Cpt. Obvious

I honestly don't understand why we are discussing this. What use is it to get up in arms over the term 'trigger warning'? If it's not applicable to you it should be easy enough to ignore, and if it's applicable then it filled a purpose. Just remind yourself that 'you' are not 'everyone'
I usually don't do trigger warnings, but then I'm usually not discussing the most common trigger subjects. I do also try to adapt to the local customs for whatever forum I'm in. So if I'm posting on a suicide forum I will take a good look at my post and try to include trigger warnings that fit the site, the sub-forum and the thread. If I'm posting here though, you are not likely to find a trigger warning unless it's in a thread where some one expressively asked for it.
All in all I don't see the problem or the need to argue about them. If you think someone is spamming trigger warnings just ignore them. If someone gets in your face and demand you use trigger warnings then look at what they write and decide for your self if you think it's valid. Don't just assume that they are full of it because you're unable to see the problem, so don't be an ass, and if someone goes 'full retard' on you I suggest you seriously considers just moving on or blocking them if the site supports that option.
This isn't in any way the perfect way to treat this subject, just what I've found works for me. You can't please everyone, and you don't want to, but you should at least try  to not be an ass about it.
 

Ohhh! A new spell for Elliot...
If I were Magic I'd give him an awesome autopilot... that followed the GPS instructions to the letter including obeying speed limits, traffic lights, and always stopping for pedestrians crossing the road. I'm not sure if I'd make him follow the roads at a height of six feet, or fifty, either way he'd be at the mercy of traffic, the spell having him follow the rhythm of road bound traffic while paying no attention to birds, drones or anything else that flies. I can visualize the look on her friends faces when they learn that Cheerleadra is stuck in traffic and can't figure out how to disengage the autopilot...
It's probably a good thing that it's Dan writing this comic and not me... 

Ohhh! A new spell for Elliot...
If I were Magic I'd give him an awesome autopilot... that followed the GPS instructions to the letter including obeying speed limits, traffic lights, and always stopping for pedestrians crossing the road. I'm not sure if I'd make him follow the roads at a height of six feet, or fifty, either way he'd be at the mercy of traffic, the spell having him follow the rhythm of road bound traffic while paying no attention to birds, drones or anything else that flies. I can visualize the look on her friends faces when they learn that Cheerleadra is stuck in traffic and can't figure out how to disengage the autopilot...
It's probably a good thing that it's Dan writing this comic and not me... 

Warning! Rant coming up...
I watched an interview with a man who had been a prisoner of ISIS. I he was kidnapped and held for ransom and it took something like 14 months before he was released. When asked about how he was treated and what kind of people the ISIS soldiers were he said that very few of those he met seemed to care about the religion other than going through the motions. What they did care about was having free access to people to torture and humiliate. He himself had been tortured in many ways and had been through nine mock executions. Usually he was told in the morning that he would be executed as they hadn't got the money, or alternatively they had got the money and had no further use for him. They then left him to stew for a day. When evening or whatever time they claimed he was to be executed at came they put a hood over his head and dragged him outside, got him on his knees, put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. Usually it was just a click, a few times they fired a gun just next to him. These mock executions wasn't ordered, it was just the guards having fun.
Nine times he went through this, with some variations thrown in to keep him scared. Nine times different guards got their jollies from playing with mock executions, and that was just one prisoner. These guards came from all over, many from European countries, and they joined ISIS just so they could be assholes and torture people. Now this was a man, what they do to women isn't better in any way.
Having heard that, I'm not surprised that some people might find it fun to join a bunch of misogynistic fascistic sadists in a video game. Hopefully there are very few of those who feels it's OK to do this in the real world. Unfortunately though there are some who do, and organizations like ISIS or Boko Haram and The Lord's Resistance Army in Africa are just too happy to recruit them.
 
Sorry for the rant... I just had to say that there are people out there that are worse than what we like to imagine is possible.
 

Warning! Rant coming up...
I watched an interview with a man who had been a prisoner of ISIS. I he was kidnapped and held for ransom and it took something like 14 months before he was released. When asked about how he was treated and what kind of people the ISIS soldiers were he said that very few of those he met seemed to care about the religion other than going through the motions. What they did care about was having free access to people to torture and humiliate. He himself had been tortured in many ways and had been through nine mock executions. Usually he was told in the morning that he would be executed as they hadn't got the money, or alternatively they had got the money and had no further use for him. They then left him to stew for a day. When evening or whatever time they claimed he was to be executed at came they put a hood over his head and dragged him outside, got him on his knees, put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. Usually it was just a click, a few times they fired a gun just next to him. These mock executions wasn't ordered, it was just the guards having fun.
Nine times he went through this, with some variations thrown in to keep him scared. Nine times different guards got their jollies from playing with mock executions, and that was just one prisoner. These guards came from all over, many from European countries, and they joined ISIS just so they could be assholes and torture people. Now this was a man, what they do to women isn't better in any way.
Having heard that, I'm not surprised that some people might find it fun to join a bunch of misogynistic fascistic sadists in a video game. Hopefully there are very few of those who feels it's OK to do this in the real world. Unfortunately though there are some who do, and organizations like ISIS or Boko Haram and The Lord's Resistance Army in Africa are just too happy to recruit them.
 
Sorry for the rant... I just had to say that there are people out there that are worse than what we like to imagine is possible.
 

Warning! Rant coming up...
I watched an interview with a man who had been a prisoner of ISIS. I he was kidnapped and held for ransom and it took something like 14 months before he was released. When asked about how he was treated and what kind of people the ISIS soldiers were he said that very few of those he met seemed to care about the religion other than going through the motions. What they did care about was having free access to people to torture and humiliate. He himself had been tortured in many ways and had been through nine mock executions. Usually he was told in the morning that he would be executed as they hadn't got the money, or alternatively they had got the money and had no further use for him. They then left him to stew for a day. When evening or whatever time they claimed he was to be executed at came they put a hood over his head and dragged him outside, got him on his knees, put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. Usually it was just a click, a few times they fired a gun just next to him. These mock executions wasn't ordered, it was just the guards having fun.
Nine times he went through this, with some variations thrown in to keep him scared. Nine times different guards got their jollies from playing with mock executions, and that was just one prisoner. These guards came from all over, many from European countries, and they joined ISIS just so they could be assholes and torture people. Now this was a man, what they do to women isn't better in any way.
Having heard that, I'm not surprised that some people might find it fun to join a bunch of misogynistic fascistic sadists in a video game. Hopefully there are very few of those who feels it's OK to do this in the real world. Unfortunately though there are some who do, and organizations like ISIS or Boko Haram and The Lord's Resistance Army in Africa are just too happy to recruit them.
 
Sorry for the rant... I just had to say that there are people out there that are worse than what we like to imagine is possible.
 

Warning! Rant coming up...
I watched an interview with a man who had been a prisoner of ISIS. I he was kidnapped and held for ransom and it took something like 14 months before he was released. When asked about how he was treated and what kind of people the ISIS soldiers were he said that very few of those he met seemed to care about the religion other than going through the motions. What they did care about was having free access to people to torture and humiliate. He himself had been tortured in many ways and had been through nine mock executions. Usually he was told in the morning that he would be executed as they hadn't got the money, or alternatively they had got the money and had no further use for him. They then left him to stew for a day. When evening or whatever time they claimed he was to be executed at came they put a hood over his head and dragged him outside, got him on his knees, put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. Usually it was just a click, a few times they fired a gun just next to him. These mock executions wasn't ordered, it was just the guards having fun.
Nine times he went through this, with some variations thrown in to keep him scared. Nine times different guards got their jollies from playing with mock executions, and that was just one prisoner. These guards came from all over, many from European countries, and they joined ISIS just so they could be assholes and torture people. Now this was a man, what they do to women isn't better in any way.
Having heard that, I'm not surprised that some people might find it fun to join a bunch of misogynistic fascistic sadists in a video game. Hopefully there are very few of those who feels it's OK to do this in the real world. Unfortunately though there are some who do, and organizations like ISIS or Boko Haram and The Lord's Resistance Army in Africa are just too happy to recruit them.
 
Sorry for the rant... I just had to say that there are people out there that are worse than what we like to imagine is possible.
 

Ohhh! A new spell for Elliot...
If I were Magic I'd give him an awesome autopilot... that followed the GPS instructions to the letter including obeying speed limits, traffic lights, and always stopping for pedestrians crossing the road. I'm not sure if I'd make him follow the roads at a height of six feet, or fifty, either way he'd be at the mercy of traffic, the spell having him follow the rhythm of road bound traffic while paying no attention to birds, drones or anything else that flies. I can visualize the look on her friends faces when they learn that Cheerleadra is stuck in traffic and can't figure out how to disengage the autopilot...
It's probably a good thing that it's Dan writing this comic and not me... 

All that says is that he's decided to stop avoiding calling them vampires. I find it more in character for certain groups to call them aberrations and others vampires. There's no point in completely retconning calling them aberrations when it still makes sense. 
+ Susan grumpiness 

I think it helps that though they liked and even love each other they were never really in love. Big difference.
Nanase dated Elliot as he was as close to the ideal man as she could find among her friends and acquaintances. Elliot on the other hand dated her because he liked her as a friend and when she approached him he really didn't understand the feelings of love and being in love. When they broke up neither of them felt that there was a big gaping hole where the other used to be, and so there were no hard feelings.
Sarah and Elliot dating was similar. They've known each other since they were toddlers, and though there were friendship and love, and some lust due to hormones, they were never truly in love. The breakup again showed that neither of them suffered the trauma of having their heart broken, nor were there much anger involved. There were some frustration but not much anger.
In both cases some feelings were a bit bruised, but no hearts were broken... The fact that none of them is a selfish a-hole does help.

Not to mention that a lot of them has smart phones with cameras. So interview them and make sure to get permission to use as many recordings as possible...
 

Not to mention that a lot of them has smart phones with cameras. So interview them and make sure to get permission to use as many recordings as possible...
 

I hadn't heard about "stale", but there was the little problem that any water not from wells - and water from some wells - was contaminated with whatever sort of bacteria the folks upstream were currently suffering from. And the denser the population, the more of an issue this was. Population was, of course, densest in cities.
Yes, they regarded water as unhealthy to drink, for the very simple reason that people who drank it tended to get sick (not including drunk or hung-over) more than people who didn't. So they drank wine and beer instead. And they also mixed wine/beer (and later rum and other distilled spirits) with water, to reduce the intoxication (and stretch the expensive stuff), but if it had enough alcohol to kill the bacteria they didn't know was in the water...
In China they had the same problem; rather than fixating on alcohol, they drank tea. To make good tea you have to boil the water. Which kills the bacteria they didn't know was in the water.
So China invented the tea ceremony, and Europe invented the "Hold my beer and watch this!" ceremony.

Would the world be a better place without alcohol? Perhaps it would, but I think we would just have found some other way to intoxicate ourselves.
I can't think of a single "natural" alcoholic beverage that tastes good the first time you drink it. With natural I mean naturally fermented, such as beer or wine. The first time I tried beer I thought it was foul but after trying it enough it grew on me, and today I can appreciate it. In my experience the same goes for wine. The hard stuff is even worse, or better depending on what side of the curve you are. Whisky has a huge spread, from smooth bourbon to devastatingly smoky and tar infused golden honey. But it all taste awful the first time and still I've learned to enjoy it. How perverse is that?
However the really dangerous stuff is things like alcopop and fruit flavored ciders as these largely hides the taste of alcohol making it easy to drink more than you realize.
Personally I'm something as weird as a responsible drunk. When drunk I try to take care of everyone, making sure they don't drink to much, that they don't get into fights, that they get home safely, that they doesn't do anything to stupid or dangerous. This has made people believe that I'm not actually drinking that much, or that I have some kind of amazing alcohol tolerance when actually I'm drunk as a skunk.
One time I was at a club with some friends and we all got hammered. I ended up carrying a friend upp the stairs from the place, flagged down a cab, dumped him in it and payed the cabbie, including giving him a gratuitous tip just in case my friend would throw up. The day after I woke up feeling like shit, my pants was standing in the corner covered in dried mud and I had twigs and pine needles in both hair and beard. The thing is that there are no parks or anything anywhere between the club and my flat, and I had no idea what had happened. I just remembered starting to walk home and I actually thought I remembered it all, but the state of my pants and the twigs and pine needles told another story. After that I didn't touch anything alcoholic for almost three years, and I've been very careful ever since.
Another strange thing is that I've never been involved in a fight with anyone while drunk even though I can't help but get in the way whenever it starts to get ugly. Figure that?
So does that mean I think alcohol is safe in any way? No. One of my closest friends brother committed suicide after suffering from brain damage. He was in a club and got jumped from behind by a drunk. It could have been any kind of other drug involved of course, but if it hadn't been for alcohol culture making it accepted to be intoxicated in clubs it probably wouldn't have happened. And as I grew up the neighbor's son was a drunk. One time he drew a knife and tried to stab his mother, something so totally out of character that I have no idea what went on in his head. He joined the AA and is now a sober drunk. Last time I heard from him he had been sober for more than ten years, but he's still a drunk.
Alcohol is NOT a safe drug, but it's one I know a bit about how it works and what the dangers are. For me it's the case of better the devil you know, and that's why I prefer that alcohol remains as the common legal intoxicant over replacing it with or adding THC or something else that we lack long term data for as large a sample as we do have for alcohol.
I can't see what good it would do to legalize another intoxicant while we still have alcohol as available as it is today. And no, I don't think banning alcohol would be possible. It's just to deeply ingrained in our society. Just look at the prohibition in the US and what followed in it's wake.

Hey it's not that we ignore the laws of physics, it's just that we view them more as polite suggestions...


 

Hey it's not that we ignore the laws of physics, it's just that we view them more as polite suggestions...