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SubstantialFrivolity

I'm not even supposed to be here today

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joined 2022 September 04 22:41:30 UTC
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SubstantialFrivolity


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
I'm not even supposed to be here today

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 04 22:41:30 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Friday Fun Thread for November 21, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It's alright. I certainly wouldn't call it emotionally deep. It is, in the end, a high fantasy "save the world from apocalyptic threats" story which is entertaining but isn't going to knock socks off. I think the thing the game does best is giving you agency in how to approach situations, they really let you come at things pretty much any way you can think of and still accomplish your goals. Obviously there are limits, cause it's a computer game and it can't react to you creatively, but you won't run into them often.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for November 21, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It plays and feels like D:OS so if you enjoyed that, pick up BG3. I think that they did a really good job with it, though I do have my gripes (for example there are characters whose dialogue sounds like it was taken from Reddit, which is a horrible writing choice for a medieval fantasy like the Forgotten Realms).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 17, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I will forever lament the way Jackson adapted that scene. Eowyn's speech in LOTR is so beautifully written; it is one of the best bits of prose in the book imo:


"'Hinder me? Thou fool. No living man may hinder me!'


"Then Merry heard in all sounds of the hour the strangest. It seemed that Dernhelm laughed, and the clear voice was like the ring of steel. 'But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Eowyn am I, Eomund's daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him.'"


I realize that the movie adaptation isn't written with the voice of an epic the way that Tolkien wrote the book, but to go from that beautiful exchange to a generic action movie "I am no man!" as she removes her helmet... it's just such a shame. They really fell short with that scene.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 17, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
No, I don't think you're dull. Pretty girls who do sick martial arts moves and kick ass are fun, one doesn't need to give it some kind of culture war explanation to make sense of it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 17, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I mean, the ACOUP blog agrees with you that as written in the movie, Poe is correct. That's why he says the story is badly written. But that would not be the case in his hypothetical alternate version of the story, so I don't think "but Poe was right" is a valid criticism of the blog's idea.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 17, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The prequels are overall good, with even the weakest (the first) still being an enjoyable movie. There are people who hate them passionately but they aren't the only Star Wars fans, nor as far as I can tell are they a clear majority of Star Wars fans.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 17, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yeah I walked out of the theater having enjoyed TFA. It was only after that it occurred to me that it was a beat-for-beat copy of episode 4, which killed my ability to enjoy it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 17, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The proposed story there is actually "Poe learns to listen to his superiors, who got there by being good at their jobs". You could tell that story in a sanctimonious way (and evidence suggests that Johnson may well have done so), but it isn't inherently so. A hothead young guy having to learn to listen to the wise older mentors is a pretty old and respectable story trope.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 17, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Strongly agreed. Cool people aren't doing what makes them look cool, they are doing what they feel like doing. The things they do become cool because the person is cool, not the other way around.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 17, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


So, looking up the AI summaries for these books, this one says that "The story is unique for being the only Star Wars novel told from the first-person perspective of a character not seen in the films." That's uh, damning with faint praise.




That is a pretty terrible summary of I, Jedi so you should probably not listen to whatever other summaries that tool gave you. The pitch for that book was that it took a character, Corran Horn (the one not in the movies at all that your summary mentions) who was popular from previous books, and wove him into an existing (well liked) book's story in a way that felt reasonably natural. Think something like the Back To The Future 2 scenes where they are playing around the events of the first movie, that is kinda what that book does.


There are also lots of characters in the expanded universe books who aren't in the movies (kind of by necessity), as well as characters who are technically in the movies (e.g. Wedge Antilles) but who aren't real characters and get fleshed out almost entirely by the books. So it's definitely not noteworthy that this particular book centers around a character not from the movies.




The others seem to be about either Luke going off to fight "the Empire Reborn" or him going off to fight a new big threat to the galaxy. "Luke Skywalker is guided to Bakura by a vision of Obi-Wan Kenobi, who warns him that the fate of the galaxy is at stake. "




I mean, it's heroic fantasy. What do you want them to do? The genre is kind of defined by people going off to fight larger than life threats. You seem to have this idea that to be good, a new entry needs to go in a bold new direction, but that would in my opinion make it a terrible new entry. I don't want bold new directions from sequels; if I wanted something totally new I'd just watch(/read/play) something new. When I reach for a sequel I want something substantially the same as the first one, but with some new elements sprinkled in to make it interesting.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 17, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Amazing. Everything you just said is wrong.


^ To me that is a far more memorable quote from the movie, but YMMV and all that.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for November 14, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
No doubt. It is a really horny game, isn't it?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for November 14, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I accidentally banged Halsin in that game, or started on the path to it maybe (been a while). I took a conversation option that I thought was being a bro and sympathizing for the tough times he had to go through, but apparently he took that as "let's fuck".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Technically we didn't, but the feeling was that we were close. Because we were willing to let people freely speak their minds on a number of topics (including transgender stuff), we had posts getting removed by site admins. The belief was that it was only a matter of time until the admins closed the sub for refusing to uphold the site-wide rules about what opinions one is allowed to express. Personally I agree with that belief, but we didn't technically get shut down.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I suppose that's true to some extent. But I can't say I ever felt limited by it, 15 spells (assuming max int at level 10) is enough that you can have a pretty decent distribution of utility spells along with a couple of workhorses. YMMV of course, it depends greatly on the individual player and the game you're in.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Only if you aren't getting patches, and the DoD has plenty of money to pay Microsoft for custom support contracts where they still get patches even if the general public doesn't.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There is absolutely nothing excellent about Javascript. Even its creator hates it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
True. Though in fairness, you can craft scrolls in 5e just fine so the same would really apply to that (albeit the DMG gives almost zero guidance to the DM on how to implement magical item crafting, just hand waves a few broad guidelines). And in BG3 specifically you have scrolls coming out of your ears.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


With D&D 5, there is no need to assign spells to slots any more. Instead, you have to decide which spells you want to be able to cast after rest, and are limited to a frankly ridiculously low number, I think on the order of a dozen or so in the BG3 endgame




It's based on level + int modifier, so yeah a dozen or so is about right. That said, the 5e magic changes are on the whole a breath of fresh air. Vancian magic in prior editions (my experience is with 3e, which itself was a softening of the system by including 0-level spells) is a terrible, actively un-fun system. It sucks ass to find yourself in a situation where it sure would be nice to cast (insert spell here), but you only prepared one copy and you already cast it so you're SOL.


The magic system envisioned by Jack Vance, where wizards cast world shattering spells that are so complex that you have to lay them down in your mind in advance, is very cool for a novel. It is not at all pleasant as a game mechanic, however. There are a lot of changes 5e made which are questionable but I disagree that this was one.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Thank you for the summary. As you said, I'm not on Twitter soaking up all their drama so my immediate reaction was to wonder what the heck OP was even talking about.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I think the complaints that 15 year old Harry was whiny and annoying fail to consider that this is a realistic depiction of 15 year old boys.




This is a common rejoinder to complaints about child characters, but in my experience is untrue. Nobody says Harry is unrealistic in Order, they say he is annoying. The two aren't necessarily related, and at least for my own taste I would rather have an unrealistic depiction of a teenager if it meant the book was more enjoyable to read. Also for what it's worth I was 17 when the book came out, so I wasn't too far from 15 myself. Harry still annoyed the shit out of me in that book.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for November 12, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Good luck! You're a smart dude and worked hard, I'm sure you got this!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for November 7, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yeah man, Packers fans are pretty chill people (as are most people in that part of Wisconsin to be fair). I know a few who get genuinely mad at opposing team fans, but for the most part we recognize that it's all in good fun and it doesn't go beyond some friendly talking shit.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
...General Kenobi?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 9, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I'm surprised and dismayed at some of the other comments suggesting marriage or more effort on your part.




Yeah, I agree with this. Even if OP was to keep up in the relationship and try to make it work, marriage is not a good idea with how things stand today.