syntheticgerbil

Does the art direction get any better than what we've been shown so far? Like in terms of colors used or the population of the environment? I read there aren't going to be any NPCs but I'm curious, because from the start I have been really turned off by how plain and muted it was compared to their previously three games.

Hey all, I finally played this game after many years after I found out they released the english patch for the Saturn version end of last year. It would be the version to play if you have not played this yet because it has a few extra scenes, extra unlockables, and in game game glossary with tons of shit to nerd out to. Like I'm serious that a glossary is a lot of fun. The new patch also changes some homophobic and transphobic speak that was falsely attributed to Kojima before but more the translators in 2008 or whatever trying to give the game proper flourish. There was also some internet memes apparently in the Playstation patch but I have no idea what it was. They took some steps back and it's much closer to the original script in all. It was definitely a refresher after all the badness of MGSV. I was able to run it no problem on my Saturn after burning, but I did find out that somehow I had owned a Saturn with a modchip this whole time. You can softmod the Saturn to play CD-Rs with Pseudo Saturn installed on an Action Replay cart I hear though. Or just emulate if you are no fun. But you guys, this game is so good. It's definitely one of my favorite Kojima games now (although I still haven't played Snatcher but own a copy) and I sort of wish he'd just try to make another straight up adventure game. I guess it's closer to a visual novel but there are tiny small amount of puzzles to solve plus a few bring inventory item to x person. But the story is where this shines. Even though it's overblown in typical Kojima manner, it's a guy showing love for all of these weird historical trivia pieces and as well as spending a lot of time crafting a lot of dialogue and nuance around his own creation. I relistened to the Idlethumbs podcast where Steve Gaynor discusses this game and he's totally right. I got so absorbed in this gritty space world. I mean I'm already prone to enjoy cyberpunk type stuff, but it's neat to just click around on stuff and see the characters talk about all of the things on the screen. I'm also seriously into this style of character design. I really miss how animes used to look in the 80s and 90s, but even then I think this is beyond the standard. It feels very much like Cowboy Bebop to me in which the characters are all drawn very distinctly with their personality imbued in their appearance but not in an overt way. I looked up the character designer, Tomiharu Kinoshita, to see if he had done anything else for another game or anime or comic or something but no luck, even when searching for his name in Japanese. It appears all he ever worked on was Snatcher also a character designer and a few other Konami games in less essential artist roles. It sucks this guy seems to have fallen off the the map in the 90s because he is super talented and the character concept is a treat to look at. If anyone can figure out anything about this guy I would be interested. There's also a throwback to looking in the manual for a certain puzzle, which is really lame but awesome to me in an old school way. I really liked almost all of these characters. Ed, Jonathan, Lorraine, Khris, and Meryl were fucking awesome. Actually being able to see proto Meryl was pretty cool as she turned out to be a bit more important to the plot than I originally thought. Also it's funny that besides the children, I was fully engaged the whole time. While it starts slow, some people have criticized the game for that, I actually enjoy that kind of pacing. Because at the beginning and I can kind of walk around and exhaust conversations and learn about this odd world of Beyond Coast and the tensions with earth, corporations, and pharmaceuticals. I would prefer the game to be very open and meandering but then become more urgent and quick up until the end. The shooting segments were meh, but I can't say I hated them. I guess this was cooler to people in the 90s? Snatcher had them. I just used the autolock on for stuff and called it a day. There's no reason to do particularly well on any shooting segment. The only time in which you would do say is the Policenauts Private Collection which is a bonus disc for Playstation much like The Document of MGS2 for PS2. You get a long cutscenes for scoring high in the cherry picked scenes there, but I still wouldn't say it is that frustrating. I really enjoyed the 80s sort of feel of the music in this game. In some ways similar to how MGS1 sounded. My wife kind of ruined the one of the main themes for me which echoes throughout so many of the songs because she pointed out that it sounds like the radio jingle for this stupid local Mattress company here in Austin: http://leetilford.com/portfolio-item/factory-mattress/(Go to 50 seconds) So every time it played this cue, we had to single "Factoooorryyyy mattresssss" along with it. It's fucking weird that it's the same thing and now I can't unhear it without singing about a factory mattress along in my head. The do do do do do do main theme is still awesome though. The big caveat to enjoying this game is the sexism. I wish I could say less about it, especially concerning the whole bounce the boobs of all female characters. The way Steve said on the podcast is it's coming from an era of originally being a PC98 game and giving the mature audience there something instead of full blown explicit sex scenes. Apparently most PC98 games were porn games, which I had no idea until looking this up. The people who translated this game in the first place apparently almost decided not to because of this stuff. Also apparently Kojima got into an argument about the importance of having the option to sexually harass all women with the head of Sony back in the 90s about this. It all makes Kojima and this game look very bad. Plus given his track record after it's never really been resolved. However, the only really reprehensible stuff outside of the bouncing boobs is just the depiction of Ed's teen daughter, namely that absurd poster, and how Jonathan can hit on her. As I found out this is something apparently Kojima just took from Lethal Weapon. Also considering if the original audience is for men who also like porn games I can't imagine how this stuff is in any way erotic. The bouncing looks silly and any time you do it, the woman gets angry, will stop talking to you, and all of the surrounding characters get mad and plus characters you meet later will have heard about this and chastise you. I guess that's how people would generally react to a creep but why? The most I can say is the two characters who do allow it and laugh it off it would make more sense but still unnecessary and is ultimately unimportant to the whole game. Even if you choose to never be lecherous it's distracting that it's there. I kind of wish an optional patch existed that disabled all of this stuff, even if it would make the Gamergate types cry forever about censorship. Also when reading about this game I just recently found out it was in development for some time for an English release on Sega Saturn. So I do actually wonder if this is what would have happened anyway had it officially come to the US. This tends to happen in the age old story of localizing Japanese perversion. I think only the most loser basement dweller would disagree with this as the harassing of women as a comical device here is completely at odds with the rest of the tone of the game. It's pretty serious almost the whole way through besides some minor banter. Also for any that are still hesitant, I sort of figured out a point where the game stopped putting bouncing opportunities and did not use portraits that looked like it may turn into a hentai game. I would say maybe a third through the game, about halfway through Act 2, after talking to the museum guides. The game has 7 Acts although the first two are much larger. So once I pinpointed this I could safely play the game in front of my wife without looking like a sleaze, it was fine. She also liked getting to see Meryl in something again since she was a big fan of her in MGS1. The main picture I posted here is from the PC98 version, which actually I really wish were translated now as well. The art is a lot of amazing pixel dithering done in higher res than PSX/Saturn and while it has less animation what I've seen is amazing in it's own right. I read somewhere that this version will probably never be translated which is a shame because I think if I understand correctly the plot is also slightly different in parts as well. I read that you unlock the ability to have subtitles after beating the game in the PC98 one (What fucking weird unlockable is that?!) and they don't even play over all of the voice acting in the game anyway, so it would require extra coding to have them always play. I feel like I should get around to Snatcher now sooner than later, but the A/V connection sort of looks like crap on a modern TV with a lot of interference. The Sega CD never had S-Video output but apparently you can get this modded. However I have no idea if I have the skill to do that and I don't know of anyone locally who does that sort of thing. There's some people who make some component cables I might take them up on but they are a bit expensive for right now in my life. And last note, I had never seen the first Lethal Weapon before playing this. I think I saw 2 or 3 before but in my childhood but don't fully remember. I turned it on just to see what all Kojima stole besides just the appearance and dynamics of their characters when placing it into his space game. There's the drug plot which Kojima works into the importance of drugs and dealing with SPAAAACE MADDNESSSS as well as disintegrating your organs. Ed's daughter is straight from Lethal Weapon, including her attraction to his partner. Suprisingly Danny Glover's wife is not dead in the movie the way I was expecting. The Mel Gibson character seems to have a similar issue as Jonathan where his wife left him but I don't think Jonathan is suicidal. Plus there's that whole cryo sleep thing. He's definitely portrayed as NOT FOLLOWING THE RULES LOOSE CANNON though, but still more levelheaded than mean old Mel Gibson. Other than that not much really seems shared between the two, so those that say it is a complete rip off are wrong. Also Lethal Weapon is a REALLY bad and stupid movie. Like the fighting is so cheesy. Gary Busey is not threatening. At the end all of the cops stop doing their job just so Mel Gibson can fight Busey one on one in a very homoerotic way for like 15 minutes in the rain. Mel Gibson spends almost all of this time losing as well and then he is cheered on when he barely wins a fight that is not a real fight anyway because the police are still there to take Busey away. I kept imagining the thoughts of the police force were like, "Seriously Mel Gibson? Do we really need this pointless display of macho bullshit? It's fucking raining and I want to book this mother fucker and go home now."

Sure, my PSN username is simply Syntheticgerbil, what is yours? You can PM it as well. My friend's username is OddjobBR. The team is Crimetap if you want to join that as well. I don't know if I will be playing much in the next week and I think my friend and I are doing co-op through since it's two player only, however we will definitely need help when doing the online team stuff, which I should hopefully get too sooner than later, I think we are halfway through story mode but haven't gotten all subquests done. I think he said you can have four players and an operator (of which I'm still not quiet sure what that means) and the only other person we have to play with is his brother. He's pretty good at games too. So I would be the worst player if we went on an adventure, hope that's okay.

Yeah I think I failed to convey what I mean properly. I do still feel somewhat conflicted, but I am trying really hard not to be for all of the people who are hurt. I wonder if Sailor Bee would say anything on the matter? The only reason I know they aren't dating anymore as of earlier this year is because she said on her Tumblr.

We'll probably never hear more of this unless Klepek wants to post his piece still. Sort of hope he does honestly. Reading Nick's apology letter, I'm initially drawn to thinking what I was thinking earlier, is it really THAT bad or are we too sensitive now? But I'm hearing it from the mouth of someone I'm already predisposed to like and still have no info and never will so I think it's best to take caution for me to mess with his content. Pretty sure his career is over no matter what. Even if some people still like him, there will always be dirt on "that guy," people bringing this up in the comments of every bit of content. People will definitely need to all distance themselves. I'm sure his misbehavior and firing has those on KotakuInAction giddy.

My friend is having me play V, Verdict Day with him. Hopefully we can get all the trophies before From finally decides to shut down the servers. That would really piss me off if they did. My friend is a huge AC fan from the Playstation games, even though I think he skipped a good few, while this is my first time messing with one. I'm so lost, I have to keep asking him question on almost everything. It doesn't help the UI is such complicated ass but I am getting the hang of it. The actual game is quite fun and a lot of neat experimentation but I really suck at it right now. He says it gets easier the better weapons and lock on stuff you get, so I'm really hoping that comes sooner than later. I think all the stores unlocked are attached to your player rank, of which right now I'm a measly D. I hope you keep doing this thread and get to Verdict Day. I'd be very interested in a write up now that I can relate.

Wow, $340 million worth of doge.

Yeah, I'm willing to agree. I wouldn't say Crystal Skull was actually much better or worse than Temple of Doom. I don't really like that movie either. For whatever reason I have always liked Last Crusade more than Raiders of the Lost Ark though.

Why is dogecoin also a thing? How does a silly coin go up in value? I don't understand economics.

Yeah that makes sense. I think that's why I was having an easier time condemning Nick at first because of what people close said and then I think I got a bit lost there in the details when reading more about it. I guess I the latter isn't all that important. I guess because Polygon is such a forward thinking site I figured he would be fired immediately. However now that I say that, it's wrong of me to depend on that because I don't think of Chris Grant as caring about any kind of social justice (not a fan of Chris Grant at all) and they also have a parent company, Vox, to deal with who probably places additional restrictions on how this stuff is handled.

I guess I thought Gita Jackson was speculating or all of the tweets listed in that Neogaf thread posts except the woman who spoke up seemed to be people speculating. I don't know who any of them are and I didn't know who Gita Jackson was. I guess really thinking about this, I'm stuck a bit on it because I want to condemn him as well because of what people close have said. However I'm confused if I should feel this way because there's an investigation at Polygon which is taking like a week now and I would think he would have been fired instantly if there was worse than what the released chat logs said. Even then on the Waypoint podcast Klepek seemed really hesitant in what he was saying. I guess it's weird because there seems to be some grey area here in some ways? But I don't know, I guess I'm confused after reading more. I really shouldn't question what people close to the situation said. Sorry. Well that's where I get lost and how it pertains to masculinity. With what I see as masculinity toxic or not, there is an idea to "just go for it" when flirting to letting a women know you are interested without just outright saying "I like you" or "Let's have sex." Like the whole PUA as a culture is a fucking cesspit, however without making a stupid game of negs and stuff there's something men can do with picking up women or without being direct. Romance I guess you would say? Or taking charge as some women enjoy? And since those are vague concepts I have struggled with myself I think a lot of men are just tone deaf and will sometimes do this stuff badly forever, especially when socially inexperienced, where it comes off as unwanted or awkward. On #2, I was assuming the situation as just around friends or something or on a date, but I can't think of a bunch of power dynamics out there besides being stuck with someone in the work place. Maybe if the man drove is it a power dynamic?

I get that all the chat logs and whatever aren't our business but this started as a public thing with public tweets involving a public persona whose career is ruined whether or not the investigation as it's going absolves him in some way. To put it this way, I'm not sure I even saw anyone say he was sexually harassing them though. But this seems to be said second hand and especially from Klepek concerning power struggles and creepy rumors. The woman who did release the chat logs, the only one we have info from, says "I'm not saying he's a predator." I just keep hearing "gross" or "problematic" more than harassment here and those two words don't really mean anything to me at this point because they are just so overused to condemn everything without saying anything.

I guess that's where I'm confused. I am trying to find more solid quotes on what this harassment is and what led to this condemnation. It doesn't help that I'm honestly confused with whether my idea of harassment would match up with what many outer people condemning. I know exactly what sexual harassment is in the workplace for instance. But outside of that, if it is fans and not coworkers, is he a womanizer or harasser (being sleazy and pursuing after "no" was said). Is a womanizer a harasser, like the same thing? I mean if he's doing all of this while in a relationship, I personally consider it sexual harassment on some level because then he's screwing over the one he is in a relationship by going behind her back. But what if you are just sexually aggressive in your wording or how you touch someone and they say no and you back off completely? Is it still harassment because the first thing was sexually aggressive. I also don't even know how to define sexually aggressive, but uh not rape or assault. Like that stupid movie trope where a dude takes a woman golfing and he's like, "Let me show you how to properly swing this club, put your hips here" and he puts his hand on her hips while they awkwardly swing this golf club. I guess what I'm saying in part of saying what I don't know what I'm saying is I'm lost on what the lines are. How we define sexual harassment outside of a legal sense and on a social level seems a bit cloudy to me. That's what I meant about all of that stuff in the first part and why I would just probably never even try to date if I were available because I feel like I would just do something wrong, constantly being too forward, and just not even bother.

Bump it forever.

Hey a thread for the Mario Bros. movie would be fine. I don't think I've seen a Godfather's Pizza for a decade or more. +1 for use of embiggen.

I love your whole post. When really thinking about it I see why ultimately I have been uneasy with a lot of the articles and ideas I've read on feminism in the last four years as games press, bloggers, and regular media outfits have made it more prominent in the public conscious. Sometimes stuff just feels extreme. I don't really feel like I ever hear masculinity as a good thing anymore unless it's coming from alt-right types. It's always toxic or abusive or someone is insecure with it. I think a lot of guys who want to be respectful and not come off as a creep have just managed this by just avoiding behaviors that could be seen as masculine. Personally it makes me feel as if I'm doing something wrong at almost all times. Are you being too mean? Are you dominating others? Are you creepy towards women? Are you infringing on the rights of others? But then when we come to the idea of masculinity and sex it's so hairy. Like if I weren't in a committed relationship for over a decade I wouldn't know what I would do trying to date. There's all this debate over consent, checking women out, approaching a woman because you think she is pretty. So many ways to do this wrong and if you screw up you become an awful person. Personally I wouldn't know how to navigate any of that without doing a bad job because I'm not awesome and I would probably just avoid any behaviors towards women at all. However one thing is, in my real life group of friends and people I've known before, they aren't really that into a lot of these left social politics and don't get into it much in their day to day. While I think in general the female population in the United States wants to be self reliant and independent, I think they often like a man to take charge whether it's with sex or getting chores or adult responsibilities done. Maybe it's just something that will go away within a generation but I don't know. I know when my wife says she expects some of these things of me, she's also sort of apologizing for imposing that gender role on me. I don't care I guess but I feel like the rest of the world that I read about on the internet does. And I have no answers itsamoose, but I like that you brought up so many things that give me a lot of food for thought. Also to go back to the Nick Robinson thing, since there's not much in the way of "proof" I actually only really think he's a bad guy because everyone close to him has suddenly denounced him, the Waypoint podcast says there's more to it, he was probably cheating on his then girlfriend, and one suggestion was thrown out by someone that he was hitting on an underage teen. The thing is, I get that we shouldn't be asking everyone to throw up proof on their personal life, but at this point I've seen a lot of speculation and some of this speculation also becoming fact, which maybe isn't fair to publicly ruin someone, depending on what actually happened. I know I'm hitting touchy ground here, so I'll try to explain my feelings more. This is a worthwhile summary: https://www.reddit.com/r/CoolGamesInc/comments/6slo69 Th/what_were_all_the_things_that_nick_did/dldobcj/ I've been trying to see every day if this investigation has ended to see the conclusion, because if the dude is just hitting on female fans he thinks are pretty with DMs AND he wasn't in a committed relationship at the time I can't say that really bothers me. I mean if he's just SEND NUDES PLS, that's awful, but so far the only thing I have seen is a chat log of him acting very cringeworthy, but not in a gross way. But then we all have had cringe moments when talking to the opposite sex and will the rest of our lives. So I personally would need to know how these conversations went before he was asking for nude pictures because that in and of itself isn't really what I think bad people do. If people close to him were not publicly condemning him, I would wonder if in this day and age we were all saying he is continuously sexual harassing women based on how clumsy he is at flirting or if he's just flirting with too many women at the same time. And even still I wonder if this is what he is only actually being condemned for. I think at this point I will wait for the conclusion of those close to him and his employer to finally decide how I feel. I guess Patrick Klepek said he was writing an article about Nick before this went down so maybe that will still come out. As far as this power structure thing that has been thrown around, that you shouldn't flirt with fans or get sexually involved, I also am not sure I am bothered. I can think of more than a few famous or semifamous men who have married or dated or had flings with with their fans. I don't think it is wrong and we don't generally condemn it until it gets really gross and out of hand with stuff like rock stars and groupies. But hey David Bowie apparently would routinely sleep with many underage groupies in his heyday, gross but the expose on it claims no parties feel guilty or taken advantage of, and we will all still love him forever and his public persona will never been damaged. But I think a lot of established musicians tend to end up dating or marrying fans and that's how it works out. Having something that makes you loved by a group of people and publicly adored is also good fodder for finding someone to date I'm sure. Why not use it? It just kind of comes with the territory of fame no matter how small. Why should this be a big deal? Also I notice pretty much when it's a famous person dating or married to another famous person, it becames tabloid drama and we never hear the end of it because it's two powerful people probably also somewhat of in a competition with eachother. When a famous person doesn't seem to have a famous spouse it definitely seems more stable. So as far as Patrick Klepek making this a thing, https://twitter.com/patrickklepek/status/894685720278904836. I am not sure this is something to be worried about. His idea of checking himself is ultimately empty because he's not in the dating game and also it's not clear what he is people are even supposed to do outside of never speak romantically or sexually someone who is a fan of you or you should feel guilty. But perhaps the clarity also depends on what actual information against Nick is there. I've seen people take this as Nick harassing coworkers, colleagues, and women in game development. Or suggested that he offered women jobs in the games industry in exchange for sexual favors. These are sometimes just dumb Youtube comments or people misinformed on reddit, but I am not sure that is what happened here. In fact I think it's worse based on the personal condemnation, but then that's me also speculating. I guess the thing that makes me really confused and plus pertaining to masculinity and chasing the opposite sex is that one of the women Nick was flirting with or engaging in sexual acts with (?) said she felt that she had to keep this up or he would stop talking to her. And that is an example of a power dynamic. But is it really? He may be famous but it's incredibly common for males or females to stop talking to a potential mate if they aren't going to had sex. Since when is that a bad thing? You've gotta read the conversation on whether or not someone wants to be friends or sexual partners or in a relationship, that's just more of the clumsiness of navigating the dating game. This fucking post is a mess, I am having to think really hard about what I think and feel. I have considered deleting this multiple times upon writing it. Please understand this is just how I feel about masculinity and Nick Robinson and I could be dead wrong. I might also eat all words when the Nick investigation is over. EDIT: I realized the TL;DR version of this is: Is Leisure Suit Larry a sexist game or one about forever attempting to reclaim your masculinity?

I was too afraid of not being able to backtrack so I forced my way to saving all of the little sisters in the first few areas while being a bit underpowered. However I forgot that I learned later you can literally backtrack to almost any area of that game. Your save file at the end takes forever if I recall. Like some 30 MB behemoth (well on my PS3 at least). Bioshock 2 you can't go back. At least I'm pretty sure.

Other people do this?! IS IT THE SAME PERSON?

https://www.reddit.com/user/Mooseyxhmx Jesus fucking christ what is this guy's post history?! I'm choking so bad because I can't stop laughing. I can't even get past page two.

I think you mean communism.

Yeah I thought it was pretty exclusive to this universe of Polygon/McElroy dudes. It seems weird that now it's suddenly a new catchphrase to describe a set of bad people, like Milkshake Duck. But I guess it doesn't matter, the term as an endearing one is forever ruined because of Nick anyway. And I was so looking forward to him talking about Sonic Mania when it came out. What a fuck.

The art is still there so that's pretty good!

Bustin' Bustin' Bustin' Thank you for bumping this awesome thread title!

Thank you so much you guys, I appreciate the advice. I think you are all right that there's nothing he can say to me to change my mind that I would think this is at all okay. And since he keeps arguing with people on Twitter who are very clearly and plainly saying the same things, I'm afraid it'll just turn into him kind of talking over me and meekly just saying, "well okay" because I'm not interested in getting into some long drawn out debate with the guy. I was worried it might even feel like I've been bullied at the end of it, and I think you're right Patrick, it is a copout to just not write something. I was considering on linking him to an artist I used to work with in town who transitioned to a woman during our friendship and she makes awesome portraits of other trans and queer people in the community as well as always provides a little backstory about them at her art shows. I've mingled with some of these people at parties and it's not a fun time for them, they have been bullied and shunned so much their past is never a happy story. But I think I may cause some trouble for my friend if I sent it to him too. And it's still ultimately so petty of him to get this mad over such a fluff piece over one person's dissenting opinion who just happens to be trans. Like he has it all, he's super talented, has so much great and beloved work under his belt, but then chases everyone away over and over with his bigotry. It's always been tricky because hid work doesn't reflect any of this besides some Christian/Jesus parables, almost like he constantly knows it's wrong on some level. People who didn't really care all that much about his conservatism and Christianity until he gets nasty about it. Also in looking stuff up I learned Mike Nelson of MST3K and Rifftrax is Christian and conservative but most people don't know that because he's not an asshole about it nor make it that important. So yeah, I think this stuff is just going on Ebay or the used book store. I just learned an hour ago I always have a short video project to get done as quick as possible in the next few weeks that is for a PBS Web Series (!!!) and I don't need this stuff weighing me down nor a bad experience on the phone that I'll replay over and over in my head. I wonder if his shittiness has made the value of some of these rarer things depreciate... You are so right. It seems like there's so much contradiction and casual bigotry on the strangest things in the bible that it's so easy to cherry pick the thing that fits their angry opinions about a marginalized group than to just love them for who they are. I guess maybe if their was national outrage about cochlear implants, then yeah it would be more consistent.

I actually have no idea where to put this on this forum but I'm feeling shitty about it. It doesn't help that I've also been pretty depressed all last week. So maybe some of you know, Doug TenNapel was up to being a politically charged jerk again. Well if you can actually call misgendering politics since to me that is more about just being straight hateful. I thought perhaps he was becoming more sensitive to some of these because of a bit of remorse he had shown in the last few years, plus specifically not endorsing Trump or the Alt Right, etc. But I guess it'll always be the same with this guy. So I wrote him a heartfelt e-mail saying I think I'm finally done after 15 years or whatever of following his work and gave a lot of examples of me following him through controversy in many different internet settings over that time plus kind of listing all of the small and big things he has worked on, maybe showing I'm a bit more of a crazed fan than most. To be honest, almost every creator I love I track down all of their notable work, but definitely TenNapel has had an effect on me on how I perceive art and animation and my formative years in learning to draw all the way back to third grade when redrawing stuff out of the EWJ manual. His comics I found after Gear and Creature Tech just made me love his work more, plus The Neverhood and Skullmonkeys. But as his online presence because more notable following the turn of the century there was always a sense of frustration, embarrassment, or sometimes sick to my stomach for liking his work and buying all his stuff. But then he would apologize every time he was a jerk to someone and of course it would eventually happen again. I don't generally mind if someone has conservative politcs but they shouldn't be hateful to others for who they are. But this is always a bit more prickly than this because TenNapel is a big Christian and their politics are a little more crazed and one sided more than actually nuanced of a conservative that is not pasting the Republican party to their religion. I try not to paint all Christians one way, but in general I have found them all to be a very hateful people full of judgment. I don't really have any positive anecdotes with any religious friends or family. I still try to keep an open mind out there for "good Christians" though. So I basically just wrote all of that. And then I said I don't even understand why he is so insecure to let some clickbait article on Kotaku bother him. The article is poorly written but everyone already likes Earthworm Jim and even comments on said article do not think it's a good analysis. However as I bought up in my e-mail, the article never once mentions TenNapel, his past behavior, or really gender politics besides nothing the game skewers the Damsel in Distress trope. That should be a good thing right?! But TenNapel seems to think in one of the follow up tweets he should have been interviewed before the article was made. That seems unnecessary for someone to contact one of the game's creators any time you want to write a critical piece, especially when it doesn't even mention the guy. 90% of the article is about the level design, which is what Tom Tanaka was responsible for, not TenNapel, so I said in my message that it would have made more sense for Heather to interview Tanaka. But ultimately Doug TenNapel's ultra hurt response to this a fluff article that doesn't concern him is just to purposefully misgender Heather Alexandra to be a bully. And I'm tired of feeling sick and sad about his behavior. So I said I think it was about time to pack up all TenNapel creations and sell them. His response was saying he would have to write a novel to my e-mail so he wanted me to add him on Skype because I'm misinformed about his opinions and thinks I shouldn't write him off just yet. I thought this meant he wanted to chat, but no it turns out he wants to have a voice call because he was trying to call me noon yesterday when I was on my delivery shift. Since my shift was 13 hours I did not have any time and I told him we could talk today or tomorrow. However this is pretty nerve racking and not really the circumstance in which I want to talk to one of my childhood heroes. So between deliveries yesterday I was looking up why Christians would be annoyed with transgender and all the responses they might have to this. It turns out of course not being the gender god gave you is against god or something so they should be "fixed." And now TenNapel is having a twitter conversation with another person today going over what I think would probably be how our conversation would be, saying that liberals are trying to brainwash people into thinking like them by supporting a different worldview by asking person to call another person by the pronoun they want. (?!?!?!) This is too much. I feel like all of this stuff with Christians and his recorded opinion in mind, that there's no way this conversation could go well. I don't want to talk to him anymore. Even if he's super kind as he sometimes is, it's all wrapped up in a core of hate and I don't think I can deal with this being a live phone conversation with someone who I would never expect to have one. But a part of me feels like a chicken or something or guilty. That I should still hear him out just because, even if it doesn't go well. Which is what of course I'm afraid of. So what do you all think I should do. Should I still have this call or just forget about it and remove him from Skype and sell all this stuff?