majestic

Achievements, and before anyone asks, yes, I am fairly serious about that. No way I would have finished my Unfair run without them.

Huh, I laughed at @Make a contract with KP's joke. David Lynch is famous for just saying no every time someone asks him to elaborate on the meaning of one of his films. Dune aside, but Dune was directed by Alan Smithee. It is also an answer of a sort, more than it would initially seem. What made Pillars of Eternity so unremarkable, or perhaps boring, for me, is not any one thing, it is a combination of many little things. As far as the writing goes, that is a little more difficult to quantify as I have yet to figure out what I really consider 'interesting' or 'good' beyond a few examples I can point to (one of them would be Neon Genesis Evangelion, which manages to be geniuinely interesting sci-fi, a deconstructionist examination of an 80ies sci-fi staple and a deep examination of depression, need for validation, pressure and loneliness - the director of the series expressed his own personal experiences through the characters, and it shows). I can point to a larger number of things that generally qualify as being well written but do nothing for me: Icewind Dale, Pillars of Eternity, and The Great Gatsby, which already caused groaning in the book thread, but I have to bring it up again, because it has the exact same issue. Reading it was unengaging. It took me longer to go through it's 200-something pages than reading a doorstopper novel generally considered to not be worthwhile by literature experts. Now, the Fitzgerald novel at least I can point to and say that neither the time period nor the social circles it is about are of any interest to me, so that could explain my experience, but ruminations on the existence of souls and the nature of gods, an ancient, lost civilisation and a conspiracy to hide it all? Count me in. There were a handful of interesting moments in Pillars of Eternity. The parts of the main story in Defiance Bay and particularily the visit to the Sanatorium stand out, and when Thaos showed up to conclude the second act, at this point I thought the game would finally rise to its promise, at least in terms of storytelling - and it went back to being what it was before almost immediately. The combat gameplay is a factor as well, as was my experience with the first few patches. I may have mentioned it before, but my first - and only - character that I played Pillars of Eternity with was a Cipher with a blunderbuss. The first couple of patches made my game experience worse in the name of 'balance' - because rogues arguably sucked when the game launched, my Cipher's ability to bypass the unfun combat were tuned down, instead of rogues being made stronger. Why? The only reasonable answer I have is that the designers of the game actually believed their combat to be fun, and for it to be fun, it needed a serious trimming down in options to bypass it more quickly. The idea is preposterous to me, because combat in Pillars is a slog. It feels unresponsive even though it gives much better feedback than other real time with pause isometric games, and the pacing feels off. The graze mechanic, put into the game to give the players a minor success instead of dice rolled miss streaks, like they were all too common in Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale at the lower levels, made the combat feel even worse than better, and again, that is by far and large, based on a feeling. The entire time I played Pillars, I thought the game would play better as a turn based game. Now, if someone actually enjoys the combat of the game, and I am certain there are people who do, then it becomes a much better experience. There are a handful of other game elements that came from the success of the Kickstarter campaign. The stronghold mechanics feel like they were tacked on later, and Twin Elms is a break in pace at a point where the game shold move towards its conclusion. Both came from stretch goals. A number of other Kickstarters with runaway success had the same issue.

Darktide looks like a fun game with a big downside. Online co-op with randoms? Yeah, I tried that in Mass Effect and Anthem. Hard, hard... VERY HARD pass.

Only if you don't git gud at some point.

For f*cks sake, the ONE time I type up a semi-long reply and don't CTRL + A; CTRL + C it just to make sure you go and lock the old thread in between, and that post is gone, sacrificed to the forum gods. Such irony, the post talked about me making things harder on myself by accident, in both Sekiro and Dark Souls.

I should probably look up the character names next time I talk about a film I've watched like 15+ years ago. Indeed, that's Jankis and not Jenkins. Oh my. Leeeeeeeeroy!

For what its worth, Memento is one of the few films where the conclusion - or, well, the beginning in this special case - came as an actual surprise without feeling contrived or simply impossible to figure out by having no prior setup and thus coming out of the blue.

Rogue cable? My first (and only) reaction was: wireless 'ergonomic' multi button mouse? No thanks. I can relate, the display port cable is the only rogue cable on my desk too. Those things really are too short. That is a relatively new development as I cleaned out my desk with the new computer and threw out the old Dolby Digital speaker setup, that instantly removed 13 cables and a gigantic power adapter that never fit anywhere, plus I never truly had the space for proper speaker placement anyway. Still plenty of cable chaos under the desk, but who gives a damn about that. Anyway, I'm using this mouse: And I actually bought a couple just in case, because they're out of stock almost everywhere, and buying stuff on eBay, dunno... going to have to try the Logitech M110 eventually to see if that works for me too, but they're a bit longer than the LS1. Ah, to not be so limited with preferences would be nice. Alas.

Is it just my anime-broken imagination, or was Queen Beryl really close to a wardrobe malfunction in this shot? Edit: Usagi's brother is spying on her while she's studying, then goes back to mom and they're both surprised Usagi is hard at work. Shingo mentions that people can go crazy from pushing themselves to hard, and her mother goes to check up on her. She enters the room and sees Usagi in a... Unicorn costume (she wants to go to a Minako hosted costume contest) making weird sounds in front of the mirror. There's something charming about these totally obvious setups. They should not be hilarious, but somehow they just are. PIKA? Well, she's more like KUPII! KUPII!

Violet gets to a dark place, but I the ending of the series was rather uplifting in my opinion. Then the movie goes and takes a dump on it. Edit: Wow, Rei not only looks like a psychotic killer in the live action series, she's also channeling her inner Kreia something fierce. She refuses to help Usagi with her school work and chides Makoto for wanting to help her out, giving her the ol' Kreia speech about cheapening the struggle. That's going to be interesting. In the TV adaptation, Minako is already a successful idol, so who knows. I think I read somewhere that TV show Minako has terminal cancer or something, which makes little sense, but hey, one step at a time...

What I have been told by people who enjoyed Raiders but hated Crusade is that they simply did not like the shift towards having (more) comedic moments, whereas Raiders was a more serious and gritty adventure film than the others. Sure thing, Adolf. I would not go that far as I prefer Last Crusade over Temple of Doom, but I understand the sentiment. Having watched all three films at an age that was probably not appropriate, Temple of Doom was funnier and quirkier than Raiders but overall less charming than Crusade.

I was thinking about The Mist's (film) ending, but yeah, you're right...

Let me know if I should spoiler tag this stuff, but I don't see the reason. Nobody else is watching and it is Sailor Moon, where spoilers don't matter all too much. Or, like, at all. Usagi thinks that Talks-With-Turtles is Tuxedo Mask, and she's nice to him and his turtle, so he invites her along to an amusement park. Usagi comes with Makoto and Rei, while Motoki brings the real Tuxedo Mask and some poor devil who ends up stuck with Rei who is so scared of her he just gets hiccups all the time. He says that always happens when he's close to girls, but no, I'm pretty sure he's just scared of her. Who wouldn't be. This Rei looks like a psycho killer on a good day, much less on one where she gets duped into a triple date with Usagi without even knowing beforehand. They're also renting row boats and while Hiccups and Talks-With-Turtles are trying their best to row, Makoto is just blazing past them. Mamoru is rightly impressed and asks if he should help, and she's like, yeah no, I got this. Yeah, that elicited laughter. Talks-With-Turtles sees turtles and is happy, Usagi is confused why Talks-With-Turtles isn't as exciting as Tuxedo Mask and generally, this is a pretty good episode. The four get lost in a house of mirrors (that is mostly plastic because they could not afford mirrors) and trade places, and the set up is really cheesy and reminds me an awful lot of Seiya and Usagi in Stars... although there it was not a house of mirrors but a haunted hourse, of course. Anyway, #teamseiya now and forevermore. Rei sees a Youma and runs off, and of course she does, because otherwise this would not be Sailor Moon. Poor hiccups blames himself. Poor guy. He gets possesed by the Youma and drains Rei's energy, which makes his turtle rise. I mean, the turtle backpack he's carrying, because Hiccups is a turtle lover too. I... wow. This is the worst joke in the history of all things Sailor Moon (Episode 7, at 16:40, if anyone wants to check, or maybe make a gif out of it...). Usagi transforms in the house of mirrors because she thinks Mamoru can't see her transform, Makoto and Usagi pummel the Youma, Jadeite tries to fight them but Tuxedo Mask shows up. Usagi tells the girls she thought Motoki is Tuxedo Mask, Rei is really, really annoyed about being dragged into something this stupid because of Usagi's emotions, and Makoto defends Usagi, and the next episode is apparently about Makoto and Rei fighting, which in this context makes a whole lot more sense than Makoto and Minako going at each other in SuperS. Minako was in the episode for two scenes and she's really weird. I, uh, might not be entirely objective, but Makoto's actress kills the role. Usagi has the unenviable task of trying to be Usagi, which on and off works, Rei is... more manga Rei than anime Rei and Ami wasn't even in the episode because, uh, a second extra would have cost money?

Nicola Rizzoli was the referee for the 2014 WC final and the Germany - France semifinal in the Euro 2016, and right before the game the German football commentator was complaining hard about the UEFA putting Rizzoli in charge of the game because "he is for sure going to try and make up for 2014". Well, that's fair enough.

You never know when the army rolls in, so dunno.

Well, first this very clear yellow card by Higuain, because, uhm, why would it not be: Well, and apparently it wasn't at the airport, but at the Brandenburg Gate: Classic German behaviour. I'd say karma is a bitch, but I don't really believe in the concept.

Well, it can't get any worse than the last one...

Is there any in-universe explanation for the mechs doing gymnastics and muscle building workouts?

ドイツのチームが悪いので私はウィアブーなんだか？ Not really rooting for Japan here, just against Germany. Would not really have made a difference if it had been Japan and Germany out. Here's to hoping karma will keep biting them until Manuel 'The Knee' Neuer quits playing. Well, he, and everyone else involved in that ridiculous show at the airport back in 2014. So, the pertinent question now is: Wie gehen die Deutschen?

よかったよ！^_^

Morocco winning Group F is a tad unexpected, but certainly well deserved.

Well, RŌDO RŌRĀ DA is Hepburn romanization...

The 80ies called, they want to tell you something...

It is going to get so much better than that. So, so much better! You know, there's deliciously funny irony in the only recommendation from @Sarex that kind of worked for you (or which you did not hate, at least) being one made to me. Had a belly laugh reading your exchange here and thinking of that. Kinda made my day, so thanks. edit: Maybe. I am uncertain, really. It's such a weird thing to not recommend a film that I really enjoyed watching and still can't... yeah. Odd, to say the least.