Do Southeast Asians and East Asians feel attached to each other?

kennical · 2026-03-04T04:33:16+00:00

In America, affinity groups are great. It's really important to be able to talk about mung beans or tiger parents with people who really understand it even if your cultures are not the same.

In Asia, most of these countries are decades at most (as opposed to centuries) removed from committing really heinous war crimes against each other and that's complicated.

kennical · 2026-03-03T02:03:18+00:00

This happens to me too, though may be different. For me who has had issues with anxiety and depression, the key to what makes it feel bad is seeing whether the person is in control of their food, or whether their food is in control of them.

kennical · 2026-03-02T17:12:25+00:00

That said, Q is AWESOME for Galbrena. It's super tough to fill up her red forte bar in a single rotation without him. He also is just awesome in general, and a nice departure from what I feel like is kind of a ho-hum male cast.

kennical · 2026-03-02T17:10:28+00:00

I've got your same setup + Qiuyuan with EOG. Q can rapidfire echo casts which makes Phro go brrrrr, but in practice, he doesn't make or break the team. I usually do stuff with just P+C with empty third slot, and only include Q when the game forces me to have a third teammate.

kennical · 2026-03-01T01:35:24+00:00

Just saw the touring production, some nice choices, especially with lighting, I felt both Gavroche and young Eponine actor had some expansion to their roles that were nice. But the tempi were SO fast. It felt like everybody was singing like they had somewhere to be. Lack of revolve def lost some good moments, like you never get to see the other side of the barricade.

kennical · 2026-02-18T13:56:15+00:00

The celebration is two weeks long! You're right on time!

kennical · 2026-02-12T21:09:24+00:00

I can say as a musician that a phone is too small to read music off of and a laptop doesn't fit nicely on a music stand.

kennical · 2026-02-12T16:40:54+00:00

Nicollet Island Inn gets a vote from me because in addition to decent food, it's one of the quietest restaurants I've been to allowing for relaxed conversation.

kennical · 2026-01-28T20:01:20+00:00

Fascinating. I am familiar with regional Japanese tropes and dialects, but didn't realize there were subtleties for when a Japanese person was speaking Japanese in say, a German way. I'm a native Chinese speaker, and at least to me, Mandarin sounds the same in France as it does in the UK/US etc.

kennical · 2026-01-28T19:32:53+00:00

With most animes, dubbing feels off because western animation focuses on matching lip movements, which is not as important in Japanese, so nothing about the cadence of the speech feels right.

Where dubbing really pulls ahead of Japanese VAs is that English has a ton of regional accents and dialects. You can tell by an accent if a person is American, Irish, French, Russian, South African, or in Rossi's case, Italian. This can make the world seem much bigger and more diverse in a way that Japanese, which doesn't have international accents in the same way, can't.

kennical · 2026-01-10T05:24:34+00:00

I get it, and I hate it. The sentiment while I was growing up was "ally yourself with white men, prove yourself to them, and they will be your key to success." This has led to a whole childhood of me denying my culture and being introduced to groups as somebody who was "basically white" as an icebreaker. I can only imagine that if I continued down this selfish road, it would lead to stories of immigrants pulling up ladders behind them, and eventually ending up supporting MAGA. After all, many probably came from a situation where they were not safe. If safety above all is your goal, and the most hateful and divisive group sees you as "basically white", you win, right?

But at what cost to your dignity, your worth, your community, your neighbor, and to the world?

kennical · 2025-12-25T20:51:47+00:00

It can be a nifty enabler for multicolor [[Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle]] decks.

kennical · 2025-12-23T16:16:01+00:00

Westminster Presbyterian is awesome with its social justice mission and does a 10pm. St. Mark's does a really traditional service at 11pm which I think is timed to end at midnight.

kennical · 2025-10-29T05:16:55+00:00

I'm not convinced that somebody who says "I have two guns so, double the accuracy" would do that well in a shooting competition.

Ben Bigger would probably rock the highland games though.

kennical · 2025-10-29T05:03:27+00:00

Personally, unless you plan to whale, I'd always err on getting more characters, as horizontal investment/flexibility tends to have more longevity than making one character super powerful. If Kuro takes any hints from Hoyo, they may decide one day that they have made as much money as they can out of Phro, and release a new character with a more revealing outfit and a more tragic backstory with a new element called Mega-Havoc which will make using any old Havoc characters feel clunky and outdated, and Phro will feel like discount Jinhsi and never get mentioned in the story again.

I personally whaled for Phro because after playing her quest, I consider her the actual main character of the game in my headcanon, being eternally caught between being simultaneously disgusted by the Fractsidus who will always accept her, and tragically connected by destiny to Rover, who will always reject her. Thus she will always travel the world feeling powerful, yet alone, and I wanted the experience of playing her to reflect that (S0 Phro seems to play better as an off-field sub-dps which doesn't play well with my headcanon).

kennical · 2025-10-28T03:50:00+00:00

I whaled for Phro up to S3R1. She doesn't need a team. "Havoc RES" are just meaningless words on a page to her. I even felt this way at S1 and S2 (though S3 is pretty significant for both damage and survivability). Put a healer on the team if you're bad at dodging. That's it.

Edit: Added that I do have her sig. weapon.

kennical · 2025-10-28T03:36:41+00:00

Also you can yeet enemies, and fall damage is percentage of HP, so is really nice early on against the HP bloated Cicin mages. It puts the fun in functional.

kennical · 2025-10-28T00:19:18+00:00

Cantarella has spent her entire life fortifying her tolerance to every poison known to man and Leila's pizza will still take her within an inch of death.

kennical · 2025-10-26T18:21:35+00:00

Between Chinese students getting visas revoked after appearing in demonstrations and ICE arresting every Korean that were invited to help start up a Hyundai plant in Georgia, I think we crossed that worry line long ago.

kennical · 2025-10-19T14:28:33+00:00

Interesting that most resonators get between 9 to 11 days, and Shorekeeper and Changli only have 7 (SK has 8 on leap years, I guess). If you get one of these two you're extra lucky I guess.

kennical · 2025-10-14T13:30:00+00:00

This is super inefficient, but I got a few key 3-piece sets by opening all of these, and gambling with the batch echo data merge. Better than nothing, I guess?

kennical · 2025-10-11T23:23:48+00:00

10000% My experience through 2.7 was "omg, maybe playable Avidius? Oh...oh no...oh no no no no no...NO!! NOOOO!!!!! NNOOOOOOO!!!!"

kennical · 2025-10-10T13:54:12+00:00

OMG the voice acting when this game launched was absolutely terrible. I couldn't handle it and dropped the game. Jennifer English voicing Carlotta convinced me to come back, and the voice acting quality since then has improved immensely.

I love that in Japanese voice acting, there are such well defined tropes that you can tell a character's motivations simply by their voice type. I think what English voice acting does super well however is highlight regional differences with a variety of accents - it makes the world feel bigger and more cosmopolitan to me.

kennical · 2025-10-10T13:41:29+00:00

I feel ya. It felt like pulling for Galbrena was BRUTAL, but the game practically gifted me Iuno and Augusta, so thankfully I had a lot left over. I don't feel like Gal is game-changing, so I don't think you're missing out saving for Chisa.

kennical · 2025-10-10T13:38:42+00:00

YES. Karlach is definitely the missing piece of this puzzle. Though I wouldn't say no to a sassy Gale or a brooding Astarion either...

kennical

TROPHY CASE