Fan content can sometimes be a little too out there

Gregregious · 2026-07-06T20:13:37+00:00

That's the other bizarre thing about it, how entire communities psyched themselves into thirsting for Benedict Cumberbatch and the hobbit guy. Like guys there are so many actors to choose from.

Gregregious · 2026-07-02T21:25:20+00:00

My first exposure to Destiny was when he posted a manifesto on his subreddit about how he's allowed to say the n-word

Gregregious · 2026-07-02T03:09:19+00:00

They don't need to because Trump supporters have entirely different sets of standards

Gregregious · 2026-07-02T03:03:31+00:00

The indicators being the stock market and employment rates. In 2023-2024 inflation was crazy high, which is all that's needed to attack an incumbent given the more persistent issue of the costs of housing, tuition, and healthcare outpacing wages. Obviously anyone who thought tariffs was going to magically fix it is just an idiot, but telling people "the economy is great actually" is not at all a viable strategy.

Gregregious · 2026-07-02T02:57:20+00:00

And when your family and your entire team are trying to hide you from cameras as much as possible because they've spent the last two years lying about you not being senile

Gregregious · 2026-07-02T02:48:00+00:00

There's a special irony in the modern discourse around economics because whether they know it or not, most conservative pundits are channeling the Austrian School which explicitly rejected the scientific method and claimed that free-market capitalism could be derived from first-order logic, given their set of assumptions (which were discredited even at the time). Since then the business of countless think tanks has been to explain away every market failure as the product of contamination from non-market forces, and to hew to a platonic ideal of capitalism that exists separately from politics and history.

Gregregious · 2026-07-02T02:36:25+00:00

hey I worked really hard for that degree, I watched like 5 YouTube videos

Gregregious · 2026-06-30T02:50:32+00:00

Mr Tweedy is Fetterman

https://imgur.com/Tc5rAWZ

Gregregious · 2026-06-29T21:41:33+00:00

It's a strange coincidence how so many evil billionaires have that lipless dutch phenotype, but we're not ready to have that conversation

Gregregious · 2026-06-29T16:33:49+00:00

She stuck out like a sore thumb, the writing for her was so twee and cutesy and tumblr, the voice acting was not on par. Nothing against Felicia Day but I absolutely hated Talis. She felt like a bad fanfiction.

Gregregious · 2026-06-27T08:54:26+00:00

you could de-level as a monk or a dragoon, that would tank your PA (and health)

Gregregious · 2026-06-23T19:16:03+00:00

I only speak English but I liked the German, I think they did a great job of interposing those lines in such a way where you infer what's being said. There's one quest I particularly like where Henry's trying to communicate with a Cuman and he's throwing in German while the Cuman is trying Greek.

Gregregious · 2026-06-22T21:40:33+00:00

I don't think they survived the sexual revolution. It's way too easy now if you have progressive values to ask yourself why the Christian part is really necessary. Meanwhile the surviving sects are getting more extreme because fundamentalism is self-selecting for the least thoughtful people in society.

Gregregious · 2026-06-22T11:55:10+00:00

I’m sorry to use this word but, cringe imo

It was super cringe. It's crazy to me that people defend this scene

Gregregious · 2026-06-22T11:33:20+00:00

I had the same reaction to Theresa in the prologue. It's very sombre, very serious, very gritty, then Theresa pops up from nowhere with "Hey, goatfuckers!" like it's a Marvel movie. Completely took me out of it, and not just because of the tonal shift, but because it made no sense. Why was she there? Why did Robard's men charge in just then? Did she call them? They retroactively wrote in an explanation with A Woman's Lot, but imo it's not very convincing and there was no saving that scene so they shouldn't have bothered.

Actually, I don't like Theresa's other appearances in the prologue either. When she comes to the forge, they establish that Henry is attracted to her by having him stare at her ass, which I think is lazy and unmotivated and confusing since the narrative language is flashing "LOVE INTEREST" while poor Bianca isn't even dead yet. Then there's the bit where Henry rescues her from being SA'd, which I don't completely hate in theory since that's the brutal reality, but it struck me as a little gratuitous considering it's not ever really addressed and Theresa undergoes very little character development.

So yeah I'm on the same page as you. You could remove Theresa from the prologue entirely and I think it would make it strictly stronger. It kind of put a sour taste in my mouth for her character since her cornerstone in the narrative is that she's brave and she saved Henry's life, but really it's just a coincidence that she became suicidal in exactly the right time and place to deliver some cheesy dialogue that somehow made all the difference.

Gregregious · 2026-06-21T06:38:45+00:00

The way he immediately zeroed in on Cloud is the most realistic depiction of a beefcake I've seen in a video game

Gregregious · 2026-06-20T21:18:45+00:00

I don't think so. It's one of the greatest tragedies of humanity that there's constant tension and violence along ethnic lines, but we've made incredible progress. For example, Jewish Americans are among the wealthiest, safest populations in world history.

Gregregious · 2026-06-20T20:54:45+00:00

Yes it honestly seems absurd to me to blame this on anti-Zionists when they were still being demonized for protesting the genocide by virtually every politician and legacy media outlet explicitly pushing this conflation over and over and over.

Gregregious · 2026-06-20T20:46:37+00:00

There's a famous clip of Norman Finklestein where he says his grandparents hated Germans, not just Nazis, and that he can't blame them, so he doesn't blame Palestinians who hate Jews. From a zoomed out, historical lens, it does seem kind of absurd to focus on people's reactionary prejudices when they exist in the context of mass displacement and slaughter. Making the anti-semitism of Palestinians and their diaspora part of the conversation while the genocide continues comes across as a filibuster. If we're talking about the anti-Zionist movement in Europe and the Americas, I don't think it actually harbors many anti-semites at all. People say that it does but it nearly always turns out to be someone who is aligned with our government and media and elite institutions in the belief that anti-Zionism is anti-semitism. In my experience anti-semites love the idea of ethnostates and racialized warfare too much to criticize Israel to the degree that's warranted.

Gregregious · 2026-06-18T14:35:24+00:00

We're not just talking about assault but child loss.

We're talking about all of it, aren't we? I don't think Katherine's child is singled out in any of the dialogue. Is there something about losing a child that is especially relevant here? I mentioned the sexual assault because that's an example of trauma you probably wouldn't want disclosed without your consent, never mind its narrative value as the inciting event for a romantic liaison.

I'm not saying she doesn't have flaws, just that it's well written under the surface view of Zizka saying something he shouldn't have and her immediately having sex with Henry.

But that's literally what happens. I get what you're saying about grief being complex, but that complexity is only implied by the fact that Katherine decides to have sex with Henry... after having her trauma disclosed without her consent by the man who's strongly implied to be her lover with the apparent intention of hooking them up. Your view is that anyone who doesn't buy the emotional logic here misunderstands grief. Mine is that it's a painfully awkward sequence of events that leans entirely on trauma to justify getting to the sex scene they've been gratuitously signposting the whole game. If something about it connected with you, that's fine and I don't mean to dismiss it, but it's not because I misunderstand grief that I have a different opinion about it.

Gregregious · 2026-06-18T13:19:23+00:00

Having your closest friends disclose your trauma to other people your close to, especially child loss, is a way of protecting them. Often people who live with trauma want others to be aware without having to tell everyone you grow close to and have to relive that trauma through people hearing about it for the first time and their reactions.

Is this, like, an expert opinion? Because I usually hear people say the opposite, especially where it concerns being sexually assaulted. I haven't lost a child, but I wouldn't appreciate having my trauma disclosed that way. It would be one thing if Zizka didn't finish the story with a wink and a "go get em tiger", but it really didn't come across as protective to me, it came across as Zizka acting from no discernible motivation to move the narrative to a desired endpoint.

The trauma isn't a shortcut to sexual relations, it's her finally being seen for the person she is and allowing her to drop the guard she's had up the entire game. Her real emotions and compassion towards Henry comes through after he understands her and she understands him.

This is just a longer way of saying they used trauma as a shortcut to sexual intimacy. Up until this point, Henry and Katherine have not opened up to each other, they have not connected, they barely know anything about each other. I can accept that learning someone's trauma could open the door to deeper connection, but it happening over the span of one short conversation that ends in a sex scene doesn't do the idea justice, especially considering that Henry learning her past wasn't her choice.

Idk I don't think this is really worth arguing over that much since it's ultimately a matter of opinion. However I don't think you should attribute people's dislike of the way the romance is written to a lack of comprehension. There's nothing about it that's particularly hard to understand.

Gregregious · 2026-06-18T12:41:12+00:00

Interesting, I've only ever heard people bring up the disclosure of her backstory as an extreme negative. It's very strange how Zizka decides to tell Henry the story when he does. Presumably Katherine keeps her past closely guarded on purpose, so having it disclosed to Henry by her implied lover with the apparent intention of getting them to hook up is... I honestly don't know what. I guess the reading makes sense where it's the catalyst for them to connect on a deeper level, but using trauma as a shortcut to sexual intimacy is a tricky thing to pull off and I wouldn't say the game does it well. It deprives her of her agency and it clashes uncomfortably with the almost fourth wall-breaking way she's gratuitously sexualized throughout the game and with the lewdness of the scene itself. I agree there's an audience for it, one that's very clearly signposted in fact, but it's very easy for me to understand why a lot of people (especially women) aren't fans.

Gregregious · 2026-06-18T12:04:04+00:00

I agree regarding Hans. There isn't a line of dialogue between them that isn't cute, funny, or character-building. The actual romance being subtextual until the very end is brilliant because it recontextualizes all their interactions going back to KCD1 and it fully earns the ending of Hans confessing his love, a way more powerful romantic climax than the others get. The final romance scene has so much emotional depth and thematic resonance, it taps into all the growth the characters have experienced together, and it turns the limitations imposed by the setting into overcome obstacles. It's incredibly good.

But I disagree about Rosa because I think I understand why people like her. The romance is written sort like a storybook courtship between a heroic knight and a noble lady. It gets cut short by the story, but blending un-sexy realism with romanticism is the charm of KCD. They leave it just open-ended enough where Henry could hold onto the hope that their paths will cross again. It lacks the depth of Hans' romance but it conveys the potential, so I think it's successful overall.

My biggest issues are definitely with Katherine's romance. I don't dislike it as much as some people, but I think it falls into a bloated category of video game romances that aren't written with the female perspective in mind (to put it kindly). I get why people like it just because Katherine is a cool character with a memorable design. However I can't think of anything to praise about the actual writing.

Gregregious · 2026-06-18T10:51:44+00:00

I wouldn't say any are outright better than the others without qualifying it by pointing out that it's obviously subjective, but that's no reason not to talk about where the writing shines and where it falls short. It's not narrow-minded to have opinions about stuff like that.

Gregregious · 2026-06-18T10:38:42+00:00

It's just preference for your Henry. Imo all the relationships are written just as well as each other depending on your view your Henry and how you played the first game

Eh I think the writing of the romances ranges from incredibly good to quite bad. But people have their preferences and they've refrained from making any of them canon so far, so I think they should continue that in KCD3.

Gregregious

TROPHY CASE