Poobah

This is a very "and yet you participate in society" kind of response. We're are allowed to pick our battles, make our preferences known, and exercise what little power we have in our fucked up world as and when we are able. Just because we can't change all the things and simply existing forces us to make compromises with our principles it doesn't make our efforts any less meaningful when we are able to make them, some might argue more so, given that it requires swimming against the current of shit instead of just letting ourselves be carried along with it. Also I'm not mad at the person playing the game, but I'm equally entitled to not play it, and when the thread starts going in the "omg you should play this game" direction offer my own counterpoint as to why I disagree. Plus when they specifically ask what it is exactly that JRK did it's entirety reasonable to reply.

Rowling has made a great many tweets, but also written articles and letters, and used her influence, and most importantly to the discourse around the Hogwarts game her money to support anti-trans causes and groups. It's not that she is bigoted on a personal level which, sure means I wouldn't want to be her friend, but on a political one. She's a major voice in the so-called "culture wars" that have already had real-life negative impacts on the lives of trans people in the UK.

The power of the romance genre.

I thought the personal jabs were crass, unnecessary and say more (negatively) about the writer than Sanderson and his family/fans (complaints about food tastes and other similar choices), but otherwise wasn't surprised that Sanderson is all around a pretty standard nerd with a side of mormonism who's pleasant, polite, boring, and not particularly charismatic, witty, quotable etc. And yeah his writing is mostly pretty mediocre though I wouldn't characterise it as outright bad most of the time - I've read or attempted to read far less readable prose than his many a time in published works, and I know that is rather a damning with faint praise kinda statement but it is what it is. His writing doesn't bring me joy to read or anything but is relatively serviceable if rather a chore sometimes but eventually takes you to the places he cares about - big superhero magic battles, moments of apotheosis and other such big plot things which he tends to deliver fairly well if in bombastic Marvel fashion, painting with simple direct emotions. To be honest ultimately what I get from the piece is a sense of envy, the writer is fuming that Sanderson can get so rich and attract so many fans given the quality of his work, which rather shows that the writer doesn't understand that it isn't artistic merit that makes a work successful, far from it.

I picked up Monster Train in the steam sake and have been having a pretty good time figuring it out. As to the inevitable comparisons with Slay The Spire I definitely think Spire is the deeper, more strategic game but Monster Train is a ton of fun and has excellent systems for tracking progression through all sorts of metrics which are just the kind of things that keep me playing and experimenting in a game like this, though how far I'll play beyond the 100% completion point I'm not sure to be honest. I don't really see it as the kind of game I'm gonna want to keep playing for years and hundreds/thousands of runs the way I have with Spire but not every game needs to be that, and I appreciate the uniqueness Monster Train brings on how it diverged even as it jumped on the deck building hype train to make something new and different.

Much as I love EEAAO even without considering the other movies on the list I personally would have voted for Stephanie Hsu for Best Supporting Actress in that movie over JLC - it's kinda funny tho that Angela Bassett wasn't the best of the supporting actresses in her movie either though in my opinion, given the stink she made.

Nice to see EEAAO pick up tons of awards, the best movie of last year by miles.

Just rename it to the Tory Broadcasting Corporation and move on at this point.

Haha yeah someone sent me the blurb of this and I was stunned by the brazenness, surely this is just straight up plagiarism? Or is this Rothfuss trying to secretly reboot his series?

You have my sincere thanks and appreciation.

I won't be buying Hogwarts. I'm not trying to achieve anything, boycotts never do, but the fact is that we live in a world with more entertainment than we can ever consume in our lifetimes, with dozens if not hundreds of high quality games, tv shows, and movies releasing every year - even if it's one of the best games of the year (unlikely) there are still going to be dozens of games of similar or higher quality with hundreds or thousands of cumulative hours of gameplay so it hardly seems like a difficult choice not to support a blatantly toxic franchise with its slavery, antisemitic stereotypes, and Rowling's frothing transphobia. I won't even notice that I'm not playing it. Maybe I'll play something nice and wholesome like Doom Eternal instead. Edit: Just watched the video in the article you linked Wert and that's incredible. It looks just how those grainy pixelated textures were translated in my imagination back in the day.

I do think you're right, but at the same time the experience I've had - of having my problems dismissed, put off, and minimised by a GP - is not an uncommon one and I think there are a lot of frustrated people who have had to deal with GPs somewhere between overworked / under-resourced through to incompetent / think they know better than their patient gatekeeping treatment they need. It's not that I'm unsympathetic, I know there is a severe tory-created resource shortage, and you have to play the odds but for every 9 patients you tell to fuck off on a 90% there's one that you're wrong about who ends up in hospital a few months later. So I understand why Starmer may think this is a vote winner.

That's just the players being slow at decision making and planning ahead/thinking through their own turns whole others are acting imo. It's been a while since I watched but I used to find it funny how some people's turns would go by in a snap and others would take forever. Same at tables I've played at - regardless of the complexity of their character class/build there's always usually at least one person who manages to drag out a turn that should be sub 30 seconds of dice rolling into a 10 minute Q&A.