Longknife

Oh and of course, do not expect much from the story, but I think we already all knew that well in advance and didn't have hopes up in that regard. I'm focused more on the AI and such simply because I honestly didn't expect it.

If you haven't heard, and this is kinda hilarous: Some guy's Xbox broke and was defective. He went to Best Buy to get a new one, they were completely out EXCEPT for the Xbox-Fallout 4 bundle packs and gave him one. The guy isn't even a hardcore Fallout fan (people have been complaining he sucks at the game), but quickly realized he had a long awaited game and has been releasing a steady supply of vids while saying "follow me on soundcloud for more." Of all leak stories I've heard, this one wins the award for being most hilarious. All leaks I've encountered I got by hunting around in reddits, not a bias group. If anything they'd be bias in favor, as in the past I've been downvoted to oblivion for providing any critical points about the game. Hell even now I got word the ending was leaked, I asked if anyone could point me to it, and I got downvoted to hell when someone asked why I'd want to spoil it for myself before it's release and I answered I didn't pre-order. The vast majority have been that Best Buy guy recording the game with potato-quality phone cameras, though recently I've seen his videos re-uploaded in HD as if he figured out the problem or whatever. Alongside him there's a couple other leakers, including some spanish guy, a recent streamer who started yesterday, and one other guy who had a similar story with a friend at Walmart handing him an early copy. But I would say my criticisms stand despite potato quality. What's stood out to me is the way enemies act, the way Dogmeat acts, and the strange animations you might encounter during dialog. Enemies seem pretty brain dead, companion AI seems pretty rusty (also if you remember Rex blocking doorways in New Vegas, you'll be "happy" to know I caught a small glimpse of that too), and cutscenes have either had wonky lipsynching OR the lipsynching has been decent while something ELSE happens that feels off. If you want a small window of what I mean by strange NPC animations or movements, I think this small clip sums up most clips I've seen quite well (obviously click at your own spoiler risk, but given how I have no context for how important this small snippet of convo is, I wouldn't consider it a strong spoiler): https://embed.gyazo.com/f1d89d75fb3c61823e81a440e4f3423e.mp4 In MOST clips I've seen, the awkwardness occurs between the player and the person I'm talking to, so that one is an anomaly. Likewise, that specific clip? I think we've all seen NPCs walking into walls and the like in a Bethesda game. Still, I link it because your reaction to the guy in the back is pretty much akin to the reaction I've felt at some point in all the clips I've seen; the reaction you feel to seeing that is pretty much the reaction I've had to most clips. I've probably seen 4 conversation clips, in which two have had me thinking "lipsynching feels a bit off" and the other two have had fine lip-synching but had some kind of "wtf!!" moment. Obviously this is just one small portion of a big game with lots of aspects to it, it's just I was genuinely very surprised to see this, as lip-synching and terrible animations have typically never been a problem. I've heard people complain Bethesda's characters lacked animation and made them seem robotic, sure, but now they have animations and the implementation of said animations seems pretty off. Overall from what I've seen, I just don't see much RPG gameplay, but I see tons of first-person shooter elements. It looks incredibly easy too; I've not seen, but supposedly stimpacks are decently common and even someone with no stim perks can expect 40% of HP healed per stimpack at no time delay beyond a brief, half-second animation of the character sticking it in his arm, and the animation doesn't even seem to repeat if you find yourself spamming them.

Yeah, that's about as far as I got before my BS meter went full blast. Thanks for invalidating your post early on so I didn't have to read it all! You could also bother reading what I wrote and, if you don't care to check spoilers, I promise you the footage shown thusfar is pretty lackluster. Lemme level a second: I was pessimistic about Fallout 4. I expected poor RPG mechanics, terrible storytelling and crippled dialog. All of that seems to be coming true. What I did NOT expect, is terrible AI, robotic, wonky NPC animations and terrible lip-synching. The stuff I expected is stuff Bethesda has a history of, the latter points are things they've generally been ok with. Sure, I can hear people being cynical and saying the NPC animations were always strange or robotic, but let me just say that even if you feel that way, imagine it even worse now, is the point. The lip-synching has to be the weirdest of the bunch, given that they'd never had any real issues with the lip-synch program before, but now I struggle to find a cutscene without the lips feeling off somehow. Especially odd considering this didn't occur in any preview footage Bethesda put forward, so it's like they purposefully hand-picked the parts it ran smoothly at? Logical, but it'd be more logical to just fix the problem entirely, no? I mean there's PROGRAMS for lip-synching, it's not like it's the hardest most tedious work in the development industry; the tedious parts have long been ironed out. Very odd and I'm not sure how something like this happens. As for the wonky animations....Anyone happen to know AlChestBreach and his off-and-on companion Gully, the feral ghoul? Feral ghouls in New Vegas have an idle animation where they start twitching about like crazy, which Al always likened to Gully having a seizure. I **** you not, I saw a conversation where a Brotherhood initiate NPC basically did the same thing mid conversation in FO4. It was the weirdest, most surreal thing, cause you just get stuck thinking "wtf was that!" as they game moves on like nothing happened. I mean this isn't even a bug, this is something Bethesda conciously left in for...some reason. Bethesda has said before that they're not afraid to "make Fallout our own franchise," and based on the footage I've seen, this is not the Fallout we all know. They are indeed transitioning into a new brand of Fallout that's quite different from the old. All footage I've seen looks far more first-person shooter in style than RPG, and the vast majority of enemies (and companions) are super slow to respond and just kinda stand there and take it as they get shot, while the overall number of enemies seems low and easymode too (worst offender was a clip where there was probably one enemy per two rooms). Another clip shows Dogmeat being lit on fire as he stands there normally, still yet to have reacted to the combat around him. I'm telling you now, if you've enjoyed past Fallouts, do not go into FO4 expecting more Fallout, cause thusfar this doesn't really look much like it except for obvious things like factions and lore being shared. (which based on leaks, there's not enough to say how intact or not intact that is, though I doubt there's been any dramatic shifts in lore....aside from cats no longer being extinct, from what I've heard)

What I wanna know is.... At that point if you're a Senator, what on earth do you need all this money and prestige for? It's sort of crazy to me that the very people who seem most likely to give into bribes and pressure and potential profit are those who don't desperately need it. I would expect corruption is easier at the bottom, yet it's obvious that no, plenty of senators will gladly feast on the corruption pie if it means they get....what, their fourth Ferrari? What is worth all this ****?

Got more confirmation FO4 will suck, depressed me knowing it was an "I told you so" scenario where some of the exact suspicions I had are now true. Moreover I wish I knew why something like that depresses me. When I say "depressed," I mean I can sit a good hour or two at that news just feeling upset about it. I've long abandoned any hope for the franchise and get no pleasure from seeing it fail, so I imagine any depression I get from it is independent of the game or anything, yet I've no idea why it bothers me so much. Best guess I just hate feeling like I can't make a difference, like all the people I told "this will happen" still won't learn a damned thing and end up in a similar situation in the future all over again...? Had a similar such "fight" with a TF2 comp team where I got the sense the guy I fought with won't change, don't wanna touch that **** again with a 10-foot pole for that exact reason, not sure if it's the same case here with Fallout though. No clue, but NOT knowing is what's truly bothersome, especially when it's like wtf it's a ****ing GAME and so unimportant, so either I care THAT MUCH about a game and I need to go the **** outside or it's more about some aspect of the issue rather than the game itself but I dunno what aspect it is. Too curious for not knowing stuff like that.

Fallout as a franchise is dead in the water, if you don't mind minor spoilers, read this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/comments/3r3alz/new_screenshots_and_more/ The above is some spanish guy who has a copy and is currently playing. The post is more or less him answering questions about his experience with very minor spoilers in between. Main take away points though are that the dialog system is dead in the water. Your four dialog choices in any given conversation can be summed up as "yes," "no," "ask one question" (and I mean ONE. The question button does not create another menu with a list of questions to choose from. No, every character has ONE question you can ask them that's pre-determined by the game), or "be a blatant douchebag." Furthermore, it sounds like peaceful dialog options for if you want a pacifist route may even be color-coded, so you can complete babby's first speech challenge without any hiccups. He basically said the new dialog system feels like the game is trying to be Mass effect and failing miserably at it. If you considered Mass Effect's dialog system inferior and had concerns because of that alone, well it's worse. Apparently it doesn't even meet Mass Effect standards. Another main takeaway is that he explicitly stated that as far as factions and story goes, expect BoS vs. Enclave from FO3 caliber of storytelling, not NCR/House/Legion/Indy from New Vegas. My point with all this is that I ask myself how would Obsidian even pull off another Fallout while following this system. It seems to me that they've crippled the system so much in terms of dialog, story and RPG aspects that Obsidian would either need to demand to use a system akin to New Vegas (doubtful Bethesda would allow) or they'd have to attempt to pull it off with the current system, which sounds just downright painful. At this point, I would almost advise Obsidian NOT to take an offer to make another Fallout if they had to use FO4's RPG and dialog systems.

Not really, to be honest. Love or hate Bill Clinton, records show that this is a guy that knows his ****. I would argue this is a guy that regardless of what you think of him, you gotta respect him. I've never seen him approached with a question for example and not have and answer or become noticeably flustered. He can go toe-to-toe with anyone in a debate and ALWAYS seems to just know his **** and have it on hand if he's approached about any number of topics. I'm not saying it's never happened, but I've personally NEVER seen someone approach Bill Clinton with a confrontational-toned question before he proceeds to back out, say he doesn't have the exact numbers in front of him and can't answer, etc etc. Nah, he's always quick to respond. Like I said, love or hate the guy (I have both great praise and harsh criticism of different aspects of his presidency) you gotta respect him. In that sense I do find Hillary a bit odd. I mean you think her husband would at least rub off on her to some degree, but she just seems so staged all the time.

Let's just blame everything on Eve and call it a day. Bitch couldn't even resist eating a god damned apple if it meant better lives for all of us. Plus her Binding of Isaac character sucks **** unless Satan-senpai notices her.

Suffered crippling depression. Ate a donut.

Ya he wore gay pride colors all the time and was the first transexual conquistador, while also taking special care to teach the Aztecs about the senselessness and ignorance of their hate towards Chinese immigrants that came to work at the sacrificial temples.

Do not cite the Young Turks. Former Subscriber (maybe still?), Wolf-PAC supporter, but I do not and will not watch their videos anymore. It's gone from lightly opinionated but educated commentaries on politics to downright reactionary hysterics. Couple things in regards to this video: 1) No one gives a flying **** about Colombus. So Colombus was an ****. Ok, cool. Nobody cared about the guy to begin with. This is a guy that comes up briefly in 3rd grade when we're told about how America came to be, he's by no means a revered or important figure for anyone in the big picture of things. The entire video is presented with this sort of premise that Americans and others actually give a damned about the guy and revere him as an important and amazing historical figure. Hell no, he's that guy that gets me an extra day off of work, nothing more. This has the same effect to if you told me "DID U KNO NAPOLEON BONAPARTE WAS KIND OF A JERK?" Cool, I believe you immediately and have zero ****s to give. What's more important to me is what the **** the person's angle is with telling me Colombus is terrible. Is this gonna be some anti-America speech and how genocide is ok when the west does it? Is this gonna be about how our country lies to us or something? Dude, Colombus gets away with looking very neutral because his actions are taught to 7 year olds. By the time you're teaching those same people but at 14, Colombus just isn't relevant at all. There's no conspiracy here, this is just dumb luck that has allowed Colombus to go about with a relatively neutral reputation for most people. 2) TYT is reactionary hysterics. The video itself basically wants to imply Colombus is responsible for slaughtering 3 million natives like an ****. A quick google search will immediately diminish those claims in two important ways: 1) The "Experts say" line they use is an obvious weasel word, and of course the reality is that the number claims vary from as low as ~100,000 to as high as 8 million. If you use one the most cited sources on wikipedia (which refer you to books from Yale University by a guy named, Irving Rouse at the bottom here), then the numbers named are in the 500,000 to 1 million range. 2) Colombus is not directly responsible for their deaths, as 90% of the population had no immunity to smallpox and died from that. The way the information is presented, they'd have you believe the guy rode around killing them for sport (TOTAL side-note: my American family has Scottish origins and I know **** all about them because we always get mean looks and turned away at those scottish conventions as we're told our ancestors ran down some hill and killed their neighbors for sport. Good job, my ancestors. Kill grandma for bonus points) and never stopped. No, he indirectly did so just by exposing them to a disease they weren't built to resist. I'm not doubting he did terrible ****, but how about we stick to the facts and not exaggerate them, as the video would have you believe this guy is old skool Hitler. 3) There's a snippet in there about Colombus pimping 9 and 10 year old girls. I actually forgot to search this, but given my above searches, I again would have my doubts he was pimping them. Enslaving them? Absolutely, but the way they delivered the excerpt seemed designed to make you think "AND HE'S A PEDOPHILE TOO? GOD I HATE HIM" when infact the excerpt makes absolutely zero mention of anything sexual going on with the girls. Again, I don't know, it's merely a suspicion, and after all, if they wish to make this claim, the burden of proof is on them. This and many other parts of the video need a giant [citation needed], is the point. The point is that it's very easy to see something like this and get pissed off. It's very easy to look at a historical figure that did bad things and demonize them until they're going toe-to-toe with Hitler. I would be quicker to ask what's the purpose in that, as well as point out that there's nothing objective about exaggerating all the worst aspects and leaving out important snippets in his favor. Granted, not trying to defend the guy: as I and I'm sure many others have stated, who gives a damned about Colombus? Throw him under the bus 20 times for all I care. I merely question the motive in doing so. It feels like a witch hunt for the sake of a witch hunt. So how about we just go back to not giving a damned about the guy, take solace in knowing some new snippets of history, and then we enjoy Colombus day all the same cause hell yeah free day off of work?

It looks like Skyrim :C

Look everyone, topical humor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMUl6w1efXI

There's actually a sound story as to how this happened, but I think it's funnier to leave you all guessing and wondering. NSFW image: http://i.imgur.com/4Lyk67i.png

U KNO WHAT THE INTERNET REALLY NEEDS? A video calling out how ****ing retarded that stupid jump-cut **** all the youtubers do is. Dude why are you doing a jump cut every two seconds? Are you that incapable of speaking clearly and flawlessly for longer than half a sentence, thus you have to edit the flawless portions together in a desperate attempt to save it? Do you not see how outrageously obnoxious that level of frequency with jump cuts is? Is this some sort of counter-ADHD tactic that's supposed to keep my attention drawn in even if I happened to be ADHD? Cause all it does is piss me off and I'm guessing I'm not alone in that regard.

Dumb concept and dumb, tasteless video mocking said dumb concept.

Legit thought you were dissing on some island Greece has where they keep all their homosexual women. I think my interpretation would've been waaaay more entertaining.

Nah it's not, the guy my mom should've stayed with instead of hooking up with my dad was a strong buddhist who'd meditate constantly. Have always had tons of respect for his philosophies and the things he did. But when I have a psychologist offering it to me, then yes, I view it as a bit gimmicky. If I want meditation, I can find a class for that. Meditation itself is a legitimately soothing experience one can practice, but my point being that if I look into a psychologist's praxis and they're advertising meditation as a cornerstone of their work....dude you're a psychologist. If some little girl needs your services because her mother and father just had some rocky divorce that was disgusting and harsh, then it's probably not a great time to be praising meditation. Overall, I just find the psychologists in the area very strange because ALL of them have some kind of gimmick. It's like they run their praxis' more like a business than as a serious medical service, yknow? Really pretty strange and surprising to me, but then again one of the first drastic things that are different that I had to learn is that it turns out, USA is the world's leading expert on Psychology, so....Iunno, maybe I'm just being a snot, maybe things are just different here, but where I'm from the psychologists with the gimmicks aren't treated very seriously. Where I live now, the ones who are just like "how about we talk lol" are the minority.

That's the kicker: it's debt I owe to health insurance. I'm not sure I COULD get professional help in my current situation, and I've looked before. Ages ago when this problem first started, I needed a neurologist for the nerve pains, but most neurologists will double as psychologists so I considered it an opportunity to get both. I looked REALLY hard and unfortunately, every psychologist here has some weird "gimmick." Hypnotherapy, aromatherapy, meditation. It's like wtf do any of you quacks just ****ing talk and try to pinpoint the problem that way?? So I finally found a guy that lists none of that and he does indeed just talk. I go to him for the neurology first, psychology second. Within moments of explaining my problem with my nerve pains in my leg, it becomes apparent that my case would NOT be easy at all, because since people missing limbs from birth have our own unique anatomy for the limb we're missing, there's no way he can even ask another doctor experienced with such patients missing limbs, because my limb and that of their other patients would be drastically different. What I got was a combination of a sense he didn't want to cuz "too hard," and some whackjob initial response. VERY FIRST SUGGESTION, "well you know, the brain is a complex thing. Sometimes, it can fully invent pain all on it's own. Perhaps the pain isn't in your leg at all, but in your head!" Listen professor jackass, I'm real proud of you for your degree and all the theoretical bull**** you learned at the university that you probably won't ever get to use in practice, but how about before we jump to dramatic and highly implausible conclusions, how about you ****ing bother looking at my leg first? He hadn't even tried, and that really kinda soured my opinion of the guy. Just wasn't the best first impression at all, so I never went back. Like hell, I potentially still HAVE nerve issues in my leg, but a very well made prosthetic is avoiding setting them off. Even if I wanted to go back now, not sure that I could. How so? Be nice if you could expand on this a bit.

I'll just dive right into this. For those of you who DON'T want to bother with a tl;dr about my own personal problems I'm going through, feel free to just rant and post about your own. It's gonna get really tl;dr for me from here on out. Yesterday this video was shared to me: It was the most depressing a video could possibly be for me. I can say with quite a bit of confidence that no other video has ever had such a similar impact. Watched it with friends who all thought "boy that girl sure is shy," but I knew better. That's not shyness there. Reason the video bothered me is because I'm all too familiar with this dynamic, and it's something that's taken me years to understand. Growing up, my father was never really there and I always knew he had issues of sorts, and the focus was more on understanding that....not so much on my mom and I, which seemed fine. Dad has plenty of issues on his own and as a result, he runs. Does a fantastic job of royally ****ing up everyone else's lives on his way out (childhood friends, family, friends he met overseas, you name it), but he's this tragic kind of "I'm a terrible human being, I'm aware of it and I'm ashamed of it, but I also am losing the battle to change myself," and honestly it's quite easy to understand and "resolve." He is not me, nor do I have any motivation to ****ing care about him, so the resolution is to just not bother. Me and his brother can get along and talk about how this jackass cheated us both out of money, we don't lose anything if we sit here saying "he's a lost cause, don't bother trying to change him." That? While far more dramatic and obviously very impactful on my life, is also very straightforward and "easy." It's easy to not bother with a person who never gave you motivation to care about them to begin with. Then there's my mother, who's the opposite problem. My mother cares too much, and it took me years to figure that out. When you've got a mom who clearly loves you and cares about you and does everything for you, it's very difficult to recognize any sort of problem. People tend to try and make things black and white issues, where antagonization is perceived as bad and love is perceived as good, but the reality is both can have their upsides and downsides. Unfortunately, I feel as though that at 26 years old, I'm realizing my mother only loves me, but doesn't respect me. Parents aren't perfect of course. They're human beings like anyone else, and they all just take a stab at raising a kid. The most a parent can do is TRY to read a bunch of books on parenting, but this goes off the assumption the writers themselves knew what the hell they're talking about and don't have bias or ill advice themselves. When I watch that above video though, I see all the exact same problems my mother has. The overbearing attitude, the ridiculous and unbelievable degree of delusion, the rather strange form of selfishness behind all the desire to see her daughter just as happy and successful as she is. I know that girl isn't as quiet as she is not because she's introverted, not because she's a rude person, not because she's shy and not even so much because she hates that specific idea, but because she knows it's absolutely pointless to even try. She could tell her mom she hates it, she could tell her mom she refuses to go on stage, she could grow a third limb and kill a host ffs and none of it would matter. This is a mom who is so delusional that she invents her own little realities in her mind, and thus there's no convincing her you don't want to do this because she's already convinced herself that you want to do this. Sounds insane? Trust me, all too familiar with how insane it is and how it sounds; only that much more depressing when you try explaining to a person why you have a problem and you end up telling a story about a person that seems so god damned out of the loop of reality that the story just isn't believable....ESPECIALLY when that person only tends to act that way in relation to you. Mom in that video has probably fed herself excuses that she's the parent and this'll be a good learning experience for her daughter, so her daughter doesn't know what's good for her, who knows. But that daughter? That's the silence of defeat and the feeling of being a slave. That's the feeling of being treated like a pet more than a child with your own wishes and desires; no one asks a dog if it wants to perform in a dog show, and while I'm sure the daughter was technically asked, her answer was given no value. This exact same scenario is something I've gone through a dozen times. The phone calls asking if me and whatever person she's decided is meant for me have started dating yet, the phone calls asking if magical money solution #47 that she completely invented ("there's specific student aid for disabled half-americans in Germany! Go apply to the disabled american fund office!") has been received yet, or when I'll tell her about my job and how much it pays, and then when she writes regarding the job, the income she's calculated is double what it should be and means that she will be able to afford that trip or whatever it is she wants while providing me no aid.....and that itself is part of what makes it so depressing I think. Because I'm still receiving aid! I'm still being shown love and care and compassion, so why am I being so ungrateful? Boy, don't I feel like an ass... But the problem is that it's still a fantasy. If I get a phone call asking if magic money solution #47 has come in yet and I say no it hasn't and it doesn't exist, I'm lectured on how lazy I am or how she's severely disappointed in me for my failure in doing the work neccesary to get it. I get blamed for money not magically existing, and I get punished for it. When I go through countless phone calls where I try to point out she's doubled my income and imagining it to be far larger than it is (ridiculously so) and she seems to be receptive to it, but then within 24 hours she's back to acting as though the discussion never took place, then I'm the one that ends up living off sandwiches and dodging bill collectors while trying to make up for it myself somehow. It's very difficult to describe the frustration and it's very difficult to be involved with an overbearing parent without the result being that you yourself feel insanely depressed. And why? Because while it's frustrating to spend a week living off a sandwich a day because one person is mind-numbingly delusional, it's still a case where the person has provided quite a great deal of assistance to you, and always has since you were born. Part of it is just the objective reprocussions of trying to cope (let alone being FORCED to cope) with a mind that invents new realities and can't acknowledge the actual reality, and the other part is the guilt.....and ooooooh man will there be guilt. I'll never forget when....All my life I've grown my hair out long. Every male in my father's family does this. My grandfather has freakishly big ears, and I think we all fear we're the same, so we grow our hair out long enough to cover them. However, everyone I know has always told me the look absolutely suits me, and that I just look weird to them with short hair. Out of nowhere, my mom decided a year or two ago that she's changed her mind and now prefers me with short hair, because now she wants me looking like a rich, powerful and mature executive would look or some crap like that. It has happened on three occassions now that she's visited, nagged me to cut it, we've done so, and then she's gone out of her way to parade me around to EVERYONE and ask them what they think of my haircut. She's gonna SHOW me how wrong I am, and how everyone prefers me with short hair. The clerk at the store we just visited? "Iunno personally I preferred him with long hair." What do you think of that mom? "Oh he's just some random guy working a business. Of course he'll tell you whatever he wants to hear to make a sale." My good friends? What do they think? "Awww I miss your long hair already." What about them mom? "They're gonna like your look because they're young kids your age too. That's the style. But they don't understand looking mature and pleasing to more mature people. You're too young to understand." Alright, well I actually have friends that are closer to your age mom! They're old friends of my father's that he screwed over or helped me out when he was a **** to me, so now we know each other well. What do they think? "I personally prefer you with long hair. I actually usually don't like long hair on guys, but with you, it truly suits you and while I can understand that maybe the USA is harsher on guys with long hair and maybe that's what your mom is worried about, that's not how the culture is here, so her worries aren't neccesary." Thanks for the input! Really appreciated! Mom, what do you think? "It's your hair, of course they don't care that deeply. They're also not the ones who would have to cover for you if you lose your job or can't find a new one, so they don't have to pay that much attention to it." Three times. That's three years in a row we've done that song and dance. Each time, the same people asked, each time, the same answers given, and each time more maddening than the last. It's insanity, and it's surprisingly depressing to walk through the same song and dance over and over and over and over knowing nothing will ever change and none of the answers or actions matter. What I'll never forget though is when she had to return home after her trip to visit and caught herself enjoying my haircut, and then wanted to force me to promise I'd keep my hair short all year round, even when she wasn't around to enjoy it. I couldn't answer of course, both because I had no intent to do so and because I didn't understand what it mattered to her, or why she would insist I keep a haircut that I hated and she adored in a scenario where she would not be around to enjoy it but I'd be around to loathe it. She got confrontational and told me she knew that meant I wasn't gonna do it, and then took on a tone of lecturing me. And then she said it: "You owe it to me to keep your hair short." That right there sums up my relationship with my mother these days. She raised me, and therefore she has a claim on me for life. For those of you reading and thinking "dude wtf it's just hair, it's no big deal!" Oh, I agree. That's why I went to have it cut every single time she asked. But it's symbolic. If it weren't hair, it'd be something else, and I have no doubt in my mind about that. A story that should be far more significant that I haven't mentioned? I haven't mentioned it cause it's an older story, more or less, but there was a time when I had crippling nerve pains. I couldn't wear my prosthetic leg for longer than 2 hours, otherwise I'd just be overwhelmed with pain. And let me be clear: I'm allergic to morphine and I've had multiple surgeries on my leg. I know pain. And no, the painkiller alternatives aren't "just as good." If that were true, they'd skip morphine. More importantly, I have been given morphine on accident before, so I know factually from experiencing it that the painkiller alternative don't even provide a fraction of the relief that morphine does. But yeah, nerve pains. They're a beast of their own. It's an overwhelming sensation that you can't do justice to just describing, it has to be experienced. Acquaintances and co-workers? They'd notice me sweating. They'd notice me shaking. They'd notice I must be in insane amounts of pain and ask me what they could do to help, and usually the only solution was to call a cab and get me home asap so I could get the damned prosthetic leg off. Friends and family at the time, sadly did not notice or did not care, which was severely depressing itself. That itself....is another story. But my mom was one of those who didn't care, at least not properly. She misspoke and said something she shouldn't've, and while she can acknowledge she said something bad and say she "didn't mean it," I don't think it's something she can take back. She visited when the problem first arose, and my mom is terrible with anxiety. She doesn't speak German and the thought of TRYING to communicate or do something on her own in this country scares her, the result being that I am forced to play tour guide and personal translator for the entirety of her visits. No alone time, no chance to do anything I want, it's essentially a job at that point. And yknow, I guess that's fair given the assistance she's provided me with, just wanted to get the point across it's by no means a fun job. That year though, I couldn't. It was a two hour time limit, and after that I'd be fighting the pain so much that even just talking to a person to get information took quite a bit of concentration. After one such outing where my mom insisted we stay out for what must've been five hours (any complaints I voiced were written off as me being lazy or trying to find an excuse not to do something I didn't want to do), we finally returned home and I got the damned leg off. Thing is, the pain would build up at it's worst the moment the leg came off, so even though I desperately wanted to take it off, I knew that for a brief moment, the pain would be insane. I took it off and sure enough it was. I think I was so anxious to get it off I was just on the damned floor the moment we got through the door, and the moment I got it off, I was visibly and audibly in a great deal of pain. Her reaction was to look at me and voice shock and surprise about just how bad it was and then she said it: "This is ridiculous! It's ruining my vacation!" Oh good. That's what my pain and suffering amounts to for you? How much it influences your vacation? This was made even more bitter when two years later, she got nerve pains in her hip. I made every attempt I could to make her comfortable. If we were in town and the pains started, we found a cab right then and there. She never noticed or showed gratitude. There was no revelation of "so this is what you were going through. Omg I'm so sorry, had I known I never would've put you through this," it was just "wow that hurts." And that's why I say I feel loved, but not respected. It's very strange and weird to describe. I have no doubt that if a guy were to approach me and my mother on the street with a gun, she would take a bullet for me. She obviously cares. However, I don't know just how much she cares about me for who I am, but rather the me that she perceives me to be. I wonder if she'd be taking the bullet for me, or for the me in her head that she's imagined me to be. I would never claim that my mother is purely selfish or anything, and yet I find I have difficulty describing our relationship without acknowledging elements of it. I find it strange that she seems to want to imagine my life for me. "I want you to have a big house with a wife and kids." Mom owning a home in Germany isn't like owning a house in the USA, nor do I think I would want one, let alone would I want a wife and kids. Hell, I'm super careful about commited relationships in general. "You'll want those things. Trust me." It just feels like no value is put into my responses or what I have to say. It's not about what I want, it's about what she wants for me...and for what? So she can brag to her friends about how successful her son is or something? Am I a ****ing pet project? Am I a hobby to cultivate? What is this? I honestly would give almost anything to know, because I feel like a slave. If that were not enough, it's through this very madness that I find myself incapable of escaping. If I had a good income right now...? Move somewhere obscure, start a new life with any humble job I can find, just be myself and be happy, wouldn't say a word to any friends or family about where I'm going. I want away from her that badly. That in and of itself is sick. Her anxiety is already terrible. Her doctors have warned her her blood pressure is terrible and she needs to see an expert if she wants to live another 10 years, yet she doesn't do it because just the stress of visiting freaks her out. I find myself lying about half of the problems I encounter because I know it'd just stress her out and it's not like it matters anyways, because even if I tell her, she doesn't ****ing listen. I'm at the point I have pretty sizeable debt because I've been trying for years now to catch it or to find a way to pay for the stuff my mom doesn't wish to acknowledge. I had to call her and say just how much I owed while crying about my own failures and having hidden it (though I didn't exactly hide it, I just gave up on trying to tell her), and only to have her say "no you don't. You don't owe that. Those are just scammers trying to take advantage of a young kid. They don't have a right to any of that money." It's ****ing health insurance bills ffs. My health insurance company is "scamming" me for payments I missed? But there's no getting through to her. And just like that, I'm absolutely helpless. I just might get my wish of moving away to someplace obscure while not telling anyone, but at this point it's more likely I'd be doing it while homeless. I look back on it now and....depression's a funny thing. There's a study that said depressed people do not have the same brain chemistry as normal folk. A depressed person often cannot hate in situations where others can, as hate tends to only be directed inward rather than outward. One thing I can say is I hate this whole situation, because I don't know where to direct any blame or hate. I don't know how many of these failures I should be taking responsibility for. I don't know how often I should view myself as a leech of a child who has failed to be self-sufficient. And I don't know how much blame my mom deserves in all this, and yet I look at examples like the video I linked and I feel reassured that no, this isn't all me. Not by a longshot. On a final note, I find it funny how sometimes, you seem to intuitively understand something before you actually comprehend it. When I was 17 or 18, I watched Death of a Salesman in class. The one with Dustin Hoffman. Something about that movie made me cry, and I had no idea why. At the time I was just emotionally overwhelmed. Cowboy Bebop had a similar effect on me with it's ending, which was funny cause all otherwise I hated anime (and still do. **** that ****). It wasn't until later that I, with a more refined ability to analyze things, realized Cowboy Bebop has an over-arching theme of not being able to escape one's own past. Physically, in a practical sense such as debt, emotionally due to relationships, or perhaps not being able to resolve an old problem. Every episode of that show showcases an example of someone who, for whatever reason, cannot move on (or in rare cases, can), and the episodes highlight just how tragic and sad that really is, until of course that cumulates into the final episode....and we all know how that goes. (I hope. Show is worth a watch even if you hate anime, ijs). As for Death of a Salesman? Oh yeah, it has a meaning for me alright. I view one scene in particular and cannot help but see myself and my own situation in it: Sorry for polluting this forum with such a long, personal rant that none of you probably care about or read. This was just something I absolutely needed to get off my chest. I've actually tried posting on forums catered towards more depressing topics such as this, but it just felt so empty somehow, probably cause they weren't exactly populated. No idea if anything I've even typed is readable or entertaining ffs, but for me it was more about typing it rather than about it being read or not. Just needed to say it somewhere. I hope that at the very least, this thread can provide people with an outlet to rant about any personal issues befalling them, cause sometimes just talking about it can provide a bit of relief, even if only temporarily.

There was a philosopher who said... Imagine a scenario where a train is traveling down train tracks and will come to a crossroads where it will continue down one of two paths. If it continues down the one path, it'll hit the nicest, most expensive car you could imagine, and the car is yours for the taking if it doesn't get hit. If it goes down the other path, it will hit and kill a small child. If the lever to change the train's course is left completely untouched, it's currently on path to hit the child. In this situation, most of us here would say "of course I'll save the kid," but the philosopher's point was that in reality, we all enjoy luxuries that, if we were to be rid of them, we could save children's lives all the time. The reality of the situation is that EVERY person with luxury expenses is letting a kid die, so to speak. How are we any different than the guy who let's the kid die so he can have the fancy car? Hell I mean the guy at least got a multi-thousand dollar car out of it, while for most of us a luxury is a video game we won't play in 2 months time. The issue he presents is that of course we should all feel ashamed, but all of us struggle to imagine a life with absolutely no luxuries. No internet, no electricity, only eating meals as they're required and not enjoying nights at restaurants or even lazy evenings at fast food joints or ordering pizza (ironically I think McDonald's frequenters who live off the dollar menu stuff are technically going bare minimum. ). It's such a drastic change that many of us struggle to imagine being happy in such a state, so of course none of us do it. The conclusion I got is....I imagine it like this: take two extremes in life. One world where every travesty is treated seriously, another where nothing is taken serious and everything is laughed at. In the serious world, EVERYONE would get their own broadcasted obituary for example and flags would be flying half-mast every day. Why do celebrities get announced deaths but you or I do not? Our lives are equally as valuable and interesting, we're simply less known, but do we deserve equal respects paid when we pass? Absolutely. So in that world, that would happen. On the other end, everything is a joke. You die? People are laughing about your death and cracking jokes, if they even acknowledge it at all. No one bothers to honor the dead, and it's a world where CNN and other major news networks are instead spamming 4chan memes about 9/11 when it happens instead of giving it the coverage we all saw when it happened. We must prefer the latter group. Why? Well personally I would rather have people able to crack jokes about my death. If I thought I could? I'd donate my skeleton to science; I TOTALLY wanna be a skeleton in a high school that gets hats and sunglasses put on him when they do pranks. I want them to know my skeleton's name and make me do funny voices by moving my jaw. Disrespect the **** out of my skeleton, I think that'd be the best and absolutely hilarious. (now to just find a high school that would take a skeleton with my unique build rather than wanting a typical one :c ) More importantly, the tragedy-honoring world would never get **** done. If we had a moment of silence for every person who died each day, we would never actually get to work. It's impossible. It's simply not realistic, nor is it a happy world to live in. People would be miserable all the time because they acknowledge and know of the deaths that took place. I see it similar here. Yes we can do more and I acknowledge that, and I acknowledge that, even as I am now, eating one meal a day and struggling with bills, making absolutely no lucrative purchases beyond nicer meals than what I could settle for, I could do more. But I've been there. I know what it's like. It's not something you can survive doing. Physically yes, I can survive off sandwiches. Mentally? I'd be more depressed than I already am if I settled for that. The way I see it, I do not get upset with celebrities who have their deaths broadcasted and respected worldwide. Good for them! Glad they got the respect they deserve even if most of us won't. Likewise, the beggar I pass on the street and give €2 to, I don't think he would be upset with me for eating a €10 meal that day. Why would he want me to be as miserable as he is? The standards that philosopher suggested are just too depressing. As dumb, nonsensical and illogical as it is, yes, we petty human beings do need our luxuries to give us some motivation. Without luxuries, we have no motivation. We know only remorse and sadness as we honor those who starved to death that day, and I struggle to imagine a world that survives when we AREN'T capable of ignoring death or cracking jokes about how starving kids in Africa would've appreciated the ice cream cone we just accidently dropped. We need that carelessness and we need that optimism and humor about it. We should remain concious of tragedies when we can and help out when we can of course, but I think letting the guilt of simple things like having an internet connection get to you...? That's creating as many problems as it is solutions. And this is why I do not respect you and why many others have accused you of being a troll. $1.25 is $1.25. A starving child cares not for which $1.25 feeds him or where the money comes from. EVERYONE on this forum is subject to your criticisms, yourself included. (especially yourself, if you're so entitled that you're somehow blind to this)

Marveled at the fact that while I have no enemies in real life and have never given anyone a bad impression, I am notoriously hated online. Today I got two instances of news related to this. First I got a random reddit notification where someone typed my username to "summon" me to the discussion. The reference was so god damned vague...basically maybe two weeks ago I criticized that a certain youtuber had begun "selling out" and acting like the typical PewDiePie guy, with clickbait titles, tons of "WOW LOOK AT THAT THING THAT HAPPENED" reactions and high energy. That youtuber released a video today, and some random guy summoned me to rub it in my face that (in his opinion) the video title wasn't clickbait-y like I'd claimed so many of his videos are. Just weirded me out that wtf the guy bothered to remember my screenname over something so stupid and trivial, and of course he was immediately hostile towards me when I responded and said "wtf." The other instance, a friend of mine wanted some advice about trying TF2's 6v6 format for the first time. I play Highlander only (a different format), so she messaged a guy we'd met in a casual competitive-style game to ask him about it since she knew he played it. So she messages him and asks him about it and what to do, and out of flipping nowhere, the guy asks if she still plays with me, she answers yes, and then he just started trash talking me like crazy. Like he just stopped her early into her questions and changed the subject to how much I suck. I have barely even spoken to this guy, never said a hostile word for the life of me, and never had a conflict with him. She and I are both weirded out by this, wondering if perhaps this other girl I "fought" with is spreading rumors about me or something ("fought" as in team needed a sniper, invited her to trial, she was a totally rude little **** about it making comments like "this isn't my trial, they're trialing to see if they're good enough to have me," so I told her she was being a rude little ****, long story short she showed her lying and manipulative side and started making stuff up in attempt to guilt-trip me for criticizing her, so the moment I caught her in a lie I told her to grow up and **** off before deleting her, saying I don't have patience for liars) OR if the guy is another weirdo who hits on every single female online ever and considers me his "competition," so he's trying to look tough by talking trash. EITHER WAY, point is the internet, it's culture, and perhaps even my own presentation of myself online? All mighty interesting. These are hardly the first examples of someone online that I don't even know quasi-"stalking" me or some guy I've never offended in any way whatsoever deciding he hates my guts, either. Just interesting to see how differently real life and online can play out. It sort of has me sitting here wondering "how much of this is the internet being the internet, and how much of this is me simply being naive about how petty some people are and not really noticing it's effects as dramatically as they are online."

Flamethrowers don't kill people. People kill people.