Empyrean Sleights

"Litterhal"

closed down... shortly after the pandemic?

they did kinda make it big, dumb and nonsensical, but it's still genuinely cool aesthetically in a way that, even as a teenager, I understood that e.g. Underworld was not

a secret third (position) thing?

Elon Musk with cybernetic enhancements resembling the villain of his favorite video game Deus Ex, with bottom text in all caps reading "WHY CONTAIN IT"

"Of course they're desperate. They can smell their death, and the sound they'll make rattling their cage will serve as a warning to the rest."

most medical scheduling is outsourced to call centers, so the person probably wasn't from there,
and has been advised that HIPAA privacy is critical, but hasn't been given any sensitivity training

Kreia kneels in front of defeated Hanharr (an elderly woman in a brown robe, and a wookie, a large humanoid hairy creature), superimposed Star Wars font reads "There is something to be learned of Strength"

a fancy bronze elevator panel with 8 floors plus a basement and a penthouse

#VTMB 2 actually has so many references to the first game

like all the times you get into an elevator and press "Penthouse"!

dark shadow of the player character in front of an average-size dumpster

super-powered vampire in #VTMB 1 totally stymied by... 8-foot tall dumpster

Liberated Sovngarde. Kodlak Whitemane and Ulfric Stormcloak photobomb at the bottom.

After 1100h of Skyrim, I finally finished the main quest.

black and white photo of a hand emerging from a closed coffin

classic "vampire sticking their hand out of the coffin as they awaken" but it's to hit the snooze button and then they mutter "blegh! I hate evenings..."

this is how dreams work

a nazi throwing a book into a burning pile of books: this picture associated with the burning of books from the institute for sexual research

demonized but permitted: Weimar was a hub for sex tourism

until it wasn't

but then everything looks cruddy in Source don't tell GabeN I said that

a very slummy apartment with '70s brown carpeting and a TV that was retro in 2004

looking at the slummy sudio apartments in #VTMB 1 and wishing I could afford to live by myself in downtown lol

"You're in a convenience store, looking through the beer freezer, when all of the sudden a man walks in and pulls a gun on the cashier. Do you... 1. Sneak up behind him, disarm him, and proceed to beat him senseless? 2. Quietly make your way to the bathroom and lock yourself in?"

first question for #VTMB 1's Morrowind character quiz

if you witnessed someone robbing a convenience store...
NO YOU DIDN'T

honestly, I think I'm just a bit envious

... I mean it's basically the same countryside as where you live but with

a. actual infrastructure and

b. charming old buildings (unless you count dilapidated barns)

if you can't handle me at my misunderstood necromancer worst

well, okay, nobody's ever wanted that and that's why I play solo

older Napoleon with hand in coat, superimposed impact text reading "THAT SEEMS ILLOGICAL"

stadiums! you forgot stadiums!

(China may have stadiums for all I know, they did the olympics once didn't they?)

a very "sanguine" looking fat monk with a glass of alcohol (beer?)

monkish as in the Western monkish tradition

the meme of Sonic The Hedgehog looking tauntingly cool with a speech bubble reading "I WANT SHORTER GAMES WITH WORSE GRAPHICS MADE BY PEOPLE WHO ARE PAID MORE TO WORK LESS AND I'M NOT KIDDING"

but that's nothing I thought there "should have been more of in the first game"!
none of that has anything to do with what made all of those previous sequels iconic!

reminds me much more of the Fallout 3 previews where Todd shared what he loved about Fallout (power armor, gore, and big explosions)

yeah, I was thinking more of System Shock 2: don't know much about the remake

I suppose I mean this in a backhanded way to the game, that you can pull up Bioshock and not System Shock and say it had more mechanical depth, combat was more of a puzzle, resource management &c.

my stick was used, and I thought the tach must have been digital and the lights were out (but it just doesn't have one)

video games had me convinced you needed one for a stick, which isn't totally true, but more than for an automatic

I had shingles recently and HBO MAX'd my way from Batman TAS through Justice League Unlimited

Star Wars: The Phantom Menace parody. Padme is shocked that Mao Anakin has never achieved communism, not even socialism, and Anakin assures her that his friend Tankie Stalin is right: he will this time!

YouTube video by Tomas Dahlgren Star Wars Racer Arcade - Anakin Easy race

everyone says they hated the pod race, but there was a strong enough niche interest that the pod racing video game got a sequel, and was featured as an arcade machine with the dual-lever controls www.youtube.com/watch?v=034F...