#we don't hate it at least

[fvaleraye]

"Wherefore is my throat so parched?"

[technically-human]

An oh moment of sorts

[marzghost]

Ok so I know my two cents in the situation concerning skizz may not matter since I'm not trans but I still wanted to get this out there because if I'm being honest I hate how everything is going down right now. I am genderfluid so I can't say that him not saying trans rights didn't hurt a bit at the time but I got over it fairly quickly maybe because I feel like he's right in that he's shown that he supports the LGBTQ+ community time and time again by his actions or maybe because he'd worked so hard to create a place where people could be kind to each other and forget the harsh realities of our world and society. As much as we want our existence not to be "political" or "polarizing" the truth of the matter is that it is when it sure as fuck shouldn't be. I'm a hispanic afab genderfluid pansexual living in the USA south and the truth of the matter is that most 40+ year olds that support us don't even go as far to show their support like Skizz does. The fact that some of the fandom is calling to boycott him is just absolutely insane to me because why are you going to go out of your way to hurt someone who is a disabled ally, and yes he is disabled since he suffers from MS, and has expressed his fear over and over again about not making enough money for his family if he went full time content creator? He recently became a full-time content creator and just hit 200k subs on his main channel. You have a right to be mad, we all do, but to try and use tactics that are meant to be used on big time companies and such on someone like Skizzleman is absurd. By that logic Scar and other bigger more popular hermits should be boycotted because they love Disney and talk about Harry Potter. You can't pick and choose who you turn a blind eye too just because they're more popular or less known. If I'm not wrong Skizz lives in a red state so yeah he's a cis white male giving him more wiggle room than most but you guys have to realize he does have a family he has to protect and provide for. Skizz does not care what people think of him. He says this on multiple occasions but he sure as hell cares about his family and like it or not people have been killed for saying they support us.

As for the situation with his mods, we have to understand that those types of things take time. He's had those mods for a while with one being on his team for five years if I remember correctly, please correct me if I'm wrong, and can't be replaced overnight not to mention by now they're probably somewhat seen as friends. I don't think they've ever brought up their beliefs inside of streams or videos so maybe I'm crazy but I don't think that should be held against Skizz. He haired them to do a job and they did it pretty well despite their whack ass political beliefs. Yeah obviously he should fire them but damn give it a month or something don't go straight too killing the man before he can learn!

[hilacopter]

conflating diaspora jews with the actions of the israeli government is not okay, yes, but have you considered it's not okay to conflate israeli jews with them either

[myfairstarlight]

just thinking about how distraught mel looks when she sees the hextech weapons after promising jayce she wouldn't let the council corrupt his dreams, essentially making all her efforts vain

and viktor's blank face as he sees the blueprints for the weapons, showing that jayce broke his promise not once, by reviving him with the hexcore, but twice.

idk, something about paths diverging or whatever. They left him alone unsupervised for like one day and he does this shit

[dalniente]

What progress at home has biden enacted? What policies of his show that he is making progress that prove he is actually different than trump?

I like to pretend I have faith in humanity, so I'll answer as if you're asking this in good faith.

Biden's DEA has lifted restrictions on telehealth prescriptions to make appointments and assistance more accessible.

He put a funding package into place to help unhoused people get access to mental and physical healthcare, as well as short-term and long-term housing.

He has attempted and is still attempting to get student debt relief through - this was blocked by Republican judges appointed by Trump, but he's still working on it.

Infrastructure repair - his administration has budgeted funds to actually fix some severely-damaged and frequently-traveled bridges.

Trying to expand access to healthcare to include undocumented immigrants who came to the USA as children (Dreamers) under the Affordable Care Act. Support for Navigator programs and outreach has also been increased.

He has vetoed Republican-led bills that were attempting to overturn environmental protections - one that would have forbidden investment fund managers to consider climate change in their portfolios (I have two degrees in accounting and this is actually huge), and another that would have overturned restrictions on agricultural runoff into our waterways.

He and his administration worked for ages to get rail workers paid sick days.

This is just some of what he's been doing. Meanwhile, Trump and other Republicans want to criminalize the lives of LGBT people like you and me. They want to eliminate no-fault divorce and force births that will kill parents or devastate them financially. They have stated flat out that they want to install a military dictatorship in the USA. They attempted to put that in motion on January 6th, 2021. They failed once. They will do better next time.

One party wants to house the homeless and expand social safety nets, while the other one wants to criminalize homelessness. One of them wants a future in which I might be able to vote to change how much of a war machine my country is, while the other one wants to eliminate my ability to vote entirely. Those are not the same. Those literally are opposites.

At the end of the day, all you and I can do is choose to do the least amount of harm possible. You and I cannot choose to do no harm. This is the USA, we sell war, you and I cannot choose to do no harm. I wish we could, my god do I wish we could, but that is not an option. So we grieve for the harm we couldn't eliminate and work to minimize the harm that is done. Despite all the crap they support, Democrats are the minimum amount of harm right now. Acting like they aren't is exactly what brought us to an election where our options are a future where we are either wading in blood or drowning in it.

Not voting for Biden will not help Palestine. Not voting for Biden will guarantee a Republican president who will make the situation in Palestine WORSE. AND it'll hurt a lot of other places as well, both at home and abroad, because Republicans are about business and the USA is in the business of war! And I would very much like that to change someday! I would very much like to someday be able to choose to do no harm! And I know what I have to do to try for that future, so what are YOU going to do? There is no standing off to the side in this. If you aren't helping pull, you're the dead weight we're pulling. Are you going to dig your feet into the mud and blood and drown us there? Or are you going to get the fuck off your ass, grit your teeth, and help us pull free?

[bluewolfangel01]

Mc: 😠

Demons: 😥

Luke: ... What's going on?

Solomon: Mc is upset at the brothers, Diavolo, and Barbatos because they "didn't come home."

Mc: Correction, I'm upset at the brothers, Diavolo, and Barbatos, EXPECT for Lucifer. Cause at least he comes home to me!!!

Lucifer: *standing with a smug look on his face*

Demons: But Mc 🥺

Mc: *turns back to them* I don't want to hear it. If yall don't want to come home that's fine, guess I'll just only ask for Lucifer from now on.

Demons: BUT MC!!! 😢

[is-that-sand-in-my-waffles]

the longevity of droids is driving me a little insane because WHAT DO YOU MEAN R2 outlived multiple generations of Skywalkers. What do you mean BD saw one master live and die and we don't know how Cal's story will end. WHAT DO YOU MEAN CHOPPER WILL OUTLIVE HERA

[erinwantstowrite]

is this a safe space to admit i don't really like jayroy,,,,,,

[aegann]

Hades 2 fandom constantly driving me fucking crazy acting like there is only ever a single valid interpretation of every Greek myth (EXTREMELY untrue!!).

+ Supergiant are not even trying to be 100% accurate to actual mythology, they are literally doing their own thing! Let them fucking cook!

[blueskittlesart]

*sigh* thoughts on Nintendo's botw/totk timeline shenanigans and tomfoolery?

tbh. my maybe-unpopular opinion is that the timeline is only important when a game's place on the timeline seriously informs the way their narrative progresses. the problem is that before botw we almost NEVER got games where it didn't matter. it matters for skyward sword because it's the beginning, and it matters for tp/ww/alttp (and their respective sequels) because the choices the hero of time makes explicitly inform the narrative of those games in one way or another. it matters which timeline we're in for those games because these cycles we're seeing are close enough to oot's cycle that they're still feeling the effects of his choices. botw, however, takes place at minimum 10 thousand years after oot, so its place on the timeline actually functionally means nothing. botw is completely divorced from the hero of time & his story, so what he does is a nonissue in the context of botw link and zelda's story. thus, which timeline botw happens in is a nonissue. honestly I kind of liked the idea that it happened in all of them. i think there's a cool idea of inevitability that can be played with there. but the point is that the timeline exists to enhance and fill in the lore of games that need it, and botw/totk don't really need it because the devs finally realized they could make a game without the hero of time in it.

[noperopesaredope]

Me: Ooooo, I wonder what this "Mouthwashing" thing is that everyone's been obsessed with lately. I should check some of it out.

Me, 30 minutes later: I would kill myself for you, Anya.

[maythedreadwolftakeyou]

perhaps my most #cancelable videogame take i can post on this website is i think that the kind of people who say that anyone who picks the "morally wrong" or "mean" options in video game dialogue should, as a player, feel bad about their own choices/morals in real life. is that those people are just another flavor of the kind of dudes who play Disco Elysium and get mad for not being rewarded for picking the facist options. both of these groups are reducing games to "a thing I want to agree with me and everyone else who doesn't either suffers or does not have the option to play a character who behaves otherwise" rather than "a medium where you get to (or even Have to) explore different kinds of characters in order to experience the full depth of the story and characters in it."

When I want to pick options in a game that are mean, negative, arrogant, or ignorant, it's because I want to explore what would push a character into becoming that kind of person. Sometimes I want to see how the NPC characters who I-The-Player like/agree with react to someone who is fundamentally different from them. I think it's GOOD actually when the narrative allows you to push limits and especially when it has the option to then punish you for it in some way, such as losing options/routes later on, or companions straight up abandoning you for your choices. It DOES often make me deeply, viscerally uncomfortable to make choices in a game that are so counter to my own, but it means I get to experience that discomfort in an isolated environment and also think about what it means, what would push the character or even yes a real person into actually feeling those things. And I get to play with what ways the narrative could challenge them/make them grow over the course of the game--or on the other side, it can let me make a character who does start off more open/accepting but let the events of the narrative push them into being more reactively closed-minded instead.

I like that we have invented a medium where you can play a game multiple times and experience it differently depending on the character you play as. Books and TV and movies are all static--the greatest draw of games to me is the ones that are responsive, that can tell a slightly different story every time--when other characters in the game respond differently to you because of it, or some paths open up and others don't. And so yes it did disappointment me when a franchise that previously had these elements, Dragon Age, did not include them in the most recent installment. I don't think games should have options where you get to just hit a button to say something racist with no consequences or exploration into why a character would do that. but like, if i can only ever play a game as an upstanding person who is morally right all the time in basically the same flavor for every dialogue. I only get to truly play that game Once, you know? And I only get to see the way the companions react to someone they like and trust. And never really go deeper than that.

So like... I just sit and think about the scenes you can get in Inquisition. with Cassandra breaking down, because she fears she placed a would-be tyrant at the head of a powerful organization--that she searched and searched and chose wrong. Of Varric who is desperate to convince you not to become a monster, like the last person he feels betrayed him. Vivienne intentionally pissing you off because she wants to see how far you'll go when angered, how much she has to worry about your reactions. They say so much about the companions, what they fear most, and where they will draw the line. And especially in Inquisition, at these crisis points--you don't have to double down. Your character can have a come-to-Andraste moment where they go "woah... is that really how people see me? is this what i want?" and I think that kind of option can do way more for encouraging actual players to examine the choices they make in stories, more than locking the player into supportive, non-aggressive options does.

now. do i think all games execute these flavors well? no. writers and devs will have their own biases and blind spots, even if they are otherwise well-intentioned. and I don't think the ends of the scale need to extend from "absolute angel" to "horrible bigot", because the real complexity of course lies in the middle. I am not asking for games to let me be bigoted at every turn, what I want is games that let me make the protagonist deeply flawed in one or more ways--fearfully closed-minded to things outside their upbringing, or afraid of change to the status quo, or who want to advance their own aims regardless of consequences to others. I actually agree that the game was correct not to include any options for disrespecting Taash and their personal journey for example, but I do wish... idk maybe that we could have had a scene where if for instance the player character avoided outside-world missions relating to clearing away blight, they could confront us on how this might devastate the natural world and its creatures like dragons, and push us into trying to resolve it. Or in the other direction, if you spend the (currently meaningless) time giving money to background NPCs begging in the cities, Neve could could have a special cutscene thanking you for your attention to people otherwise beneath notice. You know?

And of course not every game can do this, I can write those sentences up there that represent hundreds of hours of dev time, of course they can't do it all. But the prior games usually did have at least a little of this, and that was enough to make me really fall in love. I KNOW the tumultuous development cycle, restarts from scratch, interference from higher-ups all contributed to why Veilguard was unable to hit those same marks this time. And we probably won't ever know how much of the loss of options/reactivity was intention vs a side effect of these things. But I wish people wouldn't frame players who miss these aspects as insane/morally corrupt. When for most of us it's because we genuinely enjoy challenging and exploring these aspects of reality in fiction in a way entirely unlike what we actually support in real life. i fully acknowledge not everyone desires to play this way. and that's fine!!! i am glad people can enjoy doing a "good" run each time that brings them joy. but for me it really limits the potential bounds of my enjoyment i guess. I like media that is complicated and messy and makes me think, and extra so when I get to see how playing that way impacts the greater story around it.

[wastefulreverie]

girl wake up im writing a no one knows au sequel

“Danny, one of these days you have to tell us what’s up,” Sam said. “You can’t stretch yourself thin like this forever. Whatever your secret life has you doing.” “I don’t have a secret life.” Which is exactly what someone who had a secret life would say, but Danny obviously evaded this with the loophole that was being dead. His secret half-life was also none of their business.

[deerfests]

Christian Slater in season 1, episode 10 of Dexter: Original Sin.

[meatballlady]

Every single fic after s1: "and then they went to Crowley's flat, and they confessed their eternal love, and they stared deeply into each other's eyes..."

Me, not realizing how bad it could be: "yeah, okay, love it, but some variety would be nice - "

Every fic after s2: "And then Aziraphale got to Heaven and immediately realized that he was a fucking idiot and wanted to turn around and grovel on his knees before Crowley but he couldn't because it was all a trap. Meanwhile, on earth, Crowley has been drinking for 84 years ... "

Me: *incoherent screaming*