loobkoob

rich people ~~who ruin things~~

I wouldn't say I'm consciously boycotting Ubisoft, personally. But I sure as hell haven't bought one of their games for a long time, and with the way they've been going as a company in general, I can't see myself buying anything from them in the near future. If they do release something worth buying then I'll consider it, though.

"Access your data for all websites" is important because otherwise it doesn't know what domain you're on in the first place.

My usual go-to is to ask what their latest/current obsession is. It works really well for a few reasons:

• it's nice and simple to ask - it doesn't require a monologue/wall of text to set up, and it doesn't require you to know anything about them to ask it;
• it's both as personal and as low-stakes as they want it to be. They can give very intimate, in-depth answers if they feel like it, or they can just mention something like the latest film they enjoyed. There's no risk of making them uncomfortable by asking it;
• it lets you filter out boring people who don't really take interest in anything;
• assuming they do have interests, it often gives you plenty of opportunities to dive into deeper conversation;
• it's often engaging for them because they get to talk about something they're passionate about;
• it's often interesting for you because people talking about things they're passionate about is awesome (and often attractive).
• it's pretty much always relevant and fresh because their latest obsession will change over time. This makes it particularly great for things like dating sites/apps because people's bios will often be out of date and/or they'll have talked about the things mentioned in their bio so much that they're kind of sick of them.

I've actually had multiple people on dating sites tell me how great a question they think it is, and that they're going to use it themselves in the future. So obviously it's not just me who thinks it's a great question!

I don't know about you, but I'm definitely not hydrated enough to take a piss break every five minutes!

"I can't find a source because the government and [[[globalist]]] mainstream media is covering it up. Do your own research"

I have the theory that vampires hating garlic is a rumour spread by vampires themselves because they really love garlic. Getting the humans to season themselves is a genius move.

Must be nice to never have to worry about defending yourself from attackers who overpower you or who have weapons.

As someone who lives outside of the US: it is nice. You guys should try it.

Yeah, I really liked the premise. I never got into Game Of Thrones purely because it felt to me like it relished the violence, gore, sexual abuse, cruelty, etc, too much. I'm not some puritan who's against stories featuring those things, but I don't enjoy seeing them constantly depicted in detail.

Anyway, the idea Shadow and Bone being this fantasy show with in-depth politics without leaning too heavily into all that stuff was appealing to me. But yeah, it ended up just feeling rather tropey, flat, and very "young adult" (in a bad way).

Also: hell yes to Andor! It's easily my favourite show from the past few years.

I don't think it was just poor acting that did it. Even Ben Barnes, who I think is a really good actor, couldn't make up for the poor writing and direction. He was definitely still the highlight for me, but watching him in this versus The Punisher or season 1 of Westworld really showed how much the material was lacking here.

There certainly were some actors I wasn't particularly enamoured with, but I think quite a few of them did as well as they could with what they had to work with. I think fairly flat direction and undynamic scenes were the biggest issue, even more so than the not-so-great writing.

In general, though, I found it just felt very "young adult fiction", and not in a good way. I never ended up finishing the first season either.

If everyone's super(rich), no-one is.

But the issues for men are largely being done to themselves by themselves. Suicide and drug addiction are self-inflicted. Women can’t stop men from harming themselves any more than they can stop them from harming women. It’s not an equivalent problem.

My (male) friend has just, at my insistence, permanently cut ties with a woman he'd been having an on-again, off-again situationship with because she's just chosen to go back to her (violently and sexually) abusive ex. I'm not going to say the abuse itself is self-inflicted, because obviously that's on him being a truly terrible person, but she absolutely was the one responsible for going back to him, to the point where one could easily argue it's no less self-inflicted than suicide or drug addiction.

I told my friend to cut ties with her because, frankly, it's not healthy for him to try to take on her burdens when she's not in a mental/emotional position to help herself. It's been messing him up for too long already dealing with trying to be her emotional support through her lies and her traumas she refuses to see a therapist about. And he's had a really shitty year outside of his issues with her anyway.

I mention all of this because it inverts your examples. Do you feel this woman deserves no sympathy because she's chosen to go back to the abusive ex, and therefore it's self-inflicted? Does the fact that she's a compulsive liar who struggles to open up properly - to be honest and make herself vulnerable - mean she doesn't deserve support? Or would you still say she's an abuse victim struggling with trauma who needs all the support she can get? Neither framing is inaccurate, but one is certainly far more sympathetic than the other.

Ultimately, her choosing to go back to her abusive ex is a result of her traumas. She feels lonely and worthless, and being wanted even just a tiny bit by her abusive ex gives her enough of a feeling of validation that she's willing to risk being abused again. She's chasing a high that isn't worth it at all, just like people who are addicted to hard drugs. It's all just people seeking a way to escape their reality if only for a moment, even if that comes with a huge cost down the line when the high's no longer there. It's all people struggling to deal with their traumas.

Framing it as "men versus women" isn't healthy - it needs to be "society versus the problems". It's not a zero-sum issue; men having issues doesn't invalidate women having issues, and vice versa. And there being societal advantages for men doesn't mean men don't also have issues, just like there are societal advantages for women but also plenty of issues. We can, and need to, care about multiple issues at once and work together to solve them.