Asheyguru

The first thing that comes to mind when one thinks "bloody stupid."

A bloodstone is made of the user's vitae, so the ritual Blood Walk could conceivably tell you the name of both the creator and their sire. You could also use Illuminate the Trail of Prey with the designated person being "the creator of this bloodstone."

Of course, these are both blood sorcery rituals, so if no-one in the coterie knows they'll need to ask, and how do they know the kindred they're asking isn't the owner themselves or a lackey? Very tricky...

Did you know Casablanca was originally going to be a stage play called Everybody Comes to Rick's?

Big ups to you, fellow {{normal human}}

I always liked the notion of the Machine Spirit being a joke. That the Mechanicus were so far gone into technology-worship and become such a cargo cult they had canonised personification of machines into religious doctrine.

Like, we might joke "Man, this printer just hates me" but they think some part of it actually does and try to placate it with incense and offerings and rituals, one small part of which involves rebooting it or cleaning it, which is the bit that works, but they have forgotten which bit works or why the ritual is performed so do the whole thing.

But that definitely isn't the only way it can be read, and I think different authors have different ideas.

A pavlovian response is when a person has a strong reaction to something because they've been conditioned to. It's named for Ivan Pavlov, a Russian psychologist.

But Pavlov doesn't exist on the Disc, so why is it called that? Because a wizard conditiined dogs to eat pavlovas (though the footnote calls them "strawberry meringues" so you have to figure out the pun yourself.)

A pavlova is a kind of dessert.

Medici = Medic

Vetinari = Veterinarian

White Wolf has a long and storied tradition of impenetrable, horribly organised books and the V5 core is another proud participant.

The table of contents is actually considerably better than previous editions. But folks at the World of Darkness factory seem to remain steadfast in their opposition to the idea that these things are meant to be easy to reference quickly during play.

I would watch this Syfy channel movie

The coolest possible thing happened

Astroturf is fake grass.

Astroturfing is a fake grassroots movement.

Or, did. Like a lot of terms that hit the internet, people start using it in wacky wonderful ways and it can get very different.

So I say lay back and enjoy it. It's a hell of a toboggan ride.

Oh my sweet Summer child

That's fair.

Though it was the 80s. They were pretty typical for their time.

Huh. I think you're in the "just learned a new thing" club: this happens often, to a lot of people. Heck, I've done it: I say my daughter's name so often sometimes my brain just subs it in for the name of whoever I'm talking to, especially if they're also female.

Have you really never seen a parent do this? Mine did it almost routinely.

I think Twilight was a weird case where making one word to describe it kind of made things harder to understand.

Largely whatever you want it to look like, though the books imply most are; A] very inhuman and B] a little mechanical in aesthetic. Though those aren't required elements.