Moonworm [any]

  • 32 Posts
  • 612 Comments
Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: January 1st, 2024

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  • Repeating this comment that I deleted because I have OCD; which should have no bearing on the worth of what I'm saying. Just to avoid any confusion.

    I'm not a big fan of the dunk culture, and I've expressed as much alongside my criticisms of this site's general misanthropy. But as I've watched this thread play out, I feel myself leaning much more strongly toward the users who are critical of this decision. You should listen to your userbase. It feels real fucked up to me to just proclaim that wanting to gnash our teeth at bad opinions is "white" or "cishet male" as a justification as if that means that being against this decision is bad a priori without actually dealing with the underlying contradiction of trying to make a more constructive space while still allowing people to vent their legitimate frustration. I have plenty of reasons why I don't like the culture of dunking and think it contributes to a negative environment that is unthinking. But this is not the way to address it. Give the people what they want: Reggae Music easy posting.

    Look, Should dunking be moderated more aggressively to prune posts where it's just yelling at some nobody for having a bad take? Yes. Should we all strive to be more effective in our criticism of power and lay out why all the liberal justifications for de facto genocide? Yes. Should we just axe the whole thing that I don't even like to see here? No.

    I volunteer to moderate a successor comm, for whatever that is worth. I'll make a matrix account and pledge to just watch out for "yelling at nobodies" or posting a take that happens to come from someone who is potentially considered cringe.

    Love all of you anyway though.









  • I've largely thought that dunking on people is a libidinal pleasure where you assert your own superiority over others and play-act exclusion, reinforcing that you and everyone else laughing at the bad person are inside and they are outside. It's not very useful because it becomes something that is engaged in and sustained for its own sake and which promotes contempt and dismissiveness as a reflex at the expense of actual analysis.





  • Playing Veilguard to ride out the immediate election fallout. It's growing on me a little. Now that things have opened up a little bit, I'm enjoying running around the areas doing little puzzles. The combat is definitely fun, I don't know if it's ever going to rise to any great height - the comparison to Mass Effect is definitely apt, although even in those I felt like the companion abilities were more . . . noticeable? As it is I don't really even notice the particle effects. Still, it's challenging enough on hard that I do feel like I have to actually make good decisions in how i take an encounter.

    Having spent some more time in the environments, they feel a little better. Some things are still really not working for me, like why the fuck are there ziplines all over? I do think the architecture in the big city is neat - there's kind of an art deco thing going on. But then I'm in this really nice-looking tavern with clean and polished stonework outside and giant decorative vases where everyone looks well-dressed and the bartender is talking about how sometimes they have mystery stew and the coffee might even be fresh like it's supposed to be run-down.

    The dialogue writing is still really not to my taste in tone and style, (frankly I think the technical skill on display isn't very great either) but there's occasionally something left vague enough to be interesting in the worldbuilding. The romantic dialogues have been largely atrocious I am taking nearly every one at this point because they're all these awful, saccharine, adorkable "ha ha jk, unless?" exchanges where these highly-competent adventurers who casually quip about terrible monsters and the end of the world struggle to communicate interest while also being incredibly forward. Maybe it'll get more interesting as the characters develop, but I feel like it's going to be hard to make satisfying when you just pick the heart dialogue option and the characters frictionlessly become more amorous for a moment.