of them could have bonded more meaningfully and been much more effective at trying to take the hivemind down.

I mean, I obviously get why Manousos soundly rejected every offering of help from the hive mind. And I'd hope that I would be as principled as him, if I were to somehow end up in the same situation. But it still is a bit of a kick to the gut to think about how different the story would be if Manousos hadn't taken so long to get to Carol!

That said, I love this about Vince Gilligan shows. I love that there are so many characters where I'm like, "I totally and completely understand why this character did what they did. But I REALLY WISH they hadn't done that!!"