So I took it for a little while for my blood sugar. (I’m a non-diabetic hypoglycemic, and it doesn’t just ‘smooth’ glucose for people with diabetes- it smooths it for anybody who could use it for that. I’m off of it now because it’s so goddamned expensive.)

Lemme say… It’s such a miracle drug, and improves so much stuff, that I’m seriously waiting to find out that it turns us all into spider mutants or something, because even if I found out I’ll turn into a spider when I’m 60, I’d still take it. It’s that fuckin’ amazing.

Absolutely batshit that they’ve invented a drug so good, almost everybody wants to be on it.

Oooh, thank you for reminding me that game exists. I still haven’t played it, and so many people have told me it’s good!

There are over 1,000 pokemon. I think it’s a Tolkien situation- where famously, you can’t write fantasy without using ingredients that Tolkien created, because if you do, obviously it’s from Tolkien, and if you didn’t, the reader is asking why not? That kinda deal.

If you set out to create a game involving collecting, or even looking at and cataloguing, a bunch of different fantasy creatures, you’re going to have some that are at least a little similar to pokemon. The electibuzz/grizzbolt example you gave is a fantastic one. You’re claiming it’s stolen, but that there is a cat creature with a single lightning bolt in it’s belly. Versus a… monkeything? Covered in them. My point here being, even if they didn’t steal (which, I’m sure they did, there are other, better examples) at a certain point you have to accept that with 1,000 pokemon, there’s going to be overlap, so you either need to just be up front about the stealing, or you need to spend 5x the amount of development time making sure none of your creatures have overlap.

Personally, Pokemon has been around for more than 25 years. Even if they released a million games a year, they shouldn’t get to gatekeep ‘all creature-collection simulators that you use balls for and that you can ride like a dragon.’ Fuck that. They got infinite money back on their initial investment, and they shouldn’t be allowed to just own the ideas. This is the kind of bullshit that makes me (a lifelong pokemon fan) want to never, ever, ever give them money again.

Big same. Hope we run into each other again ♥

I don’t think that you and I are entirely in agreement here, however. When I say that we need to fight back against this as furiously as we fight fascism, I absolutely condone the use of violence against fascism. It seeks to harm men, even the people brainwashed into supporting it, and it seeks to harm women, especially those who aren’t willing to be subjugated. The paradox of tolerance is the only reason it’s been allowed to go as far as it has gone. I’m not seeing a peaceful way out of it.

ETA: For the record, we’re on the same side, and I love that for us! And I’ve upvoted you. I used to believe that violence was never, ever the answer, even the language of violence. But at this point… I don’t think I can afford to hold that point of view any more.

Because the sort of people who would downvote that, have learned to avoid trying to get into these conversations.

People would likely be downvoting because if we’re having a conversation about group A doing Z bad thing to group B, changing the conversation to “well group B does Y bad thing to group A” is generally seen as a not cool thing to do.

The problem for me now is, someone is going to come and try fighting me over how men can be, and are, victimized. I know that. Anyone with a brain knows that. Men need more support than they’re getting, also, and toxic masculinity (ironically, the same kind you can find in the Man-o-Sphere) is so, so mean to men, telling them to walk it off, to suck it up… I can’t tell you how much work I’ve had to do to help deprogram the fiance, who spent 20 years in the Army… But that wasn’t the discussion. It’s changing the topic.

You’re not allowed to talk about any problems women face, without someone saying, “but men have problems, too,” and then getting mad at you for being a man-hater if you don’t immediately drop the thing you were talking about to discuss the problems men face. Which is such a shame, because it solves neither problem, and just serves to piss people off.

So now that I’ve engaged you, and said the thing those people weren’t saying, someone (possibly multiple someones) are going to try and fight me. I’m going to try and ignore them, but I have ADHD, so we’ll see what happens.

The difference between the nude beach and getting unsolicited dick pics, is if you go to a nude beach, you kinda agreed to see naked people.

Redpill, incel, gender-normative bullshit is violence. It seeks to hurt men by forcing them into the mold of “masculinity” (and defines that masculinity, in some places, in a very toxic fashion) and we all know how it hurts women.

It needs to be fought back, and as furiously as fascism.

From Hark a Vagrant!

(Use your imagination)

Do I have to?

Love that energy! That’s kind of how I feel about the Elder Scrolls. I can’t get into it but I’m so glad there are people who do.

I screamed!

What great news!

I’m so glad you said this because I came to say the same thing.

“Oh, the 62-year old man with diabetes lost vision? That’s literally never happened to anyone ever.”

That happens to people on insulin, off insulin, on other sugar controlling drugs! This is diabetes!

I have an answer for this that’s from my personal life if that’s helpful.

I’ve lived either in the great plains or in the rural south my entire life, and I only found out a year ago you can pay $20 to rent a pickup truck. So up until that point, I thought, every group (of friends or family) has to have a person with a truck in it, in case someone needs to move, or in case of an emergency (like a tornado effing up their house and now you have to clear the property).

When I found out that renting a truck is so cheap, I was so mad! All that time wasted paying extra for more car than I needed! I prefer something small and cheap and efficient, personally, but so does everyone else I know so I always wound up with the truck. (And I helped a LOT of people move over the years as a result.)

Obviously this is n=1 but at least it’s my story? And my answer is legit, “ignorance and being too poor to own my house, and landlords like to jack rent on someone staying in one place every year so you have to keep moving to avoid that needless creep of fees.”

On the plus side, if anybody reading this ever has reason to think that they might need to go into a police station and remove someone being held there, apparently if you and a friend or two look sufficiently the part, you can just walk in, in plainclothes, and claim to be Homeland Security, and just… take a dude and leave.

I want to come throw hands on all these people for you!

I’m genuinely sorry your boss said that to you, but it sounds so fucking ridiculous I laughed. Jesus. Imagine being so stupid that someone might die.

I hear they just gave everyone on the Skyblivion mod team a copy of the remaster.

“MS-13” here just means “brown people.”