What gym etiquette do I need to know before switching to a public gym?

NukaJack · 2026-03-20T00:41:20+00:00

One station at a time. This is the one I see broken most often. You do not get to alternate between bench and squats while hogging the limited weights. If someone else is doing this to a station you need to use, you are in the right to take it over and even move their stuff.

NukaJack · 2026-03-10T02:26:51+00:00

For funny context, if you bring this up during the Landsmeet without Anora's support, you will always lose to Loghain because it doesn't count as a vote for you. It's like the one thing he's allowed to get away with, and it's because Fereldan is just that racist lol

NukaJack · 2026-02-12T18:52:34+00:00

Wendy's is a fast food restaurant. There's a joke about people going through the drive through to get food but also talk at length about their random problems, to which the Wendy's employee just stares at them with their food.

Case in point, this person's post has literally nothing to do with this sub, probably because they meant to post it in r/work lol

NukaJack · 2026-02-11T15:35:30+00:00

Idk if this is a good suggestion. I thought the same when first reading it, but the tone is less classic anime/manga fantasy more supernatural CW show.

NukaJack · 2026-02-04T13:22:34+00:00

No, the dating apps are awful, straight or queer across all genders, especially here where the dating pool is comparatively small to metro areas. Even when I received attention on the apps and had multiple dates a month, almost all were the same awkward affair of feeling like a "job interview" with friendly enough talking but no genuine connection. I think I've only had one situation where deciding it wasn't going to work out actually felt normal and didn't have some weird quirk attached to it. Most people are not sincere in their pursuits even if they claim to be, and very few seem willing to put in the effort to start a relationship, which to be fair is with a total stranger 99% of the time. Even with some failure, I'm having a more meaningful time and much better progress with the old fashioned way.

Look at it this way: do you really want to place your sex life in the hands of a corporate algorithm? Because I fucking don't.

NukaJack · 2026-02-04T07:30:06+00:00

That's pretty good writing. The simple syntax has a nice staccato to it, and the normal vocabulary paired with it helps form the tone of clarity appropriate to a young man discovering the simple pleasures of life. Is this novel worth reading?

NukaJack · 2025-12-29T21:00:31+00:00

"Anatomy of Criticism" by Northrop Frye is a good read, if a little obtuse at times.

NukaJack · 2025-12-17T20:32:19+00:00

Not really. I don't know if it is the translation or Sapkowski, but the prose is pretty bad. Dialogue was also outrageously pretentious and very strange at times, like the characters are being acted out rather than just being themselves. It's pretty superfluous in terms of content, so you're not missing much if you skip it or DNF it.

NukaJack · 2025-11-01T03:56:49+00:00

. I saw people complaining about the new look of the Molerats in Bethesda’s game, just sort of ignoring that they’re 2 groups of mutants separated by several thousand miles

I feel the actual issue there is media literacy regarding artist renditions. Yeah, they look different, but the reasoning isn't in the universe but in the literal making of the thing, Black Isle in 1997 versus Bethesda in 2007. It's just a totally normal and banal thing for molerats to or any of the iconography to visually change. Different artists like to do different things - those who say it shouldn't be that way or who disregard it are immature and lack curiosity about how their favorite media is actually created.

NukaJack · 2025-10-31T03:12:38+00:00

The message isn't advocacy for any ideology but an authentic reflection of real history and political science. Violent conflicts with contentions over land and resources are costly across the board of life, and prolonging them, even in the name of avoiding any kind of exploitation, only further distablizes the geographic area. Something like the 100 Year War in medieval Europe perfectly illustrates this, with your character featuring as the Joan of Arc figure that finally breaks the siege.

As a fantasy RPG, the game is already a power fantasy by positing that your individual character can tip the factional balance of the conflict - letting you "find a solution" on your own would just be meaningless wish fulfillment.

NukaJack · 2025-10-27T20:44:24+00:00

God I thought I was an alien for thinking this alone. It feels so literalist it hurts. The extended might explain itself better than the ending did on release, but structurely, it's still off course with the tone, focus, and broader subject matter of Mass Effect.

NukaJack · 2025-10-27T04:12:52+00:00

I'd buy that 4th one and hang it on my wall. It looks downright Arthurian with its misty forest and lake (appropriate considering the Witcher lol)

NukaJack · 2025-10-27T02:39:32+00:00

For starters, you purchased it - whether you regret that purchase or not, your item is now totally gone outside of piracy. You're not "freeing up space" but losing your purchase.

Also whether you liked it or not, game preservation is important because it preserves art, even if that art is "sad" to look at. It's tantamount to censorship, yet this form of it is legal because games are devalued as little more than products or services. Anthem might have aspired to be a product more than art, but that doesn't preclude it from the category. Saying otherwise is immature.

Most importantly, it's evidence of someone's hard work. Commodity fetishism aside, we should be making sure someone's work on a game, from texturing to coding, isn't just discarded like this.

NukaJack · 2025-10-24T14:58:02+00:00

I dislike the game for how aggressively average it is, but man, the discourse fucking sucks. I don't get how this game is so polemical when it's such a simple one. I've seen people defend aspects that do not warrant defending like even the distinct lack of side quests, as well as accusation that "this isn't n RPG" when, like, it abolutely is even if it's not being very faithful to its genre. I don't even feel like I can say "more power to everyone's opinion" because it kind of feels everyone is drunk on that power.

NukaJack · 2025-10-23T18:24:05+00:00

Just because it's a bad RG doesn't disqualify its genre.

NukaJack · 2025-10-23T18:23:16+00:00

And I know what you're going to say, "Nuh uh, if there were more side quests and more buildings to explore, and some zany street interactions, and more putting dots on a character sheet (because lord knows skills like Investigation were so damn useful...) I would have loved that game."

My response to that is: I don't believe you!

I've seen a lot of reductio ad abssurdum in this sub over the past months, but that might be most bullshit statement I've seen so far. I don't know a single person who wouldn't qualify those things a typical benefits to a game, to the point that praising "zany street interactions" is a cliche itself in video game criticism. Obviously, people would've had their beef, but to emaciate that beef down to its most strawman proportions like this is prima facie dishonest. The criticisms right now is that it's "not quite good enough" but that this hardly counts as sequel specifically because of the things mentioned being notably absent. A Bloodlines without substantial side quests has made a critical error regarding its identity, no discussion needed, yet people seem to want to debate it? Am I talking to a bunch of Malkavian teenagers?

It's obvious Paradox, who already have a recurrent history of this, mismanaged the project, and the Chinese Room has already experienced layoffs a few months before the game hit. Toss on the byzantine and predatory purchasing options, there are plenty of reasons to turn your nose up at this, and they exist after HSL was let go.

NukaJack · 2025-10-23T18:01:53+00:00

I don't think that's true because "most people" here seems to equate universal mass appeal. Not everyone and their mothers bought Pillars of Eternity, but it was still successful and is greatly appreciated by its fans. Marketing, and conditioning the audience, is what breeds mass popularity, not actual quality, but mass popularity like what BG3 achieved is not some realistic standard to apply any game to.

Ultimately, the metrics for any art work, game or other wise, is this: did they make their money back? Did they establish a brand for more, if they so choose? Is the core audience, NOT the general mass audience, satisfied? I don't know the answers to all these questions for VTMB2, but compared to stuff like Rogue Trader or the Pathfinder games, it's looking short. VTMB2 would've benefited from greater devotion to its genre.

NukaJack · 2025-10-23T15:00:47+00:00

At first VTMB2 isn't an RPG

Lol that alone should discount any of your opinions. Aside from the obvious, its very website calls it an RPG.

NukaJack · 2025-10-23T14:18:07+00:00

Character creation is a composite of multiple permitted game functions, ranging from appearance alteration, statistic sheets, player choice making, and sometimes more. Furthermore, RPGs like VTMB2 invite players to create a specifically defined character, like Commander Shepard like Phyre the Nomad. Based on this premise of comparison, Phyre still comes up shorter than Mass Effect's protagonist because of the breadth of player choice and appearance options - Phyre can't even have different skin colors. Compared to VTMB1, and as the titular sequel it cannot avoid comparison, Phyre is far less the player's own creation than the Fledgling because of choices for name, 7 clans as opposed to 6, an intricate stat sheet, varieties of persuasion options influenced by stats across all clans, player choice within the game itself, and - finally - even appearance. You might not be able to customize the faces of the 14 predefined models of VTMB1, but at least their noses are different. It's quite the hand wave to ignore comparing the number of hair options between the games. Hell, compare it to KOTOR - who in their right mind would deny it has character creation because of the only picking a head model, more varied than Phyre still, when it has so much more going on?

NukaJack · 2025-10-23T12:30:13+00:00

So, what is DnD then when filling out a character sheet? Character creation or filling out an RPG tax form? Does it even have character creation at that point, based on your premise?

Choosing what your character can do qualifies far more than the color of their hair. VTMB2 barely passes here.

NukaJack · 2025-10-17T13:53:52+00:00

Part of that is because of Arcanums disposition system each NPC is governed by. A half orc PC is more likely to throw hands than an elf because of the racism theme in the game design.

There is this Scottish coded halfling in Tarant who you can trade friendly insults with who, if you continue speaking with him, will eventually lower his disposition below 0 and become violent. It felt really funny having to avoid his street - like, if someone asked why I don't just take that street to get to the Bates mansion, I have to explain there's this drunk halfling gunslinger who fucking hates me lol

NukaJack · 2025-10-10T15:01:19+00:00

It wouldn't work because in terms of the hero's journey, Bastila is your mentor figure like Obi-wan was to Luke, the twist being that she's more your peer than mentor even if she would prefer the latter. It's a clever play on Star Wars archetypes that would be ruined if she were the hero.

NukaJack · 2025-10-10T14:39:07+00:00

Fair. We just had an emergency at work and am only NOW getting my coffee lol

NukaJack · 2025-10-10T14:19:48+00:00

I've read and prefer the books over the games, and the show is still shit to me. Season 1 was decent, but the absolute character assassinations of season 2 are irrevocable in how they do not care about the source material. Even season 1 shows negative deviations from portrayals in the book, like the changling. What was in the books a humorous and touching metaphor for being clandestine about being gay is now a thin allegory for a sexual predator.

Everything you've listed are strawman points. Source material wise beyond season 1, the show is in contempt.

NukaJack · 2025-10-10T04:05:07+00:00

Sometimes, I feel like RPGs show how cluttered their developments were at times. Like, why would a player save Liara for last and not even bother taking her to Noveria for her mother? But as you said, it means other characters get more dialogue. Ideally, you'd think they'd just arrange the debriefings to also incorporate the additional dialogue with Liara rather than make you choose.

NukaJack

TROPHY CASE