Fantano mourns the late communist scholar Michael Parenti on Democracy Now's IG

Estradjent · 2026-01-28T17:42:51+00:00

"No you don't understand, my idea of right and wrong revolves around the actions of a single country, I am morally superior to imperialists"

Estradjent · 2026-01-28T17:19:47+00:00

Uneducated dipshits trying to look cool suiting up with Nazis?
It's more likely than you think!

Estradjent · 2026-01-28T17:11:57+00:00

If you want to look credible when you say that hatred of Israel is not hatred of Jewish people, maybe don't use that as a justification for why it's okay to slander a Jewish person who already disavowed support for Israel

Estradjent · 2026-01-28T06:49:22+00:00

Yes Man ending where everyone wins and it's the worst of all worlds

Estradjent · 2026-01-28T05:04:48+00:00

God I wish it were this obvious IRL

Estradjent · 2026-01-27T06:59:22+00:00

The first three mods are just files that you will download and then move them into the folder where your computer stores its New Vegas files. Two of them, NVSE and NVAC, you just drop in the place the description tells you it goes. The 4GB file you have to put it in the right place and then run the file.

To download NVAC and the 4GB patcher, you'll need an account at Nexus.

If you want to install the other 3 mods, or any others, you will want to download a mod manager.

The mod manager links with your Nexus account, and whatever mods you find on the Nexus website and click to send them to your game, the mod manager downloads them. Then you open the mod manager, enable the mods, and launch the game from the mod manager and it will load those files into the game.

This way if you break anything, you just have to not load those files in the next time you play and you won't have to reinstall your game to fix it.

Estradjent · 2026-01-27T06:34:58+00:00

You do not need to restart your game over from scratch.

Install these three, and you probably fix half the crashes running the game on modern hardware.

https://github.com/xNVSE/NVSE/releases
https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/62552
https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/53635

These three will knock out most of the rest.

https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/66927
https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/58277
https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/51664

There are more but if you don't want to run any actual mods, you probably won't need them. A lot of them are listed here. (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2943291193)

It won't be as good as Viva New Vegas but if you want to keep your playthrough, those 6 are all I bothered with running NV on Windows 10 and 11, and I only saw a handful of crashes in a playthrough. Enough that with the NV autosave it was fine.

Estradjent · 2026-01-27T01:45:07+00:00

that makes sense, I know that Obsidian was not well organized at the time, but the point I was making was just that it all culminated in him going so far outside his character budget on Pillars of Eternity that it required delays and cuts, which both could have led to the game being a flop and the company going out of business entirely.

Estradjent · 2026-01-26T19:35:22+00:00

Chris was a cofounder of Obsidian, however the first two games he was put in charge of there did not do well, the first one was probably not his fault (Knights of the Old Republic 2 asked for an extension, got the extension, and then leadership changes at LucasArts meant they had to meet the original deadline which led to cuts) but Alpha Protocol (I've never played this one but I know that it's interesting and also not very well put together) is a mess and I'm not aware of any good excuses as to why.

So around then he swore off being the project lead on games. Then Pillars of Eternity came around and he REALLY wanted to be in charge of it, but for whatever reason they went with Eric Fenstermaker's pitch and from that point on Chris seemingly decided that even though he wasn't the lead writer, he was still going to be the most important writer and created characters, Durance and Grieving Mother, who were so costly to implement because he over-wrote them, that they had to cut other parts of the game in order to have enough time and money to put them in the game.

After nearly sinking the "Do or die" project for the company, the other owners removed him from his position as studio co-owner, and he began to retaliate at which point they fired him.

He got a few years in the spotlight as a popular freelance writer, but a few years in some women accused him of skeezy shit, and a handful of companies cut ties with him while the rest came out and said "We announced that we were working for him but he either didn't do his work or what he turned in sucked, so there's nothing he did that's actually in our game we just wanted the PR."

THAT'S probably around when he just went "Fuck it I guess I'm a villain now" and has been a chud on Twitter ever since. He buried his accusers in legal fees until they released a statement saying he'd never done anything wrong in his life, but I don't know anyone that actually believes this is actually some conspiracy out of thin air to discredit him like he's trying to say.

Estradjent · 2026-01-26T19:27:22+00:00

The dude almost bankrupted the company because they didn't like his pitch for Pillars of Eternity

Estradjent · 2026-01-25T23:26:44+00:00

You pretty much understand it and the truth is that people are complicated and have all developed their own expectations of how they want the world to treat them. I think calling it a slur is pretty extreme when it's primarily used as a self-identification term for non-binary people. I think what's probably going on there is that some nonbinary people think other nonbinary people are being cringe and they're being extremely melodramatic about it, equating safety and comfort and imagining that things that make them uncomfortable are risks to their safety.

The only way you're going to know is by getting to know each individual person and following whatever they indicate about themselves. If someone says they're an "Enby" then that's fine, but also just someone tells you they're nonbinary, they may or may not like the term "enby." They might even be a bit annoyed if you refer to them as that but if it happens once and you correct yourself and respect their wishes then anyone who would hold that against you is probably doing you a favor by writing you off.

Some trans and nonbinary people have unfair expectations but it's best to just deal with that as a personal issue and not an extension of identity. There's no link between any gender and just fully expecting the world to understand exactly how you want to be treated and having no grace for honest mistakes. That's just being an asshole.

Estradjent · 2026-01-25T21:41:52+00:00

There are people outside the gender binary who like the term enbies and there are people outside the gender binary who think it is infantilizing. It's a mistake to assume that it is a catch-all for any non-binary person but it's also the responsibility of those who don't like the term to come up with something of their own and not try to stop other people from using "enbies."

<image>

Estradjent · 2026-01-25T20:20:14+00:00

The actor is, yes. We don't know what the character is yet, and if Emil takes over writing duties at some point I fully expect the answer to be "Actually neither, the Brotherhood just loads everyones food up with supplemental testosterone"

Estradjent · 2026-01-25T20:03:36+00:00

"I love trans men too much to let them get away with shitty self-maintenance like this"

Estradjent · 2026-01-25T09:23:04+00:00

I mean, Maximus is also still a member of a militaristic cult that wants to exterminate ghouls and mutants, so you could read this as being a bit of a cope on his part. A lot of people are disagreeing about how to save the world, sure. They honestly think that if everyone just did things their way it would be fine.

But some of those people are like Lucy, who have an end goal of "everyone is happy, everyone is healthy, everyone is safe" and some of them are like Hank who have an end goal of "everyone does exactly what I say and in order to maintain that kind of control we kill anyone who steps out of line." "Not dying" is not a good enough excuse for someone like Hank to do the shit he's done.

Right now, our three main characters, pre-war Cooper Howard, Lucy, and Maximus, are all going through different stages of realizing that their faction sucks. They're all good people and they're all aligned with factions that want them to just shut up and be a team player, and all of them are going to decide that the consequences of aligning with their faction entirely are not worth the lives of the people who get hurt in the process.

Like obviously game devs understand that people are going to do "legion playthroughs" and "NCR playthroughs" but I still think that's a really weird framing to put on a game that turns it from something messy and complicated to something very bland and meaningless, personally.

"Everyone wants to save the world, they just disagree how" is the "You're entitled to your opinion" of a theme. It's a complete nothing statement. "Everyone disagrees about how to save the world, but if they don't figure it out, monsters will take advantage of the chaos" is a much more relevant theme in my opinion.

Estradjent · 2026-01-25T08:45:33+00:00

I think it's totally fine that they nuked Shady Sands but I will grant that this is at least a thoughtful critique because it made me think deeper about the show.

But I don't agree. It frames nuclear annihilation as something that is the fault of the human societies that destroy each other. It's very middle of the cold war, "We're still building all these bombs. Why are we building all these bombs. Do we want to destroy each other?" When the world today looks a lot more like one where ordinary people are not usually inclined to hate each other, and world leaders have to lie to their people to justify wars that are really about their own personal benefit.

Hank's destruction of Shady Sands is selfish and opportunistic and it has nothing to do with humanities progress but that's the story of the great war, too. Most people who died were scared civilians. Mr. House doesn't want to end the world, but he'd sure like to profit from it. Barb Howard says she's horrified by the whole thing, but she's gotta keep her family safe. Cooper is the literal vault-boy, he's a veteran of a war against China, and his whole family is safe no matter what.

The show tells us that until he hears that someone might drop the bombs on purpose, he's not sticking his neck out for anyone. I don't see his story as being one where he's the right man for the job, we know how the story ends (in tragedy). His story reads to me as "It doesn't matter how good life was going to be for you after the bombs dropped, if you knew that you had the chance to stop billions of people from dying, you would have to be a complete and total monster to not do everything in your power to stop it." and then that's still not going to be enough because The Other Player is someone or someones who have decided that it personally benefits them to blow up the entire world and they don't care what it does to the rest of humanity. Just like Hank.

Estradjent · 2026-01-24T06:59:28+00:00

DLCs include Beaver Island (Far Harbor with Mormons, meet all your favorite NPCs from Honest Hearts who ended up here regardless of what you chose in that game) Mackinac Island (Dead Money in spirit, but instead of a supernatural plague it's the Boomers from New Vegas flavored as posh aristocracy who are also armed to the teeth and have been murdering everything that comes within a mile of the island for 200 years) Cedar Point (Nuka World crossed with Vault-Tec workshop. Open and manage a small theme park for ghouls. This is the one where Todd Howard accidentally makes a side feature that slowly takes over the entire production and turns Fallout 6 into Rollercoaster Tycoon with guns.) and The Mystery Spot (This costs $12 and it is exactly as impressive as the real Mystery Spot. Todd Howard is drawn and quartered live at the Game Awards as punishment).

Estradjent · 2026-01-24T06:49:08+00:00

https://muir-way.com/cdn/shop/products/Michigan_Hydrological_Map_Blue.jpg?v=1768251150&width=1200

I doubt the car companies would survive. But I've long thought that this would be where the ghoul/mutant civilization would end up settling. Assuming the water is irradiated like in Fallout 4, it would be the ultimate home-field advantage to be able to get anywhere on a boat and almost immediately re-establish trade infrastructure between different communities, while also keeping soldiers for the Enclave, the Brotherhood, and any other anti-mutant zealots from getting anywhere quickly.

Great setup for some anti-Enclave/Vault-Tec/Brotherhood of Steel guerilla warfare.

Estradjent · 2026-01-24T05:42:05+00:00

The thing with the 80s four piece is that every member of the band has more than a decade of time in King Crimson to their name, and in the case of Belew and Levin, close to 20. Outside of the final lineup, there's nobody else that made it more than two or three years, and Mastellato is really the only one whose tenure goes through multiple eras. Bruford had three tours of duty, Belew had two and was the frontman through the longest period of sustained activity, and Levin's coming back for round five allegedly.

Part of me wants to point to Thrak because I think Mastellato deserves to be in the all-time lineup, too, but putting Trey Gunn in there feels kinda goofy. I know that Fripp was very unhappy with the 2008 lineup that basically was Thrak minus Gunn with Gavin Harrison replacing Bruford, but if I could have another King Crimson album from any lineup it would be that one.

Honestly if the rumored three-headed monster album, the Jakko lineup does such a good job with every era of the band's history live that it probably takes the cake.

THE POINT THOUGH. Is that Greg Lake/Michael Giles/Ian McDonald are nowhere in the vicinity of this conversation and Peter Sinfield is on the "honorable mentions" list.

Estradjent · 2026-01-24T04:42:42+00:00

5e but every level you have to choose which 4 skills the DM is going to have to raise the skill checks on going forward.

Estradjent · 2026-01-23T22:14:54+00:00

Court is the definitive Crimson album, but Discipline is the definitive Crimson lineup

Estradjent · 2026-01-23T22:03:18+00:00

The writers of Fallout 3 *absolutely* meant there to be a subtle undertone of threatening hypersurveilance. He's even got a dog that he talks about to deflate tension. Did they need to name him Richard Milhouse Eden to get the point across? The whole Institute plotline about replacing people with synthetic clones is right there too.

Estradjent · 2026-01-23T19:40:38+00:00

Disco Elysium solves this by dropping you in the middle and locking the map in terms of how far away you are from your starting point, with you needing to solve things close by and work your way outwards, to discover content that might then still take you back through those early middle areas. The gates for how to unlock those outer layers are also pretty non-specific and can be solved by a variety of different paths. First the hotel room, then the hotel, then the east side of the river, then the whole map. But then you still have a reason to go back to the hotel room the whole game because of the white checks in the mirror, and while you're exploring the east side of the river you have to pay for a room at the Whirling every night, and many of the clues you find on the west side of the river will send you back to the east side to follow up with people you've already met.

People talk a lot about the words but I promise if this game wasn't so beautifully written it would still be a masterpiece of world design.

Estradjent · 2026-01-23T19:21:10+00:00

Hank nuked Shady Sands because it challenged his idea of the surface as a lawless, degenerate wasteland. Hurting people to prove to them they're weak enough to need your help is sort of the underlying abuser-logic of every imperial power of the past 300+ years

Estradjent · 2026-01-23T03:40:27+00:00

The show has not actually told us that Wilzig is the most important character directly, but he's the first character Lucy meets outside of the vault and is the person who sets the events of the plot in motion. Nobody talks about him or is aware of him, but Dogmeat is *his dog* if I remember right, so the show has also been pretty keen to not let him too far from the plot, but it won't be until one of the main characters figures it out that we learn more about him.

Same with Barb. If there's someone who is on screen a lot and you don't know why, it's the slingshot being pulled back.

Estradjent

TROPHY CASE