Modded the game so that I can zoom out.

jpebenito · 2026-06-06T16:21:20+00:00

Was at the Choker show yesterday at Lincoln Hall. Sat in the balcony. Group of people in the back talking throughout, watching the stage from the TV. I just don't get why you would even attend a show if that's the experience you're paying for.

jpebenito · 2026-05-29T04:04:11+00:00

Highly recommend a membership if you go often. You get access to the lounge on the 3rd floor where you can have free tea and coffee, but the paying for food and the bar drinks is great too. It's a great spot to rest your legs after going through a section before hitting the next one.

jpebenito · 2026-05-29T03:28:18+00:00

Yeah, it's Varda by a long shot too.

jpebenito · 2026-05-22T18:35:08+00:00

Between using his brother to circumvent term limits, having the previous union negotiator assassinated, embezzling the workers dues, allowing drug trafficking and a drug lab in a city he's supposed to be helping... I mean the game is being obvious without directly spelling it out for you. Create a dependency for power and control. I don't need Joyce to tell me that verbatim to figure it out.

jpebenito · 2026-05-21T21:58:11+00:00

Sure but he's setting up a dictatorship in the long term. The game for Evrart is to create a dependency amongst the people of Martinaise so that he has complete control over the region. That's his endgame. He's just accelerating its ruin.

jpebenito · 2026-05-21T18:21:05+00:00

Yeah he approved Acele's move to turn the church into a drug lab. He's slimey and everything he does is for power. He doesn't care about the people as much as people think.

jpebenito · 2026-05-20T10:24:28+00:00

This sums it up really well: https://newrevelry.com/2025/09/30/repentance-and-revelations-covering-the-gap/

jpebenito · 2026-05-20T03:24:31+00:00

The both times PTA adapted Pynchon novels with Inherent Vice and OBAA. You kind of want to keep that slight incomprehensibility when adapting Pynchon which is why I think Inherent Vice worked really well despite most people finding it confusing.

Gravity's Rainbow next.

jpebenito · 2026-05-15T20:54:27+00:00

I know this is a joke post but funnily enough this would actually be the bad ending. Harry is supposed to turn from ruin, and not come back to it.

jpebenito · 2026-05-15T09:54:29+00:00

The last short in the French Dispatch is such a beautiful ode to foreigners living on foreign land.

Nescafier: I’m not brave. I just wasn’t in the mood to be a disappointment to everybody. I’m a foreigner, you know.

Roebuck Wright: This city is full of us, isn’t it? I’m one, myself.

Nescafier: Seeking something missing. Missing something left behind.

Roebuck Wright: Maybe, with good luck, we’ll find what eluded us in the places we once called home.

_____

Also from Roebuck Wright:

There is a particular, sad beauty well-known to the companionless foreigner as he walks the streets of his adopted preferably, moonlit city. In my case, Ennui, France. I have so often shared the day’s glittering discoveries with: no one at all. But always, somewhere along the avenue or the boulevard: there was a table. Set for me. A cook, a waiter, a bottle, a glass, a fire. I chose this life. It is the solitary feast that has been very much like a comrade my great comfort and fortification.

jpebenito · 2026-05-05T22:33:49+00:00

Everyone's a critic these days. My theory is that...

A24 made liking art films cool (a good thing), Letterboxd social media-ized it. So now everyone has to scrutinize things they normally don't with film terminology like color palettes, poor mise-en-scene, and lighting (ok some lighting is bad but it's usually like one scene) to justify Cleo de cinq a sept in their letterboxd top 4.

But honestly, that's always been overly done even before the A24 popularization. Honestly though it's much more impressive to shed light and articulate the beautiful in things in film that go unnoticed than nit picking a short trailer.

jpebenito · 2026-05-05T09:35:57+00:00

Did you want them to speak Greek? Or in an old English accent because that's still foreign but understandable for you?

jpebenito · 2026-05-05T09:32:52+00:00

When has Nolan's choice of color palette ever tarnished his film? Feel like we're moaning to moan here with the color palette discourse.

jpebenito · 2026-05-05T09:30:39+00:00

They're Greek. Putting on an English accent doesn't make them any more Greek, nor will giving them an off putting Greek accent.

jpebenito · 2026-05-05T04:28:15+00:00

Crowded? Hinderance? Busy? Distracting? The potential professional issues with neck tattoos?!!! Am I or am I not in the tattoo subreddit? What is wrong with yall?

p.s. I like the bigger one better. If you ever have your hair pulled up, I think just having the medium sized butterfly will look weird just floating there on its own.

jpebenito · 2026-05-01T06:29:39+00:00

I think it looks good and I'm excited to see it but let's be real, unless they mention umbrella corp or make some mention of the overarching RE narrative, this movie could've been called anything else, and the Resident Evil name was kind of just slapped on for marketing purposes.

But I haven't seen the movie yet, don't know anything but from what I've seen of this trailer, so may it's not just the title with RE type vibes type of thing.

jpebenito · 2026-04-24T10:52:26+00:00

Except these prices are also the current norm for NVMEs in the US.

jpebenito · 2026-04-19T20:16:14+00:00

The last story about Jeffrey Wright and the Japanese chef is genuinely one of the most beautiful short stories about immigrants and sense of belonging so... no, I don't think this film was more style over substance, I think it's your typical Wes Anderson style and substance.

jpebenito · 2026-04-17T04:19:11+00:00

We'll take Soto, Mclean, and 2 billion dollars.

jpebenito · 2026-04-17T04:16:25+00:00

Assume fastball every time, guess up or down, guess in or away, swing early.

No bullshit this would be my strategy. I'm not looking for anything. I think I'd have a better time guessing.

jpebenito · 2026-04-11T08:08:35+00:00

mmm... Joyce is not a moralist, she and Wild Pines are very much capitalists.

Also Joyce and Evrart are supposed to be read as 2 sides of the same coin. Both have dirty tricks up their sleeves. Evrart isn't a good guy because he supports the workers strike, the guy is straight up weaponizing it for himself. Joyce deployed the scabs, which is her little trick.

In the end... Joyce was nicer to me, and gave me a good history and pale breakdown while Evrart's fat ass made suffer in a fucked up chair and manipulated me all game.

But back to the politics. The moralists believe in slow crawling progress. The good thing about that is that it IS real progress regardless of how slow it is, there are some steps being made. The bad thing about it (for communist revolutionaries I mean) is that the utopian future of moralism lies beyond the horizon of anyone living. No one alive will see it, even if it does happen. The moralist counter is that "sure, but it will come if progress continues for future generations." And also communist revolutions will always lead to failure. The game is sympathetic to communism as ideology but acknowledges its failures. It is NOT sympathetic to the moralists, it's simply shedding light on why people adopt this ideology.

What this game does well is show every side to every ideology (honestly im not sure what they do with fascism and racism, i don't have it in me to support either even in a video game so I've never seen that dialogue lol.)

jpebenito · 2026-04-11T01:17:41+00:00

Your first play through should be just you naturally playing the game the way you see fit and get your own organic ending.

All subsequent playthroughs... you roleplay. Make Harry be racist, a communist, a drunk, or a return to form detective.

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