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PaperclipPerfector  27d ago (text post)   2786 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for April 25, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Alright gang, I've owned every game bar one in the last two humble choices (well, and I refuse to use origin). I don't pay for it so I'm not bothered by missing out, but I am bothered by the absence of claimed stickers and the fact humble don't guarantee keys you've bought will always be available. So if you want a game in this list, tell me and I'll send you the key. I don't know how popular this will be, so let's say you can request one game every 24 hours, and in two days we'll reassess.

Tomb Raider 1 - 3 Remastered - do you like jumping puzzles and cubic women? I like her outfit in number 2, she's still wearing hotpants, but she's in the snow so she puts a jacket on. Smart.

Dredge - fishing game with lovecraftian horror elements. Or lovecraftian unease elements, it's never really scary. It's more relaxing (don't say the c word) and I feel like it would be a better fit for mobile gaming.

Aliens Dark Descent - isometric Aliens tactics game. Great game until you optimise the fun out of it, which it basically forces you to do through its unrelenting pace.

1000xResist - I haven't actually played this game, but it's a very well rated adventure game apparently. It has an interesting premise, you are one of many clones of the only human to survive the arrival of extraterrestrial life, and that human, who now rules the world, is harbouring some dark secrets you have to uncover.

Diplomacy is not an option - a great little rts in the 'try not to get overrun by swarms of enemies' genre, very addictive.

Distant worlds 2 - the sequel to Distant Worlds I guess, which was a 4x game set in space that was alright. Another game I didn't realise I already owned and can't really speak about.

Nomad survival - A vampire survivors style auto battler, I wouldn't put it in the same league as VS (but what is?) but it's up there with the likes of Nova Drift and Brotato imo. If you like synergising your skills in these games you'll have a blast I think.

Pacific Drive - a driving survival game. I just keep putting off playing this game for some reason, it's like the Andor of video games - everyone tells me it's great, but the thought of sitting through the set up puts me off and I go play Elden Ring/watch Newsradio again instead. It comes with all its dlc too though.

Homeworld 3 - I am so glad I didn't have to pay money for this, what a miserable excuse for a sequel. If you want to see the train wreck for yourself you shouldn't pay for it either - so take my key.

Wild Hearts - Omega Force's attempt at Monster Hunter is how this game was sold to me, but it's EA so I never looked into it.

Tales of Kenzera: Zau - I am pretty pissed this is an Origin title because I'll give any metroidvania as shot, even an EA one, but if I'm being honest I don't expect much because its African theming lowers expectations. I'd like to be wrong about that though, if you grab it you have to tell me how it goes.

Gravity Circuit - Gravity Circuit is not a Mega Man Zero game, but it really would like to be one. It gets pretty close, but the controls feel way too slippy to me. Banger soundtrack though.

Sir Whoopass - an open world action adventure game that doesn't take itself seriously at all. It's a lot of fun to start, crammed to the gills with dumb jokes, but gets a bit repetitive.

Racine - a deck building auto battler. I don't understand it at all, but I have 15 hours in it because I like the background music.

Cavern of Dreams - a cute little collectathon that wears its n64 inspiration on its sleeve. Not a very big or complex game, but it's fun to play with little ones.

Anyway like I said, tell me which game you'd like and I'll pm you the code!

Isn’t it a little weird how The Last of Us is basically doctrinaire progressive in every other way but then a large part of it’s premise is based on a famous right-wing conspiracy theory about FEMA being covertly designed to seize dictatorial control of the United States in the event of a major crisis?

Part II is doctrinaire progressive, Part I (excluding the DLC where the staffing took a turn), is mostly unmolested by wokeism.

Are you talking about the show or the game here?

…no?

Media lives or dies on novelty, so good writers can combine all sorts of things. Sometimes they even play them straight, no pun intended, and do back and forth commentary with other works in a genre.

But maybe I’m just confused. I’d have described the premise as “grizzled survivalist shoots his way across the wasteland to protect little girl.”

Minecraft Dungeons - it's basically Diablo, but Minecraft. My older kid loves original Minecraft (and we will be required to all see the movie soon), but the main reason we got it is because it allows 4-player couch co-op so our whole family can play together.

Both kids have picked it up pretty quickly, but I suppose I should have anticipated that the younger one would be weird about armor. She's already the type to have "fashion emergencies" IRL, so naturally she cares a lot about what her character's armor looks like and very little about what it does, despite our efforts to explain build optimization to her.

naturally she cares a lot about what her character's armor looks like and very little about what it does

Based.

I don't believe Minecraft dungeons does this (without mods?) but I have seen games that let you have two layers of armor: a mechanical one that's actually officially equipped, and a fashion one that determines your appearance. So you can have the best of both (and I think to incentivize players to buy fancy cosmetic armor with real money). I don't remember what game(s) this was, I think I've seen it more than once but not very often.

LotRO and GW2 do it, but in separate ways: LotRO has the way you describe it, your cosmetic outfit vs your gear, whereas GW2 has transmog, which changes the appearance of thr piece of gear itself. I have a hunch FFXIV does something similar as well based purely on what I've heard of fashion in that game. I'd assume it's becoming more and more popular in MMOs in general, but I don't know how much it exists outside of that realm (other than things like e.g. BG3's camp clothes vs adventuring gear swap).

I have a hunch FFXIV does something similar as well

That is correct. In FF14 you cast a glamour onto an armor piece which gives it the appearance of a different one. You can also make glamour sets which will wholesale change the appearance of your armor on demand.

In most non-rpgs clothing doesn't imbue stats, so you can just wear whatever you want and there's no dilemma to fix.

I know it's a big enough distinction in Minecraft that there's been a few modded implementations -- even as early in 1.7.10 there were a number of times where the 'best' armor in a modpack was famously ugly or out-of-theme. Nothing in vanilla yet, but the recent emphasis on armor trims might make it have more sense.

Starbound and Terraria implement it.

I think the Horizon X West series has it.

I've seen that in a few different games, but yeah, Minecraft Dungeons doesn't seem to have anything like that at present.

Of course, in our case, such a feature would only solve half the problem...

Halfway through level

"Wait, wait, I need to change my armor."

"What? Why do you need to change your armor?"

"I don't know! I just do!"

Is community drama Friday Fun?

Rationalist-adjacent blogger Dinomight is accusing rationalist-adjacent Twitter poaster Cremieux of plaigerizing his post on aspertame into a popular Twitter thread. This has now escalated to wall-of-text denounciations, involving characters such as LessWrong admins and our old friend TracingWoodgrains.

IMO

  • small writers, researchers, and information-aggregators need to be credited with specificity. This promotes good sources to the top and incentivizes independent efforts. It’s also intuitively good manners. It is what we owe to someone who spent his free time aiding the Common Good.

  • if you’re copying an original independent researcher’s small blog, just dropping it in “links” 20 subtweets down is insufficient. The reader will think that the author merely consulted the information but synthesized it themselves in digestible language. But Crem took someone’s synthesized and digestible language and simply reposted it. This would be like if I took an old themotte post and reposted it, just linking it at the bottom, or if I reposted someone’s humorous post for more views and only linked him as a reference. The small guy is owed recognition for his unique effort, or a direct mention; not a footnote.

  • Twitter and blogosphere generally = zero-sum status game; there cannot be infinite “interesting people you consult”. Crem siphoned most of the status gains from the “little guy” who may have spent a dozen hours writing an effortpost after reading about aspartame.

  • Crem, being the most popular twitter account in his niche, has a duty to promote good manners, ie cooperative prosocial norms. If he doesn’t give sufficient cred, then he is setting a standard where insufficient cred is the rule; suddenly, no one is ever going to do anything new or effortful, because someone like Crem will take most of the status.

  • It’s trivially easy to sufficiently share the status. Just say, “x wrote a good summary at y”, or “over at z’s blog”, or “summary is from h”. Best manners would be to find his account and link it. But just “links” isn’t enough.

  • Crem’s reply tells us that he is an antisocial status-obsessant like so many others, and people instinctively find this character type repulsive because it’s incredibly dangerous to the Common Good. World of Warcraft saw a similar moral quandary regarding PirateSoftware which essentially led to his plummeting in status. It’s not a “small error” if it indicates a deeper ethical violation, even though this specific error is super super tiny.

I'd be willing to cut Creamy some slack because he did link the post at the end, but the cope and seethe flameout makes me much less charitable.

Btw, has anyone heard the rumors that he is actually our very own TPO from the old country?

By heard the rumors you mean the information Gerard has been promoting? Yeah, the circumstantial evidence points very strongly to the fact that is who they are. I'm worried about the sudden chain of doxxes following the post SSC twitter crowd though. Our resident grumpy doctor seems to have been the latest.

FWIW, I also vote +1 for Cremieux being TPO. Not 100%, but he is at the very least extremely reminiscent of him. The combination of being not only interested but strongly pro-HBD AND regularly using the concept of measurement invariance in particular to argue certain points. TPO also did that all the time. I should have noticed earlier, the connection just didn't come to mind.

Hmm, I’m not sure, and I say that as someone who perhaps along with @Rov_Scam interacted with him more than most back then. I searched Crem’s Twitter for 8 or 9 of the most common niche references TPO used to use, most had no results and the ones that did were vague at best. It would be remarkably disciplined. On the other hand, his career under that name did take off at about the same time he stopped posting here. The HBD stuff isn’t telling, many very online posters have that obsession.

The more telling thing would be posting style, but I don’t remember him having any particular quirks. I’d like to think I could recognize a Hlynka or an Ilforte, but not him.

He had "Crémieux" on his Reddit profile in 2019 (IA capture, screenshot).

Pretty conclusive! The strange people we’ve had here indeed.

I haven't heard of the guy, thus I haven't heard of the rumors, but having skimmed the Substack he almost certainly is the same person.

Damn, I have to register that you were right and I was wrong, it was not an insane guess. In light of the fact that the pool of internet people is so fucking shallow, I must conclude that igi is lemoine, dase is karlin and rafa is yarvin.

I still want to know which one of you is Vance.

That is an insane guess. What are the million-to-one idiosyncrasies that you recognize in both?

It's not so much the idiosyncrasies but the whole picture. I don't know if you were around when he was still posting on the old SSC sub, but he had a single-minded focus on race science and would argue citing knowledge of highly specialized scientific theories and throw out citations as though they were punctuation. He exhibited the kind of knowledge that would suggest that he studies the sort of thing for a living, yet posted with a frequency that would seem to preclude any kind of employment at all. At the very least, I don't recall him ever mentioning any kind of credentials that would qualify him as an expert on genetics, or biology, or anything, really. So when someone starts a substack flogging the same horses in the same little corner of the internet, I'm bound to be suspicious. When that substack's about section is similarly devoid of reference to any qualifications, education, or training, it's raising some definite alarm bells.

What in your circles is denounced as fringe ‘race science’ we call HBD, and it was always very popular here, culminating when mods tried to ban it against the majority. This focus does not distinguish him. Everyone and their mom flogs the genetics horse to own the progs.

Most of what you read is written by people who seem to have a lot of time on their hands, and, if you curate wisely, requires a lot of specific knowledge the man on the street does not possess. The internet is full of these idle autists.

Besides, I seem to remember TPO living in liechtenstein, which would be hard to conceal as cremieux.

It's not that he posted about HBD insofar as he posted about little but HBD, shoehorning it into every discussion, no matter how irrelevant. 'm not sure what his alleged location has to do with anything.

Who was TPO, again? The penitent one?

TrannyPorno, prolific poster of yore, bete noire of the sneer club

Now that would be a twist.

Themotte has a sizeable presence on twitter.

Yeah, that’s shady. At least the kind of thing where permission should have been sought in advance.

Cremieux really went downhill in the last 9 months or so, he used to be a top tier stats guy but then got poisoned by politics. Still decent and definitely not mindkilled but the magic touch has been lost.

It's the content game. You want to be popular you're going to be a little political. Soon, you belong to the algorithm. If you don't fight it, you end up as Ian Miles Cheong eventually.

I saw this unfold "live" and was mostly annoyed the meta-level "controversy" kept popping up in my For You. Some of the "best" Twitter threads are just a dozen tweets and screencaps of random books/papers tied together to make some coherent point that you can nonetheless swipe through in 5 minutes. Is such content plagiarism? I find the notion itself absurd; this isn't academic writing. If the content is primarily sourced from one particular author they should obviously be linked to (which he was), but even this is a selfish desire: if their writing is interesting, I'll want to follow them! I read Cremiuex's thread, and I skimmed the blog post he allegedly "plagiarized", and I prefer Cremieux's rendition, but it doesn't matter, because if Cremiuex hadn't tweeted it, I wouldn't have ever found the source blog, or author.

Trawling the web and packaging up good ideas other people have had into a format that is easily digestible (and visible!) is a public service in my book. Cremiuex's thread was around 1000 words, the first blog post linked was around 3000 (maybe 2700 if we exclude some of the tables/formatting?) Even if Cremiuex didn't verify any of the figures or include anything from the other sources he linked (I am not invested enough in this saga to check) this degree of editorializing is sufficient to evade the label of "low effort content theft" in my opinion.

"This guy on Twitter plagiarized 1/3 of my blogpost then linked to my site, woe is me." Come on.

Some of the "best" Twitter threads are just a dozen tweets and screencaps of random books/papers tied together to make some coherent point that you can nonetheless swipe through in 5 minutes. Is such content plagiarism? I find the notion itself absurd; this isn't academic writing.

I think it's poor form to not give a 'H/t to @meduka for giving me the idea for this thread' or similar. It takes 2 seconds and gains you status, rather than loses it.

Edit: Saw that he linked Dinomight. Lessens the 'wrong'

I sort of agree with you. Fundamentally, this is inconsequential internet bullshit. I probably wouldn’t have made the post if I hadn’t seen Cremieux bragging about how much money he makes from these threads during the controversy.

Not a good look for Cremieux. That's a shame.

Edit: Not as bad as I first thought, as he included the source in a series of links at the end, labeled, "Links:"

Still not great.

The Shedeur Sanders slide has been very entertaining. Could even reach culture-war post worthiness if looking at the various media reactions. New Orleans is on the clock so maybe posting this jinxes it, and he finally gets taken. I was a bit surprised Vegas just passed on him at 108, with Smith being 34 years of age.

He’s a decently athletic quarterback with NFL-caliber zip on short-to-intermediate throws and very, very good accuracy. Is just a touch undersized for a guy who will need to stay in the pocket in the pros. He’s going to need to learn to play within the pocket more, and to work through his progressions much faster. But ordinarily the above is a profile that gets a quarterback taken before Day 3.

And… the Saints just passed. His interviews must have been terrible. Teams do not want to deal with the circus in exchange for a prospect without elite arm talent.

I said to my mother that this is the 20 minute mark of his future 30for30 documentary. This is the end of the beginning, superstar, ego, bright lights, and now a high profile failure.

The end of the film can be prison, or it can be the Super Bowl. The rest of the movie can be like the recent Johny Fuckin' Football doc, where he washes out of the league partying and drinking his talent away; or the rest of the movie can be his comeback story.

This will either be a narcissistic insult he never recovers from, or the kick in the teeth he needed to get his mind right.

I think draft coverage can often underplay how much destination matters.* He’s got his work cut out for him amid the mess that is Cleveland. Though, the current reporting suggests Watson has likely played his last snap for the Browns. Flacco is 40. And, if Sanders is, as his boosters suggest, much better than Gabriel, then there is as clear a path for him as any fifth round pick could hope.

*How good is Sam Darnold? I know KOC has friends in San Fran from the same coaching family-tree that spoke highly of Darnold’s growth while backing up Purdy in 2023. But Minnesota is about as ideal a situation as any quarterback could hope with Jefferson, Addison and Hockenson as it’s top three targets, an above average line, one of the best left tackles (though injury cut short Darrisaw’s season), and a head coach that ascended the quarterbacks coach->passing game coordinator->offensive coordinator ladder. Cousins looked terrible his first year removed. Interested to see how Darnold does in Seattle. With JSN’s breakout last year, Darnold has a legit no. 1. Hopefully Kupp can stay on the field. After that the targets look serviceable…

I think draft coverage can often underplay how much destination matters.

I think, conspiratorially, that such coverage becomes too grim at a certain point. When you realize that some players are being unwillingly doomed to play for a franchise that will fuck them up, it starts to feel too much like a very high end slave auction. But you're absolutely right, there's such a big difference, and so often high profile flame outs are tied to team culture. Does Johny Manziel blow off the whole NFL thing and sink into drink and drugs, if he is playing for a better team than the Browns, with a culture of success and veterans to look up to and guide him? When Aaron Hernandez went into the draft, some of his friends and family were hoping he would be drafted by ANY TEAM except New England, because they wanted him away from his Connecticut ghetto homeboys and bad habits. Late round picks like Purdy, Hurts, Brady, Prescott have to get lucky to ever get a chance; health and performance from the guys in front of them and they are career backups. Destination is everything.

That said: Cleveland is ideal for Sanders, because even more conspiratorially:

current reporting suggests Watson has likely played his last snap for the Browns.

I refuse to believe that Watson actually suffered a career ending injury. Rather, the league and the Browns and Watson came to an agreement to let Watson fake an injury, collect his checks, and the Browns are able to recoup some cap room through an insurance policy. This got Watson out of the news, and allows the Browns to begin moving forward a little earlier.

Sanders is stepping into not just a complete roster void, but a deep emotional void. Cleveland fans want someone to love, the league collectively wants the Browns to move on and resign Groper Cleveland to the memory hole, the team has a few great players who want a shot in the arm and a bit of hope. If Sanders has three good weeks in a row, he'll be front page news nationwide.

How good is Sam Darnold?

Probably about as good as Geno Smith, kind of a lateral move imho.

Rather, the league and the Browns and Watson came to an agreement to let Watson fake an injury, collect his checks, and the Browns are able to recoup some cap room through an insurance policy.

I feel like this requires a level of planning and intellect which is essentially never observed in the league.

I was literally composing a post about it, preparing to post it on Monday if the guy went undrafted, if the media meltdown about it rose to a fever pitch, if a major journalist/outlet stopped tiptoeing around and just flat-out accused NFL teams of racism, etc. Now that he got drafted in the 5th round and might actually get to legitimately compete for a starting job (including over the kid they just drafted two rounds ahead of him) I feel like there won’t be enough culture war meat on the bone to justify actually making a top-level post about it.

Even assuming he really is that good (which, to be clear, is doubtful), his father Deion Sanders has followed him as coach his whole career. There is no upside to picking him if you're the head coach of a football team. Either he sucks, or he's good and he uses his leverage to get you fired and bring in Deion.

Devil’s advocate, we’re now in the fifth round. Is that still applicable now? Teams are now picking guys with injury concerns. Guys who had unimpressive production and teams gamble if they think those players were in the wrong college offense or defense for their talent. Fifth rounders don’t really have leverage like a high draft pick does.

A fifth round QB’s slot bonus this year is $384,680 and decreases with each pick. That is a guy you can cut or trade.

He was just picked up by the Browns. Poor guy...

Hard Knocks to Cleveland? Are they eligible based on the rules? Can the NFL resist?

Dolphins as an insurance policy on Tua at 116? Nope, traded down with Houston.

Steelers at 123? Saints at 129? Raiders again at 135?

Did the Sanders family inadvertently build the first custom UDFA room, instead of a custom draft room? The hater in me finds this all delightful.

Alcohol can enhance social bonding; nicotine can enhance learning. But what is the best possible use case of cannabis? Can it serve a prosocial function in a specific context?

The only thing I can think of is that it can transiently “heighten” non-cognitive sensations, and so it may be useful for highly sensory experiences — anything from large meals to the highly sensory experience of a beach. This would be a general pleasure-amplifier, which may be worth the cannabis costs if the experience is highly sensory, and would also give us a better memory of the experience (possibly).

Is there any other “benefit” to it? I don’t think if enhances social bonds like alcohol, and its relaxation effects are too transient and come at a higher cost with more anxiety later on.

It genuinely does boost creativity by helping you see your own projects from different angles, helps you sleep, and is an amazing aphrodisiac.

I have the general impression that the "enhanced social bonding" of alcohol is just the same sort of euphemism that people use to justify the use of cannabis.

Alcohol makes the deliberate thinky bits stop working as well, so the behaviors exhibited by drunk people are less likely to be part of complex and deliberate social maneuvering. Behaving desirably while drunk is a costly signal of actually being desirable and not faking it.

Saying this in so many words is discouraged unless you dress it up in euphemisms like "lowered inhibitions".

I think that half of the effect of alcohol is entirely placebo. Legally and socially, we give a lot of slack to any behavior displayed while inebriated. So being drunk gives you plausible deniability to act on your desires (within reason) without being judged by society or yourself.

For example, consider sexual promiscuity1 in women. Some women are not interested in causal sex, and some are openly promiscuous -- which is typically seen as defection by some other women and invites some social censure. But another strategy for women who are into causal sex is to only display promiscuous behavior when drunk2. Something like "sure, I made out with a stranger in that club, but I was drunk, so it does not count". I might be talking out of my backside here3 but I think it is likely that for a given sex act with a stranger, the fraction of women who would be willing to engage in it while inebriated is 2--3 times the fraction which would engage in it while totally sober.

1 Not that I find anything wrong with that, if there was an endless supply of strangers who mutually wanted to have sex with me, I would probably be rather promiscuous.

2 Of course, this is complicated by the fact that inebriation is also frequently desired for non-instrumental reasons. Which is what makes the plausible deniability work in the first place.

3 The only thing which would qualify me less would be an ordination into the RCC.

I think that half of the effect of alcohol is entirely placebo. Legally and socially, we give a lot of slack to any behavior displayed while inebriated. So being drunk gives you plausible deniability to act on your desires (within reason) without being judged by society or yourself.

Somewhat i agree.

But also "Alcohol makes the deliberate thinky bits stop working as well" is way more true.

For a man: 4-6 beers in has a very obvious experience of wanting to talk to people and blurt out things at a party context is very obvious experience. Alcohol has a continuous curve of effects, and one can lean into or resist the influence, but at certain dosages this placebo theory is clearly not true.

Consider a series of internal thoughts at a party:

  1. I should tell that stranger their hat looks an 1800's portrait
  2. wait a second, i don't know them, might be awkward, don't know how to phrase the sentence
  3. but if i play up my drunkeness i can get away with this

My experience is that thoughts like 1 are (sometimes unconscious when shy inward focused) on a dose of alcohol simply blurted out on instinct before even getting to step 2. If low-alcohol or sufficiently neurotic part 2 might come up, which you imply would be half-placebo'd by thought 3. However if someone is sufficiently scared by 2 that they need the reassurance of 3, then they'll likely be paralyzed by part 4: "oh gosh they can tell i'm faking this i'm blowing it".

THC is highly variable in it's impact on different people.

But let's operate under the assumption that complete sobriety is an unrealistic goal.

THC has important advantages over virtually every other intoxicant. It basically can't kill you on its own. It's less addictive than alternatives. DUI deaths drop where people sub THC for alcohol.

I'd also say that weed is a great family drug. It improves sex, but I can't imagine trying to have sex with anyone I shouldn't be having sex with. It settles anxieties and smoothes chronic pain. Lubricates social occasions like hanging out with the elderly or children, it's the family drug: provoking laughter rather than fighting.

It's a great social drug. I had edilbles when I bummed around ait was amazing.

My favorite anecdotes include one where my Italian friend had way too much. He only smoked but never had an edible, and I had to drop him off at his room. I was quite high too. It felt like being in a video game in real time. It was raining very slightly. We walked through the dark, party-lit mountain roads of Thailand, which were quite reminiscent of Far Cry 3 and the setting there. Fuck, I can't wait to do it again.

Is there any other “benefit” to it? I don’t think if enhances social bonds like alcohol.

It does. Taking any drug alone seems off to me because the social aspect amps everything by 100x. Any kind of substance usage done alone is a massive red flag unless its some high-brow liquor.

It works reasonably well as pain management for certain types of chronic pain.

In a ludicrously-narrow application, I have a friend who can only tolerate eating fish after utilizing THC.

Incredible.

He and his wife joined me and mine on vacation. We were all staying on the coast and the other three of us wanted to go to a seafood restaurant for dinner one night. He asked that he not drive, consumed a gummy, and joined us.

TIL it is possible to buy a 100-year bond.

IMO, buying 70-year or 75-year bonds for one's grandchildren (matching their life expectancy) would be more inspiring than buying 30-year Treasury bonds for them.

Why? Your grandchildren coyld easily be dead in 75 years.

It makes sense when you remember a lot of bonds are purchased by companies, organizations and trusts and not individuals.

100 year bond? You can even buy a perpetual bond that pays out forever and ever* into the future.

* Terms and Conditions apply.

I try not to log onto Vanguard anymore because they've made the website almost impossible to browse. The font everywhere is so big my very modest number of accounts with them can't be listed on one page of my laptop screen. I have to scroll past so many pictures of people smiling at screens to do anything.

If you want to improve their website, you could try something like what I did to fandom.com using an adblocker.

EDIT: could an LLM do that autonomously? I don't think the non-agent models could see what they were doing, and the agents aren't optimized for it, but surely it'll be done by the end of the year.

Last week, I recommended "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel," and JarJarJedi replied "Second this, and despite them addressing a lot of topics that would be classified as "social justice" and "woke", it does not give off the impression of being a woke product. I have very low tolerance for "agenda" productions, and I quite enjoyed it..." What other shows "thread the needle" well?

The legal procedural/political dramedy "The Good Wife" was interesting: It was set in Chicago and the (almost exclusively liberal) characters were always openly cynical about local "Machine Politics," and neither side was portrayed as having the moral high ground. Early episodes included "cross-racial identification" problems by witnesses in a criminal trial, a judge being suspected of racial bias and statistical challenges to the evidence (the big reveal was that it was a "kids for cash" scheme), and multiple instances of lawyers saying they stereotype jurors because it works. Later episodes had the liberal main characters battling progressive ideological excess, like a college that interpreted "diversity of expression" as "privileging expression by 'diverse' students," and the odd principled alliance with a red-tribe cause, like a defense of a Project Veritas stand-in against prior restraint. In examples of the main characters being openly ideological, the show was scrupulous about giving the opposition "their day in court." (Not every episode, but if it was a recurring topic.)

(I've never seen it, but I've read the sequel series does all the wrong things.)

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is just a higher budget/concept Gilmore Girls. Though it has better beats because it doesn't have to pad out entire seasons with silly plots and being something of a more exacting version of what came before it necessarily makes most of it better. Gilmore girls took like a season or more to find itself but the same kind of comedy, cadence of writing, loveably weird characters all exist there and if you're willing to deal with something 50% more plodding and girly, it's definitely worth a watch even if Lorelai is a much harder character to like than Miriam. It even does has the same thing where pretty much every man in the show is nearly perfect (except one or two) save for flaws that are basically trying to be remedied which makes them look even more perfect (like Joel in Maisel). There's also Bunheads which was the interim between Gilmore Girls and Marvelous Mrs Maisel which again is basically the same show with different content again. I do think that Daniel Palladino became more involved in the writing with Maisel than he had been previously, though he still was fairly involved but I think it made Maisel sharper or more cutting rather previous iterations. And the show basically existed mostly pre-woke being standard for TV shows so it's not really threading any needle. In fact many of the storylines which were probably thought of as benign back then wouldn't exist.

The Good Wife was a show I really liked but gave up about four or five seasons in because I could not handle the fact they stopped giving you information about the cases, but just started in the middle of the case and the audience wasn't privy to all the information about so it was hard to form an opinion on.

The Good Fight I watched all of because it was just that insane. It threads no needle and is basically about Trump Derangement Syndrome. And it's very hard to tell if they're being ironic. To some extent I think they are being ironic to have a certain amount of plausible deniability but I think they did lean into it specifically because I think it's literally what it is about. The main character is completely broken by Trump being elected that they try to change their life, they dedicate their life and time into fighting Trump, the world has this weird sheen that's somewhere between The Good Wife and Evil (another King spouses show) where Trump's impact on the world is given this surreal aspect. My brother once asked me if the show was being ironic when seeing an episode out of context and I said it was being post-ironic, which is something I'm not really sure what it means. But I think it absolutely is about people who have TDS are self-aware that they have it and just have to live it while they try to fix the reality warping impact of Trump by doing everything they can to fight his policies. But it's actually something where the people who are advocating for these things are not really trying to do it with misrepresentations, it does elide a lot of arguments that would win but gives the other side a lot more room to speak than most shows about wokeness (in the same vein as the good wife but not having nearly anyone who's a real main character representing the right, so it could come off that only side characters and bad guys represent anything pro trump or anti-woke) and I think part of the weird post-ironic aspect is the dissonance a smart person who understands that Trump is just a man is effected far beyond the capacity that a man should be able to impact so Trump becomes this kind of icon in the show that not only represents everything wrong with the world but a Cthulhu that always swims right and can only be observed with horror. The show starts the main character seeing Trump get elected on the news and dropping their wine glass in horror and ends with trump announcing his next campaign and dancing around as they watch in horror.

This is just a description because it's another spinoff of the Good Wife and not really a recommendation in any way: Elsbeth is another spinoff of the good wife and if you like or hate her character you'll know where you'll stand on that show. It's a Columbo made for children though it started a bit better than that, it's basically devolved into complete nonsense where characters act like they're from a Disney channel sitcom. I wouldn't recommend it unless you find Elsbeth from the Good Wife/Fight delightful and even then only for the first season. But I have a bias against Columbo style mysteries because they show you who did it (and this is even worse because at least Columbo has figure out how, Elsbeth just knows immediately past the pilot episode). It also is getting woker as it goes along but in the benign Disney channel sense where the preaching is not subtle but also seems like it's intended for children and not even in a condescending way.

Evil (sadly not a spinoff of The Good Wife) is another King spouses show that has a lot of modern/woke themes throughout. It basically takes the tone that woke is right by default and it is pervasive in culture but it's not worth getting in to the weeds over. So it will deal with a lot of woke topics but not really address them as you need to be preached about them. Just that woke is right (or mostly right) and lets deal with demon possession or whatever X-files thing they have this episode. It's actually very good at sort of presenting the modern world and not really giving too much of a shit about making it about being moral for a show about good and evil which is interesting. My main problem with the show is that it deliberately does not resolve information. It will show you demons, monsters, evil AI, and sort of just go well that exists (or maybe doesn't) your investigation is over. There is a lot of histrionic parenting and children talking over each other and a lot of people who checked out early cited these as problems but in terms of presenting the culture war aspect of the world and not really becoming a focused diatribe against it, it's better than the good fight and from what I can remember probably as good as the good wife because back then it was less contentious to be differently political/cultural than it was to be when Evil came out. (And I say sadly it's not a spinoff is because the main villain is Michael Emerson who is married to Elsbeth in real life and it would have been great to have their characters interact, he just plays a bogstandard villain Elsbeth when they finally got them together but Emerson's character here is great because he's almost like a cross between a Hannibal Lechter and Wile E. Coyote which the dissonance does kind of ruin the horror aspect of it but it makes his villainy fairly endearing.)

Another recent(?) show that thread the ideological needle is The Resident. It was a medical procedural that redeems what old men bad guys and has a black man and asian man as a villain at one point. It has some preaching about things but it's mostly about stuff like guns are bad and do a lot of damage (the most culture war thing I think I can remember) but wokeness is even less present than something like the Pitt and it feels like they listened to their experts, at least for the first few seasons, and they'd often mention things that feel like actual concerns of doctors. It's a terrestrial tv show and I wouldn't say it's great but it's passible and I remember very little overbearing wokeness that rubbed me the wrong way and I was surprised at how the show seemed to not get drowned out in being about the moral aspect of everything that happens (like the Good Doctor). If you like slightly above average medical shows then I'd recommend it but you gotta want a medical show and the standard familial/friend drama in any show that goes on for 20 episodes a season. Along with The Good Wife (Cary) and Gilmore Girls (Logan), it also stars Matt Czuchry who is pretty easy to look at (though gets a bit too thin in this show).

I wouldn't recommend this show unless you just like watching TV and don't care if it's good or bad but one thing I've pointed out before is Switched at Birth which had a whole arc about campus rape that was misinterpreted by everyone and resulted in a worse situation for all involved because the bureaucracy that had to happen because of the report (of which was done without the knowledge of the person raped) ruined everyone involved and there was no real bad guys except for the people that decided to report drunken sex (where the girl just reported she felt bad about it) as rape for someone else and the school destroying the man afterward because it was just a blanket policy for any situation where this came up. Her reputation is ruined as a liar because she didn't even believe she was raped and he reputation became that of a rapist. A lot of people were really mad that the storyline existed at all because they felt it denigrated women by not showing an actual situation that involved real rape.

Oh, there's also Criminal (UK): It's only a few episodes for each season and it also goes both ways on culture war aspects but it definitely shows the limits of what we should accept as blanket fact just because of the culture is woke. I'm actually shocked that the episode was allowed to come out considering how anti-woke it ends, a certain second season episode. Otherwise it's a pretty good show with a neat idea of being just the interview with the criminal and nothing else and watching them crack the case during the interview (it's not always about getting them to confess). Criminal Germany was probably the best one and Criminal France the weakest. But I really only remember the UK one dealing with the "woke" reality of the world, and maybe it doesn't thread the needle more than just showing results like the above campus rape situation where intentions and belief are not worth more than evidence.

I know he does sort of misrepresent republicans as confused democrats in his shows but Aaron Sorkin almost always has this idea of the world where people from both sides have ideas worth listening to and even moreso once he left the west wing (though I still think he ghostwrote for it occasionally) as people who can also put aside their differences and solve the world's problems. It's a little irritating listening to characters who are so smart they can't be wrong even if you agree with them but it never went out of its way to truly present people on the right as morally bad which I think is basically just the standard worldview of a young leftist person, sadly. Back when Studio 60 came out the show was basically the subtext of Sorkin have a relationship with a Christian woman and being angry and embittered about it because of his own Reddit style atheism but by the end the character that thinks this way is praying to God. Sure, it's a kind of literary reversal that's probably just for drama but I do think it works in a threading the needle kind of way where even if it's just something done with no lasting impact to wring as much out of a situation as possible it's still better than where we were a few years ago with New Amsterdam and All Rise that were basically pure propaganda in one direction.

I have so many shows in my head I can't really remember anything right now but if I remember more I'll post more, but there's still tons that exist before the current year and get to feel as good as the ones that thread the needle without really having any woke content at all. Granted a lot still fought the culture war in their own way, but it was so much better than it is now.

Arcane is very clearly about class struggle and has a lot of woke casting and other type things, but it is also simply good, and is able to do the class struggle through enough of a historical lens that it doesn't run into modern woke issues.

The Pitt recently finished its first season and is an excellent medical drama. Some of the doctors get mega preachy and at times their is some serious "very special episode" energy but it's overall very good and anyone who has worked in those settings know that's how a lot of people talk.

I'm on the third episode of The Pitt right now and it was pretty jarring when the Indian doctor chewed out the aw-shucks white guy for being unsure if the sickle cell patient is drug seeking or not, but I'm willing to give it a pass so far since the Indian doctor got chewed out later in the episode for spending too much time on the sickle cell patient. However, I am pretty sure I see an incel school shooting arc coming from a mile away which promises to be very tedious.

It's also very black pilling about how many scarce ER resources are used up by drug users and the underclass, like the guy who had to be airlifted(!) to the hospital after a copper theft went wrong. I doubt that the showrunners intended this interpretation though.

Absolutely true to life though! Some mostly not burnt out and energetic trainee yelling at a more junior trainee who is just trying to not die and then herself getting yelled at by a much more burnt out supervisor. This is life!

The resolution of the arc you are thinking about is done very well, don't worry.

And yes practical experience of medicine can be very black pilling - homeless, drug users, illegal immigrants...but then also fat people, people who refuse to take their meds or listen to other advice...it gets murky very quickly.

The Pitt felt like it had obvious woke energy but it was nearly subsumed by trying to just give glimpses of the doctors' personal lives and focus more on the cases. It basically speedran itself to being like half about the doctors' personal lives by the end where where characters personal relations happen to show up at the hospital for different reasons and it felt really forced. Though you're right the preachiness is very bad and eyerolling, but unlike something like New Amsterdam, it moves on fairly quickly in most regards from being entirely about preaching. I'd recommend it to anyone that can tolerate the idea that it's a good doctor show, probably the best currently airing, but it's also going to woke preaching that often seems nonsensical (admittedly the briefest preaching they make but the most hilarious was saying that being fat doesn't impact someone's health). Though maybe that is reflective of reality at this point, dunno.

It's basically like ER if it was done as a single shift with episodes being in real time, which lends itself very well to the reality of it. I don't know if it's real but the way it presents itself and shows treatment rather than explaining it to the audience feels as real as I'd expect.

With the exception of Scrubs it's probably the best medical TV show period (in terms of vibe capturing and medical accuracy).

And yes it captures the reality. So much fighting about if kidney labs are racist.

Here's a legitimately unhinged blog post: 15 fragrances in 5 different collections. I'll group 15 fragrances into 5 collections. These are ways that I'd organize a one, two, three, four, and five fragrance collection. I'm a man so I will be recommending mostly masculine fragrances. I will point out the feminine marketed fragrances if those are not your bag. I'll also only be suggesting fragrances I've tried and like. Further, I won't be double dipping, so I will be suggesting different fragrances in different situations. If I suggest one fragrance for warm weather, it'll generally be interchangeable if the same situation comes up in a later list. These are all my personal picks, so please don't get angry if you hate something I suggest or if your favorite isn't on here. Fragrance is personal and everyone has their own nose. Something I love might remind you of the worst day of your life. Finally, wear whatever you want, but be cognizant of the people around you. SECRETIONS MAGNIFIQUES (IYKYK) might be your favorite fragrance, but no one around you is going to be happy if you wear it in public in 90 degree weather.

Before I start:

Eau Fraiche, Eau de Cologne, Eau de Toilette, Eau de Parfum, and Parfum: Historically, these denoted different oil concentrations that fragrances came in. In fragrance, oils are what make the actual fragrance smell like what they smell like. Eau Fraiche would have 2-3% oil concentration, Eau De Cologne (EDC) would have around 5%, Eau de Toilette (EDT) would have 5-15%, Eau de Parfum (EDP) would have 15-25%, and Parfum would have >25%. These are not hard rules. In fact, in modern days, fragrance companies will use these are names instead of designations of oil concentration. For example, Versace Man Eau Fraiche is an Eau de Toilette concentration despite having "Eau Fraiche" in the name. A general rule of thumb is that as you go up (EDT to EDP) the fragrance will smell deeper, heavier, and more mature.

Notes: These are items that the fragrance should evoke when you smell it. Notes are broken into top, mid, and base. Top When a company releases a fragrance, they will release notes to help you imagine what you're smelling when you spray the fragrance on. Note that these are not necessarily indicative actual ingredients. A fragrance with a "Rose" note may or may not contain actual rose oil. A general rule of thumb is to think of notes as marketing pitches. The company is selling you the image of what you'll smell like. Because of the differences in a human's sense of smell and skin biochemistry, the fragrances you buy may or may not smell like what the notes indicate. This is also why it's important to test on your skin before you buy a fragrance. I'll be using notes from Fragrantica, a website that serves as a database for fragrances.

Opening and dry-down: These are related to notes. The opening is what the fragrances evoke when they're first sprayed on, and the dry-down is what they evoke after a few hours on the skin. These are also not hard rules.

Performance: How easy it a fragrance can be smelled after it's sprayed on. Performance is generally separated into projection, longevity, and sillage. Projection is how far away you can be smelled. Generally, projection is strongest when you first spray it on, and becomes weaker over time. Longevity is how long the fragrance can be smelled for. A fragrance with high longevity can last for a while day, and some are so powerful they can last multiple days. Sillage is a little weirder. Sillage refers to the "scent trail" that you leave when you walk by. Generally, all fragrances perform better in warmer weather, and fragrances designed for warm weather have weaker performance.

I'll try to make my list more beginner friendly. That means I'll lean toward fragrances that are readily available and not extremely expensive. There will be a few exceptions, but I'll point those out. Further, please sample fragrances before buying a full bottle, especially if you're going to be spending hundreds of dollars on a single bottle.

1 Fragrance Collection

If you're only going to wear a single fragrance, you need it to be a generalist. Something that's classy enough to bring to work or an event, but casual enough to wear in a t-shirt and shorts.

Chanel Bleu de Chanel Eau de Toilette

Top Notes: Grapefruit Lemon Mint Pink Pepper

Middle Notes: Ginger Nutmeg, Jasmine, Iso E Super

Base Notes: Incense, Vetiver, Cedar, Sandalwood, Patchouli, Labdanum, White Musk

Bleu de Chanel EDT, as the original "Blue" fragrance, serves all of those purposes. Blue fragrances (named after Bleu de Chanel) are fragrances that are clean and versatile, with a generally fruity/citrus opening and a musky or woody dry-down. These are all things that make Bleu De Chanel the perfect fragrance for any situation. The performance is average, but this is a positive. For a generalist fragrance, you generally don't want the fragrance to be incredibly powerful. Although it leans slightly youthful, BDC EDT is a fragrances for all ages and situation. If you're looking for something more mature, the EDP and Parfum are both great choices for every day. They iterate on the formula beautifully. The online consensus is that the EDP is the best in the line, but to my nose, the EDT is superior. There's a reason it innovated its own genre of fragrances.

2 Fragrance Collection

For two fragrances, you can have a little more variety. I'd separate the two into one for warm weather (Spring and Summer) and one for cool weather (Fall and Winter). In general, in warm weather, people like to smell cleaner and lighter. Think citrus, aquatic, and floral. In cold weather, those notes become a lot more muted, so during winter, you'll smell things that are a lot more robust. Think woods, spices, and booze notes.

Hot: Prada L'Homme Eau de Toilette

Top Notes: Neroli, Black Pepper, Cardamom, Carrot Seeds

Middle Notes: Iris, Violet, Geranium, Mate

Base Notes: Amber, Cedar, Sandalwood, Patchouli

While it's marketed as masculine, Prada L'Homme is quite feminine. The opening is quite powdery and floral, giving it a very make-upy feel. That being said, the fragrance very nice in warm weather. It's a very classy fragrance that really opens up in the warmer months. Again, performance is average, but that's not a problem in the warmer months. The fragrance is not necessarily groundbreaking, but it's a very nice fragrance in spring and summer. This may be a little feminine for a lot of people, but I'd suggest every man give it a try. It's a real shame that the line seems to have gotten the Old Yeller treatment in favor of the Luna Rosa line.

Cold: Maison Martin Margiela Replica Jazz Club Eau de Toilette

Top Notes: Pink Pepper, Neroli, Lemon

Middle Notes: Rum, Java vetiver oil, Clary Sage

Base Notes: Tobacco Leaf, Vanilla Bean, Styrax

I would call this a modern masterpiece. The tobacco, rum, and vanilla come together into something that is very evocative of its namesake, a jazz club. The fragrance is heavy and boozy, but still soft enough to be inviting. Its performance isn't as powerful as a heavy oud or heavy leather fragrance, meaning it's less noticeable in the deep winter, but during fall and a cool winter, Jazz Club serves me very well. This is legitimately one of my favorite cool weather fragrances. I love to smell this on myself. Another great cool weather from the Replica line is By the Fireplace. Personally, I'm less of a fan of it, but the consensus online is that it's neck and neck with Jazz Club within the line.

3 Fragrance Collection

With three fragrances, I'd do the same as before, but with a twist. One for warm, one for cool, and one for special occasions. When you get to 3 fragrances, you don't really need a generalist fragrance anymore, as you'll have one every-day scent for warm and one for cool. So the third fragrance should really be more for special occasions.

Hot: Armani Acqua Di Gio Eau de Parfum (2022)

Top Notes: Sea Notes, Green Mandarin

Middle Notes: Clary Sage, Lavender, Geranium

Base Notes: Mineral notes, Vetiver, Patchouli

This one is a little confusing as Armani has just released a new version of Acqua Di Gio Eau de Parfum in 2025. I haven't smelled that one yet. The 2022 version, however, is a fragrance that I am a huge fan of. While it's technically discontinued, it's still readily available. The fragrance is a more mature version of the original Eau de Toilette, with the florals stripped away and while adding more mineral notes. This fragrance is an example of a warm weather fragrance that performs well in most situations. However, the fragrance being an Acqua Di Gio means that it'll do its best work in in the warmer months. When I spray this on myself, I can get whiffs of it throughout the day, and every time I do, my mouth literally waters from the zesty citruses. Performance is strong. On my skin, this lasts an entire day and after I spray it on in the morning, I've gotten compliments from other people even in the evening. The original Eau de Toilette is the best selling male fragrance in history for very good reason, and the EDP updated it for a more modern audience. I'm sad to see it go and I'll probably get another bottle while it's still available.

Cold: YSL Y Eau de Parfum

Top Notes: Apple, Ginger, Bergamot

Middle Notes: Sage, Juniper Berries, Geranium

Base Notes: Amberwood, Tonka Bean, Cedar, Vetiver, Olibanum

This is another of the Big Three of the "Blue" fragrances. To me, however this is a lot less of a generalist fragrance than the other two. The apple top note gives this fragrance a sweetness that becomes cloying in summer. During spring, fall and winter, however, I think it lets the fragrance a way to cut through the cold air. From there, the tonka bean and woody base notes gives the dry down a heavier feel. To my nose, the fragrance does its best work in Spring and Fall. In Winter, you might need to spray more, but the sweetness helps the fragrance stand out in even cold weather. If you wanted a fragrance with a more stereotypical "Blue" smell, the EDP Intense replaces the apple top note with bergamot, which gives the fragrance a citrussy pop. Overall, Y EDP is sweet and warm while still being clean. Perfect for a cool day.

Special Occasion: Tom Ford Beau De Jour Eau de Parfum

Top Notes: Lavender Extract, Lavender

Middle Notes: Oakmoss, Rosemary, Mint, Basil, Geranium

Base Notes: Patchouli, Amber

In my opinion, this fragrance is what "Classic" smells like. Tom Ford made Beau de Jour specifically as a tribute to the classic aromatic fougeres of old. Classy, sophisticated, and mature, Beau De Jour goes perfectly with a suit or tux. The lavender, oakmoss, and rosemary gives the fragrance the classic masculine fragrance smell while the dry down has a sweetness that makes it less harsh than some other aromatic fougeres. If I had to classify it, it would be a Spring, Fall, and Winter fragrance as it becomes a little heavy in high heat, but for occasions, you'd generally be in air conditioned rooms, meaning the weather matters less. Overall, Beau De Jour is perfect for any formal occasion. I'm a huge, huge fan of this.

4 Fragrance Collection

With four fragrances, you'll have a fragrance for every season. Now, you'll be able to target a specific feel during specific seasons. Here is also where the prices of some of the fragrances that I mention will be creeping up. So far, pretty much everything can be found for ~$200 (Beau De Jour not withstanding), but now I'll be recommending things that are >$300 at full retail. This is why it's so important to sample and test before buying a fragrance. I've spent $300 on something that I haven't smelled before and hated it after smelling it. Don't be like me, especially when you're just starting out. Is it idiotic to spend that much on a fragrance? Yes. Am I an idiot? Also yes. Let's move on.

Spring: Diptyque Philosykos Eau de Toilette

Top Notes: Fig

Middle Notes: Fig Leaf

Base Notes: Fig Tree

You might be able to tell from the notes, but this fragrance smells like fig, fig leaf, and fig tree. Fruity, fresh, and light, Philosykos is the perfect spring fragrance to my nose. There's a sweetness from the fig fruit that makes the fragrance really fun. This is another fragrance that leans more unisex than masculine. I've smelled this multiple times on women and it's just as lovely on them as it is on my skin. I really love this on a warmer spring day. Performance is average but on a warmer spring day, it wafts beautifully. Absolutely try this. I cannot recommend this enough.

Summer: Maison Martin Margiela Replica Sailing Day Eau de Toilette

Top Notes: Sea Notes, Aldehydes, Coriander, Red Pepper

Middle Notes: Juniper, Iris, Amyl Salicylate, Rose

Base Notes: Seaweed, Ambergris, Cedar, Amberwood

This is a photorealistic ocean scent. As the marketing states, this is supposed to smell like sailing in the open ocean on a sunny day and to my nose, that's exactly what this smells like. Aquatic scents are very popular during summer because they smell light and clean, and this is encapsulates exactly that feeling. Performance is actually above average for summer fragrances, and in high heat, this will radiate off the skin very nicely. Personally, this is neck and neck for my favorite summer fragrance.

Fall: Dolce & Gabbana The One Eau de Parfum

Top Notes: Grapefruit, Coriander, Basil

Middle Notes: Cardamom, Ginger, Orange Blossom

Base Notes: Amber, Tobacco, Cedar

This might be a more controversial pick as traditionally, The One EDP is considered a more of a date night fragrance, but this has served my very well in fall. This fragrance is warm and soft, and it reminds me of a warm cashmere blanket. The fragrance is fresh enough to be used on a warm day, but it's also warm enough for cool weather. Performance is intimate, but that's fine if you spray slightly more. The fragrance is very very appealing, which also makes it great for a first date. This is a fragrance that's very hard to hate.

Winter: Cartier Oud & Santal Parfum

Notes: Sandalwood, Agarwood (Oud), Plum

This is probably the most challenging fragrance I will recommend. In some ways, this is probably the most simplistic fragrance on the list, as you might be able to tell by the note breakdown. On the other hand, to my nose, the fragrance is incredibly elegant, rich, and deep. In the summer, this will be extremely heavy and oppressive, but in the winter, it really comes into its own. This fragrance leans more mature and formal, and can serve you very will in a tuxedo provided you spray lightly. Performance in hot weather is beastly. This will choke people out if you spray too much of it. In cold weather however, this performs beautifully. Like I said, this will be very challenging for a beginner, so please please PLEASE try this before you buy a bottle. If this is something that you like, however, I think it will serve you very well.

5 fragrance collection

Same as before, but with an extra fragrance for special occasions. Some of these picks might be a little controversial, but I really do like these fragrances.

Spring: Essential Parfums Bois Imperial Eau de Parfum

Notes: Akigalawood, Woodsy Notes, Vetiver, Basil, Timur, Ambroxan, Patchouli

Here's another fragrance that doesn't have a full note breakdown. This is a very modern woody fragrance. In fact, to me this smells futuristic. Even though the fragrance focuses a lot on woods, it's not a heavy fragrance like Oud & Santal is. It's quite light for a woody perfume and to me, that's one of the main appeals. Performance on this fragrance is pretty strong, so on a warm day, I'd suggest lighter sprays. This fragrance leans more mature and is very masculine to my nose. On a warm spring day, this evolves into something that is very light and modern. This is a different take on a spring fragrance and I love it.

Summer: Acqua Di Parma Fico di Amalfi Eau de Toilette

Top Notes: Grapefruit, Bergamot, Citron, Lemon

Middle Notes: Fig Nectar, Jasmine, Pink Pepper

Base Notes, Fig Tree, Cedar, Benzoin

This one is another fig fragrance, this time focused on the fig tree. Compared to Philosykos, it's a lot less fruity and a lot more green. This fragrance is from the Blu Mediterraneo line, which is Acqua Di Parma's summer focused line. Each fragrance in this line is named after an ingredient from a place. Fico di Amalfi is named after Figs from the town of Amalfi. This fragrance is very personal to me as it's what I wore the first time I went to Korea. In the 95 degree Seoul summer, this fragrance smells absolutely beautiful. Though the performance is average, I would slightly overspray and smell it throughout the day. Every time I smell this it reminds me of that trip. Even without my memory associations, the green notes in the fragrance is beautiful in summer. One of my favorites of all time and very much worth a sample.

Fall: Guy Laroche Drakkar Noir Eau de Toilette

Top Notes: Lavender, Lemon, Bergamot, Rosemary, Mint, Lemon Verbena, Basil, Artemisia

Middle Notes: Juniper, Carnation, Cinnamon, Coriander, Wormwood, Angelica, Jasmine

Base Notes: Oakmoss, Pine Tree Needles, Fir, Leather, Sandalwood, Vetiver, Patchouli, Cedar, Amber, Resins

At this point, Drakkar Noir can be considered a classic fragrance. A true powerhouse in the 80s and 90s, Drakkar Noir is one of the fragrances that has a reputation outside of just the people who are into fragrances. I've never tried a vintage bottle, but the consensus is that Drakkar Noir has been reformulated so that the performance isn't the bomb it was in the 80s and 90s, but the fragrance itself is still pleasant to my nose. A lot of people would say that this fragrance is outdated and played out, I believe that it's gone beyond that. Like Chanel No 5, I think Drakkar Noir is a classic. While there are more than a dozen notes listed in the fragrance, a simple description would be an aromatic fougere with edge. It's not my favorite aromatic fougere, but I find that for whatever reason, I love the way it smells in spring and fall. Not as sweet as Beau de Jour and more edgy, Drakkar Noir is a little too casual to use in formal situations. However, as an everyday wear, I think it definitely holds up.

Winter: Dior Sauvage Elixir

Top Notes: Nutmeg, Cinnamon, Cardamom, Grapefruit

Middle Notes: Lavender

Base Notes: Licorice, Sandalwood, Amber, Patchouli, Haitian Vetiver

Sauvage is another one of those fragrances that has transcended just fragrances, and for very good reason. Today, however, I will be recommending the Elixir. The first thing you'll notice is that compared to the EDT, Elixir is very different. Deep, heavy, and syrupy, there's almost none of the youthfulness of the EDT left. The second thing you'll notice is that the performance on Elixir is nuclear. When I spray this, if I plan on being indoors for a long period of time, I legitimately have to spray in half sprays. I have sprayed this in the morning, gone through a whole day, taken a shower, gone to sleep, woken up, and still smelled it on my skin. The fragrance is very rich, mature, and elegant (if you smell past the absolutely beastly performance), and is perfect for winter weather. The consensus on this fragrance is that it's also a very good fragrance for Middle Eastern market. Whatever your feelings are on the original Sauvage, give this a try. It's quite different and in my opinion, great for winter.

Special occasion: Creed Aventus Eau de Parfum

Top Notes: Bergamot, Black Currant, Apple, Lemon, Pink Pepper

Middle Notes: Pineapple, Patchouli Moroccan Jasmine

Base Notes: Birch Musk Oak Moss Ambroxan Cedarwood

Finally, we have Creed Aventus. Probably the first niche fragrance that has broken into the mainstream, the influence of Creed Aventus cannot be overstated. It wouldn't be inaccurate to say that the modern landscape was changed with the release of this fragrance. Nowadays, however, the fragrance is very much maligned. There are many accusations of reformulation, with people paying up to a thousand dollars for older batches of the fragrance. The house itself also has come under controversy, with many calling into question the marketing history of the house of Creed itself. Creed as a house has even been in a rivalry with Mont Blanc (they've released some great fragrances in their own right). But let's leave that behind us. When I first sprayed Aventus on myself, it opened my eyes. To me, this is what a man should smell like. The fruit on top makes the fragrance instantly appealing while the woodiness in the base gives it an edgy base that just makes the fragrance magnetic. I have a 2021 batch and I've never smelled an older batch (I'm not going to pay $10 per ml for any perfume) but my bottle smells sublime. Performance is below average, but with how powerful the atomizer is, it's not that big of a problem. There's a reason that it's known as "The King of Fragrances" among the enthusiasts and I believe that everyone needs to at least smell Creed Aventus.

Edited for formatting and other mistakes.

Wow, great list. Loved seeing one of my personal favourites in Bois Impériale on here

Glad QC brought me here.

I am a 2-fragrance guy. I have been wearing D&G Light Blue for 15 years now, originally selected by the ex who broke my heart. By the time that happened I'd already invested a lot of my identity into it. My wife got me Coach for Men for fall and winter. It's not as evocative (college had passed me by at this time) but I still dig it. Would love your takes on these, good or bad.

One annoyance in my life is that I love so many scents, including for my grooming products. But I feel often as if I'm doing them a disservice when combined. My deodorant is admittedly mild, but when I'm doing that AND my sandalwood Aftershave AND cologne I always think "why am I doing this?". Maybe I'm just rambling but it seems like a problem some people may have solved.

Finally, I also wonder if you've read Jitterbug Perfume? I very much enjoyed the book.

Light Blue is quite nice, but I'm a bigger fan of Eau Intense. They also release new versions every year, some of which are great. Light Blue Forever and Light Blue Summer Vibes are tow that I've enjoyed. I've actually never smelled Coach for Men, but I can't imagine hating it just from the note breakdown. I'll check it out the next time I get a chance.

I've never read Jitterbug Perfume, but I'll check it out.

Coming in really late. Thank you, Quality Contributions, for bringing this to my attention.

Okay, first off - thank you. Sincerely. Cologne has developed into an amateur passion of mine, so while I was cognizant of alot of these terms, I like how you went a bit more indepth and explained the origins. For example, I knew that 'blue' was a term for a daily driver, but I never knew where it came from. Interesting.

Second -

Maison Martin Margiela Replica Jazz Club

Yoink. Sample ordered. I've been looking for a good tobacco-heavy scent to try out, and this looks perfect. Again, thank you.

Any time. I'm surprised something like this even made the Quality Contributions haha. Hope you enjoy Jazz Club

Might be a fun experiment: any advice on rounding out my collection? This is what I have now

  • Serge Lutens Ecrin de fumee. It’s very warm spicy, tobacco, sweet. Usually saving it for winter months
  • Comme de Garçon Avignon. I have no idea what I thought when I bought it. It smells like church. I love the smell but I can’t really wear it without being self conscious, so it just sits there. My instinct is to dress up with it
  • Mancera Red Tobacco. I think it’s warm, but like fresh-warm, almost herbal, which doesn’t really make sense. That’s my summer and spring go-to and I love it.

I also took a note to smell all of your recommendations some time

Tbh it doesn't sound like you need any more "rounding out". You got one for warm, one for cool, and one for dressing up. I haven't smelled the Comme de Garcon or Serve Lutens fragrances, but they sound very lovely. I don't own Red Tobacco because for whatever reason, it turns on me when it's on my skin, but I've smelled it in the air and it's nice. If you're looking to explore more, I can suggest a few beyond what I've already posted. I'll again only suggest what I've smelled.

All of your fragrances sound pretty heavy, so if you're looking for something on the opposite side of the spectrum, beyond the spring and summer frags I've suggested:

  1. Jo Malone Blackberry & Bay EDC. This one is really really light, being an Eau de Cologne. It's fruity and soft, and in summer, I just go to town on this. At retail it's a little expensive for what you're getting, but I'm a fan and I own a full bottle. Another one from the house is Grapevine & Cypress. This is more of a generalist, but it's very masculine to my nose. I'm a huge fan of it and will be getting a bottle in the future.

  2. Acqua Di Parma Arancia di Capri. This is the same line as Fico di Amalfi and it's similarly geared for summer. For me, I'm spraying this for the opening, which is zesty citrus all the way. I reapply this every couple of hours just to get that opening.

It also seems like you're looking for something for formal occasions so I'll suggest a couple of those as well:

  1. Mancera Cedrat Boise. Also from the house of Mancera, this one has similarities with Aventus. Really easy to wear and likeable, and wouldn't be out of place in a suit. There's an intense version that I haven't smelled, but the consensus online is that it's also very good. Mont Blanc Explorer is another fragrance that's a twist on Aventus. I own Mont Blanc Explorer, but not Cedrat Boises. I already own Aventus and Explorer so they're a little redundant in my collection

  2. Creed Green Irish Tweed. In my imagination, this is what James Bond smells like. It's sophisticated, elegant, and gentlemanly. This was what Creed made their money off of before Aventus came along and for very good reason. Davidoff's Cool Water EDT has a lot of similarity to this (there's drama behind that, if you can believe it). I own Cool Water and Will be getting GIT for a special occasion.

  3. Edit: I just remembered this one, but Maison Francis Kurkdjian's L'homme A la Rose is an amazingly elegant men's rose scent. To me, it's a very realistic rose scent that works really well in a suit or tux. This is another one that's on my list.

Finally, since you love Red Tobacco, I'll suggest a couple that you might like as well:

  1. Parfums de Marly Layton. This one dials up the spiciness and leaves the tobacco note behind. It's also a heavier fragrance, so during summer, definitely go lighter on this. I will get a bottle of this soon.

  2. Viktor & Rolf Spicebomb Extreme. This one turns the spiciness way way up, and kind of leaves everything else behind. Technically, it's got rum and tobacco as notes, but they're more undertones to my nose. Definitely wear this during winter. You'll be choking people out during summer with this. A lot of people say that it's been reformulated so it's not as good as it was when it first came out, but try it and see if you're a fan.

Hell yeah, I'll be heading out to smell some of those tomorrow. Thanks!

Any time. I just added L'homme A la Rose to the formal occasions list as well. Enjoy.

Thanks for posting. Fan of fragrances here myself. I can second Philosykos by Diptyque, I actually prefer the solid of this one. A beautiful waxy fig fragrance. You mentioned Secretions Magnifiques- I still get random whiffs of things that remind me of this occasionally, so terrible haha.

I have to shout out the podcast The Perfume Nationalist- strong recommendation if you're interested in fragrance and/or media and culture from a right wing perspective. Especially fond of the earliest episodes but I still listen to his new episodes as well.

Seconding what a few others have said. This was a fun read, and, was so because of your knowledge and interest in the subject.

When I was single I used to wear Creed’s Bois du Portugal in fall and winter. It had the most longevity of anything I’ve ever worn (not that the list is too long). I’d get hit with a big whiff of it again, the following morning in the shower, from the previous morning’s spritz.

Thanks for this, it's amazing what a boost a simple fragrance can be when it's suitable. I've been mucking about for years now trying all different sorts of things ever since my one cologne (Clinique Chemistry) went away. CK One has been the closest I've gotten but even so, it's just not the same.

Fico di Amalfi is amazing. I use the lipbalm and somehow even though the balm itself is tasteless I always get a slight hint of the taste of fresh figs on my tongue when I lick my lips from the smell my nose gets. It's also unisex so everyone can enjoy it on themselves.

Also, Dior Sauvage (or any flanker): ew.

I'm a fan of the entire Blu Med line tbh. I have a couple of bottles and will be getting more in the future. My favorites are Fico and Arancia di Capri

I know Sauvage has a rough reputation lol but the Elixir is a completely different fragrance to me nose. I don't smell any Sauvage until maybe 10 hours in. By then I'm ready to shower off.

Edit: spelling

That was honestly very cool. My mom is a huge perfume nerd with a massive collection and my wife loves heavy, musty notes that I hate, like patchouli and vetiver. This made me prefer only the freshest and most inoffensive notes possible, but I can't smell them very well after covid, so I currently own a zero-fragrance collection.

Sad to hear about your Covid. I was lucky when I got mine that my smell came back within a couple of weeks.

Sorry to hear about your loss of smell, sincerely.

If it’s any consolation, one of my good friends lost his sense of smell and taste for around six months in 2020. He ate skinless chicken breasts and steamed vegetables for every meal and got into the best shape of his life.

I hope you eventually recover your olfactory prowess.

It's not that it's been lost, it's more like it's been simplified, rounded off. Maybe I just need to train my nose more.

I don’t think this unhinged.

Thanks for writing so much about a passion topic for you! As a one-cologne guy, it’s pretty interesting.

Haha thanks. What's your one cologne, if you don't mind me asking.

Plain ol’ Dior Sauvage. It smells pretty good and does the job.

Haha, same. I've been getting by with Polo RL Blue since I was a teenager. Question for afficionados - if you wear high-complexity scents on the daily, do you forgo underarm deodorant entirely? Or use unscented? It seems to me that they are often sufficiently strong to at least compete with if not overpower more nuanced scents.

In my experience, it depends on what type of deodorant you use. If you use spray-on, it may interfere with the scent as those are designed to be smelled a little more. If you use rub-on, I haven't noticed a real difference. Get unscented if you're really worried, but I haven't noticed any interference from rub-on deodorants.

So cheap fun - what you do that is budget friendly? One of mine is to take some cheap knife in the 10-20 euro range that is having at least some heat treatment, thin it, sharpen it to the point where you could make a couple of S in a printer paper and and then gift it to somebody. Usually they are pleased. As a bonus there is usually a stream of knives sent your way for sharpening.

Convert your favorite print or PDF book to HTML/EPUB! And, in the process, correct any errors (whether objective or subjective) that you find.

I have kids so that changes my preferences a bunch.

Cheap fun:

Nature walks. Kids make this more fun as they will ask questions or spot weird things, or make it fun for you to spot weird things. Also you have to explain things.

Museums. They always seem underpriced to me. You will definitely learn something new.

Cooking. This isn't always cheap, but you gotta eat and if you just subtract your normal meal costs it's not too expensive. I'd recommend playing around with chili recipes, making custom pizzas, cooking eggs different ways, and finding some less common items that you want to perfect (my dad makes perfect Reuben sandwiches, I judge all Reubens in comparison to his, and none I've had are better.)

Crafts. School has a way of ruining things that can actually be fun. I thought I didn't like crafts, because I was forced to do so many dumb crafts projects in grade school. I should have realized before having kids that it could be fun, I already knew reading and writing are fun outside of school. Pipe cleaners, straws, glue, tape, paper, and foil are enough to build a lot of things. And then since it's not school you can also buy firecrackers, a lighter, and a pellet gun and have fun destroying your crafts in cool ways.

Knife sharpening tips? I've watched a few videos and I can get a knife from dull to OK but definitely not youtuber-sharp.

The biggest two tips I have are blade geometry, a fixed-angle sharpening system and a honing steel. Three tips.

Kitchen knives cut really well if you pick a more acute sharpening angle than they came with. My chef's knife has a 34-degree angle, and the smaller knives have a 22-degree angle (my sharpener won't go any lower).

You can freehand your knives on a whetstone, but a gizmo that locks your knife in place and lets you control the angle is 1000 times easier to use. I didn't splurge on a KME or a TS-Prof, and the cheap knockoff I got has its limitations, but it's not like I use it every week.

You can keep your kitchen knife tomato sharp much longer without sharpening it if you hone it on a steel rod.

My goal is not to keep my knives youtuber-sharp, though.

I am not that good at sharpening to educate others. My edges are - you don't feel resistance when cutting a tomato, being able to cut tomato sideways, doing S trough A4 printer paper and kinda cutting kitchen towel. But here are some tips I have learned in the last few years. After the first tip the order is not mandatory. Also keep in mind that when doing youtube stunts - technique makes as much difference as the edge - which I realized a week ago when I gave a girlfriend of mine to test a knife I sharpened - I was doing an S trough the paper and she was making the knife and paper create sounds like nails on a chalkboard. I also mostly sharpen kitchen knives, for EDC and survival - have no experience.

  1. Buying sharpening gear and using it are two different hobbies. Unless your gear is total crap you probably don't need, but only want that new 8000 stone.
  2. Good rough stones are harder to find than good high grit ones.
  3. When sharpening on wetstones - your back musles should be under tension and push and pull with them - the hands are for stabilization. Something close to doing pushups. I have noticed that separating holding the knife stable and generating pressure and movement to different muscle groups helps doing both better and more consistent.
  4. Having your setup being comfortable is important.
  5. Stropping is more important than you think. From what I see in the last few years more and more the communities are paying attention to burr removal and final strop. Thanks to science of sharp. So up your stropping game.
  6. Cheap 3$ diamond plates with grit 200 from temu make a decent wetstone cleaner and slurry raiser.
  7. Cheap 2$ diamond paste makes a good stropping compound
  8. Make sure that what you are sharpening could actually take an edge. Mystery and cheap stainless with poor or totally without heat treatment - it is better to just give the guy a set of kiwi brand knifes.
  9. You could unknowingly be using the wrong angle. Buy a cheapo angle meter from amazon, temu and just check on every knife you sharpen at what height of the spine relative to board is the desired angle. I was unknowingly sharpening cheap stainless at around 18 inclusive (9 per side) - which is just too low for that specific steel and I was wondering why the edges collapsed, rolled or didn't form at all. Moved to 30 inclusive - yeah bably - different beast. Error could come from the other direction too - to sharpen at 30 per side and wonder why this axe style edge doesn't perform.
  10. You could unknowingly be using the wrong pressure. Either too little or too much - two days ago I was a bit angry and started just pushing harder on the 1000 - suddenly my bevels were thinner, more consistent in width and with better finish. Also sharper. And I was using way too much on 12000 and probably rounding the edge.
  11. Thinness after the edge matters a lot - almost any mass produced knife could use a good thinning there.
  12. Always have vegetables on hands - no matter how much you cut and season paper - it won't taste good. So it is more important a knife to be joyous to use on the cutting board than to do stunts. And you will eat tad healthier.
  13. No you won't be able to cut prosciutto or mortadella or sashimi or make katsuramuki like the pros. Deal with it.
  14. Nothing written by a guy on the Internet is beyond scrutiny - do your own experiments to confirm or deny what is being told. Too much is subjective to be taken as granted.
  15. Cheap Chinese microscopes are a godsend if you are having troubles.
  16. Practice. Also nothing wrong in buying cheap practicing knives. There are finds in the 10-20-30 dollar range. Getting a Mora, thin it sharpen it - it will be awesome experience. Both their stainless and especially carbon are amazing. Also there are finds in the local Chinese market, and some of the western cheap brands are also good. But this requires a lot of reading.
  17. Every stone has it's own character. It may not fit yours - if you have the budget gift/trade it to someone else.
  18. Some stones are just crap. End of story.
  19. Classical knife shapes have a good reason to be classical.
  20. Science of sharp, knifegrinders are good resources about the theory of sharpening.
  21. Never sharpen someone else's knife that has sentimental value.

Thanks a lot, lots to digest here. I don't have a stropping setup at all, so I think that's a good place to start.

You can get good results for stropping with news paper. Or just leather on wood. Or even an old belt. There are a lot of good videos in the net. Compounds are nice to have but not mandatory.

For stropping I use green stainless steel polishing compound. Does diamond slurry work better if you have experience with both?

I use a leather stop loaded with 0.5 micron chinesium diamond. Works ok. Couple of years ago I used leather with green compound worked ok. I have also tried the newspaper/a4 paper stropping people do seem to get amazing results also.

But I am not yet skilled enough to determine the difference between different methods.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=WFsNGNomP78 here is a video that shows both the paper and other insane deburring technique.

Can you recommend a sharpening stone/tool that you use?

The sharpening sections on the big internet knife forums are usually a good resource about different stones. And it is a rabbit hole.

I personally would stay away from combination stones. One grit per stone only. I would also stay away from mystery stones and no name brands.

The conventional wisdom is that a basic kit consists of rough (120-600) medium (800-2000) and fine stone (3000-8000), and a strop. With the fine stone being optional. Personal observation - grit jumps lower than 2 and higher than 4 are a waste of time in a progression. The good thing of having 3 stones is that you can use them to flatten each other - the theory is quite interesting there. A small 2$ diamond plate to raise slurry is also helpful.

Go on the kitchen or general knife forums - they usually have questionnaires about your exact needs and budgets to fit recommendations.

And to make matters worse - almost any stone line i can think of have at least some shitty performers inside. So just doing a brand recommendation is hard.

I have found that I personally like stones on the hard side that are not muddy, but make creamy slurry.

Sometimes I try to remember things I used to find funny on the internet. This is one of those times. I need help.

There used to be a really low brow humor website back in the day. It went hard, and crass, and one of the pages I thought was hilarious was Fuck Zombie. There was some page about him running for president, and really having a thing for women in nursing homes because they are so soft. And I'm drawing an absolute blank on where i saw that, what the site might have been, how to look it up on archive.org, anything.

The perils of finding joy on the internet when you were a teen. Unlike a box of old comic books, or a collection of cassette tapes or CDs, a lot of old niche pages on the internet are just gone forever. No going back.

Any chance the artist is this guy? https://www.deviantart.com/the-real-ncomics who previously had a different account https://web.archive.org/web/20111108093000/http://8red7.deviantart.com:80/gallery see reddit account https://old.reddit.com/user/NComics/submitted/?count=50&after=t3_1e8zzl

Naw, wasn't that. Was way dumber and less skilled.

Playing the new French turn based RPG Expedition 33 - 5 hours in and it is fantastic. A breath of fresh air while also melancholic from the JRPG perspective.

Last game I played like this was Yakuza (three games ago I believe - so 3-4 years since they cranked out a sequel and pirate sequel that I just don’t have time for) which I finished and feel fondly of.

I must be a sucker for turn based JRPGs.

I'm very concerned about the comments I saw that the dodge and parry QTEs are super punishing if you fail them, to the point that many enemies will one-shot characters in that case. When the developers said they wanted to have that timing element, I imagined something like Yakuza or the South Park games - if you hit the timing right you get a nice bonus, but it's not essential. But from what others have said it sounds far more critical than that.

I'm very concerned about the comments I saw that the dodge and parry QTEs are super punishing if you fail them, to the point that many enemies will one-shot characters in that case.

I read some reviews that gave me the same exact fear before trying the game out. "Oh no, it's like dark souls, except you get 1-shot if you miss a dodge"!

I'm playing on the hardest difficulty right now, about 40 hours in and there have been 2-3 fights where I felt the game really expected me to hit every single dodge. All of them optional and doable without dodging if you come back later or use specific skills. For example, I just finished off a relatively secret miniboss who is immune to fire (my entire party was specialized for fire/burn). He has a mechanic that heals him for a massive amount if he hits anyone and you're clearly supposed to dodge 100% of his moves. I missed half the dodges and still killed him on my second try, without overlevelling or cheesing him in any way. It was a challenging, exciting fight that never went into "frustrating" territory. Almost every encounter past the first few hours is like this.

Initially, the game is tough because you have very few tools. Afterwards, you get a ton of options, skills, heals and resurrects and difficulty drops off significantly. Increasing the health stat helps immensely as well (all heals are percentage based, so increasing health both buffs tankiness and healing efficiency).

Overall, I think it's a phenomenal game and would recommend it to everyone.

Thanks for your recommendation. I decided to give the game a go (since it is only $45 after all). Worst case scenario... I've spent worse money before. But hopefully I enjoy it.

Let me know what you think afterwards.

I played through past the first real boss and missing the QTEs is very punishing. I haven't encountered a one-shot but if they're all missed you will lose. It's not an optional feature you can ignore.

There is a tutorial girl you fight and before the game starts proper you can fight her again and she has two attacks. One is easily dodged or even parried, the other was a combo of attacks that I wasn't able to dodge ever, even having failed the battle twice. The dodge/parry window feels really bad. I had to stop and look it up and someone on reddit said that the game is very punishing if you're used to dodging and parrying like it's Dark Souls because it's already too late if you're trying to hit the button the moment before the attack like how it works in more action oriented games. The main problem is a lot of the attacks work like I described the tutorial girl, they're either pretty easy to dodge or fuck I can't imagine ever dodging that.

Thankfully that side battle was harder than anything else even the first real boss. Partly because the game is in many other ways like Dark Souls. It seems designed so that everything can strictly be accomplished without leveling up at all because dodges and parries negate all damage and every enemy attack seems to be able to be dodged and parried.

The game, so far, is entirely linear with many small secret hidden areas and one side mini-boss. There are rest points that refill health, let you level up, and respawn normal enemies. Without intentionally grinding, but still searching all the dead end branches that came from the path, I was killing normal enemy groups without them ever having the chance to attack. And the first boss, I missed several QTEs against it and was still easily able to kill it without too much trouble (maybe it gets worse this boss was fairly slow in its attacks). But you seem to be able to infinitely spawn enemies and just grind levels if something is too hard. If the pattern follows what I've seen either one-shotting bosses must come much later or people are playing glass cannons because you can upgrade health and defense which I've been doing since I suck at dodging.

This does seem to have the hallmarks of most things I dislike about modern JRPGs. QTEs forced into combat, armor is cosmetic only, your equipment is basically just three slots of accessories and bespoke weapon classes for each character, extremely linear (so far), only three characters in battles (I haven't gotten that far but it looks like this is true), it takes like an hour for the game to actually get started-- but in spite of all that it's fun, the story is well told and actually doesn't waste time despite taking forever to start. Combat is fun even if the QTEs are there to enshitify it (imo). Basically in combat you have guns which let you use mana points as a single bullet and you can shoot the enemies weak points for massive damage or break down shields with them, it gives a good feeling of freedom within the combat to do a lot and I assume it gets more complex later because I have a piece of equipment that has a chance to give an enemy burn on gunshot and another that gives crit bonuses to enemies carrying burn status. It feels good that there's designed patterns of combat that give the whole thing a kind of choreographed cadence if I didn't have to dodge the enemies after it'd feel better but beggars can't be choosers.

I'm the kind of person that outright throws games away if they seem to rely too much on the timing based things in turn based systems (chained echoes, sea of stars) and this game does that and maybe worse but I don't feel like throwing it away because the story and presentation seems far more interesting and actually told by an adult to an adult and I it doesn't feel like it's yanking me around in terms of story switching perspectives, endless exposition or tutorialising. I'd definitely recommend it with the caveat that yeah the dodging is there, it's bad (half the time) and it matters way more than I'd like. I only hope that people are wrong about being one-shot by bosses and haven't upgraded their defense or health at all.

Editing because I just started playing again and the moment after I had quit and made this post the very next thing was entering into an overworld to explore so it's no longer a Final Fantasy XIII-esque hallway rpg. So, basically linear for the first hour of actual gameplay, I suppose.

I saw that the dodge and parry QTEs are super punishing if you fail them, to the point that many enemies will one-shot characters in that case.

That's true. Dodging and parrying are more important against bosses. Normal enemies don't do as much damage.

I was playing this rpgmaker horror game my brother recommended earlier this week, called Look Outside. It is phenomenal, the way the horror is presented is fantastic - it does a really good job of selling that sense of 'I don't want to look into this any deeper than I already have, but I know I have to if I'm going to survive. You play a guy who wakes up in his apartment after a terrible nightmare about the sky, and now he has the urge to go look outside, but he somehow knows he shouldn't. Instead he has to wait for whatever is going on outside to pass, which means keeping himself healthy clean and sane for at least a month without leaving his apartment building.

Basically you explore your apartment building - where people have been looking outside - for food, cleaning supplies and ways to keep yourself entertained (exploring just stresses you out for reasons that are immediately apparent when you start playing). You can of course look outside if you like - there's a window in your bedroom even, but you instantly learn why you shouldn't (in game terms it's an immediate game over) and most of the horror comes from interacting with your neighbours who have, because whatever is going on out there fucks people UP!

For an example, one morning when you go out into the apartment hallway you meet one of your neighbours who is looking for toothpaste. He has additional teeth you see, his baby daughter's crib was in front of a window when the event (remain indoors!) occurred and he doesn't know what it did aside from make her cranky, and wherever she bites new teeth grow, so his arm is growing teeth. The teeth eventually take him over, and you have to either kill him or run away, but after that you can also explore his apartment, where his family lives - his wife, baby daughter, and two sons. And let's just say they've all been bitten. That doesn't mean you have to kill them all though - after finding a plastic army man I managed to convince the mass of teeth and flesh and polyps that was the younger son to play with me, and have some fun in his final moments. It still tugs at my heartstrings now, and keep in mind I am jaded as hell.

And yeah the game is full of tragedies like that. I don't think I'm out of line saying it was inspired by the work of Junji Ito and Lovecraft, and equally inspired by the covid lockdowns, and it is a bit less frustrating than the average rpgmaker game, but it still has most of the flaws of that engine - so make sure you backup your saves just in case. But for a game made by a single guy - Francis Coulombe, who I've never heard of - it's a spectacular effort.

I just saw it recently and can second the recommend. It looks about twice as good as Avowed wanted to be (I imagine).

Now we have two game threads :o

WE'RE BACK, BABY!

motte membership numbers crater

Reddit has a taken a turn. Racism is now leaking into mainstream subs. I kept Sailer-posting in /r/Europe and getting banned by mods and evading and got myself an IP ban in.. '19 I think. It was apparently lifted, I made a new account and signed in with the same email address that once got banned.

Might be worth looking at the terms & conditions now.

Aww shit, here we go again... I was really starting to hope it doesn't come back, being free of it for a ~week felt great actually

Where else am I going to get spammed by BBC porn while trying to have a flamewar with a heathen mac user in /g/

while trying to have a flamewar with a heathen mac user

You're doing God's work.

What part of “Don’t forget: You’re here forever” do you not understand?

The chans will rise again!

(This is a very tasteless joke. If it's too tasteless - mods, feel free to delete.)

The girlfriend and I are currently watching The People vs. OJ Simpson which, after a slightly shaky and didactic start, really hits its stride around the third or fourth episode. There's a scene in which Marcia Clark and Chris Darden have had a few drinks and are happily slow-dancing together, but then a sad, worried expression passes across her face. I joked that at that moment she was thinking "I'm currently prosecuting the case of a white woman who married a black man who went on to beat and murder her - perhaps I'd better not pursue this". And then I realised that the victim is literally named Nicole Brown. It couldn't have been more on the nose if a gang of 4chan trolls had written it collaboratively.

Kek

The most narrow-technical prediction win I've ever landed:

My Philadelphia Eagles, coming off a crushing Super Bowl victory over the Chiefs, had the 32nd pick out of 32 first round picks in the NFL draft, held last night.

In every fan discussion, I loudly predicted that there was no way Eagles GM Howie Roseman would pick at 32. He would either trade up to pick up a falling star in the mid 20s, or he would trade out of the first round and pick up an extra pick somewhere else. My reasoning being that 1) In mock drafts you often see a guy who was a consensus top-ten pick drop into the early 20s, but rarely past that; 2) Howie Roseman comes from some kind hyper-trade-oriented Jewish merchant genetic stock or he's sold his soul to Tzeentch or something, but he loves making trades, he's always trading two late round picks to move up five picks in the second and pick up a third next year then trading the future third to pick up two late round picks. He loves moving around; 3) the Eagles have tremendous job security for their staff and a roster without any serious holes, so they're free to do radical things. My logic felt so airtight that I put a bit of money on it among friends.

Well the draft comes around last night, my mom wants to watch it. I watch it with her to keep her company, but to be honest, it was a slog with the Eagles picking so late. And what do the Eagles do, around midnight? They make a trade, just like I predicted!, to move up one spot from 32 to 31, to jump another team and draft Jihaad Campbell, a local South Jersey kid.

I won the bets by the narrowest margin possible, and I look forward to buying the most tasteless off-brand t-shirts imaginable outside the Linc next year.

Tangentially Eagles related, McCord at 181 seems a tidy piece of business. I enjoyed his brief sit down with Bootleg.

QB Factory. I'm strongly of the "draft a QB (almost) every year" theory of drafting, even a solid backup is worth the effort because of the positional value, and at least theoretically you can launder a developmental pick into a higher value pick later on if he puts out a little bit of good tape. And every now and then you might get a real hit and change the course of history.

Howie continued to perform Tzeentchian feats of trading all day, moving back twice from their third round pick, walking in with eight picks and leaving with ten players. I have no idea how to feel about literally any of these guys, most of them were not guys who the Philly beat writers had highlighted as possibilities. Even Jihaad, who at least has a top-15 pedigree on the big boards and a cool name, I don't know how to think about: is he an off-the-shelf LB to replace the injured Nakobe Dean or a developmental EDGE who will be primarily responsible for blitzing and might not see much more than rotational work this year?

As much as Steelers fans like to hate on Mike Tomlin, the real object of their ire is late-period Kevin Colbert, who seemingly blew too many drafts for fans to take seriously (never mind that he was the architect of 2 Super Bowl teams). Despite the team's current "woes", one person who fans seem to like is Omar Khan, dubbed the Khan Artist, because he has a similar way of suckering teams into making bad deals. He managed to get the #32 pick in exchange for Chase Claypool, who did shit for the Bears for one season before going to the CFL. He unloaded disgruntled WR Diontae Johnson to the Panthers and got Donte Jackson in return, and while Jackson wasn't particularly loved, he started 15 games and got 5 interceptions. Johnson, meanwhile played for 3 teams in 2024. I was wondering who would come out on top if he and Roseman made a deal, and then I remembered that it already happened.

In March of last year, the Steelers traded disgruntled QB bust (Colbert's last draft!) Kenny Pickett and a 2024 fourth round pick for a 2024 third round pick and two 2025 seventh round picks. I'll discount the seventh rounders, since they're essentially lottery tickets, but he was able to turn Pickett in to Payton Wilson, one of the team's most promising young linebackers. The Eagles, meanwhile, got their backup, and traded the 2024 fourth rounder to Miami for a 2025 third rounder. Miami drafted Jaylen Wright, a third string RB who with some luck might become a second string. So who gets the short end of the stick when Khan and Roseman make a deal? The Dolphins.

Congrats, I was wondering who would be so important that they'd trade up one place to take them, but Tzeentchian influence makes more sense than anything else!

Howie just can't help himself. He does rt every year, moving from 10 to 9 to get Jalen Carter, and moving up a couple spots to get Kelee Ringo, moving up to get Coop last year. Other front offices were saying anonymously that they just blocked the entire 215 area code on draft night because they weren't going to take any calls from Philadelphia, for fear of "losing" the trade. It's telling that the trade was with KC, arguably the front office with the most security right now outside of Howie.

Howie is a hero right now, but he also has a lot of trades that sort of seem pointless, or trades he arguably lost (Jahan Dotson last year, though you probably don't worry about it after he got three big playoff catches in a championship run). Dude just loves making obscure complicated trades.

Did the fan base feel Dotson was a pointless addition?

I felt they needed to get a quality WR3 even without the stats.

There are three different views of the trade that you see among Eagles fans:

-- The Dotson trade was bad because Dotson didn't put up any numbers and disappeared for long periods of the regular season, even when he was WR1 or WR2 with Smith and Brown injured. Simple as.

-- The Dotson trade was bad because Jalen Hurts never throws to receivers not named Smith or Brown, so putting resources into a WR3 will never pay off. Dotson was never going to put up any numbers to justify the cost so the trade was a bad idea from the start. The Eagles might think they need to go get a WR3, but it's never

-- The Dotson trade was Good, because Dotson had a couple huge receptions in the playoffs, he blocked hard on runs, he had a couple huge picks on big catches by other receivers; and ultimately you don't think about the value of that third round pick ever again after you win a super bowl.

I did think that Dotson had more upside potential than Zacchaeus, as much as I liked the latter, but it's hard to say that the trade paid off when looking at Dotson's stat line. Regardless, I have to agree that it's hard to care too much about Dotson's production or those future picks given that we could just feed Saquon the rock and reap the rewards for game after game. Never thought I'd get to see good old-fashioned NFC East smash mouth football win a ring in today's modern game.

I suppose it's good to have someone trading across all situations to see more about market prices. Kind of like all the silly lawsuits from history that become important case law today.

The problem for a market-maker in the NFL is that there are very few participants, most are in some degree of professional precarity, and all moves are publicly noted and debated. So very quickly you see situations where teams refuse to take Howie's calls, like Billy Beane in the NFL before him, because they don't want to be the next fool in the Howie mythos.

Another digital Lent, another report:

What I've read and watched during Lent. My rules were: no social media, peruse unread or unfinished works from my existing collection as much as possible, but new books were OK. I didn't quite follow the rule, but oh well.

As you know, I abstained from every form of social media and algorithmic entertainment during Lent. No Motte, no Reddit, no YT, nothing. I am quite happy with that decision and plan to stay away from them during office hours. Anyway, on to the list. The items are rated from -2 (utter trash) to +2 (universally recommended):

Puella Magi Madoka Magica, +2. I started watching it almost a year ago, but couldn't get myself to finish it because YT is such a low-effort form of entertainment. Finally finished it in a couple of days. It's a seminal work in the "magical girl deconstruction" genre and I won't spoil it for you if you somehow have missed it. The art is distinctive and great, the story is good. Most importantly, it isn't long. It has a story to tell and it tells it with zero filler. That's what I want from any TV series.

Redo of Healer, -1. Someone mentioned it was an HBO-style anime (i.e., T&A, but no genitals) anime, so I obtained it and promptly forgot about it until this Lent. It's a revenge porn story set in a generic Japanese fantasy world: the protagonist is the weakest member of a hero party, is gratuitiously abused by the other members. Before the story starts, he fixes some of his drawbacks, beats the rest of the party to a wish-granting mcguffin and uses it to rewind time and exact his revenge.

Technically, this is an okay premise, but the execution is subpar. "A smart almost-normie with secret knowledge beats superpowered opponents" is a common and popular story, but instead we see the protagonist duplicate and acquire multiple skillsets in the first episode, so the rest of the story is mostly a straight wish fulfilment fantasy with no elaborate scheming or skullduggery.

What about the promised secondary sexual characteristics? The series is surprisingly chaste, preferring to clumsily tell instead of showing even when whatever is happening is within the range it considers acceptable. It's not "hentai with a plot" at all, and there's hentai with better plot out there.

Black Lagoon, 0. I've had in on my NAS since forever, and I'm kinda disappointed. It's just Cowboy Bebop, but worse. It's the same mix of over-the-top characters and A-Team firing skills with moody dialogue, but CB has actual character arcs. The fact that BL was an adaptation of an in-progress manga is partly to blame for that, but there's literally marginal change in Rock and Revy, mostly happening offscreen and shown in the final arc of the second season. The other two crew members might as well not exist. But hey, it turns out I know the girl that worked as their Russian consultant, we hung out at the same IRC channel before it became a meme.

Cowboy Bebop: Knocking on Heaven's Door, +1. Okay, I've violated my rule and watched something I'd watched already. I just wanted to compare Black Lagoon against fresher memories. Well, what can I say? My memories were rosier. Don't get me wrong, the soundtrack is still the best, the art is still great, your screen will still ooze with coolness, but the movie still has plot holes you can drive an army truck through.

Magical Girl Retires, by Park Seolyeon, -1. After finishing Madoka, I went on TV Tropes in search of more recommendations. I got this book. It's a novelette, so I didn't waste much time on it. It spends a lot of time on exposition and then it's suddenly the story climax and it ends. And it's not really interesting exposition, either, the author is not Ted Chiang. "Magical girls fight mundane crime and have mundane problems like job security and liability insurance" is a take that can be extremely interesting if you explore it, but the book is too short for that. Instead, the main theme is "life in South Korea is a remorseless grindfest and it sucks to lose the rat race", which is not exactly news.

Sailor Nothing, by Stefan "Twoflower" Gagne, +1. Quite surprisingly, it's a very old fanfic, written back in 2000-2002. Its major point of reference is obviously Sailor Moon, down to the matching names of the evil generals, since they didn't have any other magical girl anime in the US back then. Cardcaptor Sakura, maybe, but that's it?

I was also amused by the fact it lacks a lot of modern weebery, probably because people's knowledge of Japan was much more limited then than it is today (the Japanese highschool is probably the second most common modern day setting after the American suburb). There are a few Japanese words snuck in here or there, but there's no honorifics, onee-/onii- siblings, senpai/kohai, no stock Japanese characters. It almost makes you feel nostalgic.

Anyway, the plot is great for a fanfic written in the early aughties. There's a very nice punchy scene close to the very end where Stefan carefully lays down a landmine for the reader and watches the fireworks. The very ending itself is not the best, but it's still better than qntm's Antimemetics.

Extelligence, +2. Got to it from the ACX sidebar. Didn't really care about the guy's big idea about finally making a news site that is about truth, but his stories about growing up in a dysfunctional family are great. I'm happy he's been able to reach escape velocity, but it's a great window into the lives of those we try to self-segregate from.

It's also a great reminder that some people are just born writers. You can imagine yourself sitting down and writing a novel during the next NaNoWriMo, or maybe diligently studying literary theory and practicing until you get good, but there are people who can't imagine themselves not writing, who have been writing since school, because it's the most natural thing to them.

More Bits about Money, +2. There were not that many new articles written since the previous Lent, but this one was great. Why would a bank teller hand out fifty grand in cash, the bulk of their laptop-class customer's savings, without raising an eyebrow? The Motte is probably one of the best-equipped places to guess correctly, but if you can't, read to find out.

Blazing Saddles, by Mel Brooks, 0. I guess I operate on a different frequency than Mel Brooks, but I've never found his movies funny. Maybe the movie was funnier and more original fifty years ago and this is the O.Henry effect in action, but Gene Wilders and Slim Pickens couldn't save this snoozefest.

Samsara, 0. I thought I'd never watched it, but the sense of deja vu was getting stronger and stronger until I realized I had. Anyway, it's a non-narrative movie, a spiritual sequel to Baraka, which you might be familiar with if you've played SMAC. The secret project clips that were not 90's CGI were from there.

Samsara starts like one of these "please buy this 8K TV" movies: exotic locations, exotic people staring too hard, a few shots of very dead people and some scenery gorn to keep you on your toes. Then there's the best part: Chinese assembly lines, factory farms, meat packing plants. I don't know what the authors wanted to say, but I am fucking grateful to these people providing me with cheap protein and disposable consumer goods at incredibly low prices. Also, the chicken harvester is so damn cool. The movie goes downhill from there.

Berserk (1997), rating pending. A delightfully old-school anime I had never gotten around to watching. The opening theme is probably the most discordant I've ever heard: what kind of song do you pick for your grimdark fantasy anime with gallons of blood and a protagonist that is named after the lower digestive tract? Yep, some upbeat Japanese pop punk must be perfect.

I can't rate it because I abandoned it after three episodes, again. Maybe he gets better, but Guts is the kind of character that inspires rants about toxic masculinity.

Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, episodes 15-28, 0, +1 for the whole series. When I watched the first 14 episodes in 2008, I was enraptured. I loved the art style, the characters, the plot so much I even read the fan translations of the original novels. And then I somehow forgot about it and completely missed the second season (technically the second half of the first season). Then I grew older, discovered it was out, pirated it and forgot about it. So, how do I find it 13 years later?

Eeeh, it's complicated. The first episode covers one of the most important chapters in the original novels. The next eight cover a filler one. Mild spoilers ahead. It's a time loop chapter. I love time loops. However, I don't quite know what the creators had in mind when they spent eight episodes on a time loop story. In the first episode, we're introduced to the events of the loop. In the second episode, the characters realize they are in a time loop, but fail to break it and everything resets. The third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh episode have literally the same script: the characters realize they are in a time loop, but fail to break it and everything resets. In the eighth episode, the characters realize they are in a time loop and break it. Why would they make six episodes with the same script?

- It's not a cost-saving measure, because each episode is drawn differently: every single scene is drawn from a different angle, details change with every iteration of the time loop
- Was there a writers' strike in Japan?
- Was it an exercise in art in the worst meaning of this term?
- Or was it meant as an unwarranted giant middle finger to the fans?

No matter what it was, it was first and foremost a giant waste of screen time. Eight episodes out of fourteen wasted on an inconsequential storyline. At least I could frame-skip through the filler episodes.

The next five weren't that good either. The first season opened with a movie-in-a-movie episode which hinted that things weren't what they looked like. The second season used five episodes to cover the filming process. It wasn't bad, I prefer the novel-sized stories to the shorter ones, but again, three stories in fourteen episodes?

Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, +1. Okay, I'm a big fan and it's one of the most important novels in the series. No, it won't be enjoyable as a standalone movie. Yes, cel-shaded 3D is still uncanny even if it's the best way to achieve total animation. Thankfully, there's not that much of it. I'm still a bit miffed they never continued the main part of the franchise and instead switched to stuff like...

Disappearance of Nagato Yuki, -2. Another breach of my rules, but when I was upgrading the resolution of the previous two items, I downloaded a pack that contained every spin-off as well. The series is a blatant exploitation of the fans, like modern Star Wars. I dropped it like a hot potato.

Arcane, season 1, +2. I know I'm late to the party, but damn, these Frenchmen know their stuff. The animation is superb. I don't know what Druidic witchcraft they used to convert 3D to 2D, but it no longer feels uncanny. The story is great as well: the first act is just an extended prologue, but the pacing and the beats never let you guess. What's the previous time when such a mundane IP spawned such a great spin-off?

Get your house right, by Krier et al., 0. I have no idea how I have obtained this book. It certainly followed the post by Scott about his love of McMansions. It echoes some of my ideas why McMansions are ugly. But did someone recommend it to be because they'd read my posts? Or do great minds (lol) think alike?

Anyway, the book is about traditional architecture. The author is the architect that designed Poundbury, "Charles' folly", the new town that is not a tract development, and the book is a series of dos and don'ts, mainly aimed at reproducing existing styles.

I want to compare Krier with another non-mainstream architect and another Alexander. Late Christopher Alexander, like Leon Krier, was an outspoken critic of architectural modernism, and both come from greater German cultural sphere, but Krier ended up in Notre Dame, Indiana, the seat of reactionary Catholicism, and Alexander ended up in Berkeley, the seat of West Coast woo woo.

  • Where Krier cites the scripture of classical orders and dissects the best examples of existing architecture, Alexander instead tells you to look inside your heart.
  • Where Krier draws a line down the middle of the façade and tells you that's where the entrance should go, Alexander instead tells you to make the entrance a special place, different from the inside and the outside.
  • Where Krier tells you to obey the restrictions traditional building materials place on the building's structure, Alexander instead goes, "fuck yeah, aerated concrete".
  • Where Krier tells you, "fuck modern architects", Alexander instead tells you, "fuck all architects, go build your house".

And yet Alexander's projects, even though they are driven by different principles, end up no less traditional than Krier's, whose buildings have this "Courthouse Square" look of a film studio backlot. The book is still useful, it's just that it will help you build a house from the past, with no path towards the harmonious vernacular housing of the future.

Arcane, season 2, +1. Technically, another violation of my self-imposed rules, but the first season was so good I had to finish the show. I have no idea how, but the Frenchmen really screwed the pooch. One reason is probably the GRRM plot disease: you have to keep the main characters together, especially when you have more than a handful. But when you have the two sisters, English Rose, Chad Beefcake, French Cripple, Sexy Negress, her Muscle Mommy, Pomeranian Professor and the Totally Radical Black Guy each do their own thing then by the time you show at least half of them just so the viewers don't forget they exist, the episode is over. The first season managed to keep the bulk of them together and never had to juggle more plots than it could handle, but the second season starts with an October 7th plotline (I refuse to believe it's a coincidence), then abandons it, muddles through several abbreviated plotlines and tries to tie them together with a big dumb battle. I guess the fans of the game really like it when character X finally gets or uses ability Y.

The Foo of Haruhi Suzumiya light novels 6-13, by Nagaru Tanigawa, rated below. Yeah, I decided to finish the ones I didn't read in 2008. In general, the quality of the writing goes downhill. For those who don't know, the novels are about a high school girl that is disappointed with how mundane the world is and tries to live as interesting life as possible. Unbeknownst to her, she's the most powerful thing in the universe and attracts a cast of paranormal beings that all really want her to stay unaware of her powers, plus the narrator, a completely mundane classmate and semi-willing friend of hers. This was a fresh premise back in 2003 and it carried Tanigawa through three novels and a short stories collection, but it's hard to write an original story within the constraints: supernatural stuff must happen, Haruhi Suzumiya must remain unaware of what's happening around her, Yuki Nagato is the only other member of the cast that can handle supernatural phenomena, Kyon does nothing of importance. Anyway, here's my rating, broken down by novel, including the first five I read when it was a more age-appropriate activity for me:

  • Melancholy, +2. The breakthrough hit that started it all.
  • Sigh, +1.
  • Boredom, +1. The first short story collection. Two stories are great, two are meh.
  • Disappearance, +1. My favorite book in the series, read at least up to it if you liked Melancholy.
  • Rampage, 0. One story is good, one is meh, one is really meh.
  • Wavering, 0. Some of the short stories were covered by the anime. "The Melancholy of Mikuru Asahina" is a good one, "Love at First Sight" and "Where Did the Cat Go?" are not.
  • Intrigues, +1. As I've said above, I like Suzumiya novels more than short stories and stories that aren't about being saved by Nagato are better. This novel centers on Asahina and that's a bonus.
  • Indignation, 0. Two novellas, both not that exciting.
  • Dissociation and Surprise, -1. I should've liked this multipart novel, but that's where the premise started to wear not just thin, but threadbare. Tanigawa tried to do something fresh and interesting: there's a big new threat, two new important characters, Nagato is incapacitated, Kyon decides he has to do something.
  • Intuition, 0. "Random Numbers" is a slice of life short story, which is at least something fresh, but "Seven Wonders Overtime" and "Tsuruya’s Challenge" are just Tanigawa geeking out. It feels like he's gotten tired of the series as well.
  • Theater, -1. Yep, he's really gotten tired.

Breaking Bad, rating pending. Yes, I am late to the party. No, I haven't finished it. I guess I'll finish it during the St. Peter's fast. The first two episodes were great.

Blazing Saddles, by Mel Brooks, 0. I guess I operate on a different frequency than Mel Brooks, but I've never found his movies funny. Maybe the movie was funnier and more original fifty years ago and this is the O.Henry effect in action, but Gene Wilders and Slim Pickens couldn't save this snoozefest.

I find Brooks very inconsistent but enjoy the bits that land. I’m also not enamored with Blazing Saddles, but I do love when the film spills out onto adjacent Hollywood sets.

For my money, the funniest Mel Brooks movie has to be Young Frankenstein, though it seems much less well known than Blazing Saddles.

Wow, you went through all this media in 40 days? This is more than I've consumed in the past 3 years, haha. Thanks for sharing.

It's really surprising what avoiding algorithmic content and social media does to your free time.

Get your house right, by Krier et al The book is still useful, it's just that it will help you build a house from the past, with no path towards the harmonious vernacular housing of the future.

The book is intended to convey the architectural fundamentals that make good buildings. If you follow the rules in the book, you'll end up with a perfectly nice looking house. The thing is - this is already better than most houses being built today. It's true that the rules in this book will not allow you to produce a masterpiece, but this is entirely missing the point. Most people do not have an architectural masterpiece in them, and are much better off painting by numbers if they want a reasonably nice looking house. The alternative for most people is not "the harmonious vernacular housing of the future", it's yet another fucking ranch house.

The book is intended to convey the architectural fundamentals that make good buildings.

No it doesn't. It has rules that will help you build a neoclassical house instead of a pastiche called McMansion, but that's the limits of its scope. What it lacks is exactly the architectural fundamentals that make good buildings in any style. Or in no specific style at all.

It has rules that will help you build a neoclassical house instead of a pastiche called McMansion, but that's the limits of its scope.

Hardly. The proportional system it describes stems from the classical system, but it talks about plenty of ways to alter the style of the house, from choice of materials to shapes and forms (or indeed absence) of decorative elements. To the extent that it describes the proportions of the classical system, it does this because western architecture is generally founded on those proportions far beyond mere neoclassicism.

What it lacks is exactly the architectural fundamentals that make good buildings in any style.

This is indeed outside the scope of the book. This is in the scope of an architectural degree program.

The book is not for experts or for those wishing to become experts, the book is for those wishing to avoid easily avoidable mistakes at the expense of not pushing the envelope.

Or in no specific style at all.

We can see the effects of building in no specific style at all throughout the country.

Sailor Nothing, by Stefan "Twoflower" Gagne

Neat author, I tried getting into his Slayers Trilogy but couldn't really manage to back in the day. Absolutely loved his Neverwinter Nights (2002 version) fantasy comedy module series Penultima. I might have to redownload the game just to replay Pastor of Muppets in particular. Absolute height of comedy for me, age 16 in 2004.

Was it an exercise in art in the worst meaning of this term?

This was always my impression of the Endless Eight portion of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya S2. S1 was, IMHO, an absolute masterpiece, and one of the reasons for this was the intentional non-chronological episode order, which made the pacing of the season very good while telling essentially one long story with a bunch of episodic events that take place after that initial one long story but are interspersed in between (this is why I find later releases where they reordered the episode into chronological order to be misguided and worse for it). I haven't seen any other work use non-chronological ordering like this - maybe Hidamari Sketch S1 and the Kara no Kyoukai films do something kinda similar, but not quite the same - and they pulled it off brilliantly. So to follow it up, KyoAni might have felt that they had to do something else clever with chronology and timing, and they ended up doing what they did with Endless Eight.

Which ended up just not working at all. I'd read the light novel before the season was even produced, and I only watched the season long after it had come out, so I both knew what would happen going in and I didn't have to deal with the genuine fan experience of waiting for each "new" episode week by week for 2 months, and even so I found the whole thing pretty painful to watch. A completely pointless exercise and a waste of a lot of talented animators and voice actors.

Berserk (1997), rating pending. A delightfully old-school anime I had never gotten around to watching. The opening theme is probably the most discordant I've ever heard: what kind of song do you pick for your grimdark fantasy anime with gallons of blood and a protagonist that is named after the lower digestive tract? Yep, some upbeat Japanese pop punk must be perfect.

I can't rate it because I abandoned it after three episodes, again. Maybe he gets better, but Guts is the kind of character that inspires rants about toxic masculinity.

Berserk 1997 is more or less the only Berserk adaptation worth watching. I'm trying to remember how much we know about Guts 3 episodes in, and if they had the flashback episode to his childhood yet. He goes through quite a journey over the course of this series, and the manga is one of the few I bother to keep up with for over 20 years now. Other manga series either concluding, or going too far up their own anime asshole to be entertaining anymore. Berserk I can sit down with like an old friend like no time has passed and reread. All that said, if you are the sort of person who views the tropes Guts plays to as "Toxic", so much so that you quit the show, you don't deserve to bask in it's greatness.

I didn't say I was that kind of person, but so far Guts has shown the following range of emotions: anger, sullenness, rage and steadfastly refused to talk to anyone.

Well, I don't want my only comment in this thread to be about Redo of Healer, so here's some thoughts on something else and a recommendation.

Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, episodes 15-28

I remember watching this when it came out. The Endless Eight portion was not received well. I'm someone who, like you, got really into the series with the first season and then read all the fan-translated novels. It took the author 4 years to release the first part of Surprise after Dissociation, and by the time it came out I had moved on to other things.

As a recommendation: if you haven't seen Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, I would highly recommend it. The setting is pretty "standard Japanese fantasy", there's an evil demon king terrorizing the world and a hero and his companions go out to kill the demon king. The story of Frieren starts as the hero's party is returning home after killing the demon king. It follows the titular Frieren, an elf mage and member of the hero's party. There's a lot of world building, character examination, and a bit of action here and there.

After hearing a lot of praise about the anime, I read the manga first. I really enjoy the manga, and I think the anime is a very good adaptation.

Redo of Healer, -1. What about the promised secondary sexual characteristics? The series is surprisingly chaste, preferring to clumsily tell instead of showing even when whatever is happening is within the range it considers acceptable. It's not "hentai with a plot" at all, and there's hentai with better plot out there.

Huh, either I'm a bit more squeamish than you (very likely), or the anime is quite a bit different than the manga adaptation (also likely). As an example, in the manga, (if I'm remembering correctly) there is a part of the story where he takes one of his (lesbian) abusers, partially paralyzes her, and sets a bunch cannibal zombie guys on her. I wonder if the anime didn't cover that, or if they didn't depict it as explicitly.

I wouldn't recommend reading/watching it, though.

Yes, the scene where she has to keep the zombies more horny than hungry is in there, it's the show creators that are squeamish. It's one thing when you say, "I don't want to watch that" and avert your eyes and another when they say, "well, no one would want to watch that" and cut away. This only highlights how much of an edgelord the writer was, because when you excise all the grisly bits, the story can no longer shock you and you can plainly see how mediocre it is.

I wonder why it's reportedly so popular with women.

really nice write up, thanks for the effort. By the way Madoka has a series of Movies from which the last one "Rebellion" is a continuation of sorts for the series and there is a new movie announced to follow the storyline.

VIDO GAM THRED

I tried The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion Remastered for a couple hours last night. It's pretty good. A lot more comprehensive than I anticipated when the "rumor"/leak came out a week earlier; having seen numerous terrible remasters from various companies. I actually like how they handled the (non)marketing and release of this game. Instead of letting (rightly) disgruntled buyers of Starfield poison the discussion about the upcoming next game for months or years, they just worked quietly, then announced and released the game on the very same day.

It runs pretty badly though. I need DLSS Performance mode on my 5090 to get a good framerate in 4k. And there's no HDR for some reason. And the FOV slider doesn't go high enough to undo the eternal shittiness of the Unreal Engine camera. Then there's the incredible blandness of the main quest and the world design, where the 'imperial city' and other towns don't do justice to the lore in the least. And obviously no depth or real choice to the dialogues, ever. No amount of Lumen raytracing can help with those things. Oh well. It's Elder Scrolls. Take the good with the bad.

In any case I intend to have some fun with the game. I picked a Dunmer from Vvardenfell as my character. He's a custom class "battlemage" of sorts. I intend to use blades and destruction magic.

Do any of you have fun character/build/roleplay ideas for how you'll spend your time in Tamriel? What will you be playing over the next week?

Wouldn't mind hearing about builds/ideas/tips for Cyberpunk 2077, btw. I went into CP2077 blind and it's pretty cool. Great graphics. I hope I'll be able to buy property in the game. That dingy building you start out in sucks!

I hope you are jumping everywhere like a good TES player should. I don't think they rebalanced sneak very well when they sped up the movement mechanics - sneaking is still shit when you are low in stealth and you'll easily get spotted, but the extra speed of your character means when you stand behind a column near a rat or the like and tap directions so you move a fraction you build up stealth a lot faster than you used to, so you can easily clear 30 stealth before you have finished the tutorial.

Edit - also I went with my standard TES build since morrowind - Breton race of course (I'm racist), key attributes intelligence and willpower, sign of the atronach (broken as hell in this game) with major skills - blades (short blades previously), alchemy, stealth, destruction, mysticism, armourer and light armour. The class is called a gigolo, naturally.

Stealth archer was kind of the ultimate build for Skyrim. I played oblivion so long ago, and before the internet was where I went for all gaming info.

Is there an ultimate build for oblivion?

Wouldn't mind hearing about builds/ideas/tips for Cyberpunk 2077, btw. I went into CP2077 blind and it's pretty cool.

Knives, knives and more knives.

If you have three punknives, you can throw them all and the first one will return by the time you're ready to throw a fourth (at T5 with some perks, you can do it with two knives instead). They're silent, can be made nonlethal, don't need ammo, and can even attack in melee in a pinch.

The tutorial dungeon on Master is... certainly an experience, I wonder if the goblin witch is even beatable by non-bretons. The balance is hilariously retarded on this difficulty, I actually struggled against regular rats/goblins until I picked my class and now a basic summon is outputting like 10x my damage. I actually kind of like how gigajuiced the enemies are but I think I need some mod so Conjuration doesn't completely trivialize the game, I like playing summoners.

Wouldn't mind hearing about builds/ideas/tips for Cyberpunk 2077, btw.

Netrunner battlemage is the funniest shit I've ever played, stealth archering pales in comparison. It's just weak and clunky enough in the beginning that you have to actually use your brain wrinkles and explore what hacking can do (like distraction or remote detonation), and midgame onwards you can straight murder entire packs with contagious/AOE hacks. Peak l33t h4x0r fantasy, especially with how many ways there are to fuck with enemies (blind, disarm, power word: kys, etc).

I've been playing oblivion on difficulty 4/5. I wanted the game not to be completely trivial. But I think I'd lose any fight that wasn't 1v1. I don't really like how much hp and fatigue I lose by blocking attacks. I've died a handful of times in my 3 hours of playing, due to sudden high dmg attacks. My restoration spell isn't good enough. Even a mudcrab got the better of me once. Skill issue. :) Another one infected me with "swamp fever" early in the game, which I later found out reduced my strength and endurance by 10. You have to go into the menu and find active effects to see these things. It's been too long since I played ES. I should figure out where I can learn some destruction spells. That's one of my major skills and I haven't used it yet.

L33t h4x0r in 2077 sounds like it could be fun. I'll look into it next time I play.

I’ve played it for a few hours until Expedition 33 took over my time.

I’m unsure if I’ll finish it but I decided to play an archer which I’ve never done but it’s FUN.

If it’s just nostalgia talking I’ll only put a few more hours into it so tbd.

I decided to play an archer which I’ve never done

Amazing you didn't do a stealth archer like literally every other human. These games poisoned me into picking this archetype in almost EVERY videogame RPG, and most tabletop ones. It's sick, actually.

Heh, everyone ends up a stealth archer at some point in these games! :) The initial multiple x damage shot is too seductive.

Last I heard about it, the poor performance is due to the Original engine to the game still being in the background and using the UE 5 for the updating of graphics and what not.

A neat explanation. Too neat. When have UE games ever run well?

well, that was what I heard by hearsay as the reason for the game still being highly moddable. I would assume all the flaws in UE 5 become exacerbated once it has to interact with another game engine jury rigged to it.

I’ve only seen stuff online, but I’m not a fan of the color changes. The super white marble of the ruins and the general dreamlike quality were important to the aesthetic, because the game is magical, it’s not realistic. The game is dreamlike, the intended playstyle is that you are doing while awake the things you would do in a dream, essentially: walking around, exploring absurd things. Theres a quest within Oblivion that is a microcosm of the game itself: you see an oversaturated painting in a house and enter into the painting. If you add too much detail in nature, too much accuracy, it actually takes you out of the dreamy reverie which is Oblivion (imho)

Should be easy enough to mod.

There's already visual tweaks mods out there to do exactly what's being mentioned here.

Of course if they bury gender labels as a feature they'll be banned from Nexus within minutes, so don't rely on them but...

Court opinion:

  • Stephens and Teeter constitute a team of long-haul truck drivers. Generally, while one of them is driving in the front of the truck, the other one is sleeping in the back of the truck.

  • Since the truck drivers usually drive for long periods without stopping, they often urinate in bottles, leave the bottles on the floor of the truck, and then throw the bottles into the trash at their next stop. Here, however, Stephens is annoyed at Teeter's practices of (1) leaving his bottles of urine on the passenger seat or on the bed rather than on the floor and (2) using spill-prone fast-food drink cups rather than properly-capped bottles for his urine.

  • At a truck-stop restaurant, Stephens confronts Teeter over this issue. Teeter gets angry at being called out in public. When the two drivers return to their truck, Teeter unveils a knife and stabs Stephens multiple times, inflicting life-threatening injuries.

  • Teeter is charged with and convicted of multiple crimes, and is sentenced to twenty years in prison (with the possibility of parole after 17 years). The appeals panel affirms.

How do you find these things?

And how are you just gonna glide over the part where Juror 1 apparently threatened Juror 10 hard enough that the defense insisted it was a mistrial?

How do you find these things?

I have been checking the daily uploads of various courts for multiple years, just for fun.

And how are you just gonna glide over the part where Juror 1 apparently threatened Juror 10 hard enough that the defense insisted it was a mistrial?

I think the piss-jug situation is much more interesting than the juror weirdness, personally.

Man, I’d be way more worried about “computer expert, self taught, whose task with the government was going to be digitally erasing people.” But at least he’s “beyond reproach” as a government subcontractor, lol.

It must take tremendous restraint to avoid the phrase “pissed off” in sharing this story.

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