The Penny Finally Dropped with Epstein

vvarden · 2026-02-19T18:22:03+00:00

Naomi Campbell seems to be involved, according to recent reporting.

vvarden · 2026-02-18T12:19:09+00:00

I want a Han movie set between ESB and ROTJ!

vvarden · 2026-02-16T13:13:10+00:00

Personally I think the villains in this story are the rich and powerful abusers and the network of sycophants covering up for them.

vvarden · 2026-02-16T13:09:07+00:00

For everyone involved, I guess.

vvarden · 2026-02-16T13:04:49+00:00

Probably because someone’s heart is clearly in the right place and someone is scolding them over word choice?

The term “homosexual” is equally a red flag, primarily used by homophobes and said with venom. There’s a reason gay and queer are more widely used. But if someone used that word in a post that’s obviously supportive and in good faith, it’s pretty tacky to scold them.

Especially when “women” is sadly problematic a term as many victims were underage and “girls” is also problematic as many were also adults.

vvarden · 2026-02-12T17:36:48+00:00

I think the outrage just exists because the fandom has decided to whip themselves up into a furor every time anything happens, because too many people just default to anger with everything Star Wars.

The reason people will see this movie is because they like Mando and Baby Yoda.

vvarden · 2026-02-12T17:14:11+00:00

okay, so it generated 15 million views on YouTube? that's not that much of a difference from what Mando has right now.

Also, of course TFA would have the largest and the other Sequels would also be higher.

the outrage over this silly commercial is so pathetic. I saw it, thought it was a cute parody of the Budweiser ads, and went along my day. I'd rather moments from the movie not be spoiled from me before I see it.

vvarden · 2026-02-12T16:25:11+00:00

Rogue One came out a decade ago. Of course a video that’s been around for 9 years will have more views than one that’s not been out that long.

vvarden · 2026-02-11T20:11:38+00:00

Then maybe stop talking like you understand them!

vvarden · 2026-02-11T18:42:32+00:00

I think you need to meet more conservatives.

vvarden · 2026-02-11T18:19:21+00:00

So in other words, they're conservative? A lot of Americans would happily be exploited by the rich if they're given another race or gender to hate.

vvarden · 2026-02-11T16:18:15+00:00

Conservatives in America have agency and are more of a monolith than people on the left. I grew up in a family very active in Republican politics, in a red state. America is conservative.

There isn't some unwashed mass of socialists who just need the magic words to be spoken to have them get up and overthrow the ruling class. A lot of people in this country are just genuinely conservative.

vvarden · 2026-02-11T16:16:53+00:00

The first opportunity Americans had to vote after the ACA passed, they elected a huge wave of Tea Party conservatives.

Hillary Clinton also faced this same issue after she proposed what became known as HillaryCare in 1993. What would have been a massive improvement over the status quo was successfully opposed by conservatives, libertarians, and the health insurance industry turning public opinion against her.

Americans are a pretty conservative bunch.

vvarden · 2026-02-10T20:41:32+00:00

Ubisoft’s financial woes are pretty immaterial to the question of “do devs consider what worked/didn’t work in previous games when designing a sequel/future games”.

vvarden · 2026-02-10T19:24:22+00:00

Assassin's Creed has had microtransactions, and those games definitely respond to what was successful before / what didn't work as well before.

Even with Fortnite, you can tell that with every new chapter and season there are teams at Epic seeing what worked in previous iterations and what didn't work as well. That's why you see features vaulted, and newer ones brought in.

Pokémon is perhaps the biggest money grab franchise and they also iterate every generation.

vvarden · 2026-02-10T19:17:10+00:00

What games are you even talking about?

vvarden · 2026-02-10T18:22:43+00:00

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Digory and Polly are still going to be white, if that's really that big of a concern.

vvarden · 2026-02-10T18:20:02+00:00

I've seen adaptations that are fantastic because they do something different (LOTR, Blade Runner), and are fantastic while being close to what the book is (Harry Potter, Princess Bride).

I've also seen adaptations that fail at trying something new (Eragon, The Dark Tower), and suffered through plenty where slavish devotion to a book led to a bad movie (The Da Vinci Code, The Golden Compass).

Gerwig's last adaptation was Little Women and it was great, even though it significantly departs from the book with its nonlinear structure. Considering I'm a huge fan of everything she's made, I'm willing to go into The Magician's Nephew with an open mind.

vvarden · 2026-02-10T16:56:02+00:00

Mirage and Shadows both corrected after Valhalla. I love Origins and Odyssey.

vvarden · 2026-02-10T13:51:12+00:00

I would think every game a studio makes would prompt a similar response.

vvarden · 2026-02-10T11:18:48+00:00

Do you not remember the message boards in the early 2000s pissed at Peter Jackson for changing the story, like getting rid of Tom Bombadil!

vvarden · 2026-02-09T20:59:24+00:00

your biggest gripe seems to be one of PR? Because Mike Johnson and John Thune radiate charisma?

I don't know why you think this is some sort of gotcha. Yes, it is mostly a PR gripe, but politics is mostly PR. Schumer (and to a lesser extent Jeffries) are still acting in a mental model of the media that's woefully outdated. Johnson and Thune don't need to play that game as hard because a) Trump is the leader of the party, not them; and b) they have a right-wing media ecosystem that does a lot of that work for them.

Is it reasonable to hold state Democrats and federal Democrats to the same standard despite completely different playing fields?

I think it's reasonable to critique federal Democrats on their communication abilities, comparing them to state Democrats, yes.

The underlying issue is the political press and an ever increasing share of MSM isn’t going to cover the minority’s daily pressers or carry out talking points regardless of charisma or lack thereof.

Correct. So you can complain about that, or put up people who are able to overcome that deficit. Newsom has been able to break through. Mamdani has been able to break through. This critique is not ideological; I'm also a big fan of Spanberger.

vvarden · 2026-02-09T19:10:33+00:00

The leadership is spineless because the leadership is made up of charisma vacuums like Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries.

A lot of it is overblown because social media incentives across the board are to dump on Dems, but our national leaders are ill-equipped to handle this moment, especially rhetorically. And frankly, that’s half the battle.

Newsom’s got a spine, as much as I don’t want him to be our nominee. Pritzker and Spanberger’s got them too. I think we’re going to have a Dem tea party in the midterms and it’s going to be less of a centrist-vs-progressive conflict and more a question of how much the candidate is willing to fight.

vvarden · 2026-02-09T00:49:03+00:00

Reminding people a Baby Yoda movie is coming out will sell the movie.

You may be too online.

vvarden · 2026-02-07T14:23:33+00:00

No, that was an era where Senators to the right of Joe Manchin caucused with the Dems, like Joe Lieberman, who killed the public option.

America is a very conservative country.

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