Brandon

My friends and I used to call up LGSs nearby to ask if they had the precon deck in stock that had 1 copy of the jitte. It was cheaper than buying the card by itself.

A chart showing a 20 year price change between sectors.

Pretty much all affordability discourse could benefit from just posting this chart.

If you're in the better off America, all the luxury goods you want in excess are for the most part much cheaper. If you're in the poorer America, most of the shit you need to live/grow is more expensive.

this is what game programming is like

someone went up to sarah mcbride in front of the u.s. congress, hurled her deadname at her loudly and called her a pedophile repeatedly, posted video of the exchange to x, and it is now going wildly viral

i will not share the video

but if you’re not speaking up about this, you’re hurting yourself

This is what oligarchy looks like:

If you're Elon Musk, the richest man alive, Tesla gives you a $1 trillion pay package & Trump gives you a huge tax break.

If you're a poor kid on SNAP, Trump appeals a court decision that would have prevented you from going hungry.

Obscene.

A rain-slick backalley containing two men, both tall and dressed predominantly in black, each walking a cat on a leash

Took the cats out for a walk with my brother and accidentally created a 90s Britpop album cover

Had to share this from twitter just because

For all of today's elections I am extremely interested in seeing numbers for overall voter turnout. I hope the lesson this country can learn is that everyone needs to be voting in every election.

It's possible that since I've been playing on Draconian difficulty (it reduces exp and gold) I am underleved. But if that's true, it underscores how muddled the game's design has become by including so many gameplay options, rather than just saying "here is the game, this is how you should play it."

Perhaps also, assuming I need to grind, maybe I wouldn't need to right now if the game didn't also provide: a) fully detailed maps of every new area showing where to go (I try not to look), and b) autosaves that short circuit the explore-die-church loop and thus cut off a source of passive grinding

I'm not quite ready to declare that they massacred my boy, but the outlook does not look good.

If we assume I'm underleveled or I need to grind money for better gear, the typical DQ solution to that is to go somewhere else and explore. Can't really do that when they railroad you into more story beats that are gating key items. Something that is quite infamously *not* an aspect of original DQ1

Well, unfortunately, the DQ1 remake has really eroded this good-will I had earlier in the back half of the game. The extra boss encounters they've added are just too overtuned and require not just specific gear, but also not getting unlucky RNG

What difficulty are you playing on? I dropped it down from Draconian when I fought the Golem because it just felt stupid to get 1-shot from full HP after a ~dozen turns of flawless sequencing.

Basically this remake has really delivered on what I hoped for the combat: how does DQ1 change when you have access to all the cool shit the later games added? And how do they change the encounters to compensate for your increased abilities?

They also added a mini-boss fight to get the Magic Key, which was also pretty compelling: 2 Dark Skeletons, 1 Knight Errant, 2 more Dark Skeletons. Lots of options for crowd control or mitigation, but on Hard it's really dangerous and an unlucky RNG can just kill you.

This would explain why my favorite part of DQ8 is when it's just Hero and Yangus. And also the first half of DQ4 rules. And also all of DQ1.

I have always been fascinated by the action economy of Dragon Quest games when it's just like, 1 or 2 party members. I think it might actually be my favorite type of RPG combat.

Tonight in DQ1 HD, I made it to the Green Dragon and saved Princess Gwaelin. They made that fight pretty incredible for being just a 1v1 boss (I'm playing on Hard).

From A Scanner Darkly: "Let's hear it for the vague blur!" the host said loudly, and there was mass clapping. In his scramble suit, Fred, who was also Robert Arctor, groaned and thought: This is terrible. Once a month an undercover narcotics agent of the county was assigned at random to speak before bubblehead gatherings such as this. Today was his turn. Looking at his audience, he realized how much he detested straights. They thought this was all great. They were smiling. They were being entertained.

An Icegov tweet offering up a photo of new ICE training graduates--"American heroes" with their faces blurred out.

Philip K. Dick gets it right again.

Let's hear it for the vague blurs!

Season 1 is pretty bad

Matthew Lillard from the "Scream" screening at Hollywood Forever:

“Fuck ICE! In this time, in this city, we need to lead with love. Do not forget that shit in this moment. Not to be political, but to be political as shit. Second of all: vote Prop 50. And if you don’t like that, I’m so not sorry!”

Post Brianna Wu O Subscribe Trans sisters. I'm pretty sure I was wrong. I an somy. I genuinely thought that as a trans woman, if ceded some points with the gender critical crowd we could have a healthier conversation and arrive at better public policy. The problem is, they are getting crazier and more extreme. If you admit "trans women don't belong in women's sports" they agree, but call you a man the whole time. If you admit, "I understand I am a biological man, but this is how I want to live my life and talking about me like this is degrading" they scream about free speech. If you admit that hurtful language is part of free speech but you don't have to associate with people that degrade you, they act like the victim and call you a man and then say you should be thrown in an insane asylum. It's like this on everything. They are incapable of looking for a middle ground on bathrooms. They want maximalist policies on everything. They'd throw a fully transitioned, fully passing trans woman in male prison genpop and laugh as she got aids from being raped. I want a middle ground on so many of these polices. BUT THE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM IS THEY DO NOT. They enjoy degrading us, it's fun for them. So, sisters. I genuinely don't know what to do. I think many of our most extreme ideas are bad. But theirs are worse. So if I have to pick, I choose us. I wish there were a political vehicle for compromise and medical safeguarding. But that just simply does not exist.

Post Brianna Wu Subscribe @BriannaWu 2/ I consider my business settled with all trans sisters. If anyone wants to reset things, unblock and move forward, I am happy to do that. 7:16 • 01 Nov 25 • 5,969 Views

Go fuck yourself

I can only think of one episode of Buffy that you *might* like, but it's the season 5 finale, so...

the problem with modern videogame rpgs is they don't have quests like the one in phantasy star, where you need to bribe a governor with cake, but the only cake shop in the entire solar system is on a different planet, at the bottom of a four-floor dungeon, behind a locked door.

This has always been the case. ALWAYS. It's just more apparent now because things are so bad.

The important thing is to remember how much the elites failed. Because in the future they will lie through their teeth telling you how much they did...

Thank you for reminding me of the Dodrio costume that my mom made for my youngest brother in 1999.

I love seeing a movie in a good theater but it’s equally important to regularly visit a ratty theater that nobody respects, it grounds you spiritually

This is an excellent point. Zohran ran a textbook campaign that the centrists are always talking about, just talking about rent control and free buses and cost of living, and the centrist Dems tried to make it all about Israel/Palestine and other identity issues (his Muslim faith) to smear him.