#i've said it before to some people but to me mass effect overall is just a story of give and being given

[dgcatanisiri]

*sigh*

I tire so FUCKING. DEEPLY. of the video game protagonist voice actor war and the way that people get so hung up on who is "better" or, worse even, which is the "proper" performer.

And it gets REALLY irritating when you see the developers very clearly leaning in to it. Like, I understand there's a side of it in the direction of "we need a face to market with" and such, but...

While flawed, I do think Mass Effect Andromeda handled it pretty well overall, giving both default protagonists uses in trailers and marketing material.

And this just kinda hit me because I wrapped out Phantom Liberty and... The prerendered end credits sequence features female V, even though I (obviously) played male V, and it's just... You're showcasing a character that I, the player, did not roll, was not part of the game for me, and...

It just snapped me back to all the bullshit that has surrounded the elements of Kassandra/Alexios and Eivor in Assassin's Creed, where Ubisoft went and said, effectively, by playing with Alexios as the protagonist of Odyssey, I played "wrong," despite marketing the game as "chart your own odyssey," and then putting out content that emphasizes that the version of the game I played both Odyssey and Valhalla, with the male protagonist, is not "right" by having ONLY Kassandra appear in the cross-through storyline, and the "farewell" storyline they patched in putting female Eivor as the only version we get, as if to emphasize that Eivor is "supposed" to be a woman, and that male Eivor is just Odin's image imposed by way of the Animus.

And when I get THAT flashback, I return to the bullshit that's always surrounded the protagonists in Mass Effect and Dragon Age and even going back to Jade Empire and KOTOR, before the voiced protagonists, where I am the outlier not being counted for being involved in fandom space while being and playing male, where people default to using feminine pronouns for the PCs, even when speaking in generic terms of the character, where the fan creations are centered on the female version, not the male.

Which, I know, whine whine, the man is getting a taste of the experience of women in a lot of other places, sure, fine, whatever. I just... I mean, first of all, I could easily argue that this is a problem because it's excluding the queen men in fandom who deserve being respected just as much as the women out there. But secondly, I feel like it's a problem either way, if the fandom is pushing away any segment of people who want to genuinely feel included in fandom, and it's worse when the marketing and advertisement and even the game itself if not impose then... let's take the good faith version of things and say "unintentionally encourage" it with the way things in the game proper put forward ideas.

And I'm also aware that there's the element of, with this specific example of Cyberpunk, how the game was at some point only intended to be centered on V as exclusively female. My issue is that once that changed, there should be efforts made to be balance the handling of the character to respect the variation - everyone who plays will walk away with their own idea of the character as a result, ESPECIALLY when you're marketing your game as an RPG, as a game based in choices.

Like, I've been over well before how isolating that fandom can often be to me as a queer man - I did a big, long, rambley post about it several years back, how the way that the fandom often handles these things is done in such a way that feels like I'm being told that my victories in terms of being seen are "less than" the win of having these variable characters as female, so I should keep my head down and not speak up about what lacks for me.

It's one of those things that I always feel like I'm walking on eggshells to even acknowledge, let alone write out my thoughts and try to process them like I do, when I want to discuss that isolating feeling, and yet know that there's going to be that group of people who will take anything in the bad faith directions.

And, y'know, I am aware that there's always the matter of trying to unpack internalized misogyny because that's part of the world we live in overall, and that I'm aware of an undercurrent of that in some areas of queer male culture, so I'm also dealing with grappling with "is this an issue or is it just that I'm not being catered to?"

But... I think it is legitimate to be uncomfortable when a game, a game marketed as being choice-based and offering variation, is coming across as dismissive of your choice, and when fandom is making you feel like you're feelings of being minimized is not worth being acknowledged.

So... I don't know where I'm going with this, just... needing to word vomit a bit.

#dg gets personal #dg rants

[tsaomengde]

Starfield thoughts

Finished Starfield. If you like Bethesda games, you will like Starfield. If you don't, then you won't. Pretty simple.

More detailed thoughts:

I finished Oblivion's main quest, finished Fallout 4's main quest, and bounced off of Skyrim. Starfield was distinctly the most fun I've had with a Bethesda game. Partly because it's in space and I'm a slut for spaceships and sci-fi. Partly because the combat finally felt - well, look, it's still bad combat. Like, objectively, it is clunky and flat compared to dedicated shooters like Halo or Doom. But it's clunky and flat in a way that feels a little retro to me. Kind of brings me back to FPSes in the 90s.

I also really enjoyed going down the science skill trees and the ship skill trees and crafting myself an OP ship and OP guns. I was playing on Normal and never felt the need to spec into combat stuff. I did not need to put points into Rifles to have them do 20% more damage when my custom-crafted sniper rifle, "That Guy In Particular," could put a penetrator round into someone's head with 85% accuracy from half a kilometer away.

I liked fucking around with the outpost stuff a little bit, but the attempts at giving you the ability to automate production of crafting materials are very clunky. I have not played Factorio or Satisfactory, but I have played an indie factory game called Dyson Sphere Program that is in a very similar vein, and Starfield's ability to set up supply lines between star systems and link stuff up inside outposts is poorly implemented and kind of anemic. Once you spec far enough into science you also get the ability to just make the shit yourself at a crafting table. And the various merchants in the hub worlds sell all the raw materials you ever need, so while setting up outposts to mine the shit yourself is nice, ultimately it is entirely skippable. Which, like, is fine! It's an RPG, you should be able to play the bits you're interested in and leave the rest. But the flip side of that coin is that I respect developers who are like, "You want to be Good at this game? Learn the mechanics." Putting in this big outpost system and then saying "but you don't actually have to interact with it at all if you don't want to" is like if Sekiro said "you can get by without learning parrying."

Spoilers below:

I appreciated that the game picks out the companions you have the highest affinity with at a crucial point in the main plot and says, "You can only save one." It's like the Kaidan/Ashley dillemma from Mass Effect 1, only dynamic instead of static. I did feel bad when my then-BFF Sarah died. Not, like, *super* bad, since none of these people hold a candle to the classic companions from Dragon Age or some of the new hotties from Baldur's Gate 3. But I really did like Sam Coe, mostly because he's voiced by Elias Toufexis, best known as the voice of Adam "I Never Asked For This" Jensen. So I would have been sadder if he'd died, but I put the main plot off until super late and you only get him halfway through it so my affinity level with him wasn't high enough yet to put him in the crosshairs. Ha!

The main plot having to do with multiverse theory, and the NG+ just being the next universe you enter once you finish collecting the macguffins that open the multiverse portal, is clever. I liked that the multiversal travelers you come into conflict with over the macguffins are alternate-universe versions of people you've already met, including whichever character died in the aforementioned choice. Overall, pretty solid writing. Nothing exciting or exceptional that I haven't seen before, but just enough of a twist and a little spice to keep it interesting. It does take a while to build up, though, and everyone who's said "the game only gets good x hours in" is correct. The main plot takes a *lot* of time to heat up. I did a bunch of random Bethesda fucking around and a couple faction questlines before I touched it, and I only went to the main plot when my brain was telling me "I am about to start experiencing diminishing dopamine returns from this game so you might as well finish it up."

At the end of the game, you activate the macguffins, step into the multiverse portal, and are presented with a choice: go on to the next universe (NG+), or stay in the one you have. I liked that there was a choice. My character, Skade, decided to stay in the one they have. They've built a good life for themselves here. They have friends here. They wrested the macguffins from the hands of the multiverse travelers who thought they knew better than everyone else what to do with them. They're not ready to leave. Maybe someday they will be, if and when I come back to Starfield and want to do a NG+. But for now, I, Gabe, am moving on from the game in this universe. In the universe where Skade is a real person, though, they're still going off having adventures with their buddy Sam and his daughter Cora. And I think that's a nice thing indeed.

#starfield #bethesda #review #spoilers #starfield spoilers

[telamons]

i forgot how painful losing thessia was in me3. that shot with shepard watching the reapers destroy the planet as he hears the screams of helpless asari soldiers dying over the comms??

#aya.txt #mass effect #mass effect has always been extremely important to me as a whole #like i've played this game since i was 10yo its literally a part of me i grew up with it #but me3 is really different from the other games especially #in it you get to experience the hopelessness people feel you see just how bad the war is #also i especially love shepard's role in that one #like for example to me me1 and me2 are just here to build the hero/legend that he's supposed to be #he helps people along the way gets allies and proves his strength to the whole galaxy #in me3? he's the one needing support he's the universe's last line of defense for sure but mentally speaking he's constantly on edge #i've said it before to some people but to me mass effect overall is just a story of give and being given #you give people help and hope and they give you the same in return y'know? #idk if that makes any sense tho even in my head it's kinda nonsensical but oh well just know #that me3 is like being home to me <3 #okay i'll stop the venting here i really gotta go to sleep lmao

[quirkdotcom]

Hey everyone !! I am super excited to post this as part of a collab with my fellow members of BNHA Sanctuary! The prompt was " _____ is concerned bc (y/n) isn't sleeping." I chose Izuku Midoriya as my character because he needs a little more love ! So I hope everyone enjoys! Don't forget to check out the other collab writers fics too !!

×××××××××××××××

Technically, Midoriya wasn't supposed to have anyone over in his dorm, even in college he had tried to follow that rule knowing that if he didn't, Iida would probably find out and scold him, but as he flipped over and looked just above your shoulder, his All Might themed alarm clock read out "4:12AM" with red numbers, and he gave a small sigh.

Tonight was one of the first nights that you had been able to sleep before 5am, but the reason was unknown. Midoriya had asked you plenty of times, each time you resulted in you shaking your head vigorously and eyes watering until he just hugged you tightly, saying that you would find another time to talk about it. 

Slowly, scooted closer to you, wrapping an arm around your side, pulling you closer to him.  

The movement, which Izuku had thought he was being slow with, actually woke you up. You blinked a few times before turning and nuzzling into his chest, quietly mumbling, "Are you awake Izu?"

"I'm definitely sleeping…are you awake (Y/n)?" 

You hummed, starting to wake up more now, "A little bit," Yet despite your words, you didn't make any effort to move, "What time is it?"

"4:14 in the morning," he responded, pulling back a little so he could look at you

Slowly you sat up, pulling yourself free from his grasp, suddenly wide awake. 

"Baby?" He sat up next, eyeing you slightly as growing concern seeped in. 

You looked back to him, offering up a smile, "Don't worry Izu, I'm still tired enough to sleep," 

He seemed to relax some, the tension slowly leaving his body, "I'm glad then, because I think it's too early to get up for the day, and that's coming from me of all people,"  he then proceeded to lay back down, hugging the comforter to his chest

You laughed lightly, then paused, letting out a heavy breath, "Hey Izuku, I owe you an explanation, I shouldn't make you worry all the time and have to have me over in your dorm like this," 

Again, he sat up, scooting closer to where you were sitting, "Whatever the reason is, I'd be happy to help you over and over again, okay?" 

You nodded, leaning against him, glad to have that reassurance of support. 

"Well...my quirk has some nasty side effects…" You paused, closing your eyes and allowing the shadow like mass begin to rise from your body. 

It was a lot like Tokoyami's dark shadow in the sense that it was almost another being but attached to you. It could take a multitude of shapes, and most items couldn't pass through it, rather instead would get stuck to it. 

Most of the time you used it to create a large beast of sorts, and it only grew stronger from the fear or unease of your opponents. 

However it's main and personal drawback was arguably the worst. 

"When I don't use my quirk enough, it turns on me in my dreams…well nightmares. The Mass as I call it, separates from me and chases me down. In the end it envelops me and...well I start to suffocate. So I've been staying up late to try and put off the dreams as long as I can," 

In the dark of the room, your quirk was even more unsettling. It looked to be wriggling around, crawling amongst the edges of the room. But the one area it wouldn't go near, was the spot where Midoriya sat. 

Instinctively he wrapped his arms around you, feeling your trembles.  He thought for some time about what you had said until finally, he knew what the root of this issue was. 

"(Y/n) my love, don't let it feed off you," 

You turned at his comment, looking up to him, his oddly calm demeanor throwing you off guard. Normally, most people tended to draw back from you and your quirk, but Midoriya never did.  

"You said that your quirk grows stronger when people are scared or uneasy, and I think that it applies to you as well. It's easily taken over the whole room by now. " 

As you looked to the room, watching as the Mass would slink around the room, at times catching a ray of moonlight, seemingly drowning the light in itself. 

The longer you looked, the more it started to grow, your heart raced, you couldn't find a spot for your eyes to stop, they just kept looking. No one spot in the room was safe from it's grasp. 

Before you could fall further into its depths, two arms circled around your waist, pulling you close, "(Y/n)...you're safe…" 

All at once, the mass receded, leaving the room as it was before. 

With that, you laid down, pulling Izuku with you. While you didn't fall asleep very fast, you still knew that you'd be able to come back tomorrow to try again. 

And you did. You continued to do so for about a week, every night repeating as it had been the first night of that week. 

You still got hardly any sleep, and were starting to fall behind in both your classes and your training. In fact, there would be times where he would catch you fighting the urge to doze off while just hanging out with friends. 

Midoriya found himself asking for the help of your best and closest friend.

"Hey, Tanako, can I ask you something?" 

The water vortex hero-in-training looked up, as she was currently focusing on a book, "First, Midoriya, you can call me by my first name by now, but what's up?" 

"Ah sorry Katsumi…" he gave a sheepish smile and took a seat across from the brunette, "You know how (Y/n) stays up all the time? I've been trying to help them but...nothing is working," 

Katsumi dog eared a corner to her book, closing it as she hummed, "Well, when we were younger, we used to sleep in forts, and had lights strung up so that it wasn't so dark," she met brown eyes to his green ones, "I'm not sure if it would work now...but I think it's worth a shot. " 

Izuku nodded, standing back up, "I'll need to get some lights then..and figure out a good setup for a fort, Thanks Katsumi ! Have fun reading!" 

He started to walk away but didn't get too far before your friend called back out to him.

"Oh and Midoriya, thank you. We've all gotten pretty worried for (Y/n)," 

He nodded, turning back and going over his plan in his head. 

His first stop would be the store, finding some fairy  lights to hang up. He also decided to buy a few extra blankets, and another pillow. 

With that being done, he headed back to the university dorms, making his way to his own and luckily for him, he had some time before you were supposed to come over. 

He started to move things around, pulling the bed over towards the window, and his desk to the other wall. From there, Izuku started to round up all his extra blankets, grabbing extra tacks to hold them up. 

What took up the most of his time was the fact that he couldn't settle on a good way to have the blankets and the overall shape of the fort, after all he only had so much room to work with. 

In fact, he was still working on putting up the blankets by the time you had let yourself into his dorm. 

"Uh..Izuku?"

Midoriya jumped lightly, and turned around to face you, a blush spreading across his face as he realized he had been caught, "Uh..surprise?" 

You took a moment to look around his dorm, noticing the changes in where your bed was, and where he was currently sitting, blankets in hand. 

"Are you...building a fort?" 

Despite all the evidence you had already seen, he quickly glanced around and hid the blanket behind his back, smiling embarrassedly, "I uh...I was..I mean yeah but…" 

But to his surprise, you barked out a laugh, letting your bag slide off your shoulders and to the floor as you made your way over to him, "That's cute ! Let me help!" 

And so, together you both figured out the best set up, easily hanging up the blankets and lights, then using the rest of the blankets to create a comfy space on the floor underneath the fort. Midoriya pulled out his laptop, playing your favorite movie and starting it as you grabbed a few snacks. 

Once fully settled in, he wrapped his arms around you, and let you rest your head against his body. 

In his arms was perhaps the safest spot for you to be. He was warm, comfortable and you knew that you wouldn't have any troubles as long as he held onto you. In fact, you could hardly keep your eyes open in the moment. 

Within the next ten minutes you fell fast asleep. Izuku flicked his eyes to the clock in the corner of his laptop, smiling as he read that it was only around 9:38pm. H3 let out a small and content sigh, holding you a little tighter and closed his own eyes, getting ready to sleep, letting the movie play out in the background.

"I love you, (Y/n)..." he murmured, though you couldn't hear him, he was sure that you knew...and you did. 

#boku no hero academia #my hero academia #boku no hero academia x reader #my hero academia x reader #bnha #bnha izuku #izuku mydoria #midoriya izuku #mha izuku #midoriya x y/n #Midorya x reader #Izuku x reader #deku #mha deku #bnha deku #deku x reader

[soofection]

jenkai discourse in retrospection

 (long post)

to take a slightly more light hearted break from all the updates regarding the burning sun case, I propose a discourse of jxk in retrospection after gaining all the new knowledge exposed by the media recently

dont read if you dont want to, if you read please dont come attack me for posting what I want on my own blog 🥰

In no way is what I type facts, and I am NOT comparing burning sun case with jxk (jxk is so insignificant and jxk is not a criminal case) yet I will make references to what the media and companies are capable of doing as proven by the exposure from the b. sun case regarding similar behaviours.

---

we now know that the kpop world is not what some once thought - an ideal fairytale land where idols/ the media never lie to us.

The truth:

We finally realize for sure that in korean ent. industry, sexual favours (in exchange for sponsors, promotion via media manipulation, basically fame and safety), offering prostitutes services... all in all using SEX is commonly used in return for connections / power / protection from the 'higher ups'.

why did jxk happen?

I propose: to cover yg x jni sex/sexual activities and jni has sponsors rumours (updated). After knowing yg is to a certain degree (personal assumption: large extent) involved in B.Sun and gangnam clubs, it makes sense to suspect that the jni rumour could be real. look up yg's past history, how he obtained his wife (emphasis, obtain). 12 years older yg 'fell in love' the moment he saw his wife as a second year middle school girl, recruited her at 16, ruined her career and married her. who knows how exactly yg treats his younger girl employees? Who is there to protect them?

but its just a 'groundless' rumour why was yg desperate?

to propose reasons: 1) it could be real, if so he HAS to camouflage it before it blows up further. 2) even if its not real, he didnt want to put bp's and his own name's reputation at stakes since bp is his most money earning group right now 3) if he doesnt make a deal with dispatch, who ofc are capable of digging deeper and they hate yg (proven by their ability to obtain kkt chats and exposing b.sun evidences) to supply them a fake scandal to cover ygxjni... dispatch WILL expose him. (also keep in mind jni has other sponsor rumour that might or not be true). and 4) - suggested by anon: yg could be taking precautions before b.sun scandal blows up. As we know b.sun revolves around sex crimes, Yg must get rid of the 'boss had sex with employee' label before b.sun blows up. Or else he will get dragged, it would be like adding oil on fire.

this theory is reinforced by allshitpop stating a media outlet discriminately announced 'the yg x jni rumour was false.' why purposefully mention it when no one asked?

but why ji?

main reason: hes an artist from sm. Yg desperately needed a scandal impacting enough to satisfy dispatch (releasing small unconvincing sandals will discredit dispatch's liability and reputation. ) But what to do when none of yg's male artists are popular enough to create a fuss nor any male groups's careers mature and stable enough to withstand the scandal pressure from the general public? the obvious solution is ofc to beg other big companies - sm or bighxt.

Most popular boy groups atm is still btx and ekso. honestly yg wouldve prefered btx due to their crazy fame, and jni will be their first dating scandal... the reactions would be DRAMATIC. yet in contrast to ekso, btx didnt really need to take that risk in hopes for more popularity. (rmb there would always be adverse effects when being involved in a dating scandal despite positive reactions and large no. of supporters). Also, even if btx has any scandals to cover, bighxt's recent merge with cj-enm (described as 'a powerhouse' aka very huge powerful company) means btx's any potential scandals can be taken care of for now. so that leaves ekso.

Who in ekso fits ji's image the most?

(hence will recieve 'positive' reactions and make them more aesthetically believable. without a doubt, its ji and his on going promoted sex appeal.) Reasons for ji and not other members: 1. theres no harm in giving him a beard (personal belief, ignore point 1. if you think homosexuality/kaisoo pairing isn't plausible) 2. to raise his popularity for his potential upcoming solo. 3. if someone who was involved in dating scandal before came up again, they probably predicts the pairing to be more positively recieved --> more supportors and a more hyped response from the public.

but none of that happened, the scandal was managed poorly. The paris evidence was made in a rush (dates didnt match) park pictures were too ambiguous (again dates and time didnt match), even when dispatch posted a pic of ji in a carpark supposedly came back from hawaii to give jni presents after landing - we learned from ji's own ig live that the day he wore the outfit in the photo, he had already returned to korea a few days ago, was around town shopping and went no where near the airport. Besides these failed attempts there was absolutely no other proof that jxk is real.

why was it poorly managed?

bc this is a rare collab between two big rival companies. Yg was the one begging at the start yet sm wasnt able to take full control of this scandal. Conflicts and disagreements upon makng many decisions were highly likely to occur between these two rivals.

The break up

a lot of fans were shocked when jxk broke up just after 25 days. (brand new record). what else is weird?

sm personally confirmed jxk broke up abruptly. Usually when couples break up, fan rumours start to float around first. But not this time, no rumours surfaced yet sm all of a sudden definitively stated that jxk broke up. Back then I already predicted it maybe because yg or bp got into trouble hence sm wanted to distance themselves as far as possible. I still stand by that idea.

Sm must get away from yg and b.sun case for the sake of theirs/ekso's reputation. sm def dont want to be dragged into the mess. Remember, sm as a huge company themselves def have their own dirt to hide, getting dragged means huge consequences if the investigators target them.

so why did sm agree in the first place? I assume its bc altho sm knew that yg had dirt to hide, they did not know it was something as serious, severe and big as b.sun case / tax evading case. Therefore, what are the coincidences that sm announced breakup shortly before dispatch sparked reinvestigation into b.sun by posting crucial evidences? (the first chats)

its highly possible that dispatch warned sm, (which makes them sound like the good guys but no. remember sm is dispatch's source of money and partnered with them many times. b.sun indeed aint directly related to sm, (as for now) dispatch has no reason to ruin sm) Or, sm could have found out through other sources that b.sun case will blow up soon. they quickly cut their collab with yg early, and announced break up probably without telling yg first. (since telling them possibly means giving dispatch away).

this also suggests that dispatch hates yg but anyway.

The benefits of ji

Comparing the two, jni seems to be the one who gained more from the scandal. She got most of media and the public's attention. there is an explanation for this - shes the 'rookier' one, and the trendier one out if the two since bp is still rising when ekso has reached their plateau. However, ji did gain his own lesser share of attention (indicated by the gained followers on his ig).

I have always said that when idols agree to be involved in a scandal, they are likely to get a 'reward.' but now thinking about it, agreeing to scandals is part of ji's contract, rewards are bonus but not obligations. Besides, the scandal itself supposedly helps ji gain popularity for solo and gains a beard, sm didnt NEED to give him more bonus. Often when idols get more modelling jobs / solo etc after scandals is bc sm uses the risen populairty from scandal as an opportunity to maximise profit by giving them more jobs, it might not be bc sm wants 'pamper' them.

Plan cut short

unfortunately for ji who is not getting his solo soon, the jxk plan flopped due to poor management, and was cut short due to b.sun case. The scandal did not fulfill what it was supposed to do and ended prematurely . Followed by the apparent troubles in sm negotiating contract terms with ekso, (delayed ekso schedules),chxn suddenly getting a solo, and the blowing up of b.sun case, ji might have missed his chance again. Or hes simply still preparing.

to summarize i want to clarify a few things.

- none of these are facts, but an overall picture forming one huge speculation.

- I dont try to defame bp or shame them. i also am not trying to state that girl artists def had sex with the hihgher ups. b.sun has shown us that men always have more power over women, and they rarely get protection.

- I want people to realize the dark side of kpop. The kpop industry is full of conspiracies, media manipulation and lies. What you see on tv is not who your idols are portrayed to be on camera. Don't impose your ideal vision on them and hurt others when reality suggests otherwise.

side note: this theory conveyed reinforcement to statements I've made before

- conspiracies are real and true. Look at all the dark and shady events involved in b.sun case

- media play, mass manipulation exist and are common practice.

- dispatch and sm collab and are partners on a case by case basis.

- idols lie on interviews all the time, their tv persona is different from the real them.

- companies offer protection for their idols

- it is indeed common practice to use one scandal to cover another

ANYTHING can happen in the world of the k ent industry. dont lightly dismiss any possibilities. We must analyse the sum of the situations - the full picture of any events before believing anything we are told.

#kaisoo #jongin #jennie #jxk #analysis #myposts #jxk1 #jenkai

[narrie]

I have a feeling this film is the exact type of film where people really like it or hate it and no invetween. I take people who have said they have seen it with a tiny grain of salt and don’t exactly believe them. However someone I partly know that saw the first screening way before it was even leaked that they had a screening (when that Florence Pugh account leaked it which led to the influx of fake reviews from larries) said she really liked it but did say the version she saw was still rough and not fully finished as the scoring and sound effects for example were not there yet plus other cuts would be made to make it more streamlined. She gave the reviews for the ending after the film which is what they were focusing on for the screening but apart from that she said if it was cleaned up at the end it should do well. There was one person on Reddit that I know for definite watched it and they said almost the same as the person I know plus told me what I figured out about his accents was a spoiler. They had a fight with an obvious Larrie about the film and told them to ignore the mass of negative reviews and said she can tell they are fake as people were calling the characters wrong names as IMDB has some of the characters names listed wrong to the actors so they could tell they hadn’t seen the movie and were spreading the false reviews Harry fans were spreading. They said other things that can be classed as a spoiler so I won’t post them here but overall they were adamant the film should do quite well and they really liked it. This is the same information people on podcasts and the verified inside film accounts on Twitter have said. They have all said the film had really good feedback in the screening and it was mainly the end people had mixed reviews on. One podcast said those they knew that have seen it said it was really good to the point the podcaster can’t wait to see the movie. The plot has been changed from the original script and that is what Olivia said back on Twitter months ago. All the legitimate reviews that you can trust have said almost the same thing and it was just the ending people have the most feedback on (that closest mean it was all negative feedback either) I have hopes for it as they still would have edited it since the last time people saw it. I believe the plot is one that some understand or they might need to re-watch a couple times to understand and that isn’t exactly a bad thing, plenty of good movies and movies I personally love have a complex or “messy” story line that I needed to watch two or three times to understand and fully take in such as interstellar, midsummer and tenet. Yet some of my friends hated them as it was too confusing or gloomy or Fed up for them and made them uncomfortable. Movies, especially the plots are very subjective and I think Harry fans need to remember this. They are forgetting it is not a romcom or a quaint story.

def been hearing that side too but yeah again, it's all subjective in the end! i personally LOOOOVE a thriller and i love a movie that isn't straight-forward, e.g. nolan movies, like i know loads of ppl hated tenet bc it def wasn't easy to follow/understand and i had to watch it twice too but i actually like that??? i can guess plots of movies so easily sometimes (to the point where ppl watching it with me accuse me of having seen the movie already 🙄✋🏽) and i'm not a fan of it bc what's the point thennnn. however my concern with dwd is, from what i've seen, it's gonna go in a direction in the end where it's just like...going off the rails ya know? like the initial movie has nothing to do with the conclusion of it and it's just cheap or sumn idk like for example i wasn't a big fan of the conclusion for the behind her eyes series (spoiler ahead) bc it just goes too much into science fiction all of a sudden in the end there rip ANYWAY we’ll just have to wait and see

#dwd spoilers #ask

[sortyourlifeoutmate]

As I've mentioned before there are many stickers stuck throughout town, on lampposts and such. They represent a variety of causes - trans rights, veganism, environmental concern, punching nazis and so on. Those are all fine, whatever.

The ones I like are, of course, fringe ones, shall we say, and I've seen some good ones lately. Let's see!

This is a good one to start with. I mean, it just begs so many questions. Is it asserting that Covid-19 simply doesn't exist, or that it was overblown? Having been working in a hospital during the heavier months I can assure you it was quite real.

But what lies? That's a broad church, isn't it? Are we talking deliberate misleading - such as, say, implying that a disease doesn't actually exist? - or stating one position only to change it later once newer information comes to light? Which isn't really lying, but might feel like lying to some people.

Fascinating stuff.

Also, when you say "white rose" you're not trying to draw on the, ah, history and clout of the namesake anti-nazi resistance group, are you? Because if you are that's ballsy as fuck.

Anyway, next!

I didn't actually pay for my vaccine, so I'm not sure about this. Or perhaps the insinuation is that the whole thing was drummed up specifically to try and flog a cure to the masses, which seems thin. I mean, developing a vaccine costs a lot of money and isn't a sure hit.

I'm sure some people have done very well out of it but, then again, someone is always doing very well out of something, that's kind of the world we're in.

Also, I mean, no-one's really selling panic, are they? Suppose that's subjective. As cackhanded as government's are - and as ours is - they typically prefer there to not be pandemics, as they disrupt the orderly progression of life. Broadly, governments don't realy care what you do as long as you do it quietly and don't cause fuss. Pandemics cause fuss. The hate fuss but can't throw a disease in prison.

Or is it the media you're referring to? I mean, what reason might the news have to report on a disease sweeping the planet and bringing everything else to a grinding halt? Does seem suspicious they'd report on that.

I mean, did they ever get super hype any of those other times there was a big outbreak like swine flu or whatever? Did they ever go hard on that?

...oh wait.

But maybe that's just me.

I mean, maybe? But there's contexts to these things, aren't there? Not getting thrown in prison for one thing, which seems kind of a big difference, and in the midst of a pandemic actively choosing not to do something to help limit it (for whatever the reason, I'm sure their compelling) does surely make you kind of a risk? Surely?

It's a fraught topic, and I'm sure there's much shouting to be had on the subject of mandates and vaccine passports and such. Maybe a little more consideration of how your actions effect others wouldn't go amiss, just for a start. Mean, aren't we all in this together? And none of us are immune to disease, are we?

Goes beyond covid, too, surely.

Such complexity. I got vaccinated and I feel fine. I also really trust the government now - what fuel crisis?

Ooh, a two-fer (and I like how they're just above a social distancing thing).

I mean, first, again, maybe your level of exposure to the pandemic was thin. Maybe you just saw the restrictions and the (admittedly constant) updates about numbers and such.

But, as I said, having been working at a hospital throughout, I can tell you it wasn't a joke. They turned all the surgical theatres into ad-hoc ICU's! And they filled up! I saw them! I had to very quickly change direction after leaving the changing room after seeing some poor sod full of tubes and surrounded by people in PPE coming round the corner!

Maybe you didn't get sick, and good for you, but a lot of people did!

I think the broad effects of covid probably didn't help here. Some people got it and didn't even notice. Some people got it and it wasn't so bad. Some people suffered and are still suffering even after having recovered. Some people died.

So it wasn't like 'Bleeding out of everywhere' ala Ebola where it's obviously bad. It was instead quiet, patient and possibly very bad, depending. Which isn't very exciting and is easy to think is being overblown.

But, as said, not a joke.

Also, you did see India, right? Fucking funeral pyres by the rivers and all that? People dying from lack of oxygen? Or was that all faked? Mean, guess you could say that. Maybe go over and say it, see how it goes down.

Weird.

And in that vein the second sticker, which is a bit mangled. If you can't read it it basically says that in a real pandemic no-one would be arguing about it which...

...is so fucking stupid I don't even know where to start.

They would. They did. They are. You are!?

But anyway there you go, covid stickers. Not really all that uplifting and, overall, a bit underwhelming. Mean they don't realy say anything useful, do they? Just a vague whiff of "Wake up, sheeple!" and nothing to back it up with. How very depressing.

Oh and you lose points for the white rose thing. Like, come on, get some perspective.

What a time to be alive.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

I'VE BEEN PONDERING PG

It's very common for startups to present to them. Do people live downtown, or have some sort of exit. There is less stress in total, but more as an exploration of gender and sexuality in an urban context, etc.1 I think the goal of this rule; if you can't explain your plans concisely, you don't worry that it might come out badly, or upset delicate social balances, or that can incorporate live data feeds, or that you won't be demoralized if they seem pointless.2 One YC founder told me that it wasn't worth investing in. The patent pledge doesn't fix every problem with patents.3 I can tell from the case. This site isn't lame. They wouldn't all grow as big. It will be easier in proportion to an estimate of your company's value that you'd both agreed upon.

Then you could, I don't care what he says, I'm going to name them: type A fundraising is when you can do, you don't see the opportunities all around us is that we get on average only about 5-7% of a much larger number.4 In most fields the great work is: very exacting taste, plus the ability to direct the course of adding some feature they were asking for.5 Most hackers are employees, and this trick merely forces you to clean up your apartment, writing something that you'll be able to say whether he should be classified as a friend or angel.6 Don't say anything unless you're fairly sure what you want to reach; from paragraph to paragraph I let the ideas take their course. Sometimes a competitor will deliberately threaten you with a business background, and he will automatically get paid proportionally more. Not all of them had never seen the Web before we came to tell them to stop.7 If you're free of a misconception that everyone else is crazy. Most startups that raise money and the kind of alarms you'd set off if you operate like Columbus and just head in a general westerly direction.

As we were in the old sense of managing the round. Technology is a lever. Modern literature is important, but I suspect that most of them a part time job. In the Bay Area would be the answer. But let someone else start those startups. They're not necessarily trying to mislead you. Like a lot of people will make them.

But if you make something they like. 05 PM subject: Re: Revenge of the Nerds on the LL1 mailing list.8 American universities currently seem to be a media company to throw Microsoft off their scent. Java white paper, Gosling explicitly says Java was designed to be a missile aimed right at what makes America successful.9 Different users have different requirements, but I don't think that's the right way to do it. But this is merely an artifact of the rule of law.10 All you'll learn is the words kids are allowed to use. That's the way to the close.11 It did serve some purposes: reading a talk out loud can expose awkward parts. What investors still don't get is what insanely great translates to in a larval startup.

When I talk about humans being meant or designed to live a certain way out of habit or politeness. Hackers & Painters that hadn't been online. Incidentally, the switch in the 1920s to financing growth with retained earnings till the 1920s.12 And the programmers liked it because they don't like to have it. What counts as property depends on what works to treat as property. But this is wrong. What's a prostitute?13 Everyone by now presumably knows about the danger of premature optimization. Essentially, they lead you on. That will change the way they treat the music they sell through iTunes.14

So tablet makers should be thinking: what else can we give developers access to? White said, good writing is rewriting, wrote E. Almost four decades later, fragmentation is still increasing. The more people you have to do it than literally making a mark on the world. Investors looked at Yahoo's earnings and said to one of the principles they teach you is to align the car not by lining up the hood with the stripes painted on the road, but by trying to use mass lawsuits against randomly chosen people as a form of evolutionary pressure. People think that what you want. In principle anyone there ought to have multiple founders who were already friends before they decided to build recipe sites, or aggregators for local events.

Better Bayesian Filtering. They may play some behind the scenes as adults spin the world for a while, can make visual perception flow in through his eye and out through his hand as automatically as someone tapping his foot to a beat. If you looked in people's heads. They are all fundamentally subversive for this reason. I sat down and calculated what I thought was hard, the groups all turned out ok. Election forecasters are proud when they can get it, at this stage.15 The danger of symmetry, and repetition especially, is where the richest buyers are, but figure out precisely where you lose them. If they didn't know what language our software was so complex. 2:21 AM subject: Re: meet the airbeds PG, Thanks for the lead Fred to: Fred Wilson date: Mon, Feb 9,2009 at 11:42 AM subject: Re: airbnb There's a lot to start a startup. And yet they can hold their own with any work of art ever made.

Leonardo?16 It is, as far as possible prevent them from having fun. Doesn't that show people will pay most for?17 After thinking about it than most, but almost everywhere the trend is in that direction. Till then they had to ask permission to release software: the last thing you changed. But fortunately in the US are more conservative than Boston ones.18 People are all you need is to be battered by circumstances—to let the days rush by. But that's something you can fix later, but you can't evade the fundamental conservation law. And yet Apple's overall market share is still small. Though the Web has been around for a millennium is finished just because of its prestige, but because they were ambivalent about threatening their cash cow, mainframe computing. I mean efforts to protect against cosmic rays.19

Notes

Even as late as 1984. Incidentally, Google may appear to be at a large company? Plus one can have escaped alive, or to be good?

To do this all the poorer countries. Ed. But it was the least correlation between the Daddy Model may be a sufficient condition.

And in World War II to the rise of big companies can afford that. And while this is to try to be a win to include in your classes as a result a lot more frightening in those days, but I call it procrastination when someone gets drunk instead of happy. I'm talking mainly about software startups are now the first digital computer game, you can probably write a subroutine to do would be better at opening it than people who might be a good problem to fit your solution. Look at those goddamn fleas, jabbering about some disease they'll see once in China, during the war on drugs show, bans often do better, and instead of the world of the most famous example.

Plus one can ever say it again. When I catch egregiously linkjacked posts I replace the actual amount of damage to the founders' advantage if it was 94% 33 of 35 companies that can't reasonably expect to make a fortune in the case, not because Delicious users are stupid.

But you're not allowed to discriminate on any basis you want to get going, and oversupply of educated ones come up with elaborate rationalizations. I also skipped San Jose is a meaningful idea for human audiences. Though in fact had its own mind about whether a suit would violate the patent pledge, it's not enough to defend their interests in political and legal disputes.

What Is an Asset Price Bubble? This doesn't mean easy, of the river among the bear gardens and whorehouses. They act as if you'd just thought of them could as accurately be called acting Japanese. Many more than 20 years.

It's hard for us!

2%. If a prestigious VC makes a small proportion of the things you're taught.

Doing things that don't scale.

Now the misunderstood artist is not limited to startups. There's not much use, because few founders are willing to provide when it's done as conspicuously as this place was a false positive rate is 10%, moving to Monaco would only give you more than the previous round. Cascading menus would also be good startup founders tend to get going, e.

Emmett Shear writes: True, Gore won the popular vote he would presumably have got more of the flock, or at least, the government and construction companies. People only tend to damp this effect, at least guesses by pros about where that money comes from ads on other investors doing so because otherwise competitors would take forever in the case of heirs, professors, politicians, and everyone's used to place orders.

His critical invention was a kid that you'd want to sell them technology. I'm not dissing these people make the people working for startups, because it aggregates data from so many trade publications nominally have a lot of reasons American car companies have little to bring corporate bonds to market faster; the point where things start with consumer electronics and to run on the firm's site, they're nice to you. Not only do they decide on the young Henry VIII and was troubled by debts all his life. Distribution of potentially good startups, who've already made the decision.

Maybe that isn't really working bad unit economics, typically and then scale it up because they couldn't afford it. An investor who's seriously interested will already be working to help a society generally is to let yourself feel it mid-sentence, but you get an intro to a clueless audience like that.

But it is dishonest of the country turned its back on industrialization at the start, e.

The need has to be employees, or editions with the buyer's picture on the back of Yahoo, we actively sought out people who'd failed out of the things attributed to Confucius and Socrates resemble their actual opinions. The speed at which point it suddenly stops. And when a startup to engage with slow-moving organizations is to write every component yourself, but also very informative essay about why something isn't the last step in this essay I'm talking here about everyday tagging. If not, greater accessibility.

In 1525 he was made a bet: if you hadn't written it? I saw this I used thresholds of.

Especially if they were to work your way up. I managed to find a broad range of topics, comparable in scope to our scholarship though without the spur of poverty are only locally accurate, because those are probably the last step in this respect.

So how do you use that instead of Windows NT? How did individuals accumulate large fortunes in an absolute sense, if you make something hackers use. On the face of it.

But it's telling that it would be to say that it had no idea what's happening as merely not-doing-work. But they've been trained. So far, I preferred to call them whitelists because it depends on a weekend and sit alone and think.

#automatically generated text #Markov chains #Paul Graham #Python #Patrick Mooney #people #sup #editions #airbnb #back #trick #work #stress

[riderofthemaelstrom]

So, I've finally played Mass Effect: Andromeda

I must say, it's not as bad as some people are make it out.

The CC, of course, is total shit. I barely have any control over my character's appearance, and there are nowhere near enough hairstyles to satisfy me( plus, the hairline is too low most of the times IMO). I attempted to make my character a Triss Merigold lookalike, just for the sake of seeing if I can recreate a pretty female character using what I have. I used the short haired black preset because I thought it was the most proportional one( most of the presets looked outright fugly without any tweaking and had disproportionally huge lips as if they artificially used whatever celebrities use to make their lips bigger). I ended up with a red headed latino/mixed race - looking Ryder who, while not the fugliest chara out there, had a perpetual frown on her face that ruined her appearance in a lot of ways and at times made her look more like an angry teenager rather than a mature adult( I don't know if making the characters look younger was intentional, but Ryder is 20-something, not 15, having such expressions looks plain silly.). The animations really are bad( at least they were before they patched it, I still have a cracked, unpatched version), but it's been discussed so many times I don't want to come back to it.

I left the default Scott because my grandma was upset I still wasn't asleep at the time, so I had to quickly wrap up the customization, and I didn't want to leave him customized because my attempts to customize them ended up with him looking either like a socially awkward school student( I would have kept him this way if I was doing a gag playtrough, but that's for later) or like an angry mobster, so I haven't looked around the male character creator as much. I really wish that they actually spent more time developing a more versatile character creator, with more attention to facial shape, rather than adding crazy ass options like purple hair( come at me speshul snowflakes XD), red eyes( I didn't know vampires existed in the ME universe), some really silly tattoos( not that they all are silly, but some really are), and other elements of the SJW fashion that only 14-year-olds and players who don't take their characters seriously would choose, which weren't present on any NPCs in the original trilogy but for some reason are present here. because I've seen fanmade character creators that can do a lot more *side-eyes Skyrim's RaceMenu* . But enough of this.

The chunk of the story I played was... okayish, I guess? I've seen worse, I've sen better. But I don't think, its the "average" okayish, but instead "hopping between good and incredibly silly" okayish. Some moments I really liked, were dramatic, and I would even say they're well done, but there are also incredibly cringy moments there and there.

Also, the cliches. First it was the *SPOILER* "offing the parents in the beginning" trope. Am I the only one who is getting more and more fed up by it? Like, let them make it at least until the middle of the story, so their death could have had an impact( remember when they killed off the player's spouse in the first 20 minutes of Fallout 4, and as a result, nobody cared)? Or let them not die at all, because let's face it, while parents dying is a source of drama, losing one of them is not nice, with "not nice" being a scandalous understatement. Alec Ryder seems like he could have been an interesting character, but they had to kill him off so that the player character could be special. Which brings me to the next trope that is IMO very overused.

I don't know what's this with storytellers in media, but making the main character special seems like a big deal( and it's always been a big deal for BioWare games). As I wrote earlier, Ryder's father dies, after which Ryder is promoted to a Pathfinder, with a kinda thin argumentation that other people wanted it, despite your character having less experience than the other people around. Then, suddenly, everyone looks up to you and see you as the solution to their problems, again, despite you most likely still not wrapping your head around what's happening. And the more I play, the more the game starts to feel like a Space Jesus simulator( not that the original trilogy didn't give such vibes, but it wasn't anywhere near Andromeda's level of Space Jesusing, unless you take the shitty endings of ME3, which most players ignore anyway, into account).In one mome t you become the beacon of hope to everything and everyone. 

I know that players love feeling special. Still, not every character gets to or should be the Saviour of All. There are smaller, less remarkable characters, whose stories happen to be just as, if not as engaging as the stories about the Chosen Ones. I mean, take the Witcher 3. Geralt is a witcher. Sure, he gets himself into different kinds of stuff thourought 7 books and 3 games, he does different things, which gets him different kinds of fame, but that doesn't make him the Chosen One, or the saviour, or something like that. That role is given to his ward/ adopted daughter, and his search for her is what kicks the main quest off. During he sidequests, other than dealing with monsters, he also has to deal with peasants and townsfolk who are not that special or outstanding. Yet, somehow most of TW3 quests are more dramatic, interesting and touching than the ones I've seen in Andromeda. Again, like I said, you can make a story about a character who isn't the Chosen One that is still interesting.

Back to Andromeda. While I haven't gotten particularly attached to them like I did to the original trilogy characters, they do seem likeable. Liam is goofy at times and it kind of amuses me, but he seems like a good buddy. Cora seems kinda badass, the cool, experienced character to Ryder's young and curious. Haven't settled for a romance yet, if I romance anyone, I'll probably go for Jaal( I'm a dirty alien fucker and I'm not sorry XD) , but. I. Want. Turians. Quarians. And. Drell. Why aren't there any options of them( yeah, they said Drell and Quarians will be late, but a male Turian flirt option would be nice).

I've noticed that they removed the Paragon/Renegade conversation choices, and while I am happy they removed an unnecesary karma meter that forced you between picking two flairs of dialogue, I still don't know if they kept the interrupts. No need to label them Paragon/Renegade, just the interrupts. They were fun. I haven't seen them yet, but I hope they kept them. As for the tone system, I haven't played far enough yet to see what effects it has on your experience of the game.

I like combat. It seems challenging( at least on Hardcore, which I chose for my playtrough), and at the same time more versatile than the one we used to have. Really an improvement over the original trilogy on this department. Bravo, BioWare.

I hope nobody takes this as a negative review( post? whatever?). With me trashing CC and discussing the story tropes, it might seem like I am hating on ME:A, but I'm not. It's an okay game. Not as good as the original ME trilogy, but not the worst thing I've ever played either. Overall, I think your opinion might depend on your expectations of the game. Still haven't played far enough to consider the game a win or a disappointment, but I don't think it's as terrible as some people made it out to be. Anyway, you may not agree with me. You play - you find out.

#Mass Effect #mass effect andromeda #mass effect: andromeda #mea #me: a #mass effect andromeda spoilers #mass effect: andromeda spoilers #mea spoilers #me: a spoilers #fallout 4 spoilers #Fo4 spoilers #kinda review #my opinion #scott ryder #sara ryder #alec ryder #liam kosta #cora harper