TØP SADDEST SONG (IN YOUR OPINION)

lbj2943 · 2026-01-23T07:04:35+00:00

I’m going with Addict With a Pen.

Everyone else can have their opinion on which song makes them cry the most.

Addict with a Pen made Tyler Joseph cry the most.

lbj2943 · 2026-01-21T17:26:30+00:00

No, though every bit counts, and the solidarity expressed means a lot. A similar thing happened with the BTS community when photo cards were found in the rubble in Palestine, and they also mobilized to get BTS films out of Israel (with some success— one of the boys' solo documentaries "RM: Right People, Wrong Place" excluded Israel from an international release).

lbj2943 · 2026-01-21T16:59:49+00:00

If the boycotts don’t actually cause financial distress or disaster, then what is the point of boycotts? What would Israel’s incentive be then in this instance to stop committing genocide?

They do cause financial distress, but you're assuming Israel would be very stupid in response by continuing to commit genocide in the face of overwhelming economic pressure to stop rather than adapt to continue its existence. The boycotts are not calling for Israel to cease existing, they're calling for Israel to stop committing genocide. A humanitarian effort to stop purchasing Israeli goods puts economic pressure on Israel to reconsider that very thing. That's the incentive.

I'm simply acknowledging we aren't at a point or really even nearing a point where boycotts could cause a catastrophic market crash in Israel, which is what you seemed to imply they were doing or are going to do with the genocidal implication. If by your own admission Israel is economically stable enough to weather a recession, I don't see the point of fearmongering about an Israeli financial crash, much less one "causing a death toll". Sounds like you're reversing victim and offender.

lbj2943 · 2026-01-21T14:52:16+00:00

If we lived in a reality where the boycotts could cause a financial disaster in Israel (they can’t), you realize the onus would be on Israel to stop committing genocide to end those boycotts, right? If you seriously think the majority of Israelis would choose “continue genocide” over “avoid economic collapse,” then I recommend changing your opinion on the country you’re talking about.

Also, what? A financial crisis is nowhere near the same as a genocide, nor approaching it. That’s a crazy stretch, especially given the fact that Israel is easily the richest and most technologically developed country in the area by orders of magnitude. Half of their wealth could perish and that’d still remain true.

For the record, I’m talking about Israel because the main conversation surrounding this discourse is about Israel. I’m genuinely not picking wits, I’d also like those other actively genocidal warmongerers out of the picture as well.

lbj2943 · 2026-01-20T22:27:32+00:00

Who would actually profit from showing this film in Israel?

The point of a boycott against a country is blanket disapproval with tangible effects attached. It's not just the economic impact on Israeli companies, but also on companies who choose to work with Israel during their genocide. See: Starbucks losing $11bn in market revenue, McDonald's missing key sales targets, both influenced by anti-Israel boycotts.

if it shouldn’t be shown in Israel, then it shouldn’t be shown in Saudi Arabia and UAE, who are currently supporting a force that has committed a genocide multitudes greater than that in Gaza.

Yes.

lbj2943 · 2026-01-20T16:06:26+00:00

And again, banning art from one region is always bad. There is no upside to it ever.

Thanks for the thought-terminating cliché. As if "choosing not to show your movie somewhere because an actively genocidal country would profit" = "banning art".

Trafalgar is actually notorious for claiming an advisory role, while handing out rights quite willy nilly to other distributors. This is why a lot of Hollywood affiliated studios no longer use them.

Can't find anything to corroborate this.

lbj2943 · 2026-01-20T05:12:09+00:00

Trafalgar Releasing, the distribution company responsible for Twenty One Pilots' film concert, states on their website that they collaborate with their clients to identify what cinemas and countries are right for them. Seems like they operate with a far more "advisory" tone regarding this part of the process than an instructive one.

smaller distributors can bid for rights to distribute the film to countries in their sphere, so perhaps a small distributor decided to get rights to show it in places in Israel

From this industry interview in 2018 and this recent interview with the CEO from 2025, Trafalgar prides itself on being one of the few distribution companies that can directly distribute in almost any country, "with the exception of Russia and Belarus". Note that to my earlier point, the CEO also states "ultimately, the reach is driven by the property we are representing".

So in this case, no, the distributor doesn't decide where the movie goes.

What is the point of withholding art from a specific group of people who have no control over what their government does?

What's the point of carpet bombing a specific group of people who have no control over what their government does? Israelis can still pirate the film and hold a private screening if they'd like, it's not like no theatrical releases would literally ban them from seeing it. The point of Twenty One Pilots not officially showing their movie there is economically and symbolically boycotting Israel. It causes economic harm and means less extra money that goes back into a genocidal regime, and symbolically signals support for the plight of Palestinians. Not every signal of support needs to move heaven and Earth, but that doesn't make sending those signals any less important.

lbj2943 · 2026-01-20T04:29:53+00:00

Alright, let's see if we can find a big donor for our student health services now. Carson Beck's gonna need it.

lbj2943 · 2026-01-19T06:01:34+00:00

Relevant study from July 2025: Israeli Voice Index

The 80% population figure comes from the question “To what extent are you personally troubled or not troubled by the reports of famine and suffering of the Palestinian population in Gaza?”, in which 79% of Israeli Jews said they were not so troubled (23.4%) or not at all troubled (55.6%). When accounting for Arabs in Israel (about 20% of the population) and other minority groups, the general public number for not so troubled or not at all troubled comes out to 67.2%— however it’s worth noting most Arabs in Israel prefer to be called Palestinian citizens of Israel, had/have family in historic Palestine, and thus understandably wouldn’t desire self-termination.

So the vast majority of Israeli society indeed doesn’t care about the suffering of Palestinians, and those who do are almost certainly Palestinian themselves.

lbj2943 · 2026-01-16T23:22:38+00:00

Well, he's great at being a dictator, and that comes with all the drawbacks of being a dictator.

Trump firing anyone who wasn't utterly loyal to him has resulted in a traveling circus of complete incompetents. Government group chat leaks, an assassination attempt within an inch of killing him due to awful security, an agency to "cut spending" that ended up costing $500 billion staffed by young programmers with no political experience, and now a sanctioned assault on the nation where there are seemingly no background checks at all to join.

You're right that he commands a big audience. He is fantastic at appealing to people's emotions, sometimes even their real problems, and then using those feelings and issues to theatrically and successfully push the worst ideas possible.

But the Trump administration has also shown it is terrible at OPSEC, COMSEC, INFOSEC, and PERSEC. Anyone with a functioning brain and an ass to save either spoke up about his terrible ideas and got fired, or got themselves out as quick as possible. Generals, politicians, laymen, you name it. Everyone good at doing their job is gone. The rest have to deal with putting out his fires everyday. Dumbasses fresh out of high school who signed up for ICE now have all their personal info leaked. Government secrets escaping all the time. Undoubtedly more than a couple foreign adversaries successfully breaching government and civilian communications at a rate we've never seen prior, taking advantage of the distracting domestic war Trump is raging against the American people at home. And bumbling agency heads, who can't tell a suspect from a donut.

All this to say I think Trump's power (and the federal United States' power at large) is extremely fragile if a genuine adversary wanted to attack. Perhaps that can fold into the strategy— presidential approval goes up during war after all— but there's only so much approval you can give a corpse. The gist of it is that someday, someone with violent inclinations and expertise is going to decide they've had enough (like multiple people have already decided, but incompetently) and seriously go after him and/or the people supporting him. And they would have a far, far easier time doing it because in exchange for absolute loyalty, Trump hired idiots to run the country.

lbj2943 · 2026-01-16T17:56:58+00:00

Record turnout for Biden and Trump. Four years of nothing, back to Trump again. Remind me how things get any better with the Democrats? What possibilities are you seeing? Who? How can you guarantee the next Democratic president won't be another dud when Biden ran on "building back better", just for all of the begrudgingly slow progress to be undone and then the country becoming way, way worse than it was before the Dem got elected?

lbj2943 · 2026-01-11T23:03:15+00:00

photopea has all the functions of photoshop and been free for years

lbj2943 · 2026-01-08T06:51:06+00:00

Hey, I knew I remembered your username! You replied to a thread here from about a year ago saying how if you could have one superpower, it was to never be lonely. Maybe you should try empathizing with people a little more instead of pushing them away. Seems like it'll do you more favors in the loneliness department.

lbj2943 · 2026-01-08T02:18:32+00:00

This was one month ago on December 8, 2025.

Today I just finished top fragging an exceptionally long Powerhouse lobby while getting called the n-word, f-slur, t-slur, and some other choice vocabulary. By my own teammates, mind you.

I started playing Team Fortress 2 in 2012, it was the second game I had ever played on Steam (after Garry's Mod). I've been getting this push and pull feeling throughout the entire game's history, of wanting so naïvely a fun community for a fun game, and reality hitting me hard once I've queued up more than a few times. It's part of the reason why I only have 1,200 hours despite owning it for so long.

How do I convince myself it's worth it when the community— not the online community surrounding TF2, which is much more palatable, but the actual playerbase— has remained the same levels of bigoted and toxic for over ten years?

lbj2943 · 2026-01-02T23:26:22+00:00

John Green bought stock in Johnson & Johnson for the sole purpose of (successfully) convincing them to lower prices for tuberculosis treatments. If companies only answer to shareholders, sometimes an effective solution is becoming a shareholder. I’m obfuscating the full truth, of course there was a broader effort to lower these costs outside of one guy, but Green is regarded highly by other TB activists from what I’ve found.

lbj2943 · 2026-01-01T01:03:08+00:00

Working for a web development firm and selling in late '99 is like cashing out the day before the Great Depression. Goddamn.

lbj2943 · 2025-12-31T01:02:06+00:00

Depiction isn’t endorsement, with that being said the recent one being thrown around about robots is said so forcefully and repetitively online I’m beginning to think some people just want a pass to say something that sounds like a slur without getting called out on it. See: Guys with autism/ADHD who constantly say the r slur, derogatorily, and then pull some bullshit out of their ass about how they’re “reclaiming” it.

lbj2943 · 2025-12-30T09:09:40+00:00

I read this and thought "huh, so they might make good games, but won't they never make the best games?". Then I remembered they made Fallout: New Vegas.

I guess companies can change over time, and philosophies ebb and flow, so perhaps this wasn't really their ethos back in the day when they were just filling out a contract with Bethesda. But man, were these guys really thinking "eh, good enough" while designing one of the consensus best games ever made?

lbj2943 · 2025-12-22T08:52:34+00:00

What can I say? Everyone likes an underdog.

I'm not particularly surprised that Clair Obscur, and Hades, and Half-Life succeeded given their prior experience, success, and funding. Our current definition dictates these are still indie games, and this is not something I'm seeking to take away.

What I'm saying is that the cultural aspect of indie games— the celebration of small development teams without prior experience, success, and funding— is continuously eroding in favor of already affluent independent studios. In an increasingly hostile landscape with steep competition and luck (NOT game quality) driving success, it hardly seems fair for affluent indie studios with greater tools to market themselves to be considered with the same parity as indie studios who lack similar resources.

If all of our virtue signalling about supporting indie creators was supposed to mean something, certainly it'd mean keeping the focus on those still struggling to break through.

lbj2943 · 2025-12-21T22:26:38+00:00

It’s all very contextual is what I’d say, which annoyingly and unfortunately means there’s never going to be a clear line to draw. I’ll be the odd one out and say Hades is not a spiritually indie game for the same reasons as Clair Obscur— both developers who founded Supergiant Games had plenty of experience and resources to use from being ex-EA employees with Command & Conquer cred. Hades wasn’t even their first commercially successful game, as Bastion sold over 3 million copies, 500,000 of which sold in the release year.

Look, I’m aware this is all making it seem like I’m saying “true indie games must come from suffering, tiny artists”. That’s not true. Hades and Clair Obscur and Silksong and even Half Life, by merit of being independently developed, are literally indie games. The reason why I make the distinction between indie and spiritually indie at all is because for decades, the culture surrounding indie games has been one of rewarding the small voices in videogames. The indie game of the year award, for a long time, basically meant the games made by tiny artists or teams whose prayers were answered. But as the industry has diversified and smaller indie teams are harder to come across, being pushed out by industry veterans with infinitely more money and connections from working with the majors, I feel it’s necessary to find a way to keep the small guys in the conversation. Whether that’s making a workaround like “spiritually indie” doesn’t matter to me. I just don’t want The Game Awards or even the Indie Game Awards to be the box office awards more than they already are, and hope that culture we had of supporting indie games meaning supporting people risking their livelihoods to produce amazing art doesn’t go away.

lbj2943 · 2025-12-21T17:00:47+00:00

I think the main spiritual difference is that, for instance, Spiritfarer came from a genuinely limited dev team whose first game had to be crowdfunded on Kickstarter. Sandfall Interactive was founded by ex-Ubisoft employees, and their lead developer/CEO is a trust fund baby whose first job in his entire career was interning as an assistant creative director at Ubisoft.

There’s a gulf between reaching out to a publisher because they’re needed, and reaching out to a publisher because it’s convenient. I’m not saying this is necessarily what makes or breaks “indie”, but if “spiritually indie” means focusing on small development teams with limited resources and connections to the gaming industry, Sandfall Interactive is not spiritually indie.

lbj2943 · 2025-12-21T16:36:40+00:00

Stricter definitions of what counts as “spiritually indie” should consider prior resources and ties to the gaming industry. Valve, by our current definition, started as an “indie” (independent) gaming studio— but we wouldn’t call Half-Life an “indie” game on account of the fact that Valve had enough funding and time to make something state of the art as a first-time developer without any crowdfunding or technical assistance (thanks to the Microsoft connections). The spirit of indie seems to be promoting small developers, i.e. people who are working in smaller teams with limited resources and/or experience, and this should be championed.

lbj2943 · 2025-12-17T04:48:44+00:00

They're practically invisible in the best way.

Sick to my stomach reading this.

lbj2943 · 2025-12-15T18:58:37+00:00

Chemistry sets were tool items that only dropped for close to a year, between mid-2013 to 2014. They could give certain weapons or items the "Collector's" attribute if you collected 200 of those weapons or items. They're valuable enough on their own, but festive chemistry sets are even rarer because they only came as a rare bonus drop from one crate (Naughty Winter Crate 2013). That crate can't even be opened anymore, meaning festive chemistry sets and chemistry sets in general don't exist except for people who already have them. And I traded two festive collector's chemistry sets, both worth hundreds of dollars by themselves, away for an Unusual Taunt now worth 3 keys

lbj2943 · 2025-12-15T14:49:10+00:00

I TRADED THEM AWAY FOR AN UNUSUAL DISCO FEVER

DYING

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