I'm always getting indigo confused with purple. If you walked up to me on the street and showed me a swatch painted indigo and asked me what color it was I'd confidently say "purple." Then, if you showed me actual purple I'd go "Oh, how strange, a much better purple. Why are there two purples?"
unironic make-Main-the-only-comm posters but specifically for this site's various megathreads is very funny to me.
Just a few months ago I saw so many people salivating online that once Trump was defeated and then dies or else is too old and senile to run by 2028 that the Republican party would collapse, that Trump voters are all going to either go third party or else just not vote, and then the Republican party won't be competitive with the dems anymore in national politics.
How's that working out? Completely insane cope. Yeah, man, I bet the bottom will just magically fall out of the Republican party and then Dems will seize on the opportunity to finally make good on the dream of the Great Society and build a welfare state, because the only thing holding them back from that goal was the Republicans.
Not that the GOP is in a healthy state right now, and I'm sure when they eventually lose Trump it will hurt them. But they probably won't collapse into nothing and scatter away on the wind like Sauron. Instead it'll probably look a lot like the Dems post-Obama: rudderless, struggling to find a new center.
I hope Russiagate just fires back up in full-swing.
Oh, wow, I haven't visited r/politics in so many years. This is something else. A real blast of nostalgia.
Seeing these awful, smug people so lost and confused and angry almost makes me feel good. They have no idea what's going on.
That's hilarious. Has there ever been a more incompetent politician?
It would be so easy to win a national election against Trump. Watch. "I, your democratic candidate, pledge to fight the supermarket, pharmacological, and healthcare cartels that are artificially inflating consumer prices for their own gain."
But democrats don't want to do that.
Was worried for a moment that this post was going to be about Gaben (who I rent all my games from) revealing a hard right shift. Like Gaben really obviously doing a 2018-era Musk slide to the right. “You don’t gotta hand it to them, but some Republicans are alright. Also, I love MAGA and Gordon Freeman would’ve marched at Charlottesville and Chell would’ve defended freedom on Jan 6.”
Every screenshot I see from Bluesky is posters writing in this exact same cadence/style. Unreconstructed cringe posters from 2009. It would be almost incredible if I didn't find them all so loathsome.
Philippi talked about operational security, including the need for disguises, the use of leather gloves (because latex and nitrile gloves can transfer fingerprints), wearing shoes that are too big, the need to burn their clothes after the attack, and not bringing smartphones on the night of the attack.
On Nov. 2, 2024, Philippi participated in a Nordic ritual, which included reciting a Nordic prayer and discussing the Norse god Odin. Philippi told the UCEs that “this is where the New Age begins” and that it was “time to do something big” that would be remembered “in the annals of history.”
Imagining this guy wearing Groucho Marx glasses with clown shoes, leather gloves on his hands, while reenacting the bear warrior ritual scene from The Northman.
I was searching Youtube for an art movie from 2009 that I was hoping someone had illegally uploaded there, the autofiction/documentary film Perestroika by Sarah Turner, because the only way I can find to watch it is by buying a booklet from a Lonon-based art museum that includes a DVD of the film. It's only £7, which is $9. But they have a £28 international shipping fee. I'm broke so $45 is way too much money for me to spend on a 115 minute long art film I've never seen before. And then the DVD will probably have regioning issues that would be a pain to sort out.
So anyway, I type "Perestroika 2009 sarah turner" into Youtube and the first result is a playlist titled "sex" with 167 videos, the first of which is a Mexican film from the '70s called EL TIGRE DE SANTA JULIA. The next result is another playlist titled "a film" with 23 foreign films, one of which is by Paolo Passolini. And the third result is a video titled "Brie Larson Braless No Bra" uploaded by a channel named "Celebrities Braless."
Disappointed but persevering I modified my search to "Perestroika sarah turner." The first result was an interview with Sarah Turner. Still disappointing, but we're moving in the right direction. The second result was "Brie Larson Braless No Bra" by the same channel as before.
It's just weird. For one thing I don't watch erotic content on YouTube, it rarely serves these sorts of results up for me. The only time I see this stuff is when I get my once yearly urge to watch bushcrafting videos which always gives me videos that have a thumbnail of a naked woman in the woods with titles like "How I stay warm in Siberia," mixed in with the normal videos. For another, from what I can see Perestroika is not an erotic film. And based on her website it seems like Sarah Turner's work doesn't deal with eroticism at all. I can only guess that the word perestroika is throwing off YouTube's algorithm, giving me the sort of results it might serve to a non-english speaking user?
Trueanon revealing their anti-train bias is the only thing they've ever done that makes me believe they will someday do a hard-right turn.
As if that would really make Dr. Pepper any worse than it already is.
I've never understood the appeal of streamers, but at least most streamers play video games and I can see where there might be somee meager entertainment value in that. But political streamers must be an especially cursed strain. What, you're going to spend the minutes of the only life you'll ever have watching some asshole live react to a clip from CNN? And then drama streamers must be even worse. You're going to watch some guy talk about how a different streamer is leaving her also streamer husband because he cheated with a different streamer and spent their life savings on crypto? Why?
Granted, Hasan's probably the best we could hope for from politics streamers, I just take issue with the entire form. I feel the same way about 24 hour news channels and daytime television.
I hate this guy so much. Made a few admittedly pretty good movies in the '90s, but the rest of his films are terrible, and he's been lauded as some sort of Film God ever since. I mean, I'll always watch a new Tarantino movie because I know it'll be decently fun to watch (and be mad at) and all his films are technically very well made and typically are full of good actors giving entertaining performances (of weak material). So I guess credits due where credits due.
But his post-'90s work all feels so self-indulgent, so masturbatory. Clearly Quentin Tarantino also believes himself to be a genius, with very important ideas on film. Any time I hear this guy say anything he comes off as so smug and self-congratulatory and you can feel that attitude throughout every moment of his work. Add on the racism and zionism and he's just a vile man who I wish would go away.
But I can see where he'd get this read about Joker 2. It's certainly the way chuds took it. Don't think I agree, though. I feel like if anything this movie was like "all you dumbasses intentionally misconstrued the first movie as some sort of ode to toxic masculinity, so I'll make the same point as last time but more clearly."
This is neither here nor there, but I somehow listened to this review podcast thing of Joker 2, I think it ended up on my twitter feed or something, and it was just three libs who didn't like the movie, but I got the feeling they didn't like it because the character of Joker was seized by chuds as an icon and they couldn't articulate that. Anyway, one of their only cogent reasons for hating the movie was "Lady Gaga's Harley gets used and tossed aside by a narcissist." And I just wanted to ask them if they saw the same movie I did. How did they want it to end? With Arthur taking up Harley's offer to full personify the Joker and live out the rest of his life as some kind of blood-crazed monster?
They also complained that the musical numbers didn't blow them away. Which I guess is fair, but I also feel like that's not totally engaging with the movie on its terms. The musical numbers are the hallucinations of a deranged spree murderer who can only sometimes tell fantasy from reality. Complaining that they aren't incredible is a bit like complaining that Arthur's stand-up in Joker wasn't funny. But, I don't know, maybe I'm giving the movie too much credit there.
Look, friends, I'd love to do a protest vote as much as the next guy. I'd love to scrawl Yahya Sinwar's name on my ballot, or draw a photo-realistic illustration of Engels, or use my special PPB stamp. But what can I say, as hard to believe as it is I'm actually with Bernie on this one. The voice on the TV said this was the most important election of my lifetime, had to vote for one of the bourgeois parties, even though along with all their usual crimes they are also both very publicly supporting an ongoing genocide. Plus there's Russia to think about. It's very important to me that the United States is strong against Russia, for some reason. And China. I love Taiwan, even though I think it's that island off of Africa. I love Ukraine, even though I think it's the bad country from Borat. I stand with the Uyghurs, even though I don't know what a Uyghur is. Some kind of extraterrestrial, I think.
Listen, here's what I know: Donald Trump BAD. Kamala Harris GOOD. Tim Walz GOOD. JD Vance I'M SUPPOSED TO SAY BAD BUT SECRETLY I THINK HE'S KINDA GOOD, MUCH MORE NORMAL THAN TRUMP, HE WROTE THAT BOOK I HEARD GOOD THINGS ABOUT ON NPR.
-most Americans who call themselves Left.
To all social reformers this poster, who is held in good standing except for those times badposts were made, doth say this: I am a loyal subject of the Good King Gaben, most venerable and wise and just, whose reign shall be eternal. No darkness can enter into these bountiful lands so long as those who hold fast to the King remain faithful.
Man, I just can't get excited about Dragon Age Veilguard. The thing about that franchise is that there's only ever been one really good game in it, the first one, and that came out in 2009. I love Dragon Age 2, but it was desperately rushed to completion and you can tell. I never even beat Inquisition, and I might someday, but it has a less extreme version of the problem that Mass Effect Andromeda has. I feel like they made an effort to make the game have as broad an appeal as possible, but that robbed the game of any soul it might have had. I suppose that's the problem with this sort of corporate art generally.
All the gameplay styles feel too similar. Most of the companion stories seem hollow; There'll be a cool concept, maybe a unique spin on a character that we wouldn't normally see in this genre/format, but the actual story just won't be that good. The main narrative itself feels like it's always trying to play it safe, trying to accommodate the fact that the player character could be any combination of their character creator's gender and race and class options (and when they have special dialogue lines or options for those things it feels like a more poorly implemented, shallower idea of what was present in earlier entries). And while the graphics are much improved from the older entries, the level design feels worse in a way I can't pinpoint. Less atmospheric, maybe? Less, I don't know, immersive? Probably a knock-on effect of the quasi open-world design as opposed to Origins much more linear style.
I feel like (as a gamer who values narrative above all else) most of my problems with Inquisition boil down the fact that by trying to let the player be anyone they want to be the studio hampers their ability to tell good stories, including the companions' since their stories orbit around the player character. BioWare managed to pull it off with Origins, but they strike a very good balance with the original Mass Effect games. The player feels like they have some agency over deciding who Shepard is, but also Shepard manages to convey their own personality consistently over time. But even that only holds together if you're consistently choosing paragon or renegade options. If you start to mix it up the character can feel totally incoherent.
Which is why my favorite approach to this is like The Witcher games (or basically any story-driven RPG that doesn't have a character creator). Make the player character a fixed person in the world, give the player different ways to respond to certain scenarios that all feel like things that the character would reasonably do. Though it helped CD PROJEKT RED that their player character, Geralt, was the protagonist of a book series and is an extremely hypocritical character. I guess ZA/UM sort of do this with Harry du Bois, but of course he's a lunatic with drug-induced amnesia (and also maybe the least interesting aspect of the story. Disco Elysium is about the people of Martinaise, and the personal growth or lack-thereof of Harrier du Bois is just one small story among many). I guess I should praise RDR2 because on paper they do exactly what I'm talking about, but I just hate Rockstar's approach to game design so much that I can't enjoy it.
It does seem like there's some sort of core team involved with the Dragon Age games who are very dedicated to the crazy worldbuilding of that series. But that's not enough for me. I expect Veilguard will, in all respects, feel like a shittier version of Inquisition, which already felt like a shittier version of DA2.
Where else is there to go?
This site is a great mix of shitposting, news and general events analysis, and serious history and theory effortposting. If you’re a leftist, where else is there on the internet that’s like this?
Without this place at best my connection to the left at all would be like a Monthly Review subscription, a Jacobin subscription, slowly working my way through marxists.org, and maybe occasionally reading whatever new releases from Verso looked interesting.