Andor

Hate the Hapsburg fans who think the holy roman empire should be restored with them. They fuckin lost! It's an elective monarchy! Whoever the Napoleon heir is has a better claim!

There should be a villainous variation of the trans flag that is navy blue and electric pink. Like when countries do a darker version their flag (Greek junta etc).

I agree the books have scant details and could be much better, and less eugenist.

I think that with limited methods of communication deciphering the specific circumstances of all the conflicts on an incomprehensibly huge number of world's, after the fact would be difficult.

Have a great day. I'm out.

I'll go back and time and get Frank to fix it.

And if those "billions" of deaths throughout the universe were slavers and feudal lords getting got, can't say I think it's the great tragedy Herbert tries to paint it as.

I don't think it would be all righteous terror. We see historically when some empires collapse (Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, Russian etc) some people in the chaos decides it's a good time to do a pogram or genocide.

The explanation that would make sense to me is that there were contradictions all across the empire held in stasis but not resolved by the Imperial throne. When Paul ascends he basically triggers them all at once.

Slave and peasant rebellions. Great house feuds. Ethnic and religious tensions. The Fremen turn up to places and find people fighting already using supporting or opposing Paul as their excuse.

Like you couldn't rebel (good) or kill your rivals (neutral) or ethnically cleanse a minority (bad) without Shaddam and the Sardakaur possibly intervening, but now you can if you're quick enough to raise the banner if Atreides.

It's funny how the pronouns surveyed give away the answers of some of the users with less common ones.

"For the sake of Privacy Let's call her Lisa S... No That's too Obvious, let's say L. Simpson." Except fae/faer I guess

Yeah that sounds perfect. Curse whoever is responsible for that not happening.

I'd do an entire episode where Max is played by a woman without ever addressing that detail.

Is it propaganda if it's true?

The best propaganda is the truth.

Disney, Australian government and George Miller, give me the funding and permission to make a post-post-apocalypse mini-series set a thousand years after Fury Road where a Citadel History-Woman is trying to piece together whether Max was a real person or a shared mythology.

Like the descendants of the Northern Tribes call him the Road Warrior and he's a martial god. Barter town called him the Raggedy Man and he's a malevolent trickster figure. He's also known as Captain Walker for some reason in two completely different geographic locations (ones who stayed, ones who left). People in the citadel can't agree on if he was real or if Praetorian Jack or Dementus are versions of him.

I mean the PKK and YPG were explicitly Marxist Leninists when founded until they changed to democratic conferederalism.

We can have a debate (well we actually can't due to anti-sectarianism rules on Hexbear) about whether that is revisionism or opportunism or radical liberalism or dialectical materialism applied to their conditions or whatever or not. I'm not really sold either way.

It's different to European social democracy, etc. Nationalism can liberatory in the imperial periphery for oppressed demographics (and it can still suck too).

The problem is they aren't often actually portrayed as bi or pansexual. If the player doesn't interactive with them, nothing happens to establish their queerness and the fandom treats them as if they straight by default. Bi character in a game are good when they're making it clear from the get go that they are bi (like Iron Bull in Dragon Age).

The three Pope options were her, Leliana and Cassandra. She was probably the least popular so it kind of makes sense to give her that ending. Leliana had the most revolutionary one where she freed the mages and allowed them to govern themselves, which ended up causing lots of conflict.

Cassandra had the centrist option of making the mages cops partnered alongside the Templars (instead of their prisoners) and that fixed most things.

Templars wanted to eat rocks and kill all mages, mages wanted to not be killed?

Pretty much.

Oof. That's not good

Such a weird character arc she has too. She can become their equivalent of Pope, even though it should be impossible as she is a mage. Then if you do she sticks to the status quo on Mages and causes everything to be fucked up by not resolving the Mage-Templar contradictions.

I first found about this morning because people on twitter were arguing about whether the SDF or the YPG were running the camps. Which I guess is an important distinction but it's a moral stain on the YPG even if not directly involved that their partners/allies are doing this.

SDF are the broad coalition opposing Assad and ISIS, which the YPG are a large member (plurality not majority from memory). But the YPG who are the communists are also quite autonomous from the rest of the SDF. The USA prefers the SDF because they are easier to bribe and manipulate, but also needs the YPG because they can actually fight and tries to divide them up by internal factions and leaders. The SDF and YPG are generally mixed with people who are fully anti-Assad and those who are willing to cut deals (which the USA does not want).

I suspect it's probably non-YPG SDF running these but I'm going to wait for more information.

I liked Dragon Age 2. It was not good gameplay wise, but I did like that you were just some guy/gal and their odd collection friends hanging out in a fantasy city doing jobs and get rich schemes, rather than some chosen hero on quest to save the world.

Inquisition had some really good story beats but it was basically like playing a single player MMO, so much grinding and fetch quests.

I liked Cyberpunk's relationships. There's a moment after rescuing Saul, where Panem and V are drinking and can flirt, Panem has her legs on top of V, V can run their hand up Panem's thigh. If you're masculine it leads to a kiss and falling asleep together, if you're feminine it leads to a jarring shift in tone as Panem suddenly recoils realizing you're not joking and then awkwardly tries to diffuse the situation.

Even though it's a scene of rejection, it feels like a real lesbian experience, with all the discomfort attached.

They made all the love interests player-sexual (will romance regardless of gender), which upset reactionaries because "there's no straight option", because even if you play a guy and romance a lady, she could have romanced a lady too.

It's wild because player-sexual NPCs is kind of a step back from DA:I, that had explictly Bi characters (Iron Bull, Josephine), explicitly straight (Blackwall, Cassandra), explicitly gay (Dorian, Sera) and people who had limited romance options like Cullen (only female humans and Elves) and Solas (only female elf, but was meant to be bisexual but only to elves but cut due to time).

Fallout 4 is 9 years old and has player-sexual romances. The complaint about player-sexual relationships is that it erases queer identity and queer characters people can see. Having a character like Sera or Judy (from Cyberpunk) who is explicitly a lesbian etc. The argument for it, is if you don't you get silly things happening like Mass Effect having clearly queer or bisexual characters locked as straight.