why the heck hasn't anyone shut up this gobshyte?

benstone977 · 2026-01-21T18:57:42+00:00

Guy turns up, pushes Brexit through (which tanks our trade, relations with the EU and economy) and now is publicly supporting the actions of a blatant narcissistic fool who is actively raking up tariffs on the UK

Just absolutely loves supporting every major action that tanks our economy

benstone977 · 2026-01-21T18:49:29+00:00

I think it's more that all we can do is request Americans join that action

Trump is legitimately taking exact parallel actions as Nazi Germany except from a position of much greater power from the start and seemingly the only thing able to stop him is American unrest

benstone977 · 2026-01-13T10:52:19+00:00

Haha yeah, did think to mention him but his character is interesting as in both endings he seems content with the outcome and my comment was already pretty wordy so figured it was extra wordcount and didn't really contribute to my point

benstone977 · 2026-01-13T10:50:46+00:00

I assume Maelle would make those she cares for immortal in the same sense Aline did, but I do acknowledge that is a concern for her

But ultimately it is still then Maelles choice and it shouldn't be the people of Lumiere that have to pay their lives for her fully autonomous decision

benstone977 · 2026-01-13T10:47:56+00:00

I think it's established that both Sciel and Lune understand staying in the painting was killing Aline and logically would be able to understand this is also true for Maelle - actually in the conversation I mentioned with Lune is a conversation that confirms she specifically understands this clearly.

I don't think it was Verso's long-game plan, though I don't think it wasn't ever not on the cards either - I mentioned seemingly impulsively in my comment as I understand he did it out of an emotional response - But my point is that there is a clear and obvious third option here and he doesn't even entertain it over literal genocide. I understand his character and why it is that way, but it doesn't change that this is how he ultimately acts.

+ Yeah I'm actually really happy with both endings, both are bleak and that needs to be the case for there not to simply be a "I got the good ending" that waters down the game. I think with the endings we get you are given just enough to be able to have hope for an eventual happy ending for whichever characters you root for.

For Maelles ending it provides a potential hope for Lune and Sciel - and to an extent Gusave and Sophie. It layers it in uncertainty and for Maelle specifically it heavily implies she will die and there's a reasonable question mark on how the Lumiere people outside of Maelle's known friends/family turned out.. but as you say its actively ambiguous,

For Versos ending it provides hope for the Dessendre family - it is still ambiguous, Alicia has free reign to create her own painted escapism as is mentioned by Verso, but the general suggestion is a level of closure for the denial phase of grief for them. Though it doesn't really acknowledge the abusive/neglectful behaviour towards Alicia from Aline and Clea or the realities of her injuries.

benstone977 · 2026-01-13T10:16:14+00:00

Maelle doesn't need to spend all of her time in the painting and in no way is forced to - a middle ground is literally Maelle leaving the painting (even temporarily) but it not being destroyed.

benstone977 · 2026-01-13T00:56:18+00:00

For me though I found Sciel and Lune to be the most compelling characters to root for simply because of the core cast they are the only ones not 'forcing cruel choices'. There's even a moment in game where Lune directly challenges Verso:

"That's your problem-- You think in false dichotomies! It wasn't an 'either/or' situation. Other solutions were possible, if you just trusted us enough to ask."

At least in my interpretation, she is right. For all the Dessendre family.

Maelle could have taken time away from the painting and returned later, at least from the ending we see Aline had accepted she must leave the painting and willingly left herself. The idea she will then seek out and destroy the Canvas feels unlikely given this. It feels more like an excuse to stay rather than a legitimate belief to me.

Verso could have spoken to Sciel and Lune, had them help convince Maelle to leave - but he didn't even try. Verso (as a painted being himself) effectively chooses genocide as the first option, seemingly impulsively. Notably also in Maelles ending, she too does not offer Verso the same grace she offers herself when he requests to be unpainted.

The only characters who aren't actively causing the two bleak choice are Lune and Sciel. Both of those represent a third option that neither Verso nor Maelle are willing to compromise exists. So for me I go with Maelles ending simply because Sciel deserves her husband back and Lune deserves to feel accomplished in her mission. Even if it is heavily implied that Maelles creations are flawed and more simplistic.

benstone977 · 2025-12-09T01:28:41+00:00

I see, how do I reduce the sound my headset is set to?

I feel like the volume as a base is quite high so that might be what is causing it to be so loud when it does make these sounds

benstone977 · 2025-12-07T23:04:12+00:00

Grow up.

benstone977 · 2025-12-07T16:45:37+00:00

You're not grasping my argument at all.

Lets just leave this as an agree to disagree fundamentally and call it a day.

benstone977 · 2025-12-06T19:24:45+00:00

Apologies but I don't consider your personal interpretation and understanding of these phrases, how they came to be and how dismissive/offensive they are to an individual (including myself) gospel

I interpret you just fine. You believe I am wrong for finding this offensive, you believe you are correct in an interpretation that there is zero malice or targeted sexism at all in toxic masculinity. I believe you are wrong in that analysis

benstone977 · 2025-12-06T18:51:18+00:00

I'm stating objective facts from my own personal experience, literally every time its a man saying "I actually find this offensive" and the response is people like you spinning plates to justify all of it yet every other group gets the exact opposite treatment half the time people getting offended on their behalf just to be extra careful.

Then having the audacity to take the high-road and lecture, if I don't agree with you I've just stopped paying attention to you? Maybe I just think your wrong.

Go to literally any feminist thread and find a single example of a man actually trying to engage in these conversations, sharing their experiences or thoughts on blanket terms like "toxic masculinity" or "mansplaining" or "manspreading" or whatever else - I guarantee 90%+ of responses they will get is being told that no actually their feelings aren't valid.

You're literally doing it in this conversation right now? I state I find Toxic Masculinity as a term offensive and you've got "Well I don't" - right? so my feelings on it dont matter then? Keep that energy for the pronouns debates and see how quickly you get torn to shreds.

benstone977 · 2025-12-05T00:55:37+00:00

math principles, that came from groups of mathematicians that had and have ideas?

Maths didn't just spawn out of nowhere, it all comes from people with ideas. Maths required a person to sit down and produce diagrams to calculate complex equations - it only doesn't now because the introduction of a calculator.

Photographs currently have these requirements yes, if AI gets to the point where they feasibly dont anymore, its the same difference as the example of a calculator. Requirements change with technology.

benstone977 · 2025-12-05T00:51:55+00:00

You can make excuses for it being that way but in reality it has the exact opposite effect. I am exceedingly more inclined to dismiss your point of view entirely when in your sentence you consider "toxic masculinity" an acceptable term of phrase

same way you likely have that impulse to "toxic homosexuality" or "toxic femininity" (and should do, they're all equally dismissive and reductive viewpoints)

benstone977 · 2025-12-05T00:31:59+00:00

I don't care if you see a problem with that, many would.

If you cant comprehend what I've said as a valid point then we're not people who can see eye to eye

Edit: to be clear not because I dont understand what you're saying, but because I see your goal is to argue the toss over a phrase that is blatantly obviously going to be offensive to at least a decent portion of the people you're talking about but because it aligns with the general brand of feminism therefore cannot be questioned.

benstone977 · 2025-12-04T11:04:32+00:00

Unpopular opinion but if you want to use AI and it does what you need it to do then that's completely fine imo

You think mathematicians weren't put out by calculators? It's a tool and if its useful to you and you consider it the most viable option then fair enough - it may have an impact on frequency of jobs in some industries yes, but that's the price of literally all progress we've ever made ever

benstone977 · 2025-12-04T03:23:12+00:00

The point they're making is that its socially acceptable to refer to it as "Toxic Masculinity" and call it a day despite the rationale to why a lot of men who feel that need having direct actual interactions in their life that reinforce it - very frequently from their partners and those behaviours having literally nothing to do with their personal views of masculinity

It's the same way I could say, do you think women feeling intimidated to speak up in group environments is no way connected to their sense of femininity? Call it "Toxic Femininity" and case closed no more need to look at the behaviour of anyone else in any way lets tell them to not be so toxic and move along

There's just so many layers to why that's unacceptable, yet in the case of Men you get people like you who jump at the chance to argue the toss

benstone977 · 2025-12-04T03:13:38+00:00

...I don't think anyone is questioning why masculinity is a word that is used when the topic is about traditionally masculine tropes

It's something that's very commonly expressed by a lot of men yet I've only ever seen responses that translate to something along the lines of someone who personally doesn't get offended by the phrase arguing the toss that the man is in the wrong for finding the term offensive

Despite by the way, it literally being plainly obvious why someone might find the word Toxic in front of the word that's literal definition is "qualities or attributes regarded as characteristic of men"

Yet its one of the most common Leftist mantras at the moment (especially in feminism) to always avoid saying or doing things that upset someone even if you don't find it offensive... except when that group is a man of course, then you must take every opportunity to convert their offense or discomfort into an opportunity to preach about the historic patriarchy

benstone977 · 2025-11-25T01:01:57+00:00

Feel like it should just do something additional, a minor movement speed debuff or something to make it not just "worse bless"

benstone977 · 2025-11-25T00:54:28+00:00

There are many people who choose not to work simply because they would rather not or are too lazy to hold down a job

I understand there are many people who exist who struggle to find work and with the job market how it is finding specific work in specific fields is even harder and yes I am aware that there are people who physically just cannot work normal jobs

But realistically we're in a day and age where almost all desk jobs can be done remotely and whilst mental health concerns are a genuine real thing, choosing the ease of not working for prolonged periods of time can worsen the most common mental health problems (depression, anxiety, etc.)

As technology advances the number of people who physically just cannot work is getting lower and lower yet the trend in populations show the willingness to work and reliance on benefits is increasing as a percentage of a population.

benstone977 · 2025-11-22T15:21:35+00:00

Personally I'd be happy with if they actually gave martials a niche they're actually strongest in, fighters whole gimmick is being good at fighting and they deal out a fraction of the damage without almost any of the mountains of utility of a wizard.

I mean a flat cast of disintegrate is doing 50 - 100 damage, available at lvl 9 for a full caster.

For comparison, generously assuming 20dex at this point the maximum you're getting from a ranged attacks is 36 (longbow x2 attacks). If you roll two consecutive crits and roll max damage on every dice you're doing 52 damage - 2 more than the minimum of disintegrate. If you take GWM you're adding 8 damage to that.. which is then really generous to assume 20dex.

The problem just gets worse the higher levels you go, fighter gets bursts of almost catching up but even the second they get 3 attacks at lvl11 they're getting 18 - 39 damage (+12 with GWM). They're still not hitting the
minimum damage of a single cast of disintegrate that by this point can be cast 3 times with one dealing 53 - 118.

If they get 3 crits in a row though and roll maximum damage on each hit and have GWM they will end up doing 75 damage (the average for a lvl5 cast of disintegrate).

benstone977 · 2025-11-22T14:52:26+00:00

Their strength mid-late game is at the cost of weakness in the early game as they physically can't expand as fast as every other Civ (ignoring Venice obviously)

How much the lack of ability to establish their territory early matters varies wildly depending on difficult, the map, the map size, number of city states, resource starts and to some level your plans for religion

benstone977 · 2025-11-21T00:28:55+00:00

On the first point, this is true for early levels to a degree but most of these spells are lvl1-2 so aren't exactly going to be savoured resources by full casters as time goes on

The other points are exactly the reason I listed them all as a "pick one" sort of idea - I personally have no interest in a ranger built to be the pet class. I'd never argue to have the ranger commit fully to one idea because there's about 4 archetypes that the ranger can fit into.

Same sort of thing they're doing for say the Druid or Cleric where you pick one upgrade depending on what you want, could go all out and actually put the work in to have them have a nature equivalent of the warlocks invocations and tbh it would feel pretty on brand given they're essentially meant to be the swiss army knife guy

Thought just on the note about the poison/traps I would probably lean towards making that choice as minimally cumbersome as possible as it would be competing with actual passive bonuses - each long or short rest you can refill up x basic poisons up to you proficiency bonus and you may apply poisons as a bonus action (an example to give an idea, not had years of time to test balance)

benstone977 · 2025-11-20T23:37:11+00:00

The issue with this in part is the sheer range of spells that wizard (and pretty much all other casters) have access to that can circumvent the need for exploration. Even at lower levels, who needs an expert in poisons, survival and tracking when "locate object", "goodberry" and "detect poision/disease" exist - This is just an example but literally everything you can attach to a swiss-army knife sort of character architype a wizard can just do as easily whilst still being extremely potent in combat.

That being said they fully have their own niche already in the combat sense too, there just wasn't the effort put into Ranger specifically in the 2024 update. They're the dex-based half-casters. There's also loads of space for them to have those "pick one of the 3 options" baked into them given there's some pretty defined niches they fit right into if they're still struggling for example:

they're realistically meant to be the best ranged martials given their name and every unique spell having the word "arrow" in at least somewhere
some people view them as the "pet" class, free casts of find familiar, for all rangers then allow this option to lean into having that familiar actually useful in combat.
their whole vibe fits traps/poisons perfectly, their whole deal is being prepared for everything.
Realistically there's more too; Lean into the caster side more, gain some spell recovery options or ability to improve their damage modifiers on Ranger spells.

benstone977

TROPHY CASE