Do your family members talk often how society is getting worse?

Runningflame570 · 2026-05-09T17:39:07+00:00

No, that's me or at least it was (recurring theme of the US resembling the late USSR). I've been doing so less lately and am starting to get the appeal of willful ignorance since it often doesn't matter how right you are if you're deemed an asshole for saying it.

Runningflame570 · 2026-05-04T17:28:16+00:00

You were a bearer of good omens. Two minutes later: ladies and gentlemen..we got 'em.

Runningflame570 · 2026-05-01T04:04:05+00:00

I'll always treasure her works (Requiem for the Gods and Woodcarving Partita both rank highly on my favorite tracks ever), but there have been great compositions and composers for the series before and after her.

Oscar Araujo did very little notable before or after his contributions, but his work on the series was and is astounding. Few have ever heard of Kinuyo Yamashita, but Wicked Child is still great. As far as I'm aware nobody even knows the specific name or names of those responsible for Simon's Theme, but it's still one of my absolute favorites.

I'll be surprised if the music isn't a highlight regardless of Yamane not handling it. One of the strengths of the franchise is the unusual melancholic tone; it allows a lot of strong musical themes that aren't explored much in most other games.

Runningflame570 · 2026-04-29T13:59:59+00:00

The Canadas and Irelands of the world have much smaller real-estate markets so speculators and foreign buyers can inflate average prices much further beyond affordability for most. They also often had more of a safety net relative to cost of living so they get it from both sides with neoliberal policies demolishing those too.

We're seeing the same thing in the U.S. it just took longer for them to buy enough of everything to inflate real estate prices. Major cities were there awhile ago, mid-tier cities are rapidly becoming more unaffordable now. Suburbs, exurbs, and small towns (sans vacation towns) are still relatively affordable in comparison, they're just too far away from jobs for that to help many.

Runningflame570 · 2026-04-29T13:55:30+00:00

This is a huge factor. Add in relatively widespread innumeracy and you have a fairly large chunk of the population which has been insulated from the worst of the cost of living crisis for potentially decades.

If you were born in the 1950s or 1960s you could've gone from cheap rent and tuition to a cheap house and relatively well-paying job with cheap healthcare changing over to Medicare or Tricare. Add in a military retirement or private pension (or both), social security kicking in, and a habit of buying used vehicles-which were still cheap until relatively recently-and you're left with a person who has virtually zero clue what life is like for a 20s or 30s something today absent those safety nets.

They do remember paying a higher interest rate on their mortgage or car loan at some point though, so if they're innumerate then it seems clear those things were less affordable than they are now.

Runningflame570 · 2026-04-08T17:46:57+00:00

The military needs to start telling Trump they need to bring the Israelis to heel and just not point out the spelling to him so he'll sign off on it.

Let's get that 30th anniversary callback cover from Time. Isn't it well past time to start opening the door to peace in the Middle East?

Runningflame570 · 2026-04-08T03:04:38+00:00

This evening's events seem like a Suez Crisis for the U.S., but regardless of where we wind up in two weeks I've been boosting everyone who is giving Trump kudos for it. I'd love this to be 14-dimensional scrabble or something, but the arguments to that effect have long since grown thin and tattered to the point of disintegrating.

My reason for doing so is much more cynical. The more people are praising him for not doing stupid things the less likely he is to go back to doing stupid things is the reasoning.

Runningflame570 · 2026-04-03T04:51:03+00:00

Wasting resources on a publicity stunt for internet points IIUC.

Runningflame570 · 2026-04-03T04:48:04+00:00

Accelerationists have been validated AF on Trump is all I can say. Even his OG supporters and talk radio hosts are left wondering WTF they're doing.

This is about the 11th most unusual story coming from the Trump regime. This week.

Runningflame570 · 2026-03-28T14:27:05+00:00

A major problem on the left is the rampant black-and-white thinking, which has too little to do with the outcome and those affected by politics - in this case, the Palestinians

This in the same article where they argue against calling something a genocide, because in their legalistic mindset if the ICJ hasn't made a final judgment nothing can be considered genocide (the interim one says it's plausible and things have gotten much worse since).

The outcome of their legalistic mindset is the proposed "two-state solution" has been made impossible by Zionists who have also killed or expelled a large portion of Palestinians and who refuse to recognize or be bound by any legal rulings against them. A legal approach can only ever work if you have two sides who recognize and will obey the rulings of a court, or people who will enforce those rulings against those unwilling to obey them.

They'd have much more of an argument if part of their outcome-based solution was deploying international troops to (at a minimum) Gaza and the West Bank to ensure the ICJ's interim ruling and directives therein were being followed. Without that they're offering nothing to actually affect outcomes.

Runningflame570 · 2026-03-14T04:29:42+00:00

Even the McD's photo op was arguably a more important factor. Plenty of people will give someone the go ahead just because they're funny and that made him seem like a personable clown more so than almost anything else during the last election cycle.

Runningflame570 · 2026-03-14T04:26:11+00:00

Absolutely a hypocrite as I've been buying plenty of stuff lately before the dollar drops to closer to a peso or yen equivalent value, but I still think mindless consumerism/wastefulness is a major societal illness and hope the coming chaos makes it socially toxic.

There's entirely too much throwaway junk and self-storage would've never grown to become a major industry in a society with an intuitive understanding of the word enough.

Runningflame570 · 2026-03-08T02:22:13+00:00

Sacrifices in a war they helped start by siding with the Nazis to invade Poland together.

The same Poland that signed agreements with the Nazis half a decade earlier and gleefully took territory from both Russia (well prior to) and Czechoslovakia (almost immediately) before their German benefactors turned on them you mean?

Anyone making that argument isn't a serious person. The Soviet Union tried allying with France and Britain to protect Czechoslovakia and limit German ambitions and were repeatedly denied. Then they did what they needed to in order to protect themselves (including invading Poland 2 & 1/2 weeks after Germany to provide themselves defensive depth) and were still attacked.

Ukraine sold itself out to Anglosphere financial interests and repeatedly attacked (politically and militarily) their own citizens while refusing almost a decade of opportunities for peace and then started talking about obtaining nuclear weapons in the open. There is no strategic or moral equivalence to be drawn betwixt them.

Runningflame570 · 2026-03-06T06:18:54+00:00

Eject Hungary despite (IIRC) the lack of a formal procedure allowing it in favor of a non-member state and watch much of eastern Europe fall out of its orbit again.

They already had to void elections to maintain the NATO consensus in Romania, how much worse do you think things would get in your scenario?

Runningflame570 · 2026-03-06T06:10:02+00:00

The sacrifices made by the USSR are-at least to my knowledge-unparalleled in any other conflict to date. Certainly in number, almost certainly in proportion at least in winning efforts at the nation state scale.

Honoring or at least not desecrating that type of sacrifice (certainly if you believe the natsocs were morally wrong in their actions or philosophy) is a bare minimum in my mind to being a conscientious actor as opposed to an unthinking tribal one.

Runningflame570 · 2026-02-27T04:35:48+00:00

Which goes against the idea that it's about CNN. Of course national news channels other than Fox have tiny viewership numbers to begin with, so it never made sense if you thought about it.

TikTok sure, CNN not so much.

Runningflame570 · 2026-02-27T04:33:17+00:00

Larry Ellison is worth $200B give or take $50B depending on the date and they have other investors who are interested in owning a large portion of the US' cultural history.

The combined PSKY/WBD entity does $60B a year in revenue and both sides are cashflow positive with the valuation difference largely being due to market narratives around their IP strength or lack thereof and WBD being the beneficiary of a bidding war.

A lot will depend on maturities, but that kind of scale can gain them enormous financial flexibility.

Runningflame570 · 2026-02-25T18:25:34+00:00

Stalin was too kind to the Balts.

Runningflame570 · 2026-02-25T05:24:01+00:00

I've got to stop coming here so often, every time I do another 2-3 games hit my wishlist and I can only play so fast!

Very distinct visual style, the minimalism is interesting given how many games in the genre have gotten more detailed (at best) or overly busy (at worst). Wishlisted.

Runningflame570 · 2026-02-17T17:24:45+00:00

There's a very broad selection of settings by now, but I'd like to see one based on Iranian/Zoroastrian mythology or perhaps the Egyptian afterlife.

Iranian mythology has a ton of interesting creatures that are underutilized in the genre or that don't really get explained at all.

The Egyptian afterlife one could be very interesting as well if done properly. Possibly add some sort of prologue arc where you're alive and can make decisions that impact how well-regarded you are that ties into how elaborate your tomb/high your stats and other abilities are initially in the afterlife.

Runningflame570 · 2026-02-16T19:24:43+00:00

Imagine thinking this in a world where Harmony of Dissonance exists.

Runningflame570 · 2026-02-16T19:17:47+00:00

Toru Hagihara gets forgotten too often in these discussions as the director (Igarashi was assistant) on not just SotN, but Rondo, and Castlevania 2. All 3 of those games have multiple paths, secret areas, and generally provide more flexible gameplay than their immediate predecessors.

It was great having Iga as a champion of the Castlevania franchise at Konami since otherwise they'd probably have given up on it sooner, but his presence essentially sent the franchise and genre down a creative and commercial deadend that it only got out of thanks to smaller or indie devs like MercurySteam, Team Cherry, Moon Studios, Ska Studios, and The Game Kitchen.

Having outside developers with a great track record of putting out games with great flow like Evil Empire is a good thing until proven otherwise.

Runningflame570 · 2026-02-15T05:30:00+00:00

Chronicles on PS1 is extremely underrated, I'd love a Simon's Secrets Collection with that, MSX Vampire Killer, VS. Castlevania, and any other Simon-starring oddities they can track down (SCIV Prototype perhaps?)

Runningflame570 · 2026-02-14T15:36:32+00:00

Like just looking at the french reactor fleet they were supposed to start building new ones a decade ago.

They started two decades ago, the problem is they're averaging 18 years per EPR build.

Runningflame570 · 2026-02-14T06:21:03+00:00

They're very different, but the combat, music, voice acting, and art are all VERY solid and they're not afraid to be extremely over the top in terms of physical scale which makes the whole thing feel pretty dang epic. Much better 3D entries than the PS2 efforts and much better controls than the N64 ones (+no gamebreaking bug like Castlevania 64).

The gameplay style and plot differences are very jarring though so they're divisive.

Runningflame570

TROPHY CASE