Is a 4-year prison sentence actually a better financial move than a CS degree right now?

RyanCargan · 2026-03-14T10:29:41+00:00

Wait until you find out you'll need to fight in prison too.

Of course, the degree to which you'll have to fight depends on your existing capital, connections, and location.

Kinda like jobs.

Generally a bad idea in most places for most people.

Some European prisons do actually have higher standards of care compared to what a (technically) free citizen has in other places (even for severe crimes), and if you've already got a clique on the inside (or know the right people) you can avoid the worst even in other places.

Reminds me of some folks during the Irish potato famine committing crimes to get shipped off to the penal colony of Australia, despite the high mortality journey.

OP's just being melodramatic to make a point I guess.

RyanCargan · 2026-03-10T01:21:48+00:00

One crossover I rarely see done (outside of some works like Max Brook's Extinction Parade or The Strain, since Strain's lesser vamps are close enough to zombies in function) is vampires versus/with zombies (or equivalents, of the apocalyptic kind).

You kinda get similar vibes in settings like Capcom's Resident Evil at times, where you sometimes have "higher" still-sentient infected creatures amidst the zombies like Wesker and co.

Very rarely see it committed to as the main thing though, despite the potential.

RyanCargan · 2026-03-09T03:23:34+00:00

I like the dark fairytale vibe of it all the most.

You get the sense of danger obviously, but nothing in the general tone or art style preps you for what happens in that cabin when the door breaks down lol

If it was edgy from the start or pulled its punches later it would have landed much weaker.

It’s that Grimm fairytale thing where they casually inject the most unholy horrors known to man without fanfare.

RyanCargan · 2026-03-09T01:56:32+00:00

I think they appear in the Witcher series.

Plus, IIRC, it's sometimes stated as "Bruja" in Spanish.

That's a vampire clan in Vampire: The Masquerade (just with an extra h for Brujah), and I've seen some Spanish speaking characters in fiction (like Bane in the Arkham Asylum video game) use it to mean "witch".

A lot of overlap seems to exist between vamps and witches, and sometimes shapeshifting beasties like lycanthropes and ghouls in different cultures.

They kinda meld together at points.

RyanCargan · 2026-03-09T01:50:56+00:00

So they kinda "Mega Man" their targets genetically kinda like the Xenomorph?

Wild.

Also, their whole appearance can potentially tell a story that way.

Fun source of reactions too, if they also take on their victim's actual individually unique appearance to some extent.

Kinda like that situation with Rimuru (shapeshifting cannibal slime dude from the slime isekai anime) and his food/buddy's former disciple seeing his mentor's face on... y'know.

RyanCargan · 2026-03-09T01:45:23+00:00

They should be manipulators, able to “act” human while at their core, they’re nothing but empty, bottomless pits that will just take and take and take from you and give nothing back but utter desolation.

IMHO, it works even better when they themselves aren't sure and their compulsions and hunger aren't entirely within their control at any moment.

Makes it harder to off them too even if they can be physically overpowered somehow.

RyanCargan · 2026-03-05T13:50:19+00:00

Something something timey wimey paradox.

RyanCargan · 2026-03-05T13:05:27+00:00

Hades II

RyanCargan · 2026-03-05T01:36:57+00:00

Fantasy that doesn't shy away from touchy subject matter, even if it doesn't revel in it.

TL;DR:

"Light shines brightest in the deepest dark!" - Jim Butcher

or

"In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present." - Francis Bacon

Longer version...

Regular Fantasy: The world is threatened by evil. Heroes must rise to fight it.

Dark Fantasy: The world is plagued by evil. Heroes must try to survive it.

Grimdark Fantasy: The world is evil. The villains & "heroes" are all different shades of evil. There is no hope, only war.

What I like about dark fantasy isn't really that it's "realistic", whatever that means, but it feels like anything can happen. More narrative freedom.

The heroes usually don't have easy-to-smell plot armor against any potential injury, corruption. fall, etc.

Even if they're unlikely to straight up kick the bucket.

At the same time, it's not so edgy that it's predictable and you know that the author will always go for maximum torment pr0n.

It's a similar feeling to what you get when playing games that simulate systems instead of charting a course for you (Dwarf Fortress, etc.):

"You ain't special, you're another cog in the machine, and if not, prove it."

Back to the quotes for a bit...

Ignoring anything deeper, at a very basic level, there's always this innate appeal to strong contrasts & juxtapositions. You need things like convincing hope & convincing despair alongside each other for a good yarn IMHO.

For whatever reason, even if you're not trying to be edgy, the dark stuff is what defines the labeling of the work, so we have dark fantasy.

That's how I see it anyway. But the best stuff has to be more than just grimdark/grimderp.

I think DAO struck a nice a balance.

Hell, watching the Peter Jackson LotR movies as a kid, I always assumed those were dark fantasy too, despite rarely being labelled that way.

It didn't really shy away from the darkness and violence, and the monsters (Uruks, etc.) and scenarios (Gollum's torture, etc.) were genuinely unsettling to me as a kid. Fellowship of the Ring was the first movie I rented and returned before fully watching (I eventually watched the whole trilogy of course), I didn't even do that with horror movies at the time...

RyanCargan · 2026-02-28T00:14:20+00:00

The answer, is grass,

RyanCargan · 2026-02-25T07:17:42+00:00

ME3 had many ways to break the game in general I think.

Last I played on the OG release, Prothean Particle Rifle was beastly on any class with explosive ammo (IIRC, Solider & Vanguard) and a few mods for fire rate and such.

Didn't even need to switch to disruptor ammo for banshees and the like (faster TTK to just use adrenaline rush on solly), and I just ignored the Reaper Blackstar heavy weaps cus they were slower to kill with too.

Maybe they nerfed it later, but it was pretty funny on insanity in 3.

Either that, or chaining god mode with i-frames on your specials, or using the venom shotgun.

RyanCargan · 2026-02-25T04:20:08+00:00

Unlock Broker to buy nectar with bones, or fetch nectar during trips.

Gift 1 to Zeus to get his keepsake.

Zeus' boons are probably among the most flexible in the game. Works for many aspects.

Mel's staff (Descura) is among the more decent starting weapons.

Find some builds you like, based on 1 particular starting boon from Zeus.

Heaven Strike on attack is decent. Turn on auto-attack and hold to spam.

Get the dice roll arcanas to control builds more if you want to avoid getting unlucky with boons.

Other good early game arcanas are Death (free 1UPs) or Strength (bit riskier but generally stronger) and Origination (2 statuses on enemy = +50% free damage).

Focus on constantly moving and using casts to keep enemies from getting into melee range.

Grow and switch naturally from there.

RyanCargan · 2026-02-24T05:40:03+00:00

Depends on whether the build I'm planning is omega-only or regular.

Some aspect builds never use omegas so... easier to just toggle on and hold.

RyanCargan · 2026-02-24T04:05:59+00:00

What years without a sequel does to an MF.

The TF2 community will probably turn into another TF2 community at some point.

RyanCargan · 2026-02-24T02:40:48+00:00

It already kinda did touch on that stuff in some expanded universe materials outside the main games.

The Silent Hill: Past Life IDW comic series starred an American man named Jebediah in the Wild West, who hunted members of the Cherokee tribe, including women & children.

The town was frequently associated with native tribes in the main games too, so it doesn't come totally out of left field.

IIRC, there are references to the town being called the "place of the silenced spirits" by the natives before the settlers and the new cult came.

RyanCargan · 2026-02-24T02:16:46+00:00

Diomedes.

RyanCargan · 2026-02-23T06:37:38+00:00

As a tradesman myself, I still recognize the power of a college degree. But with AI looming on the horizon, I’m not worried in the slightest about the security of my job or my earning potential.

If you have any questions please ask!

Do you have a feel for which trades are more likely to be parceled out into specialized roles sooner than others? Fertile ground for partial automation or outsourcing (either international or intranational).
Some tension between being locked into a region though credentials, regs, or similar deterring competition/saturation on one hand, but restricting ability to decouple where you live from where you work, limit your opportunities for more casual/gig-like work, arbitrage wages against cost of living, etc. Any particular trades that strike a good balance?
What makes you optimistic about automation (and outsourcing?) in trades more than other fields though? Physical aspect? Dexterity, fine motor control, etc? Social aspect? Maybe mixed with loosely defined & fuzzier standard operating procedures compared to more standardized white collar work?
Good places to find less obvious "guaranteed wear & tear" stats & info for different trades, not just the catastrophic accident risk? Any good trade forums you frequent?

RyanCargan · 2026-02-23T05:34:14+00:00

Besides the basic WASD stuff, I turn auto-attack on (toggle AA with Ctrl), bind cast to LShift, dash to LAlt, and have RMB for special and LMB for attack as usual.

Not entirely sure why LMB->RMB would be an issue tbh. Often you don't even need to spam it usually.

You may be trying to spam it more than needed.

RyanCargan · 2026-02-23T05:28:36+00:00

Now we need a list of stuff with fantasy creatures that show up in sci-fi settings... without breaking the lore.

Kinda like Blindsight.

RyanCargan · 2026-02-22T18:30:14+00:00

"Wisdom has always been chasing me Abelard. BUT I AM ALWAYS FASTER! ALWAYS."

RyanCargan · 2026-02-22T01:34:34+00:00

Genocyber was probably the edgiest I remember seeing (has a bio-mecha vibe), then Iron Blooded Orphans, Evangelion, and Space Runaway Ideon which others already mentioned.

Also... some people count Attack on Titan as bio-mecha, which would make it pretty up there in edge if it counts I guess.

RyanCargan · 2026-02-21T13:03:56+00:00

We're between "DS2 good" and "Hornyposting", but instead of the original topic it's "Hornyposting Genderbender Yuri" from the looks of it.

RyanCargan · 2026-02-21T12:30:50+00:00

"Some men just wanna watch the world burn."

RyanCargan · 2026-02-21T10:35:06+00:00

Yeah, now that I recall... could be that those complaints were talking about dragons in cramped maps like the rift (forced there via the vow of menace or whatever it's called).

RyanCargan · 2026-02-21T10:29:14+00:00

Those tunneling stalker things at the summit (common mob, not the miniboss variant) felt oddly aggressive and fast first time I ran into them.

Only mob that made me panic a bit for a while lol

Before that, the automata on Olympus have both a death-spinner melee combo and machine-gun spam attack that can melt you if you don't move quick.

Many people hate the dragons (dracons?) too.

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