Bartimaeus

I've changed my mind.

That was part of the intent, but really, it's more just a general warning on these kinds of threads, whose subjects obviously hit very close to home for some, simply not being a great arena for civil meetings of the minds when feelings and allegiances differ in such an inherently irresolvable manner. Saying this would seem to make me the forum's biggest hypocrite, seeing as I am pretty infamous for being the god-emperor of putting people on ignore...but I'm O.K. with that, particularly given that my criteria for putting people on ignore is a little different in that it's usually just "do I consistently dislike reading posts by this person across the forum?".

I feel like you got the opposite intended reading of my admittedly deliberately ambiguously worded post. C'est la vie, .

No, .

He who desires not to look at his fellow man with contempt should avoid this thread and others like it: nothing good ever comes from arguing with those whose feelings are more determinant to their positions than fairness or logic.

Good people, this friend of yours. You, on the other hand...well, the record speaks for itself, .

I haven't played a ton of Civilization, but I didn't like them they become too important to accelerating early game progression. Getting additional units or random free techs/resources are so important to making sure that you start faster than you otherwise would, that if you fail to get a good amount and of the optimal types, it kind of feels like you've failed the early game. Just turning them off means you don't have to worry about it at all and that it's a bit more fair: the peace of mind in not having to obsess over too much random stuff mostly out of your control is worth it. I realized how extreme it was when I got a number of particularly good ones and accelerated progression so much that the game was effectively decided in the first era due to an overwhelming advantage that the AI wouldn't have ever been able to make up. I don't think Civilization does great at giving a sense of verisimilitude in the first place (which is why I've never been able to play it too much - playing a simulation game where it feels like everything about it is randomly generated makes everything I do feel meaningless), but it's that much worse when it feels like I've already won (or lost!) because of silly RNG stuff like that right at the start. Unsurprisingly, I'm much more of an Europa Universalis 4 kind of guy than Civilization...but Paradox pretty much ruined that game for me by making a million expansions that added so many unnecessary mechanics that don't really fit or feel good together that I can't really play it anymore. It's probably just as well anyways.

Redline was also the very first thing that Sarex recommended to me when I mentioned that I was watching an anime for the first time in my life, specifically Sailor Moon from the early 1990s. Redline is a 2009 action-racing film that's positively dripping with masculinity...which is to say, it was the complete opposite of what I was currently enjoying in the more silly and girly Sailor Moon, and so while it would've been bad for me even in the best of times, it was an utterly miserable experience in that particular context. Suffice to say, it took me a few more tries of things Sarex recommended for me to realize that we perhaps do not quite see eye to eye on what is either meaningful or entertaining in shows/movies, . But I'm me for a reason, so maybe Azdeus would fare better...

His voice actor is Rob Paulsen; don't see any Mass Effect credits for him. From the different roles I recognize him as, he actually seems like he has a pretty good range and there are many I would never have been able to tell that it was him. I think Ashley vs. Kaiden is totally dependent on whether you're a male or female protagonist; if you're male, you kill Ashley, while if you're female, you kill Kaiden. Ideally, you'd really be able to kill both. I mean, ideally, I'd kill probably half or more of all the characters throughout all three games, but those two especially. It's more of a mentality than anything else: there are people who play the game that will rest every every battle because the game allows them to and it means you're at full strength every single time. This is the sort of thing that Pillars of Eternity attempted to stifle with the way it implemented resting...but I think I'd rather let the player decide how they want to play, whether that's the player placing limits on themselves or not, than to deliberately make too many elements of the game obnoxious like Pillars did.

Really, all the details are immaterial: Anomen cannot be in the party because he is Anomen. Anomen is Anomen is Anomen, and that's just not acceptable. You see him in the Copper Coronet, he calls out "fair lady" to you as you walk by, you throw his corpse into the dumpster, and then you go about your day. Seriously, I am not going to be called "fair lady" by that smarmy stupid voice and let it go unpunished, it's just not happening.

Meanwhile, you two weeks ago addressed directly to me: Would you care to revise your statements, tepid in nature or not?

Viconia has 18 wisdom compared to Anomen's 12 (or 16 if he passed the knighthood quest): give me them bonus spellcasting slots and I'll give her a girdle of strength.

Discussion of anime should stay strictly quarantined to the anime thread, as per the authorities; I believe it is you who has been naughty, . ...What if I have a problem with a quote in your signature that isn't of something that I wrote? Okay, good: I thought you'd taken complete leave of your senses.

@Amentep Yeah, I remember liking the second part/episode a lot more than the first, motorcycles flying out of the helicopter notwithstanding. Seamless, . Somehow, I get the feeling that I might not so appreciate the supposed "rich and interesting friendships" element from a 2022 fantasy isekai anime with a male protagonist(s?), particularly one where just looking at the art style and how scenes are framed makes me want to tear out my eyeballs, . Luckily, I don't have an issue with any of the things you've put of me in your signature. I think majestic currently has a pretty raw deal in comparison.

Is that the one with the old dude and his daughter...and the million or so motorcyclists who just come pouring out of a flying helicopter right at the end? If it's the one I'm thinking of, I'm pretty sure that's the episode that broke me, but in an unexpected way: I thought the episode was largely ho-hum, but all the motorcyclists dropping out of the sky and bouncing off mountains and stuff was so mind-breakingly absurd that I just started laughing maniacally for the rest of the episode and for some minutes after it had ended. That was kind of the beauty of Speed Racer for me: the goofy weird stuff that it (and no other show) would do had the effect of befuddling and amusing me into enjoying it in a way that few other shows could.

I'm pretty sure the first party I had in BG2 was Bard PC (ten year old me: "they can fight, have some thieving abilities, and can do arcane magic - what more could you want?!"), Minsc, Jaheira, Nalia, Jan Jansen, and Valygar...and then Valygar got thrown out for Imoen. I was apparently a very stupid ten year old, as not only did I play as a bard, I also apparently did not recognize that having three freaking thieves was probably three thieves too many. I remember the final battles of SoA being very not fun because my party balance was total crap...on top of being a very stupid ten year old that didn't know how to play very well in the first place. I always do, don't I? I would settle for a game where you have to play as an unwitting villain where everyone inexplicably treats you like you're the absolute worst while they have rich and interesting friendships with each other. I don't know how that would really work in an actual game (i.e. with gameplay) in practice, but...

No, that's why I said they're better off that way: it'd be weird if they were supposed to be all lovey-dovey or whatever. The thought of Jaheira being anything but the grumpy old lady that she is seems pretty weird to me...but really, it all goes hand-in-hand with the last sentence of your second paragraph: I don't want to romance anyone at all. Player romances in video games are universally bad(?) - certainly BioWare ones are, at least. Always playing female protagonists* mercifully saved me here, I suppose. *Technically, I first played BG2 when I was like ten or so and initially selected a male protagonist...buuut I'm pretty sure Aerie joined my party and tried to romance me and I summarily threw her out of the party and that was that, . Wow. Haer'Dalis was the next option? Really? ...I'm not a girl, so my opinion on such things is eminently worthless, but...I mean, I guess he's better than the second worst option after Anomen, which would have to be stupid baby man Cernd. That creep gives druids a bad name. So at least it wasn't intended to be him, I suppose.

I've played Baldur's Gate II quite a number of times, and I've never consciously realized that the human trashcan known as Anomen is your only option as a female character. While I always play as a female protagonist, I've never had Anomen in my party because I throw his bloated corpse into the nearest dumpster the moment I get to the Copper Coronet, and I guess I really just thought about none of the other characters attempting to initiate a romance. Well, it's just as well anyways - Aerie is almost as much of a trashcan as Anomen is, and Jaheira and Viconia are both better as bitter and mean respectively, .

Lmao, into the trash it goes if so. They got a little better this generation compared to the complete jokes that were the last handful, but it seems like they're back to their old tricks...

Fantastic Planet (1973). Most of the posters for this film look something like this: But more importantly right now, I would like to draw everyone's attention to this man in particular: Really, what more needs to be said about this film?

Apparently, older builds of Windows 10 don't work for this game; this was kind of the risk I took being on Windows 10 LTSC (specifically LTSC 2019, which is built on 1809 and cannot change). I'd have to reformat or try to do an upgrade with LTSC 2021 in order to try it, which...seems less than optimal to me at this time.

I ended up reading summaries of episodes for seasons 2-4. While I'm sure I would've enjoyed a bit of the Villanelle stuff, it felt like it would be a huge mistake to repeat the mistake of watching it for too long...and from what I read, it seemed to be pretty much exactly what I expected minus Carolyne apparently continuing to be important (honestly, I thought she was exiting the show at the end of season 1, and good riddance - apparently not). Bullet dodged I guess, as I definitely don't want anything to do with where it went overall, which seemed to be mostly around in circles. Bleh. Well, guess that's that for a promising albeit flawed first season.

I was thinking "man, that cloak looks really ridiculous". Then I googled her and, well, the cloak is gone. Not...sure...if improvement. Yeah, I don't like it either, but I guess she'll have a chance to win me over.

The other three seasons are really that bad? I tend to be way more harsh and down on these types of dark dramas than other people, so if other people think the additional seasons are bad, that must mean...either a slim possibility that I'd think they're great, or much more likely that they're really bad - depends on why they're not good, I guess. The end of season 1 seemed like a pretty clear "let's randomly do a soft reset so we can really stretch this out instead of telling the nice, concise story that we could've" to me, and I just...don't want that, like, at all? Honestly, I really just don't care about the incredibly lame investigative half of the show, and it's the heavy focus on the psychopathic thriller half of the show that makes it interesting and different to the other millions of police/investigation shows out there. That should really be a show in of itself: watching Villanelle enjoy life while finding new spins to eviscerating and disembowelling people in various kinds of situations both personal and impersonal, all the while weaving some kind of slow-burn narrative and theme around her...not this embarrassing Sherlock* nonsense. *Again, speaking specifically of the show with Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch, not Sherlock Holmes in general - it's an important distinction, especially seeing as the two are practically complete opposites stylistically.

Killing Eve. I thought this was an 8-episode miniseries (in my defense, I think I watched two minutes of the first episode when the first season originally came out before saying "maybe later" while just assuming it was a miniseries), but apparently it's a whole 4 season thing. Anyways, this is an investigative thriller show told from the perspective of two characters: Eve, the investigator, and Villanelle, the psychopath being investigated. I rather enjoy the psychopath's half of the show, but much less so Eve's investigative half, which takes a little too much in style from that awful Sherlock show from some years back. There's just too much of a focus on her being painfully dumb and obstinate while hand-waving away a lot of the actual investigative work that she's supposed to be doing...just like Sherlock. Being offhandedly told that character x, y, or z found and did some things off-screen so that we can now proceed with the plot is such a laughably bad convention in these fast-paced investigative dramas, and it happens danged near constantly. Gee, it's so cool when you have the computer nerd hack into whatever to get the critical information you need, what amazing storytelling, . Anyways, I don't know if I'll continue with the second season or not, four seasons of this seems like it'd be a lot of really bad investigation work. Maybe I should Stranger Things it by only watching Villanelle's bits. ...This is normally the part where I post a poster of the show, but all the posters for this show are uncharacteristically somewhere between bleh and terrible, so forget about it.