Got hooked on Warframe again. Been having a blast listening to audiobooks while playing around with different builds. Finally getting around to finishing The Jakarta Method and Mirage Men and re-listening to The Southern Reach as I haven’t got to Absolution yet.

Can’t wait for the bailouts.

They probably pre-gamed the interview by doing just that.

“Ehrm, it actually increases blood flow to my brain so I write into my contract that before any debate my opponent must give me uppie-spinnies.”

As someone who is only vaguely aware about f these fandom factions I can’t help but feel that pro-ship is used to defend people writing the most heinous fanfic imaginable. Like the whole thing is artificially created because some weirdos are turning kids shows into Lolita and when called out they invented this pro-ship nonsense to equate heinous shit with horny nerds writing boring horny nonsense.

Maybe it’s just me, but growing up during the height of Harry Potter nobody declared sides in the Great War of shipping Harry and Hermione or whatever. It wasn’t until people rightfully started calling out pedo shit that all of a sudden you’ve got this great ideological battle between freedom and cancel culture or what the fuck ever.

And reacting to this the anti-ship crowd picked up all the puritans, contrarians, perpetual finger-waggers, and people mad that their ship isn’t popular.

I’m tired and rambly, but to summarize this all feels artificially created to defend creeps and pedos. This debate always surfaces when someone writes something fucked up but nary a peep otherwise.

Good read right up until the usual Stalin bad, Trots good nonsense.

Still, it’s good enough that I can send it to libs and baby leftists.

The real news is that the UK was even considering blocking the pedophile robot.

The personification of “what no theory does to a mfer”.

Don’t forget that he’s stated that he is not a communist, just someone who hates the USA. Which I can respect to a point, but that does mean that his unhinged rants have no material analysis. It’s literally just vibes based bullshit. Sometimes he’s right, more often than not he’s wrong.

Which is why he’s also been recently saying he hopes the USA invades Greenland because it will mean Europeans and Americans will kill each other. Except that the population of Greenland is nearly 90% Inuit.

Goes perfectly along with his recent rants about how the USA invading Greenland would be good because it would be Americans killing Europeans. Despite the fact the almost 90% of the population of Greenland is Inuit.

Do what makes you happy, don’t think about that creep. If I saw someone with a Sgr A* tattoo I’d think it was cool as hell, I wouldn’t think of a weirdo billionaire blasted on ketamine.

I think the real problem is the refusal to actually progress the story and have a plan for that progress. WoW is a good example of this. They keep rehashing the same old shit with the same old characters that can’t really have any growth anymore because anytime they do the player base hates it and Blizzard backs down. So expansions basically become “what is this older expansion again, but with a twist!”. They never move on so they’re always trapped in this liminal comic book reality that just gets exhausting. I keep wanting to get back into retail WoW because I started playing with Warcraft 2 so I’ve got a lot of nostalgia and love for some of the story and characters, but I just get exhausted with them teasing character growth that never happens, a world that changes only superficially, needlessly convoluted end game systems, and one of the most toxic communities in gaming. I’m happy just mucking about in Classic with IRL friends for nostalgia anymore.

FFXIV is an example I like. I haven’t played since Endwalker because that felt like a true ending. I’m glad that it’s still going for people and I may jump back in at some point, but for now I’m fine.

Warframe has been doing a good job of keeping their story going with interesting stakes and good character development and progression. It’s the one that has my attention at the moment, but with any of these MMOs when it starts to feel like a chore I just let myself move on and I have plenty of books and other games also to break things up.

I’m probably missing some bit but from what I gather Gabriel Rockhill wrote a book titled “Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism?” that is about how Marxism in the west has been co-opted on purpose and distorted, specifically focusing on how anti-imperialism has been stripped from the discourse to defang theory in the west. This is probably a much better summary from the publisher, the book is high on my reading list but I haven’t got to it yet.

Now on to this Sebastian Budgen fellow. As if on queue he starts posting incoherent tirades calling Gabriel Rockhill a Stalinist specifically because of Gabriel’s examination of the lack of anti-imperialism in western Marxist thought in his book. Sebastian is a senior editor at Verso Books, a member of the editorial board of Historical Materialism, and a contributing editor to Jacobin. All three publications have a noticeable tendency to do exactly what Gabriel Rockhill’s book is about, remove the anti-imperialist elements of Marxist theory. I find it particularly amusing and not surprising in the slightest that at the slightest hint of criticism Sebastian throws an incoherent tantrum, on Facebook of all places, calling Gabriel an evil Stalinist. Oh and Sebastian bragged that he helped prevent the publication of Gabriel Rockhill’s book in France by using his connections to get a French publisher to stop their publishing deal with Gabriel.

That whole story is quite the intense read. Thanks for sharing!

I really enjoy the vibe of Returnal, but it is absolutely too difficult for me. I’ve never been great at quick reaction games. I don’t mind the difficulty, I love Dark Souls and Elden Ring, but in those games patience and being able to make a tankier build make up for what I lack in twitchy reflexes.

I still haven’t beaten Returnal, but I did find a slate of mods for the PC version that help with the difficulty without being flat out godmode cheats, so I absolutely plan to jump back in at some point using them.

I think Tremors is the one that sticks with me the most. Such a good movie, I watched it all the time growing up.

The end of the beginning of the beginning of the end of history.

I can’t sit my pets down and explain to them what chemo is or that they’re going to have an invasive surgery and may get better afterwards. All they know is that they love me, but they’re in pain. You may question it for a long time afterwards, but if they’re miserable and don’t understand why then keeping them around is more for your benefit than theirs.

I’ve spent way too much money getting care for a sick, young cat because I knew the pain would be temporary and they could get back to their bonded half and recover quickly and I’ve had to put down a dog that could have lived a few more years because their dementia had become so bad they were confused and lost constantly, even when in the same room as I was.

Compassion and love are always important, but you can’t explain to them why they’re in pain, only save them from needless suffering.

Fourteen Years of Flames. Looks quite good.

Sounds like a classic bait and switch.

Can’t wait for the inevitable glut of insanely overpriced gimmicky garbage made for US schools out of this.

Listen bro, listen. You gotta let us pump some sulfur into the atmosphere bro. It’s just temporary bro, just for a little while until we stop burning dino juice bro.