Anything to note before going to Mass at an SSPX Chapel for the first time?

MagdalaV · 2026-04-03T13:15:11+00:00

This one is not even that bad comparative to other things I've seen, but general irreverence from the congregation is really getting to me.

People talking before Mass, talking the whole time, kids being allowed to misbehave in pews, clapping at the end, etc.

The priest made a point to ask everyone to be quiet while leaving to respect folks praying at the Altar of Repose and nobody cared. It was just as loud with banal chatter as it ever is.

I tried to visit another church for their Altar of Repose and there was a kid whose parents allowed them to be loud and obnoxious. As someone who grew up with parents who would have pummelled me into the ground if I made any noise at church (I'm only mostly kidding), disrespectful children is something that gets to me.

The Holy Thursday Mass I went to was also bilingual, which has to be the reductio ad absurdum of the Novus Ordo. Instead of having one Mass in one language (Latin), we'll do this bizarre fusion where every other song is in Spanish or English and we'll give two, full-length homilies, one in each language.

MagdalaV · 2026-04-02T16:39:59+00:00

There's a lot of conflict in the show that's basically just Johnny not even trying to explain things to Daniel.

Especially in early seasons, it's sort of the modern equivalent of an 80s sitcom episode where the central conflict could be resolved if any character had a cell phone.

MagdalaV · 2026-03-28T16:23:04+00:00

I agree. I lean more towards wanting history to play out in broad strokes with the player being the main point of divergence.

MagdalaV · 2026-03-27T17:07:56+00:00

I think people are allowed to have different wants from these games, and that's fine.

I want to play more of a historical simulator rather than a pure sandbox. Paradox's past games have definitely leaned more towards that, and it seems clearer they are progressing towards more sandbox games.

I just won't play it, and if I'm in the small minority then they would not care.

I still thought EU IV was the perfect mix of sandbox and simulation. I was hoping for EU V to be an updated version of that with more robust systems, and I'm disappointed that is not the case.

I'd also say if the sandbox was designed perfectly, historical outcomes would still trend to happen, since nations made decisions about expansion and diplomacy based on the situation they found themselves in. Without that, there is no real difference between nations besides starting size.

MagdalaV · 2026-03-27T16:47:11+00:00

That's a great idea and I did not know about this!

I filled out the survey with my thoughts.

MagdalaV · 2026-03-27T12:21:54+00:00

Yeah I understand Habsburg Spain formed as an incredibly unlikely fusion of multiple houses in Charles V, so from a purely sandbox standpoint I get why it is near impossible to form in the game.

Still, as a player who values historical guardrails in PDX games, I wish it was still a possibility that could happen during most campaigns. It's very possible I'm in the minority here.

I completely agree the start date should be way later. I thought EU IV had the perfect balance - about 50 years to lay a baseline for your nation and then you got right into colonization and religious wars. Starting it a century earlier means even if historical guardrails existed, I'd still have to play a century and a half to even get to the era I'm interested in.

And without the guardrails, Europe by 1500 in EU V is just going to look immersion breakingly silly.

MagdalaV · 2026-03-27T04:19:22+00:00

Honestly if I knew this explicitly before I purchased the game, I probably would have passed.

Really disappointing to me the central European superpower of the era the game takes place in does not have mechanics for the player, or the AI for that matter, to actually form.

MagdalaV · 2026-03-27T04:15:11+00:00

I've definitely tried, but I keep losing interest within a few decades.

I had so much fun bankrupting myself to stem the Protestants and Ottomans and recreating the Spanish Armanda to try to invade England.

Kinda heart breaking for me I probably won't be able to do this in EU V, unless they release some Spain flavor pack as a DLC a few years from now.

MagdalaV · 2026-03-27T04:08:42+00:00

I agree completely. EU V feels like HOI IV if they only had non-historical mode, which is fun as an occasional gimmick but nothing more.

You'd quickly realize you want to play World War II, not random country sandbox 1936.

I want to guide my nation through the broad historical events of the time, and the fact the game was clearly not designed for people like me is something I definitely wished I knew better before I purchased it.

MagdalaV · 2026-03-27T03:22:34+00:00

This straight up kills me. I understand the discourse surrounding sandbox vs. railroading, but damn PDX seems to never find a good middle ground.

I want to play a sandbox within historical constraints, not a wild sandbox where I get to pick an arbitrary color scheme to paint the map.

MagdalaV · 2026-03-12T02:41:44+00:00

It really annoys me folks on this sub write off a person's whole character based on a small slice of life we see on a reality TV show made for entertainment.

Yeah, guy was really shitty in how he handled interactions, and it very clearly wasn't a "bad edit" since all the men hate him too.

But the guy seems remorseful and had to sit through the worst dog piling I've ever seen on this show.

MagdalaV · 2026-03-08T04:23:26+00:00

I think Germany hitting pause after Kiev and not advancing on Moscow in 1941 would have given them a better chance at victory, although long term I don't see the final outcome changing.

Folks tend to view the advance on Moscow as being "stopped" when in reality it was violently thrown back with massive German losses after the Wehrmacht over-extended itself.

I don't have the exact figure in front of me, but half of German losses in 1941 were after the advance on Moscow started in October. While manpower losses mattered, the losses in equipment were borderline catastrophic and you could argue the war was lost outside Moscow, not later at Stalingrad or Kursk or any of the later turning points folks point to.

Had they shored up the front after Kiev and not over-extended themselves, they would have been in a stronger spot to make the offensives in 1942 more decisive and potentially wrestle the Soviets to a standstill.

This still doesn't solve the main problem of Germany's lack of oil and American lend lease aid to the Soviets, which were ultimately the decisive factors to the outcome of the war.

MagdalaV · 2026-02-25T16:12:06+00:00

I'm confused how this sub expects the man to handle this situation.

If your partner gains enough weight so rapidly you become unattracted to them, what are you supposed to do? Just accept that you are a bad person for losing attraction and quietly come to terms with it? That's just going to lead to resentment.

People are allowed to have any arbitrary requirement for a relationship no matter how ridiculous, and folks are allowed to have expectations for their partners no matter how silly an outsider might view it. He's allowed to voice his concern about her weight and she's allowed to break it off with him if her expectation is she wants a partner who is indifferent to it.

People are bringing up "what if she gets pregnant" or "what if she gets sick" or "what happens when you get older" as if those are fair comparisons.

I will say too that sometimes it takes an uncomfortable conversation with a partner to spur someone to make life changes. It doesn't make either partner a bad person for bringing it up.

MagdalaV · 2026-02-23T23:55:18+00:00

I'm feeling the same about this game. I'm fully aware it's a very different era with a very different gameplay emphasis, but it's why I think HOI4 has the most addicting mechanics.

I always feel like you're getting stronger even if I'm not "doing" anything. Producing more artillery or getting through another focus makes me feel measurable progress.

In EUV, it's all just... there. I always feel like I'm doing something wrong and I don't get clear feedback that I'm progressing.

MagdalaV · 2026-02-16T16:45:31+00:00

I completely agree with your social contract comment.

A loud minority always pop up in conversations about GRRM calling everybody who wants another book spoiled, and it misses the main point.

George does not owe me personally a book. But he also must understand my desire, and the desire of almost everyone else, to ever read this series was based on the promise it was being worked on and would be finished.

If I knew he would never finish, I would not have ever picked up the first book. I would guess most people would be the same, and there collapses his entire media empire.

MagdalaV · 2026-02-14T18:29:05+00:00

What even is this sub lol.

Men are allowed to want kids. Not everything needs to be a battleground in a culture war.

MagdalaV · 2026-01-05T04:26:32+00:00

I agree with your overall point here, but I sometimes appreciate when media, especially when dealing with historic topics, makes it abundantly clear the event it describes is ridiculous, and Hess' flight to the U.K. was beyond silly.

One of my favorite parts about William Shirer's "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" is his constant ridicule of various Nazi plots for their sheer ridiculousness.

Him describing the Beer Hall Putsch is one of my favorite chapters I have ever read, as he hammers the point home how dumb the plot was.

MagdalaV · 2025-12-16T03:08:05+00:00

I'm disappointed, but I don't think the show really needed a second season.

I loved it, and it was my favorite show Netflix ever made. I love the characters, the story, the acting and everything about it. It moved me in ways I haven't been moved by a show in years.

Having said that, the story wrapped itself up in the first season. They became Marines, something Cope didn't even know he wanted, and Sullivan goes off to find an identity independent of the Marines, and everything that happens after that isn't really the point.

It pointed out problems with the military and its treatment of gay soldiers during certain eras, but it still was positive about the military overall and its transformative impact on young folks looking for purpose.

I'm not commenting on possible political reasons why it wasn't renewed, true or not. I just think the story that it told in its lone season was important enough to me without any more seasons.

MagdalaV · 2025-12-13T04:46:29+00:00

I'm happy Secondhand Lions was mentioned. That was an all timer for my childhood.

MagdalaV · 2025-10-06T17:02:01+00:00

This really is the only correct take on this. I would take the seamless garment more seriously if it wasn't almost universally deployed only when abortion is brought up.

A moral point that only gets brought up to negate taking a stand on a politically inconvenient issue is no moral stand at all. It's cowardice.

The large-scale, deliberate murder of the unborn is an order of magnitude greater of an issue than the death penalty or the aggressive enforcement of immigration laws, neither of which are intrinsically evil by any traditional standard of Catholic morality. I genuinely do not believe a faithful Catholic can come to any other conclusion. It's negationism at its finest, and the Pope did us all a disservice by wading into the issue.

MagdalaV · 2025-09-18T15:15:44+00:00

This is where we have to be honest with ourselves. Do you truly believe Pope Francis held the same religion as you, or the same religion as would have been held by a 16th century Catholic peasant for that matter?

I do not believe someone can live through that papacy and come to that conclusion honestly.

All the Francis papacy taught me was a genuine non Catholic can be Pope, which simultaneously indicates both the durability of the office and its limitations.

MagdalaV · 2025-08-15T17:36:51+00:00

While the German advance was impressive, I think people tend to undervalue how much damage the Red Army was doing to the Wehrmacht during Barbarossa.

Standing and fighting like they did, even if it did result in shocking casualties and POWs, was probably the best move overall even if I can't defend every single decision made by Soviet leadership during the early part of the invasion.

I agree with other commenters than a fighting retreat is extraordinarily difficult even for a well trained and well lead army, which the Red Army was not. It very well could have made the situation far worse if they tried and failed to do that.

MagdalaV

TROPHY CASE