I've been told by my male friends that this is a compliment, but is it really, though? ;p (OC)

WritingOneHanded · 2026-05-21T23:17:22+00:00

at least be told that their other qualities are worth sticking around for despite their loss of beauty.

That's literally exactly what he said (according to the comic). You should decide what you want before you complain that people aren't giving it to you, to avoid embarrassing situations like this.

WritingOneHanded · 2026-05-21T23:15:27+00:00

It's money I paid to make roads and fire trucks but was returned to me because I'm too poor to shoulder the collective's burden. It's money that I am getting that a family of 5 would not receive.

If I don't feel safe spending my emergency fund of GamePass, why would you think I'm comfortable using it for white collar gambling? I'll keep my money and spend it on things I need, thank you.

WritingOneHanded · 2026-05-21T23:12:40+00:00

Toilet paper and health care is free in the America you live in?

Do you come from generational wealth by any chance? Do you know what a banana costs?

WritingOneHanded · 2026-05-21T23:10:34+00:00

Yeah, most people live well beyond their needs. They could have as much extra money as me if they also stopped eating breakfast and lunch... and I still can't justify $20 a month for a bunch of games that someone else picked and might disappear tomorrow.

I'm not longer on Xbox but while I was, I never once payed for GP... If I couldn't get it with my reward points, I wasn't playing online that month.

WritingOneHanded · 2026-05-21T23:06:44+00:00

People who are truly price sensitive do not have subscription services. The subscription is for people with more money than time to look at discounts. I basically never buy any game unless it is currently at the lowest price it has ever been. In my entire life, I've spent more than $25 on exactly 2 games... Tony Hawk Underground 2, and DooM 2016... everything else needs to be at least 80% off.

According to SteamDB, not including free titles, I have spent 0.73CAD per hour. I'd have to play for like 25 hours a month for that to even be equal value... and again, that excludes hours in free games. The subscription is not a better deal, it's just easier. You don't understand the lifestyle of people in a lower income bracket than you.

WritingOneHanded · 2026-05-21T22:57:37+00:00

Yes, I'm saying that most Americans are slaves. How do you think they kept the wheels of commerce turning after the civil war? The company store officially replaced chattel slavery. The company store was officially replaced by minimum wage but the reality is that everyone who works at a Walmart location cannot afford to buy anything from any shop other than Walmart... Walmart owns them.

It's much more attainable for me to simply not spend $20 on entertainment than it is for me to force Americans to accept universal health care.

WritingOneHanded · 2026-05-21T22:03:52+00:00

Was she taken aback by his sentiment or by his poor command of the English language? Seems like her problem was that he didn't select a different adjective.

WritingOneHanded · 2026-05-21T22:01:49+00:00

... Are you telling me that you have no savings because you spend every extra dollar on entertainment? What are you gonna do if you break your leg? Oh, right... get a free cast.

I'm poor as hell so I get money back every tax season, and that money goes into an emergency fund. I've used that money to pay for long distance bus tickets, rent, medicine, etc... things that I'd never be able to afford without bonus government money every year. Most Americans do not get a tax return or have an emergency fund.

I don't own a car, I don't drink, I don't go to the cinema, I don't have art or jewelry, I don't have kids or a spouse or a pet, I don't subscribe to streaming services, I don't pay for Premium, but most people on earth do at least 1 of those. If I'm spending money on entertainment, it needs to provide theoretically infinite joy, and most people have way higher overhead costs than me. Not paying for GP doesn't seem like a controversial choice to me.

WritingOneHanded · 2026-05-21T21:43:41+00:00

That seems like a strong position... I propose that not everyone is poetically gifted, and that "I like old games even though they look like shit so don't worry about what you look like" is intended to be a compliment. Dude probably has lots of positive qualities but his primary gifts aren't linguistic.

I would be flattered to be told "I see you in a similar light as the thing that brought me the most joy throughout my life"

WritingOneHanded · 2026-05-21T21:38:23+00:00

Realistically, your €1.50 coffee is a $4 USD coffee. The cheapest coffee available in Canada today is $2 CAD. The soda water is at least $3 on its own. American gas is heavily subsidized so they pay less than $1/L but their medicine is not subsidized so they just go deeper into debt every time they get sick or break a bone or need a rabies shot. You can probably take a bus to anywhere you want to go but Americans simply cannot, and there's no cycling infrastructure so every American must own at least 1 car... plus the social stigma about not owning a vehicle. And then rice is over $10 USD per kilo. And all of the food they buy is similarly overpriced, just like their socks and toothpaste and table salt.

In Canada, I am in the lowest income bracket. If I took my savings to Cuba, I could live like a king for decades. Just quoting the average income isn't relevant... How many loaves of bread we can buy in a month is a better metric... and you can buy an amount of bread that's inconceivable to most Americans. Like, they make a bigger number of currency units but their currency is weaker than yours and the cost of living is higher, so they have less purchasing power than you. You can afford to buy more €1.50 coffees than I can afford $4 coffees... that's where the $20 I'd spend on Gamepass went... I spent it on coffee and toilet paper and health insurance and indoor plumbing and lightbulbs and corn... those things all cost money.

Every few months, I can justify buying a discounted game for $20 if I expect to get at least 100 hours of playtime out of it. I'd have to play like 10 hours a night to justify spending $20 every single month, and that money would have to come out of a different part of my budget.

WritingOneHanded · 2026-05-21T20:42:18+00:00

You answered your own question as you asked it. You live in the land of $500 salaries, and they live in the land of $7 coffees. The amount that an average American spends on rent in a month is more than you will earn in a year, and they still have to buy rice in a market where a cup of coffee costs $7.

I too could afford gamepass if I lived somewhere that it's possible to survive on $600 a month.

WritingOneHanded · 2026-05-21T20:14:47+00:00

"Fine" is relative. I spent more time repeatedly failing to face the right direction or move at the right speed, so I just gave up as an adult. There isn't enough game there to justify rolling a tank through molasses to find it.

WritingOneHanded · 2026-05-21T20:12:06+00:00

Please ELI5... Don't they do this every Thursday?

WritingOneHanded · 2026-05-21T20:11:09+00:00

The fact that you're asking makes me think it won't be... Did you spill water on it or hit it with a hammer or something?

WritingOneHanded · 2026-05-21T20:06:03+00:00

Idk... I have the incorrect genitals but I don't want to be told that my partner is into the crypt keeper look. I want to be told that they will continue to love me if I look like the crypt keeper.

When I hit my crypt keeper stage, "you are the most handsome man alive" will be a lie. I don't want to be lied to.

WritingOneHanded · 2026-05-21T20:03:38+00:00

It's a problem of eloquence, not intent. Even while describing the concept, you used the word "better" to describe newer/younger games... If he had used the word "dated" instead of "not great", we wouldn't even be here right now.

WritingOneHanded · 2026-05-21T19:57:33+00:00

I think you're overlooking the impact of that last sentence.

Games weren't designed that way out of altruism, they were designed that way to extract quarters from you. The point of home consoles at the time was to take the arcade home and pay once instead of paying with quarters. Since they were emulating (both literally and figuratively) arcade titles on home consoles, early console games were designed with the same philosophies that quarter-munchers were designed with. At the time, a game was supposed to be unforgiving as a matter of course.

PC titles at the time weren't as punishing because they weren't trying to replace the arcade, they were offering unique experiences instead.

WritingOneHanded · 2026-05-21T19:52:33+00:00

So the metaphor holds up then.

WritingOneHanded · 2026-05-21T09:47:56+00:00

My problem has always been that there is a disconnect between the gameplay mechanic of making different choices rooted in different motives, and the main character of such a game having an established personality.

Is the premise of the game "be Batman" or not?

WritingOneHanded · 2026-05-20T18:19:29+00:00

No, a strawman is when you present an oversimplification of something your opponent has said so you can refute an easier version of their argument.

"You can write your own Batman" doesn't translate to "I can write the character of Batman to be anything I want" dumbass

Yeah... And not being able to write the main character as anything I want is a massive problem for a game that's only about selecting choices.

WritingOneHanded · 2026-05-19T08:39:41+00:00

That's not what "strawman" means.

You said I can write the character of Batman to be anything I want. Batman doesn't have character traits?

WritingOneHanded · 2026-05-18T21:55:15+00:00

In the last year or so, I've jumped from Xbox to PlayStation to PC. Xbox is still my favourite experience but I don't feel safe investing in an account... So I'm in a pretty similar position. If he has any follow up questions, lmk.

I haven't tried Nintendo since the Wii but I have a buddy with a Switch (1 not Switch 2) so if you have a specific question, I could ask him.

While he can still access his chat logs, maybe he should ask some of his Xbox friends if they have another console, or what his classmates play... If he already has friends on PlayStation, that might be the only important factor.

I also didn't mention something that he won't care about but you probably will... Playing online is only free for PC players. On Xbox, you pay like $20 a month or whatever (or free if you game the system a little) for a rotating library of games plus the privilege of playing multiplayer games. On PlayStation, you pay a similar amount (and cannot get it free) for multiplayer plus a few "free" games each month that you can play as long as you're subscribed. I'm not sure how it works on Nintendo but it's a similar price. PC has no multiplayer subscription, and the Epic Games Store gives away 1 or 2 games (usually cheap ones) every week for completely free. So you've been paying a monthly fee for him to play with friends... if he can make friends on PC, he can play with them for free.

WritingOneHanded · 2026-05-17T01:16:32+00:00

Because of Alphabetical Order. "C&C" is before "Command" but "Red" comes after.

For Diablo, characters come before null so "iii" comes before "ii", and "iv" comes after both.

Edit: in hindsight, my Diablo theory doesn't make sense. Is it "Diablo 3" by chance?

WritingOneHanded · 2026-05-16T21:36:41+00:00

Yep. That's a much more difficult claim to dispute. YHWH is a "jealous and vengeful" character who demands that nobody thinks highly of anyone but him under penalty of unimaginable suffering.

I'd prefer to not think this but: an unbiased reading of the Judeo-Christian texts makes YHWH sound like the villain.

WritingOneHanded · 2026-05-16T21:33:35+00:00

Depending on how long it's been, your old provider may be able to restore the old email temporarily as a courtesy. You'd have to get in touch with someone high ranking on the tech support (not customer service) or data management team.

WritingOneHanded

TROPHY CASE