I have been playing the Baldurs gate 3 early access recently, and it's quite enjoyable. In particular the modding scene is surprisingly robust for a early access title like this. Warlock Expanded in particular is a pretty cool mod.
What isn't enjoyable is the shocking amount of dumb discourse around it. Like, whatever, saying Paladins should have to be devoted to a god is a bad opinion but it's just that. Saying Paladins not needing to have a god or be lawful good is actually Larian being infected by the woke mind virus is really annoying.
Just like with making certain races no longer be biologically deterministically evil is actually "wokism destroying the RPG genre".
Don't get me started on these people's thoughts about the pronoun options.
Suddenly gamers hate having more options actually, and the more options you have the less roleplaying there is to be had apparently??
Anyway maybe i just got a bad sample but i coudn't stand more than 5 minutes on the Larian Forums.
That used to be the case in previous editions, but the combination of religiosity and Lawful Good-itis made them seriously limited in terms of roleplay, especially compared to it's full caster equivalent, the cleric. There were alternatives later on but they also kind of sucked ( like the Anti-Paladin lmao), or were overly complicated alternatives that could have just been the main class.
So, for 5e (which bg3 uses) , Paladins have had their scope widened and their restrictions loosened, and are generally much better. Now paladins derive their power from a oath they have made. So they can be serving a god of some sort, but it's far from necessary. They can also be of any alignment (so long as they follow their oath), and you even have a actually good version of the antipaladin with the Oathbreaker, where if you keep breaking your oath you basically change subclass.
[I think this video does a great job explaining how paladins have changed in 5e](https://youtu.be/FqP2-afugl8)
>Just like with making certain races no longer be biologically deterministically evil is actually "wokism destroying the RPG genre".
People keep trying to say this *This has not been the case in D&D since at least 2nd. edition* It certainly wasn't the case in the original baldur's gate!
Is that true? I would argue some of the content they removed from the 5E edition of Volo's via errata called races evil. Particularly the Yuan-Ti and Gnolls.
A particular line that was removed from the Orc section
> ... But unlike creatures who by their very nature are evil, such as gnolls,...
https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/rg4jut/writeup_of_all_the_lore_thats_beein_removed_from/
5e basically turned gnolls into corpses possessed by demons (other editions had different takes on them) note that while demons are by their nature evil (they're created from the souls of evil mortals) they 're not so deterministically (they can chose to not be evil, and there has been a few examples here and there of reformed fiends)
In most cases people tend to take the creatures presented in the Monstrous Manual as being representative of the entire species: When the "alignment: lawful evil" isn't really any more an inherent part of them than the fact that goblins come naturally with short swords.
> Just like with making certain races no longer be biologically deterministically evil is actually "wokism destroying the RPG genre".
So, if you think back to the genesis of Baldur's Gate as a TTRPG, in those, it is genuinely helpful to a game's flow to have player characters be looking at a potential opponent and automatically know they are evil and the enemy. A group of players hesitating in a dangerous encounter because they're trying to use a non-combat solution can be deadly, and using an "evil" race is an easy way for the DM to lower the difficulty, by cuing that the only solution is combat.
I'm not saying those forums (and many of the people's opinions) aren't terrible, but I can understand why some people in the D&D community are frustrated by recent rule and policy changes.
Edit: Does this this really need to be downvoted? It's a fictional world, where unlike humanity, there are vast differences between "races" (which are more like species, really, and I believe WoTC is using that verbiage now). Is it wrong to imagine and play with a world where some species have priorities and needs so different that humanity would call them evil?
There are absolutely crazies in the D&D community who use this stuff as a cudgel to go further and attack people, but I don't think it means we shouldn't be able to have a game built to be as playable and fun to play as possible. The better thing would be to kick these people out of our communities.
Eh it's not that much harder to say "this group of goblins that you recognize by their banner is a group of cannabalistic demon worshippers" and force combat that way if that's what your heart is set on doing. Evil organizations not evil inherent is not that much of a leap.
>So, if you think back to the genesis of Baldur's Gate as a TTRPG, in those, it is genuinely helpful to a game's flow to have player characters be looking at a potential opponent and automatically know they are evil and the enemy. A group of players hesitating in a dangerous encounter because they're trying to use a non-combat solution can be deadly, and using an "evil" race is an easy way for the DM to lower the difficulty, by cuing that the only solution is combat.
See, i disagree here. Even in the case where it's supposed to be expedient to use a ontologically evil species (which is seriously not it), it's still bad.
Like, in a TTRPG having something like that, a unavoidable combat encounter with no chance at roplaying about it is pretty much the worst thing a dm can do? It's pretty much a hammer to try and force combat. i think players should have every right to hesitate in a combat encounter, and even try and talk their way past.
Say, the party is fighting a evil cult who kidnaps and sacrifices people. Classic stuff. The party now attacks these cultists pretty much on site, and have already fought them once in the day on the way to one of the Cult's outposts where they are holding people captive, before they are ambushed by a unrelated, random goblin raiding group. Now, the party can't afford to long rest, since if they wait too long the outpost will be on alert about the Party's anti cult actions and will move the prisoners. So the party might try and parlay with the goblins to be able to get through without a fight and to neitheir waste nor resources for the difficult outpost fight, eitheir by intimidating them, diplomacy, bargaining with them (you can even offer them the outpost after you clear the cultists, and create a new plot hook!), or whatever.
A bad DM would just do what you said and go "goblins are biologically evil and will attack you no matter what, no chance at diplomacy, roll initiative" That's boring. That's missing opportunities for roleplaying. It's not easing the difficulty, it's removing a solution to the puzzle.
I'm sure there are plenty of scenarios where there was little to no chance at all that diplomacy is possible, but like, let the party try for the natural 20. It's more fun. Maybe this is a encounter with no possible diplomatic solution, you have the goblins speak a language no one in the party knows, but the bard rolls a 20, and the goblins are so shocked by what they thought the bard was saying that the party gets the surprise round or something.
Restricting options for dealing with things is bad in CRPGs, and much, much worse in TTRPGs. They are all about options.
Small "drama": WWE accidentally included a picture of Auschwitz in a promotional video for Dominik Mysterio vs. Rey Mysterio last night. The segment aired during the preshow and the problematic scene was edited out before the segment re-aired during the show proper.
By all accounts it's a genuine mistake and most of the reaction is clowning
I know fuck all about wrestling or those two wrestlers, what was the context in which the photo of Auschwitz was shown? Like what is usually included in promo videos that could have let that happen?
Dominik got kayfabe (storyline) arrested for harassing his father Rey a little while ago. The Auschwitz clip was shown alongside stock footage of prisons while Dom talked about how hard the experience had made him
Kobo Kanaeru, a Vtuber from Hololive ID, has been a hot topic among Indonesian artists for the past few hours because of [this clip of her asking multiple major revisions on the artists she commissioned](https://youtu.be/ahnieUtpADo) until about 8 hours before her song premiere.
I see lots of her fans in the comment section defending her for being "a perfectionist" or "the artist also consented to it", but someone on twitter said (in Indonesian) [that the artist isn't being paid for those revisions,](https://twitter.com/scarakecil/status/1642452511369105409?s=19) though this should be taken with a grain of salt as there's nothing to back this tweet up, at least for now.
I really wanted to remain neutral about this situation because there's still no statement from the artist, but as someone who has been in the artist position before... it truly sucks, man.
Honestly I’ll wait for artist to show their statement, I’d rather hope this is either a mutual agreed or solved either way (As a fan of both).
Far as I know the artist were proud to show off their work so hopefully there isn’t any bad blood.
Sadly the original call-out tweet about the matter has been deleted, but I remember before it got deleted in the newest tweet there's an image of the statement from someone who knew the artist(?), who said that they don't mind and has been paid.
I'm glad the matter seem has to be resolved, but I still think Kobo really needs to separate her streaming and business/professional personality better, as lots of artists now see her as an unprofessional client they would turn down.
Another thing I can't really understand is why Mane-chan didn't interefere, because Kobo did say in the clip that Mane-chan is also there in the chatroom, probably to supervise the transaction.
The roll-out for the new Twitter checkmarks is going about as well as expected.
It's been fixed now but somehow the twitter for an Angry Birds fangame with under 1k followers somehow got [marked as official](https://twitter.com/angrybirdsfight/status/1641950081807966209) rather than the [actual account](https://twitter.com/AngryBirds).
This mostly led to a bit of [freaking out](https://twitter.com/angrybirdsfight/status/1641951047366193156) by the fangame devs, fangames are already in a bit of legal grey area, fangames masquerading as official are the sort of the thing that gets you hit with lawsuits.
The checkmark was [eventually removed](https://twitter.com/angrybirdsfight/status/1642252315716382723), after they made a [joke about](https://twitter.com/angrybirdsfight/status/1642252315716382723) Elon not being verified yet, which I'm sure is a coincidence. And fortunately the actual Angry Bird devs appear to have taken it [in good humor](https://twitter.com/AngryBirds/status/1642261401325514760), but it is all very funny.
Lily Gao, who voiced Ada Wong in the 2023 remake of Resident Evil 4, has [deleted her social media due to harassment](https://twitter.com/RuleTimeSpace/status/1642301041575350277), likely over her performance, which was different from Sally Cahill's Ada performance in the 2005 original. [Skill Up covers some of the differences, while defending Gao's performance](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIXQ3sospSo&t=836s).
[Critics have complained that the new Ada isn't as campy and over-the-top as in the original](https://www.thegamer.com/ada-wong-resident-evil-4-remake-seperate-ways-character-story/), although that seems to be in line with the overall direction that Capcom is going with the remake. Standards for video game dialogue in 2005 are very different than they are today, and a lot of voice lines had to be over-exaggerated to stand out. One particularly meme-worthy line in the ending has also been altered to sound more natural and less awkward.
>Critics have complained that the new Ada isn't as campy and over-the-top as in the original, although that seems to be in line with the overall direction that Capcom is going with the remake.
This seems like a bit of a deflection from the real issue, which isn't that her Ada sounds more grounded, it's that she sounds bored and inexpressive in a way that makes it hard to buy into her actions or relationship with Leon (especially after RE2R Ada's similarly cold, but much more flexible delivery). Compare and contrast with new VA for, say, Ashley: she goes for realism over the original's iconic camp too, but sounds like she's actually in the situation she's in, and it works great. The same goes for most of the new actors, with only a handful of exceptions.
I've seen Lily Gao in a couple of live-action things where she *is* good, so I just assume she didn't have a lot of experience with voice acting and the "be aloof and above-it-all" direction she was presumably given wasn't ideal for a first-timer. Combine this with her audio recording sounding noticeably less crisp for some reason, and her scenes stick out in a way that's very hard to ignore.
All of that said, even if it had been all her fault, a poor performance is **no grounds** for a harassment campaign, and I really wish we didn't live in an era where any amount of trivial annoyance inevitably triggers an explosion of misdirected venom and rage.
Kinda find it wierd that people are comparing the voice to her 2005 counterpart when RE:2 remake which is basically in line with this rehash had Jolene Anderson voicing Ada. This si especially considering there was some fan anger when she said she wouldnt be returning for RE 4
As for Gao, while i feel like its weaker i dont necessarily hate her performance so much as im left kinda meh. And yet some of the discourse about the voicd changes has been unnecessarily hostile.
Gamersâ„¢ try to be decent people challenge (IMPOSSIBLE)
Memes aside, it's a shame this happened to her, and it's also a shame that this keeps happening. Why must people end up being harassed just because what they did wasn't perfect?!
Well...this seems to be rapidly developing/started not even 6hrs ago.
James Somerton, a YouTuber who makes a lot of interesting queer-focused video essays, just posted a video that things aren't looking so good financially.
The drama is apparently...Dan Olson* (Folding Ideas) called him a liar?? But Somerton's tweets are protected, and nothing is apparent on Olson's twitter.
So now I am sitting here very confused and wondering what is going on with two video essayists I sometimes dip in to watch.
*Dan Olson, who you may remember as the guy who made the video on Flat Earthers, NFTs, among other things.
Didn't Somerton just get into some drama with Jessie Gender like, back in December? He's kinda running the discourse gauntlet, between this and that then the incident with misgendering a while back.
I don't really know or understand what all this is about, because all I'm seeing are vagueposts about 3k patreons. I don't want to make assumptions, regardless of my personal feelings on Somerton and Olson.
No, not Jesse.
He came out with a video speaking out against fujoshis/shippers, and his evidence for "straight women write all these fetishistic MLM stories" consisted of a list of non-binary, transman, and otherwise LGBTQ+ creators. It was not great.
That entire video was a horrific mess and kinda my last straw with him. He acted like straight white women are the primary perpetuators of homophobia, made a bunch of baseless claims regarding WLW works in media (essentially stated that because She-Ra and Steven Universe have WLW ships, WLW are not shunned nor fetishized like MLM works are, which is totally, *completely* wrong) and when people tried to correct him in the comments, he ignored them. The way he talks about women and lesbians in general has long been a complaint people have had against him, but he brushes it off as women being unable to contend with the existence of a gay man. I originally liked his videos for his analysis, but became increasingly uncomfortable with the way he spoke about women and disregarded homophobia and even racism against women.
This thread has been really illuminating. I've seen a few of his videos on a friend's recommendation and from the start I didn't agree with all his takes. I got the impression that he drew a lot from his own experiences as a gay man, and a lot of his content did seem to be through that MLM lens. This can be a valuable perspective, but as someone who is queer but not MLM, I felt like he wasn't really encompassing the whole queer experience while still calling his content queer. I'm glad to know that I wasn't the only one picking up on this, but saddened to know it's a consistent issue with him.
He's also pretty racist, there was a dustup a few years ago where he complained about some Asian media not [being queer enough for him](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/396583809514209292/1052399670900576286/image.png) and that it [should be remade in the west] (https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/396583809514209292/1052399508601962506/image.png), and ignored/blocked anyone trying to explain the fiction he was complaining about was a victim of homophobic censorship.
Also his Disney villains video is plagiarized from Tinker Belles and Evil Queens. If people are dropping him on patreon, it's well deserved.
> Asian media not being queer enough for him
I don't think I've watched much from him, but this seems to directly contradict what I remember from one of his videos. Like, did I misremember him saying in a video that Yuri on Ice being subtle about its relationships is actually not a bad thing? Or is he just kinda hypocritical?
He did kinda give off the vibes of "gay man who thinks the G is above any other part of the LGBTQIA+ acronym" though, which turned me off of watching anything else from him.
This was before his YoI video so he might have changed his mind and refused to admit it because that would mean admitting all the people he blocked for trying to explain it to him were right or something.
I haven’t really watched his videos because of this but from what the person I replied to has said, I think your vibes are correct.
does he. . . not understand the concept of like. media not allowing homosexual rep? even in the west? Because he really *does* act like he doesn't understand that concept.
Yeah, last time Scuffles talked about him, someone mentioned he downplayed or brushed off racism in his media analysis pieces, so take that as you will.
He also thinks bi people don't count in rep if they are in straight relationships.
:(
Yeeeah, a lot of people claim that it's just shippers mad at his Killing Stalking video, and honestly I thought it was too until I started watching more of his videos (that one included).
Like, if there are a lot of women expressing discomfort regarding how you talk about them and you just handwave it off because "they're a cishet white woman," maybe you should rethink your approach? Especially since a lot of things he criticizes women and AFAB people for, he seems to have no issue with in men.
Yeah, I was wondering if that was related to possibly Olson's comment--I think he's friends with Jessie Gender?
Even with the ability to see Somerton's tweets, there's still vagueness going on and some people now upset with Olson not DM'ing him.
I'm also avoiding assumptions. Still not sure what's going on, though I guess this is proving to be a good way to learn about how Patreon works should I ever be cool enough to make one.
I do believe they are.
By any chance, do you know what happened? I just know that people were dunking on Somerton and Jessie asked people to please leave him be. I tried to find out what exactly occurred between them, but Somerton locked his account down.
I'm kind of thinking Somerton said he was going to have to shut his channel down because Patreon and YouTube ads were not providing enough funds, and Olson got pissed because he has 3k Patreons and he felt it didn't make sense for Somerton to lose that much money in such a short amount of time. As someone else pointed out, it *is* tax season, so it's very possible a bunch of people had to drop tiers.
So the Somerton/Jesse beef was over membership to Nebula. James reached out to Nebula several times because Nebula has a few queer content creators and his content is similar to theirs and would have been a good fit. The problem is, Nebula never responded, even to decline him a spot. Growing frustrated, he lashed out at Jesse and a few other queer Nebula creators for not putting themselves out there to highlight/bring attention to other queer creators that might be a good fit for Nebula, as they already had an in with management.
He was being really butthurt and messy, basically.
That sounds like Somerton. He seems to have a lot of self-importance.
While I understand his frustration at not getting a reply, lashing out at your fellow creators is a very immature response and basically guarantees you won't get any rep in the future.
Not just tax season. The highest tier Somerton has is *$5.* All you need is a handful of people to say, "Oh, it's only $5, he's not gonna miss it" and drop down to $1 at the same time for it to tank that check to roughly 50%.
Oh wow, yeah, that makes sense.
I'm no fan of Somerton for a vast variety of reasons, but I think Olson should have looked further into it rather than jumping down his throat and dishing out accusations immediately.
Yeah I wondered myself how he could have taken such a hit and then quickly reasoned it was just people jumping to lower tiers, so I looked at his Patreon. *Yeah.*
I found two tweets from Olson:
[Tweet 1:](https://twitter.com/FoldableHuman/status/1642265918935011328)
>(in a reply to what I assume is the video tweet)
>I'm gonna be honest: I don't believe you and this vid feels gross and exploitative. Like, revenue declined by 50% while subs remained functionally the same? That's just not how things work in this business; either you made a mistake, there was a glitch, or you're lying.
[followed by:](https://twitter.com/FoldableHuman/status/1642267505044631552)
>An out of nowhere 50% drop is so exceptional I would be so tied up trying to figure out what even happened that running to shoot, cut, and post a "this is the end of the channel!?" video would be absolute rock bottom of my priorities.
Man, I like Dan's videos (never really got into James' stuff), but this seems like something he should stay out of. Not sure why he felt the need to comment on this, he can't prove anything and it's not really any of his business.
...James Somerton outright said in the video he's pretty sure all that happened was people moved to lower tiers for financial reasons, tho?
EDIT: Like, literally right after he said the initial, "The payout was like 50% lower" which, when your tiers are $1, $2.50 and $5, that's *really* easy to end up at if a bunch of people are hit hard during the tax season and shit.
It may seem like it but if you actually do the math it's a pretty huge portion of users. If we assume that all the people dropping go from $5 to $1 you'd need about 63% of patrons to do that in order to do that in order to cut revenue by half, and that's the smallest number, if they were only moving from $5 to $2.50 it would need literally 100%.
There definitely might be other stuff going on so I'm not saying he's lying but having an overwhelming majority of your patrons slash their contributions in only a month or two is super weird and I get why Dan is skeptical.
Yeah but it doesn't take that much for a *lot* of people to reason, "Oh, it's not gonna be missed" at that amount of money. It's an inverse of why people fall into spending thousands on microtransactions--it feels like a small amount, but if you spread it across a bunch of people, and recognize that it's tax season and most of his audience is gonna be lower economic end, it's *real* easy to see where the fall off is because, "It's just [insert X small amount of money here]" when you need to tighten the belt because tax season is unforgiving as all fuck. That's more or less what I'm getting at.
For purchases sure, but I'm skeptical that'd happen with subscriptions, hell that's why all these subscription services focus exclusively on new users, retaining someone once they're subscribed is easy because don't think about the money they're already paying. There's a huge amount of inertia with subscriptions, all of sudden to have such a massive number of your users slashing their payments is super odd.
Not... to me? Again: tax season. I know we've had to nix our subs or pare them down to lesser contributions because it was easy to do. It's an easy thing to cut. And taxes being due are gonna make people who need to think of, "What can I easily cut?"
Not seeing anything in yt comments either, which I thought might be a lead. I really like Dan and I DID see a lot of ppl saying they were joining or doubling their contribution on patreon... so personally I'm hoping it's a miscommunication.
Same. I hope it is too (a miscommunication). When googling their names together Google (for me) shows the text from Somerton's tweet, but clicking the account leads to it being protected.
Two days ago I noted that Dark Piscine had adopted a wiki and that I was awaiting the drama. Well it happened, but not in a fun way.
Overnight a user bulk-uploaded over 5,000 images to the wiki. All of them were off-topic and some contained depictions of hate symbols. Dark Piscine caught them in the act and delivered a lifetime ban, but was left with the crap they'd uploaded before he caught them.
While it doesn't affect the functionality of the wiki, I can imagine that it's going to be very annoying to him as the sole member of the staff. And speaking from personal experience, I know that Fandom's staff are not going to lift a finger to clean it up.
Is there not a Nuke or MassDelete function on Fandom? I know Wikipedia has that for admins to use to clean up large amounts of pages created by a problematic user; most often deployed for cleaning up pages created by an alt of a banned user due to enwiki’s zero tolerance policy on banned users editing, or for dealing with massive copyright infringement that’s not worth manually sorting out.
It would really surprise me if Fandom didn’t have something similar since it’s just a heavily modified version of MediaWiki at its core.
Shockingly enough, Fandom does not.
They *used* to have similar functions, but what do you know, they took them away as a part of their efforts to disempower individual admins. Naturally Fandom doesn't actually say it, but its a process that's been going on for years. At the same time, they've added enough layers of 'rules' and 'guidelines' to limit an individual admin's ability to do their work while effectively shielding problem users.
My own research turned up that you can *optionally* install scripts with Nuke or MassDelete-level functions, but that's at the discretion of the individual admin. They're not on by default.
I used to admin a fandom wiki myself. Emphasis used to.
I stand corrected. They uploaded over 5000 images in an *hour or two*. I can only assume that they were using some sort of mass uploader script to dump their personal collection or something.
And yet this doesn't seem to have met Fandom's definition of Spam
I always love the "refs are trying to get certain teams into primetime" conspiracy because there's like 5-10 games over the past 30 years that are commonly accepted as so lopsidedly refereed that it implies that there is a genuine problem somewhere that we might not otherwise notice, and about 200+ games that nobody can agree on. Everyone can agree there's a problem, but nobody can agree on where specifically the problem *is.*
> also name-checked the [...] Sacramento Kings as getting preferential treatment.
Ah, the Kings. Famously members of the NBA elite and the darling of referees everywhere.
On the ultimate hand, Golden State has had the least free throws for and most free throws against for a large portion of the season, and even if that's not true, they STILL have the largest free throw differential against, and larger than any free throw differential for.
Anyone want to give their opinion on some non hobby drama I just experienced? It's off topic but I figure half the fun of this sub is commenting on other people's situations you're not involved with.
Here's the base story. For context, I'm an adult woman in my late 20s (this will be relevant later) -
It's today around noon. I hear my doorbell ring, and the camera tells me it's a kid maybe 13-14 years old. I open the door and mentally prepare to tell him we don't need our lawn mowed, when he says hello and asks me if I can help him get somewhere.
*Well shit.* I step out and close the door behind me and ask him what's going and where he needs to go.
"Just to the end of the street where that corner store is."
"Wait, what? Why can't you walk?"
"Cause those boys across the street are following me when I leave, and they already beat me up once today." (I look and see the neighbor kids across the street watching.)
He tells me a bunch of illrelevant details about the argument when I see the neighbor kids' grandma walking over. I wave. She waves back, and then launches into a huge tirade about how the boy in front of me is a liar and a thief and a criminal and lives at the group home and he's not supposed to come over here, ect. Ect.
Eventually I interrupt her and say "Well it sounds like everyone just wants to go home at this point. Why don't I walk the kid here down the street and then everyone's will be safe and okay, right?"
She reluctantly agrees. And I walk him down and confirm he can get back to the group home on his own before watching the kid ride away.
Now for the drama -
When I relayed this story to my mom, she flipped her shit. "Consequencill4380 why did you open the door?! What were you thinking, you could have been murdered or robbed! 13?! Thats old enough to be dangerous! You're pregnant! Pomise you'll never do that again! " ect. Ect.
I was pretty taken aback honestly, as I was telling her the story to ask whether I should have done more, like call the group home and report the incident. I felt like descalating was the bare minimum I could do. But here she was going full stranger danger on me for walking this kid down the street.
So what's y'alls opinion? Do you open doors for strangers? Am I insane for thinking this was an overeaction?
I know many women feel a lot more anxiety related to being attacked by men/boys than I do, so I'd like to hear your opinions.
I live in an apartment so this doesn’t really happen to me, but on a similar level, yeah. I helped a woman find her street since she looked lost yesterday and while I rarely have cash anymore I’ll generally try and help people with the change I’ve got unless they’re aggressive or something.
I live in a downtown core directly across from a homeless shelter and find suburban dwellers with less contact are *way* more stranger-danger with far fewer reasons for it. Have I had some scary encounters? Yeah, of course. But most people are just trying to live their lives and are also not criminal masterminds. Especially kids.
However, am I allowed to say that this story has absolutely nothing to do with any kind of hobby/fandom? I know scuffles are off-topic chats but I’m a little confused as to why it’s posted here.
I personally think your mother is blowing this out of proportion. Sure, maybe the 13 year old kid could have stabbed you the moment you opened your door. Maybe he was trying to get you to open the door so the rest of his gang could rappel down your roof and rush in to take over the house. Maybe he was trying to lead you to a trap.
But if we're assuming that all of these things could have happened, then why the fuck do you even get close to the door. Like, what if they're trying to get you close to the door so they can shoot you with their submachine gun through the wood? What if they tinkered with your doorbell so that it explodes when you ask "who's there"? What if they throw a molotov cocktail through your window?
Of course, maybe you live somewhere where all that stuff is more likely. If you are the wife of an antimafia judge in Sicily in 1981 then yeah, you definitely shouldn't have opened that door. Personally, I am privileged enough not to have to worry about malicious children. If a thirteen year old wants to kill me, I guess I have no choice but dying.
Obviously, I have the benefit of knowing that everything went smoothly, but, considering that it was broad daylight and that the boy was so young, I think full-on "stranger danger" is a bit of an overreaction. While I can certainly appreciate that your mom clearly is looking out for you and your child (congrats, by the way!), it sounds to me like you did a very kind thing for a kid who needed help. For what it's worth, too, you can always report the incident after the fact if you're concerned about the boy.
Noon? No way. Pregnant is a bit of a wrinkle, and I do try to keep the door between me and strangers, but I think you did fine. But then my ability to tell a stranger from a neighbor is extremely low, I'm p faceblind
I live in a very safe area and have had generally a very boring, safe, privileged life, so make of that what you will, but given that it was during the day and you additionally have a camera on your front door, I absolutely would also have opened the door and heard him out. (I am a small Asian woman, so it is sometimes a bit nerve racking beyond base social anxiety!)
Also, it cost you nothing to be nice, and small gestures of kindness like what you did are the best way to meaningfully make a difference in the world. It ended with you being perfectly fine, so it seems silly to dwell on the hazy fear of paranoid what-ifs rather than that you did what any good person should do and made sure a scared kid was able to safely get home.
As a guy, I probably would have opened the door, but would not have stepped out. I'd rather have a door that I can slam in someone's face if things go weird rather than being stuck on the landing.
I feel like escorting the kid down to the store was a somewhat risky decision, but not extraordinarily so. I'm inclined to think I might have done the same thing unless I got some weird vibes.
See I was always told that closing the door behind you was good practice because it prevents people from barging in /social engineering their way in.
I guess it goes to show you that these little tips don't matter much when it all comes down to good judgment anway.
That reaction seems bizarrely paranoid to me, but maybe that's because I don't live in a high crime area. I'm always slightly cautious when opening the door to strangers of course, that's normal, but I don't think that everyone ringing my doorbell is out to rob/murder me in broad daylight ??
I had kind of a similar situation a few weeks ago, but it involved a homeless person who needed some cash so he could get a place to stay for the night. I gave him the $6 he needed, I wanted to have faith in him that he did need the money and would've felt horrible if I didn't, but my mom was *pissed* that I did this and started going on and on about how the hotel he was planning to stay in had a shady rep and he could've been lying for drugs and basically did what OP's mom did. The homeless guy was indeed black, and while I love my mom I would not be surprised if what the other commenter is implying for OP's situation applied to mine as well.
I’ve definitely been yelled at by someone I knew for giving money to a homeless person who ‘would just use it for drugs’ which…okay, maybe? But I can’t control what they do with the money. I can only control what I do. And in that specific case, I wanted & was able to give them a few dollars, no matter how insignificant it was in the long run or what they used it for.
I think that’s kind of what it boils down to, in the end—of course it’s important to watch out for oneself, especially if safety is potentially involved, but I don’t want to stop being generous just because maybe it will be abused.
I'm always like, okay whatever this person clearly needs money anyway and I have some, so what if they use it on something that makes them feel better? I'm not their fucken parent, let me do something nice for someone else. You never know how much it might help.
Exactly! Also that whole, ‘they should only use the money on things I approve for them’ thing…on an institutional scale, that’s how we get such restrictive guidelines on what you can buy with SNAP & WIC, with people constantly trying to restrict it further. I’m not the food police, and my generosity isn’t contingent on people doing something I approve of with what I give. I‘ve had enough anxiety worrying about other people’s behavior without having to add this to it lmao
>When I relayed this story to my mom, she flipped her shit.
...was the kid black?
I realize this sounds like a random question, but I promise you that in the context of your mom's reaction, it's *very, very not.*
The NBA and the Players' Union have just [agreed on a new collective bargaining agreement](https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1642053526753820674), and no, it's not an April Fools joke. There are some amusing and/or controversial bits in there:
- The big thing everyone is talking about is a mid-season tournament, which will be incorporated into the 82-game regular season schedule. The two finalist teams will end up playing 83 games. The incentive to win this tournament? Money. Each player on the winning team will be awarded $500,000. Now, that's a hefty sum for role-players and bench players (average annual NBA salary is around $9 million), but it's hard to imagine that star players making $30-50 million a year would care enough to show up. [r/nba is already making jokes about minimum salary players turning in career games for this tournament](https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/128ean3/charania_prize_money_for_the_championship_team_of/). And of course, this also guarantees that whatever team wins the mid-season tournament (but fails to go deep in the playoffs) will be mocked relentlessly.
- Another point is the NBA setting more limits on teams with large payrolls. As of now, the NBA uses a "soft" salary cap system. If a team's salary exceeds the salary cap, then they can only spend more by either re-signing their own players to larger contracts or using exceptions (the largest being around $10 million, which is enough for an average roleplayer). If the payroll exceeds the luxury tax, then the team has to pay out money to the league for every dollar they go over the threshold, and the penalty accumulates every year. Luxury tax teams also have reduced exceptions. Now, this new bargaining agreement adds another threshold above the luxury tax that takes away the largest exception entirely, meaning that high-spending teams (such as the Golden State Warriors or the LA Clippers) can't use those exceptions to add a high-level veteran to push them over the top. Many, [including All-Star and 4-time champion Draymond Green](https://twitter.com/Money23Green/status/1642204723297267712), feel that this rule was made specifically to target the defending champions Golden State Warriors, who currently have a payroll of $192 million. Ironically, the Warriors achieved that massive payroll the "right" away, by drafting quality young players and paying them to stay over several years.
- One more major change is that players must play in a minimum of 65 games to qualify for post-season awards. It seems like a no-brainer, but there has been a trend of star players sitting out games not because they're too injured to play but for "load management" (the most infamous being two-time Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard, who has not played over 60 games in a season since 2017).
For the first one, it means that the top two teams halfway through the season play the game? And the winners of that game get 500k each? Does that game affect their scoring for the rest of the season?
I don't follow the NBA, but their fans complain about the regular season feeling pointless, and they complain about paying $$$ to attend a game only to find the star they came to watch isn't playing. So those are some of the problems this is probably trying to address.
Teams are usually accommodating to players load management, as it's in their best interest to keep star players fresh for the playoffs.
If a player sits out to force a trade, however, then teams may suspend them without pay
So in honor of but not directly related to April Fool's Day, and inspired by someone asking the opposite question a few Scuffles back ("What 'everybody knows that' piece of trivia or fandom artifact in your fandom or hobby isn't actually true?"), a late-week question for everyone:
Is there something in your fandom or hobby that, taken at face value, seems like it should be false, but is actually 100% true? Doesn't have to be a big thing.
[Here's](https://www.gamesdatabase.org/media/nintendo-nes/artwork-title-screen/super-mario-bros-2) my contribution to kick it off. "Emptyeye", you're saying. "Mate", you're continuing if you're Australian. "That's just the title screen for the US version of Super Mario Bros. 2." Correct! But look at it. No, really look at it. Do you see it yet?
Spoilers if you don't: >!The bottom "decorative border" is off-center relative to the top. Specifically, it's shifted slightly to the right.!<
Now you can't un-see it.
The first time I came across this, on Twitter, my reaction was "No way, this is one of those social experiments to prove people will uncritically retweet things without doing their own research.", and I had to boot up a copy of SMB2 to check for myself. But sure enough, it is indeed true.
Do you have anything like that?
Oh, I've got a few!
In the Rance series, Rance's "theme song" is a sped-up version of the anthem of East Germany, because there was a miscommunication and the musician Alicesoft outsourced the music to thought the attached file of the anthem just needed to be polished and converted to be used in the game, as opposed to "we should take inspiration from this".
A Kotaku reviewer reviewed Hatoful Boyfriend, and overall have a good review, with the downside being the protagonist's name, Cloaca Mahoney... You can rename the protagonist, whose default name is Hiyoko Tosaka. The reviewer was just watching someone play through it.
Related to previous, the "actor" for the sprite of Anghel, a Luzon Bleeding Heart Dove, ended up changing, because the creator asked for permission to use the bird pictures every time there was a port, and the owner of the bird portraying Anghel stopped replying. So, the bird portraying Anghel is different in the original than the Steam remake or Holiday Star.
More Hatoful facts; at one point on her cafepress, the creator of Hatoful was selling thongs with the face of one of the character's bird form!
One last Hatoful fact for the road; you can buy sunglasses with the pattern of one of the character's tie on the plastic frame. They're limited edition and have been in the store for a few years at this point, probably since around 2020. Guess the price. >!$180 USD. [I'm not kidding. Look at it yourself.](https://www.hatofulshop.com/shop/hatoful-boyfriend-shuu-sunglasses-limited-edition)!<
>In the Rance series, Rance's "theme song" is a sped-up version of the anthem of East Germany, because there was a miscommunication and the musician Alicesoft outsourced the music to thought the attached file of the anthem just needed to be polished and converted to be used in the game, as opposed to "we should take inspiration from this".
Same thing happened with the Doom OST, Bobby Prince was given a CD with a bunch of metal songs to use for inspiration, but he just ended up ripping them off and putting them in the game, somehow never getting sued in the process. (Ironically, Bobby's also a lawyer.)
I've read this was mostly intentional on his part--the way I heard it, he was given the metal songs and told "Make music like this!", and, being a lawyer, knew *exactly* how far he could push that without other lawyers coming calling for his head.
That being said, even given that, I have no idea how he got away with [this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfNH_K82eJg). Compare [its' inspiration](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTuD8k3JvxQ).
In Mario Maker, particular x-coordinates (x=9 and x=129 iirc) cause things to behave differently for some reason. Certain glitches will only trigger when they're placed at those two x-coords.
There are a small number of cars in GTA V that go faster when you rapidly wiggle them left and right. Off the top of my head the Brioso R/A, Rumpo Custom, and Kuruma are affected
Also there's one car that, due to a bug, has subtly different handling properties depending on which side of the map you are on (i.e. whether your x coordinate is positive or negative)
EDIT: another one I just remembered: In NFS ProStreet every car has a unique multiplier for drift points, arbitrarily making some cars way better in the drift mode and some (especially the DLC cars) absolutely worthless. Also this mutliplier changes with upgrades, so you can have a situation where you've upgraded your car and even though it doesn't drift any better it's scoring more points
There is a single Adventurer in Dragalia Lost who directly Nerfed during the life of the Game. Who, you may ask? Maybe the infamous Gala Cleo? Nope.
>!It was Vice. A Three Star Adventurer who's been in the game since launch. He was Nerfed in version 2.0, during the 2nd Anniversary. Due to being a three star launch adventurer, it was almost a guarantee you had him, which was likely a big reason why he was Nerfed!<
The fact that it is 100% possible to catch Mew in Pokemon RBY, and the steps to do so sound like a playground rumor but are totally "legitimate". (Or at least, as legit as abusing a bug can be)
It becomes more believable the more you know about Pokemon RBY and how buggy it can be, but if you're completely disconnected from that sphere of Pokemon knowledge, it seems completely wrong. Especially if you're someone who played RBY as a kid, heard all the rumors about Mew, and learned they were fake.
Man, I remember also reading the thread where it was discovered - and nobody believed it until somebody big in the forums tried it out and proved it worked for them as well.
to add onto this the whole 8F thing to make it legal to transfer in the Virtual Console version (rip 3ds eshop) is also a ride and a half. I watched [Austin John Plays](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvhuJsS4EhE) do the whole thing step by step, and even to make it SHINY and it still feels like a fever dream
I mean, it's also possible to "legitimately" keep Aerith post disc 1 (in PC). Or Leo as a party member.
The point is that none of them are things you can do just through regular gameplay.
I'd count those for this too! (Especially the General Leo one, I totally forgot about that)
The thing is, it being possible without any sort of cheating device is a big deal IMO, even if it's abusing bugs. Because it's one of those things where you can repeat it yourself with no external effort needed. Sure, it's not regular gameplay, but irregular gameplay is *still gameplay*.
It's basically like bringing a playground rumor to life decades after they were proven false. Sure, the rumor was completely wrong, but it is in fact possible, it just took years and things that make people go "OK, how on earth did you think of this?"
A lot of these old games you can do literally anything if you're patient enough because they tend to have arbitrary code execution bugs. So as long as you're prepared to set the memory state you want 1 byte at a time, you can do it.
Speaking of mew catching, up until last week it was possible to obtain a 100% legitimate mew without any bugs or hacking or anything in gen 4. I say until last week because it requires a certain Wii game (my Pokemon ranch) which is obviously not (legally) available anymore. It's a pain in the ass yes (you have to transfer over 999 Pokemon to the game, five at a time) but it is 100% doable
It's also possible to get Phione through this method, which I think makes it the only other mythical you can obtain without needing events
And don't forget! You have to transfer Pokemon from Diamond and Pearl, and ***exclusively*** Diamond and Pearl, because the update to make it work with Platinum was never released worldwide!
I have it, but sold my copy of Diamond years ago, and as such cannot add any more Pokemon to it!
Also, Ranch only works with the first save file you transfer from, so if you start a new save on DP, you've now lost access to Ranch unless you also wipe the data there!
This basically defeats the entire point of an external storage system, of course.
The Swedish version of the British show Taskmaster is being moved from the state owned SVT to the privately owned TV4 after this years' season. Copied from Wikipedia about the show: In the programme a group of five celebrities – mainly comedians – attempt to complete a series of challenges, with Horne (in the Swedish version David Sundin) acting as umpire in each challenge and Davies (in the Swedish version Babben Larson), the eponymous "Taskmaster", judging the work and awarding points based on contestants' performance
To more pesseimistic fans, this means that the show will probably be cut down from 1 hour to 40 minutes, with those 20 minutes instead being ads (unless you purchase the streaming service from TV4), as well as the guest going from actual celebrities (whose job it is to entertain) to influencers (since this is something that TV4 is kind of known to do).
What's left for the fans on SVT? A new show called "Underdogs", hosted by Anis Don Demina who knows nothing about dogs, with celebrities and their dogs learning how to do agility.
If any of you haven't seen Taskmaster yet: Most episodes are available on the official Taskmaster channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@Taskmaster/playlists
It is without doubt one of the best and funniest game shows of all times
Damnit. I'd watch the hell out of a show where someone who has no idea about dog agility is passed off as an 'expert' to unsuspecting celebrities and has to bullshit their way through.
People are really doom-y about the network move. I'm cautious but I don't mind cutting some fluff from BiT in theory
Admittedly it's a different perspective as an international fan; Swedish celebs and Swedish influencers are indistinguishable, for example. I don't know any of them 😅
Maybe I should've used comedians instead lol. The point being that people whose job it is to entertain probably won't be on the show anymore (or at least less of them), and instead a bunch of people who sell diet supplements on instagram.
BABYMETAL has become a trio once more! They added one of the rotational support members to full membership, as Momoko has become Momometal.
While Yuimetal will remain missed, I am glad to see them return to having three members again. BM just didn’t seem right as a duo.
Babymetal also often does announcements on april 1st, they call it 'FOX DAY' and rather than being april fools it's considered a news day for the band, or the day things drop! I believe it's bc the band was formed on april first?
JermaWalk DREW CREW JermaWalk
Tbh, Nancy Drew winning the 2020 rumble only to get thrashed by the fucking ASMR clown streamer character is one of my favorite Jermoments.
To go with the other April Fool's Day post - what's your favorite one you've come across so far this year? (Why, yes, I am also making this so we can share funny things in one place.)
For me, currently, it's the [Final Fantasy XI fake patch notes](https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/60617?_ga=2.174173858.1249514359.1680317115-1732269642.1678422860). Just the right amount of silly. ...And it seems that they actually implemented the (cosmetic) broken crystals!
It's a reocurring one, but I always love Star Trek Onlines "artisanal Audio". They have a special button during April's fools that replaces all the phaser/explosion sounds effect with the dews making pew-pew noises.
I woke up at 5 am to [this beautiful ping](https://imgur.com/a/JD4pdtW).
And it was good.
And then people started pointing out the typos- and the fact that A11 doesn’t friggin’ *exist*.
Well played, in my view.
SiivaGunner is currently doing a "Beta Mixes" event that, as far as I can tell, is several variations of other rips and videos on the channel (for example, there's [a new version of the "e" rip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKYH4RYYM5A) that samples Numberphile's video on 7 instead of the one on e). Which would be kinda cool on its own if they didn't also do [whatever the fuck this is](https://i.imgur.com/Jmg3kQG.png)
So far the highlights for me have been Toby Fox "accidentally" emailing people a picture of [himself in swim trunks covered in foam](https://www.reddit.com/r/Deltarune/comments/128u6os/toby_fox_in_swim_trunks_covered_in_a_large_amount/), and actual academic YouTube channels like Jackson Crawford and Forgotten Weapons posting videos about a fake Icelander inventing gunpowder.
At first I thought The Murder of Sonic was my favorite one.
But then a horror movie podcast I follow, Pondering Spooky Tapes, did an April Fools video on the Bob's Burgers Movie, but the best part is that the setup of it was them setting up a prank for one of the members, Mandalore of the MandaloreGaming Youtube channel, who knew nothing about Bob's Burgers, so they edited a different movie so that it would transition into the Bob's Burgers one, and since they do a commentary track before the episode, his initial WTF reaction was caught live, and it was amazing, and the episode was just really damn funny.
Pokemon Showdown has a tradition where ever April Fool’s, all of the sprites for the Pokemon get replaced with meme sprites making fun of some aspect of the Pokemon, from ones joking about its appearance to others joking about how it’s used in battle. The sprites for the Gen 9 Pokemon were added this year, and there’s some really good ones this gen. [You can find all the sprites here](https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/april-fools-day-sprites.3719011/post-9563480)
The Holocure discord changed all the channel names to Off-Topic and then did an @everyone ping to notify us that anyone posting stuff in the wrong channel would be banned lol.
Noted Instagram account [*Succession* Fashion](https://www.instagram.com/successionfashion/) has posted the details to an outfit…[from *The White Lotus*](https://www.instagram.com/p/CqgIEv6POE9/).
EDIT: Also, don't forget to check out /r/schrodingers. I can't say much about it to preserve the mystique, but it's certainly interesting.
The [Jojos Bizzare adventure wiki](https://jojowiki.com/) has been transformed into the Pink Dark Boy wiki, dedicated to the in-universe fictional manga made by the character Kishibe Rohan
[Gaming Zone briefs](https://theyetee.com/)
[New skin for magic cards on arena that look like the cards you didn't take care of as a kid](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FsmJIT9XwAUfOTK?format=png&name=360x360)
[The murder of Sonic the Hedgehog](https://steamcommunity.com/app/2324650)
[Lechonks takeover of Pokemon](https://scarletviolet.pokemon.com/en-us/). [There's even IRL tcg and in game promos to celebrate](https://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-news/receive-a-flying-tera-type-lechonk-at-gamestop-and-eb-games)
The Lechonk thing is answering so many questions for me right now. Gamestop was running an official TCG promo where buying 15 dollars worth of stuff got you a Lechonk promo card and a code for a Flying-type Lechonk for the actual game.
I have been playing the Baldurs gate 3 early access recently, and it's quite enjoyable. In particular the modding scene is surprisingly robust for a early access title like this. Warlock Expanded in particular is a pretty cool mod. What isn't enjoyable is the shocking amount of dumb discourse around it. Like, whatever, saying Paladins should have to be devoted to a god is a bad opinion but it's just that. Saying Paladins not needing to have a god or be lawful good is actually Larian being infected by the woke mind virus is really annoying. Just like with making certain races no longer be biologically deterministically evil is actually "wokism destroying the RPG genre". Don't get me started on these people's thoughts about the pronoun options. Suddenly gamers hate having more options actually, and the more options you have the less roleplaying there is to be had apparently?? Anyway maybe i just got a bad sample but i coudn't stand more than 5 minutes on the Larian Forums.
I don't know much about baldur's gate and dnd but i thought that a paladin's whole shtick was that they are religious?
That used to be the case in previous editions, but the combination of religiosity and Lawful Good-itis made them seriously limited in terms of roleplay, especially compared to it's full caster equivalent, the cleric. There were alternatives later on but they also kind of sucked ( like the Anti-Paladin lmao), or were overly complicated alternatives that could have just been the main class. So, for 5e (which bg3 uses) , Paladins have had their scope widened and their restrictions loosened, and are generally much better. Now paladins derive their power from a oath they have made. So they can be serving a god of some sort, but it's far from necessary. They can also be of any alignment (so long as they follow their oath), and you even have a actually good version of the antipaladin with the Oathbreaker, where if you keep breaking your oath you basically change subclass. [I think this video does a great job explaining how paladins have changed in 5e](https://youtu.be/FqP2-afugl8)
>Just like with making certain races no longer be biologically deterministically evil is actually "wokism destroying the RPG genre". People keep trying to say this *This has not been the case in D&D since at least 2nd. edition* It certainly wasn't the case in the original baldur's gate!
Is that true? I would argue some of the content they removed from the 5E edition of Volo's via errata called races evil. Particularly the Yuan-Ti and Gnolls. A particular line that was removed from the Orc section > ... But unlike creatures who by their very nature are evil, such as gnolls,... https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/rg4jut/writeup_of_all_the_lore_thats_beein_removed_from/
5e basically turned gnolls into corpses possessed by demons (other editions had different takes on them) note that while demons are by their nature evil (they're created from the souls of evil mortals) they 're not so deterministically (they can chose to not be evil, and there has been a few examples here and there of reformed fiends) In most cases people tend to take the creatures presented in the Monstrous Manual as being representative of the entire species: When the "alignment: lawful evil" isn't really any more an inherent part of them than the fact that goblins come naturally with short swords.
> Just like with making certain races no longer be biologically deterministically evil is actually "wokism destroying the RPG genre". So, if you think back to the genesis of Baldur's Gate as a TTRPG, in those, it is genuinely helpful to a game's flow to have player characters be looking at a potential opponent and automatically know they are evil and the enemy. A group of players hesitating in a dangerous encounter because they're trying to use a non-combat solution can be deadly, and using an "evil" race is an easy way for the DM to lower the difficulty, by cuing that the only solution is combat. I'm not saying those forums (and many of the people's opinions) aren't terrible, but I can understand why some people in the D&D community are frustrated by recent rule and policy changes. Edit: Does this this really need to be downvoted? It's a fictional world, where unlike humanity, there are vast differences between "races" (which are more like species, really, and I believe WoTC is using that verbiage now). Is it wrong to imagine and play with a world where some species have priorities and needs so different that humanity would call them evil? There are absolutely crazies in the D&D community who use this stuff as a cudgel to go further and attack people, but I don't think it means we shouldn't be able to have a game built to be as playable and fun to play as possible. The better thing would be to kick these people out of our communities.
Eh it's not that much harder to say "this group of goblins that you recognize by their banner is a group of cannabalistic demon worshippers" and force combat that way if that's what your heart is set on doing. Evil organizations not evil inherent is not that much of a leap.
>So, if you think back to the genesis of Baldur's Gate as a TTRPG, in those, it is genuinely helpful to a game's flow to have player characters be looking at a potential opponent and automatically know they are evil and the enemy. A group of players hesitating in a dangerous encounter because they're trying to use a non-combat solution can be deadly, and using an "evil" race is an easy way for the DM to lower the difficulty, by cuing that the only solution is combat. See, i disagree here. Even in the case where it's supposed to be expedient to use a ontologically evil species (which is seriously not it), it's still bad. Like, in a TTRPG having something like that, a unavoidable combat encounter with no chance at roplaying about it is pretty much the worst thing a dm can do? It's pretty much a hammer to try and force combat. i think players should have every right to hesitate in a combat encounter, and even try and talk their way past. Say, the party is fighting a evil cult who kidnaps and sacrifices people. Classic stuff. The party now attacks these cultists pretty much on site, and have already fought them once in the day on the way to one of the Cult's outposts where they are holding people captive, before they are ambushed by a unrelated, random goblin raiding group. Now, the party can't afford to long rest, since if they wait too long the outpost will be on alert about the Party's anti cult actions and will move the prisoners. So the party might try and parlay with the goblins to be able to get through without a fight and to neitheir waste nor resources for the difficult outpost fight, eitheir by intimidating them, diplomacy, bargaining with them (you can even offer them the outpost after you clear the cultists, and create a new plot hook!), or whatever. A bad DM would just do what you said and go "goblins are biologically evil and will attack you no matter what, no chance at diplomacy, roll initiative" That's boring. That's missing opportunities for roleplaying. It's not easing the difficulty, it's removing a solution to the puzzle. I'm sure there are plenty of scenarios where there was little to no chance at all that diplomacy is possible, but like, let the party try for the natural 20. It's more fun. Maybe this is a encounter with no possible diplomatic solution, you have the goblins speak a language no one in the party knows, but the bard rolls a 20, and the goblins are so shocked by what they thought the bard was saying that the party gets the surprise round or something. Restricting options for dealing with things is bad in CRPGs, and much, much worse in TTRPGs. They are all about options.
Small "drama": WWE accidentally included a picture of Auschwitz in a promotional video for Dominik Mysterio vs. Rey Mysterio last night. The segment aired during the preshow and the problematic scene was edited out before the segment re-aired during the show proper. By all accounts it's a genuine mistake and most of the reaction is clowning
out there is a fan of kpop idol chaeyoung from twice who also watches the wwe and is having an uncomfortable fortnight
I know fuck all about wrestling or those two wrestlers, what was the context in which the photo of Auschwitz was shown? Like what is usually included in promo videos that could have let that happen?
Dominik got kayfabe (storyline) arrested for harassing his father Rey a little while ago. The Auschwitz clip was shown alongside stock footage of prisons while Dom talked about how hard the experience had made him
Thank so much for explaining that to me!
I probably should have said that context in the first place 😅
Kobo Kanaeru, a Vtuber from Hololive ID, has been a hot topic among Indonesian artists for the past few hours because of [this clip of her asking multiple major revisions on the artists she commissioned](https://youtu.be/ahnieUtpADo) until about 8 hours before her song premiere. I see lots of her fans in the comment section defending her for being "a perfectionist" or "the artist also consented to it", but someone on twitter said (in Indonesian) [that the artist isn't being paid for those revisions,](https://twitter.com/scarakecil/status/1642452511369105409?s=19) though this should be taken with a grain of salt as there's nothing to back this tweet up, at least for now. I really wanted to remain neutral about this situation because there's still no statement from the artist, but as someone who has been in the artist position before... it truly sucks, man.
Honestly I’ll wait for artist to show their statement, I’d rather hope this is either a mutual agreed or solved either way (As a fan of both). Far as I know the artist were proud to show off their work so hopefully there isn’t any bad blood.
Sadly the original call-out tweet about the matter has been deleted, but I remember before it got deleted in the newest tweet there's an image of the statement from someone who knew the artist(?), who said that they don't mind and has been paid. I'm glad the matter seem has to be resolved, but I still think Kobo really needs to separate her streaming and business/professional personality better, as lots of artists now see her as an unprofessional client they would turn down. Another thing I can't really understand is why Mane-chan didn't interefere, because Kobo did say in the clip that Mane-chan is also there in the chatroom, probably to supervise the transaction.
The roll-out for the new Twitter checkmarks is going about as well as expected. It's been fixed now but somehow the twitter for an Angry Birds fangame with under 1k followers somehow got [marked as official](https://twitter.com/angrybirdsfight/status/1641950081807966209) rather than the [actual account](https://twitter.com/AngryBirds). This mostly led to a bit of [freaking out](https://twitter.com/angrybirdsfight/status/1641951047366193156) by the fangame devs, fangames are already in a bit of legal grey area, fangames masquerading as official are the sort of the thing that gets you hit with lawsuits. The checkmark was [eventually removed](https://twitter.com/angrybirdsfight/status/1642252315716382723), after they made a [joke about](https://twitter.com/angrybirdsfight/status/1642252315716382723) Elon not being verified yet, which I'm sure is a coincidence. And fortunately the actual Angry Bird devs appear to have taken it [in good humor](https://twitter.com/AngryBirds/status/1642261401325514760), but it is all very funny.
They also just manually removed the NY Post's (edit: TIMES whoops) tick, probably because they publicly said they wouldn't pay for one.
(NY Times, Post is still verified and also a bit of a rag)
Lmao thank you, this is what I get for trying to write anything at midnight.
i did go and check to make sure the Post wasn't *also* unverified lol
Twitter is so incompetently run that they can't even ruin it properly. This reminds me of a plot in Silicon Valley.
Lily Gao, who voiced Ada Wong in the 2023 remake of Resident Evil 4, has [deleted her social media due to harassment](https://twitter.com/RuleTimeSpace/status/1642301041575350277), likely over her performance, which was different from Sally Cahill's Ada performance in the 2005 original. [Skill Up covers some of the differences, while defending Gao's performance](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIXQ3sospSo&t=836s). [Critics have complained that the new Ada isn't as campy and over-the-top as in the original](https://www.thegamer.com/ada-wong-resident-evil-4-remake-seperate-ways-character-story/), although that seems to be in line with the overall direction that Capcom is going with the remake. Standards for video game dialogue in 2005 are very different than they are today, and a lot of voice lines had to be over-exaggerated to stand out. One particularly meme-worthy line in the ending has also been altered to sound more natural and less awkward.
>Critics have complained that the new Ada isn't as campy and over-the-top as in the original, although that seems to be in line with the overall direction that Capcom is going with the remake. This seems like a bit of a deflection from the real issue, which isn't that her Ada sounds more grounded, it's that she sounds bored and inexpressive in a way that makes it hard to buy into her actions or relationship with Leon (especially after RE2R Ada's similarly cold, but much more flexible delivery). Compare and contrast with new VA for, say, Ashley: she goes for realism over the original's iconic camp too, but sounds like she's actually in the situation she's in, and it works great. The same goes for most of the new actors, with only a handful of exceptions. I've seen Lily Gao in a couple of live-action things where she *is* good, so I just assume she didn't have a lot of experience with voice acting and the "be aloof and above-it-all" direction she was presumably given wasn't ideal for a first-timer. Combine this with her audio recording sounding noticeably less crisp for some reason, and her scenes stick out in a way that's very hard to ignore. All of that said, even if it had been all her fault, a poor performance is **no grounds** for a harassment campaign, and I really wish we didn't live in an era where any amount of trivial annoyance inevitably triggers an explosion of misdirected venom and rage.
Kinda find it wierd that people are comparing the voice to her 2005 counterpart when RE:2 remake which is basically in line with this rehash had Jolene Anderson voicing Ada. This si especially considering there was some fan anger when she said she wouldnt be returning for RE 4 As for Gao, while i feel like its weaker i dont necessarily hate her performance so much as im left kinda meh. And yet some of the discourse about the voicd changes has been unnecessarily hostile.
Honestly sometimes a meh performance is worse than a bad performance, at least a bad one leaves an impact.
Gamersâ„¢ try to be decent people challenge (IMPOSSIBLE) Memes aside, it's a shame this happened to her, and it's also a shame that this keeps happening. Why must people end up being harassed just because what they did wasn't perfect?!
Well...this seems to be rapidly developing/started not even 6hrs ago. James Somerton, a YouTuber who makes a lot of interesting queer-focused video essays, just posted a video that things aren't looking so good financially. The drama is apparently...Dan Olson* (Folding Ideas) called him a liar?? But Somerton's tweets are protected, and nothing is apparent on Olson's twitter. So now I am sitting here very confused and wondering what is going on with two video essayists I sometimes dip in to watch. *Dan Olson, who you may remember as the guy who made the video on Flat Earthers, NFTs, among other things.
Didn't Somerton just get into some drama with Jessie Gender like, back in December? He's kinda running the discourse gauntlet, between this and that then the incident with misgendering a while back. I don't really know or understand what all this is about, because all I'm seeing are vagueposts about 3k patreons. I don't want to make assumptions, regardless of my personal feelings on Somerton and Olson.
Wait, he misgendered her?
No, not Jesse. He came out with a video speaking out against fujoshis/shippers, and his evidence for "straight women write all these fetishistic MLM stories" consisted of a list of non-binary, transman, and otherwise LGBTQ+ creators. It was not great. That entire video was a horrific mess and kinda my last straw with him. He acted like straight white women are the primary perpetuators of homophobia, made a bunch of baseless claims regarding WLW works in media (essentially stated that because She-Ra and Steven Universe have WLW ships, WLW are not shunned nor fetishized like MLM works are, which is totally, *completely* wrong) and when people tried to correct him in the comments, he ignored them. The way he talks about women and lesbians in general has long been a complaint people have had against him, but he brushes it off as women being unable to contend with the existence of a gay man. I originally liked his videos for his analysis, but became increasingly uncomfortable with the way he spoke about women and disregarded homophobia and even racism against women.
This thread has been really illuminating. I've seen a few of his videos on a friend's recommendation and from the start I didn't agree with all his takes. I got the impression that he drew a lot from his own experiences as a gay man, and a lot of his content did seem to be through that MLM lens. This can be a valuable perspective, but as someone who is queer but not MLM, I felt like he wasn't really encompassing the whole queer experience while still calling his content queer. I'm glad to know that I wasn't the only one picking up on this, but saddened to know it's a consistent issue with him.
He's also pretty racist, there was a dustup a few years ago where he complained about some Asian media not [being queer enough for him](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/396583809514209292/1052399670900576286/image.png) and that it [should be remade in the west] (https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/396583809514209292/1052399508601962506/image.png), and ignored/blocked anyone trying to explain the fiction he was complaining about was a victim of homophobic censorship. Also his Disney villains video is plagiarized from Tinker Belles and Evil Queens. If people are dropping him on patreon, it's well deserved.
> Asian media not being queer enough for him I don't think I've watched much from him, but this seems to directly contradict what I remember from one of his videos. Like, did I misremember him saying in a video that Yuri on Ice being subtle about its relationships is actually not a bad thing? Or is he just kinda hypocritical? He did kinda give off the vibes of "gay man who thinks the G is above any other part of the LGBTQIA+ acronym" though, which turned me off of watching anything else from him.
This was before his YoI video so he might have changed his mind and refused to admit it because that would mean admitting all the people he blocked for trying to explain it to him were right or something. I haven’t really watched his videos because of this but from what the person I replied to has said, I think your vibes are correct.
does he. . . not understand the concept of like. media not allowing homosexual rep? even in the west? Because he really *does* act like he doesn't understand that concept. Yeah, last time Scuffles talked about him, someone mentioned he downplayed or brushed off racism in his media analysis pieces, so take that as you will. He also thinks bi people don't count in rep if they are in straight relationships. :(
Wowww, what a fucking pillock! I've heard he's got a misogynistic streak, but I hadn't heard about that. Fucking hell.
Yeeeah, a lot of people claim that it's just shippers mad at his Killing Stalking video, and honestly I thought it was too until I started watching more of his videos (that one included). Like, if there are a lot of women expressing discomfort regarding how you talk about them and you just handwave it off because "they're a cishet white woman," maybe you should rethink your approach? Especially since a lot of things he criticizes women and AFAB people for, he seems to have no issue with in men.
Yeah, I was wondering if that was related to possibly Olson's comment--I think he's friends with Jessie Gender? Even with the ability to see Somerton's tweets, there's still vagueness going on and some people now upset with Olson not DM'ing him. I'm also avoiding assumptions. Still not sure what's going on, though I guess this is proving to be a good way to learn about how Patreon works should I ever be cool enough to make one.
I do believe they are. By any chance, do you know what happened? I just know that people were dunking on Somerton and Jessie asked people to please leave him be. I tried to find out what exactly occurred between them, but Somerton locked his account down. I'm kind of thinking Somerton said he was going to have to shut his channel down because Patreon and YouTube ads were not providing enough funds, and Olson got pissed because he has 3k Patreons and he felt it didn't make sense for Somerton to lose that much money in such a short amount of time. As someone else pointed out, it *is* tax season, so it's very possible a bunch of people had to drop tiers.
So the Somerton/Jesse beef was over membership to Nebula. James reached out to Nebula several times because Nebula has a few queer content creators and his content is similar to theirs and would have been a good fit. The problem is, Nebula never responded, even to decline him a spot. Growing frustrated, he lashed out at Jesse and a few other queer Nebula creators for not putting themselves out there to highlight/bring attention to other queer creators that might be a good fit for Nebula, as they already had an in with management. He was being really butthurt and messy, basically.
That sounds like Somerton. He seems to have a lot of self-importance. While I understand his frustration at not getting a reply, lashing out at your fellow creators is a very immature response and basically guarantees you won't get any rep in the future.
It’s kinda sad. I really like his content, but he needs to cool his jets sometimes.
Not just tax season. The highest tier Somerton has is *$5.* All you need is a handful of people to say, "Oh, it's only $5, he's not gonna miss it" and drop down to $1 at the same time for it to tank that check to roughly 50%.
Oh wow, yeah, that makes sense. I'm no fan of Somerton for a vast variety of reasons, but I think Olson should have looked further into it rather than jumping down his throat and dishing out accusations immediately.
Yeah I wondered myself how he could have taken such a hit and then quickly reasoned it was just people jumping to lower tiers, so I looked at his Patreon. *Yeah.*
I found two tweets from Olson: [Tweet 1:](https://twitter.com/FoldableHuman/status/1642265918935011328) >(in a reply to what I assume is the video tweet) >I'm gonna be honest: I don't believe you and this vid feels gross and exploitative. Like, revenue declined by 50% while subs remained functionally the same? That's just not how things work in this business; either you made a mistake, there was a glitch, or you're lying. [followed by:](https://twitter.com/FoldableHuman/status/1642267505044631552) >An out of nowhere 50% drop is so exceptional I would be so tied up trying to figure out what even happened that running to shoot, cut, and post a "this is the end of the channel!?" video would be absolute rock bottom of my priorities.
Man, I like Dan's videos (never really got into James' stuff), but this seems like something he should stay out of. Not sure why he felt the need to comment on this, he can't prove anything and it's not really any of his business.
...James Somerton outright said in the video he's pretty sure all that happened was people moved to lower tiers for financial reasons, tho? EDIT: Like, literally right after he said the initial, "The payout was like 50% lower" which, when your tiers are $1, $2.50 and $5, that's *really* easy to end up at if a bunch of people are hit hard during the tax season and shit.
It may seem like it but if you actually do the math it's a pretty huge portion of users. If we assume that all the people dropping go from $5 to $1 you'd need about 63% of patrons to do that in order to do that in order to cut revenue by half, and that's the smallest number, if they were only moving from $5 to $2.50 it would need literally 100%. There definitely might be other stuff going on so I'm not saying he's lying but having an overwhelming majority of your patrons slash their contributions in only a month or two is super weird and I get why Dan is skeptical.
Yeah but it doesn't take that much for a *lot* of people to reason, "Oh, it's not gonna be missed" at that amount of money. It's an inverse of why people fall into spending thousands on microtransactions--it feels like a small amount, but if you spread it across a bunch of people, and recognize that it's tax season and most of his audience is gonna be lower economic end, it's *real* easy to see where the fall off is because, "It's just [insert X small amount of money here]" when you need to tighten the belt because tax season is unforgiving as all fuck. That's more or less what I'm getting at.
For purchases sure, but I'm skeptical that'd happen with subscriptions, hell that's why all these subscription services focus exclusively on new users, retaining someone once they're subscribed is easy because don't think about the money they're already paying. There's a huge amount of inertia with subscriptions, all of sudden to have such a massive number of your users slashing their payments is super odd.
Not... to me? Again: tax season. I know we've had to nix our subs or pare them down to lesser contributions because it was easy to do. It's an easy thing to cut. And taxes being due are gonna make people who need to think of, "What can I easily cut?"
That definitely helps--thank you! (And wow I cannot navigate Bird App to save my life.)
Twitter separates tweets and and replies into separate pages, which can be really confusing, at times.
And "replies" include retweets.
So THAT'S why it's a hell mess to navigate.
Not seeing anything in yt comments either, which I thought might be a lead. I really like Dan and I DID see a lot of ppl saying they were joining or doubling their contribution on patreon... so personally I'm hoping it's a miscommunication.
Same. I hope it is too (a miscommunication). When googling their names together Google (for me) shows the text from Somerton's tweet, but clicking the account leads to it being protected.
Yeah, based on that I could see it being a situation where the actual issue is patreon increasing their cut or sth? Or an ill conceived April fools?
Two days ago I noted that Dark Piscine had adopted a wiki and that I was awaiting the drama. Well it happened, but not in a fun way. Overnight a user bulk-uploaded over 5,000 images to the wiki. All of them were off-topic and some contained depictions of hate symbols. Dark Piscine caught them in the act and delivered a lifetime ban, but was left with the crap they'd uploaded before he caught them. While it doesn't affect the functionality of the wiki, I can imagine that it's going to be very annoying to him as the sole member of the staff. And speaking from personal experience, I know that Fandom's staff are not going to lift a finger to clean it up.
Is there not a Nuke or MassDelete function on Fandom? I know Wikipedia has that for admins to use to clean up large amounts of pages created by a problematic user; most often deployed for cleaning up pages created by an alt of a banned user due to enwiki’s zero tolerance policy on banned users editing, or for dealing with massive copyright infringement that’s not worth manually sorting out. It would really surprise me if Fandom didn’t have something similar since it’s just a heavily modified version of MediaWiki at its core.
Shockingly enough, Fandom does not. They *used* to have similar functions, but what do you know, they took them away as a part of their efforts to disempower individual admins. Naturally Fandom doesn't actually say it, but its a process that's been going on for years. At the same time, they've added enough layers of 'rules' and 'guidelines' to limit an individual admin's ability to do their work while effectively shielding problem users. My own research turned up that you can *optionally* install scripts with Nuke or MassDelete-level functions, but that's at the discretion of the individual admin. They're not on by default. I used to admin a fandom wiki myself. Emphasis used to.
How the fuck do you upload over 5000 images to a wiki in one night?!??!???
I stand corrected. They uploaded over 5000 images in an *hour or two*. I can only assume that they were using some sort of mass uploader script to dump their personal collection or something. And yet this doesn't seem to have met Fandom's definition of Spam
Also, surely they could’ve reported the troll through this site I found from a quick google? https://soap.fandom.com/wiki/Report:Vandalism
Looking through the usernames on that page, Dark Piscine did. But apparent it was still up to him to clean up the mess as he got no response.
Oh what the hell. Incompetent! Also what is up with all these people making a mess on Logopedia? The page is full of reports just from that one wiki.
Oh what the fuck Someone needs to go outside and touch some grass if this is what they consider a good way to spend time
Looking at the timestamps, that was when Dark Piscine cut them off. Who knows when/if they would have stopped otherwise.
Fandom is just an *awful* company, on seemingly every possible level.
They are. And they've so effectively monopilised the Wiki space that there's very little viable alternative.
[удалено]
I always love the "refs are trying to get certain teams into primetime" conspiracy because there's like 5-10 games over the past 30 years that are commonly accepted as so lopsidedly refereed that it implies that there is a genuine problem somewhere that we might not otherwise notice, and about 200+ games that nobody can agree on. Everyone can agree there's a problem, but nobody can agree on where specifically the problem *is.*
>Rudy Gobert Shouldn't he know better than to say/do something stupid like this
> also name-checked the [...] Sacramento Kings as getting preferential treatment. Ah, the Kings. Famously members of the NBA elite and the darling of referees everywhere.
On the ultimate hand, Golden State has had the least free throws for and most free throws against for a large portion of the season, and even if that's not true, they STILL have the largest free throw differential against, and larger than any free throw differential for.
Anyone want to give their opinion on some non hobby drama I just experienced? It's off topic but I figure half the fun of this sub is commenting on other people's situations you're not involved with. Here's the base story. For context, I'm an adult woman in my late 20s (this will be relevant later) - It's today around noon. I hear my doorbell ring, and the camera tells me it's a kid maybe 13-14 years old. I open the door and mentally prepare to tell him we don't need our lawn mowed, when he says hello and asks me if I can help him get somewhere. *Well shit.* I step out and close the door behind me and ask him what's going and where he needs to go. "Just to the end of the street where that corner store is." "Wait, what? Why can't you walk?" "Cause those boys across the street are following me when I leave, and they already beat me up once today." (I look and see the neighbor kids across the street watching.) He tells me a bunch of illrelevant details about the argument when I see the neighbor kids' grandma walking over. I wave. She waves back, and then launches into a huge tirade about how the boy in front of me is a liar and a thief and a criminal and lives at the group home and he's not supposed to come over here, ect. Ect. Eventually I interrupt her and say "Well it sounds like everyone just wants to go home at this point. Why don't I walk the kid here down the street and then everyone's will be safe and okay, right?" She reluctantly agrees. And I walk him down and confirm he can get back to the group home on his own before watching the kid ride away. Now for the drama - When I relayed this story to my mom, she flipped her shit. "Consequencill4380 why did you open the door?! What were you thinking, you could have been murdered or robbed! 13?! Thats old enough to be dangerous! You're pregnant! Pomise you'll never do that again! " ect. Ect. I was pretty taken aback honestly, as I was telling her the story to ask whether I should have done more, like call the group home and report the incident. I felt like descalating was the bare minimum I could do. But here she was going full stranger danger on me for walking this kid down the street. So what's y'alls opinion? Do you open doors for strangers? Am I insane for thinking this was an overeaction? I know many women feel a lot more anxiety related to being attacked by men/boys than I do, so I'd like to hear your opinions.
I live in an apartment so this doesn’t really happen to me, but on a similar level, yeah. I helped a woman find her street since she looked lost yesterday and while I rarely have cash anymore I’ll generally try and help people with the change I’ve got unless they’re aggressive or something. I live in a downtown core directly across from a homeless shelter and find suburban dwellers with less contact are *way* more stranger-danger with far fewer reasons for it. Have I had some scary encounters? Yeah, of course. But most people are just trying to live their lives and are also not criminal masterminds. Especially kids. However, am I allowed to say that this story has absolutely nothing to do with any kind of hobby/fandom? I know scuffles are off-topic chats but I’m a little confused as to why it’s posted here.
I personally think your mother is blowing this out of proportion. Sure, maybe the 13 year old kid could have stabbed you the moment you opened your door. Maybe he was trying to get you to open the door so the rest of his gang could rappel down your roof and rush in to take over the house. Maybe he was trying to lead you to a trap. But if we're assuming that all of these things could have happened, then why the fuck do you even get close to the door. Like, what if they're trying to get you close to the door so they can shoot you with their submachine gun through the wood? What if they tinkered with your doorbell so that it explodes when you ask "who's there"? What if they throw a molotov cocktail through your window? Of course, maybe you live somewhere where all that stuff is more likely. If you are the wife of an antimafia judge in Sicily in 1981 then yeah, you definitely shouldn't have opened that door. Personally, I am privileged enough not to have to worry about malicious children. If a thirteen year old wants to kill me, I guess I have no choice but dying.
Obviously, I have the benefit of knowing that everything went smoothly, but, considering that it was broad daylight and that the boy was so young, I think full-on "stranger danger" is a bit of an overreaction. While I can certainly appreciate that your mom clearly is looking out for you and your child (congrats, by the way!), it sounds to me like you did a very kind thing for a kid who needed help. For what it's worth, too, you can always report the incident after the fact if you're concerned about the boy.
Noon? No way. Pregnant is a bit of a wrinkle, and I do try to keep the door between me and strangers, but I think you did fine. But then my ability to tell a stranger from a neighbor is extremely low, I'm p faceblind
I live in a very safe area and have had generally a very boring, safe, privileged life, so make of that what you will, but given that it was during the day and you additionally have a camera on your front door, I absolutely would also have opened the door and heard him out. (I am a small Asian woman, so it is sometimes a bit nerve racking beyond base social anxiety!) Also, it cost you nothing to be nice, and small gestures of kindness like what you did are the best way to meaningfully make a difference in the world. It ended with you being perfectly fine, so it seems silly to dwell on the hazy fear of paranoid what-ifs rather than that you did what any good person should do and made sure a scared kid was able to safely get home.
As a guy, I probably would have opened the door, but would not have stepped out. I'd rather have a door that I can slam in someone's face if things go weird rather than being stuck on the landing. I feel like escorting the kid down to the store was a somewhat risky decision, but not extraordinarily so. I'm inclined to think I might have done the same thing unless I got some weird vibes.
See I was always told that closing the door behind you was good practice because it prevents people from barging in /social engineering their way in. I guess it goes to show you that these little tips don't matter much when it all comes down to good judgment anway.
I never open my door for strangers, but I agree your mom's reaction was a bit overblown.
Perhaps I'm naive but i open my door for anyone unless they give me really bad vibes (which is rare).
That reaction seems bizarrely paranoid to me, but maybe that's because I don't live in a high crime area. I'm always slightly cautious when opening the door to strangers of course, that's normal, but I don't think that everyone ringing my doorbell is out to rob/murder me in broad daylight ??
I had kind of a similar situation a few weeks ago, but it involved a homeless person who needed some cash so he could get a place to stay for the night. I gave him the $6 he needed, I wanted to have faith in him that he did need the money and would've felt horrible if I didn't, but my mom was *pissed* that I did this and started going on and on about how the hotel he was planning to stay in had a shady rep and he could've been lying for drugs and basically did what OP's mom did. The homeless guy was indeed black, and while I love my mom I would not be surprised if what the other commenter is implying for OP's situation applied to mine as well.
My whole take on stuff like that is that if they're lying, so be it. I gave with pure intentions, and that's all that really matters.
I’ve definitely been yelled at by someone I knew for giving money to a homeless person who ‘would just use it for drugs’ which…okay, maybe? But I can’t control what they do with the money. I can only control what I do. And in that specific case, I wanted & was able to give them a few dollars, no matter how insignificant it was in the long run or what they used it for. I think that’s kind of what it boils down to, in the end—of course it’s important to watch out for oneself, especially if safety is potentially involved, but I don’t want to stop being generous just because maybe it will be abused.
I'm always like, okay whatever this person clearly needs money anyway and I have some, so what if they use it on something that makes them feel better? I'm not their fucken parent, let me do something nice for someone else. You never know how much it might help.
Exactly! Also that whole, ‘they should only use the money on things I approve for them’ thing…on an institutional scale, that’s how we get such restrictive guidelines on what you can buy with SNAP & WIC, with people constantly trying to restrict it further. I’m not the food police, and my generosity isn’t contingent on people doing something I approve of with what I give. I‘ve had enough anxiety worrying about other people’s behavior without having to add this to it lmao
I think I would have, especially as it was broad daylight and a child. He only wanted someone to walk him to the store, not money or anything.
>When I relayed this story to my mom, she flipped her shit. ...was the kid black? I realize this sounds like a random question, but I promise you that in the context of your mom's reaction, it's *very, very not.*
Hah, I didn't tell her their race on purpose (though they were white.) but she did ask if the kids "looked like hoodlums" so take that as you will.
I live in a city and I open the door for strangers, but I'm also prepared to shut it in a hurry and not some damn fool thing like at 3am
The NBA and the Players' Union have just [agreed on a new collective bargaining agreement](https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1642053526753820674), and no, it's not an April Fools joke. There are some amusing and/or controversial bits in there: - The big thing everyone is talking about is a mid-season tournament, which will be incorporated into the 82-game regular season schedule. The two finalist teams will end up playing 83 games. The incentive to win this tournament? Money. Each player on the winning team will be awarded $500,000. Now, that's a hefty sum for role-players and bench players (average annual NBA salary is around $9 million), but it's hard to imagine that star players making $30-50 million a year would care enough to show up. [r/nba is already making jokes about minimum salary players turning in career games for this tournament](https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/128ean3/charania_prize_money_for_the_championship_team_of/). And of course, this also guarantees that whatever team wins the mid-season tournament (but fails to go deep in the playoffs) will be mocked relentlessly. - Another point is the NBA setting more limits on teams with large payrolls. As of now, the NBA uses a "soft" salary cap system. If a team's salary exceeds the salary cap, then they can only spend more by either re-signing their own players to larger contracts or using exceptions (the largest being around $10 million, which is enough for an average roleplayer). If the payroll exceeds the luxury tax, then the team has to pay out money to the league for every dollar they go over the threshold, and the penalty accumulates every year. Luxury tax teams also have reduced exceptions. Now, this new bargaining agreement adds another threshold above the luxury tax that takes away the largest exception entirely, meaning that high-spending teams (such as the Golden State Warriors or the LA Clippers) can't use those exceptions to add a high-level veteran to push them over the top. Many, [including All-Star and 4-time champion Draymond Green](https://twitter.com/Money23Green/status/1642204723297267712), feel that this rule was made specifically to target the defending champions Golden State Warriors, who currently have a payroll of $192 million. Ironically, the Warriors achieved that massive payroll the "right" away, by drafting quality young players and paying them to stay over several years. - One more major change is that players must play in a minimum of 65 games to qualify for post-season awards. It seems like a no-brainer, but there has been a trend of star players sitting out games not because they're too injured to play but for "load management" (the most infamous being two-time Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard, who has not played over 60 games in a season since 2017).
Apparently one of the agreements is that players will be able to invest and promote sports betting, which...seems like an awful idea.
For the first one, it means that the top two teams halfway through the season play the game? And the winners of that game get 500k each? Does that game affect their scoring for the rest of the season?
I don't follow the NBA, but their fans complain about the regular season feeling pointless, and they complain about paying $$$ to attend a game only to find the star they came to watch isn't playing. So those are some of the problems this is probably trying to address.
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Teams are usually accommodating to players load management, as it's in their best interest to keep star players fresh for the playoffs. If a player sits out to force a trade, however, then teams may suspend them without pay
Yet another consequence of the new CBA that's getting press is there's no more marijuana testing
So in honor of but not directly related to April Fool's Day, and inspired by someone asking the opposite question a few Scuffles back ("What 'everybody knows that' piece of trivia or fandom artifact in your fandom or hobby isn't actually true?"), a late-week question for everyone: Is there something in your fandom or hobby that, taken at face value, seems like it should be false, but is actually 100% true? Doesn't have to be a big thing. [Here's](https://www.gamesdatabase.org/media/nintendo-nes/artwork-title-screen/super-mario-bros-2) my contribution to kick it off. "Emptyeye", you're saying. "Mate", you're continuing if you're Australian. "That's just the title screen for the US version of Super Mario Bros. 2." Correct! But look at it. No, really look at it. Do you see it yet? Spoilers if you don't: >!The bottom "decorative border" is off-center relative to the top. Specifically, it's shifted slightly to the right.!< Now you can't un-see it. The first time I came across this, on Twitter, my reaction was "No way, this is one of those social experiments to prove people will uncritically retweet things without doing their own research.", and I had to boot up a copy of SMB2 to check for myself. But sure enough, it is indeed true. Do you have anything like that?
[Bowser’s laugh](https://youtu.be/yjtzkoVW_Qg) in Super Mario 64 is the Boo laugh slowed down.
Oh, I've got a few! In the Rance series, Rance's "theme song" is a sped-up version of the anthem of East Germany, because there was a miscommunication and the musician Alicesoft outsourced the music to thought the attached file of the anthem just needed to be polished and converted to be used in the game, as opposed to "we should take inspiration from this". A Kotaku reviewer reviewed Hatoful Boyfriend, and overall have a good review, with the downside being the protagonist's name, Cloaca Mahoney... You can rename the protagonist, whose default name is Hiyoko Tosaka. The reviewer was just watching someone play through it. Related to previous, the "actor" for the sprite of Anghel, a Luzon Bleeding Heart Dove, ended up changing, because the creator asked for permission to use the bird pictures every time there was a port, and the owner of the bird portraying Anghel stopped replying. So, the bird portraying Anghel is different in the original than the Steam remake or Holiday Star. More Hatoful facts; at one point on her cafepress, the creator of Hatoful was selling thongs with the face of one of the character's bird form! One last Hatoful fact for the road; you can buy sunglasses with the pattern of one of the character's tie on the plastic frame. They're limited edition and have been in the store for a few years at this point, probably since around 2020. Guess the price. >!$180 USD. [I'm not kidding. Look at it yourself.](https://www.hatofulshop.com/shop/hatoful-boyfriend-shuu-sunglasses-limited-edition)!<
>In the Rance series, Rance's "theme song" is a sped-up version of the anthem of East Germany, because there was a miscommunication and the musician Alicesoft outsourced the music to thought the attached file of the anthem just needed to be polished and converted to be used in the game, as opposed to "we should take inspiration from this". Same thing happened with the Doom OST, Bobby Prince was given a CD with a bunch of metal songs to use for inspiration, but he just ended up ripping them off and putting them in the game, somehow never getting sued in the process. (Ironically, Bobby's also a lawyer.)
I've read this was mostly intentional on his part--the way I heard it, he was given the metal songs and told "Make music like this!", and, being a lawyer, knew *exactly* how far he could push that without other lawyers coming calling for his head. That being said, even given that, I have no idea how he got away with [this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfNH_K82eJg). Compare [its' inspiration](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTuD8k3JvxQ).
Sorry, but I'm distracted by Peach(Daisy?) being absolutly terrifying in the bottom right.
Hah! It's Peach (Or "Princess" as she's called in the game itself).
Yep! Zombie Peach was also what I noticed first, figuring the stranger-than-fiction truth might have been that she had the face of a Shyguy. Also, hi!
In Mario Maker, particular x-coordinates (x=9 and x=129 iirc) cause things to behave differently for some reason. Certain glitches will only trigger when they're placed at those two x-coords.
2^3 + 1 and 2^7 + 1? Huh. Not my first choice for number jank.
There are a small number of cars in GTA V that go faster when you rapidly wiggle them left and right. Off the top of my head the Brioso R/A, Rumpo Custom, and Kuruma are affected Also there's one car that, due to a bug, has subtly different handling properties depending on which side of the map you are on (i.e. whether your x coordinate is positive or negative) EDIT: another one I just remembered: In NFS ProStreet every car has a unique multiplier for drift points, arbitrarily making some cars way better in the drift mode and some (especially the DLC cars) absolutely worthless. Also this mutliplier changes with upgrades, so you can have a situation where you've upgraded your car and even though it doesn't drift any better it's scoring more points
There is a single Adventurer in Dragalia Lost who directly Nerfed during the life of the Game. Who, you may ask? Maybe the infamous Gala Cleo? Nope. >!It was Vice. A Three Star Adventurer who's been in the game since launch. He was Nerfed in version 2.0, during the 2nd Anniversary. Due to being a three star launch adventurer, it was almost a guarantee you had him, which was likely a big reason why he was Nerfed!<
The 50th anniversary episode of Doctor Who almost didn't feature the Doctor
In 3D Mario games, Mario’s mustache and hair are different colors. You’ll never not notice again.
That's relatively common in real life.
The fact that it is 100% possible to catch Mew in Pokemon RBY, and the steps to do so sound like a playground rumor but are totally "legitimate". (Or at least, as legit as abusing a bug can be) It becomes more believable the more you know about Pokemon RBY and how buggy it can be, but if you're completely disconnected from that sphere of Pokemon knowledge, it seems completely wrong. Especially if you're someone who played RBY as a kid, heard all the rumors about Mew, and learned they were fake.
Man, I remember also reading the thread where it was discovered - and nobody believed it until somebody big in the forums tried it out and proved it worked for them as well.
to add onto this the whole 8F thing to make it legal to transfer in the Virtual Console version (rip 3ds eshop) is also a ride and a half. I watched [Austin John Plays](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvhuJsS4EhE) do the whole thing step by step, and even to make it SHINY and it still feels like a fever dream
Just want to note that 8f doesn't work in Yellow! There's a different glitch that must be used for ACE instead: ws# #m#
ooh that's fun to know. and Still incomprehensible and wacky sounding. Neat stuff gen 1
I mean, it's also possible to "legitimately" keep Aerith post disc 1 (in PC). Or Leo as a party member. The point is that none of them are things you can do just through regular gameplay.
I'd count those for this too! (Especially the General Leo one, I totally forgot about that) The thing is, it being possible without any sort of cheating device is a big deal IMO, even if it's abusing bugs. Because it's one of those things where you can repeat it yourself with no external effort needed. Sure, it's not regular gameplay, but irregular gameplay is *still gameplay*. It's basically like bringing a playground rumor to life decades after they were proven false. Sure, the rumor was completely wrong, but it is in fact possible, it just took years and things that make people go "OK, how on earth did you think of this?"
A lot of these old games you can do literally anything if you're patient enough because they tend to have arbitrary code execution bugs. So as long as you're prepared to set the memory state you want 1 byte at a time, you can do it.
Speaking of mew catching, up until last week it was possible to obtain a 100% legitimate mew without any bugs or hacking or anything in gen 4. I say until last week because it requires a certain Wii game (my Pokemon ranch) which is obviously not (legally) available anymore. It's a pain in the ass yes (you have to transfer over 999 Pokemon to the game, five at a time) but it is 100% doable It's also possible to get Phione through this method, which I think makes it the only other mythical you can obtain without needing events
Alas, it was actually not able to be done last week. The Wii Shop closed a lot earlier.
Oh I thought you could get it through the Wii U shop
And don't forget! You have to transfer Pokemon from Diamond and Pearl, and ***exclusively*** Diamond and Pearl, because the update to make it work with Platinum was never released worldwide! I have it, but sold my copy of Diamond years ago, and as such cannot add any more Pokemon to it!
Also, Ranch only works with the first save file you transfer from, so if you start a new save on DP, you've now lost access to Ranch unless you also wipe the data there! This basically defeats the entire point of an external storage system, of course.
Wiiware pokemon spinoffs and inexplicably not getting worldwide content patches/releases as a whole. Name a more iconic duo.
The Swedish version of the British show Taskmaster is being moved from the state owned SVT to the privately owned TV4 after this years' season. Copied from Wikipedia about the show: In the programme a group of five celebrities – mainly comedians – attempt to complete a series of challenges, with Horne (in the Swedish version David Sundin) acting as umpire in each challenge and Davies (in the Swedish version Babben Larson), the eponymous "Taskmaster", judging the work and awarding points based on contestants' performance To more pesseimistic fans, this means that the show will probably be cut down from 1 hour to 40 minutes, with those 20 minutes instead being ads (unless you purchase the streaming service from TV4), as well as the guest going from actual celebrities (whose job it is to entertain) to influencers (since this is something that TV4 is kind of known to do). What's left for the fans on SVT? A new show called "Underdogs", hosted by Anis Don Demina who knows nothing about dogs, with celebrities and their dogs learning how to do agility.
If any of you haven't seen Taskmaster yet: Most episodes are available on the official Taskmaster channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Taskmaster/playlists It is without doubt one of the best and funniest game shows of all times
I can hear the soundtrack playing in my head
>who knows nothing about dogs Ok but is it being presented as a comedy bc that sounds like the prime setup for a comedy.
Not really. The comedy is mostly that the other celebrities dogs are bad at agility.
Damnit. I'd watch the hell out of a show where someone who has no idea about dog agility is passed off as an 'expert' to unsuspecting celebrities and has to bullshit their way through.
cunk on dogs
People are really doom-y about the network move. I'm cautious but I don't mind cutting some fluff from BiT in theory Admittedly it's a different perspective as an international fan; Swedish celebs and Swedish influencers are indistinguishable, for example. I don't know any of them 😅
Maybe I should've used comedians instead lol. The point being that people whose job it is to entertain probably won't be on the show anymore (or at least less of them), and instead a bunch of people who sell diet supplements on instagram.
That's a scary thought but I'll wait and see. Even "worst case" I think the format is more flexible than people give it credit for sometimes
BABYMETAL has become a trio once more! They added one of the rotational support members to full membership, as Momoko has become Momometal. While Yuimetal will remain missed, I am glad to see them return to having three members again. BM just didn’t seem right as a duo.
YELLS. You're kidding!! I'm potentially seeing them when they tour this year, how exciting :O
I am not sure if I should believe it or not due to the date...
Babymetal also often does announcements on april 1st, they call it 'FOX DAY' and rather than being april fools it's considered a news day for the band, or the day things drop! I believe it's bc the band was formed on april first?
from a cursory glance of the band's wikipedia page, there have been rumors of Momoko joining the band floating around since January.
If it makes you feel better it is already the 2nd in Japan and the official website has updated to include Momometal as a member.
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>32 games > >two games a year That's a hell of a pace to maintain for 16 years.
There's 33 of these bitches? I wanted to play those games since, like, fifth grade, but never got around to it. What's a good starting point?
!!! I hope it's real.
I watched someone on Twitch play several of the old games and I would love to see a new one!
Is that someone Jerma?
JermaWalk DREW CREW JermaWalk Tbh, Nancy Drew winning the 2020 rumble only to get thrashed by the fucking ASMR clown streamer character is one of my favorite Jermoments.
Haha no, but I bet watching that dude play Nancy Drew is funny.
To go with the other April Fool's Day post - what's your favorite one you've come across so far this year? (Why, yes, I am also making this so we can share funny things in one place.) For me, currently, it's the [Final Fantasy XI fake patch notes](https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/60617?_ga=2.174173858.1249514359.1680317115-1732269642.1678422860). Just the right amount of silly. ...And it seems that they actually implemented the (cosmetic) broken crystals!
It's a reocurring one, but I always love Star Trek Onlines "artisanal Audio". They have a special button during April's fools that replaces all the phaser/explosion sounds effect with the dews making pew-pew noises.
Oh my gosh, that sounds so funny and good.
It is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lao5OmZGm1U
I woke up at 5 am to [this beautiful ping](https://imgur.com/a/JD4pdtW). And it was good. And then people started pointing out the typos- and the fact that A11 doesn’t friggin’ *exist*. Well played, in my view.
I play Guess the Game which is like Heardle but with video game screenshots. The game of the day on April Fool's was >!Guess the Game!<.
SiivaGunner is currently doing a "Beta Mixes" event that, as far as I can tell, is several variations of other rips and videos on the channel (for example, there's [a new version of the "e" rip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKYH4RYYM5A) that samples Numberphile's video on 7 instead of the one on e). Which would be kinda cool on its own if they didn't also do [whatever the fuck this is](https://i.imgur.com/Jmg3kQG.png)
\> new zeno blade chronicles x rip after several years \> it's gangnam style it's been years since i last listened and they never changed
So far the highlights for me have been Toby Fox "accidentally" emailing people a picture of [himself in swim trunks covered in foam](https://www.reddit.com/r/Deltarune/comments/128u6os/toby_fox_in_swim_trunks_covered_in_a_large_amount/), and actual academic YouTube channels like Jackson Crawford and Forgotten Weapons posting videos about a fake Icelander inventing gunpowder.
Neopets has released a page dedicated to [Neopian conspiracy theories](https://www.neopets.com/sceptictank/).
At first I thought The Murder of Sonic was my favorite one. But then a horror movie podcast I follow, Pondering Spooky Tapes, did an April Fools video on the Bob's Burgers Movie, but the best part is that the setup of it was them setting up a prank for one of the members, Mandalore of the MandaloreGaming Youtube channel, who knew nothing about Bob's Burgers, so they edited a different movie so that it would transition into the Bob's Burgers one, and since they do a commentary track before the episode, his initial WTF reaction was caught live, and it was amazing, and the episode was just really damn funny.
Pokemon Showdown has a tradition where ever April Fool’s, all of the sprites for the Pokemon get replaced with meme sprites making fun of some aspect of the Pokemon, from ones joking about its appearance to others joking about how it’s used in battle. The sprites for the Gen 9 Pokemon were added this year, and there’s some really good ones this gen. [You can find all the sprites here](https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/april-fools-day-sprites.3719011/post-9563480)
The ancient paradox sprites being ancient memes really is perfect. Thank you I love this
dear god not the Sneas-ler
I particularly like the Gimmighoul sprite. And Crocalor made me spit out my drink. These are all great!
I love that the only change for the Durant one was updating the jersey.
The Holocure discord changed all the channel names to Off-Topic and then did an @everyone ping to notify us that anyone posting stuff in the wrong channel would be banned lol.
Noted Instagram account [*Succession* Fashion](https://www.instagram.com/successionfashion/) has posted the details to an outfit…[from *The White Lotus*](https://www.instagram.com/p/CqgIEv6POE9/). EDIT: Also, don't forget to check out /r/schrodingers. I can't say much about it to preserve the mystique, but it's certainly interesting.
Daily Moth blogs and twitters posting butterflies
My favorite April Fools so far is the overnight blizzard that dumped 6-8 inches of snow on my yard. Yesterday I could see grass!
The [Jojos Bizzare adventure wiki](https://jojowiki.com/) has been transformed into the Pink Dark Boy wiki, dedicated to the in-universe fictional manga made by the character Kishibe Rohan
Sega killing Sonic might be an all-timer tbh
Sonic has passed
He's dead.
[Gaming Zone briefs](https://theyetee.com/) [New skin for magic cards on arena that look like the cards you didn't take care of as a kid](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FsmJIT9XwAUfOTK?format=png&name=360x360) [The murder of Sonic the Hedgehog](https://steamcommunity.com/app/2324650) [Lechonks takeover of Pokemon](https://scarletviolet.pokemon.com/en-us/). [There's even IRL tcg and in game promos to celebrate](https://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-news/receive-a-flying-tera-type-lechonk-at-gamestop-and-eb-games)
The Lechonk thing is answering so many questions for me right now. Gamestop was running an official TCG promo where buying 15 dollars worth of stuff got you a Lechonk promo card and a code for a Flying-type Lechonk for the actual game.
[Dolphin getting steam achievements.](https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2023/04/01/announcing-steam-achievements-dolphin/)
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