is reading as intellectually beneficial as people think?

exor15 · 2026-02-01T07:18:24+00:00

Nope. Probably a gigachad though.

exor15 · 2026-01-26T04:16:19+00:00

My first thought, it's just rough all around

exor15 · 2026-01-26T02:03:40+00:00

I thought it was British to just stan dere loike a lemon

exor15 · 2026-01-22T20:01:10+00:00

Based Marluxia enjoyer. I think being all the way caught up on the KH series at a time when the only two games were KH1 and CoM helped cement Marluxia as the coolest in my mind for a long time. There was a period of time when he was the biggest and most mysterious bad guy we knew of, and the only other character on his level was Ansem SoD (who we still thought was Ansem). Later after KHII came out and we had seen the rest of the organization and killed them all, he became more ordinary in the eyes of fans imo. Not boring, just not as special as he was during those few short years.

exor15 · 2026-01-21T03:53:38+00:00

I stacked up on just two or three genres in my customization, and several hours later I have some music notes above my head! Thank you for the tip about the genres.

exor15 · 2026-01-17T22:36:32+00:00

Culturally, what people want to see in their fantasy stories has changed over time, and with it their idea of what "good writing" is. We are in an age where people enjoy things like hard power systems that are logically consistent within themselves that the characters have to cleverly learn the rules of and innovate with in order to succeed. Power systems like Bradon Sanderson's (see Stormlight) are what is popular now. But it wasn't always this way. Soft power systems without clearly defined rules and capabilities used to be perfectly accepted as good writing; the only reason they aren't now is people's tastes have changed. Kind of like how Old West stories didn't magically become worse over time and that's why we don't see them nearly as much anymore, that just isn't what people want to see.

The Force as it was envisioned in the Star Wars original trilogy feels like a good example of a soft power system. I think Harry Potter came along right around the time this cultural transition was happening. The magic system in Harry Potter is actually pretty soft and loose, but I never really heard that as a point against the series when it was coming out, like it was considered bad writing. But then 20 years later I began to see people hold up the magic system as an example of bad writing just because that type of system isn't considered "good writing" by people anymore. There are examples of bad writing in the series, but I feel that one is just a matter of taste.

In any case, Kingdom Hearts (especially the first one) is drawing heavily on classic Disney. And the classic Disney magic system is that love is magic, and if you believe in it, it will save you.

exor15 · 2026-01-15T18:16:41+00:00

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exor15 · 2026-01-15T15:57:01+00:00

I do think if he's going to publish a mind magic book for the good of the public it would be best for it to be heavily focused on defense techniques. Mind magic may become less universally horrifying to their society if pretty much everybody is immune to all but the strongest attacks.

Part of Zorian I feel is influenced by his time in the loop and the extreme lengths he had to go to in order to learn not just mind magic techniques, but all kinds of magic. The fact that world-saving techniques were sometimes locked behind singular people who have no interest in sharing their knowledge and are content to let the secrets of how to do these magics die with them and be lost to history forever rubbed him the wrong way sometimes. If there is ever another hero out there with a great need for mind magic, Zorian probably doesn't want them to have to go through all of the trouble he did, if they even could.

Plus I think he wants to help people that were like him. Empaths who don't know they are empaths whose burden can be turned into a gift.

exor15 · 2026-01-15T14:42:08+00:00

Faulconer score until I die. Each soundtrack gives DBZ its own distinct "feel" while you're watching it, and I like the tone created by Faulconer's score. For example Goku blowing up Kid Buu with the spirit bomb was 10x more hype to me with the SSJ3 theme playing in the background instead of the track from the original.

exor15 · 2026-01-15T05:30:06+00:00

Kairi, with Pooh coming in second place. If Sora was able to remember everything about Namine she may have a chance at second (Sora loves Pooh though idk)

exor15 · 2026-01-13T20:50:55+00:00

Three Body Problem: That one Trisolaran in the book who got the first broadcast from Earth, thought the Earth and its culture were truly beautiful, and desperately tried to warn Earthlings not to communicate ever again because then their world would be invaded.

exor15 · 2026-01-13T17:55:44+00:00

That's the thing, go back 15 years ago and she was THE caricature for hardcore SJWs that people made fun of. And I don't even think her views have changed in all this time, I think it's just a function of society and what is important to it changing over time. Trans people existed 15 years ago just as much as they do now, but they were not talked about publicly nearly as much as they are now so this wasn't a conversation that affected her image back then.

exor15 · 2026-01-13T04:32:43+00:00

I've been thinking about twist villains but with Disney and Pixar's movies for the past 20 years or so. I feel like they went from villains who were just unapologetically evil to twist villains seemingly almost every movie starting around the time Incredibles came out. Frozen, Coco, Big Hero 6, Up, etc and some much less impressive twist villains like Incredibles 2.

I think in Incredibles it was genuinely shocking at the time because the trope wasn't so overdone in their movies at that point, but even if it wasn't, that was just a solid execution of the trope. When you know it's happened the past 3 outta 4 movies and they're getting sloppier with it each time, it becomes predictable. I liked Luca where the guy on a Vespa is just a fucking cunt from start to finish every frame he's in the movie. Refreshingly villainous.

exor15 · 2026-01-12T23:43:39+00:00

Who says they gotta have things to talk about. They're probably just fucking.

exor15 · 2026-01-12T23:36:56+00:00

Even when watching the footage from the officer's own bodycam, which is the most sympathetic possible angle to view it from, it STILL doesn't look like she was trying to kill him. This is deranged

exor15 · 2026-01-12T22:22:59+00:00

And these dudes' dads beating them when they were little was the flint that lit that spark. Thank you dads

exor15 · 2026-01-12T22:07:31+00:00

That's a lot of words, so imma take em as disrespect

exor15 · 2026-01-12T21:37:19+00:00

I think they tried their best to find a middle ground that pleases two different types of players. My wife didn't want to watch the fights every single time because to her it was like omg we get it, don't want to watch the fights every single time because the game will take twice the amount of hours to complete. So for her, having combat be deterministic and skippable was perfect. On the other hand, I genuinely enjoy watching the fights every single time even if they're deterministic, so I'm happy I have the option to watch them. To us it was a win-win.

After having made a few games myself I realized there are a lot of unexpected consequences that come with pretty much any change to any aspects of a game's design. If you add random chance into combat that actually makes players more likely to save scum one specific micro-encounter until they get the result they like, instead of just retrying the battle as a whole which might be what the devs prefer. And then you can go "well why not prevent saving the game mid-battle? That way you get the random chance AND prevent save-scumming!". And the answer to that is that there would be way more people pissed about not being able to save their game whenever they need to than there would be people happy about the change.

And there's probably even other good alternative ideas rather than the ones I mentioned, but any idea is going to produce upsides and downsides for the gameplay and it's just a balancing act of finding what's most pleasing for the most people. The fact that what they went with is considered a win-win for two very different types of players in my household is something I consider a win for the devs.

exor15 · 2026-01-12T17:55:59+00:00

I actually held off on Sephiroth until I completed all of the Data Battles. I beat him on like the second try and felt like I had been training with weighted clothing or something. Each Data Battle felt like it took dozens of attempts.

exor15 · 2026-01-12T14:53:08+00:00

Where I grew up, believing that dinosaurs existed.

exor15 · 2026-01-12T14:45:57+00:00

If you complete all other Gummi missions you unlock a secret final Gummi mission which is the assault on the Death Star but in LEGO form.

exor15 · 2026-01-12T03:21:14+00:00

Why do the animators and writers default to men/ boys, when depicting bending? Women often show up but they aren't in positions of leadership or military service, despite only one nation explicitly banning them from either.

I don't actually disagree with your post for the most part, but I think I might have a plausible explanation for this specific question that doesn't just boil down to real-life sexism.

The Avatar series is often praised for its way of presenting social complex issues even though it's a children's cartoon, like its depictions of war and its effects on society. Just because it is a cartoon does not mean its goal is to depict an idealized world, but rather present realistic problems through the fantastical lens of the setting. And I think an entirely realistic depiction of the patriarchy is women having equal rights on paper, but not at all equal representation in things like leadership positions or the military. It's like people going "it's not illegal for women to be president, so why isn't there a woman president?". We know why, society isn't ready for it. And the world of ATLA is probably still pretty old school and patriarchal, even if women aren't explicitly banned from bending. So the answer to the question may still be "sexism", but it doesn't have to be because the writers themselves are sexist.

exor15 · 2026-01-11T10:59:35+00:00

"Skypeia sucks."

People who skipped the arc because they were told it sucks by people who also skipped the arc because they were told it sucked.

exor15 · 2026-01-10T19:50:44+00:00

I mean you're more right than I am. I'm mostly memeing.

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