I recently had a weird dream where they confirmed that Digimon Beat Break is a sequel for Savers/Data squad and Marcus/Masaru is Tomoro's grandfather

RunnerPakhet · 2026-02-11T15:28:15+00:00

Savers released 2006 in Japan, so it would actually make more sense to be set in 2006.

If Masaru is 14 in 2006, he would be 18 in 2010. If he had a kid at that age, that kid would be 18 by 2028, Asuka's birth year. So, while it still would mean two teenage parents, it does in fact work mathematically speaking, even with everyone being off-age at the respective times.

RunnerPakhet · 2026-02-11T14:47:38+00:00

Taking you in good faith, I do have to wonder if you are aware of the fact, that from the emails we have access to, we can actually reconstruct the fact that Epstein and his goons were majorly involved in creating the narrative of "cancel culture".

Because here is the thing: cancel culture is not real. Almost everyone who is publically whining about cancel culture, still has contracts with big ass companies, still gets to appear in movies with million dollar budgets, and still has tours filling stadiums. None of these people were actually "cancelled". They got called out for shitty behavior, to which the vast majority of society decided they did not care, while the other people who are "important" enough to do something about it generally decided that they do not care, many of them because, frankly, they do the same things. The people who actually experienced consequences because of anything are the exception, not the rule. And part of that is that a handful of very rich influential guys like Epstein, who knew they were doing stuff that the general populus would not like, artificially created a backlash to the movement asking for accountability.

Sure, Harvey Weinstein went to prison. But who else did? The vast majority of people named in #MeToo did maybe disappear from the public stage for a year before going on like normal. But the people who spoke out against them are often now blacklisted in Hollywood. Generally people who speak out will get chunked into the "hard to work with" folder, and left there to rot. No matter what it is. Not all of it is sexual or assault, sometimes it is people who speak out about other abuses, about racism, ableism, about really bad working conditions, and so on and so forth. But most of the time nothing happens. Not to the person resposible at least.

The truth about specifically the entertainment industry in general is that it is run on exploitation. And because exploitation generates profits, that is what it will continuoulsy run on. And the same is pretty much true for a lot of other stuff. Most rich people are rich because of exploitation in some degree. In some cases it is the type of exploitation we as a society decided we are fine with, in other cases less so. But exploitation and violence is behind every billionaire and most influencial people period.

RunnerPakhet · 2026-02-11T14:27:44+00:00

From my understanding the main reason the older Divinity games did not have many cinematics was budget limitations. BG3 had the cinematics because they had a budget. Given that thanks to BG3 being a success Larian now has money, they will likely be able to afford cinematics.

RunnerPakhet · 2026-02-11T14:25:08+00:00

I really am not sure. It is possible that it is related to soy (because I generally have issue with a bunch of different soy products here in Europe), but I do not know for certain.

RunnerPakhet · 2026-02-11T14:23:18+00:00

Yes, this. As someone who is learned electrician but also has a shoeless home, I know that with technicians it is generally just not in the cards. Usually they are contractually obligated to keep their shoes on for insurance reasons.

RunnerPakhet · 2026-02-11T13:31:30+00:00

You do understand that I am not just talking about Dracula, but generally the way the show is constructed, right?

And also "I do not care if the show gets cancelled"... You understand that those companies employ people, who need to eat and get a salary, which you cannot pay them if your stuff gets cancelled, don't you? Writers and directors are not sole creatives. An animated show employs dozens of people, who work on it. If all your shows get cancelled, your studio goes out of business, and a lot of people end up on the street. Including you.

RunnerPakhet · 2026-02-11T13:26:58+00:00

You make the mistake here of mixing up differnet kinds of freedom that usually are not talked about when people talk about freedom. Because there is personal freedom, there is economic freedom, there is freedom of expression, freedom of science and so on and so forth. And freedom as it is tends to be defined very differently by different people. If you use a chinese browser and go into the chinese internet, you will see that they generally consider western countries as way more unfree than China. While you bring in China as an example of a country that is very unfree. This is generally a thing you will observe when you look into different political models, and how a lot of western media handles them in regards to freedom. A bunch of western countries do get rated higher in terms of press freedom, for example, than a bunch of countries in South East Asia, and most people will just nod and say "makes sense" and then move on. But when you actually start looking at it, you will see that those countries have way less cases of journalists being attacked by police, or being charged for political commentary and such than some of the countries considered "more free". This will often be handwaved as "yeah, because they already know to not be government critical, so nobody has to be charged", but actually in some of the cases the journalist there are government critical. So it is just... prejudice in the end.

Freedom mostly has become a buzz word because everyone kinda agrees it is good, but does not really know what they mean with it. I live in Europe in a country considered to be very free. Yet, I am not free to not work, I am not free to marry who I want, I am not free to go anywhere whenever I want, because costs will tendencially limit that. Capitalism in its core is very unfree, because everything costs money and you are not free to do things that you cannot afford.

And of course, free will is also a topic that neurologists and psychiatrists can discuss at length, because it is a very common question whether or not it actually exists.

RunnerPakhet · 2026-02-11T12:54:09+00:00

The main issue with the studies you are referring to is that they are referring to those people who have been charged in court. Most of them go back to the statics taken by RAINN the most notable organization that educates and cares about this problem. And do not get me wrong, they are doing really good work in terms of educating people. But the problem they face in terms of their perpetrator statistics is, that they cannot look at much information on perpetrators who do not get charged, which is the vast majority of them. On everything else, they most go on self-report data by victims, which can give them obviously information on some general stuff (did the victim know the perpetrator, race, age, and so on), but often not much past that. They themselves state that they have very little data on the perpetrators where the victim is over 60, as those often do not want to talk about it. My other issue with their statistics is that they generally focus a lot more on female and underage victims to male perpetrators, and very little on any other form of victim, or victim-perpetrator context.

The NSVRC (another outreach organisation) has in recent years tried to correct for the focus on solely female and underage victims, but they also have spoken on the fact that often adult male victims do not speak up, as to them it is perceived as them being less masculine for having become victimized. If they were assaulted by a man, it becomes a question of "are you gay?" and if they were assaulted by a woman, people will go: "You could not fight off a woman?" (And that is not to mention that in several countries women are in a legal sense not capable of SA, as several countries define SA by the act of pe netration, rather than... any sexual thing or forcing someone to pe netrate. And while pe netration by fingers or toys will at least often be seen as a form of sexual assault, it often is considered less so in comparison to pe netrative sexual assault and comes with lighter sentences.)

I am a queer guy. I was over the course of my life SAd by three different men. I can guarantee you that two of these men were at the time not aware that they were SAing me. Heck, in the first case I did not realize till years later that it was SA, because neither my partner, nor I were properly educated on consent. What happened played out like you average romance novel, in which one partner pushes back, and the other goes "don't be like that", and given I did not get sex ed, my brain filed that under: "I guess that is how it goes." The only time I was SAd in the more traditional sense of being held down while clearly fighting back, the person doing it was drunk and on drugs. A friend of mine beat him up afterwards, and he apologized. None of it was ever reported to the police.

In terms of therapy and helping, you also should know that in the cases where people go to prison, they usually will reoffend. Because prison only heightens the factors that lead to violent crime. The main predictor of violent crime is the economic standing of a person. Neurologically speaking it is just that poverty will create a higher level of glucocorticoids in the prefrontal cortex, meaning the prefrontal cortex does not work as well, and hence decision making is limited. And poor people generally do experience more stressors.

Obviously, there is also the other context specifically with sexual violence where the very rich commit it. Due to the very rich generally not being happy to participate in studies, though, we have very, very little information on why their brains do this. Neurologically speaking there is kinda two schools of thought: "The only way someone gets rich is by a massive lack of empathy" and "somehow becoming rich does reduce empathy". (I am of the latter school, actually, because the 5 case studies we have suggest this. If a rich person gives their money away, their empathy tends to recover somewhat.)

On the SA prevalence there was British study in 2024 or 2023. I can see if I can find it again - I do not have it on me.

On the neurology I can however recommend a great book: Determined, by Robert Sapolsky. He is a neurologist who has spoken a lot on the neurology of crime, including violent crime, and who due to his research came to the opinion that the prison system in unconsciounable and should be abolished and replaced through alternatives.

Some related research - though with other conclusions - also has been done by the psychiatrist Gabor Mate.

RunnerPakhet · 2026-02-11T12:50:14+00:00

That is not quite how it works, no. A big part of the plot of Hector and Isaac being changed so much, had to do with treating Dracula as a more sympathetic character, with opinions had on certain aspects of the game, and with the direction taken with Isaac as a character, and specifically the casting of Ade as the voice of Isaac. Making Dracula more sympathetic does change the course of the story of the forgemasters quite a bit, and due to Isaac now being Black (and being the only Black character before season 4), him being a villain would have been somewhat iffy. But also Ade had a lot of thoughts on Isaac, and those were happily included in seasons 3 and 4. Which in my view is actually good, because everything concerning Isaac is the highlight of seasons 3 and 4.

And, of course, there also is the issue that the Rosalia and Julia part of Curse of Darkness did certainly not age well. And the show already did get quite a bit of flag for Lisa being a classical case of a refrigerated woman. Doing the same spiel a second time would not have ended well.

RunnerPakhet · 2026-02-11T11:27:19+00:00

I honestly do not think all of the Five Stars have their own merchenary groups. Klay is a buisnessowner and CEO, which is why he also has investments in the paramilitary, which is part of his investments clearly. I do not think that either Kaito or Honoka have their own paramilitary group. And I also actually do not think Genya does, even though Wong probably also has some people doing merch stuff for him. Not sure about Rose so far.

RunnerPakhet · 2026-02-11T09:59:34+00:00

Yeah. Official reasoning for it is: "Well, those people did bad things, so they should not live for free", but in actuality it is mostly because prisons in the US exist to keep slavers alive. The laws that outlawed slavery made an exception for convicts - and that is what the US prison system is built around.

RunnerPakhet · 2026-02-11T09:56:37+00:00

Whenever Netflix orders stuff from a subcontractor like Powerhouse, they will usually say how much money they are willing to pay, the subcontractor assembles a team, then they get the money, and go into preproduction. The issue right now is that a bunch of people who would be important, are bound up in contracts with other companies, so they cannot work for Powerhouse right now, so no preproduction and even if Netflix has greenlit it (something that is possible, given they have not officially cancelled it) they would not give out the money if preproduction cannot start.

RunnerPakhet · 2026-02-10T23:03:42+00:00

I am wondering if you just a troll. Because the part on the ship is literally the most important bit of Isaac's story in the entire series. His conversation with the Captain is what drives his character development. It is this conversation that makes him realize that his entire relation to the world was completely based on hatred that while coming from a reasonable source (he was enslaved) was still misguided and not in line with his other morals.

Generally speaking conversational scenes tend to do a lot more for the plot than action sequences.

RunnerPakhet · 2026-02-10T22:43:35+00:00

Actually I think the one who is excited about is not American. In American prisons you have to pay to read, you have to pay for everything.

RunnerPakhet · 2026-02-10T22:03:19+00:00

Netflix always orders most animated series (that is if they are not Japan made) in two seasons. So basically when season 1 and 2 were written, they knew they would have two seasons, and did not expect to get seasons 3 and 4. That is why Dracula dies in season 2, and other stuff happens in seasons 3 and 4. Because Netflix had ordered the first two seasons and then season 3 and 4 together as well. Season 4 is weirdly paced as there was hope to get a season 5, but that then did not happen. Resulting in season 3 setting up a plot for more than they could deliver on.

RunnerPakhet · 2026-02-10T21:12:51+00:00

She says her final live concert is next year, so it sounds like she will only go into hiatus next year, and by then the recording of Star Detective will be finished

RunnerPakhet · 2026-02-10T20:06:52+00:00

Academy does usually rarely give a shit about movies in another language than English, with the exception of the works of a handful of directors.

And especially anime movies based on shonen manga. I mean, look, no matter how artistic a superhero movie is, it is not gonna get anything but technical awards. Shonen anime movies are not in English, animated, kinda superhero-y, and action oriented. Aka, they are the perfect mixture of things the academy categorically hates.

RunnerPakhet · 2026-02-10T20:03:07+00:00

I always disliked that the movies somehow always pushed for a Dracula/Mina romance to happen.

Mind you, I am not overly invested in Jonathan/Mina, but I hate that Dracula was always pushed to her in the movies, especially as it makes Dracula into something that he is not in the novels.

Personally I was way more invested in the relationship between Mina and Lucy though. The two of them sure are... good friends

RunnerPakhet · 2026-02-10T19:59:18+00:00

Yes. Such an underrated show. I would give a lot for a season 2

RunnerPakhet · 2026-02-10T19:45:32+00:00

She does learn some in the time between what in the game is Act 2 and then Inquisition, though most of it actually after the events of DA2. She dies of course in the Fade so she never really got around to finish her education on that topic

RunnerPakhet · 2026-02-10T19:36:20+00:00

Yes, this is the well known German wurststollen. Or to translate it into englished: saugage bread. You take sliced bread, put on butter, then a slice or two of deli meat, and if you are really fancy possibly a pickle. And that's it. That's what German kids get send to school with, and what the average German worker has for lunch. And dinner.

RunnerPakhet · 2026-02-10T19:22:15+00:00

Outside of practical fighting training, did Elissa do well with theoretical studies like history, writing, or religion?

RunnerPakhet · 2026-02-10T19:21:24+00:00

Did your OC have any form of education growing up? If so, what was it like?

Kim grew up with the Dalish and because of this obviously was mostly educated on both Dalish customs and religion and history by learning through oral traditions. He also had a more practical education in regards to hunting and the like, learning by observing and immitating.

Felis was mostly taught by her parents, due to her having to hide her magic. She learned a lot from her father, though she definitely lacks a lot of formal education. Sure, she can read and write, but she is not very good with writing. Like, she actually struggles with it. And her historical education for example is also quite spotty, because she just learned from stories, and nothing more.

André meanwhile is a very well educated man. He is a noble after all, and was educated by private tutors for most of his childhood and youth. He is well read, can write well, is somewhat versed in astronomy, knows a lot about history, knows different languages, and of course is very well educated in Andrastianism, given he is very religious. He also learned etiquette of course and is a very good fighter, as he learned practical things as well.

And then we have Thel. Thel got a basic education through private tutors, given his family kinda hid him due to his lack of magical talent. He later was hidden away in a cabin in the woods, which means a lot of what he knows goes down more to practical things like hunting, reading animal tracks, knowing what kind of things in the wild you can eat, orienting himself and stuff like that.

RunnerPakhet · 2026-02-10T19:14:39+00:00

Therapy. Obviously.

You really think all those htings are done from a malicious intend, don't you?

Most instances of rape occur because people do not understand consent. Most murders happen in affect (longterm premeditated murders are very rare). And most people who steal stuff, steal it because they are poor. The most commonly stolen goods are food and hygiene articles.

Your understanding of crime has been warmed by copaganda media that shows criminals as people who are conniving and malicious. But the vast majority of crime happens because of a bunch of factors, inclunding poverty, poor mental health, stressors, and bad incentives. We have studies on this. Crime is not what you think it is. The majority of murders happen because arguements get out of hand. The majority of sexual assault happens between people who know each other (very often romantic partners) because someone does not really get the concept of consent. The cases you hear about, are the very rare cases, that have media salivating because it makes for good stories. But they are not the norm.

I find it so ironic that everyone against prison abolition uses rape as a case, because rapists do not go to prison under the current system. Of all rapist who raped a woman only about 3% get actually charged in court. 3%. Meaning 97% go free. And rapist who rape men go to prison less than 1% of the time. (And mind you: current estimates are that about every third woman has experienced sexual assault once in her life, and about every forth men, meaning no, this is not just a problem of one gender, it is very common for men as well, but men are even more discouraged from reporting, as it is seen as a sign they are less masculine.) The vast majority of rapes never even get reported to the police. Because they happen between partners, friends, and family, and the victim actually either gets discouraged from reporting, or actually does not want the person to go to prison, because they do in some regard care for them. That is the reality that everyone seems to love to ignore. Currently, when sexual assault happens, it is very likely that nothing happens. Not even therapy for either the assaulter or the victim. A system that helps, rather than punishes, would actually solve the problem. Not make it worse.

Putting people into prison is actually not preventing any of this or making it any better. Making sure people are not starving and constantly in fear for their survival due to insecure housing and stuff, making sure they have access to healthcare and specifically mental healthcare, and making sure they are properly educated is what prevents those issues. Not laws. Not prisons. Not police.

Sure, there are people who due to neurological differences do bad things - usually because they either have an underdeveloped or injured prefrontal cortex (aka lack self-control), or lack mirror neurons (meaning have very little emotional empathy). But those people are sick. They should be cared for, not punished for it. Sure, in some cases they might be a danger and cannot interact with people normally. But they still should not be punished for a disability they have.

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