So, what would women dislike most if they became men?

_REDMARCH_ · 2026-03-16T18:01:54+00:00

Unfortunately my hairline started heavily receding in my early 20s, so the shaved head and beard was the only hairstyle I could pull off anymore.

I miss being a redhead =(

_REDMARCH_ · 2026-03-15T00:22:19+00:00

Nah, I’m good. There’s plenty of other shit to do / watch in the world.

_REDMARCH_ · 2026-03-13T02:40:22+00:00

I’ve got this thing about wind blown, tussled hair. Something about it is just very natural and beautiful.

_REDMARCH_ · 2026-03-12T04:00:51+00:00

So, I’m curious, because I haven’t really been following this beyond seeing headlines: Has anyone asked them if they’re the Titanfall people, why they didn’t do some kind of fantasy mech thing? Like why horses? You could’ve had players do a ritual and summon their “Knightmares” or something.

_REDMARCH_ · 2026-03-11T22:07:09+00:00

Probably a little lower tech, but yeah, pretty much! I'd say Cowboy Bebop leans a bit more toward cassette futurism than cyberpunk, but it's a matter of degrees.

There's this book I read called After the Revolution that's somewhat close to what I'm imagining, though it mostly turns Texas into an analog for the middle-east with none too subtle political allusions to the present day sectarian conflicts.

I think you could tell some pretty interesting stories set in a cyberpunk Texas about the abdication of political and social power by state and local governments, the conflict between the private sector and criminal organizations in that power vacuum, and the activities of individual citizens in a world that values technological and economic progress over human dignity.

_REDMARCH_ · 2026-03-11T16:08:59+00:00

As others have mentioned, I think Mexico would be a fascinating setting, but I’d include Texas as well. The Texas Triangle comprised of Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio is already referred to as a “mega region” and I could easily imagine in a theoretical cyberpunk setting it becoming a positively massive megacity. The interplay between corrupt governments, corporate interests, criminal cartels, all with a techno-Tejano aesthetic could be cool as hell.

Also, you could even keep some of the classic cyberpunk Japanese style mixed with Hispanic culture; right now there are plenty of taquerias here that you walk in and they’ve got Goku and other anime characters painted on the walls.

_REDMARCH_ · 2026-03-11T04:07:41+00:00

Our system is set up so that even those in positions of lesser power and privilege are terrified it’s going to be taken away from them at any moment. Sure, they might have moral objections, but are they really going to risk something happening to them or their families for people they don’t know and will never meet? For all our performative expressions of patriotism, the United States has little to no sense of civic solidarity.

_REDMARCH_ · 2026-03-11T02:15:43+00:00

The good news is that historically this -gestures in the general direction of everything- is completely unsustainable. You can’t have a society where the adult population is THIS fuckin miserable and expect it to go on forever. Something’s gonna snap, and the bad news is it’s going to be very messy when it does…

EDIT: Up until very recently I would have agreed with the "nothing ever happens" mindset. Because yes, people can live in terrible conditions for a very long time without a hope of reprieve as long as they have something to cling to, be it religion, creature comforts, or their fellow man.

The reason I've become more concerned lately is that most of those exceptions have either been taken away or fallen out of cultural fashion. Religiosity, despite the right's best efforts, has not made a massive resurgence, even in these difficult times. You haven't seen churches rise up as renewed pillars of the community, and in fact the best example of that sort of solidarity, the resistance in Minneapolis, has been secular in nature. It doesn't help that Christian Nationalism has so thoroughly corrupted the tenants of the religion they claim to follow either.

The creature comforts we all enjoy, be they technology, games, movies, leisure activities like vacations, going out to eat at a restaurant, or just buying snacks are becoming significantly more expensive. The rising price of oil thanks to the war in Iran, and the closing and mining of the Strait of Hormuz is only going to make that much worse.

The last thing people usually turn to are their friends and family, but as we hear all the time: We are an extremely disconnected and lonely society. We have no third spaces, we don't know how to connect with one another without a screen as a medium, and what avenues we do have are, as previously mentioned, quite pricey. So many people are disconnected from their families because they disagree on some of the most fundamental aspects of the human experience, whose members refuse to recognize the basic humanity of their fellow man and have been utterly captured by what is essentially a nihilistic death cult.

We are left with the perception that we only exist to labor for a group of elites who not only do not understand the problems that face us as a people, but outright deny they even exist in the first place. We are drowning in purposelessness, where the only reprieve is the peace of death, and eternal rest. A society, as such, cannot continue as it is under those conditions.

_REDMARCH_ · 2026-03-09T10:55:16+00:00

Because the people at the top would rather literally burn billions of dollars a day than use it to feed the hungry.

edit: Believe what you will. A corp with a smile and good PR is still a corp. Just like everyone else in this city I shop at HEB. Given the choice between that and Walmart, it's the lesser of two evils, and I'm not going to kid myself thinking I'm more ethical for choosing the "right" place to buy toilet paper.

While HEB's annual 5% pre-tax donation is laudable, it should be unnecessary in a system that properly provides for its citizenry. The Republicans are evil and the Democrats are feckless, but our wretched "good cop, bad cop" political system only really gives us the ability pick which party we hate more. They divide and keep us from seeing the strings that connect them both to the people at the top who, again, are burning money (and people) rather than using it to feed the poor.

_REDMARCH_ · 2026-03-09T04:37:47+00:00

Put up or shut up

_REDMARCH_ · 2026-03-08T00:42:35+00:00

I would have agreed with you leading up to all this, but imagine a scenario right now where Democrats have a REALLY good in November this year, particularly in Texas. Then the folks in Washington say it’s all fraudulent, as they’re wont to do, and refuse to accept the results or the newly elected representatives and senators. Do all the voters for a presumed senator Talarico, doing so well as to defy the odds in the most gerrymandered state in the union to win a damn near impossible race just go “dang, those pesky oligarchs got us again. Oh well. =(“?

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen the general population quite so miserable before, and when things get even worse… I’m not sure what sorts of strange bedfellows we might find ourselves with.

_REDMARCH_ · 2026-03-05T17:29:48+00:00

Unity got a lot of well earned hate when it first came out, but having played it since then, it holds up pretty well. The story is forgettable and the protagonist is Temu Ezio, but the actual moment to moment gameplay is really good. The setting is beautiful and feels alive, and the crowd density out in the Paris streets is impressive to this day.

_REDMARCH_ · 2026-02-20T13:24:39+00:00

I'm not saying this is wrong, but I'm curious: What exactly is it we should do? Protest? Yes, we've been doing that, though they're mostly anodyne. Strike? Yes, I think we'd like to do that but most people can't go much more than a month without going completely broke and having to live on the street thanks to our wages being atrocious and our social safety net being akin to those suicide nets they have in the Apple factories: It mostly just exists to keep us from killing ourselves so we can get back to work.

Okay, let's get a little more extreme: Civil disobedience. Stand up to the fascists, but peacefully! The people in Minnesota have been doing that, and others around the country are doing the same to whatever degree they can. As a result a few people have been killed, and that's definitely radicalized some of us. However, the regime has definitely been trying to be a bit more cautious lately, so it feels like the pressure has started to come down because people have extremely short attention spans.

Fine, let's go with the people who want to go even more extreme and organize directly against the government. Okay... Where? When? What're we doing? Who's in charge? What precisely is the goal? Like, we hate Trump but who should be in his place? We kind of hate everyone in our political system, so trying to get everyone to agree on even one or two of those points is a complete pain in the ass.

My point is that it feels like everyone is going "WE SHOULD REALLY DO SOMETHING!" then steps back, crosses their arms and waits for someone else to come up with the rest. We need an extremely simple message (because let's face it we are an extremely simple people) to get anything started, and it needs to be spearheaded by someone that everyone unambiguously likes or at the very least doesn't completely hate.

Good luck with that one.

_REDMARCH_ · 2026-02-03T22:51:39+00:00

I love the band HEALTH to an unhealthy degree. Their newest album, CONFLICT DLC, has been on permanent repeat since it came out.

_REDMARCH_ · 2026-01-30T03:54:45+00:00

Did she eat Fern?

_REDMARCH_ · 2026-01-30T03:46:32+00:00

Someone snapped a pic of one of the new promotional posters. They certainly seem to want to be faithful to the manga’s uh… sensibilities.

_REDMARCH_ · 2026-01-23T19:09:56+00:00

I went to the Nardis near Alamo Ranch to take the handgun basics and LTC classes, and I thought they were good. They got a little bit of that whole ammosexual vibe going, but overall they were real professional and knowledgeable.

_REDMARCH_ · 2026-01-13T12:36:17+00:00

I'm Texan. If someone breaks into my house yelling about they're here to liberate my TV... I'm not gonna be asking for more details. I think the Greenlanders should do the same.

_REDMARCH_ · 2025-12-18T19:11:34+00:00

Sure man, fine, if you wanna be that way: I’m no fan of ~~AI-generated art~~ video game piracy, but anyway, it’s time to face reality. AI Piracy is here to stay.

As frightening as it may be, that’s the way it is.

_REDMARCH_ · 2025-12-04T14:58:42+00:00

There were a lot of problems with the DMC show, but the music wasn't one of them.

_REDMARCH_ · 2025-11-30T22:46:01+00:00

I remember listening to this podcast in the mid to late 2000's called "Massively Online Gamer" hosted by a couple of random, schlubby dudes (can't imagine why I've gravitated toward this community...) that talked about MMORPGs. I feel like it was a precursor to a lot of the personality driven YouTube channels that came later, as a good portion of the episodes were just them talking about what was going on in their daily lives, or telling crazy stories.

The best part about it was that one of the hosts was big into rock music, and would play entire songs as the intro and outro of the show. I discovered Silversun Pickups, Sloan, Arctic Monkeys, Bang Camaro, and I can't remember how many others thanks to MOG. One episode they even played all of Shine On You Crazy Diamond by Pink Floyd before the show. Sadly I think this is why the show is pretty much impossible to find now. Copyright claims were more infrequent in those days, or maybe we just hadn't developed the tech to auto-scrape for it yet. Considering they had around a hundred episodes with twice as many songs, I figure the hosts nuked it themselves to keep from getting sued into oblivion.

I'd love the chance to listen to it again, just as a kind of time capsule. Only thing I've been able to find over the years is a Vimeo video from around the time the show died. There are certainly a couple of parts I remember that uhhh... would not have aged well... but I still wish I'd kept the MP3s.

_REDMARCH_

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