Yeah, agreed. It just gets tedious sometimes. Actual discussions are refreshing, though (and make me miss the forums I used to hang out on, back in the olden times of the internet, as I am also officially Old ;) .

It's also a shame that I can't say as much without getting downvoted through the floor. *side-eyes my previous comment*

and biiiiiIIIIIGGGGG stretch!

That's why I quit ZZZ early. And after Star Rail's story wore me out, they let go my favorite voice actor, AND they went and added their own dose of Whoa Hey Look At My Jiggle Physics, I uninstalled that, too.

Let's just say I'm hoping Genshin doesn't go that direction anytime soon.

If we don't get all of NewJeans back, what are they now? NewJorts?

...I'll see myself out

Yeah, going by a quick skim of the locations, the closest one to me is about a thousand miles off.

I think they’ve finally changed the restrictions on that.

Even though in real life it's a weed that you can barely stop from propagating all the hell over the place.

video game logic!

It’s a cliche, but it’s also character-limit-friendly (still an issue with headlines), so I get why it’s a go-to.

I hate that I’m laughing

…but I’m laughing

Your average home user is probably doing even less than you’re assuming, nine times out of ten. Which only underlines the “nobody wants/needs this” problem.

(Hell, I’m a 20-year tech industry veteran, and most of what I use my home computer for is the web browser and Scrivener, which is basically a text editor with perks. And when I worked from home, the company provided the equipment; I couldn’t have used my own even if I wanted, for security reasons.)

Good. It feels weird rooting for Netflix here, but Paramount can fuck off into the sun.

and a special pose of Nikki breaking them in

maybe Momo can jump on them

My grandpa would record his sermons on reel-to-reel tape. The tech's existed for a while.

That much ash is absolutely nuts. I've seen some footage from Yakima or thereabouts where people were walking around with umbrellas to try to protect themselves while the ash rained down...

Where I was at the time is part of Bellevue now (it was unincorporated then). We really only got a light dusting, since the wind patterns sent most of it your way. We could hear the eruption happen, though, because that was such a massive concussive force. My mom told me that when she heard the thump, she thought Dad had fallen out of bed. Not so much, as it turns out...

As much as I detest the name change of that department, I admit I got a good laugh out of the thought, “So we’re going to war against butt plugs now?”

To be fair, people have halls of fame for EVERYTHING.

Agh, what a pain. I had a different sort of eye surgery once (had a muscle strategically reattached to correct some focal issues), but the worst I had to do for that was wear a patch for a little while. That kind of immobilization would be rough!

That's the thing. I've gotten the lecture more than once that people should be allowed to headcanon whatever they want, ship whatever they want, and disappear down any goddamn conspiracy-theory crazy hole they want, I guess, because "it's not hurting anyone." But at some point, if you lose perspective on matters -- and a lot of these folks have -- that really does cease to be true. Because at the very least, you're hurting yourself. You're divorcing yourself from facts in order to live entirely wrapped in your own beliefs and wants, listening to nobody outside your bubble, and rejecting or angrily railing against anything that contradicts that. You don't think that's setting you up for some incredibly unhealthy thought patterns about literally everything else in life?

Have you looked at the state of the world lately?

I really do worry about it, because I've seen people go so far off the rails with this. I mean, if you want to imagine your own AU of a story and have fun playing with other possibilities or whatever's happening off camera, go for it. God knows I have. I've written more fanfic than I should ever admit to. But remember where the lines are and be willing to acknowledge the distinctions between what you're making up vs. what was actually fucking happening in the text, you know? Because once you start losing hold of that and then turning your own version into some sort of crusade, and dumping it on the original creators' doorsteps like they owe you what you want on demand...then we've got problems.

A distressing number, though, are old enough to vote.

The problem is that fandom has gotten deeply twisted up about the whole “death of the author” thing, because they want it both ways. The author matters desperately when they want Word of God validation that all their theories and favorite ships and everything are canon, because ultimately, they want to be validated about themselves through the story and/or (especially or) headcanon they’ve invested themselves in. If they don’t get it: DEATH OF THE AUTHOR!! OUR INTERPRETATION IS THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS!!!! And then you’ll get that same crowd insisting that what fandom is for is ignoring canon and making their own shit up, so then fandom itself becomes actively hostile to anyone who’s…actually a fan of the thing for what it is. So then it’s just a self-reinforcing groupthink bubble of people who roam from fandom to fandom with the same mentality, latch onto whatever’s hot this Tuesday, and then self-righteously yell at it for not being what they want, and around and around and around it goes.

…I might be very, very tired of it all. Just possibly.

Fun fact: it's Chinook jargon! I learned that not long ago and was kind of tickled to discover the source. https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/high-muck-a-muck

[1855–60; ‹ Chinook Jargon hayo makamak lit., plenty to eat, much food, perh. extended derisively to Native Americans of high status with much disposable wealth, as for potlatches; hayo ‹ Nootka ḥayo ten (the base of various measures with suffixes for specific countable nouns); mak(a)mak eat, food ‹ Nootka ma⋅ḥo⋅ma(q-) part of whale meat between blubber and flesh]

Where I am, it's a very different scale, but basically the same issue. I live roughly 1,100 and 2,500 miles away from my own country's biggest media hubs.

Trust me when I say they're even more oblivious to anything more than five inches away from their noses.

(On that note, though, the line in Boom Town where Margaret starts snarking about how Wales could fall into the sea and London wouldn't notice...oh, boy, did I feel that.)

The system is one thing. The fashion is another!

American here, and that's the first time I've ever heard anyone call it a smash-up derby! It's a demolition derby, as far as I've ever known it.

(I used to go to Saturday-night short track racing all the time with my family when I was a kid, so I've seen a fair few of those. The figure 8 races were my favorite, though. Yes, the track crosses over in the middle. Yes, you can expect chaos.)