That was very nearly my exact same thought. Maybe not for curious children with carrot-sized fingers, but for adults, how convenient! Business competitor’s body won’t quite fit in your fancy frunk? Just while away on your phone for about 10 minutes, let the cat do its magic, and off go the legs! Travel-sized!

I mean, I know I’m raining on an already pretty despairing post, here, in times that very well do lend themselves to despair, but that sentiment has been around as long as I’ve been alive and I’d bet good money decades longer. It’s probably one of those sentiments that’s as old as people.

But no one (or at least, comparatively very few) was rewarded for hating Elvis. He hasn’t been a thing in a long time. Same with any other risque entertainer that was also satan, they fall by the wayside after everyone gets bored. People are rewarded very well when they bend over for billionaires. As long as sociopathy is rewarded, there will always be rampant sociopathy.

I’m not saying it’s so ingrained that there’s no point in fighting it – forcibly changing the culture is of the utmost importance, especially now. But that sentiment, the battle plan can’t just be “wait around and it will work itself out.” It’s not like billionaires either of the actual or the temporarily embarrassed sort don’t have kids. I’m starting to see that’s the fatal flaw the more liberal-minded seem to have. It’s like we believe so hard that everyone is inherently good and that things will work out in the end that we never bother to make a move. It’s the death of us.

Fanning slowly – “I am married.”

Fanning quickly – “I am engaged.”

Using as a fan – “Introduce me to your company.”

…?

I have to wonder who came up with this. One would imagine it was just some idea someone had and they published a whole etiquette book about it, and it slowly but forcefully caught on from there, because otherwise I can’t imagine this just being a thing that evolves spontaneously in a way everyone equally understands. Imagine sitting all the way across the room at a ball or something and witnessing someone break up with their boytoy through body language. With perfect clarity for all to see. You might as well just say it out loud.

From the US: I’m over 30 and this is the first time I’ve heard surrogacy referred to as human trafficking. And now I need to sit and think.

It’s always felt a little bit creepy to me, but I’ve also never wanted kids and the idea of pregnancy for any reason would be traumatic. So I’m starting out heavily biased. I think if you take the money out, it no longer counts…?

But the idea would be so out of left field that it would mostly be dismissed out of hand, probably even by most women.

Yeah? And how many removed the lid that way?

So apparently if you smack it all around the sides of the lid with a spoon or something, you can loosen the vacuum seal.

It sounds fake but it worked the other night on a jar of salsa I was legitimately considering just breaking, and I’m still kinda mad that I never knew that til now.

Remember, if the thick cloud emitted by the egg only drifts upwards, it’s probably no good.

No, this graphic really is solid advice for people to know, but damn if it could have been designed with a little more forethought. Imagine, for instance, if the reader is yellow/blue colorblind. They could make a guess at what’s happening, but they may not quite be sure. Arrows are doing 99% of the lifting, here.

I would be very concerned if one did not at least break even, but we can always bulldoze the bulldozing company at the end.

Christ, do you understand how big this could be if anyone would let it? (they won’t)

Even a ton of “more environmentally friendly” textiles are as bad if not somehow worse than their already destructive counterparts. I ran the numbers once in an argument and a recyclable shopping bag requires a little over 70 uses just to break even with the comparable pollution it took to make it, but most people who even use them throw them out after less than 20.

God, I wish it said anything about how resilient it is as clothing in comparison to regular leather. I’ve known about the making of lab-grown ghost hearts and stuff through a similar method for a while now, but this never even occurred to me. I know next to nothing about bacteria, clearly.

Sadly, there’s still too much money in doing anything else, I’d bet. So many companies put too much effort into PR, greenwashing and general slavery to want to move over, and this would affect more industries than one.

That would pretty clearly be the “I picked up a pencil 15 years ago and never put it down.” And it hurts me inside, that anyone would see that and jump to “obviously filtered to hell.” It is exactly this interaction:

You know what? It’s d&d. They are now.

Oh… I always though Siobhan was really pretty, but it turns out I was just pronouncing it wrong.

Having a tea party isn’t girly, though. Let kids play how they want.

Oh, man. If this is your first, I can’t wait to see what you do in the future. You nailed that

Reduced the size of save files by removing summons that don’t exist in the game anymore.

Well, that seems like something that should have been done a long time ago, lmao. Good thing I went with druid first over ranger, it seems.

Fixed Thieves’ Tools in the camp chest or inventory of a companion who is waiting at camp not being accessible when lockpicking.

Ok, taking items from camp, I could see. Talk about useful, and I believe they recently did the same thing with quest items? Which I very much appreciate. Being able to leave that behind should clear up my inventory considerably when I get back to playing.

But…taking things from a non-present companion feels weird in my head. I’m sure I wouldn’t notice it; I give everything to the resident lockpick anyway, so it would just be clearing up stuff I misplaced in the impossible event that they ever run out.

But picturing it does break immersion a little bit. It’s fine, it wouldn’t have any real effect in the moment, it’s just…what an odd choice.

Poor Gale - we know your pain, sometimes it’s easy to read something into a situation that wasn’t there. We’ve sat him down and explained that if someone doesn’t offer him a shoe to eat every time, that doesn’t mean they never will. You’ll find him more likely to stick around now.
. . . .
Gale will no longer permanently leave the party if you don’t offer him any magic items while talking to him – unless you’re abundantly clear that you don’t plan on ever doing so.

Ok, this one I honestly do dislike. I’ve been mildly bothered by every change they’ve made to Gale’s personality, even though I know the one he started out with on release was literally bugged and was never intended to be like that. Because it was also unexpectedly convincing. There weren’t other characters I could think of that were genuinely likable people while also simultaneously being socially inept, grandiose little incels.

I didn’t even notice it until it was talked about online, because how Gale acted in his glitched romance was just how guys always act towards me irl. For the first time, every male gamer had to put up with everything *I* had to put up with, and they hated it, and I loved it. It felt believable. It was hilarious. I felt seen. And then they toned him down because he was bothering the playerbase.

This now, with the items and increasing his hesitation to leave in response to a situation you’re not taking as seriously as he needs it to be taken, this feels like more dumbing down.

This feels an awful lot like avoiding any player unhappiness by making sure it is impossible for anyone to experience a consequence unless they’re dedicated enough to manually and knowingly force it to happen. And that’s not what they initially wanted the game to be.

It still has hundreds upon hundreds of permutations, right down to differences in the inflection of a sentence, and the sheer dedication is boggling. But then they did things like remove any actual drawback to the tadpoles, of all things, because of the idea of unpleasant consequences that players would bitch about.

It is ok to have a character that’s rash and presumptuous because his natural ability has given him an ego that far eclipses his social experience. It’s ok to have a character under such duress that they will make questionable, desperate decisions without consulting anyone, based on their presumptions about the player, whether or not those assumptions are correct.

That is an extremely realistic personality. And one that doesn’t tend to exist, because what if something happens that the player doesn’t like. Real people make choices. Let him have the ability to make stupid ones.

Please be one of those people that washes their hands instead of this functioning as some broad, sweeping excuse because “it’s already everywhere.” I don’t know how else fecal matter would be expected to travel to a stove dial.

There is only really the one british accent that’s ever depicted in our media/whatever media makes it over here, so I’m sad to say almost certainly we do not.

That’s why we only ever seem to imitate the one (or accidentally mix them, apparently). It’s the only example we’ve got and we assume everything is that one. I don’t know where any of those areas are any more than I know the sociological difference between them, and if I had to name any others, I don’t know what I’d do.

Tomato still has mild southern variations (“tuh-may-duh/ter-may-der,”) but it is a solid choice now that I think about it.

I just assumed because she randomly breaks into dance anyway. Keeping still would definitely be low grade torture and it’s a wonder she didn’t jerk the whole thing out and slap some duct tape over it.

It’s really a mix of both. More heavily the way the site has been for years because people love drama more than anything else. If you want the sweet serotonin of karma, you’ve gotta be simultaneously the funniest, meanest, and most jaded person in the room, and everyone is jockeying for that position.

It just breeds assholes by design. I’ve noticed my own behavior has changed, too, since leaving that place, although partially that’s because I just didn’t want to be like that anymore.

But it really has been noticeably affected since the protests. I was originally trying to stay for one single sub I was in, because they were the kindest, calmest community I’d met since back when forums were a thing.

Just the best group, for reasons none of us really understood and some of us kept trying to find psychological commonalities to explain. Truly 98% of them were people I’d chill with irl and I still know a few on discord. And also here. If you’re reading this, hello!

But the migration away was enough to completely alter the atmosphere imo. A lot of the more conscientious users left for other pastures, leaving behind those that were more neutral or even openly hostile about the protests.

There began to be fights and insults thrown where before this, any aggression had been unusual. The posts took a turn that reflected that feeling and I really stopped bothering with the place after a few months. I’m still a bit sad about it and there are things that I miss, but there just wasn’t enough to hold me anymore. It seemed to increasingly echo every other part of the site.

For the moment, this place is quieter but better. We still get dumb shit every now and then, but it’s not to the same degree and hopefully never will be. As above, I blame the demographic. We’ve grouped all the people with stubborn morals into a little room and it turns out they have things in common. I do miss a couple people I used to see everywhere all the time when kbin first ramped up, but we run in different circles and they’ve gotten lost in the crowd.

And yes, btw, I am also going to name you one of my favorite users to see around. You seem as kind as you are prolific.

I’ve never figured out quite how to get the spoiler tags working on kbin and, even if I had, there seems like there may be some jank between mine and other instances regarding that. An attempt was made, anyway, and at least that one seems like it would be easy-ish to forget until my long-awaited Durge run.

But I can’t even be mad about it because of your name. My liege.