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The parents of a woman who was beaten to death at a county jail last year are suing the Riverside County Sheriffâs Department, alleging failures by several of its leaders and deputies allowed her to be killed by her cellmate.
Chief among the failures, the lawsuit says: Deputies gave Kaushal Niroula, who was transgender, a sex offender cellmate with a violent past.
The new filing adds to the cascade of similar suits over inmate deaths that have been recently against the department, which is also being investigated by the state attorney general over the deaths and other allegations of misconduct and civil rights violations.
A record 18 inmates died in the jails in 2022.
The suit states that the department acted negligently and in violation of both the constitution and state law by allowing Niroula to be housed in a cell with Ronald Sanchez, a man who was a convicted sex offender and had a history of violent behavior. The sheriff's department manages all jails in Riverside County.
The suit states that sheriffâs personnel knew Sanchez posed an imminent threat to Niroula, who was particularly vulnerable because she was transgender and HIV-positive, and yet the sheriff's department allowed the two to be housed together at the Cois Byrd Detention Center in Murrieta.
The cops murdered her.
Soul Caliber and itâs predecessor which Iâve forgotten the name of.
That'd be Soul Edge(which was renamed Soul Blade for the PlayStation port).
Hi WoodGrainTerrain, I'm going to delete this post. I think you were trying to be helpful, but posting this out of the blue, unsolicited, makes me feel like this is an ad.
This tendency is why I have my actual name in my username. I feel as though I have to beat people over the head with "I AM A WOMAN", because otherwise they'll assume I'm a guy. I get enough of that IRL.
It really sounds like the latter. If it were a misunderstanding, Xbox would have clarified the situation back when the story started getting traction.
Even I could have told you that a vague digital "proof of ownership" of a hideous, mass-produced ape image was a bad investment.
Alenka's game map - two rows of cards with messy scraps of scratch paper on them and a small button token. My incorrectly made map.
I will also note, for the sake of fairness, that I made my character sheet intending to start playing swiftly, and then didnât play for a few weeks. When I came back to it, I decided that my familiar was a catacoon, gave it my catâs name spelled backwards and pretty much her exact personality, and that was it! The long wait between character creation and actually playing the game likely had an impact on how I felt about the apprentice Iâd created, but I do think the world of this game is more engaging than the character development. Thatâs not a bad thing! The setting is really what makes this game, so I wasnât bothered by this aspect of the gameplay at all. Your apprentice can interact with others depending on events and complications that occur, and that does push you to think about who this person is and how they respond to conflict and danger, but the focus of the story youâll ultimately create is more likely to be the setting.
The Librarianâs Apprentice was built using the Firelights game system, which has players draw two cards from a standard deck of playing cards, roll two d6s, and then compare the numbers to decide an outcome. It also includes mapmaking, which players in The Librarianâs Apprentice accomplish by using a drawn card to represent a location, placing a token on it when your apprentice is there, and scribbling down notes about that location on note cards or scrap paper to leave with the playing card. I used a pinback button with my tattoo artistâs studioâs logo and ripped out paper from a tiny notebookâliterally whatever you have lying around works for game play! The fatigue mechanic also comes from Firelights, and in The Librarianâs Apprentice your familiar can take 1 fatigue, which means they can no longer give you a bonus to a skill roll, and your apprentice can take up to 4 until they have to rest and end their day.
I liked how the fatigue mechanic added an element of time to the story creation, and ended up structuring my journaling around it. I used âDAY ONE,â âDAY TWO,â and so on as headers, so I know my apprenticeâs journey ended up lasting four days. Traveling from place to place, or playing card to playing card, can happen many times in a day or not at all depending on how many complications arise, which cause you to take on fatigue. An aspect I really liked about the game was that complications didnât have to be solved in a specific or heroic way. The game manual provides a list of complications that you roll to establish, and the descriptions are VERY short, so itâs completely up to the player to decide how the complication cropped and how the apprentice resolved the issue.
This was the aspect of gameplay where I felt my apprenticeâCarterâgot the most development. Carter ended up being a bit world weary, introverted, and exasperated. For example, when they encountered a Keeper of the Forbidden, I decided that the Keeper was an older and hyper-critical librarian who was set on judging Carterâs methods. Carter was escorting the spirit of a beetle whoâd grown agitated because their body was preserved in an entomology section instead of dying and returning to the earth naturally. Theyâd not yet found a space with earth where they could bury the bug, and the spiritâs presence woke up a colony of bats and caused them to start feverishly snapping at and devouring bugs in the room, which then made the spirit more agitated. Instead of trying to help or even being impressed that Carter had calmed and established trust with a spirit, The Keeper started spitting criticisms at them until they basically fled. This entire scene grew out of rolling an event about bats feeding on insects and the complication âA Keeper of the Forbidden.â That was it!
The green cover of The Librarian's Apprentice volume two and some of the interiors of the volume.
As my description of the older, judgmental, and unsympathetic librarian might allude, I did get some catharsis out of this game. When I hit my first complication, I decided Carter had to save a library patron who had been attacked by a dangerous creature called a gnosiphage. The patron was physically fine but took a long time to recover emotionally and mentally from the attack, and Carter, who grew up dealing with gnosiphages, was very frustrated with them⌠until they finally were well enough to leave and expressed their deep gratitude by presenting Carter with a gift.
Is this reflective of actual patron interactions Iâve had? Iâm not going to lie to youâyes, yes it is. Sometimes the public is frustrating. Sometimes the public is frustrating because theyâre dealing with a difficult situation, and once theyâve got what they need, their gratitude makes you feel like an asshole for all your internal exasperation. I absolutely did not plan to pour all this out onto the page, and when I did, I laughed! It was honestly very funny and relieving to see such a familiar emotional arc play out in a little fantasy story. And hey, Iâve never had to fight off a freaky fantasy book zombie! Maybe this will help me chill out about managing the study rooms.
The one aspect of gameplay I struggled with was using the âEvents & Secretsâ table. I might have missed it in the rules, but there doesnât seem to be a set way to use this table. Because I was reviewing the game, I really wanted to play it right, so I got a bit self-critical whenever I struggled to understand the rules. I think this table is really meant to add intrigue and fun to the game, and I eventually just used it whenever it felt like a good time for an event. That worked for me just fine, and maybe a different kind of player wouldnât stress over it the way I did, but Iâd have appreciated a little more guidance about what to do with the table.
I donât think I played The Librarianâs Apprentice to its fullest, not simply because I didnât use the Events & Secrets table heavily, but because there were multiple mechanics I didnât engage with as much. I didnât really do research, which is one of the possible actions, and I never asked a question, which is another! Ultimately, I donât think this is a bad thing. In fact, I think this is a sign that this game is replayable. Journaling games, to me, feel very one and done, but I could see myself playing this again so I could dig deeper into the unused mechanics. I also didnât quite build my map correctlyâthere is a certain order to how youâre supposed to lay down the playing cardsâand while I donât think this error negatively impacted my playing experience, I wouldnât mind a shot at paying more attention to the map. I would try to be more thoughtful about how and why the locations connected to each other.
While solo journaling games still donât have a huge appeal to me, I very much enjoyed playing The Librarianâs Apprentice. I loved fleshing out the simple descriptions of documents and complications into more complex objects and scenes, and I wrote something fun just for myself! Itâs been a very long time since I wrote just for fun. When Iâm ready to slow down my workaholic brain and take more time doing something creative for leisure, Iâll likely go back and play this again. Almost Bedtime Theater, AKA Dan Bronson-Lowe, is currently running a Crowdfundr for some beautiful print copies of the game, and itâs already fully funded so youâre guaranteed to get one! Fund it before July 27th to snag a copy, or get it digitally right now on Itch.
Post-review update: while watching a playthrough of The Librarianâs Apprentice, I discovered Iâd missed a ruleâyouâre supposed to discover all six documents within one day. This rule feels a bit in conflict with the description of fatigue: âWhen all your Fatigue is marked, the day is over. You will have to attempt the task another time.â If you have to collect six specific documents, I donât think you could start over, but if youâre collecting documents that meet criteria, maybe you can start over by finding additional documents that meet the same criteria? Doing so would certainly extend the length of the game, which personally Iâd find frustratingâbut maybe a player who loves to set lots of time aside for games like this wouldnât. Additionally, I also donât see why you should have such a time constraint when working in an ever-changing magical library. Avoiding danger and resolving conflicts can be time consuming. Ultimately, I think having noticed this rule would have detracted from my play experience, and this is a solo gameâif a rule isnât serving you, I think itâs fine to throw it away.
The site has been having issues since I posted it, so I'm reposting it here from my RSS reader.
Libraries in fantasy literature and media are always magical and mysterious. In Terry Pratchettâs Discworld series, Unseen Universityâs library books have to be chained down for the safety of the students. In Neil Gaimanâs Sandman, the library in the Dreaming contains every book ever dreamt. In David Tennantâs Doctor Who run, the Doctor and Donna visit a freaky space library where peopleâs bodies are stripped to bone and others disappear, supposedly saved by the library itself. Libraries are weird and scary and cool, librarians have magic powers, and visitors never leave unchanged.
The Librarianâs Apprentice Almost Bedtime Theater 2023
Sidequest was provided with a copy of The Librarianâs Apprentice in exchange for a fair and honest review.
Prior to playing The Librarianâs Apprentice, my day-to-day work experience had sucked the magic out of libraries for me. The first time I volunteered in a library I helped with a teddy bear story time, where we donned pajamas and read books to children on the theme of teddy bears and bedtime. Before they left, each kid gave us a stuffed animal, and after the library closed we staged silly photos of the animals having a sleepover. They snuck into the workroom fridge for a late night snack, got up to shenanigans in the stacks, and I, a normal civilian, got to be in the library after closing. Itâs super dorky, but I remember how cool that felt! Now I know my workplace intimately, I have good and bad memories there, and I curate the material that it contains. There is no thrill, just public service.
The mockup of the print version of The Librarian's Apprentice, showing the covers of volumes 1 and 2 and character sheets.
Playing The Librarianâs Apprentice allowed me to reexperience the magic and mystery of libraries. Itâs a solo journaling game, which isnât usually my bagâIâd only played Remember August before thisâbut the premise was just too good. Rather than describe it myself, I want to share the beautiful description that pulled me right in:
Infinite, ever-shifting, and sometimes dangerous, the Great Library exists in the space between worlds and times. Among the many who call it home are the Librarians, and only those who truly understand it may join their ranks. You seek to do so.
The path of a Librarianâs apprentice is a long one. Your current task is designed to test your skills at traversing the Library and finding information. Retrieve the six documents requested by your Librarian before the day is out and you will have completed one more step on your journey.
The lure of the infinite, ever-shifting, and dangerous library was stronger than I realized, because when I finally sat down and played The Librarianâs Apprentice I was much more interested in the setting than in my character. The mechanics also play a role in the draw of setting over character, so letâs take a moment to break them down.
As with most roleplaying games, the first step is to create your character by filling out a character sheet. In The Librarianâs Apprentice, this is quick and simple: you name your character, assign a +2, +1, and +0 to each of your three skillsâNavigation, Research, and Loreâand answer three questions to create three truths that fill out some of their history and personality. Your character also gets a familiar who can take one point of fatigue and has a +1 to one of the aforementioned skills, which you can use until they get that point of fatigue.
I do want to take a moment to compliment the âtruthsâ that you create, because theyâre pretty intriguing! They cover your characterâs background and the community where you live, and allow you to immediately create some lore for your library. This third truth in particular is really brilliant, because it gets the player thinking immediately about how they can create and influence the world of The Librarianâs Apprentice. This was, for me, really a game about world building and leaning into the fun of imaging a complex, wild, and magical world. By layering an aspect of that process into character creation, the gameâs creators get players swiftly into that mindset.
damn, was working when I posted it.
I mean, if you're basically getting GamePass for free, I don't think anyone would blame you for using it. May as well, right?
There are better ways to drop out of a conversation than to offer a flippant, and, quite frankly, condescending dismissal of the other person's concerns. Just agree to disagree and move on.
I get the feeling that the Republicans are going to start openly running with a "bring back slavery" platform. I feel like I'm being hyperbolic here, but their mask has gone off so far, really since Obama was elected. All they have left is hate.
That image sure was a choice.
If they're informative and/or helpful, I don't mind bots. If they're those stupid pointless novelty bots that were plaguing Reddit, they can go away.
I was offered a month of PC Game Pass for $1, so I took MS up on it. I've mostly been playing Forza Horizon 4(my computer can't handle 5) so far, the game's really fun.
I'm open to suggestions on games in the PC Game Pass library, btw. I plan to cancel before Aug 26th, so I want to get my gaming in before then. I honestly do prefer straightforward action games and RPGs(and strategy as well). Things I prefer to avoid are puzzle solving and super open world stuff. I generally strongly prefer single-player experiences, too.
But that historic win was short-lived. The day after his election, a lawyer and state lawmaker in the area proposed something unusual: that the circuitâs whitest county separate itself from the Augusta circuit, creating a new judicial circuit in Georgia for the first time in nearly 40 years. âDoes the board of commissioners want to be there [sic] own judicial circuit,â Barry Fleming, a Republican state legislator from nearby Harlem, asked the Columbia county commission chair, Doug Duncan, in a text message.
Instead of Williams, Black voters in Columbia county got as their prosecutor Bobby Christine, a Trump-appointed US attorney who was appointed by the Republican governor, Brian Kemp. Christine then chose Williamsâs opponent as his chief deputy.
What. The. Fuck.
I never again want to hear anyone on the right call anyone else a "snowflake".
Sorry! I didnât realize it was paywalled because I could see the whole thing. Hopefully this should work:
Itâs textbook conservative propaganda: pose as a âmoderateâ with a âfair and balancedâ opinion, paint the Rs as misunderstood, and poison the well with a straw man argument.
Ah, the Tim Pool strat.
Thanks for posting all that. Pretty much all of that is awful and evil, as befitting the current Republican Party.
Honestly, that article is pretty lousy. It just boils down to "I oppose gay marriage because I don't like the concept of marriage". Just seems like veiled homophobia to specifically call out opposition to gay marriage when they could have just written "I oppose the concept of marriage, and this is why".