Even the Mahabharata is like a thorough endorsement of Patriarchal power structures but it's what makes mythology and its fuzzy ironic (ambivalent?) relationship with its historical context so interesting
It's probably worse living with chuds but the libs I live with are, of course, insufferable right now and I must ventpost for the sake of my sanity.
I can tell they respect my opinion, and they aren't idiots, but at this moment it means they want to hear me echo their enthusiasm and when I don't they are upset with me. And I'll admit it does drive me nuts to see them march around as the self-appointed warriors of Good and Reasonable Opinions while also having a huge Gaza-shaped blind spot. I'll admit it's probably not easy to force oneself to think soberly when the smell of victory is in the air but I think they can detect how appalled I am to see them just handwave away an ongoing genocide. I guess I can just hope that maybe the reason they keep probing me about it is because they feel that contradiction and they're hoping to discover a way to resolve it without having to admit they're being immature (ironic because they are older than I am)
Biology disciplines that focus on evolutionary study really do have rightoid enclaves, it feels very much like a microcosm of the ideological side of being right wing since studying evolution is ultimately systemic study and these people instead boil down the rich and fascinating narrative of evolutionary history into a series of great man narratives except it's Great Gene Theory instead.
ANTS
ALL LEFTIES SHOULD LEARN THE WAYS OF THE ANT
Unironically, they make for an incredible model of societies and their moving parts, even down to how they recruit one another for group tasks and how labor is divided up (most of them don't do shit most of the time and it's a good thing)
AntWiki has the full text of EO Wilson's famous book, good place to dip your toes in https://antwiki.org/wiki/The_Ants
It's true, overall it's more functional than Pathfinder's stealth which barely exists beyond "flat footed" attacks. But the stealth was very similar in Divinity Original Sin and tbh I thought the overall combat of those games fit that stealth system better. In BG3 I often feel like barrelmancy kind of trivializes the rest of the combat systems and is just a test of whether or not you did a bunch of preparation/collection beforehand. It's fun but I didn't feel much compulsion to mess with it again after the novelty wore off.
Yeah but it isn't as satisfying to me tbh, the sneaking itself is more fleshed out in bg3 of course but it doesn't have the staggering number of interaction with skills and effects that the introduction of sneak attacks in Pathfinder offers
Wrath is so fucking crunchy I love it, it took a long time to get used to its many systems but there is so much build variety and the voiced characters, while still limited imo by the flat tropes of fantasy, had some surprisingly good moments.
Bg3 does not allow me to make a Sensei Monk front liner who does not attack but stacks dodge ac while buffing the party with bard songs, bg3 does not allow a sneak attacking ray caster who snipes people with ice beams, bg3 does not allow for anything as interesting as the constitution-based Kineticist caster.
Also at the end of the day Wotr is FUCKING LONG, while that is intimidating it means that if it clicks with you, you have a seriously HUGE epic of a campaign to enjoy
EDF 6 does not disappoint if you happen to like the very specific type of game that EDF is. Obviously limited assets and an old engine still get used very inventively, and that's not even mentioning the writing. 5 really surprised me with its surprisingly clever and self-aware script, delivered entirely by voice actors who sound like they normally do translations of textbooks rather than fiction, which somehow adds to the vibe.
Warning you now that Golden Dragon is very limp, you can really only do it in act 5 and it doesn't get a lot of meat. Angel is fleshed out but I don't like Angel and I think the devs agree tbh, Owlcat does not present lawful alignment very flatteringly in the long run. Azata get all the proper good guy moments imo
@Poogona
@hexbear.net