Twig

People clapping when all the old characters showed up was so stupid. This is why I hate movie theaters.

Saw the movie. Finn is a treasure. I want to marry him.

I'm pretty excited for Civil War. The Captain America movies have been the best Serious (although not TOO serious ala the NEtflix serieseseses) things in the universe they've created. Ahhh! I wanna see it.

On the one hand, I understand what you're saying. But on the other, I've given this a lot of thought over the years. I am aware of many of the cultures that surround me, but, like I said, they aren't mine. There are definitely groups that an outsider might lump me into from observation alone, but I can say now that there's not a single one they would point at that I wouldn't respond with, "Yeah, well, that's not me." It's an incidental inclusion, rather than a sense of belonging. Maybe the "Idle Thumbs" culture, hah, but as I alluded to a few pages ago, I'm not even feeling that, lately. Meanwhile, reading this thread and links posted in this thread, it's obvious that a lot of people very strongly identify with various cultures and subcultures. It's... unfortunate that it seems like a lot of that is almost a forced feeling, stemming from oppression and bigotry. Like people are backed into solidarity with one another, until they're strong enough to fight together. I know that's not entirely accurate and also not all cultures are forced to grow in this way, but I do think a lot of these issues sort of make people stand their ground, thus firming their own sense of self and surroundings. I know this because I've experienced it first-hand from time to time. Just never to the degree of, well, you know. Even knowing that, it doesn't stop me from feeling... left out? Alone? I don't know.

Hahahaha that is quite a pitch.

Better to have loved and lost something something.

Who says it has no reason? If that were true, then nobody would be upset at cultures dying or changing or being stolen and mutated.

I didn't say I wanted nationalism.

What if I want that feeling?

To be clear, I didn't say there wasn't an American culture (I think there is, but it's more regional than widespread, for the most part). I said I don't identify with it. It's not my culture. It's not one I belong to. For example! I can name a couple folk heroes but I don't care about any of them. They're also so completely unimportant and never come up in every day life. I think they did more when I was younger, in movies and junk, but now they're nothing. I... don't think that's traditional dress, so much as it was the fashion at one point, and much like all fashion, it comes and goes. I've never worn a leather jacket in my life. I don't give a shit about Thanksgiving. Its entire purpose is to eat a lot of food. It's also ostensibly about "giving thanks", but, well, since this is America and our culture is over-eating, nobody cares about that part. I like eating, and I "celebrate" it by inviting people over (or going somewhere to meet people) and eating a lot of food, but I could do that any time, and I often do. Those things exist, but they aren't mine. Also they feel largely superficial, to me, like they're not strong elements of culture, they're just something America pooped out to say "yeah we have something too". That's not entirely fair, I know, but that's how it feels. To reiterate: I'm not saying America doesn't have culture. I'm saying it's not my culture. My lamentation is entirely for my own personal lack of identification with any form of culture. I am nothing.

Well I'm glad that at least I'm not the only one! It's certainly possible. Although I've definitely heard people talk about the culture of New England compared to the culture of the West coast. Or the culture of Southern California versus Northern California. I'm from the Midwest. I know that's a culture that some people identify with. I don't... I'm not sure there's One Big American Culture that really fits into any clean mold, unless it's "we interfere with the world's shit and often cause more trouble than we help solve". If that seems overly negative, it's probably because I see America in an overly negative light. Which certainly doesn't help when I'm trying to think of a culture I could identify with. But it's not just America versus Other Countries. There's a lot of stuff in this thread about black culture. That's a group of people, and not necessarily a place (though we often speak in the context of black Americans, just because a lot of us are Americans). I'm a white dude. What's my culture? If I had to make a list of white dude culture characteristics, I'd struggle to think of anything positive... (EDIT: For the record I don't want to be part of a "white dude" culture, anyway. Just using that to sort of emphasize my thoughts here. Read over this and realize how ridiculous the implication was so I had to clarify!!!) Ideally I'd feel the same. It's true that when I have a solid group of friends around me I often forget that I have no Big Culture (I'm sure there are more correct or intelligent words or phrases to use for these things, but I'm an idiot, so forgive me). But it still seeps through. I'm immensely envious of people who have that solid community on which to stand, even if they don't necessarily have that immediately available group of people. --- End game is this is why I always find it so fucking stupidly difficult to empathize with things like cultural appropriation. There are standout cases where I'm like "yeah that's fucked", but a lot of times I see these things and I'm lost as to what I'm even supposed to be without enjoying and partaking in and riffing off of someone else's culture. I don't want to start another argument about cultural appropriation. Please don't do that. It's just an example.

I lived in Japan for six months. I've also lived in various and wildly different parts of the US for at least a year. Besides, I'd have to have a cultural identity to realize in the first place. I don't. I'm a cultural chameleon. I blend in with where I am (unless I hate it, like Dallas). But I have nothing to go back to.

I basically feel like I have zero cultural identity! My culture is, at best, nerdiness, I guess, but that's fucking lame because anyone can be a nerd. Not everyone can feel like they have, you know... a culture to be a part of. A greater sense of belonging. I often find myself resenting where I grew up because I hold no affection for any of it. I hate where I grew up, and I have no, whatever, American pride. Maybe things would be different if I'd grown up on the west coast (or east coast? it's possible!). Midwest just ain't for me at all. SPORTS! Nah. Texas also ain't for me. I also often find myself, while watching things (mostly anime (weeabooooo), just because that's most of what I watch, but it can definitely happen with anything) longing for that feeling of belonging to a larger Thing. So absorbing fake cultural authenticity is all I have! This is half sarcasm, but also half real. I don't really know why I wrote this up. It's a constant frustration of mine. It's sort of tangentially related to what's going on. But not really.

Mighty No. 9 looks really ugly. Like really super ugly. As someone who was looking forward to it originally, it's really put me off. I'm sure it still plays fine, but it's nowhere near as good as Mega Man's art. ): I don't really care about Itagaki's game 'cause I'm not huge into Castlevania. But I did see some shader possible previews recently, and the main character's outfit is... interesting. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/iga/bloodstained-ritual-of-the-night/posts/1434252 --- I'm excited for this. I love MGS. I don't love everything about it, but I want to see what he does that ISN'T MGS, because when he does that it's almost always interesting.

Actually, everybody loses, because Waluigi wasn't chosen.

Anything starring DAYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON guy or underwear guy is bound to fail. SHEEEEEH guy is pretty solid, though. Show is at its best when the sextuplets are around, though. IIRC the third episode has some good stuff. Or wait the second episode was good and the third episode was bad. The OP is good but not as good as The Perfect Insider's, which is the best of the season.

I thought it was Intel that spoke out of ignorance real early on and later apologized for their mistake. EDIT: Oh, IIRC they took their ads off of Gamasutra due to mass emails or something from GG. Maybe AMD did some shit too and I never heard of it.

For the last jam some people (me included) kept updating (mostly for bug fixes in my case). It's not like there's any official prize or anything. I doubt anyone cares; it's all about the fun of jammin'!

Hah, no, I think Bjorn is making fun of the people who make fun of trigger warnings.

Everything Zeus said is why I don't participate in these kinds of threads anymore. Though I once enjoyed the back and forth and trying to learn about other people's viewpoints, even where we disagreed (and often coming around to someone else's point of view over time), I've reached the point where it's just immensely frustrating to be the person who disagrees with the majority. Wall of text after wall of text telling me why I'm wrong. It's been a long time since I've been on the receiving end, because, like I said, I just don't participate anymore, but I've seen it happen to other people. I understand that these are all super sensitive topics, and a lot of us are white dudes coming at it from the angle of white dudes trying to be better people. I understand that very rarely are people actually angry and actually trying to upset people - so rare, I don't even know that it's ever happened (besides maybe some GGers posting here when that first started...). I understand, and! I'll forever be grateful to the Idle Thumbs community for helping me learn about these sorts of things; I am literally a different and better person because of these forums. Very grateful! But it's so overwhelming and brutal when you're the odd man (or woman!) out in one of these discussions. Okay I've felt that way for a while and now I've said my piece and now I hope it doesn't blow up in my face phewwwwwwww.

there's a distinct lack of will smith in that trailer

One loves. You can remove the prepositional phrase to make it easier to figure out how it should go.

i have you both beat the mere smell of ketchup makes me instantaneously nauseous

I don't believe Jar-Jar Sith, but I want it to be true for a million reasons.

If you do it like me you type up responses every now and then and immediately before clicking Post you realize what you're doing, recoil in horror, and take a sledgehammer to your computer. It's expensive, but keeps me sane. I'll make an exception for this post.