Bjorn

Finished this up this evening, ended up really rushing through the final two battles (managed to beat the final battle in a single turn by spamming my two beefiest Shocktroopers). Ultimately it is a really good game, that falls just short of being amazing for me, mostly because of the repercussions of the introduction of the supernatural stuff towards the end. That just tainted both the story and the gameplay for me in a lot of ways. But the rest of the game getting there is really damn good.

I enjoyed the first episode, felt that it was pretty solid considering it was his first time out, but haven't got around to watching yesterday's show yet. I actually liked his interview with Kevin Hart a lot, I think he's got the potential to be a good interviewer. I've never felt that Stewart was a particularly strong interviewer. Sometimes he was willing to ask tough questions, sometimes he wasn't. He had a tendency to spend as much, or more, time talking than his interview subjects did. For most of the last 4-5 years I've skipped the interview portion unless it was someone particularly compelling, so if I have to do the same with Noah, it won't represent any change in my viewing habit.

I hate to admit it, but after getting Nexus 6, I'd have a real hard time going back to anything smaller.

A recurring joke in this thread. At some point a series of people's pictures all had a towel visible somewhere in them, and so now pictures without towels are criticized for their lack of towel.

Yeah, we definitely covered a lot of the same territory, I didn't see your post until I submitted mine. It is nice to see someone else was seeing the same things I was.

I'm not offended by the piece at all, frustrated that it's a bit of a mess and frames the originating couple as not enough, to begin with. Not queer enough, not radical enough, not feminist enough, not oppressed enough. The original couple is really a strawman, very few couples exactly fit what is being presented. I'll try re-writing what I had already wrote to take the bite out of it, plus I need a break from work anyways. It frames its styles as having "feminist principles" at their cores, which since the starting couple is presented as like a comparison point, it makes it feel (to me) that their relationship isn't feminist enough. Which hey, some non-monogamous couples aren't very feminist. Some are. But it's an odd point to make, since the vast majority of non-monogamous people I know trend towards being the most feminist in terms of their relationships, even the ones who look like the starting couple. I know a lot of non-monogamous people. The vast majority (even the white, middle class, cis presenting ones) have bisexual, homosexual, or other queer elements to them, but in the context of that comic, the example they would most likely appear to be would be the starting couple. The comic argues for recognizing diversity, while erasing the diversity of the starting couple, particularly the likelihood that the starting couple has at least one bisexual in it. That they're not queer enough to count as being really queer or radical. Edited to add: Deadpan's point number one says this better than I did. Several of the "styles" aren't actually styles of non-monogamy, they are approaches to relationships or life that exist regardless of relationship structure. Style 2, challenging gender norms has nothing to do with non-monagamy. Literally nothing. You can do that single, as part of a monogamous partnership, as part of a triad or as part of any relationship structure. It's just there to try and make the following list look more diverse than the comparison starting couple. Style 5, respecting partner autonomy and recognizing that even a committed relationship may one day end has nothing to do with non-monogamy. Even a really healthy monogamous couple should be able to say that to one another. There's nothing to indicate that original couple aren't already engaging in Style 3, the non-policing of each other's desires. By contrasting them with it, the comic indicates that they are policing one another. This is something that is really fucking hard, and pretty much everyone struggles with it in one way, shape, form, or another. It's frustrating that it frames the originating couple's structure as not being radical or challenging enough to the status quo. Being non-monogamous in the midwest, that just ain't the case. I know people who've been fired, who've lost custody of their kids, ended up in protracted legal battles over kids, lost friends and family. And having just completely come out as non-monogamous to everyone in our lives this year, framing it as just a nudge, or not really that radical, just isn't the case for many, many people. This is something that is context sensitive, and while being non-monogamous in Portland might not be a big deal, being non-monogamous in Sam Brownback's Kansas is. Or being non-monogamous in Utah, or Oklahoma, or any number of other places in this country. The comic presents the originiating couple, and the media who covers them, as having blind spots, while also having some pretty big blind spots of its own. I'm frustrated that it prioritizes long term commitment in every single style. Recognizing and embracing the value of short term relationships, that are handled in mature, loving and respectful ways, is a radical thing to me in our culture. Long term or lifetime committed relationships are the expected goal that everyone thinks they should be pursuing, and most of the styles presented re-enforce that (every single style uses phrases like "be together forever", marriage, together for 7 years, raising kids together, homemaker, etc). This is contrasted with what are presented as the casual relationships of the original couple. If you're going to label things radical, there's an argument to be made here about what is and isn't radical in the context of our culture. I've also got a really complex series of thoughts about a kind of non-monogamy not presented here, and one that I suspect would never show up in this comic (this may be unfair to the author, I don't know them, but it feels tonally out of place for the argument they are making). And that is the style of professional sex workers. I have two close friends who are both professional sex workers, both partnered, both in open relationships (counting both their professional and personal lives). You want to talk about challenging the status quo, about being disruptive to the old white people in power? But they don't fit the images presented in the 5 "styles". All that said, I like the idea of the comic. I don't disagree with the core message, that we should recognize the many different forms of non-monogamy, that it's frustrating that midddle/upper class cis white people tend to be the focus when non-monagamy shows up in media, and that even non-monogamous people can still have varying degrees of privilege. I'm just really frustrated by some of the other messages in it and the execution. Edited to add: Thank you, this is a better said version of what I was trying to say in one of my points.

This comic about non-monogamy is making the rounds on Facebook for me this week, and it's got me really frustrated. I actually wrote up a critique of it, but it's angry sounding (angrier than I would like, which is in part because I'm in a fucking grouchy ass mood from what has been an incredibly irritating day of work so far and it's just got me in an irritable frame of mind). I don't really want to engage on Facebook about it, because I basically anticipate a dogpile if I criticize it in any way, given the people and groups it is coming from. But I wanted to post it here to maybe talk about it once I've chilled out a bit and see what other people have to say.

That's what I remember as well, but it may still be possible to skip a pretty good chunk if you know what you're doing. I don't remember the progression well enough to say for sure.

I finally got around to trying this out, and I was a bit lukewarm on it at first, but the more I play the more and more it gets its hooks into me. It helped a bunch when I mapped out everything to a controller, with each of the face buttons being the attack of one of my people.

So Twitch Plays Dark Souls ended up actually beating the game, after spending a couple of days failing to figure out how to climb a ladder. Apparently they had to change the way it was being played, turning it into a turn based affair. Which now I'm watching Twitch Plays Dark Souls 2, and this is dreadfully boring. It takes about 4 times as long to vote on a move than executing the move takes.

Mostly I appreciate the GOTY lists as reminders about what all games came out this year that I never got around to playing. Generally useful as a list of shit to buy next year when its on sale. I also like seeing people really gush about the games they like, which we generally don't get enough of I think (and I recognize that I'm someone who trends towards talking about my negatives on a game, so I'm part of the problem).

There are two games basically called Two Brothers that both fridge the mother in the opening scene? Da fuq.

Thankfully I've only got 2 chapters left, so even if it gets worse, it's a short drop to the hard stop. It sounds like the anime does Alicia a disservice, through the first two-thirds of the game, she's a generally good, if a bit bland, character. Welkin is the character who deserves to be drug out into a field and crucified. Alicia was in the process of destroying the war machine (had just thrown her lance through it, the first time anyone had done any damage to it at all), when he ran out and stopped her. With, literally, the rationale being that if she destroys it by herself, the victory will be meaningless and none of them will have learned anything. Because apparently when your country gets invaded by one of the world's superpowers, it's meant to be a character building opportunity. He's got a massive boner for her, and she was almost certainly going to die in finishing the war machine off, but his big old nerd boner couldn't allow that. It's Welkin who can't set aside his feelings and operate as the squad commander he's supposed to be. It honestly feels like there were two different writers for the game. It swings wildly back and forth between being a solid war story to just the worst anime-tropy indulgences. There's an entire chapter of cut scenes that take place during a beach party that were just cringeworthy throughout. And then there's a Darcsen slave you rescue, who gives a moving anti-war speech about pacificism, forgiveness and love....and then in the next chapter he signs up for the army, they give him a tank and he starts blowing shit up. His tank even has a custom flamethrower so he can roast the enemy alive in their armor. He's like Ghandi, with a tank. And six pack abs. Edited to add: Another part of the weird dissonance with stopping Alicia is that somehow she's undeserving to use her power, like she didn't earn it. Nevermind that Welkin has a supertank he inherited from his father. That every character has two sets of potentials/powers, one set of which are innate to them and the other set they earn through experience. It could be read as an indictment of using super weapons (like nukes) in war, but it doesn't really feel that way. It's just that she's more powerful than anyone else, and that's not okay. Which is a potentially interesting dynamic to explore (because yes, people should be afraid of her), but it's handled so hamfistedly.

I watched about 10 minutes total of it, around the middle. In theory I think that lunar eclipses are cool, but in practice it's a slow enough process that I get bored. Thankfully I live in the country, so I can just wander outside occasionally and see how it is progressing.

I've taken probably a half dozen good runs at Uplink over the years, and never been able to get to the end. I didn't backup my saves, because I wanted to try and make it pure, but ultimately having to start over is what made me quit trying, so maybe I should have. I always had a fondness for that game though, even if it there are a lot of problems with it.

Haha, I got to that mission tonight and accidentally broke/cheesed it. I was messing around with running Alicia and Cherry around finding safe spots, and reloading when I'd get them killed, and at the end of one turn I had a couple of Command Points left, so I decided to try shooting the god lady with my tank (after having already seen how easily she dodged my sniper). Turns out she can't dodge tank shells. Next round she healed to full, so I dropped all my damage and aim boosting orders on Welkin and 2-shot her. Mission complete, no permanent causalities. I could see how rage inducing that mission was going to be though, so I don't feel bad. I did a bunch of the skirmishes and Class Challenge maps over the weekend though, trying to level up some of my characters to get some more Potentials and Orders. I really dug some of the Class Challenge maps, especially the Lancers (16 enemy tanks!!!) and the Shocktroopers. They did a good job of showing how kickass those classes can be in the right situations. The story of this game took a hard left turn to Dumb Town though. A doomsday war machine is barreling down on the capital, where massive civilian casualties are likely if we can't stop it. Women and children, dogs and cats, old and young will all have their bones crushed to dust beneath it. The bulk of the army has been annihilated. If the war can't be brought to a stop within days, if not hours, the country has no chance of winning. If it isn't stopped here, the empire will gain access to untold quantities of ragnite, likely fueling their domination of the rest of the continent. The Darcsens will continue to be hunted, enslaved and massacred. And god child Alicia has the ability to halt the entire war all by herself, out in the middle of no where, saving untold lives. But she doesn't, because REASONS. Because there's no god in team, and teamwork is more important than preventing more war atrocities. And all the power in the world isn't worth more than a country boy's kiss. Because apparently you can't save the world AND have a boyfriend. Choke me with a chainsaw.

I've been really digging You Must Remember This, a podcast about the history of Hollywood, but focusing on the lesser known, hidden, forgotten or secret aspects. I started with last season, which is all about the Manson Family murders, and the surprising connections (to me, who knows almost nothing about them) between Hollywood, the music industry and Manson.

Hilariously, shortly thereafter, I realized that my scouts aren't just the best units in the game, but that they've been Mary Jane'd and now serve as replacements to every other class. The next several missions I fought were all a cakewalk. Need to kill a tank? Scout. Need to kill a sniper halfway across the map? Scout. Need to blow up a group of bunched up enemies? Scout. Need to reach an objective? Scout. With their crazy movement range (and sometimes double movement with their 4th potential) and judicious use of a couple of defensive orders to make up for their squishiness, there's nothing they can't do better and faster than every other class. Alicia might as well be Batman and Cherry is her chipper ninja sidekick. The pair just run around battlefields slaughtering whole battalions. One map, I could see how it could be really interesting and challenging, if scouts didn't exist.

I'm going to be smart, and quit Fallout: New Vegas while I still like it. I can feel myself getting increasingly frustrated with it (with the same things that I get frustrated with all games built in Bethesda's engine/formula). The writing is generally better than Fallout 3, but mechanically the game isn't particularly engaging and it feels like it's increasingly just about running from point to point putting marks in checkboxes, rather than exploration, discovery, role playing or combat. I think the Bethesday style game holds up for me for about 20-30 hours, and then just collapses on itself very quickly. I did a good job of quitting Skyrim, but I played Fallout 3 so long that I ended up hating that game with a passion.

Chapter 14 damn near got me to ragequit this game (the second half of the massive army showdown at Naggiar). Fucking games and suddenly deciding to change the rules the enemy has to play by (endlessly respawning foot troops, tanks with weak spots that aren't weak spots anymore). I ended up just cheesing it by putting my tanks in position before the enemy reinforcements came because I was so frustrated with trying to play it straight and getting fucked.

Meanwhile, in Missouri, a city council thought it was an excellent use of their time to ban underboob and gratuitous display of butt. As a Kansan, I don't often feel superior to other states, but when I do, it's usually Missouri.

ClickHole has what's basically a Twine game about having a conversation with your dad. I only went down the American Civil War fan fiction branch, but was quite entertained.

No, what I described is all there is to getting the secret (beat him without taking damage within a certain amount of time), it just takes a fair amount of practice.

About that fight with Sir ahememem, there's a secret to it if you can perfect it, but you have to beat him without taking a single hit yourself and within a certain time limit. It's an extra cutscene and some unique armor.