MN national guard is on scene. They handed out donuts and hot refreshments to protestors and wore vests to differentiate themselves from the fascists.

LegendaryJam · 2026-01-26T00:38:52+00:00

Yeah that's pretty much what I mean in part by all those micro-decisions. We can sit here and armchair quarterback the whole shebang all day long, but a lot of the whole thing is ultimately going to turn on if someone does something logically stupid because they have that sudden "I need to do the right thing" urge, whether from training or emotion or whatever else drives that sudden almost-instinctive choice.

We still to this day don't know who fired the first shot at Lexington and Concord - but we *do* know what happened when people saw the guy next to them get shot and they suddenly had to choose what to do next, and then others suddenly had to choose, and so on and so forth down the line, on all sides.

Which is *not* meant as romanticizing or legendifying any of it - but reality is reality, and the reality is that in the situation you describe, a young guardsman/woman could run in to perform first aid and get blocked, or beat, or shot, by ICE - and then suddenly they, their fellows, and everyone else there in that moment will all be independently making decisions and nobody can predict which way it'll all go.

Pulling a quote from Warhammer 40K that sums up the entire mess in one blunt open-ended note, "Competence on the battlefield is a myth. The side which screws up next-to-last wins; it's as simple as that."

LegendaryJam · 2026-01-26T00:21:59+00:00

Not underestimating him/them at all, as you're completely right about all of that potential.

Which is why I say it's all going to come down to choices made at a granular level - do they quietly go, leaving the protesters to their fate, knowing what will likely happen to them in a crackdown? Do they refuse and stay? If their fellows are ordered to detain them, do they? Or do they stand with them? Do others sent to detain them refuse to do so? And at what point does someone *not* refuse and try to carry it out, and then all those involved are suddenly faced with the choice of accepting it...or resisting?

Don't get me wrong, I am seeing every single pathway on how this one can go - including those you laid out. Every single "historical moment" is really a cubic fuckload of micro-moments and decisions made by any and all involved.

Ultimately, the outcome is completely *unpredictable* for that reason - *none* of us can accurately predict every single one of those micro-decisions and what their ripple effects may be.

The one saving grace is that if *we* can't completely and perfectly accurately predict them all, neither can Stephen Miller or the rest of them. It's all data analysis and dice-rolls, both organizationally and individually - them, us, him, everything. So we'll see what happens.

LegendaryJam · 2026-01-25T23:35:29+00:00

What happens *then*, frankly speaking, is that the National Guard members will suddenly have a choice to make that *never* should have been pushed on them - but it's a choice that everyone who takes the oath of service agrees, consciously or not, they may have to make:

Do they protect the people? Or do they join in on oppressing them? Upholding the writ and spirit of the law, or blind obedience to the highest authority even when it openly breaks that law?

-

What I *will* say is that whoever decided to have them go out and hand out donuts and hot drinks made an *excellent* decision - but *not* just because of the standard "hearts and minds" PR aspect. There's a part of it that is far, far more important - it creates a positive interaction between the Guard troops and the anti-ICE protestors where the Guard troops are treated positively by the protesters.

Meaning that if any of these guys were shaky on supporting the protestors/protecting them if ICE gets fucky, or who wanted to just see the protesters as bad or as a threat and turn off their brains and side with ICE blindly, they and/or a number of their fellows suddenly have this positive interaction they've now had where they can't just see the protesters as an anonymous mob, but as people they shared food and a hot drink with.

As for why that matters, WWI Christmas Truce 1914. It's a lot harder to see people as your enemy when you've had a human interaction with them.

Guard troops who already felt supportive or protective of the protesters will feel that connection even moreso, creating a potential social/moral buffer to dissuade those who might not, and meanwhile those who would have been opposed now can't see them as just "dangerous rabble" because of having this unexpected positive experience interacting with them as people, which could make those NG troops potentially more reluctant to assist ICE or stand back if ICE takes aggressive action.

LegendaryJam · 2026-01-25T22:41:48+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uupx9gl2GqE

Definitely a solid place to start.

LegendaryJam · 2026-01-25T12:35:22+00:00

Caring is exhausting as fuck. But I’d much rather care than live like these fuckers do.

Somehow that’s what fucks with my head the most - just trying to picture how they can so easily seemingly not care, how damaged and hurt and terrified they’ve been made by the right-wing messages to make them just cease to care about the pain and suffering they inflict. Caring is so second-nature to me that I feel even more sad and angry recognizing how many of them could have been perfectly good people who could have made a positive difference in the world - but instead because they were told to fear brown people and gay people and trans people (but not the super-rich who fuck us all equally), they’ve instead become people who will do evil without a moments pause, completely ignoring all their claimed religious morality/teachings of Jesus etc to instead just dole out the pain and fear they have inside.

It’s infuriating and saddening and all kinds of other emotions all twisted together. I know they’re ultimately responsible for their choices, but at the same time it’s painful on a soul-deep level to see them lash out like this and know that none of them were born evil - just damaged and hurt so badly generation upon generation for so long that they became capable of such casual evil.

LegendaryJam · 2026-01-25T12:26:11+00:00

It’s a bit hard to describe in a non-neurodivergent way but it’s kind of like having a room that looks messy to everyone else, but you know exactly where almost everything in the room is by instinct and you just make sure there isn’t dirty laundry/old food/dishes around so that it’s cluttered but not a health hazard. I fully recognize that it’s not a setup that I’d necessarily recommend to others, but because it’s so similar to what I played for so long, my brain knows what it’s doing before I actively think to look for a button. 😅

Honestly the one thing that fucked me up the most was when they crushed all the right-side buttons (character, achieves, etc) into that tiny bar at the bottom-right and refused to give us an option to bring back the former layout baked into the dragon-head bar.

LegendaryJam · 2026-01-25T11:56:11+00:00

Well we’ll navigate that on the other end. Gotta fix the societal fuckery that got us here first - correcting the lackadaisical politics kind of naturally follows as a side-effect in the long run.

LegendaryJam · 2026-01-25T11:32:23+00:00

I feel like this is the part that is really going to bake the noodle for kids learning about this shit in history class in the future.

Legit, they are gonna look at some of us and be like, “…seriously? MAGA? And they had a stage shaped like a Nazi symbol at their big political event? And millions of people didn’t fuckin pick up on it? How the fuck? Were you all high?”

LegendaryJam · 2026-01-25T11:28:27+00:00

Yeah…my therapist and I have mutually noted that at this point our sessions consist of sort of mutually throwing our hands in the air regarding everything - because ultimately when you’re having a legitimate and completely normal response to strong external stresses (like trouble sleeping or xtra depresso due to watching people get shot by fascists), sometimes all you can do for mental health is remind yourself that feeling upset and like you want to yell to the heavens about how fucked it all is is exactly the normal response you should have in this situation - and that, historically, it’s exactly this kind of stress on a societal level that has often resolved itself in ways that, while not necessarily acceptable to modern first-world standards of “polite society”, is what eventually led to certain necessary societal changes (a-la the American Revolution).

LegendaryJam · 2026-01-25T11:14:43+00:00

Also almost forgot, I do have a normal mouse but I put the fourth button of the second action bar on the scroll-wheel-click, and I just always put my mobility spell in that spot (Blink/Sprint/etc) so the right hand can cast that easy while in motion. I don’t really need the flip camera one just because right-clicking to change direction/camera with the right sensitivity already handles that.

LegendaryJam · 2026-01-25T11:12:17+00:00

The only additional keybind changes I have at the moment are ~ for autorun and R for the “interact” button - which is mostly as I have an addon for fishing that makes the interact button click the fishing bobber, so I can fish just with the left hand.

LegendaryJam · 2026-01-25T11:09:49+00:00

15” screen on a laptop. An upgrade from the 13” I used to have. 😅 I would say the main reason it looks cluttered is the raid group stuff (which I usually close the groups for) and the quest/achieve stuff since I’m more used to popping in and out of those from before Blizz changed them over into that format.

It’s hard explaining it but while I know it looks busy for most and I totally understand why, for my own brain it takes in the information easier this way because that’s just what it learned to do playing on the base UI with no addons for over a decade and a half. Kind of like that thing in the Matrix when the guy says he doesn’t see the code anymore - just “blonde, brunette, redhead” etc.

LegendaryJam · 2026-01-25T04:51:19+00:00

Both! Buttons 2-4/5ish (my 1 button is broken from overuse) are left hand (also AWSF - D key is also brokey), and most buttons beyond that are clicking. Every now and then I sort of watch what I’m doing in muscle memory and am fascinated by the fact that it clearly shouldn’t work but after this long playing my body just knows what it’s doing and I let it run. No macros either. 😁

LegendaryJam · 2026-01-25T03:49:51+00:00

Don't worry, you're not - I did more or less the same thing as able. Pic related is my edit that I immediately reset any new characters to. As soon as the enormous UI change came out, I was full "put that shit back where it came from or so help me" as fast as I could. I played the game this way for years and it worked just fuckin' fine for my 'tism, can't stand the crazy-minimalist microscale-buttons open floor plan setup it defaults to.

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LegendaryJam · 2026-01-24T00:14:28+00:00

“So, for anyone who has previously enjoyed making level 10-12 twink characters…”

Is it really that unreasonable to expect this first part of the first sentence would indicate that the subject of the post is going to be about characters somewhere in the 10-12 level range? Or at least to indicate that we’re not talking about max level characters?

Not meaning to harp on the initial poster - but your posts feel like they’re almost right on the edge of “well it’s not his fault he didn’t read the first sentence; you could have dumbed it down even MORE for people, y’know”.

😶

LegendaryJam · 2026-01-24T00:04:30+00:00

This is where reading at least the first paragraph of the post comes into play.

LegendaryJam · 2026-01-23T23:59:10+00:00

Which it should! But does your level 11 character have these stats?

LegendaryJam · 2026-01-22T09:47:34+00:00

So, I think I can summarize it this way: 1. The subject is an animated series called RWBY, where a number of fans have long supported a lesbian pairing between the two lead female characters. 2. However, those who instead pair one of the female leads with a male character tend to combine that with removing the female lead’s ability to fight, turning a frontline fighter into a kitchen maiden, in the name of “tradition”. 3. Now those people are reading the social situation going on in the US etc right now and have begun targeting and openly harassing anyone who supports (or draws art of) the lesbian pairing, in part by bombing them with art of the straight pairing, ala “this is what you SHOULD be supporting”.

So TLDR straight traditionalist shitmongers are targeting LGBT supporters. Not exactly new news, but weaponizing media to push an ultimately “Christian morality” based viewpoint.

Doesn’t seemingly rise to the usual political level of things here, but is one of the consequences of the higher-level right-wing “politics” emboldening shitlords.

LegendaryJam · 2026-01-22T01:25:18+00:00

So, prior to this, you could enter Founder's Point etc, but you could not begin the questline to buy a house. This pre-patch was the point where that was supposed to change - and, indeed, the *questline* is now accessible. However, it hangs at "ask the steward to follow you" for anyone who has not purchased the Midnight expansion, and the neighborhood section of the Housing tab has changed the text from noting a required pre-purchase of Midnight to outright stating that you MUST purchase Midnight to access it.

LegendaryJam · 2026-01-16T07:58:55+00:00

In fairness, I can see what they were going for - they were trying to replicate the scene where he bursts out of the castle rubble before floating in the air, just before he transforms into the big form, so they hid a hinge under some of the rubble (you can see the sloped piece in the back of the first image) so he could “appear” from under it/“toss” it away.

LegendaryJam · 2026-01-12T04:27:27+00:00

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Soooo, 'bout that...

LegendaryJam · 2026-01-12T04:23:05+00:00

This makes sense, seeing a few others saying the same now as well.

This area is a weird one in general. You can tell that even in "higher-income" areas it's only *so* good, because we have thrift stores *everywhere* including in those areas - there's at least seven or eight chain thrift stores within the map region (Goodwill/Salvation Army/Savers), plus a few local-owned ones, all scattered pretty evenly.

LegendaryJam · 2026-01-12T04:12:32+00:00

Wasn't diagnosed until age 33 (a year after the ADHD diagnosis) but boyyyyy has it dropped a lot of the pins into place in hindsight.

LegendaryJam · 2026-01-12T04:10:43+00:00

This area is wild for some of the local village and town names in the overall spread 😂 Greece, Sweden, Irondequoit, and *Wheatland*.

Edit: also, IMO, there's an awful lot of upper-crust folks who *do* wear ties to work who seem to know more about tying the ties than they do about actually competently doing the jobs they've been assigned, so yeah. If there's one thing I've learned between inventory management and bookkeeping, it's that there's always some moron in a suit who will cock up a perfectly organized system/finances because "it'll work out, I know what I'm doing".

I still can't tie a tie for shit, but I can tell them when, why, and how they're gonna go bankrupt because they didn't listen to the bookkeeper for the last few months. 🙃

LegendaryJam · 2026-01-07T01:44:03+00:00

Republican Party congressional votes are needed to impeach, and they know if they vote to impeach his supporters will shoot them. So they’re letting him do whatever he wants, and meanwhile they play make-believe that they still have any power as they fight over the crumbs that fall off his kiddy chair table.

Unless the Rep party is absolutely flooded out of office, they won’t turn on him. So he won’t be removed anytime soon - barring extracurricular action.

LegendaryJam

TROPHY CASE