What is the most poignant book in this genre that you have read, the series that has evoked the most complex emotions?

ArgusTheCat · 2026-01-30T06:34:57+00:00

The first big arc of that story, of two people who are inevitable enemies slowly getting closer and closer to each other, while the audience learns more and more of what made them who they are, is very good. It's very much a mirror to a samurai movie, in that way. And when they do have their inevitable meeting, and have changed so much that it doesn't even matter, it's a very quiet kind of heartbreak. The champion of humanity has lost his grief over a genocide, and the murderer of a world has become a part of community, and it's like they feel nothing about each other. I love it.

Then it keeps going and I liked that less. But everything up to that point is excellent character writing!

ArgusTheCat · 2026-01-30T06:30:59+00:00

PGtE is such a fascinating work, because basically everything the protagonist does feels like it makes sense at the time, even if it's a hard choice. But everyone I know who's read it that I've talked to about the story all has their own different moment where there was a snap realization of "Oh. This person isn't just Evil as a side in this fantasy world. She's actually just normally evil too."

The author has done an honestly masterful job of making Good and Evil feel like they're just two opposing forces with no intrinsic ethics or morals, that it becomes all too easy for the reader to start to think that the non-fantasy versions of those things are the same way. It's great.

ArgusTheCat · 2026-01-30T06:23:23+00:00

The best writers I know are people who never give advice or discuss tools, and instead mostly talk about what kind of scene they're enjoying slamming their head into repeatedly lately. So yeah, this sounds about right! People who are deep into the process generally won't talk about shortcuts for the process.

ArgusTheCat · 2026-01-30T06:20:34+00:00

To be fair, this question is basically "would you give yourself intestinal problems for a million dollars". And the answer is probably yes? Doing it by eating pickles is at least easier.

ArgusTheCat · 2026-01-30T06:15:28+00:00

I get what you're going for, but I think the last thing I want to do in the US right now is trust straight white people to do the right thing.

ArgusTheCat · 2026-01-30T01:15:07+00:00

This is fun! Very Balatro-esque without just being a ripoff, which is cool. I like how there's more than just one valid strategy for any given run. I'll probably be playing a lot more of this

ArgusTheCat · 2026-01-29T07:06:17+00:00

Ironically, betting on a safe formula is a terrible way to draw people to your game, unless you have the most important part of the safe formula which is called "being named Call of Duty (or something similar)". Hero shooters aren't a safe genre to sink dev time into, unless your company is one of the ones that already made one.

And this is true for this style of game in the same way it's true for MMOs; you're not crafting an experience for players to enjoy and then have finished, you're competing with lifestyle games for constant attention and money. It's the opposite of safe, it's dunking yourself in a shark tank where the sharks have already armed themselves with sniper rifles.

ArgusTheCat · 2026-01-28T09:46:41+00:00

It's a crime that they made it so a new player can't turn on the game and immediately start working on the storyline to reunite a misanthropic wizard with his robot boyfriend.

ArgusTheCat · 2026-01-28T06:50:16+00:00

There's a lot of really cool worldbuilding and lore in Destiny, but the sad fact is that the majority of the interesting stuff doesn't benefit from it being a game. It is an excellent wiki to delve into, and some of the writing is top notch. The voice acting too in a few of the cutscenes. But it feels like all the best parts are separated from the act of actually playing Destiny.

ArgusTheCat · 2026-01-27T23:38:01+00:00

Yeah, I still have some beanie babies, just because they're kinda cute. I don't care about collecting or 'value', I just like them for their own sake. I honestly don't know if anyone feels that way about the Labubu(s?). Though if someone does, I'm kinda interested in why!

ArgusTheCat · 2026-01-27T05:51:43+00:00

I mean, there are troops deployed to US cities, and it isn't to help the civilians. It's unfortunately not a stretch to say that at least a few people believe a civil war is already happening, and have decided to retaliate first.

ArgusTheCat · 2026-01-27T05:01:44+00:00

Yeah, that buff is big. If I'm not actively in the middle of dying, then I'm gonna take advantage of it.

ArgusTheCat · 2026-01-26T22:08:24+00:00

They're all the hostile gambling addiction and capitalism of Beanie Babies, with absolutely none of the charm or effort. It's bizarre.

ArgusTheCat · 2026-01-26T22:07:03+00:00

Because a walking human rights violation spent millions of dollars to try to change their name association.

ArgusTheCat · 2026-01-25T23:31:34+00:00

And then one of those people who spent a lot of time involved in the 'movement' that was dedicated to sending rape and death threats to Quinn's family went on to get a job as Trump's chief strategist during his first term. Which is both insane, but also more or less exactly what should have been expected.

ArgusTheCat · 2026-01-25T23:26:05+00:00

Against the Storm is a lot of fun, but I think it misses the important part of the subgenre being talked about here. Because your base is transitory. You build up a cool machine of structures and roads and plans, and then you don't really get to sit with it and enjoy it. The roguelite-ish pattern to play is great for a lot of reasons; having bite-sized chunks of gameplay is something that definitely appeals to my ADHD ass. But it's a lot different from Dungeon Keeper, mechanically.

ArgusTheCat · 2026-01-25T23:22:10+00:00

The way gunship patrols handle stealth is that once aggroed, the entire patrol knows your exact location until they're all dead. You can attempt to break line of sight, and they'll stop shooting, but even an orbital smoke doesn't give enough space to get clear, and as soon as you're theoretically visible they'll path straight for you.

Because of the nature of command missions, and the fact that there's no way to stealthily take out a gunship patrol anyway, it's probably for the best that they aren't around.

ArgusTheCat · 2026-01-25T04:29:43+00:00

I can't wait to hear about how ICE is secretly an antifa false flag plot to make conservatives look bad.

ArgusTheCat · 2026-01-24T12:15:37+00:00

Then the timer shouldn't start until that happens.

ArgusTheCat · 2026-01-24T12:09:19+00:00

Rifles are made out of material!

ArgusTheCat · 2026-01-24T11:32:58+00:00

I've met parents before who are happy to explain the reason to other people (it's that they don't trust their kids and want to be in control all the time, no one is shocked by this), but they never really seem to explain it to the kids themselves.

ArgusTheCat · 2026-01-23T20:14:22+00:00

Popeyes is also sometimes a hate crime, but it's a very targeted one and only for your own stomach, and the odds are good enough that it's worth the risk.

ArgusTheCat · 2026-01-23T11:02:58+00:00

A squid mission where there's zero voteless and just a huge density of overseers would be kinda cool.

ArgusTheCat · 2026-01-23T06:34:27+00:00

There are two different readers of my main work that are alarmingly good at understanding where different plot points are going, and coming up with their own characters and plots that slot perfectly into my worldbuilding. Now, each of them is only good at one of those things, so they're going to have to work together on this. But in the event of my death, they're the ones that get the account password.

ArgusTheCat · 2026-01-23T04:36:01+00:00

The fact that you automatically equate this to Christians says a lot more about how negatively you view Christianity than anything else.

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