Lurker > MrMallard

All of these are for Google Chrome on mobile.

* If you quote someone and decide not to respond to them after all, you can't delete the citation of their name. The keyboard quits out.

* Quoting someone only gives you their message, not the chain they may be quoting from. Aesthetically it works, but functionally it's kind of crap. Sometimes you're banking on context that's present in another post in the chain, and having it in front of you makes it easier to reference.

* Quoting stuff can be a pain in the ass. If there's a way to activate the quote flag, paste what you want to post, and then deactivate the quote flag, that would be great. Right now, posting text into a quote might quote the last paragraph and none of the others.

* Removing spaces and deleting content in a quote occasionally un-quotes an entire paragraph of text.

* There's no more word count when you're running out of space, just a vague "you're getting too close!" message. There is a "you're out of space!" message, but I've only seen it when I paste a block of text that's too big. When I cut it down to size, the "no more space" message remains. When the "running out of space" message appears, it doesn't disappear. Even when I do finally run out of space, it still tells me I'm almost running out of space, not that I've already done so. Bring back the word count, it was functional.
---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

AlisLandale posted...

Prestoff posted...

nemu posted...

Who gets to define who is a nazi or fascist? I don't really trust the definition to hold, what with all the non-nazis that have been called nazis over the last few years.

This, I mean the literal ACLU deemed Pepe the Frog as a hate symbol for crying out loud.

If you mean literal nazi's (like Richard Spencer) than sure, but even I admit that the word racist and nazi is being thrown around like crazy to the point where the word will start losing their meaning.

As silly as the Pepe thing was, its use as a hate symbol was widespread enough that the original creator of the character killed him off.

The dude is suing far-right publications for using Pepe in unapproved ways now. He's trying to reclaim his creation.
---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

So that's why I've been hearing about it. My friend asked me what it was recently.

I wonder if the usual clowns are gonna rise up and be a bunch of buttheads about it, like when the original movie came out and when the show was first announced.

---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

slmcknett posted...

Jessie and James are like 15.

Man, whatever. As far as I'm concerned, they're at least 19.

It's funnier for a bunch of adults to be picking on these kids and getting their asses handed to them.

---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

Damn, I thought he was 39 at least

---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

fucking LOL

---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

I used to be more flippant about sharing my details, but folks have been doxxed so I try to keep my head down.

It's a real shame that GameFAQs lets information-leaking pieces of shit post here despite multiple cases of doxxing to their name.

---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

A friend of a friend names her kid Zaiden.

---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

It should be noted that the 1,475 kids that are unaccounted for come from a sample size of like 7,400. It wasn't 1,475 kids in a sea of 100,000 - this figure came from a selection of under 10,000. There's likely to be more by now, being over a year later.

---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

s0nicfan posted...

The question is: how much do you want the IHS tracking these kids? Once they're released into legal custody to people who have passed a screening process, how long after should the IHS be keeping tabs? Should they keep a database of where every kid is, and track when their new family moves? Should they hunt down the kids and apprehend them if a sponsor gets into contact with their real family and releases the kid to them?

A child being released into foster care, or being released to family, should probably be checked up on for a few months to ensure that they're being taken care of. Have a monthly check up for six months, where a welfare specialist looks over the living space and interviews the child and carer separately. Any child being released into foster or sponsor care deserves at least that much.

I understand the outrage, but I'm not sure you really know what you're asking for here outside of just being angry the kids aren't with their parents which, by the way, may not be a separation at all. Over 60,000 unaccompanied minors have been discovered over the border in the first half of this year alone (source below).

Separation is particularly bad, but the issue here isn't just about kids who were ripped from their parents before going dark. Any child could come over the border, go through the process of being assigned a sponsor, and then lose contact with the government departments that are meant to keep them safe.

There's a non-zero percent chance of these children being released to traffickers. The US foster screening process is already busted - sometime earlier this year I made a thread about Devonte Hart, the black kid who was photographed hugging a cop with the fear of death on his face, and how his foster parents adopted kids of other races to stage publicity shots like that. They drove an SUV full of adopted children into the ocean last year, and while Devonte hasn't been found, most of his siblings are confirmed dead and raids on their family home revealed inadequate living conditions for the kids.

Those parents had a history of abuse going back to 2008, which didn't stop them from adopting Devonte and his siblings - you would think that prior instances of abuse would have invalidated the foster mother's, but it didn't. This is a tangent, admittedly, but if the foster system can be that broken, then I don't doubt that the government lets a similar calibre of sponsors fall through the cracks. It's because people like that have been able to game the system and abuse, exploit and traffic foster children - sovereign US citizens - that any form of foster or sponsorship program should be held to a higher standard. It doesn't matter if the kids crossed alone or not - they should not be exposed to abuse, exploitation or trafficking.

While the article you linked to tries to draw a direct line between Trump's separation policy and the number of "lost" children, the vast majority of the 1500 kids missing likely came out of a pool of 100,000+ kids who showed up at the border without family to begin with.

https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/sw-border-migration

There's some of that, but I think the biggest travesty that the original article tries to communicate is that over a thousand children are unaccounted for. That might be a small statistic in the face of your claims here, but that's still 1,475 children who are at risk of human trafficking, of slipping through the cracks and falling into a life of abuse, neglect and crime. These are kids who made it into America - they didn't just show up, get processed and get booted out. Their claims of asylum weren't rejected, they were moved through the system and assigned guardians. The government lost track of them.

---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

ledbowman posted...

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1156742970105892864?s=19

The worst part is that this isn't even about the caged children. It's about kids being released to sponsors, then losing contact with the Department of Homeland Security. Nowhere in the articles linked were there mentions of cages - it's not entirely disconnected from the matter at hand, but at the time of this article's release, detention centre overcrowding and unsanitary living conditions for children were not being reported in the manner that they are now.

---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

s0nicfan posted...

The Article is also from 2018. And it's intentionally misleading, since their definition of lost is literally we called the family and they didn't pick up their phone.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/1475-immigrant-children-missing/

That's a little better, but you would think a government agency would do a little more. If they can't get in touch with the family or the kid itself, send an officer over to review their living spaces. Hold sponsors to higher standards, and punish them for failing to check in.

Like, are there not more measures this department could be taking? Are they stopping after they lose contact via phone, are they not checking residences?

And it's concerning that 8 minors ended up being trafficked after the government lost track of them. They're the ones that the government have found, who's to say that any of these other children they've lost track of aren't at risk of the same thing?

And despite the wording being iffy, as stated, Snopes nontheless rates the information as truthful. I'll give it to you that the headline can be taken as a bit sensationalistic, but the fact that the government lost contact with nearly 1,500 children - all while they were seperating kids from their parents - isn't being disputed. And it might just amount to the guardians not picking up the phone, but do we have any evidence that the department was able to get in contact with those families in the long run, or re-establish a connection with these kids? Can anyone say with certainty that this figure dropped after it came to light?

It's old news, and the figures might have changed. That's on me. But honestly, it's still a fucking travesty.

---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

If a child is being, for instance, kept at home and abused by a sponsor, and a local school doesnt even know the child is supposed to be going there, then some of the usual triggers that we have for protecting children cant be triggered, Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) said.
Wagner agreed to look into notifying states and localities, as did James McCament, the deputy under secretary for the Office of Strategy, Policy and Plans at the Department of Homeland Security.

Throughout the session, senators grew frustrated that more than a year had passed since the two agencies had agreed to deliver a joint memo outlining their roles in protecting minors.

It has been protracted, absolutely, said McCament.

Get this done, Senator Thomas Carper (D-Del.) told officials from both agencies. Way too much time has passed.

In an interview with FRONTLINE for Trafficked in America, Portman said that HHS cannot ignore its responsibility for unaccompanied minors.

Weve got these kids, he said. Theyre here. Theyre living on our soil. And for us to just, you know, assume someone else is going to take care of them and throw them to the wolves, which is what HHS was doing, is flat-out wrong. I dont care what you think about immigration policy, its wrong.

---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/hhs-official-says-agency-lost-track-of-nearly-1500-unaccompanied-minors/

A top official from the Department of Health and Human Services came under fire during congressional testimony on Thursday over how the agency tracks unaccompanied minors after they are released to family or other sponsors inside the United States.

Steven Wagner, the acting assistant secretary of the agencys Administration for Children and Families, faced a barrage of questions from senators on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations over why HHS does not track unaccompanied minors who fail to appear at their immigration court hearings. The agency has faced increased scrutiny following a scathing 2016 report from the committee that found it failed to protect unaccompanied minors from traffickers and other abuses.

Its just a system that has so many gaps, so many opportunities for these children to fall between the cracks, that we just dont know whats going on how much trafficking or abuse or simply immigration law violations are occurring, said the committees Republican chairman, Sen. Rob Portman.

In 2014, at least 10 trafficking victims, including eight minors, were discovered during a raid by federal and local law enforcement in Portmans home state of Ohio. As FRONTLINE examined in the recent documentary Trafficked in America, HHS had released several minors to the traffickers. The committee said the case was due to policies and procedures that were inadequate to protect the children in the agencys care.

After unaccompanied minors arrive in the United States, often to reunite with family members or to flee violence or poverty in their home countries, they are typically transferred from border patrol or customs officers to the custody of HHS, which often reunites the minors with a relative or another sponsor. The department is supposed to place check-in phone calls 30 days after a minors placement, but during the hearing, Wagner acknowledged gaps in that system.

Between October and December 2017, he said, the agency was unable to locate almost 1,500 out of the 7,635 minors that it attempted to reach or about 19 percent. Over two dozen had run away, according to Wagner, who said the agency did not have the capacity to track them down.

Sponsors are meant to ensure that minors show up at their immigration hearings. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) pressed Wagner on why more than half of unaccompanied minors in 2017 did not show up to their immigration hearings. When asked how HHS tracks the missing children, Wagner said that finding out whether children have attended their immigration hearing is not part of its protocol.

We do not know who is showing up and who isnt, he said. We dont know those kids We dont follow up to ensure they go to the hearing.

Wagner told the committee that since February 2016, HHS has gone to greater lengths to verify the identity of potential sponsors of unaccompanied minors, and worked to crack down on the ability of sponsors to use fraudulent documents during the placement process. A new agreement reached this month between HHS and the Department of Homeland Security establishes policies for the agencies to better share information to help screen potential sponsors.

Senators also expressed concern that state and local officials are not usually notified when unaccompanied minors are placed in their jurisdiction. Wagner said that it was an issue of practicality that would require contacting a substantial list of local agencies.

---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/ej-montini/2018/05/22/immigration-children-separate-families-lost-kirstjen-nielson/631627002/

The Trump administration recently announced a new, get-tough policy that will separate parents from their children if the family is caught crossing the border illegally.

It was a big news story. So big it overshadowed the fact that the federal government has lost yes, lost 1,475 migrant children.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told Congress that within 48 hours of being taken into custody the children are transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services, which finds places for them to stay.

They will be separated from their parent, said Democratic Sen Kamala Harris.

Just like we do in the United States every day, Nielsen replied.

Except that the states, unlike the federal government, have systems in place to better screen the people who become guardians of the children and much better ways to keep track of those children.

And not lose them.

That is what happened to 1,475 minors swept up at the border and taken into custody by the federal government.

Gone.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement reported at the end of 2017 that of the 7,000-plus children placed with sponsored individuals, the agency did not know where 1,475 of them were.

Republican Sen. Rob Portman said, Its just a system that has so many gaps, so many opportunities for these children to fall between the cracks, that we just dont know whats going on how much trafficking or abuse or simply immigration law violations are occurring."

A documentary from the PBS program "Frontline" said that the federal government has actually released some of the minors to human traffickers.

Imagine that.

And now we want to dramatically ramp up the number of children who are removed from their parents?

When pressed about safety concerns Secretary Nielsen said, "I just want to say, I couldn't agree with your concerns more, period. We owe more to these children to protect them. So I'm saying I agree, we've taken steps and we will continue to strengthen what our partners do to protect these children."

Trust the feds to keep kids safe?

There are 1,475 reasons not to be reassured by the secretarys promise.
If anything, it would have been better to have a policy in place, with protections, and safe places to stay, and safe people to stay with, and personnel on the government payroll to check-up on them before the administrations new policy was implemented.

Secretary Nielsen said, "My decision has been that anyone who breaks the law will be prosecuted. If you are parent, or you're a single person or if you happen to have a family, if you cross between the ports of entry we will refer you for prosecution. You have broken U.S. law."

We all get that. And we all want a secure border. But we dont want to trade in our humanity in the process.

The article links to a Frontline article about migrant children ending up with human traffickers.

---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

There's an Eva 3.0+1.0 trailer out, I think it's coming out by the end of next year. They've aired the first 10 minutes of the movie at anime cons around the world. Eva 4 is absolutely coming out.

Shin Godzilla was fucking fantastic, so I hope he can bring the same success to Ultraman.

---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

The only one I remember was goatthief being a part of the Fam, taking notes on Hoth and the rest of the chumps that banded together to ruin topics, then defecting and spreading a bunch of shit he witnessed in their group chats. I think Hoth raged for days at that, it's probably the angriest I've ever seen him - and I still remember the GoTotodile topics about him that he shitted up, lmao

---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

I'm glad no-one has picked Claude, GTA3 was a fun game but Claude was an ass protagonist. Just stood around, saying nothing, with that early PS2 era clay face. What a fucking mug.

---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

ultimate reaver posted...

Heather O'Rourke, the little girl from Poltergeist. She died the year before I was born at only 12 from sudden medical complications. I've always thought that was incredibly sad

Yeah, wasn't it Crohn's Disease? Very sad to read about.

On a similar note - the child actor who voiced Littlefoot in the original Don Bluth "The Land Before Time" was murdered by her father a year or two after that movie came out.

Edit: might have been Ducky, like post 17 states. mb

---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

Gobstoppers12 posted...

I really wish I hadn't wasted $400+ dollars on the Wii U when it came out. If I had known an actual Nintendo console was going to launch roughly 4 years later, I would've held onto my money and I wouldn't have this festering grudge against Nintendo for wasting my time and money on inferior product support.

I was waiting for the NX to come out before I bought the Wii U. The Wii U would realistically fall to about $200 or lower in the wake of the NX's launch, meaning I get to play all of the great games that came out for that system at a much more reasonable price point. I didn't even have my PS3 at the time - I was staking my gaming future on the Wii U lowering its price point.

Then the Switch was revealed, and it took everything amazing about the Wii U and brought it to its logical conclusion. The Wii U gamepad can be used as a handheld screen in close range to the Wii U console? The Switch is the console, so you can take the screen anywhere. DK Tropical Freeze, New Super Mario Bros U and Zelda: BotW - the titles I wanted to play that were exclusive to the Wii U? One can out on Switch at launch, one released in 2018 and one released in 2019. As far as I'm concerned, it completely obsoleted the Wii U.

I ended up buying a Switch for Christmas of 2017, saved up for months. Might not be the best decision I ever made, but I don't regret it one bit. Especially since I got it instead of buying a Wii U, lmao

---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

Sariana21 posted...

Judy Garland. She was totally abused by the industry.

This is a good one. I watched a video about her on Be Kind Rewind, this YouTube channel that focuses on the history of the Best Actress Oscar and stuff - they fed her amphetamines to keep her dancing for 16 hour days, then fed her sleeping pills to get her to sleep at night. By the time she died in her 40's, she looked like she was pushing 60. There were new actresses who were able to rise through the ranks due to being portrayed as living glamorously, as being so attractive that for them to strip their beauty down for a serious dramatic role was to be worthy of praise, but the Hollywood system never saw Judy Garland as a woman who imbued glamor - she would always have to try in order to even appear beautiful, and the second any new hot thing came to town, they'd drop her like a sack of potatoes.

She was totally abused by the industry, just like you said. The Hollywood system chewed her up and spat her out.

The Top Crusader posted...

I didn't know Jesus Christ died of anorexia in 1983.

don't do this to me brah


---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

Karen Carpenter died 13 years before I was born. I've been digging the Carpenters for a couple years now, and it's so fucked up to think that a woman who came across as cheerful as she did struggled with a condition like anorexia. Like Jesus Christ, she died from her disorder in 1983. I grew up when anorexia and bulimia were getting big again, and Karen Carpenter died from it a couple decades before.

Listen to songs like Sing, Yesterday Once More or End of the World. The woman who sang them starved herself so severely that she died of heart failure at age 32. It's such a fucking shame.

---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

"If she has sexual healthcare rights, then why is it illegal to cum in her?"

which CEman is this
---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

MrMallard posted...

Flopic

---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

Yes and no. The worst part is when studios or directors get cold feet after an ending is guessed by a fan, and then feel the need to alter the outcome of the movie to keep it "unpredictable". And spoiler culture is definitely a massive force today compared to the start of the decade, even.

With that being said, the internet has unfortunately necessitated a culture shift in regards to spoilers. One person can game the system and get lucky enough to spoil the ending of a movie for hundreds of thousands of people. Fan enclaves who get together and theorise have absolutely taken the fun out of the moviegoing experience, because if they're right, they get to jerk themselves off and call something "bad" because of it. And if they're wrong, the creative team behind it was "creatively bankrupt", or they "missed an opportunity", or they're bad for refusing to listen to the fans. But even then, it can be fun to get together and talk shit with your friends. The issue is how widespread it is to be a faux-intellectual knob, and how fans and studios can keep larger tabs on each other than ever before.

But they're not the only reasons. Producers, financiers, focus testing and all manner of other shit has been interfering with cinema for decades, now.
---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

Son of a bitch. Not even our Garlic gatherings are safe now, the one place I felt safest.

Seriously though, what a fucking scumbag. These people just wanted to celebrate garlic so they killed them. I hope they fry.
---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

Flopic
---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

I think the whole idea behind "soyboy" as a term is that guys are eating too much soy in their daily diet and it affects how much testosterone is produced, making these guys much more effeminate than "real" men. So at least in theory, there is no "soygirl" - the term is for weak-willed effeminate men, and women probably wouldn't be affected in the same way that a soyboy is.

It's all a bunch of 4chan horseshit anyway, so who really gives a fuck. I guess the closest term would be "tumblrina" - think of a cosplay nerd wearing a TARDIS dress saying that "normal is just a setting on a dishwasher". I think that would be the closest term to describe it.
---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

no screenshots
---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

Like there have been pitbull attacks, the dogs can absolutely be vicious. I understand why there's such a hysteric backlash against the breed. But this isn't some hard-coded genetic switch. Pitbulls aren't born with a taste for blood and a desire to kill. They are strong, and they can be - and often are - conditioned for violence and fighting. But you can't paint an entire genetic legacy of dog by that brush.

Any dog can snap like that if pushed far enough. Any dog can eat a toddler's face, a sufficiently abused dog can go apeshit and murder a bunch of animals at a vet. It's truly terrifying what pitbulls have done at times, I agree. But that's not every pitbull, and to wave the entire breed away as just some genetic accident that we need to cull to make dogs safer as a whole is to ignore the larger issues of animal abuse and a lack of public literacy in regards to pets and their needs.

You're not being funny or smart, you're being an asshole. Pitbulls don't have violence and bloodlust hard-coded into their genes, they're mistreated by the scum of the earth to exploit their strength for violent means or their emotional needs aren't met by their families. The issue is with how they're raised - and once they're broken, they may very well need to be put down. But they aren't inherently violent by their nature. No domesticated dog breed truly is.
---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

D, shitty people abuse them and exploit their strength. Pitbulls are perfectly sweet animals when raised right.
---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

My old email address that's connected to my fanfiction.net account is just collecting dust. But every now and again when I decide to take a cursory look at what's going on, I see a chapter update or a PM sometimes.

I'm gonna go and dust the old email account off now, actually.
---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

I'm not from around Brisbane, but there are probably a bunch of cycling tours and Aussie history galleries around there.

As far as general Aussie customs go: check out a kebab shop or a local fried chicken joint. Find a place that does hot chips with chicken salt.
---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

thronedfire2 posted...

Realdill, Keith valentine and karlpilkington all suspended in the same day. Nice job mods!

God damn, that's the best CE news I've heard in a while
---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

Remember when Bones tried to popularise the term "Bing it" in direct competition to the term "Google it"?
---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

Probably Gerudo Link
---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

The last remakes you guys got were like... what, 5 years ago? Even less for Majora's Mask?
---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

Beveren_Rabbit posted...

there are subreddits dedicated to gore, but incels aren't allowed to gather and try to find some positivity in describing how they'd beat a woman for refusing to date them.

---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

ICE agents charged a bunch of kids for hitting a pinata that supposedly resembled an ICE agent recently. They make a point of obscuring the law to gain entry to people's homes without a valid warrant, and then they throw their prisoners into these shithole camps to await months of processing in squalid conditions. They're a bunch of jarheads who get off on bullying the weak.

Of course they harassed and detained a 9 year old girl. They're fucking scum.
---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

and crusty old financial analyst fucks don't like it, despite jerking themselves off over the wheels of big business crushing anything smaller in its path.

Now that there are former big wheels falling of the tracks and getting crushed, they're getting all shitty and saying it's a bad thing because of those doggone kids.
---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

One of the jobs I can take during Haruka's chapter is to do an interview for a racy gentleman's mag - not as raunchy as Playboy or Hustler, but aimed at middle aged men. The topic is how older men can be popular with younger women. It's already a skeeve-fest that they're asking a girl who's no older than 16 about whether she's interested in older men, but it feels particularly gross that this was a job that Haruka's idol agency lined up for her.

The idol industry itself is scummy as fuck, and the depiction of it in the game is kinda shitty, but it doesn't completely shy away from how gross the industry can be. I've been getting by, just by enjoying the rhythm game approach and taking the story one mission at a time.

I just got to the final question. The interviewer's asking if Haruka - you know, this character who's been raised from a young child to a teenager over the course of five games - if she would ever have sex with an older man.

What the fuck. It's not as bad as that scene in Yakuza 4 when Kiryu essentially says to Saejima "I know you're a good guy because you didn't rape my daughter after spending 25 years in prison", but this is still gross.
---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

Cpt_Pineapple posted...

who posted?

---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

This is like trusting a 3 karma alt about the mods silencing them for saying "the truth". 9 times out of 10, "the truth" was attached to a comment like "I hope you get molested and die", and "the truth" itself is something like "I think [race] should go back to where they came from]".

She could handle this as a discrimination case without trying to whip up public support by yelling "whites are being oppressed in this country!" - if her case is strong enough, if she was fired without proper reasoning, she could easily win this case. Even going as far as saying "I have no animosity towards the woman who the school board has assigned to my position, my issue with with the school board and how they've treated me" would go a long way to show that she's approaching this on "unlawful termination" grounds. But she's gone straight for "Whites have rights! Anti-discrimination is anti-white discrimination!", so forgive me for not being the most sympathetic to her plight.

Will be looking forward to hearing about why she was barred from the school three months ago, though.
---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

Jeff AKA Snoopy posted...

What if I want to support the store that is selling the used copy?

Also a good point, I've got a brick and mortar store that sells new and used games and movies, as well as new board games and nerd shit. It's just one guy and his family trying to make a living. I'll go where the sales are, but I have no qualms buying secondhand from a store that's family owned and run
---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

I think the Joker is an overrated hack of a character who's idolized by the most boring, white-bread motherfuckers. His inclusion into Suicide Squad was fucking awful, he's really gone downhill in DC video games and I'm really growing to hate him in the DC animated movies. We get it, he's a psychopathic killer clown. He's not some fucking case study on the degradation of our society, or at least he doesn't always have to be that. I hate sitting through the stupid fucking clown shit - I get it! If I wanted to listen to shit puns and watch murder, I'd watch the Killjoy movies! Like... Christ. I'm sick of Joker overexposure.

But I'm not gonna lie, I like how the Joaquin Phoenix Joker movie looks. I honestly want to go and see it.
---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

To actually address the topic:

A lot of game sales made today are digital, and there are people who won't go out of their way to get a cheaper second hand copy if they can get a new copy conveniently. We're already geared as a community to favor new releases, and to get it A) on launch and B) digitally.

It's all well and good to say that we should support developers, but this isn't a one-sided issue - some people don't have the cash to constantly shell out for $60 games. Used games make this hobby a lot more viable for poorer people, and it always has.

I bought a 4 year old copy of the Final Fantasy X remasters on PS3 for $10. I could have bought it digitally for $45, but there was an establishment at which it was priced more within my price range. Square Enix already makes money hand over fist with their games, and these losses are most likely lessening because of the shift to digital titles, pre-orders and special editions.

People like my friend shell out up to $150 AUD for a super digital deluxe edition for a game to ensure that they'll get all the content for it coming out in the future - these companies are raking in dough, and AAA development has been growing exponentially since the seventh generation of games.

So maybe, by buying a cheap used copy of the Final Fantasy X remasters on PS3, I'm taking money directly out of the mouths of Square Enix's employees instead of paying more than double that price on a digital copy. I don't feel bad because the company makes boatloads of money as it is, as both a developer and publisher, and because they're going to make their money through digital sales until these games are delisted anyway.

Also, they made their money on the original games, and then raked in more cash on these ports. I don't give a shit, I'm not going to put more of a dent in my leisure money out of some misguided sense of fairness to a megacorp. I'm going with the cheaper option.

I'll tell you what, though - I don't want to stiff indie games.

How do you feel about massive game sales on digital platforms? I welcome the opportunity to pick up a cheaper title, but depending on the title itself and the discounted amount, I do feel bad getting indie games for cheap. Recently I picked up A Robot Named Fight for $3 on the Nintendo eShop, down from $22. It's a blast, I've had my eye on it for a while now and I've finally gotten to play it.

But this is a case where I do actively feel bad, like I'm taking food out of the mouths of the creators. I'm genuinely thinking of sending a few dollars to the developers with a thank you note, because $3 is too much of a steal for a game like this.

Likewise - my friend has Xbox Game Pass, and we've been playing For The King lately, it's a blast. But he's getting it for free through his game pass subscription, and I have no idea how much kickback the studio is getting from this. So sometime in the future, I want to grab it on Switch. It retails for over $30 on the eShop, and it goes on sale for just under $30 every now and again - it's kind of a steep price considering my usual purchasing habits. But with the hours of fun I've had with my friend in that game, I feel almost obligated to buy the game.

It's like the Annihilation Netflix fiasco - that's a great movie, and I hate that it never got a chance to get those box office figures. I would have loved to see it in theatres and supported it. Though maybe I ought to go buy a Blu-Ray the next time I've got some disposable income, y'know.

There's a spectrum to this. There a development teams who worked out if basements for years to create a game, and I try to be loyal to those teams. But I'm not going to cry over buying a PS3 game for at least $25 less than the ticket price. If Square Enix wanted my money, they could do a digital sale or two to shift some cheap copies of their games - as it stands, I'll stick with second hand. But I'll try to pitch in to support indie developers, for sure.
---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

Buying clothes used is just as bad as shoplifting. Support Hot Topic
---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft

Crazy fringe politician who routinely lies about crime figures faces 5 years jail for stealing cat food. Fucking lol.

Crime's gone up 80% because she can't stop stealing shit lmao
---

Now Playing: Yakuza 5, Mass Effect 3, Night in the Woods, Skyrim, Minecraft