Posts made by Wizz

I am feeling pretty tired of the negative experiences I have been having in this hobby and no longer think the positives outweigh the emotional harm, and I also feel like maybe I can't get over some difficult and negative things about myself until I have some actual distance to do some healing. I don't know if or when I might come back, I thought I could maybe take a break and come back but after having tried a few times now I don't think so.

I really wish weaponizing other people's vulnerabilities wasn't such a common or acceptable thing even for a lot of "normal" and even popular people in this community (eta: the MU* community just to be clear, not just MSB, lol) but that just is what it is.

I also don't like who I have become when I log in here, I'm a much more petty, cynical and bitter dude than I ever wanted to be, so this is a more definite goodbye to the forum.

We've had some good times and I appreciate the opportunity to flex our creativity and share some laffs.

If you want to keep in touch, my Discord is nthnl#4369, send me a message with your username here if it's not obvious.

Otherwise, keep on keepin' on MSB. Bye!

@reimesu said in GMs and Players:

@wizz No, that's coming from experience. Shit, Dev had to convince ME that my particular joyous bundle of creep was, in fact, being predatory. Because that guy weaponized stupidity like it's a damn art form. But because I communicated, it got sorted and fast.

I really don't know how to explain to you that your experience is not universal if you honestly think it is. Frankly, you got lucky that someone intervened at that stage. Other people don't and holding what happens next against them if they might not have kept receipts after an extended period of gaslighting and manipulation is just shitty, period.

@devrex

Frankly, after watching you and @derp both go on about this for over five pages now I don't think there is anything that could possibly be productive about anyone continuing this conversation with either of you, no.

@devrex said in GMs and Players:

If the premise is, "manipulators are very good at fooling people" then how do I know the person who flings the accusation isn't trying to manipulate me into kicking someone off my game so as to ensure some evidence they have doesn't get out? If they're really this masterful, then an approach of "Ok, someone said someone else is bad, they gotta go" is just as bad.

Yeah, if I started from the base assumption that everyone has an angle and could possibly be manipulating me in that situation, I would have a hard time understanding it too.

But that just comes back again to having more arrogance and contempt than empathy. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

@devrex said in GMs and Players:

I believe that most of the time, these asshats are just not that clever, that the trail is there if people will just share it.

Then you are underestimating abusers who have literally had decades to perfect their MO in an extremely specific medium and in the process you are doing an enormous disservice to vulnerable players.

I'm not saying there aren't idiots among them, there obviously are. But in assuming that's somehow the majority you are being arrogant and also showing us a really disappointing contempt for the people they hurt.

@lotherio said in Good TV:

I don't see a chop doc as being out of place on Tatooine, the exposed part is questionable, but other cyborgs have been on Tatooine in the cannon and covered up as much as Fennic does.

I don't disagree with you that he belonged on Tattooine just for being a cybernetic technician, cyborgs seem relatively common in Star Wars and he or someone like him would obviously be needed there. Again, it was purely the aesthetics that bother me about him. He's in a little shack in the middle of absolutely nowhere, mostly doing these like highly stylized prosthetics for...rich kids? What?? It's just silly!

@lotherio said in Good TV:

ETA: I know there is mixed criticism, but from me, one of the older folks that saw SW in the theaters during its first run back in the 70s, Boba Fett has left me excited to see some of the upcoming star wars.

I get that Star Wars in theaters was a formative experience for so many people and completely changed the way we make sci fi. I do.

It was a formative experience for me too, even if I first saw it on VHS instead.

If I seem over the top in my criticism about it that's probably fair.

It just really bothered me that for such a beloved character they often left directing in the hands of a goofball like Robert Rodriguez and made so many questionable or outright nonsensical choices in the writers' room. We have proof that they could have done better because they already did!

@lotherio said in Good TV:

I was good with it near the beginning even with the mods looking half as much like the mods in 60s UK as much as a cyber gang

My issue wasn't that that the Cyborg Mod Squad existed, because again, I could totally have seen them existing on Coruscant or whatever with no issue. But I ask again for the ages: Tattooine? The fuck? These young kids with the disposable income to dress in high fashion and buy shiny, brightly colored mopeds and get cybernetic limbs and shit are just...hanging out on Tattooine, a dust ball ridden with crime, described by Luke as the place furthest from cool possible. Right.

It is just glaringly out of place aesthetically and logically. The most infuriating example of what I mean is when they meet the ripper doc or whatever and Boba asks the guy why he is leaving the internal parts exposed and the dude is like "because that's awesome" like a complete fucking moron even though they are ON A PLANET COVERED IN SAND which would wreak utter havoc to said parts, literally one of the first fucking few lines in New Hope is C-3PO complaining about how all the sand will freeze his joints.

It's just pants on head stupid and amateurish, and proof they didn't stop and think about what they were filming for five minutes, which is how the entire season comes off to me.

If they wanted to have some Cyberpunk in their Star Wars, there was a blatantly better example of the right aesthetic right there: the Nomads. Like, come on now.

The finale was real dumb, imo to probably the surprise of no one, haha. I liked the intentionally comedic moments, that Twi'lek guy is just pure gold, but otherwise it was full of more just purely silly or poorly executed crap. Bah.

For some reason my Facebook feed has been flooded with shitty advertising for nutjob End of Days-style prepper products full of Christian symbolism, dumb "patriotic" gear, and gross Men's Rights video seminars.

What the fuck did I do to trigger this?? How do I turn it off??

@tinuviel said in RL Anger:

Not being someone's friend isn't the same as bullying or treating poorly. So conversation should be had, but there's nothing really that a teacher can do.

I feel like I maybe did not explain the situation well enough. I was pretty upset when I posted it and didn't even get the full story from his teacher until later that day, I apologize. My son did not have three friends individually come up and tell him over the course of the day or whatever, this was something that happened in the classroom all at once. For some reason the subject of religion came up, and when he admitted he did not believe in God, three of his classmates who also happened to have been his friends since the beginning of the school year said they wouldn't be anymore, and other children in the classroom joined in.

Some kids were defending him thankfully, but it was a nightmare, several kids were all telling him at once that they would not be his friend or involve him anymore, and that absolutely is bullying. When he went to the teacher she copped out instead of taking it seriously by saying she couldn't force them to be his friend, which wasn't the issue and she later admitted to me was wrong of her.

Again, as mentioned above, if my son had been  Muslim or Jewish or Hindu or anything else, this would be so cut and dry. But for some reason when the discrimination is against agnostics or atheists many people in the US suck their teeth and hem and haw about stopping it, it's a double standard and it fucking sucks.

Luckily, the teacher did the right thing yesterday and dedicated some class time to talking about accepting others for their differences instead of excluding them, and the kids involved were very open to it and my kid was able to patch things up with them.

I appreciate the input and/or the empathy, peeps. This was quite a trip.

@ganymede said in RL Anger:

I would just tell your son that his friends are assholes.

I mean, they're not, though? They're just little nine and ten year olds, parroting the garbage their shitty parents tell them behind closed doors. I really won't hold that against them and I am not going to encourage my kiddo to either. Before today he was really fond of them, it's just a shame.

I'm more disappointed with the teacher, who had this glaringly obvious teachable moment and didn't react appropriately at all. I asked her about it directly after my son came home seething and near tears, and she admitted that she did not handle it the way she should have and a lot more kids got involved in the argument than my kid initially told me.

She's promised to address it with the class on Wednesday. I think it's crucial that she does, because the intervention of another authority figure can do SO much to counteract bigotry learned at home.

@too-old-for-this said in RL Anger:

Given that students rarely get to dictate what happens in class during school hours, I'm going to guess that that isn't, in fact, it. They do not get to exclude his child from any school activity as they lack the authority to do so.

They can just...not play with him, or choose him for teams, or talk to him at lunch/recess, or...on and on and on. Kids absolutely can shun each other and make each other miserable at school.

I have no idea what you're on about, preventing religious discrimination is absolutely a teacher's responsibility and claiming "separation of church and state" as an excuse to allow the discrimination would be enormously shitty and erroneous anyway as @Derp pointed out.

Three of my son's school friends today told him they will no longer be his friend because he doesn't believe in God, and when he went to his teacher for help and explained the situation, she refused to intervene and said that it's their choice and that it's okay. Cool. Cool cool cool.

Return of the Mandalorian is just proof that in the right hands, the really cool concepts in the Book of Boba Fett can work. I liked this episode so much it made me angry, haha. I had sworn off the show, goddammit!!!

@jomomomo said in 2022: A New Year, New Dead Celebrities:

The incomparable Meat Loaf

"If I gotta be damned, you know I wanna be damned, dancing through the night with you!!!"

Bat Out Of Hell was like the theme song for my twenties. And...thirties.

And...goddamn it. I am in my feels about this one.

I just can't with Boba Fett anymore. My mouth was actually agape watching episode four, and I kept saying out loud, "oh my god, there is no way they're about to do something that stupid. Are they that stupid?"

And then they were that stupid. It almost feels deliberate to me, like someone is just trying to drive this project into the ground and salt the earth.

***=Like how else do you even explain***

Disney must think we are fucking morons, or just can't be assed, or I don't even know what, it is just insulting either way and I am not watching anymore.

@arkandel said in Good TV:

That's something they should have been able to work around though - Fett wears a full armor and helmet, for crying out lout. Surely they could have professional stuntmen doing the flippy flip stuff.

I kinda wonder if they ran into the Robert Downey Jr. Problem, where there was some part of Temuera Morrison's contract stipulating that he get a certain percentage of screen time for his face??

It is otherwise pretty odd how often he's just wandering around with his helmet off, considering he literally has to do all of his own grunt work for his "crime family," lol.

@buttercup said in Good TV:

They killed off the only kinda/sorta part of the series I kinda/sorta liked already.

Same. I really thought they were going somewhere with that, but they're already done-zo by episode 3, which is...a puzzling choice.

Maybe they'll revisit it later?

But yeah, the Cyborg Mod Squad is just goofy and completely out of place on Tatooine. I would have accepted them on Coruscant, but like...the hell are these trust fund kids doing in some backwater slum, struggling to pay for water if they can afford their fancy dapper clothes, mopeds and prosthetics?

I would have personally stopped short of saying it was bad before I saw the third episode, but now I'm struggling to find positive things to say about it either.

It's hard to put into words exactly what's wrong, because on paper everything happening should be cool as hell -- a grim sci fi story about the rise of a crime lord on a barren desert planet, featuring a man who has been witness to some of the biggest events in the galaxy and now just wants a slice? How is that not fucking rad??? -- but the execution is...off. The sets and costumes are too weirdly clean and brightly colored. Everything looks like it's made of plastic and rubber to a degree that seems almost deliberate.

Parts of the premise are kind of baffling (he's supposedly taken over Jabba the Hutt's criminal empire, but up until the third episode it's like...literally just him, Fennec Shand and two pig aliens? That barely even qualifies as a street gang. Why anyone takes them seriously is never explained.) Any fight choreography involving Fett so far is frankly pretty goofy. It's understandable given that he's not a young guy but with at least one action set piece an episode, that's a looooot of upcoming awkward, clumsy fighting to swallow, and the pacing throughout is painfully slow. There's a speeder "chase" scene where everyone involved appears to be moving at maybe 15 miles an hour? It's so weird and like I said, just off.

@selira said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

What does it matter, aside from trying to make a child feel bad?

Man, god forbid I just hurt a child's feelings. I'm not sure what the fuck they're doing here, kinda seems like there are larger problems if they're regularly hanging out on this forum.

But with the sarcasm out of my system:

Speaking for myself, didn't really think this one through and it is admittedly shitty. I happen to know for a fact that the guy I was referring to was upper middle class and white, where the phonetic spelling trend we were specifically sharing a laugh over is all the rage, but that's not really an excuse. Spelling is arbitrary and mutable, I can see how it's a very hazy line between outright racism, etc. I am genuinely sorry to anyone I offended who did not speak up.

I usually get a bit exasperated with the sponsored ads on Facebook because they're a constant reminder of how much personal data they're blatantly selling, but today I got a solid chuckle out of one.

It was a company that buys old junker cars, with a big "CLICK HERE FOR AN ESTIMATE" link button, but the comment thread is filled with over a thousand people just...describing their car (???), and asking for an estimate right there in the thread. Some of them include a picture (as if that will help), but most don't. It is one of the first times I have ever seen so many people become the living embodiment of that famous commercial.

"uh yeah it's a 92 Honda accord, got some scratches and dents, the trunk won't open. How much will you give me."

Lol. I do feel bad for the poor person running the social media account who has to copy and paste the same directions to click on the link to the website literally just above them a million times a day.

@greenflashlight said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

Why do I still have a subscription to this?

I've been asking myself this a lot lately, aside from Netflix making some really awful calls in response to the Chappelle crap. Some of their original content is interesting, but I will literally never watch most of it.