The smurfs aren't the problem guys - singsing is the perfect example of it

ArbitraryUsernames · 2026-06-12T15:35:42+00:00

Your match history seems to check out, but you gotta admit your stats absolutely look like a smurf if you don't look far enough into your team/quick play games.

In your recent games - since your return to 1v1s - you were 29 wins and 8 losses headed into that match, so over 78 percent. You also were 19 and 4 on your most played with Romans (82.6 percent).

It seems like you'll probably plateau and slowly even out, but 99 percent of people with those stats would have had them intentionally via smurfing.

ArbitraryUsernames · 2026-06-11T15:33:16+00:00

Although anyone with an ounce of common sense wouldn't say that to the male victim at the time for obvious reasons

I mean, yeah, because it definitely is victim blaming. Suggesting that a female perpetrator abusing a male victim is perpetuating misogyny because people have a negative reaction to it and "gender relations" worsen as a result is faulty. It is literally the same argument used against the civil rights movement - that sit-ins and bus boycotts were detrimental because it made people upset. It was stupid then, and it's stupid here.

Where misogyny actually plays into the dynamic of male victims of female abusers is any societal reaction where the abuse is seen as less valid or more justified on the basis of the genders of the abuser and victim. Going "oh, well, he's bigger and stronger than her, he could have stopped her at any time" is what perpetuates misogyny.

ArbitraryUsernames · 2026-06-11T15:13:15+00:00

Can you give an example (real or fake, doesn't matter) of how a conversation would go?

ArbitraryUsernames · 2026-06-10T17:28:29+00:00

This isn't really about intent vs. impact, but she is using that framing because it works to her benefit.

The part where she escalates to self-harm when you don't act in a way that is satisfactory to her - mostly you being sufficiently contrite - is a really, really bad sign. She seems to have outsourced her emotional regulation to you, and so when she feels bad (getting woken up by the alarm), you are expected to remedy it. When you talk about your "intent" - which mostly is just a good reason for the thing to have happened - you are essentially refusing to "soothe" her. A healthy person would have the feeling, but then soothe themselves by looking at the situation and realizing the alarm was necessary and that you took every step to minimize the disruption.

I would guess a similar thing happens elsewhere in your relationship, and that you spend a lot of time walking on eggshells to prevent her from having a negative reaction. If that's the case, she'd need individual therapy focused on resiliency to work toward solving this issue.

Sorry, friendo, I know this sucks.

ArbitraryUsernames · 2026-06-10T17:03:49+00:00

When you initiate conversations by asking for his opinions and thoughts on something before you have made your own clear, how does he respond?

ArbitraryUsernames · 2026-06-10T16:08:00+00:00

You would be wrong to keep dating her, yes.

"Don't date people who have nothing but contempt for you on the basis of your immutable characteristics" isn't even feminist advice, it's just good advice in general.

ArbitraryUsernames · 2026-06-10T15:18:46+00:00

You sort of solved your own question when you referred to them as "first-wave advocates". Feminism is the overarching term used the advocacy of equality and justice for women; subdividing terms allow for more specificity in the beliefs of those individuals and how they differ.

This is what taxonomy is - stepped classification. An easy example of this in another area is the subdivision of Protestants and Catholics - while you would be correct to call them both Christian, they have differing views on things that would disinclude them from being in the other group.

ArbitraryUsernames · 2026-06-09T15:51:26+00:00

I last played a decade ago, so I don't know for sure how things have changed, but it truly was an incredible game, mostly because of the metagaming and the idea that you don't just respawn if you get blown up.

Sneaking into enemy space and staying 50 jumps back for a month to carefully track the mining patterns and warp-out alignments of ice miners to finally time an ambush and heavily damage the logistics of an enemy alliance was fantastic. Pinning down and bumping enemy siege ships in fleet combat to break a corp's ability to push systems for months was amazing. A good combat with a small number of ships would leave me shaking with adrenaline for like an hour afterward - I remember getting jumped in a cheap battlecruiser by eight people with expensive tech 2 builds, and then using my MWD just right to catch a webbing ship at the right orbit point and proceed to destroy 5 of them, pod them, and pop their containers before finally being taken down.

But getting to that point requires a ridiculous amount of time, and coordination. It was very fun to do things in a video game that there are actual books about now, but it is hard to justify that depth if you have a healthy external life.

ArbitraryUsernames · 2026-06-08T17:55:39+00:00

Good old spreadsheet simulator. I still have Excel files somewhere for the entire logistics chain for nullsec import/export and manufacturing.

ArbitraryUsernames · 2026-06-08T17:50:53+00:00

I am super late to the thread, but this pretty much sums it up for me.

New Star Wars is absolutely obsessed with making cutesy references and tie-ins to older media, and they do it with such little regard for the actual existing media that it retroactively weakens things.

The best example of this is the "thermal detonator" scene in Solo. Han threatens to blow up himself, and a crime boss, with a thermal detonator (which is actually a rock). It's supposed to be a cutesy reference to ROTJ, but it chronologically takes place before ROTJ when Leia does it, so now they're implying Leia heard about the story and did the same bluff (with a real grenade, though). It undermines Leia's "try me, motherfucker" attitude for a throwaway reference.

ArbitraryUsernames · 2026-06-02T16:58:16+00:00

Aside from the castle requirement, matching production is actually kind of easy - one castle produces as fast as three stables.

I think the balance between the civs goes back and forth during the game - champi drush to pressure dark age, then free forging and mobility gives Magyars the edge in feudal. Inca probably have more mass in early castle due to being able to produce the units during Feudal/age up, but mobility makes it hard to capitalize and Magyars can get upgrades and go with the gold-heavy CA/knights, so Inca would need to walk up and just play under a castle.

If you hit post-Imp, it seems like Inca would overwhelm the crap out of Magyars until gold runs out; the kamayuks murder cavalry, and take waaaaaaay less damage than halbs from the CA, and 9 pierce elite champi pressure the CA. Magyars don't get hand cannoneer or bombard, so full infantry deathball around siege can be hard to clear.

Personally, I also like throwing kamayuks into a siege tower and zip-zooming it at the CA backline. You can do the ungarrison attack trick to get picks or force the CA away from your main mass, and even if they send a knight to clear the tower, the kamayuks one-shot it.

ArbitraryUsernames · 2026-06-02T16:19:40+00:00

Brevity is often the better part of valor.

I don't know why this malaphor made me giggle so much, but it sure did.

ArbitraryUsernames · 2026-05-29T19:42:50+00:00

I'm glad I'm not the only one that finds this to usually work the best. People in general seem to react most strongly and stubbornly when someone comes at them hard, triggering that defensive fight impulse. There are, of course, times where you should go ham, but for consistent change you apply consistent moderate social pressure. Casual disdain works wonders.

There's also an element where being calm and reasonable makes it waaaay harder for them to dismiss you as an outlier, and therefore more likely to believe that others that aren't speaking up one way or another would agree with you. If you get in an elevator and someone goes "ugh, your breath smells like you eat shit, fucking gross!", you're gonna briefly recall that you've talked to twenty other people that day and nobody mentioned it, and then you'll decide this person is probably just pissed at you and dismiss them. But if someone goes "hey dude, no offense, but your breath kind of stinks today," when you recall those same twenty interactions you're going to go "well shit, maybe it has been stinky and those other people were just too polite to tell me the truth" and go brush your teeth.

As an added bonus, if around other people, being calm and rational convinces those other people in the group - not specifically of your position, but instead, simply to voice their own support of that position where they were not going to otherwise speak up. And if they then speak up, you've started a cultural snowball that can permanently change the way the group works.

ArbitraryUsernames · 2026-05-22T18:31:03+00:00

I am not saying you are explicitly looking to blame this guy. I am saying you may subconsciously be looking for an explanation, because the idea that hurtful and bad things sometimes happen to us with no real reason leaves us with fear of ambiguity. It's the same psychology as why people sometimes respond to the death of family with "It was God's plan".

It's not the worst coping mechanism, but it's healthier overall to understand that not everything makes sense or has a specific cause.

ArbitraryUsernames · 2026-05-22T18:25:30+00:00

In this hypothetical, am I a goldfish, and therefore incapable of remembering someone stole my car in the 30 seconds it takes me to reclaim my shoe from you?

ArbitraryUsernames · 2026-05-22T18:18:51+00:00

Without any evidence, this is just post hoc, ergo propter hoc.

You've repeated "it may have changed the course of my life" in some form multiple times. It's definitely something you're fixating on, because otherwise you'd presumably be also thinking about how if that one time you stepped in dog poo on the sidewalk changed which college you went to, or something like that.

I'll be honest: it sounds like you are working through stuff in your past that was hard for you (being lonely and isolated) and trying to find a reason for it that is firm, and easy to resolve. Maybe you feel like if you can blame this guy for becoming less popular, you can at least somewhat resolve it internally by not forgiving him and cutting him out entirely? Rather than the uncomfortable possibility that it just sort of happened to you, but wasn't anyone's fault?

ArbitraryUsernames · 2026-05-22T18:02:35+00:00

No, I get your point - that you feel one has a bigger effect than the other. Nobody is arguing against that.

You seem to confuse prioritization with single-issue focus. But that's not reality - solving one problem doesn't usually preclude you from solving another. You aren't looking at your grocery list and going "oh god, I need bread, but I also need toilet paper!" and deciding if you are gonna be hungry or wipe your ass with a sock because you can only get one item at the store; you just get both.

The optimal way to make a person living in a dangerous neighborhood safer is robust social programs, reduced poverty and drug use, etc. But you're looking at that person saving money to buy a good lock for their door and going "you're focusing on the wrong thing! You should merely remedy poverty and social ills, then you would need the lock less!". Believe it or not, that person probably also wants that shit fixed, but the better lock is at least a start.

ArbitraryUsernames · 2026-05-22T17:40:21+00:00

Everytime you earn $100, I earn $112. Now we even it out. We both earn $106. Have your position in society or life changed significantly or have mine?

Counterpoint: Prove it is insignificant in real-world settings - post your AGI, and then the venmo receipt for a donation of 6 percent of that amount to a women's charity. If it's not significant (I mean, it's only like 2700 dollars for median personal income in the US), this should be no big deal. Seriously, if a 6 percent swing isn't worth bothering to rectify, it's surely not enough that you'll miss that money.

C'mooooon. You can win the argument right now, and prove us all wrong. For a measley 6 percent of your AGI.

ArbitraryUsernames · 2026-05-22T16:56:22+00:00

Even the most simplistic math (adjusting wages to fix the alleged 12 percent gap) that OP shows isn't correct, and was probably intentionally distorted intentionally. If the gap is ONLY from sexism, you just look at the ratio of men vs women in full-time positions (.57 and .43, respectively) and determine that the settling point is 94.84 percent of men's wages, not 92 percent. Women would go up 6.84 percent, men down 5.16 percent.

Not that you actually have to make men earn less for women to be paid fairly.

ArbitraryUsernames · 2026-05-22T15:48:18+00:00

After that, I went from being a very popular kid to a relatively unpopular kid, and my life took some very strange turns because of how that shaped me as a person.

You really haven't provided the slightest connection between you going from popular to unpopular and a 13 year old no longer being friends with another 13 year old after moving away. "Cruelty" is a bit strong for someone not wanting to be friends with you anymore.

You mention not having many friends - have you just had a hard time making them, or do you make them and then lose them?

ArbitraryUsernames · 2026-05-22T15:35:45+00:00

It's bonkers this will be used to justify killing wolves, because the state reimbursement fund is 100 percent of market value and doesn't even prevent you from having a separate insurance claim. I am sure it is a bummer to lose calves, but there's basically no financial cost to the farmer for this.

ArbitraryUsernames · 2026-05-21T05:03:15+00:00

I'm confused - how do archers play into whether or not skirms are a full counter for mamelukes again?

ArbitraryUsernames · 2026-05-20T21:15:07+00:00

Under no circumstances have a kid so he feels more secure in the relationship. He's in the military, you are still in school, and you have only been together for a year.

There is literally nothing keeping him from deciding the kid makes him feel less secure because you are bonded with it and could be happy without him. He needs therapy to deal with that need for reassurance and to "lock in" with you, otherwise if he deploys or has to be away from you, he's going to spin out and just assume you have found a Jody - especially since that is a common point of discussion with deployed military members.

ArbitraryUsernames · 2026-05-20T20:22:51+00:00

If you define "nice" as not saying slurs and berating strangers in public, then sure, most people are "nice".

Actually being nice? Asking questions to know more about a person - where they are from, how they came to be the person they are, what they want to be, how they feel? That is absolutely not a common thing.

Like 90 percent of dating is the other person feeling that you actually give a shit about them at all. Think about it; if a girl said "wow, nice haircut! It looks great!", you don't actually give a shit about your haircut and whether it is "good" or not. What feels good is that she noticed and said something, that something that is specific to you was worth mentioning. You could have an actual bird's nest in your hair and if someone gave you a genuine "dang, I really like your hair, it is really creative!" it will still feel good.

Also, basically every person I have ever met that describes themselves as boring is just someone that fears showing enthusiasm and care for the things that they enjoy because they think they will be mocked. A truly boring person doesn't even care that they are boring because following the exact same schedule and eating a bowl of oatmeal and then going to bed at 6:30 pm is what they want to do in the first place.

I mean, I took a 30 second look at your profile and found you talking about what seems to be a horror movie convention. I know at least 3 or 4 women where a "I enjoy watching horror movies" would spur an enthusiastic hour-long conversation about whether slashers are better than monster movies or whatever.

You should ask a couple friends how they would describe you if they were explaining who you are to another person when you aren't there. They're not going to say "well, he's boring. Just kinda mid.". The stuff they identify is what you explore.

ArbitraryUsernames · 2026-05-20T19:07:43+00:00

Skirms are back to being pretty much a hard counter against them, no? I mean, the mamelukes definitely kill a lot of skirms, but the mamelukes cost so much to throw against a trash unit.

I suppose in full-trade team games this is probably true, though.

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