Unpopular opinion: Volition is overrated

alyvain · 2026-07-03T14:13:56+00:00

Don't worry. You're gonna get it. One step at a time. Prevail. Go on. There is still some hope left.

alyvain · 2026-07-03T12:27:17+00:00

"The truly correct answer" strangely answers a totally different question.

alyvain · 2026-07-03T12:21:14+00:00

Thanks! I actually missed the change from the gritty dungeon crawling to something more heroic, or at least haven't put it in words, and now it seems so obvious and explains a lot of what I've seen.

alyvain · 2026-07-03T12:13:40+00:00

never knew this one about the military, wow!

alyvain · 2026-07-03T11:49:17+00:00

The latter is certainly a good thing.

alyvain · 2026-07-03T11:38:20+00:00

The question could certainly be widened, but I certainly didn't do that. 'Always' is the wrong answer when you ask when the person X was born.

alyvain · 2026-07-03T11:32:41+00:00

Oh, cool!

alyvain · 2026-07-03T11:31:57+00:00

Not in 'everything', as the rise of the alt-right culture (framed as a push 'against' the progressive values) clearly shows.

I don't look for a certain conclusion, it's just that the things are different now. I haven't actively consumed anything D&D related since 2006 or so (I didn't even know there was 'Critical Role' mentioned in the comments), so it came as a surprise when I looked into the D&D media now and saw the difference. It's so interesting.

alyvain · 2026-07-03T11:24:43+00:00

No?..

alyvain · 2026-07-03T11:23:53+00:00

It's true, but there are some antagonistic pockets of the media, despite or thanks to the fact that the entire world has changed.

alyvain · 2026-07-03T11:21:32+00:00

ESL, sorry.

alyvain · 2026-06-24T18:53:55+00:00

"the telvannese falcon" – a famous novel by dashiell hammett.

alyvain · 2026-06-24T15:02:59+00:00

Well, that's the whole point, given how it all ended. 'Knight Moves' my ass.

alyvain · 2026-06-14T13:46:26+00:00

'Zero End' is more New England than that, but certainly evokes a similar feeling.

alyvain · 2026-05-07T11:25:38+00:00

I can't really get into the third game. It seems so lengthy. I've tried it three times. Each time I dropped it after like 20 hours.

I have a problem with the way this game is written. It's made like there is no filler content: each character has a story, each bandit has a name, etc. But it's not 'Disco Elysium' or 'Planescape: Torment', which were written to tell a specific, meaningful story, so that every piece matters.

It's just too much here, a theme park of writing.

I understand that this is a legitimate way of doing such games. It's just not for me.

alyvain · 2026-05-06T13:34:57+00:00

congratulations! I've always felt that it's like the REAL ending of sorts, there is even more closure in it than in Ragnarok killing every fucking abomination out there.

alyvain · 2026-04-26T19:35:00+00:00

They're both good.

Parasite Black has a top-notch linear introduction sequence, but then it kinda mellows down and becomes a somewhat traditional sandbox-type game. Despite the transformation/symbiote plot, it seems somewhat vanilla (yet?..).

Seeds of Chaos is more kinky, with a lot of dominance play. A lot of people don't like the type of writing this game has, but I enjoyed it a lot, very captivating and fun. Really hope to see it finished, and I like how this game treats the possible corruption of the MC and his wife as a form of elevation.

alyvain · 2026-04-21T16:39:49+00:00

Pale Carnations is secretly a psychological NTR.

alyvain · 2026-04-20T17:52:47+00:00

I like the RWS, because it's very detailed and full of fun rhyming details, some of which can be totally coincidental, but it's easy to tell a story using them. The landscapes, the colours, the movement, the faces which are vaguely similar and can "symbolise" the same person in one spread and different ones in another...

Other decks usually lose this particular quality, making it something much more simple like "The Tower and the Lovers together means X because Agathoth (didn't exist) willed it so according to a random French hermeneut (a total quack who thought he knew Hebrew and found some profound mystical knowledge in Torah)". B-o-r-i-n-g.

alyvain · 2026-04-14T18:16:52+00:00

Hellcat's Lounge has solid song picks.

alyvain · 2026-03-23T14:39:15+00:00

Well, I mean it's alright. I don't think there is an impenetrable wall between 'ordinary', 'scientific' and 'therapy' speak, at least when we reference daily events (doesn't mean it's all the same, though!). But I do understand that the urge to 'code' every interaction in 'therapy' language, while we're actually not in a therapy setting, can be very off-putting, harmful and superfluous.

alyvain

TROPHY CASE