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Showing content with the highest reputation on 01/25/23 in all areas
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I'm just going to leave this here: I managed to live four decades without seeing an image of Swedish meatballs by the way, and now I wish I had managed for longer. Needless to say, I also never ate at an IKEA store, and after looking it up, I certainly am not going to. Repost: There there, don't you worry none, we'll never add cream based gravy to you. Or any gravy, for that matter. Hush now. Off you go, into my mouth.2 points
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Finished watching the film. It is fine. The first thirty minutes are good, as are the last thirty minutes, the main problem, for me, is that hour in between that goes nowhere, or rather, it does go somewhere, but it is both obvious and unnecessary long, and hence as dull and dreary as life on Inisherin. If that was the point, then it is well executed. Now, it is not nearly as dull or overly long in the setup as some series I have watched who had preciously little to show for 26 episodes, like the recently watched Noir, but that cannot possibly be the yardstick against which to compare a self-indulgent film that otherwise had exquisite mastery of filmcraft lovingly applied to its making, including fantastic performances from almost everyone involved. Except the priest. Screw that guy. Pretty sure Colm was right, he does have impure thoughts about men. So, basically, this has the exact same issue as Everything Everywhere All At Once had, just with darker and much less whacky humor. Beyond that, do I have much of an opinion about it? Not really, other than perhaps mentioning that in times past I have had my fair share of Padraics that I luckily managed to phase out of my life without becoming am Irish civil war analogy, a conflict I admittedly do not know enough about to find deeper meaning in what is depicted in The Banshees of Inisherin, but I doubt it would have led me to greater appreciation. As far as there being any comedic (under)tones, I have laughed three times, which is actually not that bad: I also once knew a Dominic, someone who ended up on my team during my (not brief enough) stint in the armed forces. I could write a whole essay about how much fun acting out the Full Metal Jacket boot camp in real life is, but what would be the point, just go watch the boot camp part of Full Metal Jacket. We ended up carting him to an fro at the weekends, because his parents could not be bothered. They would have left him at the barracks. Hell, they probably intended for him to be left there just to have a couple more days without the guy around them. Not entirely sure how he passed the psych/mental ability eval. He was much more limited than Dominic, really, barely capable of even remembering the ranks. He kept calling the corporals corpo-rats, and the NCOs sub-officers, which was hilarious in some ways, and decidedly less in others. Never managed to properly unload his assault rifle either. He also kept folding up his used shirts and putting them back into his locker for inspection, because he was told that all the shirts in the locker needed to be folded perfectly. Except, of course, the ones that should be in the laundry. Sigh. Well, that is that. As with EEAAO, the world is once again safe from any impending apocalypse, at least as far as breaking the laws of physics to the point where reality unravels goes. Indeed. There is a time and place for everything, and I do not mind slow burning movies or even series. Not that I would need to state this so explicitly, as my past posts on the subject and on really slow material (Violet Evergarden comes to mind, but also the initial seasons of the new Battlestar Galactica series), but it bears repeating. The problem I had with The Banshees of Inisherin was that after 31 minutes I felt like the setup of the film had run its course, but instead of moving on, it basically kept showing the same things over and over again to really drive home the point that Colm was trying to make to Padraic. It was enough to make me feel Colm's pain. Then I looked at the time elapsed, and it was 36 minutes. At this point I was ready to post "I hate myself" in this thread, and almost did, but then I just sat through the rest, at least until I noticed that Padraic's beer kept moving around in the same shot, depending on the camera angle. Three separate configurations in ten seconds, I have no idea how that was not caught. Well: The film did catch my attention early on though. It did so rather well, it just completely turned sour at around the thirty minutes mark, and then it go progressively worse until just before the second round of Colm throwing stuff at Padraic's door. Funny, I had almost said that after that the film picks up some pace at the time, but it really does not. It just stops telling me that life on Inisherin is dreadfully dull. It felt like sitting through a work meeting or a seminar where someone keeps asking the same questions, and they are getting everything patiently explained over and over again until they finally understand it, while meanwhile I contemplate how to best resist my personal urge for self-harm in such situations. Alan Rickman was awesome in Dogma, but I was talking about Christopher Walken. I think you clearly need to go and watch The Prophecy. The film very clearly proves that most film critics are simply hacks, because they could not appreciate its greatness - at least it became a cult hit. Avoid the sequels though, they have something in common with the Starship Trooper sequels. You can watch them, of course, but only if you can appreciate them for what they are. The Prophecy also had the best portrayal of Lucifer. Only appears for a very short time, but Viggo Mortensen steals everyone's show, and that is hard to do next to Christopher Walken.2 points
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The big problem I have with the banner is that it's not specific enough to the forum. The Obsidian shirts are ok, but what I really want is a shirt with a stylized image of Josh Sawyer with a caption that reads "BALANCED" or a "you naughty " coffee mug.1 point
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well making jets viable for ukraine would require hits AAs on Russian territory - somehow I feel NATO is not ready cross that line1 point
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The new add banner is great. I love it how it is on every page. Could you make to play some sound as well?1 point
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Biden has also caved and will now be sending Abrams to Ukraine. And apparently the US and NATO have now also agreed with Ukraine that in any spring offensive by Ukraine in the south it would be okay for Ukraine to go after Crimea, which until now had been a red line even for the West. And all the weapons being supplied are apparently to make it possible for Ukraine to shift to NATO operational strategy and tactics vis-a-vis high-intensity combined arms operations.1 point
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Monastic unarmed isn't really for the duplicates it's mostly for doing decent damage at low levels when your equipment is garbage, but also in some builds not bad to replace weapons with fists entirely. Mostly an abydon's challenge thing because non-summoned weapons are unusable in a lot of fights because they break too quickly, and even if they don't repairing is very expensive, plus fists are actually pretty good most of the game since few enemies are immune to crushing. For a mage I can summon weapons, so not as big a deal as with other classes not to have the talent, but I never understood why say a cipher or priest can get take monastic unarmed but not a chanter or paladin. Another advantage of multiclass builds. Agree it makes no sense multiclass ciphers can stack more will than single class, though I took advantage of this with my hierophant build. I think the bull's will would be a good cipher addition, also fast runner for monk (or everyone). Personally I'd love to see a lot of the old utility talents that became class specific applied to all classes, like deep pockets (sorta applied in compromise extra pocket), but also monastic unarmed, fast runner and quick switch. I don't think any of these things would change class balance too much. That would be super, super awesome if you could fix the duplicates scaling on these passive abilities Random question, any idea why Vela is unscriptable? I don't mean scripting her behavior but I can't script my character to do simple things like heal her if damaged or cast withdraw on her. She doesn't seem to be tagged as an "ally".1 point
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i am sorry that i hate your face so much but i hate your face so much1 point
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Clones won't get the talent anyway. In Vanilla, their fists are really bad (no scaling). In BPM, they are even worse (0 PEN). As said above, I don't plan to add abilities to classes that don't get them in vanilla, although this one could make sense, and it wouldn't hurt NPC if I couldn't add to them. By the way, I'm also considering adding fast runner to monk and Bull's Will to Cipher as they are no reasons MC Monks could run faster than SC (stacking fast runner with Monk 25% speed talent) and MC Ciphers could have higher Will than MC (stacking +10 Wil with Cipher specific +15 Will talent). Monk Fists were set to 0 PEN and PEN was displaced to Unarmed Talents (to solve foe monk damages issue, search the BPM thread if you're really interested). Tutotilio's benefit from Unarmed Talents, so has to be set to 0 PEN too. Other shields benfit from weapon quality instead. Okay, so if it is a clone specific issue, I think I could add the scaling intresically to the clones. It might work. The scaling only applies to specifically tagged items attacks.1 point
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Nothing surprising about this, but it is interesting, in my view. For Russia, the war in Ukraine is not a provocation, an aggression or a war, it's just an operation, and any negative reactions to it are provocations. Reminds me of what has been said here in northern Europe: it is impossible not to provoke Russia. Whenever they want to be provoked, they will find or create something (like attack their own in order to justify an attack outside).1 point
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we were informed by an expert on such things that our swedish meatball recipe were actually norweigan meatballs. so we asked what is difference tween swedish and norweigan. answer: swedish meatballs is tending to be smaller and more spherical. we observed that our meatballs were smallish and spherical. the chef nodded in agreement. euros. ... *shrug* also makes us wonder at the european bafflement regarding american biscuits and gravy when swedish meatballs involves greasy meat slathered in a creamy gravy and served over a rib-sticking starch. ikea is kinda surprising as is no nutmeg in the ikea offering. we thought a signature flavour o' swedish meatballs were the nutmeg. Gromnir nordsweedballs in a brown gravy: preheat oven to 400F 2lb meat (usual 1/2 ground beef and 1/2 pork) 3/4C grated onion 1/4C half-n-half 2T cornstartch 1 egg 1t kosher salt 1/4t each fresh ground nutmeg, allspice, black pepper combine above ingredients being careful to not overmix. in the past we used panko breadcrumbs. meh. skip 'em. also, as am braising, we don't need vigorous mix and as a result our meat is more tender and less gummy than is most skillet durable meatballs. use a 2T cookie scoop to form into balls and place 'em on a parchment-lined cookie sheet. am knowing is raw meat, but taste and decide if your mix needs more salt. am always tending to start with less salt so am able to add more if needed. in batches, brown the balls in a skillet with 2T butter and 1T olive oil. remove browned balls to a dutch oven. drain off oil from the skillet and deglaze with 3 1/2C beef broth. combine whish to combine 1/2C room temp or cold beef broth, 3T flour and 1T better than bullion base. add your flour slurry to the skillet with the broth and cook over medium for ~ five minutes or until you got appropriate gravy consistency. skim off excess fat and foam and add salt and pepper as needed. aside: if your gravy is not a deep and rich brown, do not hesitate to add 1/2t or a smidge more o' kitchen bouquet. pour the gravy over the meatballs in your dutch oven and then place in a preheated oven for 35-40ish minutes. you wanna braise the meatballs. remove from oven and serve meatballs and gravy over noodles or mashed taters or whatever. the version we offer is admitted not the dairy gravy one most recognizes from ikea and other swedish meatball recipes, but it is our current go to recipe. HA! Good Fun!1 point
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First attempt at Swedish meatballs, completely from scratch: So delicious! Eat your heart out, IKEA!1 point
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Space Dandy 21-23 23 was great. Scarlet hires Dandy to pretend to be her boyfriend and scare away her stalking ex. She actually has to explain to him that there will be no kisses or physical contact. The beach scene was the best in the series. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a gif or video that shows it from other people's point of view and it looks like she is not angry. “A couple running after each other at the beach? That’s wonderful.” Dandy manages to catch six rare aliens while dating. Well, actually, Scarlet knocks most of them out and he collects the reward. So a few days on a date were worth more than twenty episodes focused on (not) catching the rare aliens.1 point
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yeah mostly the issue was that in The Ultimate Magran's challenge is turned on, which prevents you from pausing. So it doesn't become foolproof (and in The Ultimate you can't really afford a mistake). also, with Berath's challenge on, you can pause the game when you're close unenough, unstealth and then re-stealth while the game is still paused, then unpause, and that'll be enough to trigger combat while still in stealth. don't even have to bother with traps or anything. traps are useful if you need to split up enemies though.1 point
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I think Meryel is a priest of Berath. I'm pretty sure I stole Touch of Rot from her once.1 point
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Ha, I was wondering about that thanks for clarifying! Yes actually with Berath challenge, you can use a little trick which is to approach enemies from stealth (to be in visual range) and then quickly unstealth/restealth, then you'll be in combat but enemies don't notice you and you can buff, use summons etc. Works like the trap strategy, without using a trap. But, as I recall @thelee mentioned to me once, it's not as reliable as actual traps as you can get easily get the timing wrong on pressing the Alt key twice, and you can't split/pull enemies like with traps. So for The Ultimate this isn't as helpful, traps remain better (but in somewhat limited quantity).1 point
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Good for him. Shame to see rank and yank is still being done these days1 point
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Are the items/fists not scaling on you, or only on the clones ? Might be a side effect of the implementation method (which can't be easily bypassed unless I had my own army of devs). On yourself, sometimes you have to reequip them to get the scaling, it might mess with clones. Tuotilio's Palm/Fist having a Zero PEN is a consequence of correcting a bug for foe monk damages. Having Monastic Unarmed Training / Transcendant Suffering is now the only way to use them, granted that without these talents these attacks are quite bad in vanilla anyway (but in the context of God trial run I can see the point...). I can't see another alternative for this apart non zero but very low PEN (something in the 3-5 PEN range) which might not help you anyway. Other Shield weapons should be scaling appart Tuotilio's. (NB: They don't scale in vanilla.) Please read the Mod Notes before asking (at least the classes/abilities you want to use) As a general advice, it would be a good idea to read them while planning a full run with all trials activated, so you won't be caught off-guard by something you don't expect. Or you can get ideas to use abilities you have discarded by vanilla habits. Yeah potions of Enlightment work for both classes, which can be seen as an indirect buff for Caster/Caster Multiclass.1 point
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Thomas Winkler is back! It's a shame he got kicked out of Gloryhammer, but I'm hoping this goes well for him1 point
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These combos have many special interactions and are easy to roleplay - one is close to the nature (draws his power from it), one to the gods (draws his power from them) and one to the real world (draws his power from himself). They are also representative of some of the most important traits of the Deadfire Archipelago. For the third option I think Soul Blade/Blood Mage is a more interesting combo.1 point
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I get the feeling that the creative team weren't crash hot on having elves and dwarves at all and only wanted them in there for 'brand recognition' as a spiritual successor to the infinity engine games. Avellone has been outspoken about how little he likes them on a few occasions I believe. So elves and dwarves in this setting come off as rather marginalised, not in the fictional societies, but rather the creative energies put into them. They just seem like shorter or older humans rather than having anything distinct about them. Much more effort has gone into fleshing out, say, aumaua. Then again, if we go to Aedyr, we would probably get way more on them.1 point
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Could anyone help make this picture below to those water portraits for the normal convo screen, and script adventure text? There is so little Island Aumaua Portraits out there, and this is one of the best I've seen, which I think many will love to use for their deadfire playthrough as well. Simply beautiful artwork. <31 point
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If you ask me, they coulda gone with less voice acting and just crammed a ton of portraits into the game. I never cared for voice acting in RPGs, myself. I like reading.1 point
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Anyone know a mod that can fix the cipher's soul whip not glowing after loading a save since there isn't looking to be another patch?1 point
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I hope the role of scholars and philosophers is an important one in PE. If the soul is a resource that can physically manifest and be controlled, philosophy, as practiced by many thinkers, would hold a lot more practical power (not to understate the profound impact philosophy has had on the world, and while one could argue philosophy can drive people to power, philosophy (a love of knowledge) itself does not kill or manifest upon the world in the way matter does; one cannot rule the world with philosophy alone). If you look at philosophers from our universe, take Socrates, for example, he seems to be the embodiment of a Cipher; using the elenchus and dialectic to "control" or "invade" the souls of others, or as some would say, to corrupt the souls of others. Obviously the world of PE will have its own philosophers and cultures, but this is fun to imagine: Early Western/Ancient Greek Philosophers sought rational and logical explanations for an ordered universe. The soul as an eternal, wise ruler, which holds all knowledge for humans to recollect (almost makes me think of D&D sorcerer). Complete order and control over the body's appetitive nature, or the lesser emotions and feelings: hunger, thirst, pain, pleasure, etc. to unlock the true potential of the soul. Emphasis on a fundamental, indivisible, unit of matter that makes up the world (interesting connotations for Wizards, Priests, and well, everyone (imagine if Lemaitre could manipulate or manifest a primeval atom?)). Their detailed analysis of paradoxes could lead to inventive manipulations of the soul. Pythagoras is said to have claimed that he recalled prior his prior lives with the same soul (perhaps he was awakened!). Early Eastern Philosophers, very vaguely and generally (which I would argue is bad philosophy on my part!), believed all things are soul; all things should be respected for their potential. Acceptance of other paths. Extreme levels of neutrality; emotions and the corporeal are inconsequential overall. Moments of enlightenment or satori (in PE, bursts of incredible power, if the soul is what grants power; where the body stops and the soul starts becomes an illusory blur; almost akin to divine possession, but from within, or something similar). Many paths through life and many paths to achieving positive upward reincarnation. Behavior of soul in prior lives imparts certain circumstances onto soul in later lives. Enlightened, or awakened, souls remember the events of past incarnations. What would the ideas of Descartes bring to bear on the clear existence of a soul? What of Nietzsche? Are desires and emotions felt in the soul or elsewhere? Is the soul in a state conflict like a human? e.g. I shouldn't eat that cupcake because it's bad for me, but I'm going to do it anyway! (Two different and seemingly conflicting desires within one stuff). Is the soul the center of emotions and rationality or neither? What of Camus (on a side note, I can imagine Camus very much as a noble paladin crusading against the absurd)? Or Russell? It's incredibly interesting to imagine... I think the moral dilemmas that can be raised with "soul-ism" are profound and far reaching; perhaps even more poignant than trying to make moral quandaries with sexism or racism in a modern sense. A man is not less than a woman because of his capabilities as a man, but because his soul is lesser. Dwarves are not lesser than humans because they are dwarves (necessarily), but because all or most dwarves receive inferior souls. As in a reincarnation hierarchy; which leads to the question, what is the greatest incarnation for a soul to exhibit? If there is a quantifiable aspect of souls it puts a whole new spin on the value of life and existence. The possibility of fracturing a soul and so forth could be interestingly applied to many topics, e.g. suicide (to address the idea, "I want another chance/a better situation, so I'm going to off myself and hope for better luck next time.") We started off BG with a quote from Nietzsche. Almost inherent in IE games are these strongly academic and scholarly, but entirely understandable, lines of inquiry and motivators of choice. What better realm than Eternity to explore and experiment with philosophy? I'm excited.1 point
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Reasonable? Ye calling me feckin resonable? Now we're rowing. Well maybe next time we'll get to know the peace of oblivion.0 points
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Yeah, so I thought the film was pretty funny throughout, which probably helped alleviate it from feeling dull throughout much of the middle,.0 points
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Films have gotten extraordinarily indulgent in editing and run time in recent times. I don't really know why. I mean, I kinda do...setting a tone, setting the mood, allowing everything to take its time and breathe instead of feeling so basic and rushed all the time like was often the case in past decades of film...but it does feel excessive at this point. Before watching Banshees, I actually got ten minutes into some other recent historical drama film called The Favourite, and...I saw the run-time was 2 hours and thought to myself, 2 hours is a long time for a movie I'm not really feeling at all sold on - if this were an hour and fifteen minutes or thereabouts, I could probably convince myself to keep watching it, but this is just too freaking long. Welp, let's try the next one...aaand Banshees is 2 hours long as well, great. Difference was, it caught my interest much faster - which was a little funny to me, because the main characters in The Favourite are women, while the main characters in Banshees are men, and that's obviously unusual for me as a total cinematic man-hater. It's not my my fault! Or at least it's not completely my fault: films/shows centered around men just tend to be written completely contrary to when they're centered around women. I'll let you watch the rest of it before any comments on anything you said about it. @Space KP, Baby0 points