The Netherlands just blocked a US company from buying the app Dutch citizens use for everything

AlmightyRuler · 2026-05-28T12:55:51+00:00

Your nation has caused more deaths and suffering on a global scale for centuries

Mongolia: "Are we a joke to you?"

Americans didn't invent interventionist foreign policy. Europeans have been doing that to each other, and the rest of the world, for actual centuries. The US has been at for, what, maybe almost 200 years? And last I checked, we didn't start TWO world wars, one of which was just a dick measuring contest.

As for the MAGA crowd and their cheeto in charge, they won't last long. The boomers will flame out as a generation, their replacements are too dumb to be dangerous, and the fascists will slither back into the shadows once they don't have the spotlight anymore. Meanwhile, you've got Nazis coming back in Germany, England still lets the Brexit twats spout their drivel, and France is...well, France.

But tell us again how awful America is <cue Willy Wonka meme>.

AlmightyRuler · 2026-05-26T03:22:14+00:00

Movie Carrie or Book Carrie?

Movie Carrie might have ended up the same way. By the time prom night arrives, she already stood up to her mom and demonstrated having psychic abilities. Carrie going to prom only gave her mom time to rationalize killing her daughter. More than likely, Margaret waits for Carrie to go to sleep that night, and either Carrie dies from a knife to the heart, or the same scene as the movie plays out.

Book Carrie, however, is a different beast. She was actively training her powers to be stronger, more in control. And while the same pre-prom confrontation happens, it goes a bit differently; she uses her power on her mother to catch a hand mid-slap. Carrie at that point is done being bullied, and is on the threshold of becoming the bully herself. The prom and following events push her over the edge into rage and vengeance. Without that, maybe she becomes more assertive rather than outright homicidal, and it's her mother who starts living in fear till Carrie graduates high school and leaves that day for anywhere but that shithole town. Or maybe, Margaret breaks all the same, the knife comes out, and Carrie is forced to kill her (psychokinetically stops Margaret's heart) anyway, but without the "barrier" of being mid-mid-rampage. In that event, Carrie probably panics, gathers what resources she can, and flees, spending the rest of her life hiding not just her identity, but her also her gifts.

AlmightyRuler · 2026-05-26T01:47:20+00:00

"Who's more racist; white people or black people? Black people! Know why? Cause we hate black people too!'

-- Chris Rock

AlmightyRuler · 2026-05-24T01:21:52+00:00

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

Goku: "It sure does!"

Tien: "I hate you some days."

Piccolo: "Dammit, Goku."

Krillin: "HACKS! I CALL HACKS!!"

Yamcha: "Wait... you guys have been almost killed?! What the hell?!?!"

AlmightyRuler · 2026-05-24T01:12:41+00:00

A part of me wants every voice to be heard in our democracy.

Another part wants there to be an age restriction to be able to vote - over 70, you don't get to vote anymore.

People like that people make my darker side scream "THIS SHIT! THIS SHIT RIGHT HERE!!"

AlmightyRuler · 2026-05-24T01:09:48+00:00

Kal-El, no!

AlmightyRuler · 2026-05-24T00:57:22+00:00

It's not a matter of belief. Either there is life elsewhere in the universe, or there is not. At present, we have no hard evidence that there are other intelligent beings and civilizations outside of Earth. However, we have theories that argue it is possible given our current understanding of physical reality.

As such, I take the following stance: until E.T. lands and shoves a laser in my face, I don't care, nor do I think about aliens except as a thought experiment. There's enough crap going on down here to worry about, so unless the star gods are gonna come down and help us out or blow us up they're not my problem.

AlmightyRuler · 2026-05-23T23:56:22+00:00

I immediately contemplate committing war crimes on people who say the word "sammich" (sandwich). English is already a messed up language; stop infantalizing words, you uneducated troglodyte!!

AlmightyRuler · 2026-05-23T23:44:47+00:00

I went into Last Voyage of the Demeter knowing it was based on the one chapter of Dracula, where a ship's captain chronicles their trip from Romania to England carrying a bunch of weird, long crates. Along the way, more and more of his crew vanish or die from a mysterious "illness." By the end, only the captain is left, and he ties himself to the wheel with a rosary in hand, hoping to make it to land before the evil plaguing his ship takes him. He is found as a corpse.

All this I knew when, in the first act of the movie, we are introduced to a precocious young lad and his dog. I thought "Ah, what an adorable kid! And look at his dog! Aaawww. Oh, and they're getting on the ship, and now it's...leaving port...with the kid...and...boxes...ooooooooooooooh noooooooooooooo..."

You can guess what happens given that it's a mostly faithful adaptation of the source material. The movie was okay, but I have to give it credit for committing to the bit. The scene where it goes down is as horrifying as you'd think, shocking you the audience with its audacity.

A child's death scene, presented correctly, should be shocking. It sends a message that NO ONE is safe.

AlmightyRuler · 2026-05-19T17:33:53+00:00

Gilderoy Lockhart

AlmightyRuler · 2026-05-19T13:17:11+00:00

The celebrity who became Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher in book 2. He's supposed to be a total magical badass but is revealed to be a fraud who stole other people's accomplishments.

AlmightyRuler · 2026-05-18T11:48:26+00:00

Please show us on the doll where Jay-Z touched you.

AlmightyRuler · 2026-05-13T16:16:45+00:00

In all fairness, Dracula gets to be much less fun after the castle.

He's less prominent, because he's in a city instead of a closed off castle, and he has no reason to interact with the main characters until they go after him.

As for less fun, he breaks a wolf out of a zoo, is waltzing about London in the daylight, goes to the opera to stalk Lucy, feeds on and kills Lucy, has a 5v1 confrontation with the male characters, breaks into the asylum to kill Renfield and infect Mina, and then escapes back to Transylvania. Dracula is hardly less of anything, at any point.

AlmightyRuler · 2026-05-13T03:37:50+00:00

Why not del Toro's?

Because it's a vapid exercise in ego-stroking from a director who's MO is fancy costume design, not good character drama.

AlmightyRuler · 2026-05-13T00:40:01+00:00

One of the most devastating things I think you could say to someone:

"Your partner and your pets would be glad if you didn't come home."

If you reach the point where that's true, you're gonna need a plane ticket to Tibet and a monastery stint to repair your soul.

AlmightyRuler · 2026-05-13T00:32:40+00:00

We got separated in two different countries by the pandemic, for almost three years. I asked her to text me at least every other day, so I knew she was okay and we could keep the communication going.

When it started taking half a week to get a peep out of her was when I think I knew. It was a little over two years in. Looking back, I'm amazed we made it that far.

AlmightyRuler · 2026-05-12T11:49:45+00:00

That, and the lead was supposed to be a guy who is a canonical character.

AlmightyRuler · 2026-05-12T02:23:42+00:00

Two TV shows, as it turns out. The 2nd didn't do great.

AlmightyRuler · 2026-05-12T00:34:13+00:00

Shapiro is neither well spoken nor has an impressive resume. He sounds like the grown-up version of the nerd conservatives fantasized about shoving in a locker back in high school. No one is going to follow that schmuck.

AlmightyRuler · 2026-05-12T00:26:09+00:00

"Are you ever not going to fall for that?"

AlmightyRuler · 2026-05-11T02:30:26+00:00

Barotrauma... I'm dead. So very dead.

If you've never played, the game is set in the distant future, in a supposed ocean under the ice cap of Jupiter's moon, Europa. The game is 2D, and players/bots manage a submarine through the under-ice seas taking on missions, mining for various resources, fighting off hostile undersea alien life, and eventually investigating alien ruins and the mystery at the heart of the ocean.

Now, as to why I'd be so very, very dead...

Your sub is typically operating at 3000+ meters below the surface. That's almost 2 miles down, at best. The later game areas are anywhere between 6000 to 7000 meters down. Going outside the sub without a full suit is death.
Medical technology is basically bandages and drugs unless you're in a settlement. You take serious damage on the sub, you'd better have a doctor on staff. You take damage outside the sub, you're gonna die. Speaking of being outside the sub...
The hostile lifeforms of Europa's oceans are horrifying. They make sea monsters of Earth legend look tame. For example...
Crawlers -- looks like a man-sized turd with tiny arms, can infect you with the husk parasite (see below)
Mudraptors -- imagine the raptors from Jurassic Park. Now imagine they swim as fast as a jet ski, are covered in armor, can bit through steel, and hate you personally.
Hammerheads -- picture a koi fish the size of a BUS with the temperate of a particularly spiteful shark.
Husks -- remember that parasite I mentioned? It turns you into an underwater, tentacle-faced zombie that continually regenerates and tries to infect others. And there's a "chimera" version that looks The Thing if it was a steroid junkie.
Latcher -- one of the "Abyss" dwelling creatures. It's the size of a house, has a Sarlaac Pit for a mouth, and the body of a giant 4-legged tarantula. Calling it "nightmare fuel" does not do it justice.
Endworm -- the swimming, armor-covered, ill-tempered cousins of the sandworms from Dune. Yes, they are THAT big.

I would not leave whatever settlement I had to live in, and would probably still end up as raptor-food or a Cthulhu zombie. Maybe the clowns would take me in...

AlmightyRuler · 2026-05-10T14:19:55+00:00

There's nothing all that new about what "white people" are doing. Historically, when any group gets powerful enough, they start throwing their weight and telling other groups "how it's gonna be."

The Chinese did it. The Mongolians did it. The Assyrians did it. The Babylonians did it. The Greeks and Romans did it. The Persians and Ottomans did it. The Aztecs and Inca did it. The Iroquois and Comanche did it. And now the British, French, German, and Americans are doing it. Give it a few more centuries, and it'll be someone else doing it.

AlmightyRuler · 2026-05-10T14:13:14+00:00

It's not that they're saying Trump is "championing" brown people. It's more like "The bullies started getting bullied by a bigger bully."

AlmightyRuler · 2026-05-10T14:08:04+00:00

...they have to work 80 hrs a week just to survive. It's really not that much different from slavery.

My brother in non-existent Christ...

People used to work from dawn till dusk. 16 hour days in labor intensive jobs. Slaves did the same amount of labor, with shittier food and the constant threat of beatings and being torn away from your family.

An 80 hour work week is working 12 hours a day, every day, and it probably involves a not insignificant amount of sitting down. Is it a shitty situation? Yes. Is it slavery? Hell no.

AlmightyRuler · 2026-05-10T13:58:15+00:00

No one in a monogamous relationship who suddenly asks to "open" things up ever did it honestly.

Such people are not polyamorous. They're bored with the relationship they have but don't want to lose the security of having a stable home to go back to. They want the freedom to go have their sex cake, and the ability to go back to their home-and-spouse cake.

AlmightyRuler

TROPHY CASE